tHiNkEr’S rOoM

Following is the CNN.com home page as at 14:15 East African time.

Highlighted in red are stories that actually affect the price of tomatoes.

The proliferation of green are mentions of Paris Hilton.

Kinda gives you a sense of where our priorities lie, doesn’t it?

AOB

He he! Looks like I’m not the only one tired of these overused buzzwords!

AO AOB

It is unfortunate stories like these that leave me in little doubt it will be a cold day in hell, with flying swine, before America elects Barack Obama to be their president. Unless of course the votes are counted in Florida

PIC OF THE DAY

SPECIAL MENTION

Penmachine is a moving blog, from Derek, a guy who’s been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. With the blogosphere full of  smoke and mirrors about “the power of blogging” and “the cornflakes I ate for breakfast”, this one actually gives you some quite humbling food for thought.

All the best guy. Not quite sure what else to say.

 Notorious B.I.G - Juicy

A concerned citizen over at Mzalendo drew my attention to the following article, reproduced in its entirety from the Nation, September 15 issue of 2003

Two Narc MPs yesterday supported the outlawed Mungiki sect and called upon police not to harass its members.

Tigania East MP Peter Munya and his Subukia counterpart Koigi wa Wamwere were addressing a rally in Limuru Town attended mostly by followers of the sect.

“Mungiki members are Kenyans and should not be harassed unnecessarily by the police. Instead, they should be absorbed into the force and the military,” Mr Wamwere said to the wildly cheering, snuff-taking group which had earlier entertained the meeting with poetry, song and dance.

For the uninformed, Koigi wa Wamwere is an assistant minister in the  Communications ministry

Mr Munya regretted that the sect had been associated with the recent violence that hit some city slums and other parts of the country. The sect was also accused of being behind the frequent turf wars on matatus routes.

The regretful Peter Munya is an assistant minister in the ministry of Internal Security, tasked with protecting us from the same Mungiki who are beheading us.

Mungiki members, who support female circumcision and a return to some Kikuyu traditions, are also known for weapon wielding and long unkempt hair.

Members from different parts of the country were ferried to the venue in at least 100 matatus and were led by their national chairman, Mr Maina Njenga.

Mr Njenga vied for the Laikipia East parliamentary seat in the last elections, but was beaten by Mr G.G. Kariuki.

I shudder at the thought that the Mungiki head almost became a Member of Parliament! Just imagine if he ended up in the Internal Security Ministry!

When Mr Wamwere and Mr Munya arrived, they were offered snuff by the sect officials. All except Mr Wamwere, turned down the offer.

Hmm …

At the end of the rally, the Kamirithu grounds was filled with discarded dry banana leaf used to carry the snuff. 

The meeting resolved that the issue of prime minister should not be discussed at the Bomas of Kenya or at Parliament.

This article leaves me speechless when I contemplate a couple of issues

• Why are Mungiki sympathizers in positions of authority in the government, rising to full assistant minister?
• How can a sympathizer of the Mungiki have a position of authority in an institution tasked with dealing with the threat of the Mungiki ?
• How can I take a government that has such people in their ranks seriously when it talks about commitment to law and order and ensuring the safety of its people?
• It is an insult to our collective intelligence if said government fondly believes that anything can be hidden forever.
• How is it that we as Kenyans forget such things and elect the same people back into office, and then act outraged when Mungiki runs riot over us with impunity. Our collective amnesia will continue to be the bane of us. Are we doomed to always be doofuses?

 Sting & The Police - Roxanne

My opinion of Safaricom is not favorable. I deeply resent giving so much of my money to a company that offers such mediocre service. Their customer care is hapless. It is always a pleasant surprise when their services work as advertised. I’d decamp in an instant but like a bad habit am bound to MJ and his company by a variety of reasons, professional and personal.

During the course of my work and play I make heavy use of some of their services

• Telephony
• SMS
• GSM data
• GPRS

Grief from all the above. Especially the GPRS.

The other day I discovered there is a group of Kenyans that are descended from Spartans. These are the Safaricom Advantage customers, hereafter called the 300. Long suffering yet patient. Doggedly returning again and again to the battlefield that is the Safaricom arena. As a member of this hapless tribe, let me tell you what you are entitled to

1. Your own queue. Upon entering any Safaricom office, say Shankardass house, instead of joining the absurdly long queue to the left, join the absurdly long queue to the right
2. Your own cashiers. Two. Despite the fact that there are 8 cashier’s desks, Safaricom seem to believe in Newton’s law of conservation of energy, and only two are staffed at any one time.
3. One of these cashiers will generally have the temerity to ask you (after you have waited 45 minutes to get to the front of the queue) to LEAVE the queue, join a second queue for the customer care desks to establish your customer number), rejoin the queue for another 30 minutes and then settle your dues. After I was told this the first time there was a lengthy stunned silence from me. “Woman,” I finally said grimly to her, “I shall do no such thing!”
4. Rather than toe the line and bill customers based on actual usage, Safaricom’s billing system relies on the position of the sun vis a vis the earth and Mars, the humidity in Papua New Guinea and the texture of chicken feathers. It is a pleasant surprise when what Safaircom claim you owe and what you actually owe are kissing cousins. Last month I checked my balance within the space of five minutes. The first time it said 12,563 and the second - 2,456
5. The flying stork that delivers your monthly bills reliably falls ill and absconds from duty. I received my March, April and May bills at the same time.
6. Customer care that can be counted on to reliably listen to your litany of problems and then equally reliably be counted on to be unable to do anything about your problem

Tired of wildly fluctuating bills, I was informed of a Safaricom online billing system. I did not expect much of it and it did not disappoint

Let us start with the page to access  this facility, shall we?

