Haaretz - English

Haaretz - English. While the picture of the young kid holding the gun is still there, it's not an AK-47 for crying out loud. It's an AKS-74U. So there. Stupid parents as usual.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'I did not want to be a collaborator'

'I did not want to be a collaborator'

On July 9, with deep sorrow, I submitted my resignation as a member of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council to US deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz.

I did this with great sadness but, in doing so, I was able to leave Iraq with a clear conscience. If I had stayed any longer, I might not have been able to say that. I feared my role with the reconstruction council was sliding from what I had originally envisioned - working with allies in a democratic fashion - to collaborating with occupying forces.

I got that from Where is Raed

Haaretz - Article

Haaretz - More houses in Gaza. This does not help. Why build more houses there at taxpayer expense please? How can this be good for Israel?

In Najaf, Justice Can Be Blind but Not Female

In Najaf, Justice Can Be Blind but Not Female. Welcome to Islam. No female judges please. There will be much, much more of this.

Wall-fence-border-security

Amitai Etzioni posts on the 'fence'. Here's what I emailed him about it.

It's a misnomer to call it a fence. Over most of it's route, it consists of
a concrete wall some
meters high with a separation area on both side. Later there will be
approach fences on either side of this wall.

Each kilometer costs around one million dollars and the final length , if
the Jordan valley section gets built, will be around 700 kilometers. There
will be around 220,000 Israelis living on the wrong side of it and around
22,000 Palestinians on the Israeli side. They will be fenced in twice, once
from the West Bank and another fence cutting them off from Israel proper.

There will be a total of 96 crossing points all of which will need manning
24 hours a day. There will be around 500,000 vehicle crossing every 24
hours.

Now perhaps you can see why this is unlike the Gaza fence. There is only one
crossing point to and from Gaza most days and only a few hundred vehicle
crossings.

It's a border, perhaps the largest prison in the world. It has already been
breached once.

I don't see anyone having the courage to tear down any part of it..



Regards
Adrian Edmonds

Wall

An Experiment on Blogs

An Experiment on Blogs. Someone wants all the posts from your May blog. Go do it. Thanks to Jezblog for the link.

The Edge of England's Sword: Grumpole of the Bailey

The Edge of England's Sword: Grumpole of the Bailey. Iain Murray writes a nice piece about crime and law enforcement in the UK. Tony Blair and the Labour government there are authoritarian by nature and seem to think mandatory sentences and reduced rights for defenders are the answer.

From my point of view, the way to reduce crime is to increase the perception that you will be caught. This involves investment in policing.

Here is Israel, some petty theft goes unnoticed. My recent attempt to report a stolen phone was laughed at and I was informed that the police don't even record these crimes let alone try to solve them.

ABC News - US puts pressure on Burma over Suu Kyi

US puts pressure on Burma over Suu Kyi. I really approve. There is one regime that should be changed. Lets hope this works.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Defence sales 'hit by curbs on Israel'

GuardianDefence sales 'hit by curbs on Israel'. So does that mean Israel can get those Martin Baker ejector seats for the Phantom fleet please so that they be sold to the willing and ready customer? I hope so anyway.

Haaretz - Article

Haaretz -Jonathon Pollard. So MK Michael Eitam (Likud) thinks the fate of Pollard is more important that the whole state of Israel. Twit.

Iraq Democracy Watch

Iraq Democracy Watch Have I mentioned this blog before? A good read.

House Hunting

Some days away from the computer spent house hunting. We've found one, an old rambling place in a small village called Bethlehem Ha Galit. This is probably much more likely to be the place where Jesus was born being sensibly nearer Nazareth than the more famous one.
There have been people living there for around 3,000 years, the last most notable visitors being German Templar Christians. The little museum there has a picture of Hitler Youth marching down the only road and in Haifa.

Paying for it is another matter of course.

The nearby village of Alona Abbas has a Catholic church where the original fresco was removed by the Vatican in 1950 never to be seen again. I wonder why?

Guardian Unlimited | Arts news | The fab one

Cherie Blair gets to sing in China. She chose 'When I'm 64'. John Peel gave her 9 out of 10 which is pretty good coming from him.

Talking of George III

While posting a withering comment at Electric Venom'sblog about a very silly survey of influential figures from American history, which had not females and included Rush Limbaugh, I came across this snippet.

It's part of a reply from Emperor Qian Long to George III. George , or rather, one of his ministers had written a letter asking for an ambassador to be received and trade to increase. This is part of the reply.

Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State: strange and costly objects do not interest me. If I have commanded that the tribute offerings sent by you, O King, are to be accepted, this was solely in consideration for the spirit which prompted you to dispatch them from afar. Our dynasty's majestic virtue has penetrated unto every country under Heaven, and Kings of all nations have offered their costly tribute by land and sea. As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures. This then is my answer to your request to appoint a representative at my Court, a request contrary to our dynastic usage, which would only result in inconvenience to yourself. I have expounded my wishes in detail and have commanded your tribute Envoys to leave in peace on their homeward journey. It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter. Besides making gifts (of which I enclose an inventory) to each member of your Mission, I confer upon you, O King, valuable presents in excess of the number usually bestowed on such occasions, including silks and curios-a list of which is likewise enclosed. Do you reverently receive them and take note of my tender goodwill towards you! A special mandate.

I like the bit about 'we possess all things'. Silly bugger. He was right of course. By the mores that they lived by, George was being importunate. There's more. Here's the reply to a request for a small Island that England could borrow for a bit.

Your request for a small island near Chusan, where your merchants may reside and goods be warehoused, arises from your desire to develop trade. As there are neither foreign hongs nor interpreters in or near Chusan, where none of your ships have ever called, such an island would be utterly useless for your purposes. Every inch of the territory of our Empire is marked on the map and the strictest vigilance is exercised over it all: even tiny islets and far­lying sand­banks are clearly defined as part of the provinces to which they belong. Consider, moreover, that England is not the only barbarian land which wishes to establish . . . trade with our Empire: supposing that other nations were all to imitate your evil example and beseech me to present them each and all with a site for trading purposes, how could I possibly comply? This also is a flagrant infringement of the usage of my Empire and cannot possibly be entertained.

Didn't help though. Hong Kong was the result.

Everybody hates me

It's one of those days. Everything I touch goes bang, crash wallop including the brand new monitor I had at work. I dread getting into the car now.

FBI probing forged papers on Niger uranium - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics

FBI probing forged papers on Niger uranium - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics. I'm glad someone's digging a bit deeper. Whowever it was deserves something bad.

CNS Issue Brief on WMD in the Middle East

CNS Issue Brief on WMD in the Middle East. One of the benefits of having an ambiguous declaration of the possession of nuclear weapons is that Israel could get away with having all the rather dubious benefits of being a nuclear armed country and also never bothering to actually make any.

points of departure

Points of departure is the blog of the day. Interesting blog. I have a feeling for the author's love of books.

Another quote from Tony Blair

What a good speech that was:

We must never compromise the security of the state of Israel. The state of Israel should be recognized by the entire Arab world, and the vile propaganda used to indoctrinate children not just against Israel but against Jews must cease. You cannot teach people hate and then ask them to practice peace. But neither can you teach people peace except by according them dignity and granting them hope.

Customer support

The next time you get cross with the person on the other end of the line trying to get something done, read this and consider what they have to put up with.

C++

From alt.folklore.computers.

Looking out from where I am writing this an analogy stroke me:.


C is like the beautiful mahogany 30 foot sailboat lying next
to us here in this harbour. It is still in very good shape, despite
being 3/4 of a century old. The owner shamefully admits to have
a little 2 HP outboard engine tucked away in a locker though.



C has a beaty in it's closeness to the elements. There are some
warts and it is old, but this can be overlooked as long as you
look at it at it's own terms.



Gcc is the epoxy copy of the same boat, beautifully crafted
to look exactly like the real thing; and to the layman it does.



It has lots of subtle differences though, most of which only
show up under duress.



C++ is like the epoxy copy of the same boat, plus a 100 HP
outboard engine attached.



The OO parts of C++ may be very good and powerful ideas in their
own right, but C is the wrong thing to bolt them on.

Apology

On our way down here, Senator Frist was kind enough to show me the fireplace where, in 1814, the British had burnt the Congress Library. I know this is, kind of, late, but sorry.


Actually, you know, my middle son was studying 18th century history and the American War of Independence, and he said to me the other day, ``You know, Lord North, Dad, he was the British prime minister who lost us America. So just think, however many mistakes you'll make, you'll never make one that bad.''

Tony Blair's speech made history as he aplogises for the War of 1812. I would like to join in and say sorry too. That was a stupid war.

Electric Venom: Veni, vedi, venom!

Electric Venom has the right idea on blogrolls. Don't disturb her too much though. She's not in a good mood.

Surprise

W2: search backward from each instance of a European number until the first strong type (R, L, AL, or sor) is found. If an AL is found, change the type of the European number to Arabic number.


