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On June 25, 1980 (a date he would remember), a good-natured Filipino pool-maintenance man gathered his wife and five children for an upsetting ride to the Manila airport. At 36, Emmet Comodas had lived a hard life without growing hardened, which was a mixed blessing given the indignities of his poverty. Orphaned at 8, raised on the Manila streets where he hawked cigarettes, he had hustled a job at a government sports complex and held it for nearly two decades. On the spectrum of Filipino poverty, that alone marked him as a man of modest fortune. But a monthly salary of $50 did not keep his family fed.
Home was a one-room, scrap-wood shanty in a warren of alleys and stinking canals, hidden by the whitewashed walls of an Imelda Marcos beautification campaign. He had borrowed money at usurious rates to start a tiny store, which a thief had plundered. His greatest fears centered on his 11-year-old daughter, Rowena, who had a congenital heart defect that turned her lips blue and fingernails black and who needed care he could not afford. After years of worrying over her frail physique, Emmet dropped to his moldering floor and asked God for a decision: take her or let him have her.
God answered in a mysterious way. Not long after, Emmet's boss offered him a pool-cleaning job in Saudi Arabia. Emmet would make 10 times as much as he made in Manila. He would also live 4,500 miles from his family in an Islamic autocracy where stories of abused laborers were rife. He accepted on the spot. His wife, Tita, was afraid of the slum where she soon would be raising children alone, and she knew that overseas workers often had affairs. She also knew their kids ate better because of the money the workers sent home. She spent her last few pesos for admission to an airport lounge where she could wave at the vanishing jet, then went home to cry and wait.
Two years later, on Aug. 2, 1982 (another date he would remember), Emmet walked off the returning flight with chocolate for the kids, earrings for Tita and a bag of duty-free cigarettes, his loneliness abroad having made him a chain smoker. His 2-year-old son, Boyet, considered him a stranger and cried at his touch, though as Emmet later said, "I was too happy to be sad." He gave himself a party, replaced the shanty's rotted walls and put on a new roof. Then after three months at home, he left for Saudi Arabia again. And again. And again and again: by the time Emmet ended the cycle and came home for good, he had been gone for nearly two decades. Boyet was grown.
Deprived of their father while sustained by his wages, the Comodas children spent their early lives studying Emmet's example. Now they have copied it. All five of them, including Rowena, grew up to become overseas workers. Four are still working abroad. And the middle child, Rosalie — a nurse in Abu Dhabi — faces a parallel to her father's life that she finds all too exact. She has an 18-month-old back in the Philippines who views her as a stranger and resists her touch. What started as Emmet's act of desperation has become his children's way of life: leaving in order to live.
About 200 million migrants from different countries are scattered across the globe, supporting a population back home that is as big if not bigger. Were these half-billion or so people to constitute a state — migration nation — it would rank as the world's third-largest. While some migrants go abroad with Ph.D.'s, most travel as Emmet did, with modest skills but fearsome motivation. The risks migrants face are widely known, including the risk of death, but the amounts they secure for their families have just recently come into view. Migrants worldwide sent home an estimated $300 billion last year — nearly three times the world's foreign-aid budgets combined. These sums — "remittances" — bring Morocco more money than tourism does. They bring Sri Lanka more money than tea does.
The numbers, which have doubled in the past five years, have riveted the attention of development experts who once paid them little mind. One study after another has examined how private money, in the form of remittances, might serve the public good. A growing number of economists see migrants, and the money they send home, as a part of the solution to global poverty.
Yet competing with the literature of gain is a parallel literature of loss. About half the world's migrants are women, many of whom care for children abroad while leaving their own children home. "Your loved ones across that ocean . . . ," Nadine Sarreal, a Filipina poet in Singapore, warns:
Will sit at breakfast and try not to gaze
Where you would sit at the table.
Meals now divided by five
Instead of six, don't feed an emptiness.
Earlier waves of globalization, the movement of money and goods, were shaped by mediating institutions and protocols. The International Monetary Fund regulates finance. The World Trade Organization regularizes trade. The movement of people — the most intimate form of globalization — is the one with the fewest rules. There is no "World Migration Organization" to monitor the migrants' fate. A Kurd gaining asylum in Sweden can have his children taught school in their mother tongue, while a Filipino bringing a Bible into Riyadh risks being expelled.
The growth in migration has roiled the West, but demographic logic suggests it will only continue. Aging industrial economies need workers. People in poor countries need jobs. Transportation and communication have made moving easier. And the potential economic gains are at record highs. A Central American laborer who moves to the United States can expect to multiply his earnings about six times after adjusting for the higher cost of living. That is a pay raise about twice as large as the one that propelled the last great wave of immigration a century ago.
With about one Filipino worker in seven abroad at any given time, migration is to the Philippines what cars once were to Detroit: its civil religion. A million Overseas Filipino Workers — O.F.W.'s — left last year, enough to fill six 747s a day. Nearly half the country's 10-to-12-year-olds say they have thought about whether to go. Television novellas plumb the migrants' loneliness. Politicians court their votes. Real estate salesmen bury them in condominium brochures. Drive by the Central Bank during the holiday season, and you will find a high-rise graph of the year's remittances strung up in Christmas lights.
Across the archipelago, stories of rags to riches compete with stories of rags to rags. New malls define the landscape; so do left-behind kids. Gain and loss are so thoroughly joined that the logo of the migrant welfare agency shows the sun doing battle with the rain. Local idiom stresses the uncertainty of the migrant's lot. An O.F.W. does not say he is off to make his fortune. He says, "I am going to try my luck."
A kilometer of crimson stretched across the Manila airport, awaiting a planeload of returning workers and the president who would greet them. The V.I.P. lounge hummed with marketing schemes aimed at migrants and their families. Globe Telecom had got its name on the security guards' vests. A Microsoft rep had flown in from the States with a prototype of an Internet phone. An executive from Philam Insurance noted that overseas workers buy one of every five new policies. Sirens disrupted the finger food, and a motorcade delivered the diminutive head of state, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who once a year offers rice cakes and red carpet to those she calls "modern heroes."
Bleary from the eight-hour flight, a few hundred workers from Abu Dhabi swapped puzzled looks for presidential handshakes on their way to baggage claim. Roderick de Guzman, a young car porter, took home the day's grand prize, a "livelihood package" that included a jeepney, life insurance, $1,000 and a karaoke machine. Too dazed to smile, he held an oversize sweepstakes check while the prize's sponsors and the president beamed at his side and a squad of news photographers fired away. When it comes to O.F.W.'s, politics and business speak with one voice. Message: We Care.
On the way to the photo op, I squeezed into an elevator beside Arroyo. A president and daughter of a president, she is a seasoned pol who attended Georgetown University (Bill Clinton was a classmate) and has a Ph.D. in economics. I asked why she called migrant workers "heroes" and gathered from her impatient look that it was all she could do to keep from saying "du-uh."
"They send home more than a billion dollars a month," she said.
"O.F.W.'s get V.I.P. Treatment, Treats," reported the next day's Philippine Daily Inquirer, which runs nearly 600 O.F.W. articles a year. Half have the fevered tone of a gold-rush ad. Half sound like human rights complaints.
"Deployment of O.F.W.'s Hits 1-M Mark."
"Remittances Seen to Set New Record."
"Happy Days Here Again for Real Estate Sector."
"5 Dead O.F.W.'s in Saudi."
"O.F.W. 18th Pinay Rape Victim in Kuwait."
"We Slept With Dog, Ate Leftovers for $200/month."
Nearly 10 percent of the country's 89 million people live abroad. About 3.6 million are O.F.W.'s — contract workers. Another 3.2 million have migrated permanently, largely to the United States — and 1.3 million more are thought to be overseas illegally. (American visas, which are probably the hardest to get, are also the most coveted, both for the prosperity they promise and because the Philippines, a former colony, retains an unrequited fascination with the U.S.) There are a million O.F.W.'s in Saudi Arabia alone, followed by Japan, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan. Yet with workers in at least 170 countries, the O.F.W.'s are literally everywhere, including the high seas. About a quarter of the world's seafarers come from the Philippines. The Greek word for maid is Filipineza. The "modern heroes" send home $15 billion a year, a seventh of the country's gross domestic product. Addressing a Manila audience, Rick Warren, the evangelist, called Filipino guest workers the Josephs of their day — toiling in the homes of modern Pharaohs to liberate their people.
For the sheer visuals of the O.F.W. boom, consider Pulong Anahao, a village two hours south of Manila that has been sending Filipinezas to Italy for 30 years. Cement block is the regional style, but these streets boast — the only verb that will do — faux Italianate villas. For the social complexity, turn on "Dahil sa Iyong Paglisan" ("Because You Left"), a Tagalog telenovela. Each show explores a familiar type. "Dodgie," a driver in Dubai, is livid at his wife's profligacy. "Dennis" gets fleeced by crooked recruiters on his way to Singapore. "Carlos," with a wife in Riyadh, is a hapless househusband; he cannot cook or wash, and his son is left out in the rain.
Manila Hospital was aflutter one morning with the taping of the episode about "Wally." A seafarer home from Greece, he demanded to know where his money had gone, only to discover that his pregnant wife had spent it on antiviral medication. His port-of-call promiscuity had given her H.I.V.
"Qui-et!" the director bellowed, with Wally about to learn of his own infection. It took the actor five takes to summon a sufficiently chilling mix of fear and remorse. A giggly nursing student, fresh from a cameo, paused to chat. She was getting a degree to — what else? — "go abroad and try my luck."
While the Philippines has exported labor for at least 100 years, the modern system took shape three decades ago under Ferdinand Marcos. Clinging to power through martial law, he faced soaring unemployment, a Communist insurgency and growing urban unrest. Exporting idle Filipinos promised a safety valve and a source of foreign exchange. With a 1974 decree ("to facilitate and regulate the movement of workers in conformity with the national interest"), Marcos sent technocrats circling the globe in search of labor contracts. Annual deployments rose more than tenfold in a decade, to 360,000.
The "People Power" revolution of 1986 replaced him with Corazon Aquino, who as the widow of his slain rival was a figure as un-Marcosian as they come. But the surge in labor migration continued. By the end of her six-year term, annual deployments had nearly doubled. There is no anti-migration camp in Filipino politics. The labor secretary, Arturo Brion, greeted me by saying that he, too, had been an O.F.W., having worked as a lawyer for seven years in Canada. When I asked how a nationalist candidate might fare with a vow to keep workers home, he looked confused. "Nobody would vote for him," he said.
The political issue is not migration but migrant safety. The formative moment in O.F.W. history, its Alamo, was the 1995 hanging of Flor Contemplacion, a Filipina maid in Singapore. Though she confessed to killing another Filipina maid and a Singaporean child, she did so in an uncertain mental state with weak legal representation; an 11th-hour witness fingered someone else. President Fidel Ramos's calls for mercy failed, and the martyred maid's coffin received a hero's welcome at home. Congressional elections followed, and the new Legislature passed what is variously called Republic Act 8042 and "the migrant workers' Magna Carta." It pushed the government's responsibilities beyond migrant deployment to migrant protection.
Woe now to the Filipino pol who appears not to have migrant welfare in mind. After a Filipino truck driver was kidnapped in Iraq in 2004, Arroyo not only banned all contract work there but also withdrew from the American-led military coalition. Even state visits have the tenor of bail runs. The president triumphed in Saudi Arabia last spring when King Adbullah freed more than 400 workers who had been jailed for petty crimes. But the war in Lebanon last summer threw the Arroyo government into a crisis by displacing thousands of Filipina maids. They returned home with harrowing tales of prewar abuse, including beatings and rape, endured in pursuit of salaries that averaged $200 a month. Embarrassed (and seemingly surprised), the government proposed a "Supermaid" program, a short-term training regimen that would lift the maids' skills and demand a doubling of their wage. Those not cringing at the name fretted that a pay raise would leave the maids displaced by Bangladeshis.
While every country's migrants face risks, what makes the Philippines unique is a bureaucracy pledged to reduce them. There is no precise analog for the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration — O.W.W.A. — or its savvy director, Marianito Roque, who is one part international rescue worker and one part domestic fixer. A bureaucratic survivor who rose through the ranks, Roque understands the imperative of making the president look good. Christmas offered plenty of opportunity. With legions of workers coming home, Roque staged thank-you fiestas nationwide.
I pictured them as sedate affairs until I arrived at a mall in Cebu City. Five thousand people pressed against police barricades, aiming cellphone cameras at a fluttering pop star who urged them to buy her music and clothes. O.W.W.A. has its own chorale, which offered the workers "Lady Marmalade" — "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?" — an odd choice in a country saturated with fears of overseas adultery. Roque raffled off a mountain of rice cookers and electric fans, and the crowd responded with game-show shrieks. He caught an early-morning flight the next day and stormed through two more fiestas.
When the last rice cooker had been claimed and the last voulez-vous belted out, I spotted a man grinning mischievously, as if he were in on his own private joke. An attractive woman hung on his arm with what I mistook as reunion bliss. The bliss, she happily explained, was in the pay. The man, Pepito Montero, boasted that he earned $8,000 a month on a Saudi oil rig, and a flicker of doubt must have crossed my face. His smile broadened at the chance to produce his retort — a mass of $100 bills the size of a tennis ball.
