All executive offices to relocate to Ngerulmud
More than a year after the seat of government transferred to Ngerulmud, President Remengesau on Wednesday ordered all ministers and directors to relocate their offices in Koror to the capitol building by the end of January this year. "The mantaining of offices both in Koror and Ngerulmud is a needless waste of energy...No minister of director may mantain a Koror office after January 30, 2008," the chief executive stated in Executive Order 245. (Island Times, January 4, 2008)
About time!
How much money would be saved by this order? Now if our President could just go a little further and plug the wholes from our finance department would save us more....
Maybe we would not need to raise tax to off set our short fall.
Thank you Mr.President....
Posted by: Mosisecheklak | January 05, 2008 at 08:00 AM
Why We Gossip: Because Grooming Takes Too Long
My niece and I have a favorite pastime. We buy a stack of the trashiest celebrity gossip magazines, sprawl out on the floor with some chocolate close at hand and discuss each photograph, headline and story. We have very strong opinions about these stars, people we don’t even know, and never will.
Why is this such a satisfying way to spend a Friday night?
Because we might just be evolutionarily designed to judge and talk about others.
There are a million ways to categorize conversation among people. We greet each other and say goodbye, explain, inform, lie, tell secrets, comfort with words and tattle tale. But mostly, we like to talk about other people.
Stand around the office and listen to any two people who happen to be within shouting distance of each other. Even if they start out talking about the weather, they'll end up talking about someone else.
Better than grooming
Such casual chat is just that until it turns malicious, unkind and secretive, a special packet of information to be passed from one person to the next with the intent to harm. And often with no basis in fact.
But primatologist Robin Dunbar of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, claims that gossip is not always bad. Dunbar says, instead, that gossip has been selected by evolution as a way to hold large human groups together.
Many other primates, such as baboons, live in big groups and they use grooming as a social tool to make, keep or break social connections. But during our evolutionary history, Dunbar explains, human groups became way too large and no one had the time to groom everyone they needed.
Gossip, or talk about each other, then replaced grooming
Posted by: Mosisecheklak | January 05, 2008 at 09:45 AM
Gossip, or talk about each other, then replaced grooming as a social glue among humans.
Teach your kids!
Gossiping might be part of human nature, but we are not born gossiping. Children learn the art of conversation through a lens of socialization — speak respectfully to adults, don't swear in public, use correct grammar, be careful what you say. Children also quickly understand that language is there for the using, and that it's pretty easy, natural really, to manipulate others with words.
"I didn’t do it, she did," says the 4-year-old fingering someone outside the room as the culprit. "Hey Mom, you are so beautiful, can I have a new bike?" works at least once. And as any parent knows, even tiny children with only a few words are masters at getting what they want by verbal begging.
It's no wonder that these kids turn into gossiping adults able to manipulate conversation, and people, to their own advantage.
At its most innocent, talking of others is simply sharing information — "See that guy over there? He's my friend's brother. He's nice." But that information takes on another tone when it is spun by the speaker into a social poison arrow — "See that guy over there? I heard he's my friend's mean brother." And then the statement rolls along, gathering negative social moss as it goes, sometimes flattening the subject of the gossip in its path.
No baboon's grooming ever did that.
Ma kulengit me komelekoi e dirrek e lomdasu ra rechad el dengchokl er bitar kemiu...lol
Good bye 2007 and Welcome 2008
Mesulang,
Posted by: Mosisecheklak | January 05, 2008 at 09:57 AM
Sorry to say this, but this is another useless exercise. No amout of cost cutting or rising taxes will be sufficient to balance the cost to the public sector!!!
When will Palau wake-up to this reality!!!
Palau needs an additional $50 million annually before the Public sector is able to be self sustaining and no amouct of cost cutting and/or taxes will raise this amount of money.
The solution is simple - bring in the tourist, another 500,000 tourist arrival annually will do the trick!
Bring in the foreign investors that will build the hotels, spas and resorts that will attract the tourists!
Why are we looking at impractical and ad-hoc solution when the real and tangible solution is right before our noses!!
Posted by: Mike Tram | January 06, 2008 at 02:09 PM
As long as the government eats like Uab, Palau will never have a sustainable economy. Sustainable economy means less government, a lot less! Sorry to you government employees, but you need to understand that you are the problem, not the solution.
Posted by: Ke Bloes | January 07, 2008 at 09:17 AM
Ke Bloes,
Cutting down on government employees will bring a lot of pain to most Palauans.
Is that what you want to happen.
Do you want massive unemploymwnt?
It is not only the person that loses the job, but ask yourself how many family members depend on that working person?
Cutting down on government employees will make the government less efficient!
If you think the goverment is not efficient now, wait and see what inefficiency is all about when the government is downsized by say 30%!!
God help Palau!
Posted by: Islander | January 07, 2008 at 05:04 PM
ooh mosi mosi is chaibebelau you fake you want tell storis you lie jelos trouble come to you you no good sick in head hate people
Posted by: jb | January 08, 2008 at 11:07 AM
It's not the gov't employees who are the cause of the 'problem', it's the higher ups who got them the jobs in the first place. Does not make sense to have kept the two office locations in effect for so long, just a waste of energy and money the republic is already short of. Wonder if it was just convenient for the ministers/directors to stay put in Koror to congregate. The fact is, right now the tourism industry is our best bet to bring in the dough.
Posted by: Ces | January 11, 2008 at 01:05 AM