A few days ago I had the pleasure of meeting with a few of my old friends. The initiator, I’ll just call him DL, chose Bakoel Koffie, because he’d like to “support local companies”. Fine with me. Can’t really stand Starbucks coffee anyway (the one I drank back in UK tasted quite terrible).
I made the mistake though of ordering an exotic one by name of “Turkish coffee” - hours after I finished the drink, my heart was still beating faster than usual. Pretty scary, come to think about it. But I must admit, it tasted really nice.

Anyway, a bit of chit chat, and I found out that DL now works for ICW, Indonesia Corruption Watch. I congratulated him and feel very happy. This is a man who hated himself even years after he had to bribe a Customs officer (in order to save his friend’s belongings from getting confiscated unjustly). A man of his words, and one who’s always on time (a notable achievement for Indonesian).
DL is also pretty known for his scepticism. He won’t just believe everything he heard or saw, until he’s really sure about it. He’d also say things as it is, especially if it’s bad. Which is good, for a man in his position.
I imagine he’d fit right in right away, and indeed he did.

So I joked a bit about SBY’s high-profile war on corruption, and asked him whether it had caused any effect at all.

To my surprise, unflinchingly, DL responded “yes”.
Despite what the news said almost everyday - DL actually confirmed that indeed, SBY’s war on corruption is working.

Seeing my speechless, amazed face, DL quickly explained his answer. Among the proof he’s seeing is the fact that while we’re already on the 8th month of year 2006, yet only 20% of APBN (yearly spending budget) is used. Reason being the bureaucrats are too scared to use the budget; they’re too scared that if they use it up for a project, they may fetch some for themselves out of habit - and got busted by KPK (Committee for Corruption Eradication) for it.

He further explained that even though the reformation has now been running for 8 years (since the fall of the dictator, Soeharto), it’s yet to touch the bureaucrats on the lower levels.
Finally SBY got on it, and it is scaring them.

His opinion is that this is good, but this is just the first step - the shock therapy. The bureaucrats finally realized that they’re not invincible anymore. Now SBY need to go through and finish it - actually eradicating all corruption, while keeping the development projects up and running.

We had to interrupt our short chat because others interrupted, and we joined back the group chat.
But I know that if it was he that said it, that really means it. Finally there’s hope.

Note that I was not a supporter of SBY back in the last election, among other things because I don’t know him well enough (a rather common problem with implementation of democracy anywhere - most of us choose someone we barely know). Now, I don’t feel so bad about my choice failing to become president.

Anyway, the road is still long and it’s a hard journey. Hopefully the good men in our government can overcome certain oppositions wanting to exploit our country for their own gain again (it’s a story for another post). Here’s one hoping it, for our own sake.

Thanks DL for the good news. Please keep up your good work there.

Israel was just defending itself from Hizbollah ? Wrong, the kidnapping of 2 Israel soldiers (previously thought as the cause of the war) were caused by Israel’s (almost daily) violation of the border :
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html

The current war is premeditated and already very prepared. Hizbollah’s kidnap of 2 IDF soldiers provided Israel with the excuse to finally launched it :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1839282,00.html

To Israel with love - why the Americans are so overwhelmingly pro Israel ?
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7255198

Israel ranked better economically than even Brunei, but it’s also the top receiver of aid from US gov’t :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1834555,00.html

There have been quite a buzz lately in Indonesia in regard to Earthquake (EQ) clouds. News have been broadcasted about sightings of (allegedly) EQ clouds, and the fact that there were EQ of great magnitude that happened afterwards.

Rovicky was kind enough to share his geological expertise, and have concluded that predicting EQ through cloud sighting is not scientifically feasible.

I found the topic, earthquake prediction, interesting. Personally, living very close to a fault (running through west of Sumatera then continues on south of Java), I would really love to be able to know when a quake would occur. So I set aside a bit of time and did some research on the subject. Especially on the vertical / EQ cloud, since it’d be the easiest for us.

Found an article on LA weekly, about an interview with Shou. Quite interesting, and reveal more about this Shou’s person. The journalist himself was probably driven to write this piece after a personal experience - his wife acquired the ability to accurately predict earthquake when she was pregnant.

Still, there’s a showstopper with Shou’s current work:

“How do you know it’s not just a regular cloud?” I ask him.

“Experience tells the difference,” he says

Scientists will need to make this a measurable process, not just one based on intuition. If Shou died, the knowledge may be gone with him, and we’ll have to start from the beginning again.

Returning back to Rovicky briefly - he complained that Shou’s work is not yet of practical application, but still of research quality. I agree with that.
On the other hand, he also complained that of all websites the discusses this, none are from .edu or .gov domain. I must say that I found the contrary.

For example, Rovicky noted the paper on GIS development.net as an example. However, this paper was actually published on a UN workshop on Tehran. GIS development.net just republished it again.
It was originally published by UNOOSA.org. Despite its .org domain name, I think it can be considered as a reliable source since UNOOSA is short for United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.

I also found links/discussions to Shou’s work from GEsource.ac.uk, PSIgate.ac.uk. There were other academic sources, but many of them are in Turkish or some other language I don’t understand at all.

Also I found a discussion among (I assume) geological scientists, where it took a report of a vertical cloud sighting, and even proposed another explanation for it.

This seems to be in the line with this paper published on Taiwan gov’t website, where the appearance of EQ cloud was considered as “important”.

Conclusion :

1. The Earthquake (vertical) Cloud theory still needs a lot of work. Particularly in exposing the exact science of the cloud shape, differentiating EQ cloud with other cloud, etc. This can be started for example by giving Shou access to more satellite images, getting scientists on other fields to work together, and so on.
2. Therefore (point #1), it is not yet fit for public consumption. This is to avoid public chaos in case of appearance of similar clouds, and other concerns
3. On the other hand, it is also not in the best public interest to just dismiss Zhonghao Shou’s work and theory. Noting the rather good track record (60%) and that even the misses (according to Z.Shou) are not all prediction errors.
4. One day we may be finally able to predict Earthquake; but not by just using a method. It may very well achieved by implementing several methods, cross examining the results, and making a more accurate predictions based on those.
5. In the mean time, we need to work on our preparations. We need to get used to live with earthquakes. Buildings that won’t fall down, educating people, getting crisis plan prepared and implemented by local governments, and so on.
   If we can do this comprehensively, then our need for EQ prediction may become much less

Just would like to say “well done” to Fatih Syuhud for his excellent post about why we should blog (more) in English.
I especially like point #6, this is after reading far too many news / article written by outside journalists but with very little information on Indonesia. I can’t blame them because sometimes the article was written in good intention, only lacking in in-depth information. We can only blame ourselves in that case I think.

Note that you don’t have to blog 100% in English. Create a special category (I just created “In English” and “Indonesiana” category), and post more in English, that’d be already much better.

So here again kudos to Fatih, and hope a lot of people will follow.