News

The news here is Israel appears to be obsessed with a certain Elhanan Tennenbaum. He's the person Israel swapped some 450 prisioners for together with three Israeli bodies kidnapped by Hezbollah.


I find the whole affair baffling to be honest. My fellow workers think he a drug running traitor who should be strung up. Oh well, I enjoyed my day out yesterday visiting the wild flowers in the North of Israel and was very careful not to pick one of them.

Richard Perle's resignation letter

Richard Perle has resigned from the Defense Policy Board. He has been one of the leading advocates of change in the Middle East as a backstop to fighting extremism.

Water

I am being hag ridden by water here in the land of the desert and the camel. It's now leaking in from an over enthusiastic watering from upstairs. I need professional help.

Holiday from blogging

I’m off to the land of my birth California (note I did not say home, which is in London) for several weeks - doing a little work but mainly skiing, socialising, swimming, shopping and probably a few more s words. Can’t wait to hear everyone I meet insist that of course they did not vote for Terminator for Governor and they can’t understand how he was elected…

Clare Shorts circuts

Have I missed something? Shurely nation-states and all manner of organisations have gathered covert intelligence on each other for thousands of years and taken sensible and appropriate measures to protect themselves from same. Doesn’t this balance and is balanced by diplomacy (and war where diplomacy fails)?

From the Risks mailing list - Subject: Bug in Windows-operated toilet system

I thought I would share this with you.

I was at a press conference on Thursday with PalmSource at One Aldwych,
which is one of those hyper-modern London hotels. One of its features is a
airplane-style vacuum-operated toilet system. One of the Palm execs told me
that while they were staying at the hotel this system failed, and any time
they wanted to use the bathroom or take a shower they had to call the
reception desk and get escorted to the corporate headquarters in the
building next door to use the facilities there. For a couple of *days*.



It transpires that the entire plumbing system is run by a Windows-based
computer system and whatever went wrong with it was so obscure that they had
to get a technician from the company that supplied it on a plane down from
Scotland to fix it and reboot.



The Blue Screen of Sewage?

House

We signed the contract for the house today. Repeatedly. On very many pieces of paper. Over and over again. The lawyers argued for an hour or two then we set to. A disagreement of how to spell my wifes name led to us doing it all twice. I'm going for a lie down now.

Very brave, but would you want to employ this woman?

Katharine Gun, the GCHQ translator who leaked the email memo from the head of the NSA, was freed today. We knew it was imminent as that news itself had been leaked. This means we won’t yet have the pleasure of hearing the Government justify the legality of the Iraq war in an English court or knowing details of various other documents which would have been produced in court.

It’s worth posting the full email from Daddy’s (retired) company’s client. Never mind the other issues, do they really talk that way?

To: [Recipients withheld]

From: FRANK KOZA, Def Chief of Staff (Regional Targets) CIV/NSA

Sent on Jan 31 2003 0:16

Subject: Reflections of Iraq Debate/Votes at UN-RT Actions + Potential for Related Contributions

Importance: HIGH

Top Secret//COMINT//X1

All,

As you've likely heard by now, the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for insights as to how to membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE: Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/ negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies, etc - the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals or to head off surprises. In RT, that means a QRC surge effort to revive/ create efforts against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters.

We've also asked ALL RT topi's to emphasize and make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/ debates/ votes. We have a lot of special UN-related diplomatic coverage (various UN delegations) from countries not sitting on the UNSC right now that could contribute related perspectives/ insights/ whatever. We recognize that we can't afford to ignore this possible source.

We'd appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who might have similar, more in-direct access to valuable information from accesses in your product lines. I suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines in formal channels - especially as this effort will probably peak (at least for this specific focus) in the middle of next week, following the SecState's presentation to the UNSC.

Thanks for your help

Chief Rabbi

A strange URL to sell a Chief Rabbi action figure. Still, he does have a 'Kosher Kill sniper automatic handgunwith a Jehova silencer.'

