Are You Going to Scarborough Shoal‽

Are You Going to Scarborough Shoal‽

Are you going to Scarborough Shoal‽ 

Farce play, siege, ruse, eery, no rhyme 

Remember me as the one nearest there 

That is a true belonging of mine 

Tell China to leave that place none of her dirt

Farce play, siege, ruse, eery, no rhyme

Don't take our oil, in that place don't lurk

Then don't claim to own what is mine

Tell China she has millions of acres of land

Farce play, rage, ruse, eery, no rhyme

A claim to our seas will simply not stand

Nine dashes won't make yours what is truly mine

Are you going to Scarborough Shoal‽

Farce play, siege, ruse, eery, no rhyme

Remember me as the one nearest there

That is a true belonging of mine

The Florentino Floro Jr.

The person in the photo above used to be a Regional Trial Court judge. He was the infamous officer of the court who openly admitted that he consulted dwarfs and other supernatural beings in deciding on his court cases. To emphasize, that's Regional Trial Court or RTC—the very institution feisty Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago regularly invokes in mentioning one of her top qualifications (being  a former RTC judge). Floro was only sacked by the Supreme Court in 2006 upon his own admission of doing "super-unconventional" ways in performing his work as a judge.

According to (apparently) his blog, Floro graduated with second honors from the Ateneo de Manila University law school. He was in the top 20 of the 1983 bar examinations (12th at that) having obtained a grade of 87.55%. See the unauthenticated newspaper scan above.

Here, the bizarre former judge poses with his 1953 Winchester collection .22 rifle

The former judge had also concocted his own coconut healing oil.

Photos posted above are from florentinofloro2.blogspot.com 

South Sudan is now UN's 193rd member

How many countries are there in the world?

The United Nations (before this news) lists 192 members and often, that is considered the number of countries around the world. The US Department of State on the other hand, reflective of their political agenda, counts 195 independent countries.

Now, here's something to add to the continuing confusion in one of the the most common questions in geography. South Sudan is finally admitted into the United Nations as the 193rd member. The newly independent state with Juba as its capital was officially welcomed and acknowledged into the international community after UN General Assembly President Joseph Deiss banged a gavel that signaled South Sudan's UN membership approval by acclamation.

South Sudan has a population of approximately eight million people. It is expected to have control of more than 75% of Sudan's daily oil production though it remains as one of the poorest and least developed areas in the world. South Sudan has no refineries to process and market their oil so they would have to rely on the north's pipelines, at least temporarily.


So for the question: "how many countries are there all in all?" It is safe to peg the number at 196. To make it more specific, the answer is 195 by US Department of State count, 193 by UN membership, and 196 with Taiwan recognized as a territory separate from China—which most Asian nations do.