Jpost

Allison provides some details on the change of helm at the Jerusalem Post. I hope the new Editor manages to turn it back into a newpaper. The origami made me confused.

The Edge of England's Sword

I normally read this blog every day. I won't bother any more since a new blogger came to join in. In his recent post, Drake said:

Truthfully, I can't summon outrage on behalf of Ba'athist thugs who had a few snapshots taken in "compromising" positions, especially considering that they are prisoners for being card carrrying members and the muscle men of a regime that had rape rooms and gassed its own people. A bit of me thinks they deserve worse - but not at the expense of our reputation and the honor of the uniform. However, if those pictures were not produced for the entertainment of a very few soldiers, but a result of military orders to use as intelligence tools, fine with me. If a naked and humiliated thug means saving the lives of a few good men, fine with me. In fact bring it on.

The people he wants sodomized, humiliated and abused are in the words of General Ryder, the Army's provost marshal,

...some Iraqis had been held for several months for nothing more than expressing "displeasure or ill will" toward the American occupying forces

The USA is losing the war in Iraq, it's losing the war on terrorism and it's helping Israel lose the war here as well. It will be the rest of the world who will have to live with the consequences.

Watching Paint Dry

Thanks to Vulture Central, there is an antidote to Big Brother or any of the reality shows. Yes, you too can watch paint dry and even vote on what the next colour will be.

NotCon '04

I wish I could be at NotCon'04 on the 6th June in London. A talk on atomic time keeping using a prawn sandwich and a Sinclair Spectrum sounds wonderful. How about 'A controlled study on the impacts of blogging within a defined geographical location' or 'Shit I'm A Manager'. All good stuff and I'll watch the page with interest.

California…Boston…New York…Ireland…Norway…London…the world

I’m getting closer by the day to enjoying more places in London where the air is not polluted by cigarette smokers. With the London mayoral race heating up both Labour (Our Ken) and Conservative (Stezza) candidates have said if elected they would bring in a London-wide smoking ban in eg. restaurants, cafes, pubs and clubs.

Nice to see that the smoking bans in NYC and Ireland have been so successful and compliance achieved. Next step: a UK-wide ban.

'Buffalo Spammer' Sentenced to 3-1/2 to 7 Years

One down, only another 200 odd mainstream spammers to go. Even China is getting the message these days,

The Peter Hounam story

I admit to being rather puzzled by all this.The Ha'Aretz story leaves a number of questions open.

• Shin Bet said, "we had to know what was on the tape, and we had no other way of doing so except by detaining and interrogating [Hounam]. - This does not make me feel good about Shin Bet.
  


• Vannanu may have broken his release terms. Peter Hounam didn't


• Peter Hounam is a experienced jail bird. This makes the 9th time he's been jailed for being a journalist.


• If Shin Bet doesn't know what Vannunu is saying without detaining jouranlists then perhaps it's time for a new Shin Bet.


• It's made Israel look very silly and stirred the pot on the Vannunu story. Why?

Spam

A personal record was broken this morning. I received one thousand , four hundred and twenty six spam emails. All but 26 were the same one Sigh. I have taken great pleasure in locating the isps that sent the email and host the web site of the offending Georgia based firm that seems to have been responsible for sending them out. Well done anderson-audio for contributing to the health of the internet.


I'm not the only one either.


Update: It's appears to be an attempt by some spammer to mail bomb. Steve Linford from spamhaus has had the same.

Extreme arresting

At last this hate-filled filth-spewing cretin is in custody. Shame the Yanks got there first and in Britain to boot. At least we will no longer have the ludicrous sight every Friday of him preaching to a few hundred of his terrorist kindred spirits in the middle of a street near Finsbury Park protected by dozens of police officers who could be doing something more productive with their time.

Peter Hounam - Mordechai Vanunu

Peter Hounam is the journalist who first wrote the Vanunu nuke story some 24 years ago. Now Shin Bet has him. I wonder why.

Shavuot

It's Shavuot, the Feast of the Weeks, and the celebration of the giving of the ten commandments to Moses. Here, the local Moshav had a harvest festival which was well attended. Various acts and I was particularly pleased to see the Thai workers given a spot of their own where they demonstrated a sort of badminton but using their feet.


