Going green

This week the United Nations held a climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia. The goal of this conference is to bring together representatives from all countries and agree on a roadmap to fight climate change.

Climate change is a topic on everyone mind these days. It seems that the latest trend involves involves "being green" - environmentally friendly. Governments, corporations, individuals are all making an effort to reduce their impact on the environment. So, I would also like to announce my effort that I am making to become more environmentally friendly.

A pet peeve of mine is the unnecessary printing at work. I notice people consistently printing emails, articles, and books, which could be easily read from their computer screen (don't even start me on the misuse of colour printing). Now, I tend to read a lot of tutorials on the Internet for configuring applications so it is convenient for me to print out the article and follow the instructions, but once I am done with it, I end up recycling the article.

I have decided to not print anything unless it is required for documentation. I have found that setting up another monitor (dual monitor) has made it easy for me to avoid printing articles.


The nice thing with a dual monitor is you can drag and drop applications between the monitors, basically you have increased the allowable space for your monitor by 2. If your interested in setting it up, you can follow the instructions here. Now, you may argue that another monitor requires extra energy, but I do shut it down when I leave work and as the picture above indicates, I am focusing right now on saving the trees :)

Are you loonie?

One of the biggest stories this year in Canada has been the rise of the Canadian dollar. It is currently trading at $1.06 US. No one would have thought this would be possible when the dollar was trading at above sixty cents US five years ago. The rise in the price of oil (almost $94.45 US a barrel) and strong commodities has helped pushed the loonie above par against the American greenback. However, the biggest reason of this surge is due to the weakness in the US dollar, which has been caused by a slumping housing market.

In recent months, there has been a public outcry from consumers over the lack of adjustment in retail prices in Canada. Many consumers are spending their money across the border in Buffalo, where wait times are about two hours. Financial advisor's are advising people to exchange their money before they cross the border to avoid the "American exchange rate, i.e. one-for-one. You will also find out that when you exchange money at the bank, they will charge you a 2.5% service charge, so you will never get the current rate.

A high loonie is bad news for some people, such as those who are in the manufacturing sector, which is an export-drive business. Importers now found the price of goods in Canada are more expensive and will look at other places to import similar goods. A recent article in the Toronto Star talked about the effect of salaries on European basketball players who are paid in US dollars. The Toronto Raptors center, Rasho Nesterovic signed an 8 million dollar per year contract which was paid in US dollars two years ago. He spends his off-season in Europe, so he converts that money into Euros. That same contract is now worth 1.5 million dollars less after the exchange rate.

The majority of Canadians feel a sense of pride over the rise of the loonie. When Canadians visited the US previously, Americans always felt that their currency was superior to the Canadian dollar. Now, the tables have turned, and it is not clear how long it will lost. However, I will not stay silent and will let our neighbors to the south know the value of their dollar :)

History of the middle east

Flash presentation on the history of the Middle East.

Islam and science

As I waited in the airport lounge for my usual delayed Air Canada flight, I went over to the newspaper stand and tried to busy myself by staring through all the magazines in a store. The usual gossip and fashion tips filled most of the magazines that I saw, but one magazine headline grabbed my attention ... "Science and Islam in Conflict". This article was displayed in a scientific magazine called Discover. So, I decided to educate myself with this article and forgo my Hollywood fix, which I really don't care about anyways although it can be amusing.

The article talks about the relationship of Islam and science in three countries in the Middle East: Egypt, Tunisia, and Jordan. The Arab world has gone through many transitions, from socialism, nationalization, to a religious identity. The author attempts to associate scientific growth in the Arab world to the lack of piety among the citizens, often citing convenient examples and not exploring examples of success such as Malaysia, a strong Muslim government with a growing economy.

The biggest problem in the Arab world is the blame attributed towards the West rather than taking responsibility for their own actions. Muslim societies are close-minded, not open to new ideas, criticizing anything that resembles being "Western". In the article, the Egyptian scientist El-Najjer is quoted as saying:

“We are not behind because of Islam,” he says. “We are behind because of what the Americans and the British have done to us.”

