Now even Bush admits WMD doubts

No surprise there then. Now just pick the pieces up and try to do better next time.

Mad Mel is not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy

Or the protocols of the elders of Braveheart.

So Catholic fundamentalist group member and actor Mel Gibson decrees that the Jews were correction are after all responsible for the killing of his lord. He’s made a self-financed film about it, due to be released in the US shortly.

Not surprisingly organisations such as the American Jewish Committee have criticised the film as pandering to deep-rooted Jew-hatred and Jewish stereotypes. Even the catholic church finally repudiated the “Jews killed Jesus” line at Vatican II way back in 1965.

The film and the expected critical public debate will no doubt set back inter-faith relations internationally and give succour to Christian and Islamic religious fundamentalists and other assorted fascists who no doubt will in turn trot out the old libels such as “Jews control the media” to justify whatever happens. Sigh.

Where do you draw the line? Where does artistic freedom end and incitement to racial/religious/cultural hatred begin?

Destination Mars - Reconstructing Spirit's hopeful road to recovery

trying to get Spirit to work on Mars is hard work.

Woodhead's Law: "The further you are from your server, the more likely
it is to crash." (particularly appropriate in this case)

It would appear to be a problem with the number of file handles.

More

10 dead and many wounded. I heard several reasons why it happened today and don't believe any them. Meanwhile, the prisoner, body exchange continues.

Bomb

A bomb has exploded in Jerusalem. No news of casualties. Damn.

Hutton - from the pdf

However, in the context of the broadcast in which the 'sexing up' allegation was reported and having regard to the other allegations reported in those broadcast, I consider that the allegation was unfounded as it would have understood by those who heard the broadcasts to mean that the dossier had been embellished with intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable, which was not the case.

Translated it means 'The Beeb screwed up'.

Hutton

The desire of the PM to have a strong dossier may have subconsciously influenced John Scarlett and the Joint Intelligence Committee to produce a strongly worded document .

It's all in the mind.

Hutton

No 'dishonourable, duplicitous, underhand strategy' by the prime minister.

Is that clearly understood?

Hutton delivers Kelly verdict

And with one bound, our hero goes free.

BlogMadness 2003

I've submitted one of my 2002 posts for BlogMadness 2003. For those who choose, vote for any of the worthy posts on the linked page.

Jerrold Kessel

I wondered what happened to him. He used to be the local CNN reporter. As he has an Israeli wife, he's decided to stay and write for Ha'Aretz.

Towards a smoke-free London

A comprehensive survey of Londoners just out shows overwhelming demand for a ban on smoking in public places. Of the 34,446 respondents who live and/or work in London:

• 86% are bothered by tobacco smoke in public places
  
• 78% would like to see all indoor public places in London becoming completely smokefree.
  
• 74% would support a law to make all workplaces (including eg restaurants) smokefree.

Full results here.

As a confirmed foodie and café society person. regardless of whether I’m in one of London’s top restaurants, having a quick bite at a noodle bar or just a cup of coffee, I see no reason why I need to have my experience blighted by breathing smokers’ discarded fumes. It’s unpleasant, unhealthy, makes my eyes water, my throat sore and my clothes stink. Smoke respects no boundaries. Air conditioning is not a satisfactory answer. Smoking and non-smoking sections are unworkable.

I actively patronise and promote places I like which are smoke-free and likewise actively do down what would otherwise be a fab restaurant, bistro or cafe if they allow smoking. I love contacting newly opened or recommended foodie joints, making a booking then as an aside saying ‘oh I assume you are non-smoking’. If they disagree, I cancel the booking saying I’ll get back to them when they go smoke-free.

Don’t get me wrong. As an ex-smoker, I absolutely support a smoker’s human right and choice to smoke. Equally it is my human right and choice not to smoke which includes not inhaling smokers’ smoke and not working, living, eating and drinking in a smoky atmosphere.

The Labour government, strongly influenced by the tobacco lobby, continues to dither with time-wasting voluntary compliance initiatives which after 6 years have had little effect. Voluntary total smoking bans have never worked anywhere else in the world, even where there are a majority of non-smokers. This is why countries such as Australia, various US states such as California and cities such as New York have legislated against smoking.