On the subject of sports, Extreme Ironing is becoming ever more popular. Perhaps my blog partner might like to give it a go.

French Open

Go Martina! I so admire what this woman has achieved. Actually she's been regularly playing (and winning) doubles at Eastbourne and Wimbledon. It's re-entering the singles this year that gets the media attention.

Mostly people comment favourably on my active lifestyle. On rare occasions some silly idiot says wteo ‘aren’t you a bit old to be doing that’ (rollerblading, driving fast cars fast, steep ‘n’ deep off piste skiing, slalom water skiing, distance swimming, dance music, etal). How anyone could say that about someone only in their 40s is beyond me, but I’ll now say me and Martina, mate.

This isn't what it looks like. It's my first picture post to blogger and it supposed to be a space elevator. Think of a bridge where one end is earth and the other a large chunk of rock. 

Professor Lovelock wants Nuclear Power?

This takes some beating as a headline.Professor Lovelock has been a green supporter for energy longer than I have been alive. To read an article that quotes him calling for nuclear power is a bit like hearing George Bush wish the sixties were back so he could grow his hair and smoke pot.

Gates backs blogs for businesses

Gates can stay out of it as far as I'm concerned.

Jdate and malware

It all seemed so easy. A divorced friend our ours wanted to join JDate but is not computer literate. She who Must Be Listened To offered to help which means me as well. All I can say I missed the drop in security settings and before I knew it we had spyware popping up very odd adverts. So it's good old AdAware scan time again.

F1 demo in London in July?

Yes please!!! Do they mean me???

Irish liberation movement or Mr Powers’ retail business?

I did a double-take when I first saw this shopfront in Kilburn. At first I wondered if London is seeing the return of 1970s-80s-style single-issue militant politics.

CRM, no thanks

I have just unsuccessfully advised a not-for-profit client to develop a helpful, easy-to-use information-based website (that’s information or use to the client’s customers/users) instead of implementing a very costly CRM system. This letter (scroll down to White elephants) in yesterday’s Guardian IT about the fiasco that is the UK e-government project lifted my spirits but at the same time left me more downhearted.

“…billions have been invested in websites and customer relationship management systems, and they still fall short of making public services more accessible, efficient and customer focused…”

“…The public sector appears to be repeating the mistakes made by the private sector during the CRM hype days…”

“…Many websites and CRM systems are ill-designed to answer specific and individual questions, with traditional systems requiring users to understand how information is categorised…”

“…Unless accessibility is improved, significant amounts of taxpayers money will have been wasted as many of these systems will become "white elephants"…”

Bye bye Ahmad Chalabi

The USA has always preferred to play the man rather than the movement. As usual it brings pain to all concerned rather than results. Ahmad Chalabi likes money and never had a political base in Iraq so why back him? The intelligence he provided was plain wrong.

Syngman Rhee was a autocratic leader in his time and South Korea gradually came around. I would also have thought that the lessons learnt after what happened to Chinese and North Korean Pows would have been remembered.

Rabbi Dov Lior

Rabbi Dov Lior reminds us that in his view:

The IDF is allowed to use all means at its disposal to defeat terrorism “even if it means ‘innocent’ people are killed”, the sources said.

As far as I'm concerned, he's forgotten all he read in his long life. Now I know why getting out of the West Bank and Gaza is so important. It's to stop people like him polluting Israel.

Now I'm scared...

I found myself agreeing with the leader of the British Conservative party. This can't be right can it? An sensible article that all can agree with?

I have, for example, been arguing for some time that we should have a high-powered UK representative in Baghdad as Paul Bremer's deputy, making sure our voice is clearly heard and heeded. We are the second biggest contributor to coalition forces. We are surely entitled to a say.

More tea required over this.

Google News

I shouldn't be but I am. The USA getting is wrong is more newsworthy than Israel getting it wrong.

State refuses to register Israeli nationality

Of course not. It makes so much sense not to allow Israelis to call themselves Israelis. I also note I am not allowed to register as Anglo Saxon Zoroastrianism either. Miffed am I.

Offering citizens the option to register as Israelis in the "nationality" clause in their identity cards "does not reflect, is not suitable and undermines the very principles under which the State of Israel was created," according to the State Prosecutor's Office.