This type of thinking does nothing to help alleviate the suffering of the people and stunts growth by giving people excuses for their failures. Political instability and religion intolerance have been the key factors causing the lack of scientific growth within the Muslim world. The Muslim world was at one time the center of learning throughout the world, where many researchers would come and learn. However, many of the top people have migrated to countries with more educational support without people coming the other way.

The Arab/Muslim world needs to balance their religious views with science, allowing for innovation within the boundaries outlined in the Quran. Waheed Badawy, a chemistry professor at Cairo university summarizes this point nicely, he says:

Islam has no problems with science, Nobody can just write what he thinks without proof. (For example) But we have real proof that the story of Adam as the first man is true. It’s written in the Koran.”

Are you Canadian?

As of January 23rd, 2007, Canadians are now required to have a passport to travel to the United States and vice versa. Canadians have been rushing to the passport office to get their passports, some even getting them for the first time. Unfortunately, those first-timers have learned that due to an obscure provision in the Citizenship act that states, if you lived outside Canada on your 24th birthday between 1947 and 1977 and did not fill the right form, you lost your citizenship.

For the complete article, click here.

I hope these "Canadians" do not feel any less Canadian, but what does it really mean to be Canadian? Canadians really do not have a "got to eat meal" like other places around the world, unless you count Tim Hortons. I wonder not having a "got to eat meal" is substituted by having a collection of "got to eat meals" from around the world, due to our multiculturalism, which I believe is what makes Canada stand out from the rest of the countries. Anyways, not sure if any of what I wrote made sense, but there is something Canadian I will be enjoying tonight, which is the NHL All-star game. It will feature the best player in the game (arguments will be accepted), Mr. Sidney Crosby, let's hope he puts on a show.

Sleepover at 24 Sussex Drive

Check out this snippet of Rick Mercer's sleepover at the Prime ministers house. Very entertaining! You can check out the full video here.

Heroic mother

Have you ever been in a situation where you feared for your life or felt fortunate to have survived a situation. I had those types of flashbacks today when I read this article in the Toronto Star. It is a heroic story about a young mother who risked her life to save her daughter stuck inside a car indulged in flames. Her quick reaction saved herself and her child's life.

I have had my share of moments that I am thankful to have survived, consider the following:

• Driving on the 407 ETR, my car slipped and did a 180 across three lanes. My car was not hit nor did I hit anything.
  
• Driving in a Boston winter snowstorm, where snow was coming down faster than my windshield wipers could clean them.
  
• Getting lost in South Philly

During the heat of the moment, you only think about surviving and later reflect back and ponder the "what if" situation. I am sure we have all had similar moments in our lives and are thankful to God for helping us. These moments can be a life changing event, giving us greater appreciation for life. I definitely did during my moments of fear and am sure that the mother and child do too.

Who is your prime minister?

Canadians always complain about the lack of respect we get from our neighbour's south of the border. If a Canadian story is shown on CNN or some other U.S. broadcast, it becomes a Canadian news story that a Canadian story made it onto an U.S. news broadcast. Canadians are known as the little brother or sister (I shall be politically correct ... Thank you) that is always seeking attention from the big brother or sister, being the United States. This lack of respect shown towards Canadians from our American counterparts has not gone away.

Here is a snippet from Scott McClellan, the US press secretary when responding to a question about the Cancun summit this week.

"The president had a good discussion with prime minister Martin yesterday. That was the call that prime minister Martin had initiated really to thank the president on behalf of the people of Canada for the efforts of our coalition forces."
...
This will be the president's first meeting with Prime Minister Harper since he took office. He had met with him briefly previously when he was the Opposition leader."
...
"The president looks forward to visiting with prime minister Martin and strengthening our relations."

