Agency Quotes - page 14
I am hoping that President Aquino will be able to sign the Senate Bill 2834 or PAGASA Modernization Bill into law within the year to give long-overdue upgrades to the weather bureau's equipment, staff pay, research capabilities and communication reach. The bill also aims to arrest the brain-drain problem in the agency by increasing the basic pay, allowances and other benefits of its workers.
Francis Escudero
The Senate general provision also states that savings may result from non-commencement of the P/A/P or the inability of the agency to obligate its released allotment and implement it within the period when the appropriation is valid, whereas the House version qualifies that savings also result from non-commencement of a P/A/P, meaning the inability of the agency to obligate an allotment only within the first semester of the year. In the same manner, the Senate provision demands more fiscal responsibility from agencies by adding the proviso in Sec. 68 that "Programmed appropriations which have not been released or allotments not obligated due to the fault of the agency concerned shall not be considered as savings and shall revert to the General Fund.”.
Francis Escudero
Augmentation, on the other hand, Mr. President, is defined in the GAB as the act of filling up a deficiency in any existing P/A/P of an agency or office from savings in other items of the said agency's appropriations, and therefore, a non-existent P/A/P cannot be funded by augmentation from savings.
Francis Escudero
The "Schedule of Doctrines" of the most liberal Christian Church insists upon human depravity, and the "absolute need of the Holy Spirit's agency in man's regeneration and sanctification."
But what have we here? The "original calamity" was either caused by God or arose without leave of God, in either case degrading God to man. It is the old dilemma whose horns are the irreconcilable attributes of goodness and omniscience in the supposed Creator of sin and suffering. If the one quality be predicable, the other cannot be predicable of the same subject. Far better and wiser is the essayist's poetical explanation now apparently despised because it was the fashionable doctrine of the sage bard's day:-.
Richard Francis Burton
Hayek doesn't seem to grasp that human beings can exist both as individuals and as members of a society, without necessarily subordinating them to the needs of an imposed social plan (although he acknowledges that the state can legitimately serve social needs, he contradictorily views collective benefits as incompatible with individual freedom). He rejects the very concept of social justice, for much the same reasons that he rejects the arbitrary valuation of labor: in Hayek's view there is no way to put an objective value on a grievance or to weigh it against other claims. And because he locates all responsibility and agency only at the level of the individual, he sees no way in which any claim can be generalized to society. Hayek's political philosophy recognizes only negative rights. Positive fulfillment beyond the most basic needs is a matter of individual striving.
Friedrich Hayek
An experiment was in progress to ascertain if ordinary culture had attained a stage at which it would appreciate a flood of new thought relating to a science loftier than any dealing exclusively with phenomena perceptible to the physical senses, and in connection with that experiment I was privileged to receive a considerable volume of information relating to the early history of mankind millions of years antedating the range of historical record; also to the concatenation of worlds and the ultimate destinies of our own. Though crude and incomplete, this preliminary sketch of occult science and of the agency through which, though unknown to the multitude, the purpose of creation was being worked out on the physical plane, thrilled the readers of the message all over the civilized world to an extent which gave rise to an organization, the Theosophical Society, which now covers Great Britain, Europe generally, and the United States of America with innumerable branches.
Alfred Percy Sinnett
The novel insists that there is power, and with it, agency, in survival-which includes the interracial tensions you speak of-because trauma is still an integral reality for queer folks. But these bodies do know joy, and they know it by acknowledging and honoring the tribulations they outlived. We often think of survival as something that merely happens to us, that we are perhaps lucky to have. But I like to think of survival as a result of active self-knowledge, and even more so, a creative force.
Ocean Vuong
War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties. ... [I]n general, the nation in wartime attains a uniformity of feeling, a hierarchy of values culminating at the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which could not possibly be produced through any other agency than war. Other values such as artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty, the enhancement of life, are instantly and almost unanimously sacrificed, and the significant classes who have constituted themselves the amateur agents of the State, are engaged not only in sacrificing these values for themselves but in coercing all other persons into sacrificing them.
Randolph Bourne
The urban renewal programme is one of the most spectacular urban programmes to have been undertaken in Paris; it is certainly the one which has provoked the biggest public outcry. The renewal programme in the strict sense of the term, has two essential characteristics:
1) It concerns an already structured social space, of which it changes the form, the social content and/or function.
2) It is based on public initiative, whatever the legal or financial form of the renewal agency, where private enterprise may take over the work, as in the case of Opératioll Italie.
