It's not true. A well made fake. 

Syria hands over Saddam's adviser

Syria is getting hit hard these days. Unpopular in Lebanon, Silvan Shalom will show foreign ambassadors evidence of complicity in the Tel Aviv bombing and Iraq and the USA have proof that what they suspected was true. Syria was holding ex Baathists. There will be suspicion now about what else Syria has they they deny. WMDs perhaps?

If it does lead to Syrian influence over Lebanon decreasing that will be good. If it means Hezbollah being put out of business , even better. What's new this time is the cross factional support in lebanon against Syria. Christians, Muslims and Druze all united in something for once.

Did Blair sign up for war at Bush's Texas ranch in April 2002?

Probably. Not that it makes much difference.

Why I live in London (247) or rootless cosmopolitan puts down roots

Imshin, the blogger sans comments*, pondered why I became a Brit. I became a Brit because London is not a city-state and not a member of the EU. So in order to become a London and EU citizen I had to become a British citizen. So I am really a Londoner. London is my home. I get off on the energy, buzz and complexity, I know the place intimately yet it is forever exciting as there is always something more to learn, see or do. I am plugged into the very source of energy of London. To paraphrase Dr Johnson “when one is tired of London one is tired of life". The downsides (crap local government, disgraceful tourist facilities, smoking still allowed in too many places…) are part of the buzz. I have blogged about some of the reasons why I live in London and not in the US or in Israel here, here, here, here and here. More soon.

*Question: What is a blog? I suppose technically a ‘blog’ is any regularly updated web presence using blogging-type weblog publishing technology. I thought that the spirit of blogging is not just reading someone published on the web, but to allow and encourage intelligent responses and constructive debate on what is published, through the comments facility. Please enlighten me.

Another suicide bomb

It's back again. I note that the IDF will not be blowing up the house of the bomber as it's been concluded that it's counter productive. Hezbollah may be behind this. Perhaps Syria might be stirred into action.

Whale-hunting in landlocked Utah

Some rather strange brits are off to the States for a bit of law breaking. i didn't know it was illegal to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool in California or to play golf on the sidewalk in Albany. I suspect the folks at the Homeland security Dept don't have a sense of humour.

Blogging is all fun and games, until the boss finds out

Blogging at work seems to becoming a no-no.

Colourful past as a 'tart' in Paris wrecks dream of shortlisted Labour candidate

So it's OK forAlastair Campbell to have been a Riviera gigolo but not for a Labour canididate to have been a sex worker in Paris for a few weeks.

Microsoft Israel goes after country's biggest spammer

What good news. He's the one responsible for getting goldenlines onto the SBL. Goodness knows why he hasn't been kicked off before now. Checks not bouncing yet I suppose.

Real Software slams MS IsNot patent application

So Microsoft want a patent lock on the IsNot operator. You'd have thought they learned from the Eolas fiasco when the WWW saved their bacon to the tune of $521 million. She Who Must Be Cuddled has a birthday today. Daughter number one prepared a lovely breakfast for us at 3.30 a.m. after she came home. Sparklers on the bread and incense on the table. Lovely.

MT Law Blog: Spyware on Blogspot

Don't clink at the top until this is sorted out. Thanks to politech for the info.

Mayor regrets causing offence to Jewish community

In his 6-minute statement Ken attempted to separate his hate for the Mail Group from his inappropriate remarks to a Jewish person. After many minutes not apologising to the Mail and the Evening Standard, ranting away, giving a silly example of Jews calling each other names (nu what’s new) and someone who used the word ‘holocaust’ inappropriately (?!), he was told to ‘get on with it, ed’ and feeling the arm-lock he was in: Ken expressed regret for the offence the remark has caused the reporter and the wider Jewish Community.

over the last two weeks his "main concern" was that many Jewish Londoners have been disturbed by the media coverage. He said he had not meant to "downplay the horror and the magnitude of the Holocaust". "My words were not intended to cause such offence."

