Salon’s “Ask A Pilot” proclaims Dakar airport to be the worst in the world!

This is all too true:

There are people all around, but few of them are passengers. They are touts, hawkers, vagrants, drifters, thieves — a melee of dubiously intended hangers-around, each of them eyeing you with the stubborn, languid glare of a vulture. Set against a back wall, the sole ATM is flanked by armed guards, whose duties are particularly effortless, since the machine doesn’t work.

There is nowhere to sit, no seats. Which really is all right because the worst thing you can do is cease moving. The approximately 5-to-1 scoundrel-to-passenger ratio ensures you’ll never remain unmolested for more than a few seconds. The moment you stop, somebody is hovering over your shoulder, mumbling incoherently. Brush him away, and he is instantly replaced by a man asking if you’d like to buy a plastic watch or a counterfeit phone card. Well, “asking” isn’t quite the right word. His demeanor suggests you are required to buy a watch or a phone card. Resistance is futile, and in the honored tradition of third-world hustlers, he is a man of many trades. Do you need any souvenir trinkets? Do you need to exchange currency? Do you need a hotel room; it’s just up the road and his “cousin” is the “owner”? No? OK, then maybe you’re the giving sort and would be generous enough to simply hand over some money, along with a few of your clothes? You know, a gift, a small cadeau — to invoke that ubiquitous, reckless plea that floats about French-speaking Africa like a desperate wail. Your sneakers … what are those, New Balance? “Yes, you can give me those please, thank you. I can have your sneakers now. Cadeau? Cadeau?”

Avoid eye contact. Keep walking.

[Hat tip: Giselle]

In other Africa-related news, I had a German beer at this new African restaurant in Tallinn, “African Kitchen“. And no, I didn’t spot a single African in the place, Estonian-African or otherwise.

I’m willing to bet that this is the only African restaurant in the entire world that:

– has cocktails named after African countries, including poor and Muslim (ie, non-imbibing) ones like, say, Somalia.

– doesn’t sell a single African beer. Oh wait, there’s that “exotic” Mongozo Banana beer — turns out it’s from Belgium.

– advertises the services of its on-site sauna on the menu!

Closing the Loopholes on Data Theft

PC Magazine:

ARTICLE DATE: 07.11.07
By Cyrus Farivar

You may want to think twice before swiping your credit card at your favorite store. In January, the parent company of Marshalls and T.J. Maxx stores revealed that over 45 million credit and debit card numbers had been stolen from its databases. In the wake of this and other egregious slip-ups, legislators are calling for new federal blanket laws to protect consumers.

Currently, a tangle of state and local laws leaves consumers exposed. Companies must comply with the laws of the states where their customers reside, regardless of where the data is physically kept. “California’s law applies both to business and government, whereas in other states it applies just to businesses or just to certain businesses,” says Chris Hoofnagle, a senior fellow at the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Law & Technology.

Three bills have been making their way through the Senate. The Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2007 would require that companies or government agencies alert law enforcement, consumers, and credit reporting agencies if a security breach poses a “significant” risk to consumers.

Speaking in May from the floor of the Senate Judiciary committee, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a sponsor of the bill, voiced his dissatisfaction with Congress’s delays in responding. “While Congress waited to act, the problems with data breaches remained a persistent threat,” he said. “According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, more than 100 million records containing personal information have been compromised since 2005.”

Hoofnagle says that there is time to pass a bill this year, but it will take a big push to prioritize data theft among other national issues.

Back in Tallinn!

Wow, I can’t believe that in the last two-and-a-half years I’m now on my third trip to Tallinn. (First, Second).

I just did an interview with Sten Tamkivi (See: The Economist, August 17 2006) — the Skype offices feel exactly like every other startup I’ve ever seen. They even showed me off a Skype payphone prototype that used to be in their lobby!

Now, Veljo and I are having lunch at my favorite spot in town, the Mauruse Pubi, a sweet, dark, subterranean pub under the city library. It’s got old, amber-colored wooden tables, and an entire bookshelf lined with old, historical volumes. Each table is intimately lit with a green banker’s lamp, and the silverware is brought to the table in a mini wooden barrel, with the name “Mauruse Pubi” branded into the side in gothic lettering.

There’s WiFi, cheap, delicious and plentiful food, and it’s a quick walk to the Old Town.

Man, I could spend all day in this pub.

I’m in Berlin for one night

After reading the accounts of sleeping in Schoenefeld airport in Berlin, I thought I might take it up. However, given that I would be in this fair city for a good 16 hours — after having spent the better part of the day on a train (that’s seven hours, 440 miles, or 710 kilometers, depending on how you feel like counting it) — I decided to shack up one night at the Heart of Gold hostel — where I get to share a six-person room for 17 euros ($23). There’s cheap döner kebap nearby and free WiFi.

I would have stayed with John Borland, but he’s out riding the rural Romanian rails, or at least he was when I texted him as I was pulling into Berlin Hbf. I’ll catch up with him when I’m back in town on my return leg through Berlin in two weeks.

After a 24-hour journey (Oakland –> Dallas –> London Gatwick –> Amsterdam –> 2 hr train to Breda), I finally made it.