The press secretary got our prime ministers name confused a few times in this speech. I expect these kinds of things from Dubya, but not from the press secretary. Are Bushisms out and McClellanisms on the rise, only time will tell.

Oz ... The critic

As the majority of us were absorbed this week reading the controversy surrounding the cartoons printed in the Danish newspaper, some of you may have missed the Academy award nominations. Now, I am not a frequent movie watcher, neither have I seen the majority of the movies nominated, but when I heard several nominations for The Constant Gardener, I thought I share my thoughts on this movie that I just watched.

Before you read on, I must warn you that I have been told that my movie recommendations stink. For this I remain apologetic because these same people who criticize my recommendations also watch Bollywood movies. Now, I will never recommend a Bollywood movie because I find them boring and predictable. If you have never seen a Bollywood movie, it can be summarized easily:

Parents are trying to force girl to marry rich evil guy probably called Raj
Girl finds other guy that she wants to marry during a scene where they chase each other around a tree
Parents disapprove of guy and father yells at girl during a thunderstorm
After a sing and dance, parents finally approve guy that girl likes.

Fortunately, The Constant Gardener has a lot more substance than a Bollywood movie. The plot evolves around an activist who uncovers a conspiracy involving clinical testing of a new drug on people in Africa, who are unaware that they are being use as test subjects.

My interest in this subject was sparked after watching this movie. I have learned a great deal about the unethical actions of huge corporations in third-world countries. It is unfortunate that a companies stock price is more important than fatality rates in a third-world country.

More election talk and blog poll

UPDATE (1/18/2005): Check out a satire look of the election ads presented by Rick Mercer here. Especially the Youth vote bit, I could not stop laughing.

I have been struggling to come up with an interesting non-election topic for a new post (most people find politics boring). I have been wrestling with a few topics in my mind, but nothing good enough to post about. I know you are all probably interested in hearing about my potential topics, so I have created a poll, where you can vote for the topic that is most interesting to you (or I may vote myself to fix the poll results). Check out my poll here.

Since I must post and the recent Liberal ads are interesting, that will be the topic for my post. The latest Liberal ads are a last-ditch effort to scare voters from the Conservatives by portraying Stephen Harper as this evil man, who will take over the world if he becomes prime minister.

I can subconsciously hear "Muhahahahha" as the ad plays. The funniest thing about these ads is that they take the worst picture of the candidate to show during the ad. If someone wanted to run an attack ad about me, they would probably take a picture of me from grade three where I had glasses half the size of my face.

Although, the intention of these Liberal attack ads are obvious, the content is still interesting.

• Liberals argued that a Harper government would "increase military presence in our cities.
• He refuses to reveal his donors. What do you suppose he's hiding?

This article in the Globe and Mail has a complete listing of all of the recent ads and the counter-argument presented by the Conservatives. All I can say is that politics is a dirty game being played by each party and I have a feeling that this game will not end anytime soon.

Election talk

Election Day is quickly approaching us on January 23rd, and all you will hear now on television and radio until the election date are attacks on other party’s policies and promises that will likely be broken anyways.

Recently, I happened to stumble upon a debate between members of my riding. My initial reaction to watching a couple of these people debating was:

How did they become nominated to represent their party?

It was pretty obvious that some of these people have never run in an election. I don't want to sound too critical, but I doubt some of these people would be taken seriously in parliament if elected.

There was one person in this debate who caught my attention. During his closing argument, he read with his head down from a piece of paper. He started his speech off with a proclamation of

I love Canada!!!

As he finished off his speech, he pronounced youth as "gu-youth", rarely bringing his head up to look into the camera. I am by no means an expert on public speaking, but I know that reading from a piece of paper in a monotonic voice will not go over will your audience.

I am wondering how easy it is now to become nominated to run in an election for your local riding. In my riding, certain candidates have been appointed by the party leader without going through the party nomination process. Another candidate is a 24 year-old university student. It seems the party representative is irrelevant anyways, since most people vote for the party or party leader rather than the local party representative.

