The Unreasonable Man

Surely This Cannot Continue!

Halton’s (conservative - duh) MPP (”Member of Provincial Parliament”, for you non-Ontarians) writes here [link] in Oakville’s local paper. Oh boy, what a low-end thinker. A guest column (shame to the local paper!) full of populist rhetoric.

“One of those concerns which received little attention during the recent election period was the lack of Liberal spine on defending citizens from violent crime and repeat offenders”, he says. Oh, that is helpful. “Spine”. Right.

“For too long, criminals have known that court orders are rarely enforced and breaches of orders are treated with a slap on the wrist. This has to stop”, he goes on. That is blatantly untrue. Court orders are enforced, and there are no “slaps of wrists”. I am sure getting arrested would cure Mr Chudleigh of that idea. I have never been arrested, and hope never to be, but I am very sure a repeat arrest is no walk in the park.

“Liberal governments at the federal level have consistently refused to implement longer minimum sentences, provide specific penalties for gun or gang related crime, or take repeat criminals from our streets.”. If they have refused specific penalties or minimum sentences, this it is for a good reason: specific (or worse, minimum) sentences take away the power of judges to be reasonable. Discretion, and deciding on appropriate punishment, is the core of true justice. Rules that allow no flexibility are going to be Kafkaesque. (I suspect that word is too complex for Mr Chudley.)

“In Ontario, Dalton McGuinty must use this opportunity. He must lobby the federal government for stricter rules. He must take back some control of our streets.”. I do not like crime any more than Mr Chudleigh. And “Petty Crime” must indeed not be tolerated. But it isn’t being tolerated. And listening to police radio day after day gives me the impression that we have rather a lot of control. Every second of every day, many cruisers, often unmarked, look for you and me to be bad, so we can be the next “traffic stop”, records check, 945 test, and so on. Big Brother is watching. And listening: anyone who calls 911 is helped promptly. “Some control of our streets”? Give me a break. A meteor is more likely to kill me than a criminal, in Oakville.

Or I am. All day today, Oakville police have been searching for a “903″ - a possible suicide. A man who told his family he was going to kill himself, due to “family stresses”. Hundreds of people and dozens of officers have been scouring trails and parks. They are debating calling in expensive helicopters as we speak. That is policing. Meanwhile a search for a Toronto police officer who is threatening his family; the arrest of a man wanted in all of Canada, and countless other “assist public” calls, suicide calls, mental health calls: it seems to me that our police help where they should, and that we have rather a lot of “control of our streets”. Mr Chudleigh talks like a dummy.

I am grumpy tonight, not having much time for the world.

CNN shows Lou Dobbs and his ilk, as well as the US congress, are behaving more and more like Nazis. The “our broken borders” nonsense sounds exactly like Hitler’s (Goebbels’) similar rants about the untrustworthy Czechs and Poles must have sounded in 1939. Lou and Friends are either brain-dead or cynically manipulative: for Americans in bars and taxis, the Fashionable Bad Guys (FBGs) are foreigners.

Here in Canada, the Conservative (of course) government is introducing laws against voting while wearing Burqas. But if you are injured and bandaged, you can vote - so why is one a risk and the other not? How many burqa-wearing voters have mis-cast votes? I bet the total is roughly zero. This is simply Mr Harper playing to Christian populist anti-Islamic sentiment. The Fashionable Bad Guys are Muslims.

Here at home in Oakville, it seems that every single police call about robberies, weapons possession and similar offenses talks about young kids, “male parties” I mean, wearing hoodies. They always point that out. Hoodies = black or low-life (or both) = criminal, apparently. They also all wear jeans, but that is never pointed out. And black males in black clothing driving black Mercedes SUVs are also very likely to carry guns. Although I have a lot of sympathy for the cops who have to keep out streets safe, I suspect there is some “Fashionable Bad Guys” going on: black guys wearing hoodies.

Fashionable crimes. FBGs… Fashionable Bad Guys. Doesn’t anyone think?

An academic wrote a leading article in the Globe and Mail yesterday. His point was that Canada’s multiculturalism isn’t really multiculturalism. Superficial differences are not culture - only belief in freedom or not is culture, he said. So we are not really multicultural.