The terms of service contain some questionable grammar and facts.

e. “System Requirements” means the minimum software specifications that you must have on Any computer that you intend to use to access the Service these are Windows Explorer Ver. 5.5 Or higher version, or Netscape Navigator version 6 or Higher Version, WinZip ver 6.0 or higher Version;

It is news to me, and certainly to Microsoft, that

1. There is a Windows Explorer version 5.5
2. It can access the Internet

This is windows explorer

For all ye of little faith:

This, on the other hand, is Internet Explorer

But let me not split hairs and progress straight to the meat and potatoes.

Clicking the link to register brings you the following (Click to zoom):

If you look at the red bar, IE is complaining about some certificate error.If you click the shield, you get the following message:

Note the part “this problem may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server”.

This does not seem to be in agreement with the assurance Safaricom made on earlier on:

3) Although we have developed an encrypted environment for the Service, please be advised that the Security and confidentiality of any information going over the Internet and or via email can not be Guaranteed and therefore you accept that we will not be liable to you for any losses, claims and or Damages arising from any breach of security and or confidentiality occurring over email and or over the Internet.

Uh huh

Let us now have a look at the certificate in question, by clicking View Certificates

This dialog says very many things

1. Safaricom does not take security seriously. This is a no-no for a company of this size
2. There is no guarantee your credentials that you keyed in are going to Safaricom. They could be ending up somewhere in Belarus
3. Even the lazy man’s test certificate, that takes all of a few seconds to generate, expired last year

Even after ignoring all this I doggedly rushed forwards with the registration to be ground to a halt by the following error

And yet, somehow, they manage to make 17 billion in profits.

Just imagine if it was an organized, customer focused company delivering quality service!

GROAN OF THE DAY

Man #1: Is PMS post menstrual stress or pre menstrual stress?
Man #2: It doesn’t matter. RUN!!!

 Bruce Springsteen - Secret Garden’

Ignorance, it is said is bliss. And if that be so, when it comes to the issue of women, many of my lads can be described as being in a perpetual state of catatonic joy. When I say, for instance, that few things are as formidable as the woman they laugh me out of town. No man knoweth precisely what lies behind that dimpled smile and demure expression.

Things are additionally compounded when you introduce the concept of exes being just friends. I have written a paper on the same, and I like to think now, more than ever, it is still relevant.

Take for example Geoffrey Jones. Blissfully ignorant that he was rushing headlong towards doom, he arrived at a party fully optimistically and departed from the same partially testically.

Wiser ones among us may have left after this:

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when Geoffrey Jones, 37, rejected her advances at the end of a house party, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

But Geoffrey, with soon to be halved nutty perseverance, foolishly soldiered bravely on

She pulled off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, before spitting it out.

In a paroxysm of passion she tried to emasculate Geoffrey even with his trousers on

In his statement, Mr Jones said she grabbed his genitals and “pulled hard”. He added: “That caused my underpants to come off and I found I was completely naked and in excruciating pain.”

The story also illustrated clearly that a friend in indeed is not the one in need, it is the one that hands you back your testicles.

The court heard that a friend saw Monti put Mr Jones’s testicle into her mouth and try to swallow it. She choked and spat it back into her hand before the friend grabbed it and gave it back to Mr Jones. Doctors were unable to re-attach the organ.

I challenge you if your friends can do this for you.

Naturally, Amanda is contrite in the end.

“It was never my intention to cause harm to Geoff and the fact that I have caused him injury will live with me forever. I am in no way a violent person.”

This is a touch sell with testicular evidence on the carpet.

She continues to say

I have challenged myself to explain what has happened but still I just cannot remember. This has caused much anguish to me and will do for the rest of my life

Not as much anguish as Geoffrey I’d imagine!

PIC OF THE DAY

This is the sort of limo the Kibaki Administration should be looking at

 Brownstone - Pass The Lovin’

The police has released a statement with regards to the explosion that took place earlier.

This morning at about 08:15 hrs, a small explosion occurred outside the City Gate Restaurant situation along Moi Avenue outside the city centre. One person was killed and over 30 others were injured. Doctors have confirmed that none of the injuries is life threatening.

Presently, police investigators are pursuing promising leads to ascertain the identity of the perpetrators and possible motives(s) that led to this incident. To begin with, a post mortem is conducted to assist in investigations over the precise cause of death and samples will be sent for further investigations both in local and foreign laboratories.

