William Alun Baiton

I promised to post and here it is.

William Alun Baiton was born at 07.35 on 28 November 2008. He is a healthy 3.7 kgs and 50cm in length.

Mother and baby Will are doing well.

If any of you are wondering "Alun" is the Welsh spelling of Alan.

Alan is my father's name and today is his birthday.

Enjoy the pictures!

Plaza Indonesia and The Food Hall

The Food Hall, which to most is simply Sogo, has a problem. This is particularly the case with the Plaza Indonesia venue!

I went there after work to buy a few necessities, at least in terms of the lives of the Wife and I, and was unpleasantly surprised to find that the receipt on walking out was far more than I expected it to be. A quick skim of the receipt highlighted why. The prices marked on the shelves were way lower than what was coming up on the scanner.

This I pointed out to the girl on the check out. Her response was along the lines of, "Really! Oh well!" When I suggested to her that it was the equivalent of theft she thought I was kidding. I wonder how many people go through the checkout counter without ever checking whether the prices listed on the receipt.

The problem for me was that it was 21.30pm and if I was to stick to my guns then I was likely to be going home empty handed. A complaint to the manager has previously resulted in a, "Yeah, we will rectify the problem ASAP!" So, seeing I had already paid I continued on my now less than merry way.

For example, the following:

Pokka Jasmine Green Tea on the shelf was IDR 19,000 on the scanner it was IDR 25,100.

Oregon Pitted Dark Cherries on the shelf was IDR 22,500 and on the scanner it was IDR 24,900.

So, I guess this is a case of buyer beware.

Woodrow Wilson and Dreams

All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them, nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.

Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1925)
28th US President, 1913 - 1921

Henry David Thoreau and Books

How many a man [and a woman] has dated a new era in his [her] life from the reading of a book!

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
American Poet, Essayist, and Mystic

Is It Just A Cartoon?

I am not going to re-post the offending cartoons here. For no other reason than I did not bother to save them. I did not find them particularly funny and I did not see them as making any real political statement worthy of debating.

The issue for me is one of how seriously must this matter be dealt with? When does a cartoon cease being a cartoon and become something else that is worthy of this much debate? What are the legal implications and ramifications considering the government seems certain to pursue this to its conclusion?

The cartoons that were hosted on the Wordpress hosted blog depicted the Prophet and his wives. The accompanying text was written in Indonesian. Therefore, the assumption is that the blogger is Indonesian and that they are based here. I am not sure how this conclusion has been reached. Perhaps there is more information that has not been released to I have yet to see on this matter. I know quite a few non-Indonesians that can read, write, and speak in Indonesian.

The response to the cartoons has seen Wordpress close off the link. There has been demands that Wordpress divulge the identity of the blogger or perhaps information that might lead to the uncovering of the identity of the mysterious and currently anonymous blogger. There have been claims that if Wordpress does not provide this information that the Indonesian National Police Force's digital forensic squad will get in on the act and find the information itself.

However, it is the responses from others that are worthy of some consideration.

Muhammad Ismail Yusanto, spokesman for Hizbut Tahrir, has declared that shutting down access is not enough. The government must conduct a full investigation and when the blogger is uncovered he must be punished according to Islamic law and that the death penalty must apply once the blogger's guilt has been determined.

Hidayat Nur Wahid, who maintains a significant affiliation with the Prosperous Justice Party which he once chaired, has described the cartoons as "an act of terrorism against the Muslim people," and something that the authorities must deal with firmly.

So, I guess my question is, "when is a cartoon not just a cartoon?"

Mobile Phones and Nudes

My philosophy has always been that if you are going to take naked pictures of yourself, your spouse, your friends, or whoever on a mobile phone, then you want to take extra care not to lose your phone or leave it lying around in public places unattended.

However, this is not the case in Fayettville, Arkansas, where a Mr. Phillip Sherman left his mobile phone in McDonald's. Realizing his misfortune, he called the store and staff apparently agreed to secure the mobile phone until Sherman was able to return to collect it. Secure it they did. It would also seem that they checked out what was on Sherman's mobile phone and found some naked pictures of a woman, who is in fact Sherman's wife.

Theses pictures somehow found their way onto the Internet and their existence was made know to Sherman. In response for the embarrassment he and his wife have suffered, Sherman has filed suit seeking USD 3 million in damages. His claim is against McDonald's, the franchise owner for that part of the world, and the store manager. Sherman wants a jury trial. I am guessing he wants a jury trial because he feels that maybe 12 of his peers will be more sympathetic to his claim than a judge.