So why call it Israel then? Why did Ben Gurion long for a 'state like any other' if we can't be Israelis?

State Cup

Well done Bnei Sakhnin ,the first Israeli Arab team to win the State Cup. Fireworks aplenty here in the North. Beating Hapoel Haifa 4-1 in the National Stadium is something special.

Upbeat forecast for Israel

Here’s some good economic news for Israel courtesy of The Economist forecast through 2005 (no internal links so need to scroll down and click on the Economist headline). If the economic outlook looks this positive with the current situation we can only dream how strong the Israeli economy could be if there was more progress on the peace process front.

Sarin in Iraq

There is/was something in Iraq. An old 155 mm artillery shell. It is still not enough to make it all worthwhile but it doesn't really matter any more. My grandchildren will be worrying about troop casualty levels in Iraq.

Film deal for 'Baghdad blogger'

A book deal then a film?This I want to see.

When judges sit on the prosecution bench

One view is that you hit suspects until they tell you want you want to hear. The other is that it is wrong. Full stop.

Working backwards

The RAF report on why a RAF Tornado was downed by a Patriot battery is available here for those who are interested. My own interest stems from my brother being Tornado aircrew and my Father's career in the RAF.


IFF was a problem then as it is now. Mode 1 codes were not available to the Patriot crew and it appears that Mode 4 was not working on the Tornado. The recommendations seem very logical. Let us hope that this will help prevent any more blue on blue deaths in the future.

Another article

Ruvin Rosenthal expounds the generally held view of Gaza here.

The only way, it seems, to tame this war, is full and total military control in every Gazan city and camp; sending in extra military manpower, and regressing to the situation from which we had begun to withdraw - a brutal, mastering nation. It is not by chance that the current lunatic, Aryeh Eldad, proposed bombing Gaza from the air. Since his dreams of transfer are not coming to fruition, he understands that the only way to control Gaza is to eliminate it, either instantly, or in stages.
Therefore, the comparison between Lebanon and Gaza is that Israel wants to leave, but can’t. For years, Israel was trapped in Lebanon like fools in a maze. In the first stage you go in there to display your strength; you are then weakened because you are confronted with the local enemy, using the advantages of guerilla warfare and picking on your weaknesses such as the chaos in their country and the lack of a strong central governing body. You are weakened, but now you can’t leave because then you will appear to be even weaker.

Deep sigh.

The President speaks

The President of Israel saysin Maariv International

“When the prime minister and the defense minister say a pullout from Gaza is necessary, it has a meaning. Gaza is turning into Lebanon in many ways and especially since Hezbollah has a great influence over the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad”.

.
Hooray for him. I suppose the anonymous person who left a comment on my previous post would call him a left wing loonie as well as Sharon and 80% of Israelis.

Peace Rally

I was there. Rabin square was heaving with people. It was organised by Mate Harov which is a group consisting of Labor, Yahad, One Nation, Peace Now, the kibbutz movements, the Geneva Initiative organization, youth movements and the Forum of Bereaved Parents.

US Jew executed in Iraq to the chant of allah akbar

Just found out that Nick Berg was Jewish. Sadly this makes an already shocking and barbaric act even worse and plays into the hands of extremists of all hues.

It’s not left vs right it’s excellence vs mediocrity

Who needs Dave Spart when we have, er, Paul Foot in the Grauniad? Here he is class-struggle ranting about the right to keep crap schools in crap areas, anything excellent is “snob” and undesirable, wanting to pull all pupils down to the least common denominator and deny hard-working aspirational parents the chance to give their kids the best education possible. Er, shurely his piece is a clever parody, isn’t it?…

Phase two: US imposes sanctions on Syria

Following on from the “the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act” US law last Dec, the US has now formally imposed economic sanctions on Syria.

Here we go again. Well as Syria has actually for years been actively supporting terrorists, occupying another country and fiddling with WMD shurely this should have come before Iraq? No matter, we are where we are. At any rate the boy dictator is weak and not a patch on his old man. Will be interesting to see what does/doesn’t happen in light of lessons learned from Iraq.

Expat Egghead and Cathy

ExpatEgghead will be taking a few days off. His place will be taken up by his excellent blog partner, Cathy, and a new guest blogger 'Dave Spratt'. Thanks Dave.

