On comments

I have been cross posting my blog entries on my Blog and The Beaches Cycling club, hey if I take the time to write something, might as well expose as much of the rest of the World as possible to my deranged thought"processes", why should Lesley have all the fun?

Normally I am not entirely confident anyone actually reads what I say, I get so few comments I often wonder if I should just give up. So recent feedback was especially gratifying. But what I also want to point out is what amh said. In particular, that the bike lane on Eastern Ave. was established to prevent the invasion of Walmart.

Now understand I watched The High Cost of Low Prices and I am as disgusted by corporate America as the next angry socialist. The greed that drives Wall Street - and Bay Street, is appalling, particularly in light of a recession inducing credit crunch caused by greed in the C level offices. But it does seem inappropriate to me to use bike lanes as a mechanism for traffic or even worse, commercial development control. Ultimately, if used inappropriately, the non-users, or in this case car drivers will just drive right along the unnecessary bike lane, and then who knows, they might start driving in necessary bike lanes as well.

So in short, while I think bike lanes are a good thing generally, I think there needs to be more moderation in the application of such things. (Then again nothing about cars is moderated so maybe an excess of bike lanes is a good thing?)

Anyway I came across something in the Huffington Post that I found so interesting I am copying and pasting it here, but the original article can be read here.

The late Edward R. Murrow, the most respected name ever in broadcast journalism, were attracting attention — especially Murrow who with his movie-star good looks, could have been a matinee idol, but, fortunately for us and the world at large didn't. A keen mind and a way with words led him to radio and then to television where I was privileged to be associated with him as the director of his and Fred Friendly's winner of just about every award in broadcasting — "See It Now" — as well as producing and directing his year-end specials and his coverage, 56 years ago, of Queen Elizabeth's coronation...the kinescope of which (film recorded off the tube before video tape burst on the scene) was edited by the two of us during what was then an eleven-hour trip across the Atlantic on a chartered British Airways trans Atlantic propeller-driven airliner stripped of a couple of dozen or so of its seats and replaced with what were called "movieolas" to edit what were called "kinescopes" (film recorded by cameras focused on the screen) ready to be aired when we touched down in Boston. Why Boston? We were in a race with NBC to be the first on the air with footage of the Coronation and landing in Boston and airing it from the airport instead of from a studio, gave us a head start.

[...]

Today, the TV techs are virtual wizards at getting us on the air in a flash — even from the moon — which is nothing short of amazing. What is also "nothing short of amazing" is how much unadulterated drivel finds its way onto the tube.

Leave it to Murrow to say that without using television to teach, illuminate and inspire "it is nothing more than wires and lights in a box."

- Don Hewitt

I wish there were more journalists like Ed Murrow and fewer like Judith Miller.

On Cryogenics

According to the Wikipedia article "In physics, cryogenics is the study of the production of very low temperature (below –150 °C, –238 °F or 123 K)". According to Environment Canada the temperature in Toronto today was in fact not cryogenic, a balmy 259K. Except I observed liquefied Helium rolling down the street and up the sides of buildings, which tells us it was no warmer than 4.2K or -269 °C. Okay it was not that cold, but it was cold!

Now I am a firm believer in the importance of layers, I had five layers around my core, four layers around my arms, three around my hands, three on my feet, one on my legs, even my face was covered in what Lesley has charitably described as a bank robber mask, something Louis Garneau calls an Optimum but the rest of us call a balaclava, under the helmet. By the time I got to the office I thought I was going to loose body parts from the cold. Breathing was an agonized process of taking in a mouthful of liquid oxygen. I believe my metabolism was already running at full blast just trying to bring things to a sane temperature prior to assimilation in my lungs, needless to say, hammering meant slow, in this case a steady 15~20km/h.

Under such extreme conditions one might think that maybe caged killing machine operators might exhibit an iota of decency? Alright, enough sarcasm, of course drivers were as oblivious as ever. At one point I was doing my thing, on Queen Street heading West just past Jarvis, making sure to take up the entire right lane when without even looking some person (no I will not say what I think of their staggering lack of competence behind the wheel of a motor vehicle) just... attempted to swerve, at very low speeds into my lane to get around a street car, and almost hit me, until I yelled at them. Before anyone tries to play a devils advocate here, I should add I was not behind the car when he went to switch lanes, I was right beside him, he, or she?, tried to change lanes on top of me! I got the license plate but realized that unless I got a good look at the driver I would not be able to point at them in court with certainty and say"that is the (insert favorite nasty adjective here) who nearly killed me".

