Dell disappoints

Still on computers, I must say that I an very, very disappointed with Dell Computers. I'll tell you why.

I have a 17-inch LCD monitor at home, bought in February or March of 2005, which means it is less than three years old. About a month ago, the monitor suddenly went blank. No power. It was working fine until suddenly, in the middle of doing nothing, the screen went off.

I phoned Dell's customer support. Heck, they required me to give them the Order Number of my purchase even though I told them that it was purchased almost three years ago. Okay, fine, I'll check that out for them.

So I phoned them a second time, gave them the Order Number, and had to describe my problem all over again. I asked: can the power source be repaired? The guy at the other end had the cheek to ask me: what do you think? I was patient. I asked back: what do YOU think? Geez...if I know what to do, I wouldn't be calling him.

He told me that it was difficult to repair the power source as it was inside the monitor and that even if it could be repaired, it would probably cost almost as much as a new monitor. Bottom line was that I should simply buy a new monitor, preferably another Dell monitor. Shit! That wasn't what I wanted to hear from a Dell support guy!

Luckily, I remembered that Jeffrey had once worked at Dell. I phoned him and he gave me a telephone number to call. Someone who once worked at Dell and now operating his own computer shop. He would know what to do.

Guess what...he told me to try and use another power cable. Maybe the fuse had blown, he said. If it doesn't work, bring it in to his shop and he'll see what can be done. Fair enough, right? Reaching home, I did just that and voila! The monitor sprang back to life. Phew! I just saved myself another RM600 to RM800 for a new LCD monitor.

To Dell Computers, I can only say one thing: Dell, go to hell!

Macbook battery on the blink

When I purchased a Macbook one year ago, it never occurred to me that I should also buy an extended warranty for the laptop.

But then, my Macbook's battery developed a problem recently. All I could see was an X in the battery icon where normally, I would see the charge in percentage. No matter how long I attempted to charge the battery, it couldn't be done. Everytime I pulled the battery adapter from the laptop, it would go pfft!

I sought help from CG Computers, one of Apple's authorised dealers in Malaysia, at their Hardwicke House centre in Penang. Yap Kant, the engineer there, had both good news and bad news for me.

The bad news was, my battery had died. The good news was, my Macbook was still under warranty. But...the warranty was going to expire by the end of this month. He said I had better buy the extended warranty to safeguard my precious purchase. So did Henrick, another their staff.


So while I was waiting for the replacement battery to arrive, I went around to ask a few fellas about the extended warranty.

The first person I asked was Nanis. If ever there is a man who is without doubt totally, absolutely, 100 percent crazy about Apple products, it must be Nanis. He said the extended warranty was fully recommended because anything could always go wrong. He knew of a person who was very lucky with the extended warranty because his motherboard burnt out. For a laptop, a spoilt motherboard would be almost equivalent to the cost of the whole computer itself.

Ted also told me about the same tale. Ordinarily, he said, he wouldn't bother with an extended warranty for desktops but he would recommend it for laptops. Jeffrey, the third person I asked, also said more or less the same thing, that he would buy the extended warranty in my position.

Well, I guess that settled it. When I went back to CG Computers to collect my new battery, I bought the Apple Care Protection Plan. And not a moment too late.


Cost? Not cheap at RM899. But I consoled myself that a new off-the-shelf battery for my Macbook would have cost me RM650. Somehow, it's not so painful now...

Orchid tale, part 2

I woke up this morning and smelled chocolate in the air. Mmm ... lovely. It could only mean one thing: my dendrobium's flower has finally opened. Though it's small, measuring no more than one centimetre across, it filled the air with a nice chocolaty fragrance. Delightful. Here is how it looks like.


One of my oncidium plants has also flowered. Not too many blooms though.


Meanwhile, my cycad plant - given to me by my brother-in-law - finally decided to end its strike and pushed out ... one new leaf! Golly! In the meantime, I've got to guard it against butterflies and caterpillars.

Uncle Isa comes a-calling!

Desperate times call for desperate deeds.

In these desperate times when the ethnic minorities in this country are getting desperate with government policies and resorting to desperate actions to get across their desperate message, the desperate government in turn has made a desperate act to charge the desperate main Hindraf people under the Internal Security Act.