'Mistake'

Anyone volunteering to be the last one to die for a mistake? Not much of a queue I see. Damn, damn damn. Six good Israelis die for what Mofaz, our unelected defence minister calls ' a historic mistake'. How many more will it take. Will the Netzarim community attend the funerals and comfort the bereaved? I thought not. Too busy as usual.

Blogger

Looks like the comments have gone. Normal service will resume as soon as I figure out what I've done wrong.

Real food vs factory food

Re. having an organic garden and growing your own organic food where possible, in my case a roof terrace garden, I couldn’t have said it any better than Monty Don:

Having organic food from the garden is so life enhancing and such a vital corrective to the tasteless, seasonless mush that is pumped out of the agri-factories masquerading as 'farms'. In this way, gardens and allotments remain a vital yardstick for those of us who care about what we eat. I always grow too much fruit and veg, to make the most of the fecundity of the season: not to fill every spare inch with food that we want to eat seems a missed opportunity. Yes, there is excess - even waste - but at least it all goes on the compost heap and the goodness is returned back to the soil.

Flabbergasted

Sometimes, changes can overwhelm you. I was going to post a long winded rant on the evils of not initialising your variables before you use them as an antidote to get away from work miseries. Instead I find a new blogger interface.

Gaza Strip settlements were an historical mistake

So say Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz yesterday. He's changed his tune more times than a jukebox. Nice to see he's finally agreeing with Meretz at last. Now for the rest of them.

More on ID cards

There is a statement here that says:

Of the 25 countries that have been most adversely affected by terrorism since 1986, eighty percent have nation identity cards, one third of which incorporate biometrics. This research was unable to uncover any instance where the presence of an identity card system in those countries was seen as a significant deterrent to terrorist activity.

Almost two thirds of known terrorists operate under their true identity.

Identity Cards

If you wish to make your views known on UK ID cards , then read the PDF consultation document and then email
identitycards <> homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk Replace the <> with the normal symbol.

My own views can be summarised as:

• Unproven method of crime fighting
  
• Expensive
  
• Goverments have a lousy record on very large scale IT projects.
  

Sick leave means more paid holiday, mate

Sadly the old-style British sickie culture (protected by the unions) is all too alive and well. What should have been an open-and-shut case of an employee being sacked for blatantly abusing his employer’s sick leave policy turned to farce when the employee won his claim for unfair dismissal on a procedural technicality.

This tube driver, already well known to London Underground for taking what a reasonable person may well consider excessive amounts of sick leave, was caught playing squash while off work with an allegedly injured ankle. He was sacked and the unions went on strike over it.

My view is that employees who abuse sick leave are in effect stealing from their employers. Stealing time, stealing money. London Underground, although now part-privatised, remains a public service so this behaviour is also stealing from us the public.

This case points out the need for organisations to get legal advice as water-tight as possible before sacking even the most obviously under-performing employee. Sadly this means more expense to the organisation and more income for the lawyers.

London Underground says it will appeal the tribunal’s decision. Let’s hope reason prevails.

This lie has been terminated

Looks like the number of Israeli high-tech jobs is increasing by 1000…in California. In a speech yesterday Herr Groppenfuhrer implied that during his recent visit to Israel he was personally responsible for negotiating with several key Israeli companies to expand or relocate to the Golden State. The companies concerned beg to differ and the governor’s press office subsequently issued a ‘clarification’. Shades of certain other California governors and US presidents “…what the Governor/President really meant to say was…” Like them, no doubt someone has advised Arnie not to ad-lib or deviate from his pre-prepared scripts.

Helicopters

We heard and saw the helicopters bringing the wounded in. Never liked the sound. Hezbollah will need fixing but I have no idea how except with force.

Small War

The IDF and Hezbollah are exchanging fire in the Har Dov area. No reports of casualties. Kibbutz Akhziv had some AA shrapnel come down . This is much further south and west than before. Lebenon rejects Israli overflights. These are prompted by the presence of Hezbollah who have mad 'being a pain in the bum' an art form who , in turn fire at the planes. They also have a go at Israeli border posts which fire back and the whole thing flares up, dies down and we wait for the next time.

