The comments are not showing because enetation is down. I hope they're not lost

The demo in Jerusalem got cancelled so it was back to the same old Saturday night vigil in Carmel. Some interesting things happened though. Although there was the normal number of abusive drive bys, there were less than normal. My wife got called an anti-semite which is sad. There are people with the opposite viewpoint although they seem to argue amongst themselves on what the best thing to do is. Some advocate getting 'rid' of Ararfat , some say let the IDF win whatever that means , some call for 'humane transfer' which is a misnomer if ever I heard one.

However, all the above is standard. What was different was some young people out on the town who stopped to chat. They were from the Army cadet school and were interested in what we did, why and if we thought it made a difference. After listening politely, they invited one of us ( a senior citizen) to come and address their class. Now there's democracy in action for you. I wish the Palsetinians would have a fraction of the open debate we have here is Israel. As for moving to GWB's vision, forget it.
Whilst the old Arafat ex exiles are around, no chance. They see their years in exile as justification for the good life at the expense of the ordinary guy on the street.

I predict there won't be any serious changes now until after the next elections which will be in October 2003. Ben Eliezer, head of the Labour faction of the Likud party is trumpeting about how he's going to dismantle some illegal settlements. Most amusing. Only with the permission of the Settlers council and only in return for better protection for the one's they want to have. The ones to go are already abandoned or part time so no real progress. Poor old Ben and Shimon are hanging on for grim death to the coalition as it's very cold outside. The recent elections for the Histradut did not have a Labour candidate. Why? Polls showed only 6% support. Labour can't even agree on a peace plan of their own. Meanwhile, their supporters are getting frustrated and the word on the street is that they're a dead party.
One day I'll get to post about C++. One day....

Well. I didn't spot in the first time but here's a quote from George Bush's speech.'Permanent occupation threatens Israel's identity and democracy'.
That's a good quote. I shall use it on this Saturday's demo in Jerusalem.

The Economist has this piece on the speech. It can be summed up with the last sentance which says 'His first step has certainly been a disappointing one.'
I wonder how many people will turn out this Saturday. Watch this space.

This piece on Bush's speech from Jonathan Freedland
says it all in my view. That the Worlds first hyperpower could come up with this is very sad. I notice as well that there was no mention of the International Peace Conference at all in the speech so I imagine that one is dead.

I've often wondered why Shimon Peres thinks he's doing running the Labour branch of the Likud government. Now I wonder why Colin Powell is in the Bush government.

Either way it won't matter. There will be a major U turn by the USA sometime this year. Both the Republicans and the Likud have one thing in common. They're running their respective economies into the ground.

I was deep in gloom last night until I came across an old newspaper dating from the last elections in Israel when Barak lost to Sharon. There was a poll asking some 1500 Israelis of all political hues, Jew, Arabs, Druze, Orthodox and secular. Given the terrorist activity going on one would have thought the answer was predictable. However, the number on topic that concerned all Israel was Education.

There's hope yet.

Here is an analysis of Bush's recent speech in Israel. As usual, got it wrong.
The second paragraph should have read:

It represents a fundamental change in Israeli policy. Arafat is now officially out, as far as the Israeli government is concerned. The Israeli does not think that Arafat or the existing Palestinian Authority can be negotiated with in its current form, and does not think that it can be reformed. The policy of the Israeli Government is now that a completely new government of the Palestinians will be needed with entirely new leaders.

Note the change. This speech was written by Sharon, for Sharon and will of course do nothing to advance peace in the Middle East. It's a clear message to Sharon to carry on as normal.

In the orginal speech, there is this.

As we make progress toward security, Israel forces need to withdraw fully to positions they held prior to Sept. 28, 2000. And consistent with the recommendations of the Mitchell committee, Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop.

There are three versions of the Mitchell report. The original, the version proposed by Israel which had minor changes and the version offered by the PA with a lot of questions. As neither side has accepted the Mitchell report, mentioning makes the whole paragraph meaningless.
The settlers council will drive a coach and horses through this loophole.