ADL Poll: One in Four Americans Believe Jews Were Responsible for the Death of Christ

Wonderful. ADL, a USA based organisation has a poll which says that one in four Americans think that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus.
As a ex Christian, with Jewish children, just let me say that I think they need help.

The Fenc e works

Avi Dichter says that where the fence has been built, there have been 'an absolute halt in terrorist activities. Wrong. The Maxim Haifa bomber drove through the damn thing. Whilst we're on the subject, I note that in today's Jerusalam Post, it mentions a IDF commander commenting on the 'day of rage' declared by the Palestinian Authority over the fence issue. 'We had to deploy in depth to protect the fence'. Excuse me? Am I missing something here? I thought it's whole purpose whas that Israel wouldn't have to do this anymore.

Who needs America?

This article in Maariv International made me think. It was written by Professors for a Strong Israel who I have not heard of before. In this article, they point out the hidden costs of American support and the dangers that it can bring. I have often thought that the very welcome American support that Israel has enjoyed over the years can and should be wound down as Israel becomes stronger in it's own right.


As a side note, I have observed that there does seem to be a large number of NGO's in Israel. Lots of them in fact.

The Wall-Security Fence

It's a Hague day for the barrier Israel is building. For those who haven't read it yet, here is the document that kicked off the submission to the Court of International Justice. It specifcally acknowledges Israel's right and duty to protect it's citizens.


As I have repeatedly stated here and elsewhere, it's not about Israel's right to defend itself, it is about borders and land.

Another bloody bomb

Here we go again. Another bomb attack in Jerusalem.

Fence coming down

This appears to be an internal section rather than one between Israel and the West Bank. I sometimes wonder at the decision making process here.

This week’s anti-semitism round-up

Jew hating actions on the increase in UK

There was a 7% increase in 2003 (vs 2002) in the total number of anti-semitic incidents in Britain reported to the Community Security Trust (CST). Incidents of extreme violence, assault, damage/desecration of property (eg. synagogues and cemeteries), threats, abusive behaviour and hate literature were 375 in 2003 vs 350 in 2002.

In addition, incidents of information collection, criminal and suspicious behaviour more than doubled to 234 from 113 in 2002.

Variations within categories include:

• 28% increase in the number of assaults
  
• 31% increase in damage and desecration of Jewish property
  
• 223% increase in threats
  
• 2% decrease in abusive behaviour
  
• No incidents of extreme violence last year compared with 5 in 2002

EU anti-semitism conference

The EU makes one small step forward from the suppressed report on European anti-semitism and biased presentation of a survey to show Israel to be the biggest threat to world peace: The first EU-sponsored conference on combating anti-semitism in Europe took place this week.

Talking shop it may have been but at least it’s better then heads in sand pretending that the increasing levels of Jew-hating in Europe (especially by otherwise mainstream politicians and people, and muslims) is not happening. The extent that this mirrors what happened in Europe in the 1930s (and the 1840s!) was openly debated. Let’s hope any further descent can be avoided.

I haven’t yet found any indication of whether the conference examined the institutional anti-semitism in the EU itself and what steps would be taken to combat it…

Hold your Tonge, the BBC director’s cut

The good ol’ beeb was at it again following on from Tonge’s wish to become a suicide bomber. In the interests no doubt of Fairness and Objectivity, Tonge was given the R4 Today challenge: go to Israel and PA, Learn Something and Report Back. She got paid for this. Sadly, all that came across was the worst aspects of controlling-class anglo-saxon arrogance (as if the empire still existed, you know what I mean) and thinly-disguised deep-seated anti-semitism. Yes, she-really-did-say-that-on-air quips included: “…I don’t think I would be brave enough” to become a suicide bomber, and some Israeli “rantings had truth in them, but it is all so negative…”

He’s not the messiah he’s a very naughty boy (2)

New York Jewish groups are preparing for the opening of Mel Gibson's film with sermons, forums and press conferences. Their aim is to fight any suggestion that Jews were/are responsible for Jesus’ death. Talk about preaching only to the converted…

Water

When I first came to Israel I was aware that water was a problem. I never thought I would eagerly await every announcement of the water level in the Kinnerert quite as eagerly as I do. A few more days rain will see the lake at it's highest and then, to everyone's sorrow, the dam at the south end will be opened and all that lovely fresh water pours down to fill the Dead sea.