I have already decided whom I am voting for, since one candidate clearly stands out as a better choice. Discussing the election with other people, below is a list of what people have been telling me:

• I want to vote Conservative but I don't like Stephen Harper.
• The Liberals need to punished, and am not voting for them.
• I am happy financially, and don't want change, therefore sticking with current government.
• I want to vote NDP, but I don't want the Conservatives to win, so I will vote Liberal.

Whomever, you decide to vote for, make sure you vote. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where we can actually vote.

Reflections on 2005

As the current year winds down, the media reminds us of the events that have made headlines this past year. These headlines are usually presented through top ten lists. Most of these lists are predictable and uninteresting but I did find one that we may all enjoy.

So the tallies are in and the most memorable phrase of 2005 goes to:

Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job [George Bush]

"Brownie" being the last name of the former FEMA Chief Mike Brown, who resigned amid public uproar over his handling of the aid to New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

In sports, especially hockey it is quite common to add an "ie" to the end of a first or last name. So Mats Sundin will be called "Mattie" or Mikael Tellqvist is called "Tellie". In basketball, you take the first initial of your first name and some part of your last name to give yourself a nickname. For example, Tracy Mcgrady is T-Mac.

Suddenly, I now have the following nicknames:

• Ozzie
• Sheikie (She-key)
  
• O-She (Yoshi)

My true nickname/alias is Jose Shake. The first name Jose is because everytime I say my name to someone in the United States, they always interpret Ozair as Jose, since they have never heard of Ozair before and Jose is common. I personally do not think these two names sound similar. The last name Shake because that is the proper way of saying my last name.

Both Junaid and I did have a previous entry about Bushims so I don't have much to add, but I leave off my last post of 2005 with my favorite Bushisms as mentioned in this article.

• "I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?" Bush asked in a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a U.N. Security Council meeting in September.
• "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table," Bush said in Brussels last February.
• "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law," Bush said in describing illegal immigrants in Tucson, Arizona, last month.

Have a happy new solar year and extra leap second.

Some Wounds Cannot be Healed

The images from the earthquake in northwest Pakistan I have seen in the newspaper and on the news in the past few days are heart-breaking. Generation of families have been lost and the conditions for the living are getting worse.

I talked to my relatives in Pakistan who live in Islamabad and Rawalpindi and they relayed a similar message of devastation and heartbreak in northwest Pakistan. They talked about how young men in their neighborhood would pack their cars with clothes and tents to take to the people effected. However, roads to the effected cities are blocked. There is a feeling of helplessness felt by local residents, which we all feel around the world.

The World has experienced 3 huge natural disasters in the past year. From the devastation caused by the Tsunami last year in Indonesia, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans a few months ago, and now the earthquake in northwest Pakistan. These natural disasters all share in common the fact that most of the effected people are poor. Throughout all of the pain and suffering of these people, they remarkably possess gratefulness.

We thank Allah, it could have been much worse. Do pray for us. [Survivor]

We can all learn from this disaster. Too often in our lives we take so much for granted in this world and become focused on our material goals. But, it can all be taken away in a heart-beat, as we have seen this past year. Please help support the relief efforts by donating to a relief organization.

Huge Earthquake Hits South Asia

Early this morning in South Asia, a powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit near the Pakistan-India border.

Alhumdulillah, I talked to my relatives living in Islamabad and they are doing fine. However, there continues to be aftershocks and fear still remains among everyone. While talking to my family, they told us that the ground was still shaking.

