I'm Tired of Politics, War and Hatred

Somebody out there loves me.

Tracking blog stats can reveal a few unexpected things.  Isn't it fun?  I will know I have truly arrived when they start trolling me.  My hobby at the moment is trolling the trolls.

Note the sudden jump in page views in mid-July

All this in the last couple of weeks

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Goodbye, Adobe Acrobat XI; Hello NitroPro 10

A fit of pique can be expensive.  Like $200 expensive.  But it can also be well worth it.

Ever since I began using a computer on the internet, I thought, like many others, that Adobe Acrobat was the only PDF program in town.  I have been using it since version 4.0 was released in 1999, upgrading religiously to XI in 2012 when I hast got a new computer.

Even the regular version (not the Pro) got bigger and clunkier, with hundreds (thousands ??) of useless features and functions that are better performed on Office programs.  Adobe also has the world's worst search feature.  Looking to find how to do something?  If you don't know the exact words to describe the function, you are screwed as it only highlights the words you search for.  It is not intuitive like Google or Office. If I needed to know how to do something in Acrobat, Googling it was far likelier to bring up a useful answer.

Service is a huge problem.  Sometimes regular updates would download and install and sometimes they wouldn't.  Chief Dan George would understand. "Sometimes the magic works; sometimes it doesn't" (Little Big Man). Downloading a fully revised version was a total exercise in futility.  The last straw was continual messages telling me to "uninstall and reinstall".  I unistalled and it refused to reinstall, just kept up with the "uninstall and reinstall" message

Of course their website has "Support" and "Contact us" pages.  Trying to reach a human directly is impossible.  I found a phone number but was put on indefinite hold (This is the Incontinence Help Line.  Can you hold, please?).  There is as a last resort the "group discussion"  pages.  LOTS of people had the same problem, apparently.  It was declared solved.  Yeah, right.  I went to the recommended page and tried to follow the extremely complex directions, though half the stuff I was supposed to do didn't show up on my computer screen.

Sent in a support request.  Two days later a reply came.  I was directed to another page which directed me to a Contact Support link.  How stupid do they think I am?  I have been trying to do that for days now.

The GOOD news is that there is an alternative.  Nitro Pro 10 is the latest release of a PDF software package that is user friendly (Office style ribbon user interface), intuitive and does what I need it to do without a lot of useless extra garbage.  You can try it free for two weeks, even.  I loved it.

Click to enlarge

AND my PDF files have thumbnails again, not just Acrobat icons.

Furthermore, there is a direct link to real support right on the ribbon.  When I first installed it, a minor error message would pop up on the introductory page when I opened the program.  So I contacted support and within a few hours (time zones) got a reply that acknowledged the problem and told me what to do to stop the error message while the company worked on the solution. I was sold! Also they have since fixed the problem.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is still on my system but Acrobat XI is long gone.  Now, to find a replacement for Photoshop Elements that is actually user friendly. Any suggestions?

Links re Turkey, Russia, DNC

I have been following the events in Turkey as anxiously as I expect Americans followed the RNC and with every bit as much trepidation. Erdogan was a great prime minister from 2002 to 2012, when he began giving his dictatorial tendencies free reign, pushing the country more and more towards autocracy and Islamization. Erdogan's philosophy has become "I have the majority of votes so I can do what I want". Including creating (though not legally yet) a highly centralized presidential republic with a rubber stamp parliament. And anyone who opposes him is an enemy of Turkey to be destroyed.

The failed coup of 10 days ago was so clumsily executed that it was easily put down, especially when it did NOT have popular support and Turks turned out in the streets to defy the troops and tanks.  Initially at least it was all men and all were mustachioed, the sign of devout Muslims in Turkey.  they were not there to defend democracy, they were there to defend Erdogan and the destruction of Kemalist secularism in Turkey.

The speed with which thousands were arrested and tens of thousands dismissed indicated that lists were drawn up well in advance of the coup.  Meaning the purge was already planned and the "gift from God" was just an excuse to trigger it and add a bunch more names to the list.  About 1/3 of Turks believe Erdogan staged the coup himself, though they cannot say so or risk arrest as "Gulanists".