MI6

MI6, the British external Intelligence agency has a new chief. This is unlikely news as this is supposed to be an apolitcal appointment. What is really odd is that the conservative opposition has objected due to the continuing inquiry into the use of intelligence before the Iraq war. The person concerned was in charge of the dossier used to justify the British involvement.

Football

This is not normally the blog for football news but Bnei Sakhnin beat Ashdod last night to become the first Israeli Arab club to go through the the State Cup final. Well done. They may have learnt a bit too much from Vinnie Jones though.

Settlements

As I thought, Israel does fund 'illegal settlements' without cabinet approval. This web entry is subject to change as someone seems to have mixed it up with part of a report on hospitals.

Salam Pax: Tigris Tales

Salam Pax writes again.

But when things are good, they are very good. The weather is fine, and when the sun sets we sit in an outdoor tea house listening to pro-Falluja songs blasting from a car stereo while teenagers stand beside the car trying to look tough. If we get sick of that we go to a friend's newly opened mobile-phone accessory shop in Adhemiya, where he has to dodge demands for phone covers with pictures of Saddam on them. Even more surreally, a kid came in asking if he had any of the old "Saddam, we love you" songs that he could use as a ring tone.



Did I tell you that I don't understand my country any more?

California Bans E-Vote Machines

I note that electronic voting has stalled yet again, in California this time. In Israel, you get an envelope and choose one piece of paper bearing the name of the person or party you wish to vote for. In the UK, you make an 'X' next to the name of the person you wish to see elected.

Voting in California is a little more complex than that hence the need for something better then paper. Diebold Election Systems doesn't seem to have done a great job here.

Try your luck in Lithuania

A Gruaniad report points out that Lithuania could be the place to go. There is a monument to Frank Zappa in Vilnius bless them. Empty beaches , beer one pound a pint and you can hire jet fighters for personal pleasure.
Ok, I don't speak Turkish or Russian or Lithuanian. Would Java and C++ do?

25 years ago today the Iron Lady arrived at no 10

Margaret Thatcher became the UK’s first woman prime minister on 4 May 1979. She won three general elections overwhelmingly and served 11 and a half years as PM before being deposed by an internal Tory putsch at the end of 1990.

I’m not usually one for marking anniversaries or notable dates but whatever you think of her or her government’s policies, Maggie did have a huge impact in Britain and the global stage and set the scene for the modernisation of the Labour party. She was a staunch friend of Israel and the UK Jewish community and took a stand against the Sir Bufton Tufton style of Tory anti-semitism by surrounding herself with clever Jewish cabinet members and advisers such as the brothers Young, Leon Brittain, Nigel Lawson and the current Tory leader Michael Howard. Sadly she did little or nothing to further the cause of women at the top in the Tory party.

Plans for sale

Another plan doomed to get nowhere. It seems to be a competition to find a way forward that will be rejected by the greates number of people, players and interested parties. This one scores higher than the previous one as it will get rejected by the left as well as the right. There is no centre ground in Israeli politics.

Lights in the Distance

Another Anglo Israeli blog bursts into light. Please go over and say hello.

Likud humiliates PM in Gaza poll

Lost as expected. Doubtless the counting continues but the turnout looked surprisingly low at 41%. Where were they all? As to what comes next I have no idea at all.

More dead

Perhaps there are words to talk about the death of four members of the same family in Gaza on the day when Likud votes on the disengagement plan. I just don't have them.

Pullout plan

The Prime Minister is said , only indirectly that he will press on regardless whatever the results of the vote. Then why have it in the first place? Twit. Still, we shall have to see.

Israel - the Day After Sunday

Arik Sharon will lose the vote on Sunday. The polls tell us so, the pictures on the T.V. tell their own hidden story of a well conducted campaign by opponents of the plan and nothing by the supporters. When I say nothing, that implies little or no effort. What I want to convey is an absence of effort in much the same way dark is an absence of light.

'She Who Must be Listened To' insisted that she heard Sharon saying that if this fails he will promote the Geneva Accord. Normally I believe everything she says but in this case I refuse. I wouldn't give credence to it even he said it to my face so that I could could run my fingers over his mouth as he said it, with lip readers taking down every breath and syllable. Israel has come to a turning point. What happens in the days to come I cannot imagine. I prefer not to imagine. I shall retreat into the 'Israeli bubble' that I have criticised for so long.