Poppycock. He is very wrong. Fortunately, the Globe and Mail was sensible enough to publish my letter, as usual. Here it is [link]. Tell me what you think.

OK, so I am addicted. To scanning - listening to the police and fire brigade activity in Oakville, a wealthy Ontario suburb where nothing ever happens.

Not!

All day, things happen here, and the cops, whom I must say I appreciate a lot more for listening to all of this, quietly sort it all out. Without giving away any material information, which would be illegal, just today I heard things like:

• Many car crashes - rain today. Some with people trapped in cars, and so on.
• Many people forget how to breathe. At least 12 times a day, fire and ambulance are dispatched to people who have difficulty breathing (and it’s so simple! Just inhale and then exhale; then repeat).
• There are young people threatening their parents, who hide in the garage while calling 911.
• A knife-toting taxi passenger who left without paying his fare. And who was arrested five minutes later, still carrying the knife.
• An anorexic who had not been seen for days, so the police broke her door down to see if she was OK.
• Thieves trying to cash $9,000 in fake travellers cheques. Dumbos!! Why not cash $100 at a time?
• At 7am, a fifteen-year old destroying her home because her parents told her to walk to school.
• Many more mentally unstable patients threatening relatives;
• Two young black males just dropped a loaded handgun clip. In Oakville! So as I write this, the entire police force, dogs, and so on are all looking, stopping all traffic, and so on.

The police officer in the last case is calling in, asking for information on an address - he is “interested in something here”. I think he may be about to uncover a major gang-related crime operation. Ah, dispatch just returned his query: there are numerous surnames at that address. Locals - the most recent was a 928 (criminal offense) and a 985 (general information) in 2006. Oh, and another 928 from August, she just called in. Clearly, a criminal address. Oh - the officer is now walking around the complex, chasing the gun-toting criminals. Oh - now another address with known criminals. This cop knows his business. As we speak, this courageous young man is still putting his life on the line. Oh, the dog has taken an interest in “number 332″ of that street.

Whew. Who would have thought. All this in Oakville! And the thing that impresses me most is how calm and professional these cops all are.

OK, so I have yet another new hobby: public service radio scanning. Yes, my new little Uniden digital trunking scanner requires a degree in trunking technology concepts and configuration, but once you have it set up, you can listen to all the police, fire, and other public services. A lot of fun.

And also quite enlightening. Among the things I have learned so far:

• Oakville’s cops are quite intelligent-sounding. They sound more like university graduates than like constable plod. They probably are university graduates. They also sound remarkably calm under stressful circumstances.
• They spend most of their time (read: evenings) stopping drunks, picking up kids who have just spray-painted their school, arresting con-men and thieves, and resolving domestic disputes.
• Sadly, it seems that hoodies are “happening” here too: when a kid has been spotted who is probably up to no good, the cops point out that he is wearing a hoodie.
• Every medical intervention must have a fire truck present. To no avail usually, so all the poor firemen do is drive back and forth uselessly.

I am glued to the radio. Fascinating.

I cannot believe how busy I am.. hardly any time for posting, which is unusual. But today I must say I am prompted to write about application interfaces.

Interfaces are all that most users see. The product behind the interface (where 80% of the work goes) is irrelevant. The interface is all that counts; for most users, the interface is the application.

So Apple tends to get that right in products like the iPod, and now the iPhone. But an unnoticed recent winner is CNN. Look at CNN video and be amazed: it works! A simple AJAX-based interface; “next up” buttons, a playlist viewer; you simply select and the video stories you want to a playlist by clicking “add to playlist”. And you do not get hassled with an ad before every video.

Effortless (widescreen) custom news -a whole new news paradigm, and miles ahead of what BBC News is doing with its IE-only players and lower functionality. CNN gets it right.

In today’s truly shocking news, we learn that policemen are people.

Several RCMP officers in BC posed for photos [link] with a few pretty young women. For at least ten minutes. The shock is overwhelming: I am not sure how I can go on today.