Emmet Comodas migrated to Manila before he migrated abroad. His parents, tenant farmers in the province of Leyte, died before he finished grade school, and he was handed off to an aunt in the capital, 600 miles away. She lived in a muddy squatters' camp called Leveriza. The alleys were ruled by drunks and gangs, but Emmet wore his geniality as a shield and was quick to make friends. Drawn to commerce more than to school, which he left at 16, Emmet spent much of his youth dodging traffic to sell newspapers and cigarettes. When he grew weary of his aunt's strictures, he slept on a city bridge.
Among his favorite vending sites was a nearby stadium, Rizal Memorial, though without a sales license he had to sneak in early and hide before events. The canteen manager, admiring his pluck, hired him as a cook. With a bounce in his step from his first real job, Emmet was walking home to Leveriza one day when he spotted a woman, beautiful but frail, in an alley ironing clothes. He was afraid to say hello.
Teresita Portagana came from a higher echelon of the Filipino poor. Her father was a farmhand in nearby Cavite province who managed to buy a few acres of coffee trees. Tita was raised on the farm, the oldest of 11 kids in a close-knit family who shared a single thatched hut. She left school after sixth grade to help her mother manage the growing clan, and when she turned 16 her father sent her to work in a Manila glove factory. She would live with an aunt and send home most of her pay.
Her excitement at the prospect of city living vanished when she saw her aunt's neighborhood. Leveriza was not just crowded and dangerous; it stank. Stagnant estuaries, which doubled as sewage pits, were filled with discarded bundles of waste dubbed "flying saucers." When her father learned that Tita was drawing looks from Leveriza boys, he hurried to Manila and moved her out. "One relative in Leveriza is enough," he said. By then Emmet was pressing his case. Tita considered him plain-looking and "poor as a rat," but his persistence carried the day. They married on the farm and moved back to Leveriza, where Emmet would be close to work. He was 23, and she had just turned 21.
Similar slums were spreading across the developing world, greeting provincial migrants with welcome mats of squalor. How people survived, and at what cost, was a mystery and a concern. As Tita and Emmet were settling in, F. Landa Jocano, an anthropologist trained at the University of Chicago, moved nearby in search of answers, which eventually formed a noted book, "Slum as a Way of Life." The setting of his Leveriza-like camp was predictably grim — "wet and muddy," with a "nauseating smell" and "cardboard hovels" holding six to nine people to the room. But what really stood out were the social conflicts. Despite the Filipinos' reputation for prizing social accord, husbands beat wives, gangs murdered gangs and tsismis — gossip — was a constant preoccupation. "Envy, jealousy, hatred and other forms of ridicule" coursed through the alleys, and it took a special deftness to thrive. Tita, lacking it, withdrew into herself. "I was talkless," she said.
Tita and Emmet had three children in four years, and two more later. Their second child. Rowena, was born seven weeks early with a heart defect that went undiagnosed for years. All they knew was that she was constantly sick. The family lived in rented shanties until Emmet won $90 on a horse race and bought a shanty of his own. It was so bug-infested that he burned the walls and rebuilt with secondhand wood. He moved to a pool-cleaning job at the stadium and sold cigarettes on the side.
Still, the holes in the roof meant the children got wet on rainy nights. When she lacked money for vegetables or fish, Tita served the children rice, and when she lacked enough rice for three meals, she served two. A Sikh they called the "boom-bay" lent money at the standard interest rate, 20 percent per month. Emmet borrowed about $130 to open a tiny grocery store, which he planned to run as a sideline with Tita's help. The thief who robbed it during Holy Week seemed to know that they were busy with a marathon reading of the "Pasyon," a 24-hour life of Christ. A few months later, Tita became pregnant with their fifth child.
By then the Marcos labor decree was five years old, and the machinery was humming. Saudi Arabia was modernizing overnight. It needed roads, schools, apartments, hospitals and laborers to build them. Filipinos worked hard, spoke English and took orders. Tita and Emmet had seen the workers coming home with the Look — leather jackets, Ray-Bans and enough gold around their necks to turn their skin yellow with a case of Saudi "hepa." But most of the jobs were controlled by recruiting agencies, which charged placement fees of a month's salary or more. Only the privileged among the poor could leave.
In the spring of 1980, Tita's brother Fortz took a loan from his father to try his luck in Riyadh. He had just landed when Emmet's boss asked if he wanted to do the same pool-cleaning work in Dhahran. "Yes, yes, yes," Emmet said. The firm that managed the stadium had a contract there, so there were no recruiters' fees. Tita's brother Fering came the following year, and soon after, her brother Servando. Of the 11 siblings in her generation, nine either became overseas workers or married one.
"First timers" have it rough. Emmet shared a comfortable company apartment and a cook with three other Filipinos, but the loneliness was worse than anything he had known. Outside of work, there was nothing to do. Alcohol and churches were banned. Looking the wrong way at a Saudi woman was an invitation to arrest. (That is one theory behind the Ray-Bans.) Emmet paced Dhahran malls and stared at Dhahran skies, fantasizing that the planes overhead had come to take him home.
Tita's loneliness was costly, too, but she had Emmet's earnings. With a monthly salary of $500, he made as much in two years in Dhahran as he did in two decades in Manila, and he sent two-thirds of it home. Tita bought better food, and she bought Rowena medicine. She bought each child a second school uniform, so she would not have to wash every night. She bought an electric fan and a television — her habit of watching through a neighbor's window was a source of alleyway discord. Emmet, who talked to the family on cassette tapes, surprised Tita by sending one with a $100 bill inside.
When Emmet got home in 1982, he gave himself a party, patched the walls and replaced the leaky roof. Then he signed another two-year contract. After his second tour, he replaced the wooden walls with cement block and added an upstairs. After his third contract, he paid the government $2,000 and got title to the land. Though neither Tita nor Emmet finished high school, all five children started college; four got degrees. Emmet, overseas paying the bills, missed every graduation. It takes a lot to move him to anger, but even now he gets furious when someone says that overseas workers leave their children to grow up without love. "You cannot look at each other and say it's love if your stomach is empty," he said. "I sacrificed!"
I first met Tita and the kids in 1987, as Emmet was finishing his third contract. I had a fellowship from the Henry Luce Foundation to study urban poverty; a Leveriza nun, Sister Christine Tan, introduced us, and Tita agreed to let me move in. With Cory Aquino finishing her first year, the country was in transition, and Tita was, too. She was no longer quite so talkless. I awoke in the mornings to the blare of Tagalog news radio and once found her studying an English newspaper with a dual-language dictionary. "What's imperialism?" she asked. When Congress wanted a witness for a hearing on urban poverty, Sister Christine had Tita testify. Tita told me she had been asking God, "Why are so many Filipinos poor?" When I asked if God had answered, she laughed. "Not yet," she said.
Much of the credit belonged to Sister Christine, who had organized a network of prayer groups and cooperative stores and groomed Tita as a lieutenant. Tita bought and distributed 2,000 eggs a week for the group's co-op stores, placing them under a fluorescent light at night to keep the rats away. The unpaid work, undertaken in the spirit of community service, brought Tita new confidence. But so perhaps did the modest comforts made possible by Emmet's wages. By now she had a toilet.
Her oldest two children spent less time mulling the meaning of life — Rowena, still poised between sickness and health, was addicted to celebrity gossip — and her two youngest were little boys. But Rosalie, the middle child, was on a quest. At 16, she was ambitious, sometimes brooding, beautiful and devout; while her sister squealed about movie stars, Rosalie wrote Tagalog plays about class conflict. One depicted Imelda Marcos conniving to raze Leveriza and put up a discothèque.
Emmet returned a few months into my off-and-on stay. He had missed half the life of his 11-year-old, Roldan, and nearly the whole life of the 7-year-old, Boyet. He wanted to stay. With jobs scarce, frustration rose all around. Emmet scolded Tita for running up the light bill with her stewardship of the eggs. Tita got angry when she heard Emmet urge their oldest child, Rolando, to join the U.S. Navy, and furious when she caught him encouraging Rosalie to go abroad. Emmet wanted her to be an O.F.W.; Tita wanted her to be a nun. Though Emmet found a temporary job, he was back in Riyadh within a year.
One day he opened the door to find his son Rolando on the steps. He had quit tech school to try his luck as a driver for a Saudi family. His luck proved mediocre. The salary was low, his hours were long and his secret courtship of a Filipina maid could have landed him in jail. He quit after his second contract. By then, Rosalie had finished nursing school in Manila, a milestone for the family. She had set her sights on a job in the United States, but narrowly failed the licensing exam. Four years after graduation, she still earned $100 a month. Saudi hospitals paid nearly four times as much. After borrowing the recruiters' fee from an aunt, Rosalie was Jeddah bound.
No one fully understood that a baton was being passed. With the kids grown, Tita soon rented out the house in Leveriza and started building another on her share of the family farm. At 55, Emmet had given his prime years, nearly 20 of them, to a succession of Arabian pools. Rosalie, renewing her contract, insisted he go home. The responsibility of supporting the family was hers.
As an Islamic state that bans socializing between unmarried women and men, Saudi Arabia held out few hopes for marriage or kids. Rosalie approached her 30th birthday resigned to a dutiful life alone. She celebrated at a Jeddah restaurant with Filipino friends; one of them, knowing they had a private room, disregarded the gender rules by bringing along her nephew, a construction engineer. The nephew, Christopher Villanueva, took Rosalie for an after-dinner walk, trailing her by a few paces in case the religious police happened by. "I was trembling!" Rosalie said. With both of them living in guarded single-sex dorms, their 18-month courtship occurred largely by cellphone. When they flew home in 2002 to marry, they had never been alone.
In the Philippines the following year to deliver her first baby, Rosalie saw an ad seeking nurses in Abu Dhabi. At $1,100 a month, the job paid twice what she made in Jeddah, and Abu Dhabi had no religious police. She aced the test and caught another plane to the Middle East, this time as a mother. Christine — "Tin-Tin" — was 7 months old when Rosalie tore herself away. The baby stayed on the farm and soon called her Aunt Rowena "Mama." When a second daughter, Precious Lara, followed, she considered Rowena her mama, too. The girls cried when Rosalie held them on visits, filling her with worry and regret.
Overseas prosperity is a gift and an obligation. "Everyone needs help, and you cannot say no," said Rosalie, who seems not to mind. She paid to complete her parents' new house and sends them $400 a month. She sent money for her cousins' school supplies and helped her uncle buy a cow. She lent hundreds of dollars to godparents, knowing she would never be repaid. Migration operates like compound interest, building upon itself. Capitalizing on permissive visa laws, Rosalie has now brought a cousin and three siblings to Abu Dhabi. Rowena will soon start a secretarial job, and Roldan and Boyet are working with computers. Rosalie has also gotten Tin-Tin back, though not without some continuing distress: the girl, now 4, still treats Rowena like her real mom.
Already the family benefactor, Rosalie recently got a big promotion. As a charge nurse at the Al Rahba Hospital, she now earns $2,000 a month — 20 times what she earned a decade ago when she left the Philippines. Plus she has free health care and housing. Nonetheless, she is determined to stamp one more visa on the passport page. After a decade of trying, she has passed the American nursing exam and will soon retake the English test, which she narrowly failed. "The U.S. is the ultimate," she said. "If you make it to the U.S., there is no place else to go."
Once upon a time — say five years ago — remittances were considered small potatoes, and possibly rotten ones. Experts saw them as minor amounts, "wasted" on consumption, and to the extent they came from professionals, as reminders of brain drain. That began to change early this decade, when research by the Inter-American Development Bank (commissioned by a remittance enthusiast named Don Terry) showed the amounts in Latin America were three or four times higher than supposed. That work got people talking, but interest surged in 2003 when Dilip Ratha of the World Bank showed the eye-popping sums extended across the globe. Migration has been a prominent development topic ever since. Of the $300 billion that migrants sent home last year, about two-thirds came through formal channels like banks, while the rest is thought to have traveled informally, in pockets or cassette tapes. By contrast, the world spent $104 billion on foreign aid. While the doubling of formal remittances in the past five years partly reflects improved counting, Dilip Ratha argues that most of the gain is real. There are more migrants; their earnings are growing; and plunging transaction fees encourage them to send more money home.
The Philippines, which received $15 billion in formal remittances in 2006, ranked fourth among developing countries behind India ($25 billion), China ($24 billion) and Mexico ($24 billion) — all of which are much larger. In no other sizable country do remittances loom as large as a share of the economy. Remittances make up 3 percent of the G.D.P. in Mexico but 14 percent in the Philippines. In 22 countries, remittances exceed a tenth of the G.D.P., including Moldova (32 percent), Haiti (23 percent) and Lebanon (22 percent).
Despite fears that the money goes to waste, a growing literature shows positive effects. Remittances cut the poverty rate by 11 percent in Uganda and 6 percent in Bangladesh, according to studies cited by the World Bank, and raised education levels in El Salvador and the Philippines. Being private, the money is less susceptible to corruption than foreign aid; it is also better aimed at the needy and "countercyclical" — it rises in response to slumps and natural disasters. By increasing reserves of foreign exchange, remittances reduce government borrowing costs, saving the Philippines about half a billion dollars in interest each year. While 80 percent of the money sent to Latin America is spent on consumption, that leaves nearly $12 billion for investment. And consumption among the poor is hardly a bad thing.
The downside is the risk of dependency, among individuals waiting for a check or for rulers (like Marcos) who use the money to avoid economic reforms. The cash could have a stultifying effect, like the "curse" of too much oil. No country has escaped poverty with remittances alone. "Remittances can't solve structural problems," said Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington research group. "Remittances can't compensate for corrupt governments, nepotism, incompetence or communal conflict. People have finally figured out that remittances are important, but they haven't figured out what to do about it."