Other than the usual lunacy of North American automobile drivers the commute to work and home was, in many respects, wonderful. I lost count of the number of street cars (trams) I passed, but it was more than four on the way in and at least six or seven on the way back, the roads were dry and clear and the potholes were, well they were the other thing, besides the cars, that make cycling less than perfect, but considerably better than any other option out there.

Anyway the City of Toronto, probably as a traffic control measure, put in a bike lane on Eastern Ave. from around Carlaw to Leslie. This bike lane frustrates the morning rush hour drivers and does no good for cyclists, since it is not connected to any other bike lane and only runs for a few hundred meters. So I am going to propose something that makes an awful lot of sense to me. Open up Eastern to cars as it used to be, and add a bike lane to Queen Street. Queen has never been a good through road and with all the street cars, pedestrians and cyclists who already use it... well maybe it is time to acknowledge the facts and move on. But slowing cars on Eastern when nobody even uses that bike lane, and I should know, its only marginally inconvenient for me to use it and even I don't, well it makes the people who plan traffic in Toronto look no wiser than the people who make use of the planners work, namely the drivers.

On Saddle Height

I noticed recently that the saddle on the Coppi was dropping lower and lower, every few months I would raise the saddle and then over a few weeks it would drop back down. On Saturday when I went to Biseagal they put some goo in the seat post tube to keep the seat post at a fixed height, yet by Wednesday it was clear the saddle was dropping again.

So yet again, Thursday this time, I took the Coppi to Biseagal and we measured the diameter of the seat post tube. Now I should add this is the same seat post and tube that I bought the Coppi with (used) in 1994. The seat post tube has a diameter of 26.6mm but the seat post is 26.4mm and that 0.2mm (200 micrometers) is enough to cause the drop.

Well I traded in my seat post for a black one that is the 26.6mm and now the seat is up to a good height, and it makes a really big difference, all of a sudden going into the drops does not feel so awkward and spinning fast is a much more natural sensation.

I have to admit on reflection the Coppi always felt faster whenever I adjusted the seat post, for example, when I attached the pedals or when I replaced the bar tape, now I realise, the problem was as much as anything the saddle height. The moral here is that having good equipment might make you feel good about what you own, but if it is not setup properly you just won't get the sort of advantage that bad equipment set up properly can provide.

So I guess the big summary here is spend that extra time and get sized correctly.

Friday, the day after the saddle height fix, there was a steady wind from the west which makes the ride to work (I live east of the office) rather difficult. On the other hand I lacked the will power to obey the 50km/h speed limit on the ride home. It was a race, Michael on the 15 or 20 year-old steel frame on his fractional horse power legs vs. the internal combustion engine in your typical one or two ton killing machine. Hardly a fair match, but I sure gave those oblivious operators of their killing machines a good run for their money. In one section of Queen street between Parliament and River I was passing cars going at speed. I strongly suspect that if I chanced to look at the driver I would have been met with jaw drooped incredulity.

If only I had indexed gear shifting, holy smokes, I could beat the cars climbing hills as well as in the flats. I guess there is another moral tale here, cars suck, but we already knew that.

On Rhetoric

I have been reading former President Elect Al Gore's The Assault on Reason. (And yes I am still pretty disgusted that the Supremes handed Florida to Bush in 2000. Just think, if Poppy Bush had appointed someone who put patriotism before party then a man who read his daily briefings would have been president and prevent among things the horrors that took place on Tuesday September 11, 2001. Instead we got Mr. Vacation.)

Well in The Aussault on Reason Gore quotes from an early player in the civil rights movement, and oddly I neglected that speech in my own thoughts on American Rhetoric, so I will include it here now. The following was delivered by a President who did not have Rush Limbaugh "hop[ing] he fails". But it is moving none-the-less.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or
any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field
as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that this
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do
this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate…we
cannot hallow…this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so
nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of
the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Many, too many, school children are made to memorize that address, and all its 10 or so sentences. How many people read it and actually try to understand it? I think every person who can, ought to go to DC at least once in their life, go in the summer, when congress is out of session and hotels are cheap, go to the museums, they are free, see Apollo 11 and a da Vinci.