No, in summary a missed opportunity. Whatever the West and Israel and myself think, the Palestinians aren't going to get rid of Arafat. If there are new elections and he wins, what then?
I wish to hell he would die of some disease or old age, but it must be in a Jordanian or Egytian hospital. If he dies in the West Bank, Israel will get blamed for it.

I've decided that cleaning out computer keyboards is something I'd rather not do. I found things I'd much rather not have seen. Next time, I'll re-cycle the thing into a book end and buy a new one. The offspring have also been banned from eating and drinking annywhere near the thing.

Courtesy of Eve Tushnet I was interested in this quiz.. Suprisingly it stated that 'England's so-called national customs have little emotional hold on you. You're aware of your roots but you're happy to take on board the best of other cultures. ' in response to my answers. I have always enjoyed other cultures which is pobably why I can survive here without bursting into tears every other day.

Politics is the number one topic whenever two Israelis met. We went to a large book warehouse yesterday and coming out of the mosahv it was in, we stopped at an antique place as number two offspring has always fancied a large trunk for storage. Well, I went in to browse, noticed my partner was no longer with me and found her outside arguing with the owners. When quized on what the argument was all about she looked at me in suprise and said 'Politics of course, but we weren't arguing.'

It sounded like a battalion fire fight to me but two Israelis talking is always loud. One sure and certain way of keeping Israelis very quiet is to make them sit on their hands.

So England lost.Brasil played better and England fell apart after the second goal.Ah well, there's always four years from now.

We went on the normal Saturday night vigil, holding up Peace Now banners in Carmel. The normal comments from passers by, some for ,some against. I hear that Yossi Belin is proposing an International Mandate over the West Bank and Gaza. Thats makes nine peace plans I read of over the weekend. No shortage of plans then. In the mean time, Sharon goes on with his 'not-a-plan'.
Hebrew readers may be interested in New Labor.Essentially a plan to rebuild the Israeli labor party as it seems to have sold it's soul to Likud.

Well, I'm finding it hard to type on this PC. There is so much gunk under the keys, its like an old mechanical typewriter. Some cleaning called for.

I promised today would be blog free but like a lot of promises , it gets broken. VodkaPundit is banging on again about the EU funding the PA and therefore terrorism. Well, so does Israel. Rather reluctantly.. The point here is that making a belt bomb doesn't cost much. It's the will and reasons behind terrorism that need stopping.
Concentrating on the mechanics only is wasted. Cosider the Israeli approach to airport security. The training always stresses 'play the person'. It's what they're thinking and their reasons for travel that are imporant, not the nail scissors in the toilet bag. Sure, check for bombs and guns but ask why are you traveling, where do you live, who did you see. Ask them again later. Look for inconsistencies. Most of Israeli anti terrorism information comes from informers, not scanners.

This wasn't the post I meant to make. I read a blog yesterday (forgot who - sorry) that pointed out he was interested in peoples work. Well I was going to post on C++ and languages but that will have to wait. Got a project to run here.

On an Israeli indentity card, the person's nationality/religion is stated. In my case, this says 'British'. Well I not Jewish and I'm not Christian. There are around 130 things that can appear here, such as Jewish, Muslim , even Tartar. One thing that cannot appear is Israeli. Yes, I'll say that again. An Israeli ID card may not say Israeli. I think that's wrong. I'm proud to be Israeli and proud of my new country. Some things here though, get on my nerves.

Supreme Court President Aharon Barak was heckled both by delegates of the National Religious Party and by secular right-wing delegates during his address Tuesday(19/06/2002) to the 34th World Zionist Congress at Jerusalem's International Convention Center.
Not suprising really

The NRP have suggested in the past that Israel cannot be a democratic state and a Jewish State at the same time. I would write more but the tears get the keyboard wet.

Another template. Lets see if this one works.

