Some op-ed output from the ‘Pinas on this idiotic “congressional canvas of votes” farce: Amando Doronilla, Rasheed Abou-Alsamh, Max Soliven, and Teddy Benigno. Benigno, of course, is brimming with the requisite “social volcano” gloom and doom scenario, predicting — yet again — that this is what will finally cause the Philippines to boil over into violent mass chaos — yet again. The man’s a great columnist and a brilliant political analyst, but the more he makes these predictions, the less I believe them. Just like when he writes about Iraq and uses the word “quagmire.” (Wolf! Wolf!) Latest word is that Poe’s lawyers have pulled out. Spoiled, obstructionist opposition versus ambitious, power-hungry admin. Guess who’ll win.

I’m happy to see that Philstar has broken out of frames and redone their website a bit. Sadly, they’ve fallen prey to the same marketing clutter that infects the Inq7 front page: a discordant mess of ad buttons — some rather annoyingly animated — cutting through content and interrupting the flow of layout. Large media websites normally set standards on how ad banners and buttons should look, so they integrate well into a design; but hey, if youze gots to make the money, youze gots to take what ads youze can gets. It’s not as though sidebar blogads are any better visually.