But one day walk through the national mall, see the more than 50 thousand names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as well as the cards and flowers left at the foot of the wall by the families of the boys who died for a war as hopeless and futile as the war in Iraq. Then walk over to the Lincoln Memorial, its only about 50 or 100 paces away, if you aren't balling your eyes out by the time you finish reading the Gettysburg address make a try at the second inaugural address on the opposing wall. If you still are not balling you mustn't have a heart. Recall that one day in 1963 a clergy man proclaimed his dream on the very steps of that memorial. Not five years later he was dead, assassinated.

Human history is the measuring of blood letting and that is disturbingly, painfully, aganozingly, obvious in DC. Until we can all realise the horrible truth of our nature, come to terms and undo that horrible inner darkness, I can only pray that from this time forward better men than George Walker Bush work in the Oval Office.

On The Road Again

Sunday (February 15) I went for a ride, not to work and not on the trainer. It was cold and wonderful! I used the old Coppi and she feels more like the old speed demon I used to love back in high school then the nasty clunker I used to complain about this past summer.


I spoke to Macolm at Biseagal and he told me it was possible to upgrade the Coppi parts, holus-bolus to STI, even the bottom brackets. So I am thinking, this year, at the end of the seaon I am going to buy a new Dura-ace double group for Erin and take the Ultregra group and put it on the Coppi, Malcom also told me he'd keep an eye out for a decent wheel set.

She may be a steel frame but she's still got the heart of a rocket, as more than one car discovered tonight on my way home from work.

But as for the Sunday ride, a number of events conspired to prevent me from riding at around noon as I had hoped, ultimately I did not actually get on the road until about 3 or perhaps a quarter after. I tried to use the friction down-tube shifter, once, and that is why I am going to move the Ultegra to the Coppi and get a new groupo for Erin, dropping a chain really sucks. Even worse than stopping though was that I was sweating and it was cold. Much of the ride home was a battle of me against my own sense of cold.

I took the Lakeshore trail and discovered to my disappointment a few ice patches and some ugly potholes, but most upsetting, at the foot of the Humber River bridge was a huge frozen puddle, that could, with little exaggeration be called the Arctic Ocean. The ice looked thin and I figured if I dismounted and walked my feet would get soaked, if I rode I'd end up sliding and crashing, so very warily I rode, and lets just say its a good thing I have eroded cleats on my shoes, I had to unclip plenty fast to avoid falling when my wheels started sliding out from under.

One other thing I have to admit I found shocking, I expected that car drivers would be more considerate to a cyclist when it is at or near freezing. I would expect it, and I was wrong for it! To say car drivers collectively have less brains my the empty kettle on the stove beside my laptop is a grave insult to my kettle, poor thing did not need that comparison. More and more I am convinced that as soon as the key hits the ignition the IQ of your average well adjusted driver goes into the negative integers. Truly, when one considers all the implications of driving, green house gases, oil, Osama bin Laden, Ralph Klein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Sarah Palin and of course the House of Saud, oh yes, lets not forget the multibillion dollar bailout to GM and Chrysler.

Remind me again, the reason we made a machine that according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration kills about 35,000 to 40,000 Americans a year, (compared to Bin Laden who's only done in about 3000 in his life time!), but anyway remind me the reason we made the car god? There does not seem much about the modern car that is remotely god like. I find it even more ironic that only in a discussion of oil can you put the likes of Ralph Klein, Sarah Palin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Osama bin Laden and the entire House of Saud in the same sentence. (Actually on reflection, I can think of another sentence, a group of kleptocratic criminal thugs such as... but they are only kleptocratic becuase oil gave the state wealth worth stealing.)

Oh well, one day the World will run out of oil, and then there are some lovely suburban cul-de-sacs I am looking forward to riding through.

On US Politics and Money

Let me start by saying, to anyone who happens up this entry without reading previous blog posts of mine, that I am a big fan of the new President of the United States. I think much of what he has done has been both pragmatic and sensible. But that is not what I want to comment on, rather its the other guys.