Drawing boards are filled with schemes to leverage the money for development, in ways large and small. A small Manila nonprofit group, the Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos, has a plan to get overseas workers to buy cows; a dairy farm in the Philippines would raise them, splitting the profits and creating jobs. More grandly, commercial banks in Turkey and Brazil have used the expected flow of future remittances as a form of collateral to issue billions in corporate bonds. This lowers the banks' borrowing costs and increases the amounts they can lend, making it easier, in theory at least, for businesses to borrow and expand.
A goal atop everyone's list is getting more families "banked." Opening an account (as opposed to just wiring money) lets migrants establish credit histories for future mortgages or business loans. The deposits expand capital pools. And bank accounts boost savings rates. Some banks turn migrant deposits into tiny loans to village entrepreneurs, linking remittances to the popular realm of microfinance.
Migrants contribute to development in ways that go beyond remittances. Many countries tap their diasporas for philanthropy. Affluent migrants make investments back home. And the increasingly circular nature of migration means that some migrants return with knowledge and connections. This is a countertrend to brain drain — "brain gain" — with Taiwan the most obvious case. The Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, a government-subsidized Silicon Valley, has lured home thousands of skilled Taiwanese with research and investment opportunities. The key is having something to lure them to; brain gain has not come to, say, Malawi.
Casting migration as the answer to global poverty has some people alarmed. It risks obscuring the personal price that migrants and their families pay. It could be used to gloss over, or even justify, the exploitation of workers. And it could offer rich countries an excuse for cutting foreign aid and other development efforts. "This is a new version of trickledown theory," warned Stephen Castles of Oxford University at a recent conference in Mexico City. "It wants to make the poor pay for development." Rodolfo GarcÃa Zamora, a professor at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas in Mexico, warned the conference against remittance "fetishization." Even in the remittance-happy Philippines, national law states that the government does not see migration as a development strategy — though it obviously does.
Certainly, soaring remittance tallies cannot measure social costs, to migrants or to those left behind. (So many Africans die at sea each year trying to reach European soil that the Straits of Gibraltar have been dubbed "the largest mass grave in Europe.") I was with Emmet and his brother-in-law one day when they broke into a nostalgic version of "It's So Painful, Big Brother Eddie," a Tagalog classic from the 1980s that immortalizes every migrant's fear:
My child wrote to me
I was shocked and I instantly cried.
"Father come home, make it fast
Mother has another man
She's cheating on you, father. . . ."
But what's painful, I'm wondering
Why our two children are now three?
Among the biggest worries, in the Philippines and beyond, are the "left behind" kids, who are alternately portrayed as dangerous hoodlums and consumerist brats. Some people fear that their gadgets and clothes, sent from guilty parents abroad, corrupt village values. A U.N. envoy, examining Filipino migration, had a different concern: "Reportedly children of O.F.W.'s are more likely to become involved in delinquency or early marriage." (Note "reportedly.") One episode of "Because You Left," the television show, depicts an adolescent boy whose father is abroad, leaving no one to help him with his first crush. He bonds with the school bully, steals from his mother and tries to rob someone. In addition to the "left behind," researchers speak of a more disadvantaged class — the "left out." Lacking the money or connections to go abroad, they are marooned on the wrong shore of what is, among the poor themselves, a growing divide.
Fear about the children is inevitable (and laudable), but the modest social science that exists offers some reassurance. At least three studies have examined "left behind" families in the Philippines. All found the children of migrants doing as well as, or better than, children whose parents stayed home. The most recent, from the Scalabrini Migration Center in Manila, involved a national survey of 10-to-12-year-olds. The migrants' kids did better in school, had better physical health, experienced less anxiety and were more likely to attend church. "For now, the children are fine," it concluded. Joseph Chamie, editor of The International Migration Review, an academic journal, calls the finding typical. "There's not much scientific evidence that children have developmental difficulties when a parent migrates," he said.
One theory is that remittances compensate for the missing parent's care. The study found migrants' kids taller and heavier than their counterparts, suggesting higher caloric intake, and much more likely to attend private school. The extended family can also act as a compensating force. And so can modern technology in an age of cellphones and Webcams. There is no doubt that migration has costs. "We don't have a focus group without people crying," said the Scalabrini researcher, Maruja Asis. The point is that not migrating has costs, too — the cost of wrenching poverty.
The Philippines, more than most places, claims to be skilled in managing these costs. As the rare bureaucracy devoted to migrant care, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration draws admirers from across the globe. Any agency pledged to tame a force as brutal as labor migration is bound to have its failures. O.W.W.A. has 300 employees to watch over 3.6 million workers. The general Filipino view is that the agency does a serviceable job during crises abroad (it evacuated 30,000 workers from Kuwait during the first gulf war), while playing politics at home — investing funds in cronies' businesses and helping politicians get out the vote.
But there is an especially sordid chapter of migrant history that this forgiving account omits, the shipment of bar girls to Japan. Spotting a growth market a decade ago, Philippine recruiters marched armies of young Filipinas through short courses in song and dance, then sent them off to Japanese clubs, with the Philippine government certifying them as "overseas performing artists." Club owners typically grabbed their passports and told them to do what it took to keep customers drinking; what it took was a mix of tableside affection, off-duty dating and outright prostitution. As both governments lent a hand, Filipinas in skimpy clothes became an export commodity. Their numbers rose from 17,000 in 1996 to more than 70,000 in 2004, as remittances from Japan hit more than $350 million.
Sex work is often a byproduct of extreme poverty. "A man is on top of me," writes Corazon Amaya-Cañete, a Filipina poet in Hong Kong, in the voice of a woman who distracts herself by resurrecting a childhood habit of counting sheep.
In exchange for this is money for Mother's
Building the house and
Buying food for my six siblings
Clothes, shoes, books and tuition for school . . .
Seventy-seven white sheep!
Seventy-seven white sheep!
The Tagalog wordplay emphasizes the cruelty of her fate: she starts life as a girl counting tupa and awakens to find herself a puta. "Oh! I am prostitute!" she screams. (The poem, "Seventy-Seven White Sheep," was published in a Webzine of Filipino diaspora writings, Our Own Voice.)
It was not the Philippines but Japan that finally cleaned things up. It acted only after the U.S. State Department placed it on a 2004 watch list of countries lax toward human trafficking. The embarrassed Japanese now demand two years of performing experience for an entertainer's visa, which has cut the flow of Filipina bodies by about 95 percent. Remarkably, it did so over the objection of the Philippine government, which sent a protest delegation to Tokyo.
Or perhaps it is less remarkable than it seems. A handful of advocates condemned the flesh trade, but most Filipinos see it as a consensual, if regrettable, economic exchange, and inevitable in a country where nearly half the population lives on less than $2 a day. Gina gawa ko dahil para sa familya ko goes the Tagalog saying. "I do this for the sake of my family."
I asked Nito Roque, the country's chief migrant protector, how to square the sex trade with the government's pledge (in Act 8042) to protect workers' "dignity and fundamental human rights." His answer says something about the limits of migrant protection, in the Philippines and beyond. "The contract does not say anything about prostitution — that is a private matter between the employer and the employee," he said. "Nobody forces anybody to go abroad. It's the applicant who comes forward and applies for the job.
"Do they know what they're getting into? I think so."
About 30 miles south of Manila, just outside the town of Silang, a dirt road ends at a residential compound carved from a small coffee farm. For decades it held nothing but the thatched hut where Tita and her 10 siblings were raised. Now a dozen cement blockhouses are clustered in a U, some little more than shells and others, like Tita and Emmet's pink cottage, boasting faux marble tile and lace curtains. One look at each home yields a fair guess of how long the owner worked abroad. Nine families in the compound sent workers overseas, and collectively those workers stayed for 131 years (and counting). A walk across the compound cuts through a century of rewards and regrets.
Tita's brother Fering is thankful that he returned from Saudi Arabia in time to see his children's first days of school. Another brother, Fortz, is one of two men in the family (by some counts, three) whose extramarital affairs overseas produced kids. He left for Saudi Arabia with a daughter named Sheryl and returned with another named Sheralyn. Conscripted as a stand-in mom, Tita raised the girl for 10 years — resentfully at first, because of the cost — and wept when her real mother took her away. "She is like having another child," she said.
Tita's sister Peachy learned that her husband had a girlfriend — and a son — when she received a package meant for them. The first time I asked her whether the time apart had strained their marriage, she politely lied. "No — we're loving each other for ever and ever!" she said. The following day she sought me out with a more candid account. Peachy is a large, cheerful woman, who seems as if nothing could daunt her. "I almost died," she said. "I couldn't lose my husband to someone else. That was the saddest moment of my life."
Peachy's sister Patricia thought all was well until a stranger called two years ago and said her husband was having an affair with his wife. "Your husband and his mistress," the man wrote on the photograph that followed. When Patricia called her husband in Saudi Arabia, he denied all and then stopped taking her calls. He sends little money, and she suspects he has a new child. Their son Jonvic, a dimpled 9-year-old, renders judgments of his father with innocent cheer. "What he did to us was worse than if he died, because he violated the Ten Commandments of God," he said.
It was not infidelity that moved another relative to tears but fidelity at any cost. We were breezing through the family photo album when she pointed at a picture from Saudi Arabia that showed her husband at an evangelical church. Church? That is a ticket to deportation or worse. Alarmed that her slip might place him in greater dangers, she started to sob. "I can't stop him — that's where he found his happiness," she said. When I reached him, he encouraged me to mention his preaching, saying it was his way of thanking God for the chance to work abroad. "I promised the Lord I'll share the Gospel under any circumstance," he said.
The nine families of overseas workers raised 35 kids, some of whom scarcely saw their fathers. Their combined stories could fill a whole season of "Because You Left." One became pregnant at 17 and is now a single mother. Another became addicted to video games and dropped out of school. Yet another started drinking after his father disappeared. One of Tita's sisters sold a house and a cow to place her son in a Taiwan factory. The son squandered his parents' life savings within a few months, and his drinking and gambling got him expelled from the country.
By any measure, the price was high, yet there it stands — a semicircle of blockhouses where there once was a mere thatched hut. Bookshelves sag with encyclopedia sets. More diplomas appear each year on freshly plastered walls. There are bunk beds and Bugs Bunny sheets, cellphones, stereos and big televisions. Having nearly lost her marriage to labor migration, Peachy is scarcely heedless of its social costs. "A good provider is someone who leaves," she said, without ambivalence.
One irritant of life in the compound has been the shared well, which dries up and causes contentious waits. Three of the families have drilled wells of their own, with electric pumps. One belongs to Peachy, a gift from her daughter, Ariane, who used her father's overseas earnings to get a degree in hotel management and earns $1,000 a month as a maid on a cruise ship.
Another tank belongs to Tita and Emmet, whose cottage is the compound's jewel. It has a patio, a beamed ceiling, a tiled sala floor, two kitchens and two toilets that flush. It was built by Rosalie and is a monument to the tenacious child who wrote plays about the rich exploiting the poor and willed her way into the nascent middle class. Although she is thousands of miles away in Abu Dhabi, she hovers over the compound; no household there is heedless of her example or generosity.
The house is nicer than any that Tita and Emmet have known but quieter too, with four of the couple's five children a continent away. "I am sad," Tita said, "because they're in a far place." She is often weak with ulcers, and Emmet's hearing has started to fade. They had a chance to sell the fixed-up house in Leveriza for a princely sum, $16,000, but unwilling to part with the place where their children were raised, they rent it to relatives. Restless without work, Emmet is especially susceptible to nostalgia for the bad old days. "I was happier then because I was with my children," he said.
Going abroad is difficult, but so is coming home. Since Emmet returned for good, the kids have noticed less tenderness between their parents and more quarreling. They each grew accustomed to being the boss. One reason Rosalie left her second daughter, Precious Lara, in the Philippines is that she thinks her parents need a child to love. Tita and Emmet sleep beneath a malaria net with the 18-month-old beside them, and Rosalie often calls home two or three times a day. She and her husband have an infant son, Dominique Edward, in Abu Dhabi, whom her parents have never seen. Armed with her first cellphone at 60, Tita has sent so many text messages that she has worn the numbers off the keys. Yawning one night, she laughed and said of herself, "Low batt!"
Off the sala is a guest bedroom with a large framed photograph of Rosalie, taken on her wedding day. The woman in that picture shows no trace of a birthright of poverty. She turns to the camera wearing an enormous gown and a confident face. Two generations of labor migration have given her more education, more money and more power and prestige than her mother could have dreamed of on her own wedding day. Precious Lara rarely plays in that room and hardly knows the face, much less the sacrifices her mother has made for the blessings of a migrant's wage.