It would be nice if Mayor Ken has the power to do a Bloomberg and ban smoking in greater London.

Dean should come clean on privacy

This is about a National ID card system, something the USA doesn't have in common with the UK but not Israel.

A card system with some form of biometric information would be a start but is not a sure fire way of being certain you are who you say you are. It reminds me of the defense establishment I worked at some years ago. The swipe cards used there were picked apart by people who has no problems in understanding the technology and were well supplied with equipment to decode and reproduce them.

When I worked in Hamburg for a German company, I was amazed to see how dongles were collectively dismantled, picked apart and copied. Here in Israel, .... no, I'll stop right now.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates may in future, be addressed as Bill Gates KBE (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).

Just to make it clear, he will be awarded this purely honorary title by "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith." She is also Queen of Jamacia, Barbados, Bahamas, Grenada, Saint Lucia,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ,Antigua and Barbuda , Belize,Saint Kitts and Nevis, Solomon Islands ,Tuvalu , Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

News in Israel

There is the usual crowd of headlines but the one that sticks in my mind most is this exchange of lots of prisoners in exchange for one live Israeli and some dead ones. Like a lot of people, the whole thing smells. Hezbollah , of course, well try and repeat their capture of Israelis for the next round and so it goes on. Time to say stop. No more swaps.

Linux aids Axis of Evil, SCO claims

Darl McBride, a Microsoft sock puppet claims that Linux aids Axis of Evil.It is well known that North Korea, Libya, Iran and Sudan turn their noses up at pirated copies of Windows 2000, prefering to install Red Hat Linux for weapons research. What a load of bollocks. The original letter is here in PDF format. Darl McBride also claims that Linux is full of copyrighted SCO code although he's very shy in showing the world just what Unix code he owns. Bah, hambug.

At a West Bank Checkpoint, a Soldier's Duty Is to His Father, Too

Read this and weep.

Fashion news

In an announcement today, Arik Sharon gave the first details of what will prove an exciting concept for this years fashion conscious peace makers. Yes, it's the world's first reversible fence. At the touch of a button, this amazing creation can be

• A security fence
  
• A peace fence
  
• An apartheid wall
  
• An expression of rejection for Islamafascists
  
• An obstacle to peace
  
• A border.
  
• Can completely invert and make itself into hydroponic solar power greenhouses .
  
• An attractive wall ornament with motifs by Martha Stewart.
  

This world's first design from Israeli scientists has the world buzzing and has overshadowed news that frozen water has been found on the South Pole of Mars. The offical opening will take place this summer.

Death wish or hold your Tonge

Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Tonge is at it again. She is not content to be generally unhelpful to the Israel-Palestine peace process by painting one-dimensional pictures on her Christian Aid-sponsored missions and referring to Israelis as Nazis. Now she fancies herself as a suicide bomber. I heard someone mutter that perhaps she could figure out a way to get her wish without killing anyone else…To use her spurious argument: of course no one could possibly agree with such sentiments but one could fully understand the frustration of the person making them.

Fortunately her constituents don’t need to go to the trouble to vote her out as she is stepping down at the next election. It would be nice if the leader of the party in the meantime at least sacks her from her front bench position as spokesperson for children.

Special Report

In a surprise announcement today, researchers from the Technion in Haifa announced a potential solution to the controversial Security Fence currently under construction in Israel.

In front of a crowd of the press and TV, a new personal Security Fence was displayed. This lightweight hi-tech portable device will be issued to all Palestinians and will enable them to regain freedom of movement whilst protecting the Israeli public from terror attacks.

Hailed as a step forward in the peace process, the device can be manufactured in bulk for less than $100 thus reducing the cost of the fence estimated to be around $1.5 billion when its 700 kilometer length is complete.

Innocent until proved guilty

Whilst the latest furore over who bribed who and with what continues, I shall not comments until charges are filed and the verdict known. If any.

Make a better bra

No pictures here. Just a story of a 25 year old Glaswegian women who had an idea for a better bra and made it happen. It was good enough for Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. It's even good enough for Camilla Parker Bowles.

Regretfully I will be unable to fully test this fine British product and report back. Anyone else out there?