And this news is hot on the heels of the recent horrific revelations about our border guards behaving inappropriately [link] also. As you see, the article has at least one person referring to student border guards drinking offduty as “a huge security issue”. The security minister, of course, is investigating [link]. Another great example of how “security” nonsense can be used to do, well, basically anything. Your speeding ticket will be a huge security issue, next. If Osama was escaping he would be speeding, You are speeding. Hence, you are a huge security risk and must be sent to Guantanamo.

Back to the cops. I think something should be done. A new law, perhaps. “Tough on human behaviour”. Minimum mandatory punishments. Perhaps even try these cops as adults.

Nah, that last one would be too much. Just sending them to Guantanamo (which you can do to kids) would probably be more appropriate. I mean - showing women your night stick - presumably a huge security risk?

Elections… and it appears that the Liberals (also known as lieberals or fiberals) have won again. Instead of ending up in jail for lying, as the should, they will end up in Queen’s Park again. My comfortable prediction: the “no new taxes” promise will be broken - again.

Today’s was a Hobson’s choice. Lying Liberals versus socially medieval (”let’s have religious schools”, “we will get tough on crime“) Tories. And with the imbecile English “first past the post” system, most Ontarians (really, over 50% of voters) did not have their views represented. As we speak, the Lieberals have 40% of the popular vote, and 70% of the seats. The Greens, on the other hand, with around 10% of the vote, get no seats. How fair is that?

More depressingly, in the first referendum in over 80 years voters seem to be overwhelmingly rejecting a more proportional system. It seems that Ontarians will continue to get the government they deserve. Of course the odds were stacked against the referendum changing anything - people were misinformed.

I did vote, but in a true Hobson’s choice I had no idea whom to vote for. To me, this truly felt a bit like being asked “would you rather be ruled by Comrade Stalin or by Chairman Mao”? I respect either party about as much as I respect those two dictators, so the analogy seems entirely fair to me.

It is sad when people feel the political system does not represent their views at all. I no longer believe that you have to vote to be allowed to speak. Next time if given stupid choices like today’s (and there is no chance that will change), I shall refuse to vote, or better, spoil my ballot. What else can I do, when I respect the Ontario political parties and their candidates about as much as I respect a cockroach? Except the Freedom Party or the Libertarian Party, but they fielded no candidates (and under the English system, have no chance of ever being elected).

Pity there was no Rhinoceros Party candidate to vote for.

I am back in America for a couple of days, in Portland, Oregon with a customer.

I am carrying a few little amateur radio transceivers with me, so airport security is fun. Antennas, scanners, radios: these immediately raise terrorist alarms. You can see the alarm in the security people as they “discover” the “suspicious items”. I just sigh as they scramble for my bag and say “you are looking for my radios. I am a licensed Radio amateur and I am allowed to own, carry and operate these radios. Would you like to see my license”? They never know what these radios are - the governments of America and Canada may license radio amateurs, but they don’t tell their security people. I had to take off my belt (had to hold up my trousers since I have lost weight). But I kept the radios.

Why am I always next to the airplane’s snorer? Yesterday was no exception to this rule. The snorer was an Egyptian gentleman from Taiwan (I guess correctly that he was Egyptian: he sounded and looked it, so it was an easy guess).

I have decided I have a religion. I am a Pastafarian. This is an adherent of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Google it. A great church: not only does it have a Spaghetti Monster with Meatballs that created the world; it is also friendly. Instead of commandments, it has the Eight I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts.

In Ontario election news, my local conservative candidate says “he will hold town meetings” to see what the people of Oakville want, regarding the controversial religious schools proposal. I.e. he is afraid to voice an opinion - damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Party Leader John Tory is very silly to have brought this up - amazing lack of judgment or lack of brains - it will, and should, cost him the election.

Datamining is why we have databases; and now, thanks to Google, we can all do it. This is knowledge we would have killed for, a few decades ago. I am talking about Google Trends, the best thing to come out of Google since forever.

Try this trend: link here. One of my main hobbies is dying.

And you can compare. Try this one [link] - you can see who is more popular, and when they are most attractive. And apparently Toronto has the hots for Ms Jolie more than any other city. Or had, when she was at her peak almost two years ago.

And another interesting one. Is Linux dying too? See here.

Endless fun. Go at it - find your own interesting trends!