X10: The remaining rules are applied to each run of characters at the same level. For each run, determine the start-of-level-run (sor) and end-of-level-run (eor) type, either L or R. This depends on the higher of the two levels on either side of the boundary (at the start or end of the paragraph, the level of the “other” run is the base embedding level). If the higher level is odd, the type is R, otherwise it is L.

and

The levels of the text are determined according to the bidirectional algorithm.

The characters are shaped into glyphs according to their context (taking the embedding levels into account for mirroring!).

The accumulated widths of those glyphs (in logical order) are used to determine line breaks.

For each line, rules L1-L4 are used to reorder the characters on that line.

The glyphs corresponding to the characters on the line are displayed in that order.

My head hurts.

Java

What a nice class. Just what I need right now.



java.lang Class ThreadDeath java.lang.Object

|

+--java.lang.Throwable

   |

     +--java.lang.Error

      |

      +--java.lang.ThreadDeath


   All Implemented Interfaces:



Yes, I'm bored.

Silly season

The silly season is starting early in Israel.

The dollar is plunging; the dollar is soaring. West
Nile fever is back. A new species of mosquito has
been discovered in the Tel Aviv area. A cell phone
company has invented a mosquito-repellent ring.
Bright green flies the size of elephants have
invaded Israel. The health authorities in Jordan
and Israel are working together to destroy their
breeding grounds at the approaches to the Jordan
Valley.

and

The road map has chalked up its first
achievement. Dov Weisglass is heading for
Washington on a secret mission. Silvan Shalom
was warmly received at the Vatican. A
lieutenant colonel in the military police
kissed a woman soldier. Kochi Mordechai
announced in an exclusive interview that she is
prepared to be minister of defense. A teacher
at a religious high school has married one her
students. After neighbors complained about the
intolerable noise, a judge has forbidden a
young couple to make love between 11 P.M. and 7
A.M.

Action figures

Fancy your own action hero? You can have the Iraqi disinformation minister right here. Even dressed up in a French maid uniform.

Right of Return

This article confirms what most Israelis including myself have always suspected. The Arab nations have been using the Palestinian refugees as pawns for a long time. This seems worth exploring further. Bring the settlers out from Gaza and the West bank, pay off the refugees that want a better life elsewhere and bring the 10 percent who refuse to Gaza and the West bank.

Baghdad Blogger

An interesting column in the Grauniad by our favourite blogger. So 15 million dinars is too much for a mistake and the Brits need more experience in souk bargaining. I know just the person.

Tterrorism

If you want to fight terrorism, first make your own terrorist.

From the Economist.

Our collective experience makes it absolutely clear that the only way to uncover and destroy terrorist activity is to penetrate the organisations engaged in it. And the best way to do this is to place spies in their innermost councils. Except in movies and novels, Americans do not like spies, especially within the United States; but we have used them successfully in the past and, if we are to succeed in the war against terrorism, we need to again. The question is: who does it, and who controls it?

A read of the Little Drummer girl is called for.

WMDs again

So if there were forged documents relating to the import of Uranium from Niger then who forged them and why? The British Government says it has other sources but are these any more credible?

WMDs again

I was hoping to be proved wrong about Iraq and WMDs but it appears not. How can anyone justify this war is beyond me. There are still dictators around in this world, countries that have or are soon going to aquire nukes and the USA/UK is bogged down in Iraq at 3.6 billion per month.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, the original backers of Al-Qaeda, have full USA support, nukes and are sitting very well thank you. Saudia Arabia, the original home of most of the 9/11 murderers does nothing with the blessing of the USA.

Ha'aretz - Article

Ohhhh shiny! A new google toolbar that lets me blog a page and blocks popups. What joy. Oh fabjous day, calloh, calay, he chortled in his joy. Get it here for IE only.

Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of the start of the Battle for Britain in 1940. On that day I had twelve uncles in uniform, three aunts and my mother and father who hadn't met yet.

I'm proud of all of them but especially my father. He started out in the RAF as an apprentice electrician and made it to Wing Commander flying Sunderlands on anti submarine work.

He was born in a large family of Plymouth Brethren. The West country is/was a hive of Christian sects. Check out the Sethians. My Mother was driving an ambulance in London later on becoming an Instructor on radar tracking for anti aircraft guns. She ended up in Berlin in 1946 as the assistant to the Provost Marshall in the British sector. She was always grateful to some members of the Jewish Brigade who helped her in a tight spot with some Russians.

Visas and the USA

Israelis now need a visa to visit the USA and a personal interview at the Embassy in Tel Aviv. This will be in English. People are not happy. This starts July 14th. The rather small club of Nations that don't need visas for the USA will need machine readable passports starting next year with biometric information.

A big question here. Is a photograph 'biometric'?.

Iraqometer

Welcome to the Iraqometer keeping tabs on numbers. Nice quote.