I've no sympathy for the Hindraf people - they did something real wrong, something I do not agree with, so they have to face the consequences - but it's really sad that it has to end this way.


But it did not have to end this way. Is this the message that the government want to tell the whole wide world? That this is a government that is becoming increasingly intolerant of the grievances of the people? A government that prefers to sweep the dust beneath the carpet (or in this case, by throwing the perpetrators into jail without recourse to the courts) rather than to acknowledge their hurt and engage them?

Or maybe, this is a government out of touch with the realities of today, in deep denial, paralysed by fear and a real inability to do anything right or fast enough. So when everything else fails in the short term, the only excuse for them is to resort to the age-old defence that might is right.

Whatever,The government should have hauled the Hindraf people to court first before Uncle ISA was called in. Are the Hindraf people so slippery that charges cannot be made to stick on them? This latest reaction looks likely to have some serious repercussions on the country. My fear is that it's going to bring out the worst in the socio-political climate.

Will the Indians take this humiliation lying down? Will it lead to far more serious developments? And the majority Malays? Do they see the Hindraf actions as a real threat to their special privileges or is this just an irritating episode? And the Chinese? Do they feel that this is not their fight? One thing is for sure: there are lots of unhappiness in this land. Every race has its own grievances and they are all coming out into the open.

If the government is smart, they will use the brief respite that the ISA has given them to go deep into the grassroots to address the unhappiness but if the government is stupid enough, they'll simply crawl back into their shell, shut both eyes and do nothing but bluster away.

Smart government? Stupid government? We'll know in the months to come.

Orchid tale

I have in my possession two orchid plants with minuscule flowers.

One has just bloomed (second time it has bloomed, actually) and while at first I was a little disappointed by its size or colour, I now look at the flowers with appreciation. Flowers need not all be big and showy. Little flowers like these have their own unique beauty.


The other bud will open soon, maybe within the next two or three days. I'm looking forward to this tiny flower too as it will be the first time it's blooming since I bought the plant.

Ryan Giggs, OBE

Ryan Giggs, 34 years old last month, has collected an OBE from the Queen for services to football.

The 34-year-old Cardiff-born former Wales captain, who made his Old Trafford debut at 17 and scored his 100th league goal for Manchester United last weekend, collected the award at Buckingham Palace.

“It is a very proud day for me and my family. I’m lucky to play for such a great club for such a long time and have a successful career.”

Sedition: what it means (from Wikipedia)

Learn a word a day. Today's popular word is sedition, a word that is much bandied about in the local newspapers and government organs. But what exactly does it mean? I don't really understand the word so I looked it up in Wikipedia:

Sedition is a term of law which refers to covert conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel.

Because sedition is typically considered a subversive act, the overt acts that may be prosecutable under sedition laws vary from one legal code to another. Where those legal codes have a traceable history, there is also a record of the change of definition for what constituted sedition at certain points in history. This overview has served to develop a sociological definition of sedition as well, within study of persecution.

The difference between sedition and treason consists primarily in the subjective ultimate object of the violation to the public peace. Sedition does not consist of levying war against a government nor of adhering to its enemies, giving enemies aid, and giving enemies comfort. Nor does it consist, in most representative democracies, of peaceful protest against a government, nor of attempting to change the government by democratic means (such as direct democracy or constitutional convention).

Put simply, sedition is the stirring up of rebellion against the government in power. Treason is the violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or state and has to do with giving aid to enemies or levying war. Sedition is more about encouraging the people to rebel, when treason is actually betraying the country.

Columbo: The Most Dangerous Match

Was it more than 30 years ago that I became irresistibly drawn to the adventures of TV cop Lt Frank Columbo of the Los Angeles Police Department? The fictional, slow-witted detective who lived in his crumpled raincoat and drove a battered Peugeot convertible but who always solved his cases through a constant and dogged pestering of the suspects?

Yes, that's him, alright. Columbo as portraited by Peter Falk in his most famous role. The show was screened on Monday nights here in Malaysia, alternating with McMillan and Wife (starring Rock Hudson and Susan St James) and McCloud (with Dennis Weaver in the role) from the NBC Mystery Movie series.