Israel and Houses

The Eggheads are trying to buy a house. We spent the entire morning driving from one place to another collecting pieces of paper and we now have an impressive collection. The final sticking point is a resident who is reluctant to leave having been abandoned by her partner of twenty years. Guilt percolates through all our dealings and we are reluctant to commit until her fate is decided by the court.


In the meantime, the house we rent at the moment has produced another mouse, the contactors building a new set of stairs for our neighbour have fractured the main water pipe for the third time this year.

Somehow, all this things seem to land on our plate to sort out.

IDF permitted planning in outposts slated for evacuation

Just a pointer on who really runs Israel. It's certainly not the elected government.

Things that go bump in the night

We have managed to catch the resident house mouse at long last. Under pressure from the family I was not allowed to follow my usual practise of rodent disposal. Instead, I drove it to the local country club and released it in the sure and certain hope of a better life.


For those who have been following the saga of Microsoft's leaked code, I am reliably informed that well known peer to peer networks are flooded with fake copies. I wonder who.

Happy first birthday London congestion charging!

London’s congestion charging system is one year old today. May you have many more but don’t expand too much.

A year on, driving in London is still even more pleasurable than previously. A fiver well spent.

Winners include car drivers and residents within the zone. Losers include smaller retailers within the zone.

Re the technology that makes it happen: unlike so many government/public sector IT projects, this one has been relatively (the operative word here) successful. It was delivered on time and works reasonably (another operative word) well. Note I didn’t say to budget. The continuing revenue shortfall from the charge is due to not just a greater fall in traffic than anticipated but also the fact that some drivers have succeeded in not paying and not getting fined. The temptation to be over-zealous on the penalty charge notices is, as with parking fines, often not cost-effective as the organisation needs to spend more money on handling the inevitable appeals.

Non spotty nerd - Gigabyte bust

Not all computer virus authors are spotty teenage males with no social life. Let us celebrate the arrest of the first female virus author in Belgium. She's just 19 years old and must be strange. She chose to use C Sharp (C#) for one program.

Hebrew

It's February and my spiffy application fell over on fellow worker's computer yesterday. It seems his default locale was Hebrew which is not what I and my fellow programmers like due to odd things happening with one of the IDE's we use.

Now I do know that 'shin' is 0xF9 in the ISO-8859-8 character set. What I don't understand is why Java refuses to do an ordinary ANSI to Unicode conversion even when it say's it can.

Sigh deeply and carry on. And we haven't been paid for January yet.


I need help with this one.



String tryCodePage = "ISO-8859-8";

Charset charset = Charset.forName(tryCodePage);




if (charset.canEncode())

{

Blogger

Thanks Google and Blogger for the very warm hooded sweater that arrived yesterday. It is much admired.

Scotland, UK and Israel

‘She who must be answered’ has the endearing habit of phoning me at odd times during the day for answers. These are generally prompted by her English lessons where a pupil is stumped by a failed test answer but are never about grammer which she understands much better then I do.

No, I get bouncers such as:

How old is Scotland?

There is, of course, no definite answer , it depending on needed further information such as:

Geographically? Current political makeup? Identity?

She is too impatient for an answer so I come up with around 800 A.D there was such a place that people could point to as something rather than a collection of rocks surrounded with hard drinking ex Norse philosophers bent on giving the English a hard time.