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CHICAGO, ILL. - Tennessee State tight end A.C. Leonard and defensive back Steven Godbolt III have been named to the College Sporting News 2012 Fabulous Fifty FCS All-America Team comprised of the best 50 student-athletes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision.
Five players won annual player of the year
awards along with the head coach of the year award. Two
coaches and an additional 11 players received enough votes to be named
honorable mention.
Leonard earned his fifth All-American honor of the season as he was previously a first-team selection by the Sports Network and Walter Camp and a second-team pick by the Associated Press and Phil Steele. Leonard, in his first season with Tennessee State after transferring from Florida, caught 51 passes for 733 yards and six touchdowns in 10 games. The 733 yards were the most by a tight end at the FCS level this year and was the fourth most throughout all four divisions of college football (FBS, FCS, D-II and D-III).
Godbolt earned his fourth All-American honor of the year after being a second-team Sports Network and Phil Steele All-American and third-team AP All-American earlier this off-season. He picked off six passes in 10 games to finish first nationally in interceptions per game (0.60). He had two separate streaks during the 2012 season of three consecutive games with an interception.
Coach of the Year: Walt Hameline, Wagner
Offensive Player of the Year: Taylor Heinicke, Old Dominion
Defensive Player of the Year: Marcus Williams, North Dakota State
Offensive Lineman Of The Year: Corey Howard, Central Arkansas
Special Teams Player Of The Year: Austin Shanks, Northern Arizona
Freshmen Of The Year: Vernon Adams, QB, Eastern Washington
Playoff MVP: Brock Jensen, QB, North Dakota State
QB Taylor Heinicke, Old Dominion, So.
QB Jerick McKinnon, Georgia Southern, Jr.
RB Miguel Maysonet, Stony Brook, Sr.
RB Deonte Williams, Cal Poly, Sr.
RB Jordan McCord, Colgate, Sr.
RB Zach Zenner, South Dakota State, So.
FB Eric Breitenstein, Wofford, Sr.
AP Walter Powell, Murray State, Jr.
C Corey Howard, Central Arkansas, Sr.
OG Earl Watford, James Madison, Sr.
OG Sean Davies, UC Davis, Sr.
OT Will Post, Eastern Washington, Sr.
OT Bill Turner, North Dakota State, Jr.
OL Kaleb Hopson, Sam Houston State, Sr.
OL Mike Sellers, The Citadel, Jr.
TE Kyle Juszcyk, Harvard, Sr.
TE A.C. Leonard, Tennessee State, So.
WR Brandon Kaufman, Eastern Washington, Jr.
WR Aaron Mellette, Elon, Sr.
WR Erik Lora, Eastern Illinois, Jr.
WR Cordell Roberson, Stephen F. Austin, Sr.
WR Quentin Sims, Tennessee-Martin, Sr.
WR Jordan Harris, Bryant, Jr.
DT Cody Larsen, Southern Utah, Sr.
DT Brent Russell, Georgia Southern, Sr.
DE Brandon Thurmond, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Sr.
DE Caleb Schreibeis, Montana State, Sr.
DL Davis Tull, Tennessee-Chattanooga, So.
DL Zach Wagenmann, Montana, So.
DL Mike Catapano, Princeton, Sr.
DL Colton Underwood, Illinois State, Jr.
LB Robert McCabe, Georgetown, Sr.
LB Grant Olson, North Dakota State, Jr.
LB Jeremy Kimbrough, Appalachian State, Sr.
LB Jody Owens, Montana State, Sr.
LB Keith Pough, Howard, Sr.
LB Matt Evans, New Hampshire, Sr.
DB Marcus Williams, North Dakota State, Jr.
DB Steven Godbolt III, Tennessee State, So.
DB Darnell Taylor, Sam Houston State, Sr.
DB Ben Ericksen, Illinois State, Sr.
DB T.J. Lee III, Eastern Washington, Jr.
DB Kejuan Riley, Alabama State, Sr.
K Jimmy Pavel, Eastern Washington, Sr.
P Patrick Murray, Fordham, Sr.
KR Jerodis Williams, Furman, Sr.
PR Austin Shanks, Northern Arizona, Sr.
LS Rick Lovato, Old Dominion, So.
Coach of the Year: Dino Babers, Eastern Illinois
Coach of the Year: Kevin Higgins, The Citadel
Offensive Player of the Year: Eric Breitenstein, Wofford
Freshmen Of The Year: Sean Price, Appalachian State
Freshmen Of The Year: Zak Browning, Southern Utah
QB Michael Colvin, Lehigh, Sr.
RB Shakir Bell, Indiana State, Jr.
OL Terren Jones, Alabama State, Sr.
TE Justin Perillo, Maine, Jr.
TE Colin Anderson, Furman, Sr.
DE Davis Tull, Tennessee-Chattanooga, So.
DB Robert Alford, Southeastern Louisiana, Sr.
DB Jaquiski Tartt, Samford, So.
P Andy Wilder, Northern Arizona, Jr.
Follow TSU Athletics on Facebook.com/TSUTigers, Twitter @TSU_Tigers and YouTube