Fethullah Gulen has a world-wide organization called unofficially Hizmet (Service) which is mainly concerned with education and runs hundreds of charter schools and universities in many countries. It has been called a Sunni "Opus Dei" as it is huge, well funded and rather opaque in its organization and aims.  Erdogan claims that Gulen is plotting his downfall and sees Gulenists behind every tree.  Arrested people have confessed to being followers of Gulen. (I imagine they confessed, alright. Erdgan has declared a three month state of emergency AND suspended the European Convention on Human Rights.

Source: RFE/RL

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-gulen-insight-idUSKCN10407W
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/turkey/2016-07-19/turkeys-troubling-turn
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-idUSKCN1051B0
http://www.theglobalist.com/turkey-elected-dictator-erdogan/
http://www.rferl.org/content/turkey-gulen-erdogan-collision-course/27877830.html

Now this article leaves me a bit puzzled.  I hope that readers more familiar with this than I  (Cheryl Roffer, this means you as one of them) will comment.  It is not rocket science to see that Putin would love to tear Turkey away from NATO and the West but whether all the ideas voiced in this article have merit or not, I doubt.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/putins-sinister-role-failed-turkish-coup/

Some links to articles about Putin/Russia, the DNC and Trump:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/25/opinion/motyl-putin-is-evil/index.html
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/all-signs-point-to-russia-being-behind-the-dnc-hack
https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/trump-and-russia/

And a couple of general interest:
http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=64159
http://cepa.org/The-West-is-exhausted-and-the-worst-is-yet-to-come

Source: http://www.kyivpost.com/

Russian Athletes are Doped Dupes of the Kremlin's Foreign Policy

It is official.  The IOC will not allow the Russian Track and Field athletes to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. They should bounce the entire Russian contingent from this and all future athletic/sporting events until such time as Russia admits to routine state sponsored  doping and cover-up and cleans up their act. Athletes who did not/do not dope will be punished along with the guilty but the Kremlin should have thought of that ahead of time.  The intent is not to punish any of the athletes but the state.  The only way to do this is to ban them all.  Period.

The athletes apparently did not have much choice:

Athletes were expected to cheat and there were consequences for those that did not. As one coach, Oleg Popov, admitted, they “have no choice but to dope otherwise the athlete is ‘out’, meaning removed from the team”. Systems were in put in place to subvert usual international norms. So, when Russian athletes failed drugs tests, they did not necessarily get caught or punished.

The interference came from the top. The Russian sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, even issued direct orders to “manipulate particular samples” and there was “direct intimidation and interference by the Russian state with the Moscow laboratory operations”. Not only were its offices bugged but its director, Grigory Rodchenkov, was required to meet a security officer from the FSB weekly to update him on the “mood of Wada”.

But Rodchenkov was not an innocent party. As the independent commission revealed he was an integral part of the conspiracy to extort money from athletes in order to cover up positive results. Staggeringly he was also involved in “the intentional and malicious destruction” of 1,417 samples to deny evidence for the inquiry. A shadow laboratory that covered up positive doping results by destroying samples was also set up by the Russian state.

Once his laboratory was stripped of its right to conduct tests, Rodchenkov resigned, fled to the USA and turned 'state's evidence'.  He is wanted in Russia for (treason??).

The Russian official response is, of course, "Why is everybody always picking on me?" "It is a conspiracy". "It is political".  CIA, USA, etc etc.  Same old same old.

All countries have athletes and coaches who will cheat and when they are caught, they will be punished as individuals.  But when it is state policy, then the country as a whole must be punished. Russia seems to have decided that international laws or rules of any kind do not apply to them.  They need to be disencumbered of that notion.

After the blow out at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, I guess Putin et al decided that for Sochi, they better come up with something good.  If you cannot train superior athletes, then boost the ones you have and make sure no one finds out. Here is what they did for tests in Russia:

Source: http://www.bbc.com/sport/36823453

These are the results of the investigation conducted last year:

• Russia is alleged to have 'sabotaged' London 2012 through systemic doping: Many of Russia's athletes at London 2012 had suspicious doping profiles, including 800m champion Mariya Savinova.

• Some athletes are alleged to have refused and avoided tests: Athletes refused to take doping tests, gave incorrect phone numbers to anti-doping officials, paid money to cover up positive tests and returned from doping bans early.