The episode that had always stayed fresh in my mind despite all these years was from Season Two of the show. Called The Most Dangerous Match, it capitalised on chess at the height of its popularity in the United States after Bobby Fischer had snatched the world chess crown from Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.

The premise of the show was very simple. The world chess champion was American Emmett Clayton, played by Laurence Harvey who died young from stomach cancer a year after this show was taped. His challenger was Soviet Tomlin Dudek, played by Jack Kruschen. Clayton knew he could not beat Dudek in a match so he contrived an elaborate plan to get rid of him. After that, the show centred on Columbo pinning Clayton as the prime suspect and hounding him to confess to the crime.

To me, the most interesting part of the show was its first half hour. The two chess protagonists happened to meet in a restaurant on the eve of the match. What a coincidence that the table cloth was of chequered red and white squares. It was the perfect setting for an impromptu game with pepper shakers and salt containers standing in for the kings and queens, foodstuff and what not as the other pieces, and the knives and forks to delineate the boundary of the chessboard.

To the untrained eye, it may seem wondrous that chess players would be able to distinguish one piece of olive or cheese from another on this makeshift chessboard but I assure you, it's nothing at all to chess players. The pieces are only visual representations to help the mind as it calculates, evaluates, discards, accepts, recalculates each new plan or strategy.

Cue to another scene in the show where now, the two players were involved in another private game but with real chess pieces on a real chessboard. Dudek demonstrated how, with a sacrifice of his queen, he could force a series of moves that would checkmate Clayton's king. Clayton was visibly pained and agitated. All his efforts to keep the game on an even keel was in vain. But Dudek tried to reassure Clayton, never mind, it's only a game.

Yes, it was only a game but it was from a real game, played in a Maastricht tournament way back in 1946. Movie trivia only mentioned this game as played between Wolthuis and Alexander, and there is no other information. So I guess it's up to chess players like me to try and ferret out more information.

Wim (Willem) Wolthuis was Dutch. He wasn't a particularly strong player but he was possibly good enough for the organisers to include him in the 10-man, round-robin Maastricht tournament which was won by the former world champion, Dr Max Euwe. Despite finishing in last place, Wolthuis' claim to fame was his single win against Alexander, a very common and non-descript name to non-chess players. However, chess players would know him as the strong British player, Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander. That's a mouthful of a name. In books and magazines (there's even a book written about his best games of chess), he was known as C.H.O'D. Alexander. His friends knew better than to call him See Aitch Oh Dee or even Chod, while he answered simply to the name of Hugh.

And the game in question? Here it is, in Portable Game Notation (PGN) format:

[Event "Maastricht"]
[Site "Maastricht"]
[Date "1946.??.??"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Wolthuis, Wim"]
[Black "Alexander, Conel Hugh O'Donel"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "E33"]
[PlyCount "49"]
[EventDate "1946.??.??"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "9"]
[EventCountry "NED"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "1999.07.01"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 Nc6 5. Nf3 d6 6. a3 Bxc3+ 7. Qxc3 O-O 8. g3 Ne4 9. Qc2 f5 10. Bg2 Qf6 11. e3 Bd7 12. b4 a5 13. b5 Ne7 14. Bb2 c6 15. a4 Rfc8 16. bxc6 Nxc6 17. O-O Nb4 18. Qb3 d5 19. cxd5 exd5 20. Rfc1 Rxc1+ 21. Rxc1 b5 22. axb5 Bxb5 23. Ne5 Qe6 24. Ra1 Nd2 25. Qxb4 1-0

Poor Clayton. In the Columbo show, he never stood a chance after 25 Qxb4 as Dudek patiently explained what would happen after 25...axb4 26 Rxa8+ Be8 27 Bxd5 Qxd5 28 Rxe8+ with mate. Of course, this never happened in the actual game because "Chod" saw it all coming and resigned the game after his opponent had played 25 Qxb4.

PC Fair was in town

Oh, I forgot ... the PC Fair was in town a week ago. Not this weekend, but last weekend. We had ours in Penang a week before the KL folks get to have theirs.

As usual, it was a HUGE computer pasar malam. Nothing new to impress me except to look at the new range of iPods on display, not only at the CD Computers' Switch station but at other outlets too.