subset: commoncrawl


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On the 9Lessons blog today Srinivas Tamadashows you how to create a simple PayPal interface between their API and your site to make accepting payments easier.
I received a tutorial requests from my reader that asked to me how to implement payment gateway system with Paypal API. In this post I want to explain how to work with Paypal Sandbox test accounts for payment system development and sending arguments while click buy now button. It's simple and very easy to integrate in your web projects.
He includes the SQL to create a basic database for storing product and sales information (as well as a bit of user data linked to them) as well as instructions on creating the accounts you'll need on the PayPal side. The script creates a form that takes the payment information and pushes it to a script on the PayPal side for validation and charging.


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Courtesy of Image Comics, here's a sneak peek at the upcoming print release of D.O.G.S. of Mars, a graphic novel tribute to alien horror flicks like The Thing. In this comic, the Division of Global Surveyors appointed to terraform the red planet run afoul of creatures that enjoy mutilating the visiting Earthmen. This book hits comic shops this Wednesday, May 2. Here's a synopsis:
D.O.G.S. Of Mars
Story by: Johnny Zito, Tony Trov, Christian Weiser
Art By: Paul Maybury
Isolated on the farthest frontier of civilization, Nocturnal monsters stalk Captain Zoe and the crew of Mars Base Bowie. Lines are drawn and loyalties are tested as dissent grows within the ranks. Faced with mutiny, death and dishonor; Zoe must sacrifice her humanity if she hopes to survive.


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Soapstone Countertops can increase the value of your home by $9,068
When it comes to durability, the New Brunswick soapstone countertops are one of the best options that you have in the market at the moment. Soapstone has always been a brilliant option for homeowners who are looking to remodel their kitchens, and it is no doubt going to stand out in your kitchen. One of the main reasons why soapstone countertops are still preferred to date is because they are durable. These countertops have a nice milky appearance that makes them unique and fills your kitchen with an amazing warmth. They are versatile, and you can have them designed into the house in different rooms where necessary, not just the kitchen. The soapstone countertops New Brunswick are also very easy to clean. In most cases, you just need to wipe with a wet cloth and you will be good to go.
Fair price breakdown
In as much as you will be interested in getting the soapstone countertops New Brunswick installed, you have to think about the cost of getting this done. A brief discussion with your New Brunswick soapstone countertop contractor should help you figure out the probable expense you will incur. You will discuss things like the additional features that you need alongside the installation. Say for example you want to have a thicker soapstone slab than the average slab, fabrications on the edge, seam joints or even a sink cut-out. These are features that will cost more in addition to the work that needs to be done. However, when you discuss it with the contractor, you can be well-prepared for the expense of the New Brunswick soapstone countertops.
Estimated final cost for soapstone countertops
|Fair Price
|Quartz Countertop Cost
|215 Square Feet
|Quartz Countertop Labor
|30.4 Hours
|Quartz Countertop Job Materials and Supplies
|200 Square Feet
|Totals - Cost to Install Recycled Glass Countertops - 215 Square Feet
|Average Cost Per Square Foot
Find the Best Costs on Soapstone Countertops - New Brunswick, 08901
Quality will, of course, be another important point of consideration. There are different quality varieties available for soapstone countertops New Brunswick. The softness of your soapstone will vary, because of the amount of talc in the stone. Talc provides the softness which basically determines the hardness of your counter. If there is too much talc in it, you might end up with a countertop that is too soft for you to work on, so you have to question the New Brunswick soapstone countertops contractor about this.
Middlesex County Soapstone Countertops FAQ
Last Updated: Sep 15, 2020
Local pros & Availability
Countertops Installers available in your area
- Open
- Closed
1104 Davidson Mill Rd.North Brunswick, NJ 08902
2468 Elizabeth Ave.Somerset, NJ 08873
320 Weber Ave.Sayreville, NJ 08872
4326 Us Highway 22.Green Brook, NJ 08812
5500 Memorial Dr.Somerset, NJ 08873
6100 Prospect St.Metuchen, NJ 08840


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Jump in Appeals Dog the VA's Progress on Disability Claims
Outstanding Appeals Have Risen 60%, Placing Many Veterans in a Kind of Limbo That Can Last Years
The next secretary of Veterans Affairs will face well-known problems of mismanagement at VA hospitals and long waits for doctor appointments, but also will be confronted by an issue former Secretary Eric Shinseki hailed as a success: faster processing of disability claims.
Under Mr. Shinseki, the VA slashed the backlog for things such as compensation claims for injuries sustained while in the service. But that progress masked a 60% jump in outstanding appeals of denied claims and a slowdown in processing claims for things...
To Read the Full Story


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Book Direct with the Owner at Womalilla Australia Vacation Accommodation Whitsundays Agent in Womalilla, for all your holiday and travel needs.
Address: 1 Mosman Street, Charters Towers City QLD 4820
Address: 148 King St, Charleville QLD 4470
Address: 44778 Warrego Highway, Roma QLD 4455
copyright © 2020 Accommodation Whitsundays. All rights reserved.


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Welcome to Totek - Voip News and Technology Source. The original intention for this site was to support my Open Source project SimplePBX. Having looked at the logs very carefully I have determined that most of the users landing on ths site are interested in Asterisk and the latest Voip news. I have decided to focus more in this area and provide better coverage of all Voip technologies. My Open Source project will still fully supported on this site but as time goes on it will not be the main focus.
One of hardest things to find in VoIP hardware is a good low cost FXO gateway. The FXS gateways and ATA's are easy to locate. Finding an equivalent FXO has been a never ending task. I have tested Patton, Audiocodes, Linksys/Cisco, and Grandstream gateways.
After posting the initial stats I have noticed much more interest than I expected. Here is again more stats over a two month period.
This is one of those things that shouldn't bother me but it does. Every time I see an online reference to Asterisk but spelled Asterix I really want to shake that person. It's not that hard to get the name right. It's Asterisk just like the * symbol it was named after. There are over 500 references to Asterix in the forums and other user generated content at asterisk.org.
Although still in beta this little app can be very useful in an Asterisk/FreePBX deployment. It is a Windows application that allows you to see call pop ups bound for your extension and perform click to call from Outlook. The admin documentation for ADA is just hard to follow. This setup was tested with a compiled from source Asterisk installation and manual installation of FreePBX. It should also work with distros like Elastix, trixbox, and PIAF (Pbx In A Flash.)
As someone who has used the Linksys SPA400 in a number of solutions I was curious to see how Cisco SPA8800 compared. Now there are some major differences here. First the SPA400 is just a 4 port FXO analog gateway. The SPA8800 is a 4 port FXO and 4 Port FXS. This means you can connect 4 analog lines and 4 analog phones to this device.
I have used and installed Asterisk for the good part of the last three years. I have tested numerous configurations and I know what works in the SMB space and what doesn't. I have not done anything with call centres or large volume call handling but I have learned enough to know what Asterisk is good at and what it's not.
Copyright © 2005 - 2020 Totek - Asterisk VoIP (SIP) News & Technology Source.
Designed by JoomlArt.com
Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.