Look we all know why there has been an economic crisis, ultimately it boils down, as all great market implosions do, to greed. This greed much like the S&L swindle before it will end up costing the taxpayers of almost every country huge sums of money. In the United States toxic assets need to be bought up, in Canada a budget deficit while the government tries to get the economy rolling again. This greed was enabled, principally, by Republicans, elected to Washington throughout the 90s and early part of this decade who cut regulations and taxes, though hardly touched spending. Tearing down the wall the separated classic commercial banks from investment banks by such economic luminaries as Phil "We have sort of become a nation of whiners." Gramm (Republican - Texas), Jim Leach (Republican - Iowa) and Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (Republican - Virginia), was as much the cause of this economic blight as the so called "liars loan".

Now I want to point out a conundrum of the fanatical right here. Around the same time, I don't recall the exact date now, that Mr. Obama became President Obama the big fat idiot, Rush Limbaugh, said of America's new president, "I hope he fails". As if the success or failure of the President would have little to no impact on the life of the Oxycontin syndicated radio host. Meanwhile, the solution advanced by those who object to the new administration's economic recovery program? More deregulation and tax cuts, because magically when you cut taxes people who have no income are going to... GO SHOPPING!! Sorry but if you don't have a job, you don't spend money, seems obvious, unless of course you live in Republican Land.

Republican Land is a strange place where "mission accomplished" means mission hardly started, and rich is synonymous with decent, family values with homophobia and rights of the individual with invasion of privacy. Entry to Republican Land requires millions of dollars in personal wealth and a distaste for the less fortunate among us. Religious zanies are nice window art but do not belong anywhere near the real seat of power.

I have a job, so far, and to my way of thinking that justifies hiking my taxes. Then take that extra money and go fix a road, heck, build a subway. Give a few other people jobs. What a great idea? Maybe with all the new infrastructure that governments build now it will help improve productivity when the economy pulls out of the slump so even more people can work and pay taxes. What a great idea! (Too bad I didn't think of it first.)

The hypocrisy of the lunatic right in the United States is disgusting. Yes I don't live there, or am a citizen of the US, but I have a lot of respect for the American system, a number of great minds worked on the design of the US constitution, their system is truly a marvel. Yet to watch these guys prance about lying through their teeth, and worse yet, they know its a lie, and they do it anyway!

Obviously I hope that President Obama is successful, even if I liked McCain more I would hope that President Obama is successful, I want the economy to recover. But for the time being I am glad I live in a nation with almost punishing regulations for bankers, those punishing regulations have saved our economy.

On Riding in the Rain

I rode to work today in rain that I can only describe as intense. It was not just raining hard, but it was windy, horribly windy. To add a little more excitement there were a number puddles that dwarfed Lake Ontario, every one of them I would wonder, as I could not see the bottom, "is there a pothole here?, because if there is, I'm toast". But as always it was not the wind or water, it was the drivers that made my day. It is hard for me to say for sure what it is about rude drivers that gets under my skin the most, but I suspect that it is the lack of consideration, they are in a climate controlled vehicle, polluting, while my life is put at risk by their total lack of consideration.

Yes today again, this time, a taxi driver made a right turn across the bike lane to get gas.

Just once I'd like to make it all the way to work without seeing some driver obviously failing to pay attention.

Anyway so tonight I have to update some Windows servers, one is a Java application server. Now I did not notice this before, (probably because it did not happen before) but my Java application server is no longer working. Why? The Microsoft Data Execution Prevention feature is disabling Java! Smart guys, really smart. For non-computer programmers, basically what Microsoft did was disable Java on my Java server, and best of all, the DEP tool does not seem to be decent enough to stop disabling Java even when I disable DEP! But the best part, despite all the idiotic DEP warnings, my Java application still works.

Let me put this in non-computer terms so everyone can understand, I'll use a car analogy. Suppose we have a car that has a warning light that reads "combustion detected in crank case, shutting down engine". Well I assume we all know enough about the modern internal combustion engine to know that without combustion, you don't get to go very far. Well now, suppose after fooling around a bit, trying to bypass the ignition detector, just for fun we push down on the gas, and sure enough the car goes anyway!