Manuel Castells
The Laundry is the British Government's secret agency for dealing with "magic.” The use of scare-quotes is deliberate; as Sir Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” so "magic” is what we deal with. Note that this does not involve potions, pentacles, prayers, eldritch chanting, dressing up in robes and pointy hats, or most (but not all) of the stuff associated with the term in the public mind. No, our magic is computational. The realm of pure mathematics is very real indeed, and the...things...that cast shadows on the walls of Plato's cave can sometimes be made to listen and pay attention if you point a loaded theorem at them. This is, however, a very dangerous process, because most of the shadow-casters are unclear on the distinction between pay attention and free buffet lunch here. My job-applied computational demonologist-comes with a very generous pension scheme, because most of us don't survive to claim it.
Charles Stross
It's difficult to separate the Uygurs from the barrage of anti-China denunciations coming from the US, most of which have a script familiar to those who follow America's 'soft' campaigns against its strategic enemies... The leading US media are invariably the cipher. 'In China, every day is Kristallnacht', declared The Washington Post [last November], likening China's treatment of the Uygurs to that of the Nazi genocide of the Jews.... That's not untypical; it reads as if it has been written by the US Agency for International Development or the National Endowment for Democracy, which fills in for the CIA. No one doubts the ruthless reaction of Beijing to separatists, but as a reporter, I would like to see for myself.
John Pilger
Christian anarchism does share a lot with Christian pacifism, but it goes further, especially by carrying this pacifism forward as implying a critique of the violent state. Christian anarchism also shares a lot with liberation theology especially its insistence that Christianity does have very real political implications. But Christian anarchism is critical of liberation theology's emphasis on human agency, of its compromise with violence, and its lack of New Testament references compared to Christian anarchism. In short, while related to at least two important trends within Christian political thinking, Christian anarchism is more radical than both, and thus provides a unique contribution to Christian political thought. ... It is a unique political theology, and a unique political theory.
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos
On our integrity, our basic integrity, knowing right from wrong and being able to choose a right action over a wrong one, I think one must repudiate the claim that one doesn't have this moral discrimination innately, that, no, it must come only from the agency of a celestial dictatorship which one must love and simultaneously fear. What is it like to lie to children and tell them that they have an authority, that they must love and be terrified of it at the same time. What's that like? I want to know. And that we don't have an innate sense of right and wrong, children don't have an innate sense of fairness and decency, which of course they do. What is it like?”.
Christopher Hitchens
I had a special project to do a campaign for a Philadelphia politician named Arlen Spector (sic). "When do I get to see Arlen Spector?” I asked. "You don't.” Spector was a district attorney in Philadelphia, running for mayor. He wanted New York advertising but he had placed through a Philadelphia agency. I complained about not being able to see Arlen Spector. "Are you crazy?” his people said. "Nobody gets to meet Arlen Spector. We can't even see him.” "All right,” I said, "what's Arlen Spector for?” "Arlen Spector is for getting elected.” "All right,” I said, "what's Arlen Spector against?” "Arlen Spector is against losing.” I did the campaign, but Arlen Spector lost.
Jerry Della Femina
Civilisation as a term suggests human agency. [...] It is the way in which people have articulated how and why they wanted to live in communities. It's about how we imagine the perfect community. [...] I think the most ambitious thing humans have ever done is deciding to live together with people whom they didn't know in cities. It's really difficult to build a community, to learn to celebrate difference and to live harmoniously together, and we fail all the time.
Richard Miles (historian)
Turning Ukraine into something like Mexico sounds like a good idea. But this is a false comparison [made by Chomsky]. Putin's goals for Ukraine are not to "turn it into something like Mexico”; his goals are destruction of the Ukrainian state and genocide of Ukrainians, as evidenced, for instance by the quoted article "What Russia should do with Ukraine” from the Russian official press agency.... If Russia's stated goals are not enough to convince you [Chomsky], consider their realized actions. By now, Russia has deported more than 1.5 million people to its Asian parts, killed thousands of people (probably you have seen images from Bucha; other places are even worse), in the occupied territories people are abducted and tortured. In addition, Russia forces Ukrainian teachers to adopt Russian school programs in the occupied areas. How does this correspond to "turning Ukraine into Mexico”?
Noam Chomsky
For, if the Peace Corps' 6 percent savings were Government-wide, if each department and agency were to make the same savings that you have made, the total savings in our Government budget would be roughly $6 billion. But this is not your proudest accomplishment, important as it is. Far more significant is what the Peace Corps has meant to the life and the vitality of a free society in which the ultimate responsibility rests upon the individual. By your decision to serve and by the deeds of your service, you have shown that the ideals which gave this Nation birth and brought her to greatness are still burning. for that, all of us, each of us everywhere in this country, are deeply in your debt. I am so pleased that you could come here and visit. I hope you enjoy the Rose Garden.
Lyndon B. Johnson