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J.C. Penney's reality checkSeptember 20, 2012: 12:38 PM ET
Maybe Ron Johnson should have stayed at Apple (AAPL). The J.C. Penney (JCP) CEO continues to struggle to get the retailer on the right track.
Johnson, who helped launch hundreds of retail stores for Apple, succeeded Mike Ullman as CEO of J.C. Penney last year. And investors had high hopes that he'd be able to swiftly turn things around for the retailer, which has been flailing with weak sales and an image problem
Just Wednesday, Johnson did a walk-through of J.C. Penney's new 'store within a store' concept with some 300 analysts. And he was pretty upbeat about how the shops were faring, which initially gave investors something to cheer about. But the stock did an about face, when Johnson said the second half of the year wouldn't look much different from the first half.
To be fair, it's a tough time for retailers everywhere.
And in Johnson's defense, he inherited a 110-year-old retail chain that was in desperate need of an overhaul so it is clearly going to keep going through some growing pains. "The goal has always been to transform it," Johnson told analysts Wednesday.
StockTwits traders aren't convinced he's got it right just yet.
dschorrnyc: If you're in a stock that needs presentations & speeches to stay afloat, be vewy vewy careful. $STUDY $JCP
firstadopter: $JCP up 40%+ off lows and CEO admits current biz still sucks as bad as earlier this year yesterday. How can you still long this POS?
Liquid_Trader: $JCP ~ The hype machine failed to impress. The plans wont work IF they keep the same staff. total revamp of JCP staff culture must change.
That may be true, but overhauling the culture at any company takes a loooonnggg time. "What J.C. Penney is creating is a new interface," said Johnson, comparing the retailer's transition to Apple's iPhones.
In the meantime, investors should buckle up. The stock is down 25% since January.
Market_Bull: $JCP shares are like riding The Beast at Cedar Point.
Still, Citigroup (C) is still upbeat about JC Penney's future, reiterating its 'buy' rating on the stock. "We're fired up following a sneak peek of the new JCP prototype store," wrote Citi analyst Deborah Weinswig, in a research note. "JCP is clearly not out of ammo."


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Creative Solitaires
"Each diamond is hand selected for innate Fire, Life and Brilliance and the use of minimal metal ensures that true beauty radiates. "
The collection of Creative Solitaires showcases an inspiring array of diamond cuts, in an assortment of settings. This rich diversity is employed to enhance the vibrant scintillation of each piece, complimented by a range of carat weights for the focal diamond of 1.40ct to 10.18ct. The exceptional vision of the designer comes to life with the skilled crafting of open work, multidimensional relief and the setting of diamonds at varying angles to ensure wondrous light performance. On occasion designs are punctuated with color as Diamonds of Character are set alongside white diamonds to heighten contrast.
Each piece is inspired by a natural element as a tribute to the diamond, the ultimate treasure from the world which surrounds us. De Beers has carefully selected only the finest workshops to craft these pieces in honor of this gift from nature.
Arrange a Viewing
Let our expert Brand Ambassadors guide you in discovering our diamond jewellery.
Arrange a Viewing
Let our expert Brand Ambassadors guide you in discovering our diamond jewellery.


text:
When will I receive my order?
After you have successfully placed your order, our Customer Service team will conduct a verification process and update you as soon as possible by email.
After your order is verified, you can expect to receive your order within the following time frame:
In Metro areas: 1 - 6 working days (except Sunday and holidays)
In Non-Metro areas: 3 - 10 working days (except Sunday and holidays)
Out of Delivery Area (ODA) : May incurr additional charges. Our customer service will contact you in the event that your delivery address is ODA. You may email us at email@example.com for more information.
How do I check delivery lead time of a product?
Delivery to some postcodes and outlying areas outside Klang Valley may take slightly longer. Your orders will be process within (3) three days from the date of payment. You will receive a notification regarding shipment tracking number in your email.
Can I pre-arrange/schedule the date of my delivery?
We regret to inform you that we are unable to schedule deliveries. However, you may coordinate with our courier partner once the item is "Shipped" to schedule according to your preference.
TaQBin Contact: 03-8022 6579
GDex Contact: 03-7787 6677
Line Clear Contact: 03-5590 5590
Do you deliver during weekends and holidays?
Our courier partners are unable to deliver during weekends or public holidays. Please expect to receive your parcel on working days only.
I need my order now, Can Kanpeki speed up the delivery?
Unfortunately, we are unable to speed up the delivery. Should you still want your items earlier, you may coordinate with the courier partner once the item is "Shipped".
I just received an email saying that my item has been shipped. When will I receive my order?
Once shipped, you should receive your order within the promised delivery timeframe of 1–6 business days for Metro areas and 3-10 business days for non-Metro areas.
Note: Your tracking number will be available on the courier tracking site in the next 24 hours, as the item has only just been shipped.
How can I know exact date and time of the delivery?
We are unable to provide you with an exact date and time of the delivery. Delivery times are influenced by product availability, your shipping destination and the courier partner's delivery schedule in your location.
Can I cancel my order after order has been shipped?
Once the item has been "Shipped" we are unable to accommodate to your request for cancellation. You may proceed with the cancellation of orders at MyAccount page by sending a request To Cancel the order under Remarks tab. Our customer service will process your request and keep you updated over email.
What if I am not at home when the package arrives?
You will need to sign a letter of authorization as a confirmation and indicate a second party at the point of purchase to identify the person.
You can also contact our customer service at firstname.lastname@example.com immediately after purchasing to inform us. The third party should present a valid ID along with the letter of authorization from you.
Is there any domestic area Kanpeki cannot deliver to?
Kanpeki can deliver to all serviceable areas. However, in non-metro area, you shall be expecting your parcel to be delivered within 6-10 days.
We work in partnership with 5 big logistic companies: Ta-Q-Bin, GDex, Poslaju, Skynet, ABX and also have our own delivery team to serve our customer best.
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All rates for international deliveries will be calculated upon checking out. Customer able to check and select which company to choose from with their respective rates.
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Kanpeki will deliver your order following the address you provide during checkout, whether it is your house address or office address.However, we do not deliver to a PO Box address. In the event you have chosen a PO Box address as your destination address, we will send you an email requesting you to choose an alternative address.
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KANPEKI aims to deliver within the time agreed upon at purchase. However, we are unable to guarantee that all orders will be delivered within the stipulated time frame. If we are unable to meet the estimated delivery date we shall not be liable for any losses, liabilities, costs, damages, charges or expenses arising out of late delivery.


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Under the terms of the agreement, NStar will purchase 27.5 percent of the power produced by Cape Wind at a rate of 18.7 cents per kilowatt hour.
The state Department of Public Utilities approved a 15-year power purchase agreement Monday between the NStar power company and the offshore wind farm developer Cape Wind.
Under the terms of the agreement, NStar will purchase 27.5 percent of the power produced by Cape Wind at a rate of 18.7 cents per kilowatt hour. The agreement will last for 15 years and allows for price adjustments as needed.
NStar and Cape Wind submitted the agreement for state approval in February.
DPU Chairwoman Ann Berwick, in a statement released Monday, called the contract "another step forward" toward the state's renewable energy goals.
"It is clear that the Cape Wind facility offers significant benefits that are not currently available from other renewables," the statement said. "This contract supports the largest renewable energy project proposed in New England while providing protections to consumers against the volatility of fossil fuel prices."
Cape Wind has also entered into a similar agreement, already approved by DPU, which will allow National Grid to purchase 50 percent of the power.
Representatives from Cape Wind did not respond to requests for comment.
NStar spokesman Michael Durand said all NStar customers "will benefit from our Cape Wind agreement and we are pleased that the DPU has approved it."
"Our commitment to purchase a portion of Cape Wind's power will help the project move forward and, when combined with our on-shore wind contracts, clearly demonstrates our dedication to addressing climate change issues," he said.
Under the agreement, residential customers of NStar will see their electricity bills increase by 1.3 to 1.4 percent. DPU estimated that the bill of a typical NStar residential customer using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity per month will increase by roughly $1. Commercial and industrial customers will see their bills increase by 1 percent to 2.1 percent.
Durand attributed the increase to the novelty of renewable energy, saying that it currently costs more than traditional energy to produce.
"The goal of entering into these types of power purchase agreements is that the more you promote these projects, the less expensive renewable energy becomes," he said. "The goal would be that in the future those prices will become more competitive to fossil fuels."
NStar's agreement with Cape Wind includes a safeguard for customers to ensure that, should constructing the 130-turbine wind farm cost more than budgeted, Cape Wind will absorb the losses. In the event that constructing the farm costs less than anticipated, the price of electricity will be reduced in such a way that ratepayers will receive 60 percent of the benefit, with NStar receiving 40 percent.
"This makes sure that the developer cannot reap all the profit without benefit to customers," DPU spokesman Krista Selmi said.


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NEW YORK (AP) — Stock indexes wavered between small gains and losses on Wall Street Tuesday following a seven-day rally.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down five points, or 0.03 percent, at 14,442 as of noon EDT.
The Standard & Poor's 500 was down three points, or 0.2 percent, at 1,553. The Nasdaq composite dropped 15 points, or 0.5 percent, to 3,237.
The stock market has surged this year as investors became encouraged by a recovery in the housing market and a pickup in hiring. Strong corporate earnings and continuing economic stimulus from the Federal Reserve are also supporting demand for stocks.
The Dow has gained 10.3 percent so far in 2013, and last week it surpassed its previous all-time high of 14,164.53. The S&P 500 has risen 9 percent this year and is less than 1 percentage point away from its record close of 1,565.15 set in October 2007.
Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital, was among those saying investors should expect a pause in the market's advance.
"Nothing goes up forever," Cardillo said. "We will be headed for a correction somewhere along the line."
Merck was the biggest gainer on the Dow, advancing $1.41, or 3.2 percent, to $45.07 after the drugmaker said a data safety monitoring board recommended that a study of its cholesterol drug Vytorin should continue.
David Bianco, chief U.S. equity strategist at Deutsche Bank, said the S&P 500 index will likely maintain its momentum in the coming weeks and surpass its all-time high. Strong first-quarter corporate earnings reports could also push the market higher.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the market has a typical five percent pullback in the summer," said Bianco. "But I think we go higher before that happens."
The last significant pullback for stocks started before the Presidential elections in November, when the Dow fell 8 percent between Oct. 5 and Nov. 15 on concern that a divided government wouldn't be able to reach a budget deal to stop the U.S. going over the "fiscal cliff" of sweeping tax hikes and deep spending cuts.
Markets were mixed in Europe. Italy easily sold €7.75 billion ($10 billion) in 12-month bonds, though at slightly higher interest rates. It was the first test of market sentiment since Fitch downgraded the country's credit rating on Friday due to political uncertainty there.
The Dow's biggest wobble this year came on Feb. 25, when it lost 1.6 percent after inconclusive results from Italian elections pushed the country toward political gridlock, threatening its ability to follow through on unpopular budget cuts demanded by its European neighbors. That gave investors a flashback to last spring, when a flare-up in Europe's debt crisis sent markets spiraling lower in the U.S. and Europe.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, fell to 2.03 percent from 2.06 percent.
Among stocks making big moves:
— Yum Brands Inc. rose $1.21 to $69.05 after the owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell announced a smaller-than-expected drop in its sales in China for the months of January and February following a food scare over its chicken suppliers.
— VeriFone Systems gained $1.26 to $21.72 after the company, a leading maker of terminals for electronic payments, said late Monday that its CEO is stepping down after recent stumbles cut the company's stock price nearly in half.
— Costco rose $1.84 to $104.20 after reporting that its fiscal second-quarter net income climbed 39 percent. The discount retailer pulled in more money from membership fees, its sales improved and it also recorded a large tax benefit. Even without the tax benefit the results were better than analysts had expected.