I've added a comment section courtesy of Enetation. Lets see if this works. I've changed my template (again) and the links aren't showing. I'll fix this.

I see Mr Ashcroft is at it again.
I can imagine the objections. 'This is an unwarranted attack on the democratic rights of men to kick the shit out of women. Beside, our new found allies in the anti abortion wars will be pissed'

Yes, folks, right wing Christians (who scare me as much as Al-Queda does) have teamed up with fundamentalist Islam to fight against family planning, contraceptives and abortions.

More on the ICC. Perhaps this page says it better. To quote a snippet:

Many ICC proponents believe that Congress is simply ill informed about the ICC. According to Richard Dicker, Director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, "the level of real understanding about the ICC is staggeringly low, and Helms and others are able to circulate a lot of disinformation, obviously effectively." The result, says Heather Hamilton of the United World Federalists, is that Congress succumbed to "decision-making based on untruths and myths."

I agree. My Israeli friends who serve in the IDF are worried about the ICC. They only need to worry if they commit what is seen as a war crime, the Israeli government does nothing and they visit Europe. Helping settlers in the West Bank evict Palestinians and guard new colonies would be getting close.

I found another blog objecting to the International Criminal Court. For the benefit of readers I offer the USA objections and my comments.
State department text in italics

First, we believe the ICC is an institution of unchecked power. In the United States, our system of government is founded on the principle that, in the words of John Adams, "power must never be trusted without a check." Unchecked power, our founders understood, is open to abuse, even with the good intentions of those who establish it.

But in the rush to create a powerful and independent court in Rome, there was a refusal to constrain the Court’s powers in any meaningful way. Proposals put forward by the United States to place what we believed were proper checks and balances on the Court were rejected. In the end, despite the best efforts of the U.S. delegation, the final treaty had so many defects that the United States simply could not vote for it.

Take one example: the role of the UN Security Council. Under the UN Charter, the UN Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. But the Rome Treaty removes this existing system of checks and balances, and places enormous unchecked power in the hands of the ICC prosecutor and judges. The treaty created a self-initiating prosecutor, answerable to no state or institution other than the Court itself.

In Rome, the United States said that placing this kind of unchecked power in the hands of the prosecutor would lead to controversy, politicized prosecutions, and confusion. Instead, the U.S. argued that the Security Council should maintain its responsibility to check any possible excesses of the ICC prosecutor. Our arguments were rejected; the role of the Security Council was usurped.

But isn’t that the whole idea? All of the above arguments could be used against the Supreme Court and would be grounds for its abolition. The ICC has constraints built in. If every country promptly investigates any charges against its citizens the ICC would have no jurisdiction at all.
Having the UNSC control the court would mean , for example, that Pol Pot could never have been brought before it. China would have vetoed the idea.



Second, the treaty approved in Rome dilutes the authority of the UN Security Council and departs from the system that the framers of the UN Charter envisioned.

The treaty creates an as-yet-to-be defined crime of “aggression,” and again empowers the court to decide on this matter and lets the prosecutor investigate and prosecute this undefined crime. This was done despite the fact that the UN Charter empowers only the Security Council to decide when a state has committed an act of aggression. Yet the ICC, free of any oversight from the Security Council, could make this judgment.

Aggressive war was defined in the Nuremeburg trials. See :

Nuremburg cases Yale


The USA was the prime mover here. Was.


Third, the treaty threatens the sovereignty of the United States. The Court, as constituted today, claims the authority to detain and try American citizens, even though our democratically-elected representatives have not agreed to be bound by the treaty. While sovereign nations have the authority to try non-citizens who have committed crimes against their citizens or in their territory, the United States has never recognized the right of an international organization to do so absent consent or a UN Security Council mandate.

Armerican citizens are regularly prosecuted abroad for crimes that have not been agreed by the US senate. So what?

Fourth, the current structure of the International Criminal Court undermines the democratic rights of our people and could erode the fundamental elements of the United Nations Charter, specifically the right to self defense.