Local government watchdog the Standards Board is going forward with investigating that Livingstone had brought his office into disrepute and failed to respect others. The Board has the power to suspend or bar him from office for five years. Probably will end with a shot across his bow.

Gannon's Enemies List

A right winger dislikes being outed by liberal bloggers may turn to bottom feeders for support. Blogging is so in these days.

Formula-1 teams tries to reignite GPWC initiative

Perhaps F1 will coma to and end after all. Bernie will have to find a partner nearer his size and they could get rid of the silly rules re engine lifetime and ground force. Safety should be number one and let the teams worry about the rest.

Dual identity

Having officially become a Brit last November, I recently attended my citizenship ceremony complete with the Queen in attendance (in the form of a large photo) and received my Certificate of British Citizenship from the Mayor (the borough mayor, not the one who is set to apologise tomorrow). Classy, what? After which I hightailed it to the UK passport office to get my nice British Passport. Now I have a pink one and a blue one.



Apologies for the poor image quality (I’m the one most vertically challenged and least horizontally challenged). That’s what happens when you let another blo*dy ex-foreigner take your picture….

Floor washing

In Israel, or possibly the entire Middle East, the people have their own way of cleaning the tiled floors that are so common. You need a bucket, supply of water, a 'magav' which looks like a squeegee on steroids and some time. Start by recreating Noah's flood with the bucket and the water. The Ark and animals are optional.Try to round up the water in a convenient corner using the squeegee and some industrial strength cloth. Transfer the water to the bucket by mopping and squeezing. Finally scrap the floor until nearly dry and then leave.

As you might imagine , I am not very good at this. When pressed by "She Who Must be obeyed" I do make an effort. When the criticisms get too much I respond with."I saw a dog dance once. When I noticed it, I didn't say'That dog dances badly'. I said 'Gosh, look. A dancing dog".

A good read on climate change

WASHINGTON (AFX) -- President Bush said Thursday that the U.S. is prepared to discuss ways to curb emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming with European allies. But the U.S. approach will continue to focus on technology not mandatory emissions caps for nations like those proposed in the Kyoto climate change treaty that went into effect this week, Bush said. "Obviously, the Kyoto Protocol had been a problem in the past. They thought the treaty made sense. I didn't," the president said. He added that he recently spoke about these issues with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is hosting the G-7 meeting in March with a focus on climate change and global warming

Is there a “point of no return” or “critical threshold” that will be crossed when the forcings exceed this level, as reported in some media? We don’t believe there is scientific evidence for this. However, as was pointed out at an international symposium on this topic last year in Beijing by Carlo Jaeger: setting a limit is a sensible way to collectively deal with a risk. A speed limit is a prime example. When we set a speed limit at 60 mph, there is no “critical threshold” there – nothing terrible happens if you go to 65 or 70 mph, say. But perhaps at 90 mph the fatalities would clearly exceed acceptable levels. Setting a limit to global warming at 2ºC above pre-industrial temperature is the official policy target of the European Union, and is probably a sensible limit in this sense. But, just like speed limits, it may be difficult to adhere to.

Go boy!

A high-performance car driver who stood trial charged with driving at 132 mph on one of Scotland’s best-loved fast roads has had his case dismissed. He successfully argued that he couldn’t possibly have been driving at 132 as his car had a speed limiter set to 107 mph and therefore the laser gun used to clock him was inaccurate. An expert witness in court helpfully confirmed that the car could not go faster than 107. Right. Good one. This potentially also opens the door to challenging all speeding tickets given where this particular device was used.

CNN.com - Scientists: global warming is real - Feb 18, 2005

So. No doubt the ever shrinking nay sayers will claim 'it's all a conspiracy', 'it's not fair', "it will cost too much'. Consider the effects of a 0.5 metre rise in sea level on the East coast of the USA and then talk about costs. Kyoto is too little and we'll need to do more.

"The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people," he said.

Barnett urged U.S. officials to reconsider.

"Could a climate system simply do this on its own? The answer is clearly no," Barnett said.

What the effects here will be I don't know. I do expect the Government and people here to do nothing until it's too late.