text: The Southern Alleghenies Local Management Committee (LMC) is comprised of representatives from the region's six County Assistance Offices, the Commonwealth's Bureau of Workforce Development Partnership (BWDP), local education and economic development agencies, and lastly, Southern Alleghenies Planning and Development Commission (SAP&DC ) serving as the Local Workforce Investment Area Fiscal Agent. The LMC manages and directs the operation of contracted welfare programs on the local level. This includes programmatic decisions, particularly those associated with the delivery of services, the bidding and selection of subcontractors, the provision of case management, and the job placement, job retention strategies, and participation rates for the Welfare Programs.


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Today Max Secure anti Virus enterprise Editin has been launched for windows 10.
Here are some quick installation steps:
1. Download and launch MaxAVEnterprise.exe
2. Turn off firewall at the time of installation , you can turn it on after installation.
3. Allow port 7000-7007 in th ewindows firewall if it ON.
4. Allow MaxCLinetupdate.exe by browsing to C:\program files\MaxAVEE folder.
For any quetsion, post here. ;)
Windows 10 compatibility
MaxAVEE client server based architecture anti virus with firewall for small, medium to large orgnaizations
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Provided by: libplack-perl_1.0047-1_all
Plack::Test::Suite - Test suite for Plack handlers
use Test::More; use Plack::Test::Suite; Plack::Test::Suite->run_server_tests('Your::Handler'); done_testing;
Plack::Test::Suite is a test suite to test a new PSGI server implementation. It automatically loads a new handler environment and uses LWP to send HTTP requests to the local server to make sure your handler implements the PSGI specification correctly. Note that the handler name doesn't include the "Plack::Handler::" prefix, i.e. if you have a new Plack handler Plack::Handler::Foo, your test script would look like: Plack::Test::Suite->run_server_tests('Foo'); Developers writing Plack applications should look at "Plack::Test" for testing, as subclassing "Plack::Handler" is for developing server implementations.
Tokuhiro Matsuno Tatsuhiko Miyagawa Kazuho Oku


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Hoya 52mm Pro1D DMC Protect Filter
This is the ultimate in clear filters. It will not affect the color balance or performance of your lenses in the slightest. However, constant use will protect your valued lenses from expensive front element damage which could be caused by dirt, knocks or scratches.


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The Rhineland Nature Park lies west of the cities of Cologne and Bonn and is defined by its varied countryside, cultural diversity and countless leisure and recreational facilities.
Forests, rivers, lakes and hilly volcanoes alternate with level countryside and small villages. Here there are nine different natural landscapes waiting to be discovered, and every one of them offers different opportunities for rest and relaxation.
The Rhineland Nature Park features striking attractions such as the Baroque palaces of Augustusburg and Falkenlust, which have been recognised as UNESCO World Heritage sites, as well as an endless array of sporting and leisure activities. Whether you enjoy cycling, hiking, jogging, skating or water sports, the Rhineland Nature Park is second to none!
The lakes on the Ville mountain ridge offer cool refreshment in summer, whilst the southern end of the nature park is well worth a visit in spring and autumn. This is where Germany's third largest fruit-growing region and its many taverns and farm shops can be found.
The four visitor centres - Gymnicher Mühle, Friesheimer Busch, Himmeroder Hof and Haus der Natur - offer visitors further insights into the park, as well as information about key areas of interest for those looking for some rest and relaxation.
مجموعتي أزرار مفيدة لغرض التكبير في المتصفح:
تكبير: +
تصغير: +
يمكنك لدى عارض برنامج التصفح الحصول على المزيد من المساعدة من خلال النقر على الأيقونة:


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Ulster 47 Scarlets 17
RaboDirect PRO12 League leaders Ulster got back to winning ways again with a resounding bonus point victory ensuring that Mark Anscombe's men have now opened up a 11-point lead at the top as the league breaks until next month.
The result, Ulster's 12th victory in 13 league games, means they now head into two weeks of European action – where they are Pool Four leaders – in good shape.
However, the Scarlets have now fallen to their fifth defeat in six games – and that run looks likely to worsen as the bottom side in Pool Five fulfil their European pool fixtures over the next fortnight.
Ulster scored five tries – all in the second half – from Robbie Diack, Andrew Trimble, Nick Williams, Neil McComb and a penalty try. Ruan Pienaar kicked all four conversions and two penalties on his 50th appearance.
The Scarlets at least did not endure a repeat of having two players shown red - as was the case against Ospreys on Boxing Day – but they will be bitterly disappointed at this showing which saw Aled Thomas again yellow carded late on.
The visitors struck first after Chris Henry was pinged after Tavis Knoyle and Rob McCusker got in a tangle at the back of a Scarlets put-in and Thomas made no mistake with the straightforward effort after nine minutes.
Ulster then lost full-back Adam D'Arcy to injury and things got worse just after the quarter of an hour mark when a Rob Herring throw to Williams at a lineout near Ulster's line was pinched for Johnathan Edwards – but from the resulting penalty Thomas was wide.
Ulster hit back next when Tom Court won a scrum penalty and Pienaar – making his 50th appearance for Ulster – made no mistake to level the scores.
The game then sprung into life just after the half hour when Andrew Trimble launched a counter-attack which led to a great Williams carry, which in turn resulted in the Scarlets being penalised and Pienaar adding the 35th minute penalty to put Ulster 6-3 up.
However, the sight of Dan Tuohy limping off shortly afterwards did nothing to ease the home side's concerns ahead of their European fortnight. Still, Pienaar nailed a late penalty to make it 9-3 at the turnaround.
Ulster came out of the traps quickly with Williams again being central to Diack's 43rd-minute score under the posts after the number eight off-loaded to Herring, who then provided Diack with the score which was easily converted by Pienaar.
Another Pienaar penalty five minutes later took it to 19-3 and then in the 56th minute Williams again went on a rampaging run but Scott Williams managed to get in the way of Nick Williams' scoring pass to Paddy Wallace.
Even though the decision went to the TMO, Ulster won a free kick at the subsequent scrum and Williams was off and over with Pienaar adding the extras to take it to 26-3.
The Scarlets, though, now having seen George North stretchered off, hit back with Josh Turnbull getting over with just over 10 minutes remaining and Thomas converted to make it 26-10.
With the game now breaking up, Trimble took a good angle and scythed through to score with Darren Cave adding the drop-kicked conversion with only seven minutes left on the clock.
And then Ulster grabbed their bonus when a penalty try was awarded and Aled Thomas was binned after he had interfered with Paddy Jackson's scoring pass from an offside position.
Jackson then added the conversion and Ulster finished the rout when Neil McComb was driven over with Jackson again doing the needful.
Scott Williams' injury-time try was mere consolation.


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Watch CBSN Live
Credit: CBS/WOIO
Credit: Personal Photo
Demetrius Hewlin, a student from Chardon High School also passed away, according to hospital MetroHealth System. His family released the following statement:
"We are very saddened by the loss of our son and others in our Chardon community. Demetrius was a happy young man who loved life and his family and friends. We will miss him very much but we are proud that he will be able to help others through organ donation. We ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time."
Credit: CBS/Personal Photo
Credit: Yearbook Photo
Credit: MySpace
Credit: Facebook


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Dan(da haole guy) wrote:OMFSM..callaloo! buljol & bakes..coconut muffins..goat roti..Stag & Carib by the case...soca-tronic in the streets..nice folks, wonderful country..T&T, i miss you..Elijah-nuff repect to you and all of Jah's true children..sometimes, tho, you can see better with the heart...&, looked at that way, CotFSM is not Babylon-bred heinousness..we're just a bunch of crazy baldheads..ram goat liver, anyone?
Good to see you again, Dan.


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WASHINGTON - The White House is acknowledging an attempt to infiltrate its computer system but says it thwarted the effort.
A White House official said the attack targeted an unclassified network. He said the attack was identified and that the system was isolated to prevent spread. He said there was no indication that any data was removed.
The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record about the attack, said there was no attempted breach of classified systems. The official described such "spear phishing" attacks as "not infrequent."
Last year, Google Inc. blamed computer hackers in China for a phishing effort against Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials and military personnel. Last November, senior U.S. intelligence officials for the first time publicly accused China of systematically stealing American high-tech data for its own national economic gain.
The White House would not say whether the recent attack was linked to China.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, during a visit to China last month, raised the subject of China-based cyberattacks against American companies and the government.
News of the most recent attack came as the Obama administration is preparing an executive order with new rules to protect U.S. computer systems. After Congress failed this summer to pass a comprehensive cybersecurity bill, the White House said it would use executive branch authorities to improve the nation's computer security, especially for networks tied to essential U.S. industries, such as electric grids, water plants, and banks.
An initial draft of the order included provisions for voluntary cybersecurity standards for companies, a special council run by the Homeland Security Department and a review to determine if existing cybersecurity regulations are adequate.
But by issuing the executive order just weeks before the election, the White House risks complaints that President Barack Obama is anti-business from Republicans and the same pro-business groups that killed the legislation on Capitol Hill. They argued the bill could lead to costly rules and regulations that would burden companies without reducing the risks.
Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this article.