The moral of the story, if you are going to take naked pictures of people using your mobile phone then take extra care not to lose the thing! (the photo is from here)

Anonymous Blogging, Wordpress, and the Prophet

This story is a couple of days old and I have been too lazy to write about it before. However, I figured I should as I have recently made a presentation relating to the recently enacted Information and Electronic Transactions Law (ITE Law).

The story is that there is an anonymous blogger in town and they are posting a comic strip of the Prophet Muhammad which has riled the sensibilities of many Muslims. What caught my attention was the headline in the Jakarta Post which reads "Govt to pressurize Wordpress into disclosing blogger's ID". I am not sure that pressurize is the right word for this sentence. I am guessing that it is like terrorizing using pressure to get a pressurize situation.

The language choices aside, there are just a couple of points that are worth making here.

If you think that you are anonymous then make sure that you are smart enough to know how to use the technology to make it so. The government is demanding that Wordpress reveal the identity of the blogger because the content of the offending blog is deemed to be a cyber crime. The threat is that if Wordpress does not disclose the blogger's identity then the National Police Force's Digital Forensic Lab is going to get involved and uncover the blogger's identity themselves.

It seems that there is still a fair amount of road to be travelled in terms of what constitutes free speech and freedom of expression, particularly in light of Article 27 of the new ITE Law.

HIV / AIDS, Microchips, and Papua

The Papuan Provincial Government has drafted a Regional Regulation that includes an article that requires certain people living with HIV / AIDS to be micro-chipped. This seems to fly in the face of other measures that Indonesia has taken to reduce the stigma associated with being HIV positive. Indonesia has laws and regulations in place that make it illegal to discriminate against people living with HIV / AIDS in the work place and the general community.

The article defines "certain" people as being those that are "aggressive". Aggressive in the context of the regulation are those that are aggressively seeking out sexual partners and presumably spreading the virus without informing their prospective partners of their HIV status.

I am not sure how the microchips are going to prevent the aggressive individuals that are so micro-chipped from having sexual intercourse or infecting others. At best the microchips will allow authorities to track movements and general locations where these aggressive people are. I just do not see how the microchips will alert a potential victim to the HIV status of the micro-chipped person.

The idea of chipping aggressive people is just so subjective in nature that it is difficult to see how it can possibly work without falling foul of the constitutional provisions prohibiting discrimination. Who is to decide what constitutes aggressiveness and how is aggressiveness to be measured?

There is something that seems to be inherently wrong in tagging people within certain groups. I wonder how long it will be until there are regional regulations that require the micro-chipping of people from marginal groups such as the homeless, minority faiths, gays and lesbians, expatriates, to name but a few.

I am sensing that there will undoubtedly be plenty of concerned citizens and NGOs that will band together to challenge the validity of the regional regulation. Tagging people is just wrong, at least, to my mind.

A Liquor Shortage for Jakarta

I do not go out all that often and I am guessing that I will probably not be going out at all for the foreseeable future with "The Kid" being born in a mere six days from now. However, I did notice recently that the price of my regular vodka & cranberry has almost doubled in price in just over a week. I just figured this was a trickle down on the imploding global economy that is being propped up by various bail out packages throughout the world. But, alas, it has more to do with a liquor shortage.

Probably more specifically it has to do with the sudden ratcheting-up of excise or duties on imported alcohol that now sees some 60 containers of liquor sitting idly in some Indonesian ports. The duty on the imported alcohol sitting in Indonesian ports is 300% apparently and importers are refusing to cough up and pay the higher duties. This is but part of the problem. The Government also imposes a quota on imported alcohol. This is designed to protect local producers from the market power of big multinational alcoholic beverage producers.

Nevertheless, standard fare is that this quota is usually tapped out by mid-year and the lack of further imports leads to plenty of smuggled liquor and other less than legal mechanisms of getting more imported liquor into the market.

The end result is that this is likely to make business difficult for places that sell alcohol as people are likely to be much more discerning when it comes to drinking and how much they drink. A three-drink night may well become a one-drink night and an early night at that. The trickle down effect is likely to not only impact the bottom lines of the businesses but also the people that they support, such as staff.

It looks like I will be saving some money.