Wow…what a yawner!

Last week, I won a pair of Argos tickets for today. I was a bit excited for a couple of reasons; like the majority of people I rarely win anything when I enter a contest and I have never been to any sort of sporting event in my entire life. So, this would be an entirely new experience for me.

I invited MW to come along since he’s a pretty big football fan and he might be able to give me pointers on the game. So, we met up this afternoon and headed down. A lot of people were there with the vast majority looking like average Joes. It turned out that the seats that I’d won were pretty good, being down in the 100 Level. Prices for food and drinks were suitably outrageous so I was glad when MW offered to buy me a drink. hehehe

The game itself turned out to be pretty slow with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Argos well-matched. Both teams made little headway against one another. By the time the half-time ceremonies rolled around, I’d decided to bail and my decision was made much easier by the “junior” cheerleaders disporting themselves on the field. I told MW to enjoy the game for me and took off for home.

Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for the game but I didn’t see much fun in it. I told MW that it would have been much more fun to have chosen the fattest man from each section of the stadium and get them to play on the field instead. With suitable rewards and punishments of course. hehehe

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Yesterday evening was the big launch of Leopard, the latest version of Apple’s Mac OS X and it was a bit of an eyeopener. I didn’t get a chance to get to the Apple Store in the Eaton Center until almost 5:30 pm. When I got there, the line-up was already snaking through a good portion of the floor that the store was on. It took almost an hour before I was able to get in and out of the store with my t-shirt. (You certainly didn’t think I was stupid enough to be one of the guinea pigs for Leopard, did you?)

What struck me was how many people actually lined up for an Apple product. I’ve been using Apple stuff since the IIe days and did go over to the Windows’ side for a couple of years until a chance encounter brought me back to Apple and its Mac. Those days were the real dark days for Apple as it stumbled toward the dustbin of history but it was sort of a golden age for us Mac users since we sort of comprised a small, distinct clique.

Now, as I stood in line; the guy on my left has only been a “switcher” with a Macbook for less than two years and is also an iPod owner and the guy on my right didn’t even have an Apple product but will switch by the end of the year. As I pointed out a few weeks ago on another forum, it’s getting to the point where as a consumer (not corporate) computer user we’re becoming more and more mainstream. This is borne out by the latest market research numbers where they are? saying that Apple is now the third-highest shipper of personal computers and its growth is outpacing that of the overall computer market.

At this rate, I may have to find another clique. Linux? Windows?

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Sara Douglas is an excellent author; she’s managed to write a book that, to my mind, doesn’t seem to really hook me in in any way but it is such a good read that I just kept on reading through its over-400 pages. It’s richly-detailed, fast-moving, and has enough twists and turns to keep the pages turning almost of their own volition.

The plot takes place in a 14th-century Europe where both angels and demons tread the Earth, essentially, it’s a place where religion does come alive. Our main character, Thomas Neville, is a former nobleman who seeks refuge in the priesthood in order to atone for his sins and to work for God. Here, he finds himself chosen to undertake a mission to push back the forces of evil. While doing so, he finds himself tested by angels, demons, former friends, women and his own weak self.

The book is part of a series but you sort of get the feeling of where the Earth ends up as you watch Neville twist and struggle his way through everyone’s schemes while questioning his own moves and motivations. So, if you have several days to kill or, even if you don’t, this is an excellent way to do so.

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About a year ago, I posted about Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan and my strong support for continuing that involvement. The CBC and Environics came out yesterday with a poll that asks Afghans themselves what they think about the Western democracies’ involvement in their country and I have to say that it bears out what I’ve said before about how if the Afghans did NOT want Western troops in their country they would express it much more forcefully. Ask the Soviets (if you can find any now) about their experience with how Afghans exercise their freedom of expression.

So, what do the results tell us? Let’s have a look at some of the salient points from the Environics’ website:

First off, before anyone says that this poll was only conducted in Kabul, the methodology states that it was conducted across the entire country.