An example of the power of blogging and bloggers

John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State, has just been successfully googlebombed. The campaign was led by two bloggers who are not amused by his selective devolution policies and his plans to cover southeast England with suburban homes.

Type fuckwit into Google and click ‘I’m feeling lucky’.

Previous notable googlebombs include ‘french military victories’ which still works and is still hilarious; and ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which sadly has been diffused.

Apple sues three journalists for emails

I note that some US journalists are facing jail because they refused to reveal their sources. Now, Apple is trying the same sort of trick indirectly. As well as going for the journalist directly, they want the mole to identified by going to the ISP for the source of emails. Left pondians will no doubt feel much safer that anti terrorist legislation is being used to safeguard their liberties. It's getting to the end of a free press over there.

He’s f*cked

Tony Blair has insisted it is time for the Ken Livingstone to say sorry.

“A lot of us in politics get angry with journalists from time to time, but in the circumstances, and to the journalist because he was a Jewish journalist, yes, he should apologise. Let's just apologise and move on - that's the sensible thing."

Having rejoined the Labour party, Ken must stand by the Prime Minister or resign again from the party and resign as Mayor. Ken: just do it, get it over with and move on to doing what you do best.

Software patents law dodges another rubberstamping

As Kyoto comes into force today without the USA, I was pleased to read that allowing Companies to own Europe via software patents looks like not going ahead after all in spite of supposed Microsoft bullying. Allowing Microsoft to claim it has a lock of saving the state of computer games is stupid. Just because the USA did it, doesn't mean we have to.

Fast filth

This driver was convicted of doing 97 mph on the M1. You might say that’s just bad luck as the average speed in the outside lane on a good day is around, er, 97 mph. Except this particular driver was driving Derbyshire’s Chief Constable's car. With the Chief Constable in the back. Ironies abound: many of those responsible for motorway enforcement want speed limits increased; Derbyshire police pioneered the draconian use of tax-on-motorist boxes (speed cameras) on main roads; the Chief Constable is a staunch anti-speeding (revenue-raising) campaigner; one wonders what would have happened had the man himself been driving?

In U.S. media, the growing power of blogs

Bloggers claim another scalp with the resignation of Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN. A bit stupid to claim that the US military were targetting journalists. It says here that there is no transcript or video available. I'm not sure what to make of all this.

London unites against Mayor Ken’s behaviour

The Mayor of London has been unanimously censured by the London Assembly for his Nazi jibe to a Jewish journalist. The Assembly has unanimously passed two motions called on Livingstone to apologise and withdraw his comments. Ken was not present for the vote.

Also today, the London-wide anti-Semitism policy unit handed a holocaust survivors’ petition into City Hall and urged the mayor to give a swift and unequivocal apology for his remarks. The Government is now involved too. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has called for the mayor to apologise.

In what may come to be a fatal political error of judgement, Ken is still standing by his remarks. Climb down now, please.

The war is over

Well, this war is for now. I suppose the disengagement plan will bring more fun and excitement.

Record number of hate attacks on UK Jews in 2004

The latest figures just released by the Community Security Trust show that reported anti-semitic attacks on UK Jews in 2004 increased by over 40% compared to 2003, and by nearly three quarters increase since 2001. This is alarming and we need to consider what to do about the fact that Jews seem fair game at the moment.

Last year there were 532 (2003: 375) total reported attacks ranging from extreme violence, violent assault, abusive behaviour, threats, abusive literature, property damage and desecration. Within the categories, attacks and threats against people have increased by varying proportions whilst attacks and desecration on property have decreased by a quarter compared to 2003. Other trends of note:

• There were no extremely violent attacks in 2003 but four last year, including a man who was assaulted in his home by an attacker shouting ‘I’m going to kill you, you f***** Yid.’
  
• Other assaults increased at the same overall percentage of 40% from 54 to 79.
  
• The numbers of threats increased over four-fold from 22 to 93.
  
• There was a 29% increase in abusive behaviour up from 211 to 272: half of the total number of incidents are in this category.
  
