Scenes I thought London would never see (3)

Mayor (Red) Ken Livingstone crossing the picket line of today’s tube strike and slagging off the unions as unreasonable and resistant to modernisation. Talk about poacher turned gamekeeper! He’s right as it happens.

Internet Exploder

Now even the USA Government urge us to switch away from Internet Explorer. You might like to pay Cert a visit.

House

We won't be buying the house we wanted. The judge said the present occupant can stay there. Oh well, it's back to house hunting yet again.

Iraq self rule

In spite of my opposition to the whole idea , I wish all Iraqis well for the future. Let's hope good comes out of the whole mess. Now Aghanistan needs some help.

More hatred

Surely anyone, never mind a star, who uses these lyrics whether live or recorded goes well beyond their right to free speech and should be prosecuted for incitement to hatred especially if their words are linked to murders:

“Kill them, the ni**ers have to die, gun shots in their head ... put up your hand if you want to see them dead”; "I'm a dreaming of a new land, come to execute all the ni**ers”.

The good news is that this is taken seriously in the UK: the ‘artiste’ concerned was denied entry into the country and his ‘concert’ cancelled.

However this isn’t a white anti-black racist, it’s a black homophobe rapper and instead of the n-word he uses words offensive to gay people and actively encourages his fans to kill gays. To me it makes no difference if the subject is blacks, gays, Jews, women or any other group. Anyone advocating such hatred should be put away for a Long Time.

Deaths in Sderot

This is very bad. A three year old killed and a man in his fifties died this morning after a Qassam rocket attack. Sderot is inside Israel proper and now the IDF will go back into Gaza , in force again.

More about the security vunerability

Here's Microsoft's take on the latest trojan to be making the rounds. I'm amazed that there are any unpatched IIS machines still around.

Local taxes

Our local authority claims we owe them for an unpaid one month tax bill last year. Explainations that we have a receipt fall on deaf ears. They also claim a court judgement against us for 1998, some two years before we made aliya which is clever. Now they won't accept any more taxes from us until we pay their lawyers fee. As it seems to have been a clerical error on their part, we're digging our heels in and calling in our landshark. This is fairly common I've been told.

Internet Exploder

That's it. I'm back to Mozilla for ever after reading about yet another web site based trojan that infects Explorer. You can get it here , free, for any operating system and platform.

Houses

The Eggheads have been waiting patiently to move into the house we have chosen some 10 kilometers from here. Regretfully it was owned by a couple who have separated and we have to wait for a judge to make her mind up about the split between them. This means being very patient which doesn't come naturally to Israelis hence we got it for a low price. We also get the planning permission problems that they can't afford to fix as well but that's OK.

While we're waiting, She Who Must be Listened to has been developing a longing to buy the rented property we live in now. I suppose that means we wouldn't have to move but we discovered another snag. At one time it was two apartments and now it's one. It was very hopeful of us to assume that the owner had asked and obtained planning permission before making massive changes.

A common phrase here is Israel is 'Don't worry, it'll be OK'. When you hear that, run for the hills after checking your insurance policies.

England

Football is not normally my game but we were all riveted by the match last night. I though my heart would stop when Beckham missed the first penalty. Portugal deserved to win.

Will America play cricket?

The USA has qualified for the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy the be held in September, England. Well done Team USA. Another country to beat England at sport.

Pest control naturally

Isn’t it interesting the things you can learn from the Wimbledon website on a rainy London afternoon when there’s no play? I believe hawks are also being used around Whitehall to control vermin of the skies or, if you prefer, rats with wings. More hawks in London now!

Northern Galille earlier this year. 

Outposts come and go

The State Prosecutor's Office is considering ordering a full-scale investigation into the budgets that helped build outposts in the territories.

The State Comptroller found that while the Defense Ministry was officially supposed to be dismantling illegal outposts, the Housing Ministry had been financing them through budgets sent to established settlements that would sponsor the unathorized outposts, often as "suburbs" outside the official jurisidction of the established settlement.

Is it because we is…what?

What is it about this “inclusive” Jewish website? We’ve tried several times to add Expat Egghead and Cathy to their Jewish/Israeli blog list, so far without success or explanation. Ma baya? I’m Jewish, Adrian is Israeli. Shurely it’s not something we said so it must just be incompetent admin...

Dawn on midsummer's day near Stonehenge. Thanks to the Guardian for the picture.
 

THE METRIC SYSTEM SUCKS! (sic)

The usenet group, alt.sysadmin.recovery always provides gems I would miss elsewhere. The metric sucks web site is a good example. I am agnostic about the debate except to mention that I have never heard a good argument for having both systems which is where my birth country is stuck. Locally , we are all metric and a good thing too.

The comparison between metric and imperial measurement is amusing not least because they authors insist on calling it 'English' which it is not. The strains of a techno society come to the fore, for example, who would have said that Word users are metric people whilst 'vi' geeks are firmly feet and inches.