With the ICC prosecutor and judges presuming to sit in judgment of the security decisions of States without their assent, the ICC could have a chilling effect on the willingness of States to project power in defense of their moral and security interests.

This power must sometimes be projected. The principled projection of force by the world’s democracies is critical to protecting human rights — to stopping genocide or changing regimes like the Taliban, which abuse their people and promote terror against the world.

None of this makes any sense. Perhaps the author should have read the existing treaty a bit more carefully. True, a USA invasion of Canada would be chancy. Is the USA diminished by that?

Fifth, we believe that by putting U.S. officials, and our men and women in uniform, at risk of politicized prosecutions, the ICC will complicate U.S. military cooperation with many friends and allies who will now have a treaty obligation to hand over U.S. nationals to the Court — even over U.S. objections.

The United States has a unique role and responsibility to help preserve international peace and security. At any given time, U.S. forces are located in close to 100 nations around the world conducting peacekeeping and humanitarian operations and fighting inhumanity.

We must ensure that our soldiers and government officials are not exposed to the prospect of politicized prosecutions and investigations. Our President is committed to a robust American engagement in the world to defend freedom and defeat terror; we cannot permit the ICC to disrupt that vital mission.

Without a clear definition of what ‘politicized’ means, this doesn’t really mean much. I suspect it means ‘anything we don’t like’.

Stephen Green has a piece about a former French minister warbling about the Middle East. There has been a huge amount of guff written about Israel and it reminded me of the built in paranoia that a lot of French people have. When the heir to the French throne was killed in a little colonial scuffle with the British in 1879 , the French nation was convinced it was all planned by Queen Victoria. Never mind that Prince Louis Napoleon had been brought up in in Britain, his father having been rejected by the French. It was all 'perfidious Albion's fault' , as usual
Christian, my otherwise intelligent french friend , was shocked some years ago when I pointed out that the then French President, Mitterand, had served in the war time Vichy government. 'Why weren't we told ' he gasped.

Why indeed.

I changed the template to something more pleasing and have taken down my rusty HTML book. When I'm settled, I'll put some links to the places I like. Here's one of the better blogs. Wonderful person

Another Monday crawls into being. I was musing on the more subtle differences of living in Israel when I remembered what a Russian Israeli told me some years back. This is what he said.
"In most countries , there is a process for getting things done. You can imagine this as a series of gear wheels with an input and an output. You feed something in, say a form and a fee, the gear wheels turn and something comes out at the end, say a driving license or permit."

In Israel, it's just like this except the gear wheels don't touch. Hence the need to run around various places to make even the simplest things work.

All this came from an experience in my local library. They had a stack of second hand books and I chose three. taking them to the desk, I was informed I couldn't buy them because the receipt book was used up, no blanks left. Why this should matter for 22 Shekels I could not imagine. Coming back a few days later, they triumphantly produced a new book. Fine I thought. Then I had to give them my name. For a receipt? For $3.5 dollars worth of goods?

Other people do read my posts it seems. So, that's motivated me to upgrade so I have a little more control. It's also made me promise myself to be much more careful with my typing. Some of my blog comments look juvenile.
Yesterday, I created phase one of the pond waterfall. This is the fifth pond I've built in my life and it looks to be the first that doesn't leak. We shall see. Hope to heading to thr UK this summer. Need a spot of damp in my bones. And large amounts of bitter.

Well done England. 3-0 against Denmark. So, Brazil next, Can England do it?

Meanwhile , here is an advert from Uri Avnery in Ha'Aretz. I don't agree with all this but it's worth recording.


OPERATIONS ORDER

If Arial Sharon were to formulate his intentions as a military operations order, like he used to do in the army, instead of hosting them behind a host of smoke screens, it would look like this.

1. Aims
To bring the Zionist Revolution to its conclusion, by turning all of Eretz Israel from the sea to the Jordan river, into a Jewish state, with a minimum of non Jewish inhabitants (if any at all).

