This is my first theme I have built virtually from ground zero. This is the CITIZEN ON MARS Blue 1 and I have designed it to be so simple and yet elegant. Blue 1 would be just perfect for information blogs or even websites and it is so light and fast-loading with minimal use of graphics.

In some manner, Blue 1 have used elements from other designs particularly Brightside and Sandbox—in font-style and colors.

I’ve tested it on Internet Explorer and Mozilla browsers, and Blue 1 works on both. No worries on this aspect.

As of now, this is merely usable for Blogsome blogs and generic websites but soon it would be released as a Wordpress theme. So watch out for it.

License for use of this design is unlimited as long as you keep the link crediting my site.

In his most comprehensive statement on terrorism, the Illinois senator said the Iraq war has left the U.S. less safe than it was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and said he would seek to withdraw U.S. troops as president and shift the country’s military focus to threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won," he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center here. "The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Obama’s warning to Musharraf drew criticism from several of his rivals for the Democratic nomination, but not from New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said she too was prepared to launch raids across the Pakistani border if necessary to pursue terrorist targets.

The Illinois senator delivered a biting critique of President Bush’s conduct of the war in Iraq and the administration’s overall strategy for combating terrorism, while seeking to reassure Americans that his long-stated opposition to the Iraq war would not compromise his commitment to defending the country from the threat of Islamic extremists.

The muscular speech appeared aimed at inoculating himself from criticism that he lacks the toughness to lead the country in the a post-9/11 world, while attempting to show that an Obama presidency would herald an important shift in America’s approach to the world, particularly the greater Middle East.

The speech came a week after Clinton called Obama "irresponsible and frankly naive" for saying he would be prepared to meet with leaders of rogue nations without preconditions.

Much of Obama’s speech Wednesday focused on steps to reinvigorate U.S. diplomatic efforts to combat terrorism, but the most noteworthy proposals dealt with military actions.

Obama said he would deploy at least two more brigades — about 7,000 troops — to Afghanistan to combat the Taliban, while sending the Afghan government $1 billion in additional non-military aid.

But he said he would tie U.S. military aid to Pakistan to that country’s success in closing down terrorist training camps, blocking the Taliban from using its territory as a staging ground for attacks on Afghanistan and getting rid of foreign fighters.

"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans," Obama said. "They are plotting to strike again. … If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will."

Obama offered no direct criticism of his leading rival for the Democratic nomination, but indirectly rebuked Clinton and other Democrats who voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing the war. "With that vote, Congress became co-author of a catastrophic war," he said.

Clinton did not respond Wednesday to the issue of her Iraq vote, but sought to show that she and Obama are not far apart on the question of dealing with terrorist threats. In an interview with American Urban Radio News Networks, she said that, if there were actionable intelligence showing Osama bin Laden or other prominent terrorist leaders in Pakistan, "I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured." She also said she long has favored sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Other Democratic candidates took issue Obama’s tough talk on Pakistan.

"It is dangerous and irresponsible to leave even the impression the United States would needlessly and publicly provoke a nuclear power," Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd said in a statement.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, in a telephone interview, said Obama’s threat, if acted upon, could inflame the entire Muslim world. "My international experience tells me that we should address this issue with tough diplomacy first with Musharraf and then leave the military option as a last resort," he said.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, in a statement, said he would first apply "maximum diplomatic and economic pressure on states like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia" to do their utmost to combat the spread of terrorism. He also challenged both Obama and Clinton to block a proposed U.S. arms deal with the Saudis.

Street photography is a type of documentary photography — without explicit social agenda — that usually features people in candid situations in public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions, and other settings.

Street photography uses the techniques of straight photography in that it shows a pure vision of something, like holding up a mirror to society. This genre of photography is present in contemporary times and is usually done as black and white photographs. Street photography tends to be ironic and distanced from its subject matter and often concentrates on a single human moment, caught at a decisive or poignant moment. Examples include, a stolen kiss on a street corner, a man jumping a puddle, a woman lost in her thoughts in a diner, or a shopping trolley glowing in the last rays of sun. In the 20th century, street photographers have provided an exemplary and detailed record of children’s street culture in Europe and North America.

Many classic works of street photography were created in the period between roughly 1890 and 1975 and coincided with the introduction of small 35mm, rangefinder cameras. Classic practitioners of street photography include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Alfred Eisenstaedt, W. Eugene Smith, William Eggleston, and Garry Winogrand.