Saturday was spent, as I mentioned, eating and drinking it up in Antwerp. I enjoyed a big cone of Belgian fries as a snack, then had a hearty bowl of mussels with a serious goblet of Westmalle Trippel. Mussels here are more expensive than at Café de Bruxelles, but the beer is way way cheaper. I love how you can get beer that’s five times better than what we can get in the US for about half to a third of the cost.

On Sunday, Giselle, George and I spent the afternoon in Rotterdam, where we caught the tail end of a street market. Although George and I just snacked on a bloedworst sandwich, we happened upon a salted herring stand. For the low low price of 1.75 euros, you can get a four-inch salted herring covered in diced onions. I can’t say that I recommend it two minutes after finishing a sausage (my stomach churned a bit), but I can see how for intrepid Dutch sailors, it’s probably quite tasty.

After that, we stopped in at a Surinamese place and had spicy chicken and roti, then stopped for beers at a canalside café, then walked around a bit, and later chowed down on raw seafood and more beers. (Fortunately, George shares my appetite!)

I like the parts of the Netherlands that I’ve seen thus far, but one thing strikes me as being a bit weird: it’s bizarre how well the Dutch speak English — I mean, every Dutch person I’ve ever met speaks perfect English, but it’s just trippy going everywhere and just busting into English without anyone batting an eye. Giselle and George said that they quickly gave up on asking if people speak English after having been there about a month — because every Dutch person is somehow born with the ability to learn to speak perfect colloquial English.

Germany, on the other hand, is another story. Many people do speak English, and many people who speak a little bit of English claim that they don’t speak it at all. Fortunately my German is “good” enough to ask for really basic things — “Ein bier, bitte” — which I don’t (yet) know how to do in Dutch.

I’m off to Tallinn tomorrow.

Spending the day in Antwerp

I made it to Breda without any problems. Giselle and I are going to spend the afternoon across the border in Antwerp, Belgium — our plans are to drink beer and eat loads of Belgian fries! Yay!

Damn, Gatwick is expensive

So my flight to Amsterdam got delayed. While I was waiting for them to put up the flight status on the monitors, I went to grab a sandwich at Upper Crust. Seeing as I’m spending as little time in the UK as possible, I don’t have any British pounds on me — just dollars and euros. My first instinct was to whip out my credit card, but the clerk informed me that they only accepted pounds, euros, or dollars. No problem, as I had some change in euros and could pay that way. But sadly they only accept “notes,” and further, wouldn’t give me change in Euros, I had to take my change in pounds (which are basically worthless to me). Fortunately though, a magazine vendor took pity on me and let me buy a magazine that should have set me back three quid for two and change.

Oh, and did I mention that as a T-Mobile USA subscriber, I pay $0.18 per minute to use their WiFi in the UK? I’ve already racked up a four-buck-and-change bill by now. Yeesh, I gotta get offline.

“Mossadegh plays with fire”

Mohammed Mossadeq was overthrown in Operation Ajax on August 19, 1953.

The New York Times Editorial, August 15, 1953.

The world has so many trouble spots these days that one is apt to pass over the odd one here and there to preserve a little peace of mind. It would be well, however, to keep an eye, on Iran, where matters are going from bad to worse, thanks to the machinations of Premier Mossadegh.

Some of us used to ascribe our inability to persuade Dr. Mossadegh of the validity of our ideas to the impossibility of making him understand or see things our way. We thought of him as a sincere, well-meaning, patriotic Iranian, who had a different point of view and made different deductions from the same set of facts. We now know that he is a power-hungry, personally ambitious, ruthless demagogue who is trampling upon the liberties of his own people. We have seen this onetime chamption of liberty maintain martial law, curb freedom of the press, radio, speech and assembly, resort to illegal arrests and torture, dismiss the Senate, destroy the power of the Shah, take over control of the army, and now he is about to destroy the Majlis, which is the lower house of Parliament.

His power would seem to be complete, but he has alientated the traditional ruling classes — the aristocrats, landlords, financiers and tribal leaders. These elements are anti-Communist. So is the Shah and so are the army leaders and the urban middle classes. There is a traditional, historic fear, suspicion and dislike of Russian and the Russians. The peasants, who make up the overwhelming mass of the population, are illiterate and nonpolitical. Finally, there is still no evidence that the Tudeh (Communist) party is strong enough or well enough organized, financed and led to take power.

All this simply means that there is no immediate danger of a Communist coup or Russian intervention. On the other hand, Dr. Mossadegh is encouraging the Tudeh and is following policies which will make the Communists more and more dangerous. He is a sorcerer’s apprentice, calling up forces he will not be able to control.

Iran is a weak, divided, poverty-stricken country which possesses an immense latent wealth in oil and a crucial strategic position. This is very different from neighboring Turkey, a strong, united, determined and advanced nation, which can afford to deal with the Russians because she has nothing to fear — and there the West has nothing to fear. Thanks largely to Dr. Mossadegh, there is much to fear in Iran.

I found this editorial from Hoder, and while I might not agree with everything that he says, he draws an interesting comparison between this editorial and a contemporary editorial in the Boston Globe.

I’m off to Europe!

I’m en route to Breda, The Netherlands to visit Giselle de Grandis this weekend. Then I’ll take the train to Berlin on Monday, and catch an EasyJet flight to Tallinn on Tuesday night. I’ll spend two weeks there doing research, and then will swing back via Berlin and one night in the new Yotel at Gatwick airport in London. I’m back in Oakland on July 28.