The Environics survey was conducted by ACSOR between September 17 and 24, 2007 with a representative sample of 1,578 adult Afghans (18 years and older) across all 34 of the country’s provinces. The surveys were conducted in-person in people’s homes in either Dari or Pashto, the two dominant languages. Female interviewers interviewed women and male interviewers interviewed Afghan men, and the sample was stratified to ensure a 50-50 distribution on gender.

Second, the response rate of 85% is supposedly a lot better than in the Western democracies themselves. I guess people take for granted those things such as freedom of expression which have been handed to them.

I’m glad to see that the majority of Afghans albeit with a slim margin believe that their country is moving in the right direction. There is a significant minority that think otherwise due to a lack of security and security. The latter is not the result of Western intervention.

I know that there have been some reports that say that Afghan women in the countryside do not have or do not enjoy the same rights as women in the cities and, while that may or may not be true, the vast majority of respondents say that the situation of Afghan women today is better than it was under the Taliban. This is something that many advocates of us pulling out of Afghanistan would not like to hear or would like to ignore. It’s amazing or incomprehensible to me how people who believe in human rights, specifically women’s rights, are so willing to ignore them when it is expedient to do so.

Seven in ten (73%) believe that women in Afghanistan today are better off then five years ago (under the Taliban), a view that is equally widespread in Kandahar and among women across the country.

One of the more surprising findings to me is how positive the Afghan people, overall, view the Karzai government. I’ve said elsewhere that Karzai is from the south so he should have some support among the Pashtun majority there (information gathered from a book I read earlier) but others have said that he was basically a puppet of the Americans and/or he was just the “Mayor of Kabul”. Truth is, no:

Afghans voice confidence in their national government. Seven in ten (71%) are very or somewhat positive in their general opinion of the Karzi government (versus 20% who are negative), and six in ten (59%) believe the Karzi government represents their interests as an Afghan. On both questions views are more positive in Kandahar. Across ethnic groups, opinion of the Karzi government is strongest among Uzbek, Hazara and Pashtun (from which the Taliban recruit), and weakest among the Tajik.

I think that the numbers are a bit eye-popping given that I doubt that any Canadian government in recent memory can muster such support. I’m pleased to see that the south is a lot more supportive than I would have expected and that bodes well for putting down the Taliban and their al-Qaeda supporters.

Now, on to what the Afghans think of our presence there:

What do Afghans think about the multitude of foreign countries that have been present in their country over the past five years? Most believe this has been a positive presence. Six in ten (60%) Afghans say the foreign presence is a good thing for their country, compared with 16 percent who say it is a bad thing; another 22 percent are more ambivalent (seeing this as both good and bad) (views are less positive in Kandahar). In terms of the foreign presence in their local area, Afghans are also more positive (49%) than negative (26%), although to a lesser extent (in Kandahar, 57% say the local foreign presence is a good thing).

Again, I am a bit surprised at the result from Kandahar which is often painted as a Taliban stronghold. Of course, you could say that the pollsters were viewed by respondents as spies so they would say anything that won’t get them killed but if you could do better yourself go right ahead.

What do Afghans think specifically of Canadians’ role and efforts in their country? This is the part that sort of cheeses me off. They don’t believe that the Canadians are doing much of the fighting nor are we doing much of the reconstruction effort:

In terms of public awareness of the presence of foreign countries (covering all functions and roles), Canada ranks fourth after the United States (95%), Germany (63%), the U.K. (52%) and then Canada at 46 percent. In Kandahar, Canada comes second with 58 percent recognition, well behind the United States (at 98%).

Who, top of mind, is fighting the Taliban? Nationwide, it is almost exclusively the United States (89%) that is seen as playing this role. Few mention any other country, including Germany (4%) and, the U.K. (3%), with virtually no mention of Canada. Even in Kandahar (where our forces have lost 71 soldiers and counting), it is the U.S. who is seen as the military presence (90%), with only two percent naming Canada.

What about public awareness of who is providing reconstruction assistance? Do the Afghan people know of Canadians activity or are we invisible here too? On a national level, Canada has low visibility (at 4% awareness), well behind the U.K. (39%) and Germany (27%). But in Kandahar awareness of Canada’s participation jumps to 25 percent, in a statistical tie with these other two countries.