2. Information

The 1948 War of Independence was broken off before achieving its aim. The State of Israel was established on only 78% of the and, which brought about the removal of only 64% of the Palestinians. In the 9167 war we conquered the remaining 22%, but successive Israeli governments lacked the necessary willpower to conclude the Zionist revolution by annexing the territories and removing the remaining Arab population.
Now, a window of opportunity has opened for concluding the job. Only one superpower remains (the US); all the other powers (the UN, Europe, Russia and others) have effectively been eliminated.
The US is now lending us unlimited and unqualified support. It is to be hoped that it will continue to do so even when we employ harsh methods in the pursuit of our national aims. Experience shows that even when somebody in the American administration resists the implementation of our aims, this resistance collapses when faced with our determined stand (Operation ‘Defensive Shield’). Our control over both houses of Congress and our decisive influence on most of the American media guarantee us freedom of action.

3 Methods

Our task will be achieved by the following methods, to be employed simultaneously

a) Military operations, to break the armed Palestinian resistance.
b) Economic pressure to cause mass Arab migration from the country
c) Settlement activity, to cut up the territories and prepare them for annexation to Israel.
d) Political action to break the Palestinian political and social institutions.


4/ Implementation

a) Military operations. These will be conducted incessantly, without long pauses. The whole army, including reserves, wall be employed for this task even if this necessitates a weakening of our preparedness vis-à-vis the Arab states and limiting training.
The IDF will occupy the Palestinian territories as needed, for long and short periods, in order to catch, arrest of execute, all Palestinian militants who could organize resistance to our policy. For this purpose, there is no difference between terrorists and political leaders, between armed or civil resistance, between Hamas and Fatah. Maximal destruction of property will cause deterrence.

This will be a repeated action, in order to eliminate every new set of leaders. Our actions will necessarily increase the motivation for terrorists to execute suicide bombings in Israel. These will provide us – both in the domestic and international arena – with reasons for our military actions that will be seen as a response. The IDF will also assume a central role in exercising economic pressure as follows.
It must be ensured that no officer who doe not whole heartedly support this task attains a senior position (Chief of Staff, officer in charge of regional departments, commanders of divisions and brigades). For fulfilling a historic mission, hardness and cruelty are needed; there can be no place for bleeding hearts.

b) Economic Pressure. Mass expulsion, like in 1948, can be effected only in a special situation, such as a fully fledged war or during an exceptional international event that draws away world attention.
Until this eventually occurs, Palestinians must be induced to leave the country by economic pressure that will make their life intolerable. Such pressure will be achieved through closures and blockades that will prevent the movement of merchants and workers, teachers and pupils, doctors and patients. The whole economic life in the territories must gradually be brought to a standstill so that the ability of the heads of families to feed their children is effectively destroyed.
IDF actins will enclose the Palestinians in small enclaves, where they will receive some kind of limited local autonomy, so as to relieve us of any formal responsibility for their situation.
In the prosecution of this policy, international public opinion and international aid agencies must be taken into account. From time to time, exceptions must be made to prevent extreme situations from arising.

c) Settlement activity.: This is a central tool for fulfilling the historic task. In spite of the fact that all Israeli governments since 1967 have understood this, and acted accordingly, the tempo was slow. While more than 30% of Judea and Samaria are part of the town planning areas of the settlements hardly more than 1% is settled.
This is an intolerable scandal which must be speedily rectified. All ministries must take part in this urgent effort, devoting a considerable part of their resources to it. Existing settlements must be enlarged and new ones setup by all possible means. (takeovers after terrorist attacks, new neighbourhoods far from the existing settlements , etc) The network of bypass roads must be expanded rapidly in order to cut off Palestinian towns and villages, to annex more land to the settlements and strengthen our control on the ground. All this must be done according to the existing strategic plan, which prevents Palestinian territorial continuity and tightens the economic blockade.