• There was a nearly doubling of of jew-hating literature incidents from 16 to 31.

Further details of the report here.

No doubt there are many more attacks and threats that don’t make it into these official statistics or incidents where the Jewishness of the victim may or may not have been a factor in the attack, such as the Jewish man who was stabbed by a muslim Turkish Cypriot on a bus. It would also be informative to see numbers of and trends on the type of people carrying out these attacks eg WASPs or Muslims. The anecdotal perception is that there are more attacks by Muslims but we need statistics to see if this is indeed the case.

Renewed violence between Druze and Christians in Meghar

Perhaps someone could enlighten me on the issues here. I thought they got along better than this. Seasoned observers of the Israeli scene may have noticed something about mortars bombs in Northern Israel, near Nahariya. That wasn't the usual suspects, just a local company getting it seriously wrong. I thought they were on our side. In the meantime, dropping off daughter at the local IDF airbase does not earn you any brownie points. The local MPs gave me a seriously hard time. Next time, she walks.

Livingstone faces inquiry over Nazi guard jibe at Jewish reporter

What is it with some people? Can't they think up any better insults than that? Cathy will have words to say to "our Ken". There.

The Magi Society - Helping People Understand Benevolent Design

Ok, the google ads stop right now. you can find this stuff without having it appear on our blog. I feel violated.

Dr Dobbs - bye bye Richard Grimes

It's OK. I don't expect you to clink on the URI. It's a geek thing and nothing to do with anything important. I am starting a new outlet for my writings on software engineering. The spam and beer theme will be disappearing as Cathy and I change our blog appearance over the next few weeks. Blogrolls will morph, links will change but we're the same people underneath. Now that I have a grip on DNS services in Israel things can only get better.

Haaretz - Israel News

Netanyahu said after the incident that "with all the understanding I have for these people's distress, there is no room for violence in the public debate."

A reading of history will prove otherwise.

It woz me says Alastair Campbell

The flying pigs are still hogging airspace. After the ad agency concerned said they were only following ze orders of uberspindoktor Campbell yahwol, Herr Alastair told the Jewish Chronic (dead-tree or paid sub) that it was a fair cop guv as of course the posters were not intended to be anti-semitic but he has leaned his lesson to be ‘ultra-sensitive’ and ‘extra careful’, innit. This was after his expletive-filled email attacking Newsnight coverage of the anti-semitic posters issue was received by a journalist on the programme.

Talk about a spent force. Labour didn’t need dirty tricks, negative campaigning or crap spin in the last election and, especially without an effective opposition, they certainly don’t need it in this one. Bring back Mandy now – surely a secondment from his euro-duties can be easily arranged.

Prince Charles to marry Camilla

It’s about time and how times change. When they first wanted to get married back in ?1980? the Queen forbade it (something about a divorced woman…). An interesting exercise to consider what would have happened had they did marry then and what Diana Spencer’s life would have been. Oh, the wedding will be conveniently just before the general election...

Palestinians fire mortars at Gaza settlements

So much for the 'truce' then. Forward to the past . Like living in a video recorder.

HP's Carly Fiorina fired

I'm amazed. Carly Fiorina was one of the most thrusting female CEOs around. Still, I feel the Compaq deal was flawed from the outset. Build your business rather than take it. Selling off the instrumentation division which was the cash cow was also a bad idea. I can't even remember what they call it now. Ahh yes, Agilent. Memorable.

Peace in our time - part 2

We're talking again and Jordan and Egypt announced they were sending their ambassadors back to Israel. Ok, so Hamas isn't playing at the moment but it's jaw-jaw rather than war-war. May it continue.

Peace in our time - Part 1

So we have a truce/ceasefire/cessation of hostilities, a military pause, a breathing space, an opportunity, a ...... whatever. Lets see who gets to be blamed for breaking it first. I'll put up our dumb politicoes against their hardliners any day.

Well done Ellen!