And who do Afghans see as being involved in helping train the Afghan National Army and the National Police? Nationally, Canada (14%) comes second only to Germany (22%), and Canada earns the highest recognition in Kandahar (23%), followed by India (17%) and Germany (10%).

The above is pretty disappointing. Either our efforts there are swamped by other countries or we are doing a lousy marketing job.

Are we doing better in the areas where we are most active? It seems so:

The survey posed additional questions to Afghans in Kandahar province regarding Canada’s mission and presence. Close to nine in ten (87%) Kandahar residents are aware that Canada is active in their province (when prompted). When asked to evaluate the job the Canadian military is doing in Kandahar, six in ten residents give our troops a very positive (26%) or somewhat positive (34%) rating, compared with one in five who are negative (19%), and another 21 percent who cannot say either way.

Are Canadians doing a better or worse job than other countries in helping Afghanistan? By a four-to-one margin, Kandahar residents say Canada is doing a better job (48%) rather than a worse job (12%); the remainder sees no difference (22%) or are unable to offer an opinion (17%).

I guess the thing to remember or to note is that Afghanistan is made up of over 30 provinces and we Canadians are only active in one or two of them which would explain our almost-nonexistent showing on the national level. It also serves to remind us that the fighting in the south is not representative of the overall Afghan situation.

Speaking of the fighting, what do Afghans think of the Taliban and al-Qaeda?

What is public opinion of the Taliban, who ruled the country prior to 2002? When asked, almost three quarters of Afghans nationwide have a very negative (53%) or somewhat negative (20%) opinion of the Taliban, compared with only 14 percent who hold a positive view. Opinions are marginally less critical in Kandahar (67% negative versus 20% positive), and among Pashtuns (64% negative versus 26% positive). Moreover, the public is most likely to believe that the Taliban enjoys the support of only a few Afghans (50%), rather than some (24%) or most (7%), with Kandahar opinion only slightly more positive toward the Taliban.

As for the infamous terrorist group that first inspired the post 9/11 American-inspired invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, sympathy among Afghans is very low. Fewer than one in five (19%) nationwide (and only 7% in Kandahar) believe Al Qaeda is a ?positive Islamic force in the world today.

I’ve read reports that stated that al-Qaeda was widely supported in some parts of the world and it’s good to see that it’s not so in Afghanistan.

Finally, should Canada and the Western coalition leave? The Afghans themselves to a great degree don’t think that we should be leaving any time soon:

How do Afghans view the timetable for foreign troop withdrawals from their country, which has been wracked by conflict for more than 30 years. There is no public consensus on this question, but given the positive influence most attribute to the international forces, the plurality (43%) of Afghans say that foreign troops should remain ?however long it takes to defeat the Taliban and restore order.? By comparison, one-quarter are looking for a relatively quick exit, either immediately (14%) or within the next year (11%). Another quarter take the middle view of wanting them to stay either two more (12%) or three to five more (15%) years.

Personally, I think that the West should stay as long as it takes to defeat the religious fundamentalism as espoused by al-Qaeda if the Afghans themselves prove unable to resist the pressure. Once they can secure their own country then it’s time to leave but not before then.

I’m really glad that this poll has come out at this point in time when the Western democracies are proving once again how irresolute and short-sighted they can be. Maybe the West’s population will stop dithering with one another and listen to the Afghans and get the job done right.

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Geeze. A few days ago, I went to turn on the TV and got sound but no picture. Now, the set isn’t that old but it does need a few minutes to warm up before giving you a picture. After an appropriate amount of time I still had nothing. Great, it’s given up the ghost.? Off to a frenzy of what next to buy and how much to spend. Days of agonizing! I’d decided to wait until early November because that is when the local Future Shop is going to move into its new home at Yonge and Dundas. Guaranteed bargains galore!