Yanks Have No Sense Of Humour Or Irony Especially Regarding Bomb Threats At Airports Shock

Speaking of comedians, the award for the stupidest Brit of the month must go to Samantha Marson. At Miami airport she said not once, not twice but three times that she had not one, not two but three bombs in her luggage. The state of Florida will see her in court on 6 Feb.

And back down it goes

The outpost at Tapuah is back down again having being partially rebuilt after being knocked down yesterday. They must be on piece work.

Very funny

Re my request for ‘more like this please’ examples of Arabs/Muslims and Jews working together, here’s another one. Americans Rabbi Bob Alper and Egyptian-born Ahmed Ahmed have been working together for two years as the comedy double act “One Arab. One Jew. One Stage. Two Very Funny Guys”. Here’s an interview. They’re performing in London this weekend.

Down and up again

So the porr old IDF knocks it down and the Kahanists put it back up again. I wish the builders next door would work as quickly.

An extreme inspiration

A team of Israeli and Palestinian peace campaigners get cold.

I was wrong

The West Tapuah synagogue dedicated to Rabbi Meir Kahane looks like it is coming down.

Energy Towers

This is an interesting idea. Build a one kilometer tower in the desert. Make it about 400 metres across. Pump seawater at the top to cool hot dry air. The air becomes cooler and heavier and sinks downwards. At the bottom of the tower the air will be moving at 20m/sec and could be used to drive turbines.

More details on this idea can be found
here.

Invasion of the body snatchers 21st century director’s cut

UK doctors who dissected dead bodies without consent of the person or their next of kin are being sued by distraught relatives. This continues a long history of doctors, surgeons and medical students engaging in body snatching and grave robbing in England, Scotland, Canada, US and no doubt elsewhere.

At last Negev

A new town has been started in the Negev. This is welcome news even though it had to be done in secret to avoid bothering the Bedu.

Yigal Amir

Yigal Amir, who assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, wants to get married. Amir's bride-to-be, Larisa Trimbobler, is an ultra-Orthodox new immigrant from the former Soviet Union, a doctor of philosophy and the mother of four children. She got divorced just to marry him.

Update:

Some Knesset twit thinks this is a suitable basis for legislation. The Rabbis have been there before.

Mofaz Orders Synagogue Destroyed

I am stunned sometimes by what goes on this country. The practise of building things first and asking for permission later is fairly common. Near Tivon, a Bedouin family that had a restaurant built a conservatory for Friday overflows. It proved very popular except with the local authorities who eventually came along with a JCB and demolished it.

Now our Defence Minister wants to knock down a synagogue in Tapuah West. I'll bet one Iraqi dinar against one dollar he doesn't manage it.

The house we're trying to buy has an illegal extension built on to it. We're insisting on it being sorted out before we buy it and various people involved in the sale, including lawyers say ' Don't worry, everyone does it. It'll be OK'. Sure.

New Uk ambassador

Zvi Hefetz makes it as ambassador to the Court of St James. Amuse yourself with this Wiki entry.

Diplomats behaving...

Ambassador Zvi Mazel destroyed an artwork depicting a Palestinian suicide bomber in a Stockholm museum on Friday. Good for him. Perhaps he could have been more creative and pissed in it?

Start-up number three here we come

Oh the joys of being self-employed again (not). Instead of having kesef credited to one's account on the same day each month, it's back to chasing invoice payments in a diplomatic but result-achieving manner...

Post exhibitionism

An article about Israeli blogs here. What? No Imshin? No Tal.G or Ribbity frog. Only Hebrew ones get a mention more's the pity.

Women in Iraq

Zeyad from healing Iraq is rather annoyed about the change in marriage laws in Iraq from secular to being controlled by the clerics. Riverbend is even more annoyed and decries the return of 'temporary marriages'. That's prostitution to you and me.

Boyfriends

'She Who must be Listened To' is rather hot and bothered about eldest daughter's new boyfriend, the latest in a long line. He seems a nice boy but my lefty liberal partner is all sniffy about him being a Bedouin. I relentlessly point out that the prinicple of equality should be ruthlessly applied but alas, it is of no comfort at all.

What have the Arabs ever done for us?