• Some doctors, coaches and lab staff were in on the alleged cover-up:Doctors and coaches provided banned substances to athletes, coaches and team officials hindered and bullied anti-doping officials, and laboratory personnel destroyed samples and covered up positive tests.

• And so too was the Russian government: The Russian security service FSB allegedly operated a "culture of intimidation" at the anti-doping labs, and it was "inconceivable" that Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko did not know what was going on.

• The IAAF was 'inexplicably lax' in tackling the problem: Athletics' global governing body the International Association of Athletics Federations failed to deal with the problem until it was too late, delaying its investigation of individual cases so long that suspect athletes were allowed to compete in London.

An independent investigation was conducted this year by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) led by Canadian Dr. Richard McLaren.

• Russia decided to cheat following the "very abysmal" medal count of 15 at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.  
• Cheating was "planned and operated" from late 2011 - including the build-up to London 2012 - and continued through the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics until August 2015. Russia's sports ministry "directed, controlled and oversaw" manipulation of urine samples provided by its athletes.
• Russian athletes benefited from what the report called the "Disappearing Positive Methodology", whereby positive doping samples would go missing.
• It began making positive drug tests disappear from its anti-doping laboratories in late 2011
• Before the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia created a storage bank of clean, frozen urine
• Russia's security service, the FSB, worked in a building next to the Sochi laboratory, swapping positive urine samples for clean negative ones through a "mouse hole", adding table salt to make them weigh the same
• A key FSB agent had access to the Sochi anti-doping laboratory, disguised as a sewage and plumbing contractor
• But, in swapping urine samples, the FSB agents left miniscule tool marks on the bottles - later found by McLaren's investigators using a microscope
• The Moscow laboratory destroyed 8,000 samples it held dated prior to 10 September 2014

The whistleblowers who started the investigations, VitalyStepanov and his wife Yulia Rusanova, are in hiding, fearing for their lives as they have been called 'traitors to the Motherland'. 

In 2010, Vitaly began sending WADA evidence that he said showed the cheating was systemic in Russian athletics, and Vitaly's employer, the Russian anti-doping agency, was not exposing, but, in fact, enabling the cheating. Vitaly was fired in 2011. Prior to that he had held several positions, including as an adviser to the director of the agency.

In 2013, Yuliya received a two-year ban from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) because of past doping infractions. 

The WADA commission's investigation didn't begin until December 2014, and only after the Stepanovs went public in a sensational German documentary about their allegations. 

The IAAF apparently knew about Russian doping years before an done of their upper echelon is being investigated for his ties.  WADA wasn't all that anxious to get involved wither until Stepanovs went public.

Where this ends is hard to say but Stepanovs and Rodchenkov need to be careful with whom they have tea and avoid high rise apartments with balconies. Hard to avoid guns or car bombs though.

Some Statistics on Saskatchewan Rural Municipalities

Once in a while when researching one thing, my attention is caught by something else (Oh. Look! Shiny!) and I take off on a tangent.  Statistics interest me because by organizing them different ways you learn different things.  I was looking at changes over time to the population of the area I grew up in and decided to have a look at Rural Saskatchewan in general.  All data comes from Wikipedia.

Municipal governance is a responsibility of the provinces so it is different in each one of the Prairie Provinces.  Some of those differences are summarized in the table below:

Most of Alberta’s Rural Municipal Districts are classed as Counties under Alberta’s rural governance legislation. Several of Manitoba’s Rural Municipal Districts are quite small and densely populated, not really rural but not quite urban.

Of Saskatchewan's 782 municipalities, 462 of them are urban municipalities (16 cities, 146 towns, 160 villages and 40 resort villages), 296 are rural municipalities and 24 are northern municipalities (2 northern towns, 11 northern villages and 11 northern hamlets).

Initially I set out to look at means and standard deviations but had no faith in the numbers generated by Excel’s built-in functions.  Someone who knows about these things (Thanks, Ian) advised me to always plot my data and suggested Scatter charts. First time I ever used them and I love them.