We did not wish to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. Unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.

-- George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, 1999

So who's looking?

Not me Guv. Must be someone else

Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Turning to his Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, Bush asked, "Are you in charge of finding WMD?" Bremer said no, he was not. Bush then put the same question to his military commander, General Tommy Franks. But Franks said it wasn't his job either. A little exasperated, Bush asked, So who is in charge of finding WMD? After aides conferred for a moment, someone volunteered the name of Stephen Cambone, a little-known deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, back in Washington. Pause. "Who?" Bush asked.

General Franks is now retired after a long and distinguished service in the US Army.

A complete 'Horlicks'

What do they mean?

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, recently described the "dodgy dossier" compiled by Downing Street on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as "a complete Horlicks".

Horlicks is a nighttime drink. We are getting further away from WMDs as time progresses. I have patience to wait for a year or so to see how things pan out. In the meantime, my local Christian Arab shop sells Horlicks. Another one down the road sells PG tips tea bags.

Heat

It's hot.... too hot and they're demolishing the house next door to make room for eight others. It's hot and dusty. How soldiers carry all that gear and body armour is beyond me.

Thinking

A foolish German had said that man thought in words. It was totally false; a pernicious doctrine; the thought flashed into being in a hundred simultaneous forms,with a thousand associations, and the speaking mind selected one, forming it grossly into the inadequate symbols of words, inadequate because common to disparate situations - admitted to be inadequate for vast regions of expression, since for them there were the parallel languages of music and painting. Words were not called for in many or indeed most forms of words. Mozart certainly thought in terms of music. He himself at this moment was thinking in terms of scent.

Patrick O'Brian in Post Captain. Seemingly stories about naval warfare in the Napoleanic era but full of wonderful writing such as the above.

It captures my mind so wonderfully, I think not in words but in concepts, ideas, threads, trains of thought, images, snatches of music and scent as well. What was the lady wearing last night sitting next to me at the bar when I was conversing with a Swedish graphics designer? Images glance past me and I grab frantically at the ones that make sense.

Time to move on I think.

4th July

Happy 4th of July to all left pondians reading this. No hard feelings anymore I trust. I have heard the American revolution described as a glorious victory of brave British colonists fighting against German George and his foreign troops.

Writing style

One of the things I most admire about the USA is the clarity of the Constitution. For example:

Section. 2.
Clause 1: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

I took that from this site. We will gloss over the bit about 'Importation of certain persons'.
Clear, precise and to the point. Some other good writing styles are the North Atlantic Treaty singed in 1949. Here's article 5.

Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Still good but getting wordy.
Now the Maastricht treaty gets bad:

3. By way of derogation from the procedure provided for in paragraph 1, where the application of provisions concerning the principles of the regulatory system for transport would be liable to have a serious effect on the standard of living and on employment in certain areas and on the operation of transport facilities, they shall be laid down by the Council acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, after consulting the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee. In so doing, the Council shall take into account the need for adaptation to the economic development which will result from establishing the common market."

See what I mean? Lawyer talk. Meaningless gibberish. I'm a supporter of Euorpean integration but I have this horrible sinking feeling every time the European gets together and tries to make the lives of it's citizens better ot wraps it in meaningless junk. That bit about 'take into account' and 'economic development'. gives a big let out to anyone who doesn't feel like it.


Thanks to the Plain English campaign Golden Bull award, we can see the ultimate in goobledygook.

'13. Waiver
'No forbearance of failure by the Employer at any time to require performance of any provision of the Agreement or to enforce strictly the obligations of the Employee or to take action to suspend the Employee or to determine the Agreement forthwith upon discovering cause therefor shall effect the right of the Employer so to do any time and no waiver by the Employer of any condition or breach of any clause whether by conduct or otherwise shall constitute a continuing or further waiver of any such condition or breach or as the breach of any other clause.'

My grammar and typing may be faulty but I will never, ever get that bad.

Israel and Peace

It's nice to see a small beginning to a more normal life here in Israel even if it is encumbered by bickering, bad faith and grumbles. Now if I could just get paid as well life would be quite good.

Blogger and spellcheck

Umm, Mr Blogger. I speak the Queens English and colour is spelt just right thank you. What happened to the language setting?

Microsoft Word documents

For those of you who send Microsoft Word documents about, be careful. They contain metadata which may give away more than you intended such as the last five authors and other details. Tony Blair found this out then the now notorious Iraq Dossier was downloaded from the Government web site and forensically dissected.

Clink here to get the gory details.

If you want to publish without all that metadata use PDF. Failing that, read this helpful Microsoft guide on how to minimise metadata.