I took the opportunity to try out the panoramic feature on my Sony Ericsson K750i. I snapped these three photos in sequence and had the software merge them together. At a glance, I can hardly see where one photo ended and the other began but if you look closely, the seams are there. Still, I'm impressed enough by the software's capability. Thought, maybe, I can share with you too. Here it is. Please click on the image to see the result of my experimentation.

Giggs' 100th Man Utd league goal

Ryan Giggs scores his 100th league goal in 519 league appearances for Manchester United. "It's a great personal achievement. Not many people have done it so I'm really pleased," he Welshman said after today's 4-1 demolition of Derby. "It was an important goal in the game but now I can also enjoy that it was my 100th league goal."

"Not many players have scored 100 league goals. The service Ryan has given us, quite apart from the goals, is outstanding. I'm surprised there was no announcement. Maybe no-one knew but I certainly did. It is a fantastic achievement, absolutely marvellous." - Sir Alex Ferguson

"He's a fantastic footballer. I don't think he gets the credit he deserves as a player for what he has achieved but he's probably one of the best players I've played with, if not the best, and continues to go from strength to strength. He will be appreciated more when he's retired. When we go abroad he's respected a lot more in foreign countries than in this country. When people throw names around saying someone's done this or done that for the Premier League, he very rarely gets mentioned. It's a shame we are not appreciating a player who's probably the most successful footballer of our generation." - Rio Ferdinand

Cartoon characters, Hindu gods summoned to court

The law courts are in the news for all the wrong reasons. No, I'm not referring to the Malaysian courts which, as you know, are also in the news for the wrong reasons too.

What I'm referring to are the law courts in Italy and India.

Two days ago, I read that Tweety Bird and Donald Duck have been ordered to appear in a court in Naples, Italy on Friday (that is, today) as damaged parties in the criminal trial of a Chinese man accused of counterfeiting products of Disney and Warner Bros.


Then, today, I read a bizarre account that a court in Jharkhand, India has issued advertisements in newspapers asking two Hindu gods, Ram and Hanuman, to "appear before the court personally" on Tuesday after the judge said that letters addressed to them had gone unanswered.


Okay, I can understand that names of American cartoon characters like Tweety, Donald, Daisy or Mickey may be a bit too deep for the average Italian to understand but it defies logic that an Indian judge in his own country cannot recognise that Ram and Hanuman are the names of their own gods that they worship every day. Common .... they're part of your daily lives, okay? Duh...

Penang's Botanic Garden

In between taking part in the Penang Food Hunt 2007 on Saturday and attending the closing ceremony on Sunday, I awoke early to make a dash to the Botanic Garden. I had expected the place to be full of people and I wasn't wrong. The garden was filled with people. People walking the grounds, people jogging and people enjoying the cool, morning air. I looked rather out of place.


People also call this place the Waterfall Garden or the Monkey Garden. But it'll always be the Botanic Garden to me. This is the artificial waterfall in the middle of the garden. The real one's hidden away from view. I didn't have the time to explore much, so this is one of the more acceptable pictures from my camera.


The stream that flowed through the Botanic Garden. In the morning light, it was really beautiful.


Can't remember where I walked but it was pretty dark and damp. I noticed this white flower standing bright amidst all the dark foliage.


Finally, emerging into the sunlight, I caught sight of the morning sun's rays setting the trees aglow. Wonderful. I want to go to the Botanic Garden again and this time, I assure you, I'll be there for a longer while.

Penang food hunt 2007, part 2

There were very few photos taken of the food hunt, principally because I was in the driver's seat, so I shall show you only these shots:


Above: at the briefing before the start of the Penang Food Hunt 2007


A sea of red. The organisers requested that participants dressed up as red as possible and it was complied 100 percent by all. We really painted the island red from Tanjung Bungah to Gertak Sanggul, Balik Pulau, Ayer Itam and George Town!


I got the opportunity to flag off a few cars and that's because JobStreet.com was one of the media partners for the event


And awaaay we go! Myself in the driver's seat, Yew Tuck as the navigator, and both Chia Lih and Junior in the team as well. So look out for Car No: 69


Yew Tuck. At first, he was a bit reluctant to pose with the lady. Or the coffee cup. Or both. But in the end, this made a nice shot. Kind of reminds me of the Handiplast advertisement.