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** Please Read First!! **
Shipping Delays, Many computer USB headsets sold out. See what we have in stock =>
01 Plantronics 510 Voyager Bluetooth, replacement for 510S *Discont
02 Plantronics M175 Cell Phone Headset *DISCONTINUED*
03 Plantronics M214C 2.5mm for Cordless Telephone *Discontinued*
04 BlueParrott B250-XT Roadwarrior Bluetooth Headset *Discontinued*
05 Plantronics M170 Cell Phone Convertible Headset *Discontinued*
Thursday 01 October, 2020 78985753 requests since Wednesday 26 November, 2003


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The Kunsthalle in Bremen, one of Germany's foremost art galleries financed entirely by private patrons, embraces a wide range of artistic styles.
The collections offer an impressive overview of European art and international modernism, encompassing paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and media art from the Renaissance to the present day. A key focal point is the collection of French and German paintings from the 19th and 20th century. Particularly impressive are the regular special exhibitions, as well as pieces by Impressionists such as Monet and Cézanne and paintings by Corinth, Liebermann, Beckmann and Modersohn-Becker.
Opening times:
Wednesday-Sunday 10am-5pm, Tuesday 10am-9pm
To nyttige hurtigtaster for å zoome i nettleseren:
Forstørre: +
Forminske: +
Mer hjelp får du fra nettleserleverandøren ved å klikke på ikonet:


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Wednesday, December 6th @ 9am
Wednesday, December 6th @ 7pm
OR Saturday, December 9th @9am
Cost for the class is $15.00 for 8 cards OR you can place a minimum $25.00 order and then your class is FREE. (Gotta love FREE!)
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I think I am getting a little teary-eyed about this draft and not because Randy Foye and Mike Miller are no longer Timberwolves.
The T'Wolves have sent Foye and Miller to the Washington Wizards for the No. 5 pick in this years draft, Oleksiy Pecherov, Etan Thomas and Darius Songaila – I left the hyperlink for Oleksiy, because I have no clue who he is or where he came from. You can check out the full ESPN.com story here.
The trades shows a few positives about the David Kahn regime as GM.
- First, we moved up in a draft for the first time I can remember in team history.
- He is already more proactive than Keven McHale was, ever.
- This is not the last trade.
The Wolves have picks 5, 6, 18 and 28 and the rumors out there are that the Wolves will package either 5 or 6 with the 18 and/or 28 to get to No. 2 and pick Ricky Rubio. SWEET JESUS.
That means he very well could have a back court of Rubio with Steph Curry, James Harden or Tyreke Evans (who I am actually not as high on as I was three days ago).
I hope this does not mean they will take Hasheem Thabeet (who's name I am able to spell with out looking), but I do not want him at either 2, 5, or 6. He is too one dimensional and while I had been up on him after watching for a year, I just don't think he is a top 10 pick. He has absolutely no offensive game and is an average rebounder at any height, let alone 7'3″. DeJuan Blair at 6'7″ average 12.3 rebounds a game to Thabeets 10.8.
Switching topics, here are some other thoughts on some players we may know a little about.
Tyler Hanbrough, UNC – I watched a little bit of the combine and was impressed with the way he looked compared to other bigs in the draft. He has a great motor and is not afraid of contact, and finishes well after the contact. I think he will go mid-to-late first round, probably to a playoff contender or the Bobcats.
Sam Young, PITT– Young is an athletic, slasher who is mature enough to handle the transition to the NBA. At 24, he is the oldest draftee, but that is why he will be a steal for a late first round pick for a team in the Playoffs.
Terrace Williams, Louisville – Many people are thinking he will be a monster in the NBA. I have heard the Ron Artest comparison, and I am not sure I see that. I see it on the defensive side, but Williams lacks consistent offense.
Jrue Holiday, UCLA – I do not understand the hype surrounding this guy. Look at his stats and tell me what about him looks like a top ten pick. Is it that we did not get to see him much at UCLA or is this draft just that weak? I understand he plays hard on the defensive end, but there is nothing that makes me want to pick him in the lottery.
Gerald Henderson, Duke – If he is available in the 12-18 range, PICK HIM! I hope he falls to the Wolves at 18 (if they keep that pick). I have heard him going to New York or Charlotte.
Earl Clark, Lousiville– Maybe the single biggest question mark in the draft. He has top three talent, but lacks the consistent effort. If I were a GM and he is still on the board after the top five, I take him. He is too good to ignore.
Brandon Jennings, Italy – I have not seen much of him after the high school all-star games, but I do not like what I have heard. The word is that he reminds people of Iverson, and I am not a fan of Iverson. Jennings is quick, picks the flashy over fundamental, and looks to prompt himself. Sounds like Sebsastian Telfair all over again. But he could do very well playing for Golden State.
Austin Daye, Gonzaga – I wish he would have stayed in school, seriously! He is crazy talented, but needs time to develop and muscle.
Chase Budinger, Arizona– Big fan of Mr. Budinger. He will make a team better the moment he steps on the floor and still has room to grow. He is a good shooter, and can get of the floor. But needs to find a steady mid-range jumper.
Derrick Brown, Xavier – 6'9″, 237 lbs, and is a great athlete. He is my favorite player not being talked about. He could go anywhere from the 20's – 30's, but he is a player that I would pick in the second round in a heart beat – he has top ten talent.
Patrick Mills, St. Marys – No one has fallen faster, but he will make a solid back-up who has unique experience with his national team. He is smaller for the point in the NBA, but he is steady, very steady.
Danny Green, UNC – He will never be more than a role player, but role players win championships. Also, there are a lot of picks in this draft who will never be "more than a role player". The term is over used and misunderstood. He players hard on both ends of the court and is a better than average shooter. He lacks great speed and athleticism which mean he might struggle to guard which was his specialty in college.
Let me clear something up. The term "role-player" has been used to limit what players do. Say they are one-dimensional, but a team of role payers, filling the right roles, wins. The Spurs are a team full of role players. Even Tim Duncan has a role, it is just more expansive than Bruce Bowen's.
I could go on for a while that topic, but I won't. But speaking of the Spurs – solid transition – I love the Richard Jefferson trade. For a team that does not play in the world of major trades, it is a move that make them better.
Here is a summary from Chad Ford's article one ESPN.com: "Milwaukee Bucks traded Richard Jefferson to the San Antonio Spurs for Bruce Bowen and Kurt Thomas on Tuesday. The Spurs also sent Fabricio Oberto to the Detroit Pistons for Amir Johnson who then went to the Bucks."
I also heard/read that both Bowen and Oberto may be released from their contracts and then sign back with the Spurs. That is an interesting and freakin' smart play by Spurs.


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Show Only
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Cars in Seattle, WA - Visit BMW Seattle Today
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We invite you to talk to our esteemed team of car financing specialists. They're here not only because they're good with numbers but people too. This means, they take into account your current circumstances and goals - and make the time to translate all of the fine print into everyday speak. We're talking about a financing experience you'll walk away from feeling good about.
If you cannot find your ideal vehicle in our current pre-owned inventory, check out our handy CarFinder tool. After specifying a search period (1 to 8 weeks) and providing vehicle details, we'll begin the search process for you and send you a notification when a matching vehicle arrives in our inventory.
* The advertised price does not include sales tax, title and license. A documentary service fee up to $150 may be added. The documentary service fee is a negotiable fee.


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Keeway reinterprets the concept of adventure on two wheels, presenting the new Keeway models.
It is a 125 cc bundle that are easy to handle,
agile and sleek, designed for pure fun on the road and targeting a young
and dynamic audience.
Keeway make some of the UK's best selling and most reliable vehicles available today in all style.
KEEWAY does it all.......Better.


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LILLEY: Trudeau finally pays up part of his refugee bill
Justin Trudeau was like the deadbeat dad that wanted praise for finally paying his child support bills.
The PM showed up at the Parkdale Intercultural Association in Toronto's west end on Monday to announce that the federal government was giving over more money to fund legal aid in Ontario when it comes to immigration and refugee cases.
"I'm not overly happy about the announcement we are about to make," Trudeau said. "The reality is we shouldn't be having to make this announcement."
He's right, the federal government shouldn't have to make the announcement that they are funding their responsibilities rather than sticking it to the province.
Yet, there was Trudeau, proud as a peacock and being applauded by local MPs and invited guests for finally paying up his part of the legal aid bill.
See, legal aid may be mostly a provincial responsibility but immigration and refugee cases are a federal responsibility.
Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, noted in her most recent report last December that immigration and refugee cases needing legal aid funding in Ontario had increased by 158% over the past five years. That included big spikes after Trudeau's infamous tweet welcoming the world to Canada, the one bureaucrats have blamed for more than 50,000 people crossing the border illegally.
While those costs skyrocketed for legal aid, the federal government was not paying for the cases it was responsible for.
"The decision to support immigrants and refugees is a federal government decision," Lysyk wrote. "We noted that, in 2017/18, British Columbia's federal funding portion was 72% of total funding, and Manitoba's was 90%. For Quebec, the federal funding portion was 69% of total funding in 2016/17. In contrast, Ontario's federal funding portion was only 37% in 2016/17 and 39% in 2017/18."
Those numbers are staggering.
The Trudeau Liberals were only paying 39% of their bill last year but want to be treated like heros for finally coming to the table.
It's not like they weren't asked. The province wrote to the feds in March, May and July asking for increased funding. After being ignored with the first two letters, the July letter prompted a lecture from federal Attorney General David Lametti.
He told the province that legal aid was important and that they should be fully funding it but didn't promise to increase the federal portion.
Now Trudeau shows up in town just weeks before an election and promises Ontario an additional $25 million in legal aid funding that they should have been getting for the past couple of years.
It was nothing short of an election stunt.
During the entire event, Trudeau kept warning of the perils of electing conservative politicians, making sure to invoke the name of Ontario Premier Doug Ford but never federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.
"The fact that we have to be here today to recognize that yet another Conservative government, the government of Doug Ford, is walking away from services to the most vulnerable is really frustrating," Trudeau said.
No, what is frustrating is that Trudeau has been a deadbeat dad on this file and now wants credit for living up to his responsibilities.
It isn't just the Ford government or the Ontario auditor general that says so, it's also the constitution and even the Supreme Court.
I won't give the PM credit for finally doing the right thing under duress and in a ploy for votes.