Derek Brown offers some advise to Robert Kilroy-Silk who said.

We owe Arabs nothing," he wrote. "Apart from oil, which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the west, what do they contribute?" Arabs, according to the sage of the sob story, are "suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors".

Derek gives us this view of daytime televison.

Cheap, mindless, voyeuristic, shallow, nasty, lobotomised daytime telly

Speaking of hydrogen and oxygen

Following on from Adrian’s elemental post yesterday….perhaps Saddam Hussein actually did plan to extract the H2 from the H2O to send to his pal London Mayor Ken “George Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen” Livingstone…

Today the first hydrogen-powered fuel-cell-driven “zero-emission” buses took to the London streets for a two-year trial. In goes the hydrogen, out comes just water vapour.

It’s about time too. Fuel cell technology is being developed not just for buses but all manner of powered vehicles, engines and other devices. And of course it’s not just about pollution reduction: global oil reserves are predicted to be depleted as early as mid-century. So does that mean the west will then have no use whatsoever for the oil kingdoms of Saudi Arabia et al?

Another suicide bomber

Yet more deaths and injuries at the Gaza crossing this time.

Facing a biometric future

The last workplace was all about biometrics. I was struck by this article by the Beeb that talks about including biometric information being included on passports. According to this article iris recognition is superior to all. Bah humbug. Voice is easier. Those iris scanners cost around $250 for a PC version, The industrial strength one for airports will set you back around $30,000. A microphone good enough for voice authentication costs around 1$ wholesale. Pity I couldn't stay with that company. They have a future.

The reason for all this interest in biometrics is that the USA has mandated that all passports issued after October this year for countries in the visa waiver program shall have biometric information inserted into the passport. This is a problem. The UK will not be ready until some time next year after trials have been carried out. The other difficulty is enrollment. If you want to be sure that the person applying is who they say they are, then one basic step is that there has to be a face-to-face meeting at the point of enrollment. The State department is less than happy about having to personally interview some 4.5 million Europeans that want to visit the USA each year and need a new passport. It's bad enough here in Israel where every Israeli wanting to travel to the USA must have an interview.

There is a department disagreement here as well. The Justice department has long experience with fingerprints and prefers those. The State department is hooked on photographs of the face. It may be that there will be both. Iris recognition won't make it because 80% of all crossings into and out of the USA happen on land and nobody has developed a portable iris scanner.

Here's an article on how to spoof various biometric devices. They didn't try to break our voice system though and we were at Cebit that year.

Given the problems, the USA is about to embark on a twenty year mistake. I have little confidence in large scale database projects run by Governments.

I can't resist it

US Soldiers Uncover Iraqi Nuclear Threat
by L.S. Clossey

BASRA, IRAQ (LSC)--Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson announced Friday the discovery of
vast hydrogen reserves concealed in the Persian gulf. Other alarming
evidence suggested the Hussein regime had been planning on using the
hydrogen to construct hydrogen bombs, or to crash a hydrogen-filled
dirigible into a soft target.

Every two hydrogen atoms had been carefully attached, possibly by Iraqi
scientists, to an oxygen atom. Indistinguishable from water, the
resulting compound had been stored in the Persian Gulf, possibly for
future use in hydrogen bombs. The total amount of hydrogen concealed is
still unknown, although the hydrogen/oxygen compound has been founded
throughout the Gulf, which covers a surface area of 92,500 square miles
(239,600 square km).

"There's enough hydrogen reserves here to build one hydrogen bomb for
every church-going man, woman, and child in America," said Gen. Turgidson.

Specially trained dogs sniffed out textbooks at a partially bombed-out
former high school in Basra. Some books included technical information
about the chemistry of this compound. Others, disguised as history
textbooks, included pictures of the Hindenburg explosion at Lakehurst
Naval Air Station, New Jersey, May 6, 1937. The 804-foot- (245-metre-)
long airship had been inflated by hydrogen.

A senior Bush administration official suggested that the President had
long suspected that the Hindenburg airship had been sabotaged by Saddam
Hussein.

The White House expressed surprise at the sudden discovery, which had been
scheduled for November 1.