For the settlement, the economic resources of all ministries must be centralized and all other task must take second place. More people, including new immigrants, must be encouraged to join the settlements. If necessary, young couples must be offered villas and zero cost. The flight of the factories from the settlement industrial parks, following threats from the European Union, must be stopped.
The IDF will devote the necessary resources to the protection of the settlements and the roads leading to them even if this means calling up the reserves and orderiong a whole battalion to protect one single isolated settlement.

d) Political pressure:Breaking the Palestinian leadership is a central component of the whole campaign. In order to destroy the ability of the Palestinians to resist, the central leadership, and especially Yassir Ararafat, who is a unifying symbol, must be eliminated. Therefore, the whole propaganda effort must be concentrated on Arafat personally. Every Palestinian factor that is ready to fight Arafat (including Hamas) must be exploited, as well as anti Arafat utterances by left wing extremists. Arafat will be physically elimited once the international situation permits.
At the same time, in-fighting between second row Palestinians leaders must be encouraged, in order to create a leadership vacuum, such as existed in 1948.

All these pressure, military, economic settlement and political- must be increased until the situation of the Palestinians becomes so intolerable, that they prefer to move to Jordan. If an historical opportunity for mass expulsion should present itself we must exploit rapidly. The Israeli Arabs are a special problem as they have been given Israeli citizenship. The problem demands a creative solution

An early start to work again on what is supposed to be a day off. Life in a startup continues as normal. The problem this time was a seemingly innocent HTML write added to one of our registration pages. The Law of Unintended Consequenses kicks in and strange behaviour results.
So, a treatise on the importance of testing before releasing changes into the wild will follow.

Spam count lower than normal for some reason, only 8 to parse and Lart to various people. I use Spamcop more and more trying to get back at the mis begotten spammers.
Email is important here and I have several accounts from various providers. Several times I have lost email due to spammers who send 100K bloated HTML emails and overflowed my account.
All the email boxes at work have had the mailbox size increased twice in the last 12 months to accomodate all the crud that arrives. $2 per box per month adds up. There goes my Passover bonus. I watch nanae with interest and the progress of the spews.org mission to cut spammers, spamhausen and supporters from the Internet.

An update to all this. It's been reported that the IDF will be removing an 'outpost' near Hebron. Only 500 to go then.

One way of worrying an Israeli homeowner is to suggest that it's time for the local council to come around and assess his/her house for the local tax, which is size, based. Called the ‘Arnona’, it is widely fudged by having the size of your house much smaller for tax purposes than it really is. Years of development, extensions and loft conversions have made this a difficult subject for local councils.

Yet, in today's Ha'aretz, what do I read? 17 'illegal' houses belonging to the Bedouin in the Negev have been demolished. On the opposite page was an article about the IDF and the Ministry of Defence discussing illegal settlements in the West Bank. No mention of demolition there of course.
The Negev is sparsely populated and undisputed Israeli territory. The West Bank is crowded and hotly contested. Yet the Israeli coalition government continues to sleep walk on the road to ruin.
My wife tells me that the talk on the street is hardening and more people, even some she considers normally sane and thinking about tranferring all the Arabs, even Israeli ones , out of the country. Faciscim is alive and well and living in Israel.

So, England didn't lose to Nigeria. Well, better than a lose I suppose but a goal or two would have been more comfortable.

I surprise myself sometimes. Normally I never follow football but when the World Cup comes around, there I am
again, eagerly following England and its fortunes.
So, will we get to the next round? I think we will and all the way to the final.

Another two bombs in Israel yesterday and no doubt more to come. I sometimes think both sides are too
stubborn to reach any kind of agreement. Now that Sharon has Dubya's blessing for the Shamir tactic, we can
expect some years of this kind of violence and a slowing diminishing economy.