Well, this morning, on a sheer whim I decided to turn on the TV and, perhaps, give it one last chance before I consign it to the dump bin (i.e. outside the apartment building to be scavenged for parts by the local Jawas) or Freecycle it to a couple of brawny fellows. About half an hour later, I found myself staring at a still picture of a hooded man being led off of an airplane by a couple of military types. Ooops…looks like the picture tube is working! Changing channels on the remote did not result in anything other than a black screen so I deduced that it must be the cable receiver. Grrrrr….

Gave Rogers Cable a call and within five minutes we were back in business! So, the lesson here is to check every avenue before giving up. Man, it would have been awful to plug in a new LCD TV and find oneself staring at a black screen and realizing that you’ve just wasted a ton of time and perhaps money.

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Yet another disappointing year for me at the Fall Bike Show. As usual, it was a madhouse as people jostled to try to get the best deals possible from a large variety of vendors. No real differences from years past; you see about the same stores but this year we seem to be missing the custom frame builders and dealers had a lot fewer BMX bikes.

Went with SL again and I was supposed to be going with two other friends but they bailed in the preceding weeks. Good thing because if shopping with SL was an indication we’d have been there well past closing time. hehee Ohhh..the gnashing of teeth and agonizing over whether or not to drop 4 big ones on a Cervelo! Her, not me. I liked the price on a Jamis Aurora but still too pricey for what I need now.

Oh right, I said that the show was disappointing; well, it was because I wanted to buy a decent pair of Pearl Izumi bike shorts at the very least and the only pair I saw was snatched up when I went back to get it after “shoppng around”. Have to say that the selection of good bike clothing was a bit slim this year. Smaller items such as tools and lights were nonexistent or were of lower quality.

I’m going to end by saying that this will probably be the last time I am going to go to the show unless I am going to purchase a bike. It’s simply not worth going unless you are buying a relatively expensive item and even then just get in and get out.

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Woke up this morning to find on the Toronto Star’s website a story about Chinese peasants occupying their village hall after driving out local officials who they accuse of corruption. Unfortunately for them, no one seems to be coming to their aid in order to do an accounting of the village’s finances and to investigate their charges of corruption. Neither officials higher up the food chain nor any press entities inside China have expressed an interest or are able to do so in the case of Chinese papers. In fact, if you do a Google news search under “Xiantang” you will only find the Star’s article and one by a Japanese paper.

I’ve been reading a book called “Will the Boat Sink the Water?” about the travails of China’s peasants. It describes incidents of corruption, financial malfeasance, violence and murder as China’s peasants are exploited by local governments. Efforts by them to appeal to the central government are often ignored or intercepted by local government officials. A recurring theme throughout most of the book and in the Star’s article seems to be that it’s all the local governments’ fault and that the peasants are simply waiting for assistance from officials higher up the food chain. Frankly, I doubt very much that these peasants at this time will see any sort of meaningful redress and I don’t think that this will be the last revolt to occur. From what I can tell, in China’s current governmental system there is no effective oversight and no accountability of officials from top to bottom.

I’m not sure what the solution is but, at the rate this is going, peasants may have to increasingly take matters into their own hands and they may decide to present the Mandate of Heaven to someone else other than the CCP.

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On the way home late last week, I noticed a computer tower sitting outside of my apartment building and decided to take a closer look. I have to confess that I’m a bit of a packrat here so could not resist. It was an entirely complete sysem - monitor, keyboard, mouse and tower all ready to go. The superintendent walked past and said that someone in the other building had set it out to be dumped and he’d just placed it outside.

I quickly grabbed the tower and set it up to a monitor and, lo and behold, it worked fine! Geeze! So, I ran back outside and grabbed the 17-inch monitor that was still out there. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to have the whole kit and kaboodle. It’s like an early Xmas for us packratters…or garbage pickers is what a sis would call me. Hrmph!

I’m really amazed at this find. The system is a Pentium III 800 MHz with 128 megs of RAM, 20 gig HD, and two CD drives with one of them being a burner and running WinXP. It’s a Cicero-branded system that’s obviously been upgraded over the past six or seven years and is very spritely. The system looked like it was being used right up until the time it was set outside. I looked at a few files and can see the latest modification dates being sometime in mid-August.