This time, if only for this time, I wish and hope to high heavens that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is right with her pronouncements. She said that the recent Asian stock slide could not in any way throw the local economy into disarray—like it did in the late 1990’s—since the fundamentals of our economy are all set in the proper places. I am not well-adept in the nitty-gritty of economics, how it (the economy)is being run and kept afloat or being pushed forward; so probably just like most of you, I could merely rely on the analysis of so-called financial experts on this issue, and even on President Macapagal herself, she with the Harvard University degree on economics.

It could not be helped to be reminded about the dreary episode in 1997, when Asian stock markets went on steep downward spirals one after another, like dominoes falling helplesly on each other and saw how the economic gains of countries like the Philippines and Thailand (gained painfully over the years), virtually razed like paper bursting into flames. It actually took 16 Billion Dollars worth of IMF money to bail out Thailand then, which lost 75% value of its stock market in just days. The Philippines were badly affected too by that crisis although no IMF fund came rescuing our pains; and that was a little painful to recollect and to be reminded of the fact that it seems to be that only countries like Thailand deserves to be saved from economic ruins by the famous three letter bank in New York. This sort of remind me that Germany did deserved 20 Billion worth of Marshall Plan funds for it to recuperate from devastation during World War II and the Philippines—despite Manila being virtually leveled to the ground by Japanese bombers—-had not deserved any “marshalling” from them rich and first world countries; and banks.

The 1997 Asian stock crisis was very terrifying to say the least and the Philippines got so affected by it that then President Fidel V. Ramos had suddenly stop calling our nation a ‘new tiger economy’ or ‘an economic miracle’. The crisis had virtually silenced his once well-known braggadocio about what he had done to the Philippine economy. “Kaya natin to”, he was always saying then.

Now, the 8% steep decline in the entire value of the Shanghai stock market should be dangerous enough since its effect had been felt globally, inciting huge stock sell-offs from Wall Street to Rio de Janeiro and towards European markets. In fact, the first time I had known about it—about three days ago from the Internet—I was able to exclaim in my mind “Oh no, here we go again!”.

Most financial analysts had blamed over-speculation on stocks as the culprit behind the China stock slide. This must be the most correct analysis since the China stock market had grown by a whopping 140% from last year, that’s more than double its size a year ago and that’s really abnormal; very abnormal I shall say. Foreign funders certainly had infused so much money in the China market in such a short period of time that it won’t take a rocket scientist to presuppose the idea that there would be overheating of the market sooner or later—and that now, it had finally happened.

At 140% growth in just one year, it would not be shocking to find out that there could be a sizable number of overpriced or bloated stocks in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, having prices that are way above its real value. Some unscrupulous speculators do this, to bloat the prices (speculation is not really a crime since it’s a way to make money in the market) by inappropriately creating misinformation in order to make certain stocks very attractive to would-be buyers and then afterwards, these speculators will sell such stocks previously bought at cheap prices at premium tags. And when the real value of said stocks become gradually apparent (like when it yields low dividend incomes based low corporate income) then stock owners would become jittery and be insecure with the stocks in their hands, that at the littlest hint, they will sell such stocks hastily, resulting in panic selling, therefore lowering demand for said stocks which will in turn result to radical lowering of stocks prices. If a lot of this kind of speculations hounds a market at any given point, it will create massive insecurity and snowballing of stock prices in general. Then a stock crisis occurs. Like a hurricane that comes once in a while but when it comes, it really ravages.

While the speculators had already made their profits and laughing all the way to the bank, those who were victimized by the stock price manipulations had only their tears to assuage their losses.

In theory, it would only take several persons to destroy a nation’s economy, and even that of the world’s that burgeoning markets like Shanghai should be more stringent in their regulations concerning stock and capital trade and not be caught off guard anytime. In 1997, one person named George Soros was blamed by then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad for single-handedly ruining the Malaysian economy by heavily speculating on the Malaysian Rupiah.

For now, I do hope that the alleged speculations in China would be duly investigated and be smoothened out and hope further that dollar remittances from abroad and the so-called strong micro-economics in the countryside would effectively shield our economy from erratic capital situation in nearby markets, especially that of the giant Shanghai stock exchange.

Torn over at Torn and Frayed In The Philippines had once quipped that “No one is too old to escape the mas

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