Kilroy woz ’ere

We must separate Islamophobia, racism and political correctness from the real danger of movements which brainwash people into suicidal terrorism. Will Hutton puts it very well.

As well as condemning racism, we must also condemn radical Islam for providing succour to terrorists.

Radical Islam represents the biggest challenge to Western civilisation since the demise of fascism and communism. Rooted in a pre-Enlightenment worldview in which religious text has the force of law and the Islamic community is innately superior to all others, the belief that there is redemption for martyrs in the afterlife fuels extraordinary acts of terrorism.

Combine this with the deeply held belief that Islamic religion, culture and society has been profoundly humiliated, and you have the cocktail that one day may lead some young men and women to immolate themselves on a BA flight or on the Tube. How to understand this threat and how to respond has become the most important issue of our age.

The leaders of the radical terrorist groups, and the mosques that support them, are open in what they are doing: they are launching a war of civilisations they believe they will win.

I share the view that Islam can be pluralistic, has the capacity to generate the secular societies we have in the West - already only a minority of European Muslims regularly attend mosques - and that the Western world has a major responsibility for what has happened. If we abandon dialogue and interaction we are lost. But I refuse to make my starting point that there is at present no potential clash of civilisations and that Islam can be wholly excused responsibility for the ideology of the terrorists. Muslim fundamentalists do believe Islam is a superior moral universe to the West - and it is that that permits terrorists to disregard of the sanctity of innocent human life and the indiscriminate way lives can be sacrificed. They are, after all, infidel.

We cannot and should not respond with an unrigorous, soft multiculturalism that pleads such values are equivalent to our own and legitimate within their own cultural context. Nor should we fall into the trap of stereotyping Islam as universally menacing.

Google Search: Demo

It would seem that last night's demo got publicity around the world. Just wonderful. Now the whole planet thinks we're all a bunch of right wing loony fanatics bent on taking over the entire West Bank and Gaza.

Last night's demo

Around 120,000 turned up which makes me jealous. The left can't get a fraction of that.

A quote I never thought to see

"The Likud is the extreme left, Labor is the insane left, and Meretz have crossed the lines, hurling rocks at soldiers," Ben-Eliyahu said. See here for all the gory details.

Why Greater Israel vision has perished

Alex Brummer, the City Editor of the Daily Mail and member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews has an intersting article in the Guardian.

What is clear is that, with or without Palestinian agreement, Israel now sees a two-state solution as the only option. Without it, Israel's struggle to protect its democracy and human values and its status as a place of refuge for the dispossessed Jews of the world will be lost

Weather

It's cold and wet up here in the North of Israel. If you wish to view the local beach, I can recommend IsraCam. Click on beach cams, then Haifa back door. You can also see the snow on Mount Hermon and the working chairlifts where I hope to be this week.

Who was it that said 'Jerusalem prays, Tel Aviv plays and Haifa works'?

IsraellyCool has a caption competition. Try your hand. This blog will be USA election free this year as there is already a surfeit.

Sperm , eggs and organic food

I would like to reinforce the post my blog partner made yesterday. This article of the effects of pesticides makes grim reading.

Human fertility has been decreasing since the birth of intensive agriculture over 50 years ago. Average sperm counts among healthy American men dropped 58 percent between 1938 and 1988. In Europe, sperm counts dropped by 3.1 percent each year between 1971 and 1990. Studies from Belgium, France and Scotland have also shown losses in sperm quality, motility, development and the number of normally shaped sperm.

If that wasn't bad enough, try this.

The reason for falling sperm quality and quantity is thought to be a cocktail of dietary hormones and pesticides , some of which can disturb the body's own hormones. Some pesticides have been linked to masculinisation of female animals, feminization of male animals, eggs found in the testes of roach in UK rivers, low egg viability, enlarged ovaries and reduced penis size in Florida alligators and female-female pairing in birds.

Eggs growing in my testes? No thanks.

Changing currents

More reasons to only eat organic farmed salmon. Organically reared salmon from Scotland and Ireland are kept humanely in much better conditions. Growth hormones, pesticides, fungicides, antibiotics, colourings and other persistent noxious chemicals are not used. Aside from that, organic farmed salmon tastes much better and closer to wild salmon!