Additionally, explosives experts and other forensics detectives are going on with investigations. So far, debris from the scene is being examined for traces of explosives. Police are recording statements from persons who were at the scene.

Initial investigations show that the source of the explosion was extremely small. At the scene, only glass windows within a two metre radius were shattered, and injuries sustained are relatively minor. A public service commuter bus which was at the scene had its windscreen shattered and has been driven off to the police yard for further investigations. No traces of combustion or high explosives were detected at the scene.

We understand and appreciate the need to solve such cases expeditiously to allay public concerns that quite often are fanned by rumours or distorted information. It is, however, prudent to be realistic and recognise that all investigations take time. As I told you in my two other press briefings earlier today, we shall periodically provide briefings and updates without jeopardising the conduct of investigations.

I wish to thank all the emergency services for their prompt action, and particularly thank Kenyatta National Hospital, St. John’s Ambulance and others. In a nutshell, our disaster management procedures worked well. Most importantly we are appealing to any person with any information on this incident to contact the police as soon as possible.

Read it in its original form from the Office Of The Government Spokesman site.

Today has just illustrated the double edged nature of pervasive communication like blogs, email and text messaging. There is no doubt that these platforms are powerful tools for communicating information. There is also no doubt that they are powerful tools for spreading disinformation. The rumours and innuendo that have gotten to me have left me speechless. Some of the accounts have received indicate hundreds dead and the whole block leveled. Blame has been laid at the doors of Al Qaeda, clumsily detonated grenades, Mungiki, time bombs, electronically detonated bombs and mobile phone detonated bombs.

Mail servers have been forwarding all these conflicting accounts all day. Many bloggers have wasted no time posting some of these theorems as fact. Safaricom ad Celtel have made a killing today relaying text messages.

What we don’t seem to realize is that:

1. The cause of the explosion is yet to be confirmed by those in the know. These happen to be the police. Not the papers. Not the Internet. Not the FM Stations. The police. Regardless of your opinion of them, of all the authorities to listen to, they should be the first.
2. Forwarding these rumours of suicide bombers has unnecessarily caused many people to panic
3. If it turns out the explosion was a mere gas cylinder, the damage will already have been done. Once you put something on the Internet, there it stays. For instance, do a search for suicide bombers Kenya or suicide bomber Nairobi and see what turns up. Since it is already apparent that sensationalism generally wins over facts, our reputation will have been needlessly sullied
4. Blogs, email and text messages, while lending themselves to informing, also lend themselves to abuse.

Until I hear official facts to the contrary, I will hold the opinion that if you emailed, texted or blogged about the explosion crediting it as a suicide bomber/Mungiki/Al Qaeda or any other explanation that has yet to be confirmed, you did yourself, your loved ones and your country a disservice. 

[8:59]

Apparently a explosion has gone off near Ambassadeur hotel in Nairobi. No news as yet on the casualties. There are a lot of rumours going on now that it is

• A bomb
• A suicide bomber
• A gas cylinder

Other than the explosion itself, nothing has been confirmed, so resist the urge to spread rumours!!!

Of course the news scared the crap after me seeing as I had just give my brother a lift and dropped him off in town but mercifully he’s OK.

[9:08]

It seems there has been at least one fatal casualty

[9:24]

The injured are currently about 10. The entire area has been cordoned off. Rumours that it was a bomb or a suicide bomber are getting stronger and stronger but still there is no confirmation.

More as it develops…

[11:13]

Additional information indicate police on the scene say the explosion could have been caused by a suicide bomber. Again, “could have“. This is not a conformation. We await a comprehensive official statement from the Police themselves to confirm anything. Until then I urge everyone, and in particular bloggers to resist the temptation to spread juicy sounding, scary rumours that may have grave repercussions if they turn out to be unfounded. Until we have established for a fact that it was a suicide bomber, let us not treat the innuendo and rumours as fact.

Now is the time for prudence and responsibility to rule, not gossip and sensationalism.

[12:20]

the Ministry of Health has set up emergency blood donation centers at the Reinsurance Plaza grounds (opposite Uchumi House/ Nairobi cinema) and the Cooperative House (the former US Embassy/ bomb blast site).

Images

The site

A victim (deliberately blurred)

All credit to the person who took the photos. Don’t know the exact source (not me)

[6:40]

An official statement from the Police has been released. Read it HERE. An important section reads as follows:

A public service commuter bus which was at the scene had its windscreen shattered and has been driven off to the police yard for further investigations. No traces of combustion or high explosives were detected at the scene.

More Information

Reuters Alert Net

Nation (currently down)

East African Standard

Al Jazeera

Office Of The Government Spokesman Initial Statement

BBC

CNN

Police & Government Official Statement

A google search for Paris Hilton

A google search for Darfur

That’s right. There is almost FIVE TIMES as much content about some nebulous nobody than one of the biggest tragedies every to befall this earth. We pay more attention to issues of nuisance value than serious catastrophes that we could avoid but don’t. Colour me surprised!

PIC OF THE DAY

© AP 

Somehow I doubt Serena Williams has ever been mugged

 Mangwair & Jay Mo - Kimya Kimya