When I do get to space I do not want thrust calculated in furlongs per fortnight and fed into a computer system expecting Newtons per hour. Under those circumstances, I will bring out my slide rule for the edification and education of the gullible masses.

Not too surprising

I wish I hadn't read this. I'm not shocked just saddened. Arafart did a good job of promoting hatred.

Up, up and away - 62 miles high

Well done to all those involved. It's always been my dream to travel to space. One day, I'll get there.

Expat Egghead and Cathy

It's been two years since this blog started.I will hear your congratulations or I will cut off your air. That was a quote by the way. I shall be very nice to anyone who can tell me the SF book it came from.

Gmail

Evryone who left an email address in the recent competition was sent a gmail invite. If the gentleman from Holland who didn't, could find someone with a working emnail address he'll get one too. I'm bad at picking winners.

School says girls must wear trousers

Excuse me? Now kilts for men and schoolgirls not allowed to wear skirts? What is the world coming to. Let's see, what was that biblical injunction against woman dressing as men? Or was it the other way around?

Lunchbox news

The latest mens’ fashion clothing item in northern California: unbifurcated garments aka kilts. Specifically Utili-kilts – a modern, practical take on the traditional Scottish kilt, but not a tartan in sight. Apparently they're selling like hot cakes or is that hot buns? Show us your legs then boys!

Working with Windows

Cathy's Friday post reminded me on the need to clean up the computer every so often. So far, it's taken me nine hours to reformat the hard disks ,install Windows XP, the service packs, updates , ADSL, sound support, anti virus, the firewall, all with needed upgrades, printers, Adobe, flash, my perl envirnment and then to get back the email settings, usenet groups not forgetting the cookies I kept and favourites.
Then move on to the graphics and restoring documents. I've had enough for today. A friend who rang asking about something said, " That sounds good. You can come and do it in my house as well".


Deep sigh.

Attack of the zombie PCs

So this is why recently some websites have been slow and some email servers unreliable. I did have a laugh when I read this as zombie PCs and zombified PCs (along with the more well-known Trojan horses) are much more colourful terms than: using remote-access Trojan programs covertly installed on vulnerable PCs to mount distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on domain name system (DNS) servers and other key internet servers.

A Job hunting

A telephone interview by someone who knows what he's talking about can be a strain. He probed places pushed deep down in my brain. I was pleased I could give a stumbling explanation of the difference between using packed BSTRs as opposed to streams for COM interfaces.

What worries me is that the general course of events for this company is a telephone interview, a 1.5 hour technical interview, a profiling interview followed by a management HR interview. I hope it's all worth it.

Iraq again

I haven't blogged much about Iraq and the news speaks better than I can. I will point out that doesn't appear to any WMD's and now there is no evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda either. Yes, Saddam was a nasty bastard and its good that he's gone. I still maintain the invasion was a mistake.

Court halts spammer's anti-spam company gag

Scott Richter loses again in an attempt to stop blocklists from stopping his spam. As he's on his way to being targeted by Microsoft as well, lets hope his days are numbered as one of the major sources of spam in the US. On a seperate note, Microsoft who alternates between claiming other companies are filing 'obvious patents' has a new one of its own, namely a lock on 'Computer programming language pronouns' on the rather remarkable grounds of:

Pronouns make programs easier to write by eliminating the need to define new names (or macros) for repeated program segments. Eliminating names is a substantial benefit as programmers dislike creating names

.

I hope that's clear then.

Vatican downsizes the Inquisition

Honest Guv, it was only a few small ones. Anyway they deserved it, horrible old woman mumbling in their soup.

Ultimatums follow blast which blew wreckage half a mile into the air

Just to remind all my Israeli and USA readers that terrorism has been around well before 9/11. Israel didn't have the luxury of phoned telephone warnings either. Britain faced terrorism back in 1605 and it's been around ever since.

Gazza schmazza

I see that the much-mocked question asked by Mr Justice Cocklecarrot has indeed come full circle. Who is Gazza? Supplementary: who gives a shit? Publishers! Tabloids!

Travel writer Bryson wins science prize

Speaking of prizes, Bill Bryson has won the Aventix Science prize. Well done Bill.

Euro election

The poor Labour result in the European Parliament elections is partly balanced by the effect of the strong UKIP vote on the Conservatives . This will further stretch a Tory party being pulled from pro-euro pillar to eurosceptic post.

With one bound he was free

Arik Sharon will not be prosecuted for bribery after all. Can't say I'm surprised or sorry about it.

The father of 'www' finally gets his due

Time Berners Lee gets the $1.2 million Millennium Technology Prize . This is excellent. He is also quoted on the subject of software patents. Well worth reading all of it. I didn't know that the web was originally called a "mesh". Tim also points out that if Cern had patented the web as it could have done we would have 16 different "webs" today.

Moore wants to do movie on Tony Blair

Please, don't do it. It won't work.

Spam gangs exploit UK legal loophole

No thank you very much. I do not what the UK to become the next spammers haven. It is bad enough as it is.