Let the record show I am a died-in-the-wool liberal with the sandals and smelly candles to prove it. Here is one take on Scottish history.

All through historic times the Scottish people have had to share an island with another people, far stronger than they in all respects - more numerous, more wealthy and usually more advanced technologically, especially in methods of warfare. Consciously and instinctively the Scots have always had to live with this fact, and their first and constant political problem has been how they might best co-exist with the English. Different solutions to this problem have been adopted at different times, or have been urged by competing Scottish factions at the same time. In either case the Scots have had to make up their minds whether their interests are best served by collaboration with English objectives and English power, and an acceptance of the fact of English dominance in Britain, or whether they should resist absorption, and make the preservation of their national identity a priority. It is the supporters of this latter policy who find grimly humorous accuracy in the remark of a Scottish writer in modern times that the Scots needed the Alps, but God had given them the Cheviots.

In defence I can only offer the sixth verse to the British national anthem that is rarely sung these days.

Lord grant that Marshal Wade

May by thy mighty aid

Victory bring.

May he sedition hush,

And like a torrent rush,

Rebellious Scots to crush.

God save the Queen!

I have that in French if anyone cares.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef always makes me think. Not necessarily of things I should write down mind you. His latest earth shattering announcement is that secular Jews are reborn as fruit and that Orthodox Jews should be careful when reciting the blessing before eating fruit in order to repair the souls of the secular Jews that are reincarnated in them.


He's the spritual leader of Shas and it used to be commonplace for various politicans of all persuasions to pay him a visit for a blessing now and then. Visits dropped off sharply when it is claimed he blamed the holocaust on secular Jews which annoyed a few people.

I wonder what he attributes the recent mild earthquake and snow to. Be careful when eating that apple. That might be your grandmother.

Weather

It's very wet here. Very. very wet. We even have a fast expanding colony of fungus in the bathroom. Elsewhere in Israel, it's been snowing. Stay warm all.

A paraskevidekatriaphobia*–free zone

It sez here that Friday the 13th and the number 13 are lucky for Jews and Israel – or at least it’s a chance to sell more flowers…

*Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Bibi is a twit

He suggest that hi tech unemployed workers should clean houses or become waiters. He quotes Sweden for example. I would like to point out that it possible to clean houses in Sweden and keep a family on the salary. Not so here.

Earthquake

The office just shook.. hard. Israel coastal areas have just had a noticable earth tremor.

I shook as well. This country is never boring. I wish it were.

The wrong exit from Gaza

Article by Yossi Beilin here in the IHT. What does he mean by 'Israel need not be Panglossian'?

Reminds me of the British War Minister in 1910 who at his first meeting with the Generals of the Imperial Defence Staff was asked 'What kind of Army do you envision for the future?'


This gentleman was a keen student of German philosophy and replied 'A Hegelian Army'. The conversation fell off at that point.

Only in England no 457 or you couldn’t make it up

The nation was rocked to its foundations today as Suffolk Council bans summer hanging flower baskets as a danger to public safety. The wrong kind of lampposts they say. Listen to Humphrys in full flow on today's R4 Today programme. (scroll sown to 0853) Hilarious.

The fence is elastic

Michael Blass , attorney for the state of Israel has cheered up a depressed and worried nation by claiming that the security fence is not made of concrete and wire as popularly claimed. Instead it has been constructed out of reclaimed underwear material saved up over many years and thus the fence can be folded up and placed anywhere, in any shape desired.


Fascinated Yesha supporters and Hamas activists have already held a competition to see who can make the most realistic representation of a falafel with a section of fence near Qalandya.


The local IDF commander is on record as saying 'I don't mind what they do with it so long as they don't cross it or break it'. Islamic Jihad attempts to use a section as a gigantic catapult were foiled by border police last night.

Blair announces 'British FBI'

Could you say that again please? The UK will have an 'FBI' and it might be headed by an American? This is a transatlantic friendship indeed. Any left pondians care to comment?