And these are my two other partners in the event, Chia Lih and Junior, at the New World Park. At first, I left them there to figure out the clues but they finished everything so fast that I had to double back and fetch them for the trip to Gertak Sanggul. The objective: to search for an obscure Malay restaurant selling mee udang.


Well, we discovered the place after some hard searching and asking for directions. Promptly sat down to order one of the best mee udang mee rebus that we had tasted for a while. Here above, you see a plate of mee rebus filled with all the prawns from our order.


Have we done justice to the prawns or not, you tell me! My greedy partners all went for seconds and ordered a plate of nasi goreng each. Me? I just sat to watch them shove everything down the hatch. Wow, they sure could eat! Incredible!


At the closing ceremony the day after the food hunt. This isn't a photo of my team. Somehow, in the excitement, we didn't manage to get a group photo of everybody together. Shucks! My team didn't score too well in the second and third legs of the event. We got some right results but mostly wrong.

Old friends uncovered

I bumped into several of my old school mates over the weekend. We were at the Paradise Sandy Beach Hotel in Tanjung Bungah, Penang, where we were taking part - well, almost all of us - in the Penang Food Hunt 2007.


To the left in the above photo is an old pal from primary school days, Yong Soo Heong. There's also Lim Siang Jin (the organiser of the food hunt) and Kee Thuan Chye. And what a coincidence that the four of us are or were, in one way or another, associated with the journalism industry. Soo Heong is with Bernama, Siang Jin was with The Edge and Thuan Chye is still with The Star.


And in this pic, that's Andrew Choong on the extreme left while sandwiched between him and me is Teh Beng Hooi (Siang Jin's wife). That's Thuan Chye again on the right.

Penang Food Hunt 2007

Can't wait for tomorrow to come by. There's this Penang Food Hunt going on, so don't be surprised if you see maniacs zooming by in their cars in search of their favourite food stalls or restaurants...

Aging showgirls

Pardon me if I choose to compare this recent picture of Al Gore and George W Bush together to a pair of aging showgirls from a cabaret show. Hrmpph!

Dr Toh: I disagree with the country's leaders

I laud Dr Toh for taking this stance when the rest of the government leadership and backbenchers refuse to acknowledge that there is a real, big stink in the country. This is a letter, quoted verbatim, taken from the Malaysiakini website:

I disagree with the country's leaders
Dr Toh Kin Woon
Nov 28, 07 6:24pm

Several major marches and pickets, all peaceful, have taken place in our country over the last few months.

There was the ‘Walk for Justice’ organised by the Bar Council. This peaceful march called for a complete review of the country’s judiciary system with a view to restoring its independence, and hence put into effect the separation of powers so important for justice. This was followed by a march to the palace organised by Bersih, a broad coalition of political parties and NGOs, calling for free and fair elections.

The most recent, this time to hand over a memorandum to the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, was organised by the Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf, in short. Although the stated objective of this last demonstration was to demand compensation for the exploitation of Indians from the British government, it was in effect to highlight the socio-economic and cultural plight of the Indians, especially their lower strata.

To all these must be added the numerous pickets called by the trade unions for higher salaries just to meet rises in costs of living so burdensome to the workers.

All these marches and pickets, especially those organised by Bersih and Hindraf, drew tens of thousands of people. And this, despite the authorities warning the public not to take part as these assemblies were all so-called “illegal”. Participants were threatened with arrest should they take part in all these illegal assemblies.

These marches drew flak and condemnation from almost all Barisan Nasional leaders. Their criticisms centred on their illegality, potential threat to peace, the possible destablisation of the economy including frightening away foreign investors. I disagree with the views of our country’s leaders.

Instead of condemning, one would have thought and hoped that they should have been more concerned over the grievances, frustrations and disappointments that have brought so many thousands to the streets in the first place and to seek fair and just solutions to them.

Is it true that there are lots of defects in our country’s judicial system? If so, what are they? What must we do to overcome these so that we can restore its independence, and give real substance to the separation of powers in order to strengthen our country’s democratic institutions?