Microsoft patents to do lists

I really wonder sometimes about the USA patent examiners. Yes, they are poorly paid and underworked. To-do lists on a computer is obvious to anyone learned in the art of course but that never stopped them before. Prior art doesn't seem to work anymore either. Microsoft dislikes anyone else doing this hence the fuss over the Eolas case.

Gmail account

My esteemed blog partner thinks that Google mail is evil. I'm still optimistic and my beta gmail account works better than my hotmail account. As I have one invite left, anyone who wants it can ask. Just leave a comment explaining why you think you should get one. I'll pick the best. Lucidity and humour score well. Irony without sarcasm also works.

Ice cores unlock climate secrets

An interesting article on climate change here. I first heard it on the BBC World Service. Whilst it does not claim to predict the future, it is clear that CO2 levels are at an all time high ( at least over the last 750,000 years). The changes in temperature are also abnormal rather than part of the natural cycle as some necons claim. I've stopped reading Ian Murray but I will watch to see what he says about it.

Filth

Bent Met coppers retire so avoid punishment. Force still not cleaning up its act. Institutional racism. No change there then.

Not going well

Yesterday was fairly dreadful at work with a new CEO causing ripples in the large pool of water in the offices. It got worse. My eldest child became dehydrated and we ended up rushing from Tel Aviv to Rambaum hospital which I regret to say I know well. The two kids we looked after last Shabbat have managed to catch foot and mouth disease.

Words worth or milim ha yom

Oh I get it.

They’re ‘terrorists’ when they attack a BBC crew but ‘militants’, ‘freedom fighters’, ‘downtrodden Palestinians' etc yada yada yada when they attack Israelis…

Acropolis Now!

Aside from the uncharacteristically amusing headline in the Grauniad, we now have a worst possible case benchmark should London host the 2012 Olympic Games. We couldn’t possibly do any worse, could we??????

Water , water everywhere...

If it wasn't enough having a trench dug through the bedroom floor as the plumber lays new pipe, arriving at work I found 3 cms of water everywhere. The water cooler burst a pipe , cut a hole through a dry wall and saturated everything including my socks.

Memories

It's the 60th anniversary of D-Day today.today. It's also the anniversary of the start of the 6 day war which I do remember. Young as I was, my interest in Israel started then and has never let up.

Sharon sacks hardliners who stand in his way

Oh no he hasn't. Oh now he has!. As you were, he hasn't, or possibly not until Tuesday. Such is the state of the state of Israel. Nobody kinows quite what is going on until it's too late.

Learning Hebrew

Forget ulpan. Spending the day looking after two 2 year olds belonging to friends is a great way of improving vocabulary. She Who Must be Cuddled is fast asleep and I will be there very shortly. I now know how to say 'fart' in Hebrew.

More like this please (7)

It’s nice to end the week on a positive note about building Jewish-Islamic bridges. Arabs for Israel is a group of Arabs and Moslems [sic]. “We believe” points from their website include:

• We can support the State of Israel and the Jewish religion and still treasure our Arab and Islamic culture.
  
• There are many Jews and Israelis who freely express compassion and support for the Palestinians. It is time that we Arabs express reciprocal compassion and support.
  
• The existence of the State of Israel is a fact that should be accepted by the Arab world.
  
• If Palestinians want democracy they can start practicing [sic] it now.
  
• Arab media should end the incitement and misinformation that result in Arab street rage and violence.
  
• We cherish and acknowledge the beauty and contributions of the Middle East culture, but recognize [sic] that the Arab/Moslem world is in desperate need of constructive self-criticism and reform.

Gush Shalom

Gush Shalom has a new campaign going. Here's a 32 page pdf file guaranteed to make most Israelis howl with rage.

Moving

Workplace now 10 kilometres further south. Yesterday was hard work and I shall be recovering today.

Films we'd like to see (1): Jeremy Hardy vs the Saudi Army

I think we should have a whip-round to send Jeremy Hardy to Saudi Arabia so he can stand between the Saudi security forces and terrorists. Jeremy seems delighted to regularly travel to Israel and be filmed standing in front of Israeli army units, and rabbits on incessantly on radio 4 about Evil Israel. But when it comes to The Desert Kingdom he doesn’t seem too keen to go there to protest, and on radio he is strangely silent…

Some thoughts on UNSCR 1441 and the dubious legality of the invasion of Iraq

A well reasoned article here on the legality of attacking Iraq. Most Israelis would read this with horror. Persons who think 'Saddam is gone and that's all that matters' might like to reflect some more.

On Torture

I would like to quote Aharon Barak, Israel's Supreme Court chief justice on torture.

"Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the rule of law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and its strength and allow it to overcome its difficulties."

Moving

We're moving at work out of Haifa to offices further south which is a shame. This is caused some disruption. The Electricity company has also joined in by cutting all power for the morning to rework the street supply. I need to get the car tested , taxed and insured today so it's a busy time. Just carry on without me, I'll catch up later.