Windows, what an embarrassing operating system. I am embarresed becuase I am a member of the same animal kingdom as the people who work at Microsoft! (Were all mammals, well at least I am a mammal.)

On Postings and Work

I've been really busy at work lately, so much so that when I get home at night, usually well past 11pm its far to late to train let alone make a blog post.

I want to know why is it that it is alright for a company to say, "we will dictate what you do on our time at the office, but from time to time we will also dictate what you do on your own time". There really is a startling lack of equality in the employer employee relationship. (Don't look, but I think I am becoming pro-union!) Actually all I want is more respect from my manager, instead of telling me I am going to work late tonight, ask me. It's not as if I don't earn my keep during working hours already.

Sigh.

Anyway I apologize to any readers I still have left after my long hiatus. Hopefully this insanity at the office will come to an end soon, although I doubt it.

Recently someone posted a response to my comment On Laws. Now besides being an anonymous posting, which I do not as a rule tolerate, it was insulting, not to me, but to a third party. Actually I am being charitable the comment was downright slanderous and justified the third party taking legal action were they aware of the post.

I have, obviously removed the post. But I will state here and now, not for the first time, I do not tolerate anonymous postings. On the Internet it is painfully obvious that people use their anonymity to justify some pretty insulting or inflammatory writing. Well not here damnit!

Now I have tolerated an anonymous post here, but it was a comment on an idea I had, and as I see this space as my area to express ideas and get feedback on them, I am not about to delete an anonymous posting of that sort. But if a person wants to insult, or insinuate, they should be prepared to see me use the delete button, its not hard and I won't hesitate. Civility will reign here if I have to enforce it at the point of a gun (or delete key)!

On Riding in Winter

We returned from China, I did not sleep enough my last night in Hong Kong or on the flight home, by the time I got back I was sick with a pretty rough head cold that I am only slowly recovering from. The first few days back were insane, the amount of work I had waiting for me at the office was enough to stun a workaholic. I only managed a few hours on the trainer but thanks to the above zero weather, I am actually looking forward to the morning office commute tomorrow.

I had left my bike with Malcom at Bisegal, in return for some computer work I am doing for him, he did a lot of work on the Coppi. Now I just need someone to repaint that old ride and she'll be good as new.

Anyway the following diagram should be useful to any cyclist.

On Hong Kong

I suspect my readers would have to live in a cave to have never heard of the American Naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Land that was originally leased by the American Government at a time when Cuba was a model banana republic, the agreement was, as long as the United States makes the lease payments the US military can do with that land whatever they see fit. Well ever since Castro came to power in 1959, with one accidental exception, the Cubans have refused to cash the cheque, but every year the United States sends a new cheque which apparently to American authorities is sufficient to make the only American military presence on communist soil during the cold war something other than an act of war.

Hong Kong's history is a little more complicated but a significant event took place in 1898. Effective July 1 of that year the British Government entered into a 99 year lease with the old imperial government in Beijing for the lands surrounding an existing British colony on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Besides a hiatus of Japanese occupation during the war the British ran Hong Kong, and ran it with no regard to the notion of representative government. A governor was sent to the territory and answered to Westminister but the people of Hong Kong never voted for any member of parliament unless they packed their bags and moved to England.

Students of history might recognize the similarity between Hong Kong's situation through the last century and the situation in the Thirteen colonies in America prior to the American Revolution and to some extent Hong Kongers were rather unhappy with their situation. But just as the American colonists had certain "inalieable rights" so did Hong Kongers. I believe to people of Chinese ancestry the right to become fantastically wealthy is the most important of all the human rights and while the Cultural Revolution ravaged China's culture, professional and upper classes, Hong Kong was an Oasis of sanity, and wealth.

Now I should stress the first time I came to Hong Kong was July of 2004, just over seven years after the handover to Beijing, so in many respects I feel vaguely like an archaeologist, digging through upper layers of government propaganda and recent news to try to figure out a question I have often wondered about, is Hong Kong better off today than it was 11 years ago and more to the point who ran things better?

The obvious solution is just to ask anyone old enough, but people see the past through rose coloured glasses. The fact that at almost the same instant the British turned the keys over to the new owners the economies of East Asia smashed into a wall (through, to my knowledge, no fault of the Chinese) probably does not help render memories as objective as one would like.