Methodology as follows: Copy/pasted the data from Wiki to Excel.  Sorted four different ways (Area, 2011 Population, % Change Between 2006 and 2011, and Population Density) and removed six (in one case five) outliers for each one which are tabled separately. Removing extreme outliers makes the chart more useful as it distributes the remaining data better. Created a scatter chart for each of the items of interest.

Area

The south half of Saskatchewan is surveyed into the standard grid of townships, sections and road allowances, areas deemed suitable for agriculture. Saskatchewan RMs were ideally to be three townships by three townships (18 miles by 18 miles), 324 sections or 207,360 acres, which works out to 840 km².  Throw in topography such as lakes and rivers and the ideal goes out the window.

Two hundred and twenty-five RMs are within 500 to 1000 km² but only 28 are in the 800 to 900 km² range and 42 in the 700 to 800 km² range.  52 are over 1000 km², mostly in the north (trees and brush) or the south west (short grass prairie) and are not so suitable for farming.  Some larger ones are the result of amalgamation of RMS but those are few in number, although legislation encouraging amalgamation has been in place for years.

Population in 2011

Population of Saskatchewan RMs ranges from the sublime (Corman Park 8,354) to the ridiculous (Glen McPherson 73). Fifty-one RMs had populations of under 250 people (including my home RM of Reford with 235), 131 had populations between 251 and 499, while 80 had populations between 500 and 999.  The balance (34) had populations of over 1000, only 6 of which had more than 2500 people.  Five of these were close to urban centres.

 % Change

One hundred and one RMs gained population between 2006 and 2011; the other 195 lost population.  Net change to the rural population was -1%. Changes ranged from a gain of over 80% to a loss of over 40%.

Population Density

Population density for all 296 RMs in 2011 was 0.6 people per km². 142 RMs had population densities of less than 0.5 persons per km2 while 123 RMs had population densities between 0.5 and 1.0.  Only 31 RMs had more than 1 person per km² and only five of those RMs had more than 2.5 persons per km².

Background

The mandatory and optional Municipal Services/Functions are described HERE. There is far more to Saskatchewan RMs than just road maintenance.

RM taxes are based on property evaluation or land assessment.  Establishing land value for taxation purposes is complex as it is far more than just market value which fluctuates.  Each Quarter Section (160 acres, 64.75 hectares) is assessed a value based on several factors.  The RM tax rate is set as a percent of assessment across the entire municipality. RMs also collect the local school board taxes which are also property based.

Population does not equal farm numbers or ratepayer (RM taxpayer) numbers which are fewer than the population.  Each RM has an office and Secretary, though often RMs will share an office and staff.  Each RM has a Municipal Council with a Reeve and councilors.  With the low population numbers, as one Councilor said to me years ago, “I could easily phone all my ratepayers before breakfast every day to see what they want me to do that day”.

Iolo System Mechanic 16.0 Stops Working

System Mechanic has been my go-to computer clean up and tune up software for many years.  It costs me about $40 per year but has been worth it in terms of performance.  Current version is 16.0 to which I just upgraded a week or so ago.

The program had been giving me some trouble for a couple of months.  It would quit working in the middle of automated analysis and clean up.  So when the upgrade did the same thing two nights in a row, I decided enough. Using Google with my title as search text input, I found THIS link.

Took me an afternoon but it worked and I hope fixed a few other things as well.  The problem was something in Windows. Here are the steps to doing a total overhaul on Windows XP to 10.

1. Entirely delete the contents of all Temp folders.  I used CCleaner which is free from this website: http://www.ccleaner.com/download/builds.aspx. It removes all of the following and a great deal more.  You can chose what it will remove but these are critical. Reboot afterwards.

• Cookies
• Local Settings\Temp
• Local Settings\History
• Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

2. Disable Windows security systems including antivirus.  I did not need to uninstall Malware Bytes but was warned it may be necessary if disabling them does not truly shut them off.  I did turn off the Firewall. Windows Repair must be installed with no security software interference.

3. Download and install Windows Repair (All In One) which is free from this website: www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/windows-repair-all-in-one.

4. Follow all the directions in Windows Repair.  It walks you through step by step.  I did all the optional scans and of course the mandatory backups. Some of the steps take time.  Be patient.

5. Once you have run the repairs, reboot and test.