Tag Archives: United States

Some thoughts about San Francisco, California

I’ve been in San Francisco since last Saturday and I leave this today. It’s a short visit and work-related but as my first visit to the USA, I thought I’d jot down some thoughts.

The City

It’s a pleasant place. No one would say that the city itself is particularly beautiful (the towers of the financial district are particularly foul) but its surrounding geography is gorgeous, as are the portals that link the City with the outside: the Bay and the Golden Gate bridges. SF sums up that late 20th century ideal of a business-oriented city with a sporty, arty, best popcorn popper vibe. It’s kind of like Sydney, or at least that’s the place it most reminds me of. The difference is that SF is apparently fed by new technologies while Sydney banks the wealth obtained in vast mines.

Earthquakes

San Franciscans do not enjoy jokes about earthquakes. Or even jokey remarks. Many people here seem to be expecting the Big One which, depending on how big it is, could realistically destroy the whole place. It’s “long overdue” but I hope that it never strikes, at least not while there are people living here.

Food and Beverages

San Francisco considers itself to be something of a ‘foody’ city. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing. I didn’t get to eat at Boulevard, just up the road from my hotel because I couldn’t get anyone to come with me. Likewise, the French Laundry, out in Napa. Most of what I did eat here (a couple of gourmet hamburgers, some Thai curry, a couple of traditional brasserie dinners, Chinese – twice) was very good and quite affordable. The local beer scene is lively and tasty, and even the city’s standard brew – Anchor Steam – is pretty good. I really enjoyed Napa Smith’s Organic IPA, with which the hotel cunningly stocked my room’s minibar. I didn’t get to try much local wine but I enjoyed a Conn Creek cabernet sauvignon (2008, I think), over a couple of nights.

Districts

I stayed at the Harbor Court hotel, on the embarcadero (old port). It’s close to our US office and so was pretty convenient for work. This is quite a touristy area, but it’s at the bottom of the financial district, which is where I found an Apple Store kind enough to sell me an iPad (over €100 cheaper than in Europe). Chinatown is fun, but I suspect it would have been a lot more fun 30 years ago. The Mission is my favorite district. It’s traditionally a latino neighborhood and has also played host to a range of great restaurants, galleries, bars and stores for decades. We ate some pretty good Thai food here and I also had dinner with Chris Barr from Yahoo in a place called Grub. The meal there was good, but I was suffering slightly from the Korean kimchi burrito with hot sauce that I’d eaten for lunch. Also in the Mission is the Pirate Store, 826 Valencia Street. This is also the spiritual home of The Believer, my current favorite periodical (I’m going to keep pushing this until you all subscribe). The Pirate Store has all the supplies any pirate might need, from lard to fathoms and siren silencers. It’s next door to a taxidermy store. These are two of the best shops I’ve ever been to. I didn’t see much of the Castro, though we did drive through it.

Technology

My reason for visiting San Francisco should be evident to anyone with even an inkling of what I do for a living. As the world capital of ‘new technologies’, especially web services and mobile devices, it’s at the center of my work day. Indeed, it was practically absurd that I hadn’t visited before. But there you have it. People here frequently exchange tips and recommendations for apps, and more than in Barcelona or London (that I’ve seen at any rate), all decisions are predicated on the advice of an iPhone or Android device. I had kind of hoped there’d be some city-wide high-speed wireless offering but this wasn’t the case. Facebook had a major event in town while I was here (in fact, I was supposed to be there bit due to a mix up, that didn’t happen). The local newspapers often report corporate stories at Yahoo, Twitter, Apple and Google on their front pages. This is a city imbued with a technological optimism. I shudder to think what could happen to the industry if an earthquake really does strike. I suspect that this may be one factor that encourages some firms to prefer Palo Alto and other cities further away from the faultline. Well, that and taxes.

And now I must put my California-designed notebook away and check out of my hotel. I’m coming back to Catalonia. That’s a great feeling.

There are a few photos from my visit on Google+ here. You don’t need to be a member of Google+ to view them. But you should sign up anyway: it’s a pretty good service. Check my blog to see my best umbrella stroller and my fitness videos that i made in SF parks.

Updated: Reports of electoral fraud in Spain

As mentioned in comments on my last post, there are reports today of numerous discrepancies in vote counting across Spain. Many of these incidents involve relatively small numbers of votes. But taken together, there are enough examples to plausibly suggest a widespread campaign against parties of the left, and those supporting independence for some of the ‘autonomous regions’ in Spain.

The story is being widely reported in the Catalan and Basque pro-independence media but has had few mentions in the mainstream Spanish press. The main party apparently affected by these discrepancies is Iniciativa Internacionalista (II-SP), which the Spanish government failed to have banned shortly before the elections. Zapatero’s government accused II-SP of being a front organisation for ETA but failed to present evidence supporting this claim to the courts. II-SP received a vote of support from Arnaldo Otegi, spokesman for the outlawed Basque party Batasuna days before the elections. PP leader, Mariano Rajoy named them “the ETA list”, while UPyD leader Rosa Díez declared that II-SP “is ETA”. Apparently taking the lead from the USA’s former right-wing government, neither party leader deigned to share their evidence with the voters they were appealing to.