Ellen MacArthur MBE has sailed around the world in a record-breaking 71.6 days. Solo. In a small trimaran sailing boat. Facing mountainous seas, icebergs and gale force winds. Scaling the mainsail to make dangerous repairs. With less than 2 hours sleep in 24. On her first try. And she’s only 28. All that state-of the art kit is no guarantee of success. I truly admire her extreme sailing ability made up not of just technical skills but mental strength, stamina and focus.

Update: Dame Ellen.

Firefox spoofing flaw goes internationall

Oh dear. Not exploited at the moment but could be. This time, Internet Explorer is in the clear while Opera, Firefox and Konqueror have a problem. I'll post when there's a fix.

Religious right fights science for the heart of America

Forward to the past again. This time, to get around the Supreme Court decision that the inclusion of religious material in science classes in public teaching was unconstitutional, we have Intelligent Design as a replacement. This tries to teach that:

The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion.

I though that Dawkins had covered this quite nicely in "The Blind Watchmaker".

Natural selection, the unconscious, automatic, blind yet essentially non-random process that Darwin discovered, has no purpose in mind. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

Blogmosis

I haven't been able to see any Blogmosis blog for some days now, including the Head Heeb. Is it me, Firefox or the phase of the moon?

Alliance Against Urban 4x4s

Alas, it's almost too late for Israel. 4x4 ownership seems to grow almost exponentially here. Coupled with a less than perfect parking zeitgeist, we have a desperate attempt to "be like the USA". I should note that most people in the countryside drive anything but 4x4s. Old Nissan or Toyota pickups are common. Easier to wash the blood out.

Thanks Yanks

So much for the special relationship.

"The Americans are on a different wavelength," German deputy finance minister Caio Koch-Weser told reporters.

A great place to work

Why I am studying law (1): to root out such legal nonsense.

The phenomenon of organisations that register, trademark or copyright common terms then threaten anyone that uses ‘their’ IP (intellectual property) has reached a ridiculous new low. A US organisation that has recently succeeded in registering the term ‘great place to work’ has kept its lawyers busy writing to companies – including in the UK – that have the gall to state that their company is a 'great place to work’, including those companies which appear on the ‘great place to work’ rankings compiled by…the organisation that has registered the term.

Read this company's hilarious disclaimer in response.

Thanks to NTK for this link.

Hanging up their gloves

The world has changed. Labour and the Tories agree on the economy.

As the Daily Telegraph put it in an editorial this week: "By historical standards, modern Britain is prosperous to the point of decadence." Discuss.

I wish it was like that here.

What, no museum of collaboration in France?

David Aaronovitch’s thought-provoking piece on how easy it is for history to be suppressed, abused or selectively taught has a wonderful quip about the French amnesia concerning their complicity with the German occupiers in WW2:

"In France the story of what took place between 1940 and 1944 is known, apparently, as 'La Boue' - the mud. This is murk that shouldn't be stirred. So, close to where Napoleon is buried in Paris, there is a splendid and moving Museum of the Resistance. There is not, as far as I know, a Museum of Collaboration, though many more collaborated than resisted."

An Israeli F1 driver

Minardi have appointed Israeli Chanoch Nissany as their official test driver for the 2005 season, the Formula One team said on Wednesday. That's interesting. At 41, he's a bit old but I'm very pleased. There is little or no motor sports here of course, just like there's no horse racing. We're all supposed to be too busy being Zionists.

New UN Report on Darfur Triggers US - Europe Division

It just had to happen. The USA and Europe and divided only about the ICC which was setup just for a case like this. Expect netiher side to back down. Tony looks for a compromise of course.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Europeans want the U.N. Security Council to refer Sudan to the ICC. The panel has produced a sealed list of suspects.

``This is a case that is tailor-made for the ICC,'' Britain's U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry told reporters.

But the Bush administration vigorously opposes the court, citing fears of prosecutions against U.S. soldiers abroad.

. Unreasoning mindless fear of "them" from the US.

Climate change

One of the home computers spends quite a bit of time on this. You may join in here.

U.N. report:.Darfur not genocide.

Some members of the Security council thinkl that the ICC is just the organisation that should deal with this. Now, why on Earth should the USA object?