Likewise, what are the shortcomings in our country’s electoral system, especially pertaining to the electoral rolls, election campaigning, access to media, etc? And on Hindraf, what are the grievances, frustrations and unhappiness of the lower strata of the Indian community, and that of all the other communities, pertaining to housing, education, health, jobs, equity and religious freedom?

Until and unless these and many more issues concerning our country’s judicial and electoral systems as well as social justice for the poor are looked into seriously and satisfactory solutions found, the discontent that has brought thousands to the streets over the last several months will remain. To me, it is this discontent and unhappiness that will be a greater threat to our country’s peace and stability, rather than the marches, pickets and demonstrations.

To be fair, the government did finally agree to the setting up of a royal commission of inquiry to look into the Lingam case that triggered the outpouring of dissatisfaction over the state of our judicial system. The terms of reference of this soon to be set-up royal commission have, however, not yet been announced. Hopefully, its scope of work will include getting to the bottom of why our judicial system has declined so precipitously over the years.

A truly democratic society that allows peaceful marches, an independent and just judicial system, free and fair elections, equal respect by the state for all religious faiths and social justice for the poor are, among others, the key pillars of democracy, peace and stability. Without these, no amount of coercion, including the threat to use the obnoxious Internal Security Act (ISA), can bring us the lasting peace and security that all Malaysians desire.

Finally, I find it extremely disturbing that a backbench Barisan Nasional MP who took a divergent stand on Hindraf should be so severely rebuked and chastised by a couple of BN leaders. This clearly does not augur well at all for intra-BN democracy.

The message sent seems to be that all BN elected representatives are expected to be meek and passive followers of the views of their leaders and that no space is provided for independent views, including those articulated by the larger civil society. I wonder how such a stance by the leaders can attract people who want to seek changes from within!

The writer is a member of Gerakan and Penang state executive councillor for Economic Planning, Education, and Human Resources Development, Science, Technology and Innovation.

Doing that "fun" thing in Tupah

A dream scene from Lord Of The Rings? No, it's just the Tupah Forest Park in Kedah.


According to an ex-bank colleague, Tupah is very popular with the locals in the state but in all honesty, I hadn't heard of the place until about two weeks ago. Even a search through my maps and atlases failed to locate it. But I've been there and I am totally taken in by the stream that flows through the park.

I resorted to googling Tupah and guess what ... yes, Tupah is popular with the locals alright but for the wrong reasons. Apparently just a few years ago, a couple was caught on film doing what came naturally to them...that "fun" thing. And it wasn't an isolated incident.

Pretty soon, I hope to make another trip to the Tupah Forest Park. An innocent trip, mind you, and not for any "fun" thing. Perish the thought! But I'll be making this trip only after my ex-colleague gives me the directions to go there. Honestly, I've forgotten how to get there except that I've to exit from the Sungai Petani North inter-change on the North-South Expressway.

Survey: teaching of Science and Mathematics in English

In recent days, discussion has been heating up in the local newspapers and on the air waves about the possibility that the Education Ministry may be on the verge of making a policy change and revert the teaching of Science and Mathematics in schools back to Bahasa Malaysia.

Whether or not five years is too short or too long a time to make policy flip-flops, I would like to seek some public opinion on this. I'm inviting you to participate in a short poll. Please click on this link to proceed. Thank you!

Kasparov arrested

Former world chess champion Gary Kasparov, who is now deeply involved in Russian politics, was sentenced to five days jail after he was arrested yesterday in central Moscow for organising an unsanctioned rally in protest of Russian president Vladimir Putin and refusing to obey police order.

After the sentencing, he told reporters the charges against him were "unfounded" and he accused the Russian leader with taking recourse to scare tactics. "What happened in court today looks like something unthinkable. Procedure was grossly violated. I will appeal but there can be no talk of justice anymore."

Yesterday, riot police grabbed Kasparov and a bodyguard, and bundled them into a police bus which drove away from where hundreds of opposition activists and members of The Other Russia coalition were in a tense standoff with security forces. "Freedom! Freedom!" supporters shouted after the bus.

Before his arrest, he had told journalists: "We pose no threat to public order. We only want to march peacefully to the election commission. The powers that be are simply afraid of people who express their dissent."

Sounds all too familiar. I wonder whether this same siege mentality pervades all over the world?