While this is a great find, the person who put it out was a real idiot in that they did not take the time to erase their HD. I am not going to waste any more time snooping around the system but a person with a more nefarious bent might take the time to go through their email or anything else that they might have on the HD. For those of you who are thinking of throwing out a system, make sure that you take the time and effort to effectively wipe out all data on the HD. From what I can tell, it’s not enough to do a “zeroing-out” process on the HD but you should also “write” over it several times. Have a look at products such as cyberCide and DataEraser.

What will I be doing with the system? Well, my friend Elisabeth in Burlington knows someone in Oakville who has MS who might want the system. My friend MW and I may load on Ubuntu Linux onto it and hopefully it will be easy enough for them to use. I know I know…I read the recent WSJ article by Mossberg that says that Linux is not yet ready for mainstream users but I really don’t have a choice here since the former owner didn’t throw out their system disks too.

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Ever since I went to CycleTherapy a couple of weeks back to have a look-see at my Brooks B-17 and got the diagnosis that my bike’s headset was iffy I’d been worrying that it would have to be repacked or replaced. I looked on the Park Tools’ website and eventually came to the conclusion that such a job was a bit too complex and entailed too many tools for me. So, I decided to call up CycleTherapy and ask how long it would take them to do it. They said that it might be better to take it over to the Urbane Cyclist because turnaround might be faster at a store with more parts. A bit surprising but very honest of them.

Late afternoon, I headed on over to Urbane and they had a look at the bike. The mechanic said that the headset might just be too tight so he fiddled with it a bit with a wrench and now the handlebars swing all the way around with nary a “lock”. Before, it would sort of “fall” into a groove and point the front wheel straight ahead. There is a bit of a creaking noise to it all so I will have to watch that and see whether it becomes worse or fade away with time. It might be the bike’s parts simply readjusting themselves after so long being in one position. No charge either so I’m really happy about that!

So, kudos to both CycleTherapy and Urbane for their assist today!

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Better check to see if there is a blue moon but Toronto Animal Services came through this time! Was running errands early this morning and on the way back, walking up Yonge St. north of Dundas, I espied this young seagull (you know how you can tell if they’re young? All the speckled ones you see are this year’s hatchlings, when they get to be about a year old they will molt and sport relatively solid colours.) lying on the sidewalk with its legs splayed out behind it, it could flap its wings but it could not fly. I decided to walk on past since my past experiences with TAS have been less than satisfactory. I didn’t get very far before my conscience took over and I walked back to the bird.

Still there so I whipped out my cellphone (and I was just wondering what I was going to do with my huge credit balance?) and gave them a call. They said to call back at around 8:30 so I did and we went through the usual rigmarole of whether or not the bird can move or whether or not I had a box to confine it in? It turns out that they will send someone out at 9 if I could wait around or if I can put the bird in a box. Given that it’s not normal for me to carry a box around and that I didn’t want the bird to be stopped on or whatever I felt that I didn’t have much of a choice and decided to wait. Grrrr…

It’s amazing how many people are willing to just walk past an injured animal on the street. Many looked but very few stopped to ask or even comment. One lady with her little boy said to him, “Look, an injured bird” and walked on. Good life lesson there, lady! Another guy stopped to take a photo of the bird in the box and this leads me to what is probably a highlight of the incident. One lady stopped and she looked shocked and dismayed that there was an injured seagull there. I thought that she was probably a flighty flake but changed my mind a few minutes later when she returned with a large box and put the bird into it. Wow! Very pleasant surprise indeed!

Heartened by this I settled down to wait and wait…the TAS guy (Pete) finally showed up over an hour after my first call and he said that it might be botulism. I told him that I just assumed that they would put the bird down but he said that they were going to take it to the wildlife center, flush it out and it may recover. Another very pleasant surprise indeed!

So, lost quite a bit of work time but did a good deed and had a couple of pleasant surprises. Doesn’t really make up for the many people who simply walked past…next time it comes to charitable giving and I have to decide between human or animal causes I know where my money is going.

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