Offshoring is the way to go

So says Diana Farrell writing in the IHT. She even gives examples of how software engineers in the US get $60 per hour and Indian ones get $6 per hour.

She omits a comparion of journalist wage scales between the two countries though. I shall research this and get back to you and her if I can find an email address.

Top ten black Britons

Here you go. The Independent gives a list of the top ten Britons who were also black. I must confess, I'd never heard of Queen Philippa. She deserves an award just for marrying Edward III though.

Here's a picture of her pleading for the lives of six Calais burgesses. Not exactly black in this one.

Another London icon bites the dust ding ding

The open-platform jump-on-jump-off double-decker London bus aka “The Routemaster” is sadly on its last legs or should I say wheels. Yes, they’re old, cold and “not accessible” but Londoners (regardless of whether they use buses) and visitors alike love them and they are eminently practical in central London.

I seem to remember that a similar cull took place a few years ago (between the end of the GLC and the rise of the GLA) but after a concerted campaign the Routemaster made a comeback on some central bus routes.

Now Our Ken is determined that they go once and for all (except on a few tourist routes). We’ve had the bog-standard closed double-decker buses in London for some time. What is new is that the remaining Routemasters are being rapidly replaced by continental-style double-length single-decker “bendy buses”. The jury is still out.

What a pity that the Routemaster could not have been redesigned and updated for the 21st century. For example another London icon, the black taxi, has been through (at least) 3 model changes in the 25 years that I’ve been in London. The latest one is much more passenger-friendly (and “accessible” to boot). Now only if we could do something about the taxi drrrrrrivers…

Teenagers

Teenagers amaze their parents sometimes, Son number one rings up this morning from Michlalat Ha’Galil Midrasha Le’Mimhigut ( Leadership Seminar). The conversation want like this:



I broke my wrist playing basket ball.


Are you OK?


It hurts


Shall we come and pick you up? (He's two hours away)


No, I don't want to miss the trip this morning. I'll be OK. Bye

Nuclear proliferation

It comes as no surprise that BCCI, the Bank of Crooks and Conmen were involved in the nuclear proliferation scandle that continues to grow. as i recall, Orkney Council lost 17 million when that bank went bust, it being all their cash reserves. Pakistan will become more of a problem over the years before it gets better.

Richard Perle - Washington's faceful bureaucrat

Another quote here re Iraq and the reason why, this time from Richard Perle who's idea it was.

Since Sept. 11, Perle's talking points have never wavered: Sept. 11 has "nothing to do" with the reasons why the United States should attack Saddam, so the limited evidence provided by the administration to demonstrate Saddam's links with al-Qaida is irrelevant. "What's relevant here is that he hates the United States," he told the American Spectator last fall. "He has weapons of mass destruction. He has used them against his own people and would not hesitate to use them against us."

Pakistani who shared secrets is pardoned

That headline should have read 'Whitewash'.Abdul Qadeer Khan did not act alone.

9/11 and Iraq

Over on The Winds of Change blog which I read regularly, there is a statement 'The case for the war in Iraq was made on September 11, 2001, in New York City.



I asked why and have yet to have it explained. Armed Liberal seems to think there is a case but I have yet to see it.
There is one Muslim nation that has rejected democracy several times, is armed with WMD's, has aided the Taliban and indirectly, Al Queda, has been exporting nuclear bomb technology to several Nations on the Axis of Evil list that we know about and maybe some where we don't.


That nation is currently a good friend of the USA and it's Pakistan. What twist of logic and reason makes this nation good and Saddam bad is beyond me and where the connection between 9/11 and Iraq is has escaped me.

Maariv International

A quote from Maariv International which makes a change from Ha'Aretz. As well as withdrawing from Gaza, there is a plan to reroute the barrier westwards and placing Arab towns like Umm el Fahm under Palestinian control.