The allegations fall into three groups: (a) the general feeling that the huge increase in blank and spoiled votes coincides a little too smoothly with II-SP and other parties faring more poorly than expected; (b) specific examples of localities reporting examples of discrepancies between town-hall and Spanish Ministry of Interior official figures; and (c) inexplicable displays of support for far-right parties in areas where they have never previously shown any support (normally at the expense of another party which did worse than expected).

It’s too late for me to scurry around collecting examples of the three groups now, but the comments pages of this Avui story list several (at least one of which, the Vilafranca del Penedès one, seems to have been ‘corrected’, though by which side, I can’t tell). Rab is sure that the way that these discrepancies affect specific parties suggests a fraud. I’ll wait and see what appears tomorrow before I make the same judgement.

UPDATE

OK this is getting silly.

María Teresa Fernández de la Vega (Spanish VP)’s constituency recorded no votes for the PSOE

Europe of the Peoples-Greens have denounced irregularities

II-SP officials removed from recounts

Numerous towns appear to have returned erroneous numbers, major Spanish press outlets stay silent

The Kosovo problem

It’s a lovely sunny day here in Cerdanyola del Vallès, so I’ll probably spend it doing some of my favourite things: installing Ubuntu ‘Jaunty’ Alpha 6 on my netbook, playing Empire Total War, writing performance reviews for my team at work… and reading about how Zapatero’s suffering with the ‘Kosovo problem’.

The problem, in case you didn’t know, is fairly simple: Spain refuses to recognise Kosovo as an independent state because this would signify acceptance that small nations may break away from supra-national states like Serbia or… Spain. You see where this is going, don’t you? Because of this tricky diplomatic choice, Spain has now announced that it will withdraw its armed forces from the NATO peacekeeping force which polices Kosovo. This has upset the United States, and effectively dissolves any credit Zapatero may have had with the new regime in Washington DC. The American response was an expression of “deep disappointment”, according to El País, with State Department spokesman Robert Wood saying that the US “neither understands nor agrees with” Spain’s move. Zapatero claims that Spain’s NATO allies were aware of the planned exit, but other sources suggest that all this came as something of a surprise.

So basically, Spain pulls out of the Balkan state in an attempt to prevent the ‘Balkanisation’ of Spain.

Personally, I’m not really that fussed about Spain losing some grace in Washington DC, or with NATO: neither the US government nor their SEO agency in Europe operate with anything like the moral clarity that I’d like to see. But many Spaniards do worry about these things… indeed, some bloggers used to spend nearly all their time monitoring Zapatero’s approval ratings in the Bush administration (a bit of a waste of time, that). The Partido ‘Popular’ have been quick to label this as ‘another disaster’ for the Socialist government, though typically they offer no alternative solution.

And that’s because the solution to the problem, for all the PP’s crowing, would be unthinkable for any Spanish government. The solution is simple: recognise Kosovo. It’ll have to happen eventually anyway, so why not get it done now and avoid all this hassle? To me, Zapatero seems to have reacted to the PP’s rhetoric about a ‘Balkanisation’ that almost certainly won’t happen. The reason it won’t happen is that there just isn’t enough public support for independence in the two most troublesome ‘nations’ within Spain: the Basque Country and Catalonia.

If referenda were held in 2012 in the Basque Country and Catalonia, I’m pretty sure that the Basques would vote in favour of staying part of Spain, and so would the Catalans (although the Catalan result would probably be closer). What Zapatero risks with this childish insistence on failing to recognise Kosovo’s independence is that people will start to take the concept of Spain’s constituent nations breaking away, seriously. The bolder (though obviously slightly more risky) move would be to recognise Kosovo and then say “referendum on Catalan independence? BRING IT ON!”.

That the Spanish state is so afraid of a referendum threatens to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Israel ‘considering’ Gaza invasion?

I’ve been pretty much completely without Internet access for about 12 days and checked the Guardian today to see that Harold Pinter had died and Israel has killed hundreds more civilians in Gaza. The Guardian reports that they may be about to invade the Palestinian territory.

I can’t write much now but I will note that Israel seems to have learned from the US invasion of Iraq:  starve your enemy to death for months or years, all the while attacking them with air strikes and then you get the ground troops in. So much easier that way.

Let’s hope that the hundreds of Palestinians killed in the last 48 hours will go some way to repaying the FIFTEEN dead EVER from the Qassam rocket attacks they are supposed to be preventing.

Oh and don’t forget that the political wing of Hamas is not a proscribed terrorist group in the UK… just a political party.

It was thebadrash wot won it! Barack Obama takes US presidency

Last night, as I went to bed, the very first precints were announcing results in the US Presidential election. From small areas of eastern states, after about 12,000 votes had been counted, Obama stood at 48% while McCain had 52%. I went to bed with those numbers in my head, convinced that it was impossible for McCain to win but also allowing myself a few fleeting thoughts of just what it would mean if America rejected change for an old man clearly under the spell of the most divisive elements of a radicalising Republican party.