There are a few observations I can make with respect to Hong Kong that seem blatantly obvious:

1. Hong Kongers are far wealthier than their fellow countrymen from anywhere else in the mainland. Whereas in the comparatively wealthy city of Shanghai a salary of $3,000 (US) a year would land you very comfortably into the upper crust of society, in Hong Kong $3,000 a month probably does not cover the mortgage payment, and yes I strongly suspect most Hong Kongers do own their home, even if it is mortgaged, much like in The West.
2. Driving and queuing habits are thoroughly sedated in Hong Kong. This may at first seem kind of off topic and petty, but, anyone who has ever seen a really bad driver, and then let's be honest here, how often have we noticed their ethnicity was Chinese? Well the problem on the mainland is people are pushy, horribly pushy and aggressive. If a line is supposed to form bet your knickers that someone will step out of line and jump the queue. Then before you can say "Cultural Revolution" the whole line is a big mob scene at the desk, subway, left turn lane, or whatever it was people were queued up for. (I suspect the cause is two fold, the vast population means you need to push if you want to get anywhere and during the cultural revolution it was said manners were the mark of the detested bourgeois, hence manners were wiped out at the point of a gun and are only very slowly returning.) Hong Kongers by comparison never endured the horror that was the cultural revolution, nor were there the food shortages during the so called "Great Leap Forward" that caused the starvation of tens of millions in the mainland. Near as I can tell the worst deprivation any resident of Hong Kong has ever endured is a shortage at the Louis Vitton store.
3. Hong Kongers have a fluency in English that is, or ought to be the envy of the rest of China. I don't need Lesley to translate basic transactions, the way I do in Shanghai. Chinglish is a much smaller problem in Hong Kong as well, granted everyone speaks English with a British accent, but most people can at least communicate the most critical things to me.
   

There are a few less obvious hints of problems under the surface.

1. Much of the coin money still has Queen Elizabeth the second on one side. Granted as a Canadian I don't really have a problem with that, after Her Majesty is on all our coins and even the $20. (Old enough readers might even remember the one and two dollar bill?) Except Hong Kong has been under Chinese rule for how many years and no one has bothered to mint enough $2 coins to allow for the decirculation of old pictures of Her Majesty?
2. The subway system has not really changed much since the new airport opened up and the new airport was itself almost completed before the hand over. There is a mind boggling stagnancy to Hong Kong, both the buildings and the infrastructure seem unchanged since 1997 or 98. Its like someone decided things were fine the way they were and there was no need to make additional improvements (besides building a one stop subway line that connects Hong Kong Disney World to everything.)
3. Maybe it is just the paper I picked up, but the South China Morning Post lacked the beat up on anyone in a position of power I would expect from a liberalized press. Truth was the South China Morning Post felt like an enlarged version of the China Daily, except with a focus on Hong Kong instead of all of China. Even a column by Frank Ching who has contributed to The Globe and Mail from time to time seemed wimpish. Sorry Frank but but an open society politicians should cower in fear of journalists. Politicians don't cower, not enough in the west - our journalists are push overs - but Hong Kong journalists are getting to be as bad as the Chinese reporters sent to interview Hu Jintao.

In short then, are Hong Kongers better off today then they were under British rule? I do not know, how can I know for sure? But it does seem to me that for a long time anyway it was the intention of Beijing to stick it to Hong Kong, in a bad way, most notably through the appointment of the thoroughly incompetent Tung Chee Hwa. I think it says something when you appoint a relative outsider to govern a city. It screams something when out of 7 million people, not exactly known for taking to the streets, a million protested, yes almost 15% of the entire population went and protested one of Tung's more odious propositions. (In an effort to curb the size of the protest, shortly after the protest was announced, it was decided that all museums and galleries in the city would be free to the public that day only to celebrate the end of SARS.)

I am not sure the British did a great job with Hong Kong, but I am sure that in the first several years of Chinese rule the people of Hong Kong were pretty unimpressed with what Beijing gave them. Still things do seem to be turning around, slowly, even in Beijing there seems to be an effort to open up the press and liberalize the judiciary, so I think there is grounds to hope.