I pray that anyone who has family in that region is doing alright. My prayers and condolences go out to everyone who is suffering.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

A recent BBC report rated Toronto as one of the top 10 cities to live in the world. I personally agree that Toronto is a world class city, but the violence that has occurred this summer is one we would all like to forget. The evening news was filled with stories of countless drive-by shootings, gang-related violence and random acts of violence. Most of the people involved were young males in their late teens and early 20's. There has been discussion within the community on how to solve the problem with gun violence and fighting in-between gangs, but not much progress has been made. Others like to blame our problems on the United States and their relaxed gun laws. In Canada, it is very difficult to own a gun, so many gangs resort to smuggling guns in from the United States.

I do not have a solution to this issue, but I believe that there are factors that contribute to this problem. I believe one of those factors is the rap music industry. Although, this opinion may sound like it is coming from left-field, let me further clarify.

In high-school, the friends whom you have share a common interest in Music would typically become your crew. I would remember seeing different groups like the rockers, goths, desis's who listened to Bollywood music and hip-hoppers. The group of hip-hoppers would present themselves similar to rappers who produce rap music. From the way they dress to the way they talk. I am not stating here that rap music is a direct cause of violence in Toronto, but the culture it presents through it's lyrics does influence youths. I am also not saying all rap music is bad, but it seems like the popular artists among the youth are the ones that boast about pimping, drinking and violence. Will eliminating rap music solve all our problems ? Probably not, but I do think it deserves some of the blame.

Being Misquoted

We are often misquoted in life, either accidently or intentionally. Politicians often say they are misquoted to backtrack from an accidental statement they have made to the media. Either to protect their reputation, or redeem themselves from offending a person or group of people.

Then there are times when you wish someone you were talking to could be misquoted. I often get stuck sitting by one of my uncles in a family gathering. The following is the conversation that ensues:

Uncle: You know that [insert country here] is a puppet of the USA
Me: How do you know? What is your proof or rationale?
Uncle: You are young, you don't understand like I do. The media is propaganda. I know everything about politics.
Me: But ... But ....
Uncle: See, you have no reply

Recently, Christian conservative Pat Robertson made news for his call to assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. His statements were dismissed by the US government. Later, Mr. Robertson said that he was misquoted:

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping;

If you read his original statement, he is caught on tape saying the word assassination. So, let me break this down. Assassinate means "take him out", which means kidnapping ... umm, like what?

I finish off this blog entry in misquoted style:

This is the best blog entry you have ever read, if not, I will "financially" compensate you. ;-)

Addicted to Email

I have already realized the benefits of blogging. Blogs make it easier to find news and views from sources most relevant to me.

The Internet is overwhelmed with information, and finding information to ones needs and taste can be quite difficult. How many times have you asked someone to send you a link to a news article, "How to" Web page or a funny picture. When I want to share information with others, I send out a mass email to everyone. But, really how many times do we read an article received from email. Especially, if it is an religious email, those emails are usually longer, and we feel guilty if we don't read them. Like, it is haram to delete them. My friends typically will follow-up after sending a religious email. Here is a typical conversation.

Religious email dude: Brother, did you read the email I sent you. What beautiful words of Allah.
Me: Sorry bro, I have been busy with work, have not had time to read it.
Religious email dude: You do not have time for this deen and Allah, but have time for work. Astagfirillah brother, this is the problem with this umaah, no one seems to care about propagating this deen.
Me: (In my head) Remember to add Religious email dude email address to junk email list.

The most interesting fact is that we love email. I admit, I check email atleast 2-3 times a day. At work, when I get an email (work or personal), I stop whatever I'm doing to read the new email. If the email is not a picture or a simple paragraph, I do not even bother reading it. The fact is that we all love to receive email, but not read them.

Switching to a completely different topic, and the original intention of my post.
Hurricane Katrina is the most popular news topic these days, and lots of information and articles are out there. Here is a summary of the most interesting that I have found.

• Race and bias in the media in pictures.
• New Orleans Mayor responds to Hurricane Katrina
• Kanye West speaks out against relief effort
• Andersen Cooper yells at Louisiana senator
• An opinion out of left-field, Fox News Bill O'Reilly suggests his reason as to why people did not leave New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.