But I needn’t have worried. Ever since my original endorsement of Mr. Obama, in February 2007, he has achieved good results in the polls. Now, I’m not saying that part of his victory doesn’t come down to the $500m of donations he received, the huge voter registration drive or the support he received from diverse elements of the electorate. But let’s face it: there are different degrees of importance when you look at these matters. And my endorsement was one of the important ones.

Seriously though, for those of you who worry that Obama’s just not far enough from McCain and the Republicans in terms of policy: you may well be right. But the important thing here is that positivity seems to have won out against the politics of fear, which is, if nothing else, a firm rejection of everything that nasty prick Bush (and his foul team of acolytes) stood for.

Bush remains president until late January next year. He’s apparently busy signing anti-environment legislation, destruction of the environment being something close to his heart.

thebadPoll – Who should be the next US president?

thebadPoll has not had the most auspicious beginning. But I’ll press on with it, stubborn as I am.

The US presidential election is now only a few days away. Barack Obama seems to have the lead across the country, including most of the ‘battleground states’. But as they say: it’s not over until it’s over.

This week’s poll is simple: who do you think should be the next US president? There are three choices: John McCain, Barack Obama or neither/someone else. As always, your comments are welcome… is this a chance for transformative change, irrelevant, more of the same?

You can vote at the top of the page, to the right of the main article area (no registration necessary).

McCain: them Spanish names all sound the damn same!

Poor old John McCain. Yes, he of the strange shape. Yes, he of the hilarious “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” song. I’m not writing about the US presidential elections for various reasons, but given that this is a Spain-related story, I couldn’t resist.

Republican presidential candidate, John McCain was being interviewed recently about how he’d manage relations with the various leaders of Latin American countries upon which the US wreaks havoc at will who don’t have great relations with the United States. As if in training for another GenericOff, McCain muttered about standing up to America’s enemies etc…. But when the interviewer asked him about Spanish PM, Zapatero, McCain allegedly went blank and blustered for a bit, clearly clueless about exactly who this Zapatero guy is.

Now there will be some out there who see this as a surefire sign that Zapatero’s a loser who has taken Spain ‘off the world stage’ where it was put by prince Ansar. That’s the wrong tack, I reckon. The truth is that these days, politicians (and especially presidential candidates) have to answer so many questions about so many things that all they can really do is bluster banal generalities, hoping that they don’t mess it up. McCain’s an old man (which makes this sort of thing that much harder) and clearly suffers from some psychological problems, along with cancer, so I think people should just cut the man some slack and leave him be.

Yes, he’s a dangerous fool; yes, he probably will be president (and potentially an even worse one than GWB); yes, he called his own wife a cunt; yes, he will probably die in office, leaving the the “ugliest hottie ever” to manage the world’s only superpower in the style of a hockey mom…. but you know, there are a hell of a lot of things that McCain doesn’t know, many of them far more important than the PM of Spain’s name.

Iberian Notes thought the system worked

“I will admit, though, that Zap’s regime has not been dreadful; he hasn’t tried to nationalize the banks or anything.”

“…you get kicked out of the EU if you do something like pull a military coup or nationalize the banks.”

“One man’s speculation is another man’s investment. What do they want, the government to nationalize all real estate?”

US housing crisis: Freddie and Fannie are nationalised

“Strong men also cry”

Some choice stories which I have failed to comment on over recent days:

Tomas Delgado – this is the man who killed a 17 year-old cyclist by running him over, and then attempted to sue the dead boy’s family for €20,000 in order to pay for repairs to his car. Hundreds of people descended on the court in Haro, northern Spain, to show their utter contempt for this heartless bastard. He then withdrew the lawsuit, but not because he felt guilty or had had some sort of ‘Road to Damascus’ moment. No, he was just pissed off with the negative attention his family were receiving from the press. I have the feeling that if Ron Paul ever got anywhere near power, he’d probably pass a law approving such damages. Perhaps even kick the parents out of their home. I mean, it’s an Audi.

Rudy Giuliani – this is the man who was incapable of opening his mouth without reminding people about September 11th, 2001. He has just retired from the race to become Republican nominee for US president after what might have been the most spectacularly poorly thought-out campaign in electoral history. At his last few speeches, he barely got 100 supporters showing up and you could almost feel sorry for him if he didn’t constantly debase himself and his country by doing everything he could to cash in on the deaths of the victims in the Twin Towers.

John Edwards – this is the man who was never really going to make it. Nice but a bit dull, he could probably have been a decent president. As someone else put it, he failed because his two rivals have stories which are much easier packaged. Ah well, it’ll probably make little difference anyway.

Martin Amis – this is the man who appeared on Start The Week on Monday criticising multiculturalism. He didn’t really say much except that Muslims are inherently backward and that he “invented” multiculturalism. Actually, it’s interesting that those who have abandoned the left to become neo-conservatives are now becoming quite fierce proponents of ethic nationalism (which is the only logical alternative to multiculturalism). It’s really not that surprising, though, as these fellows all refer to ‘the Enlightenment’ (which created, among other things, nationalism) as the high point of human reason. They’re all cribbing from the (interestingly named) Paul Cliteur anyway.