My Sunday Stroll

I decided to take one of my little walks today.

Left at noon, got back around 21:00. Total distance there and back 40 km.

Just for fun I checked: a marathon is 42.195 km, and the worst time in the National Capital (Ottawa) Marathon was around eight hours.

Going by the theory that any time for a marathon is respectable time, I just have to shave one hour off my time and add about 2 km. Actually I stopped for a beer, a sausage and smoke, which, everything considered, I probably could have done without. That would have shaved the hour off right there (besides I think beer, sausages and cigarettes are not really in thins with the marathon crowd).

One last thing: it's really truly amazing how much wildlife has come back to the Ottawa River. When I was a kid banks were teeming with frogs, turtles, garter snakes and so on, but as I grew older I watched all the cool swamps (the word wetlands hadn't been invented yet) get filled in, all grass get cut and picnic get put up everywhere.

A few years ago I guess they figured out how stupid that was (can you imagine how boring miles of cut grass and shrubs can look) and they tried to rehabilitate the river.

And WOW! They did it! it's even better than it ever was! It's teeming with life! Without really trying I saw mallard ducks, a wood duck, geese, red winged blackbirds, crows, a woodpecker, a cardinal, goldfinches, five or so other non-sparrow birds I couldn't recognize, a rabbit, three kinds of squirrels, moles, sea gulls, a blue heron, swallows, doves, some kind of little hawk and deer tracks. There were also other tracks that maybe were bear tracks, but that's a bit hard for me to believe so close to the center of the city.

Anyway long distance anything is fun! I'm not as cool as Ryan but I'm trying!

Twitter And Iran

Twitter's creator Jack Dorsey on how twitter has been used in Iran.

What Georgians Really Think About Russia

From RFE/RL:

What Georgians Really Think About Russia
June 11, 2009

(WASHINGTON/PRAGUE) Although Georgia went to war with Russia last year, a new nationwide survey indicates mixed feelings about Russia. Although 90% of Georgians view Russia as an unfriendly country, almost half are opposed to limiting trade with it. And when asked to approve or disapprove of Georgian women marrying foreigners, Russians were deemed the least objectionable from a pool that included Americans, Armenians, Azeris, Abkhaz, Ossetians, and others.

"This indicates that Georgians are able to separate their personal feelings about Russians from their charged political feelings about the Kremlin," said Dr. Hans Gutbrod, who conducted the national, face-to-face survey for the Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC).

In a briefing at RFE/RL's Washington, DC office, Gutbrod told the crowd that the poll's results "show that Georgians have generally measured and balanced opinions on a wide variety of political and economic issues."

"Georgians are exhausted by the continuing sense of crisis," he said.

Joining the discussion via videoconference from Prague was RFE/RL Georgian Service Director David Kakabadze, who noted the survey's mixed results on Georgia's recent political protests.

Although about 70% of Georgians think the government should address the opposition's complaints about judicial independence, media freedom, and legislative reform to guarantee free and fair elections, the survey gives no indication of widespread dissatisfaction with President Mikheil Saakashvili.

"It appears that Saakashvili's restraint from using force on the protestors is paying dividends," said Kakabadze. "It has resulted in a widening split among the opposition and a 5-point bump in his approval ratings in the last few months."

In addition to questions on Russia and domestic political opposition, the survey includes data on how Georgians feel about the economic crisis, crime, Western culture, and other topics.

About CRRC

The Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) is a program of the Eurasia Foundation, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. With offices in Baku, Tbilisi and Yerevan, CRRC conducts numerous research projects in the South Caucasus with a specific emphasis on gathering high-quality data. Dr. Gutbrod has been working in the Caucasus since 1999 and holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

About RFE/RL's Georgian Service

Since 1953, RFE/RL's Georgian Service has established a tradition for high professional standards for its news reporting and is widely regarded as the only objective and unbiased source of news and information in Georgia

Here is the original article on the RFE/RL website.

What Georgia Risked By Coupling The UN Mission With Territorial Integrity

From Civil.Ge:

PACE Monitors Say Abkhazia May Slip Into Human Rights Black Hole

Saakashvili On Russia’s UN Mission Veto

From Civil.Ge:

Saakashvili On Russia’s UN Mission Veto

Security Council Fails To Adopt Resolution Extending Mandate Of Georgia

A lot of people are pretty upset about the fact that Russia vetoed resolution S/2009/310.

Here is a fairly typical reaction: Russia Used Its Right To Veto.

You may be interested to read the text of the resolution: Security Council Fails To Adopt Resolution Extending Mandate Of Georgia.

What you may not know is that Russia's only requirement to extend the mission was that removal of references to previous resolutions which afermed Georgia's territorial integrity.

Regardless of how (or how strongly) you feel about Georgia's territorial integrity, it's hard to escape the fact that it was Georgia that tied the UN mandate to the territorial integrity not the Russians. The Russians did not asked for any kind of recognition to extend the UN mandate, they just wanted it not mentioned.

Here's a graph of how often Security Council members have used their veto powers:

Since the fall of the Soviet Union (the bit marked in red on the graph), it looks to me that Russia has used it's veto one tenth as often as the US. The US seems to have used it's veto powers more than all the other members combined.

Not having the UN in Abkhazia will only push it closer to Russia (it's pretty close already, but still). In my view Georgia's inflexibility is doing it more harm than good.

How Many Computers Do You Know That Can Destroy The World?

From The Register:

Remembering The True First Portable Computer