All these seems so unreal, especially from Arik Sharon. I wonder if this is just words and connected with a forthcoming trip to Washington rather than a firm decision. Expect a massive campaign to get rid of him from the right. The left, of course, will now be happy to see him stay.

Israeli peace activists get UK coverage shock

From yesterday’s (sorry too busy) Guardian: an interesting, fair, balanced, detailed article by the fabulous Linda Grant about MachsomWatch, the group of 150 or so Israeli women who check up on the checkpoints.

If only the BBC could do similar and start giving serious radio, TV and internet coverage of the various Israeli peace / moving forward initiatives and the people involved. Maybe the recent Hutton shock will at last get the beeb to look even more widely into the gap between its lofty aspirations and promoted ideals, and the reality of certain blind spots where the journalistic standard seems lower and often biased (see posts passim).

Re Linda Grant: I highly recommend her writing esp When I lived in Modern Times. Set in Tel Aviv just after WW2, it cleverly interweaves the modern Bauhaus architecture with the modern ideals of the new immigrants especially the women and how the reality did not turn out as they imagined and fought for.

Countries I have visisted

How depressing. So much to see.



Create your own visited country map

Sharon - No Jews in Gaza

Am I dreaming when I read this? Could Arik Sharon have said such a thing?

Spam

As my various email accounts fill up with just under one hundred spams and viruses, I found this statement by Message labs on the CAN-SPAM act.

Stupid intelligence failures

Following on from Adrian’s post re the Time article, I’m even more interested in the intelligence failures as a result of over-reliance on technology:

Kay's tale is a reminder that there is no substitute for on-the-ground human intelligence—the very kind that U.S. spymasters have lacked in Iraq and elsewhere for years. The U.S. overestimated the current WMD program in Iraq, but it underestimated WMD operations in Iraq before the 1991 war and, more recently, in Libya, Iran and perhaps North Korea. The shortfall in humint is everyone's fault. Administrations going back to the mid-1970s have favoured more technical means of eavesdropping over sending spies into danger.

For years a bipartisan group of spooks and ex-spooks has advocated overhauling the US’s massive, $35 billion-a-year intelligence bureaucracy and putting it under a single, all-powerful director, a scheme that has met with ferocious bureaucratic blockades. Kay noted last week that "closed orders and secret societies, whether they be religious or governmental, are the groups that have the hardest time reforming themselves in the face of failure without outside input." But as U.S. intelligence failures pile up—notably relating to 9/11 and Iraq—it may be that the war on terrorism can't be won until the spy agencies find the courage to change themselves.

Let’s just say someone I know very well worked in various parts of the world for a leading US ‘defence contractor’ on let’s just say electronic covert intelligence projects for various US intelligence organisations. As an electronic engineer their job was to design, build and implement the let’s just say various electronic systems required. It was the spooks’ jobs to filter and make use of what was gathered.

Instead of doing so those in charge assumed electronic/computer/automated-led intelligence gathering could replace rather than enhance human knowledge. Sadly the overshadowing of professional expertise (both engineers and analysts) by the managers and bureaucrats resulted not only in intelligence failures per se. This attitude was also responsible for catastrophic failures or near-failures which have never yet been made public. A similar, public, example is the US space programme where engineers' concerns were ignored or suppressed by managers resulting in not one but two space shuttle disasters.

It also brings home the wider picture of something I’m professionally involved with: the immense challenges of achievieng change in long-established organisations which take on a life of their own and have an extreme amount of vested interest in not changing even if not changing decreases the effectiveness of the organisation...

TIME.com: So Much For the WMD

Just don't ever ask me to believe 'received wisdom' ever again

What CIA analysts imagined to be dispositive evidence of Saddam's nuclear ambitions turned out, in Kay's judgment, to be proof of plain, old-fashioned greed. For months the Administration claimed that finely machined aluminum tubes, imported with ever higher tolerances—that is, precision in their specificatio