Amongst my likes are good music and books but not in that order. One problem I have is that I read very
quickly. A normal paper back will only occupy me for a day while something around the size of 'Lord of the
Rings' will take a week or more. One advantage of speed reading is that I can revisit a book several times
without getting bored with it. A disadvantage is absorbing technical works. I have to slow right up.

Anyway, the nearest big town where I live has several second hand bookshops which is a great help as
otherwise I would bankrupt myself on beer and books. Although they do returns it takes a great effort to
return even the meanest and tattiest paperbacks I have. The more serious tomes never get to leave the house
of course.

Books are good friends. They have never let me down.

One of my pet hates when it comes to computers is 'Ratware', those nasty bytes that come with apparently innocent software like Gator. Another one of our apps died the death when faced with a determined teenager
interning for the summer and a desire to chat, surf and listen to MP3s. By the time she had finished it took me the best part of an hour to get rid of the ordure on the hard drive.
If anybody has a delete key for the Gator Corporation, please use it.

I recommend AdAware by LavaSoft. No you don't need a link. Google is your friend.

Well,Israel has two seasons as far as I'm concerned. Hot and bloody hot. Having spent the evening cutting the hedge and the grass, I'm melting. Goes with the politics quite well.

I did start a book a year ago, promises but no effort. It was set in the aftermath of the Israeli civil war when peace finally came. I should finish it before events overtake fiction.

I believe Prime Minister Sharon is following the 'Shamir Doctrine'. Delay is the deadliest form of denial. If he can stall for a few years, then there will be over half a million settlers in the West Bank and no chance of a Palestinain state. He'll give them the Gaza strip and laugh when they screw it up and point out how unfit they are to have a state of their own.

It might work if the Palestinians , especially Hamas, continue to work so hard for New Zionism.

I have , as I said, worked in a number of places and companies and this appears to be a wonderful place to put the various stories I have , flowing around in what I call my mind.

The current workplace is the 33rd job I've had. It's one of the best. Some of the others have been less than
wonderful of course. I was reminded of this at a recent wedding when I was chatting to one of the guests. She was an employment lawyer and very firmly stated than 'companies don't give a damn about their employees'.
That's why I went contract back in 1977. Well, what a long time ago. I've started a company since then that managed to close even before the dot com boom. Took some doing but we made it.

Some of the jobes seem to blur into one another . Memories of various fires loom large in my battered psyche and if my soul was visible, some of the scratches would be down to the various idiotic, cerebally challenged managers I have worked for. I am a firm believier in the Peter principle when it comes to promotion which is why it probably safer than I'm just a software engineer. You wouldn't want to live in a country that I had any part in or work for a company that hired me as a manager.

I'll post more on this later. Now , how do I put links up on blogger?

It's about time I did this. Having visited a number of blogs, I am amazed at the amount of rubbish out there on the Net, so I've decided to add my own pile of vegetable peelings, empty drink bottles and used toothpicks to the Internet.

Let me introduce myself. I'm over 40, born in the West Country (UK) and moved to Isarel just over two years ago. I sometimes wonder if that was a wise move. I have a family which will not be mentioned here (Hi Alina,Ruth and Nathaniel). Well ok, just the once,

I make a living writing software and I call myself a software engineer. Note, not a programmer. I write code to solve problems.
Like most programmers I met, this isn't what I started out doing. I was an electronics engineer at the start of my career with computers playing a major role from the very beginning. I wrote my first Fortran progam in 1968. Since then I've worked on a variety of projects ranging from 'buckets of instant sunshine' to laser effects for bands. The last band I worked for was Jimmy Page and the Firm.

My politics drift left as I get older and I'm slowly reliving the sixties as I missed it the last time around. Mind you, so did everyone else.

I support Peace Now and regularly attend demos and vigils. I used to be a Greenpeace supporter but have no time now.

I smoke Rothmans or Benson and Hedges, follow Formula 1 and like reading and skiing.

I am fairly selfish, indolent ,hard working, generous, sensitive, over bearing and born in December. I don't like Marmite but anything else goes.