Sanctity of Life

This note is not going to be popular with most people.
This posting is also being written whilst I am very tired.
Lets assume this note plays a bit of devil's advocate, whilst remaining somewhat realistic

Can you really say that Hezbollah don't appreciate life?
Can you really think that they don't value their soldiers ? their fighters ?
Their negotiators just managed to make Israel give back every single Hezbollah fighter for what was widely believed to be (but not confirmed until today) 2 captured soldiers who were sadly killed some time ago.
True, we see it as them not appreciating our soldiers lives, but why have we kept remains of Hezbollah here too ? We have caused suffering to families of Hezbollah fighters in the same way they caused us the same anguish.

I really don't see how we can claim the moral high ground on this release. I understand that they were terrorists, fanatics and other combatants, but unless i misunderstood the nature of who these people were, I don't understand why we kept their bodies, which, according to one report, needed 23 red cross trucks to return the bodies.

The images of their soldiers changing back into military uniforms, showing that whatever they may be able to persuade the rest of the world, they are still wanting to fight. They want to carry on the battle.

This is not step towards peace. This was not a step towards progress.

What will they hold out for next? What will we have to give back in order to get back the captured soldiers who we know are alive ?

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who are missing and returned today.

Information overload

It used to be easy. You had an e-mail address, and ICQ number and all was easy.
Then you needed Hotmail and AIM name.
and then well you used yahoo chat rooms to talk to people on other subjects.

Then, you got second e-mail address to handle the junk from the other stuff.

Its now impossible to keep up.
I have 3 Gmail accounts, Facebook, The blog, AIM, ICQ, Hotmail, Yahoo Messenger (thank G-d for trillian so i can keep the number of open windows to a minimum) and a domain i do nothing with but the e-mail (which i have never given out) gets filled with junk mail constantly

I used to use Igoogle, now i started to use Netvibes to manage my home pages.

To let people know how i am feeling i have twitter, facebook and the status fields in hotmail

I get my news from hundreds of news sources thanks to sites like newsnow.co.uk and google reader.
I have more RSS feeds than i know what to do with now.

I am on so many computers and systems you need delicious or other similar programs just to keep in touch with the sites you use - in case one of them is not linked from another one you happen to like.

Social networking is good, but its getting to the point now where i am asking if i really want to know everything about my friends. Its a lot better to see on these sites which sites my mates are using enjoying, but it keeps me thinking that i used to hate mass e-mails with "check this out" and how closely it resembles it, but to a much wider audience.

On top of that, there is the frustration of not getting a reply - you are on-line, they got the message and it's been 20 mins and no reply - how rude !

Anyway - i am off to check my e-mails, news, and other blogs before bed.
Might get there just in time for my kid to wake up

Flocking onto the web

I recently started using the new social networking browser "flock"
This web browser was born out of the growing amount of presence and usage of social networking sites.
It lets you automatically log into your Facebook, Flikr, Youtube, twitter etc etc accounts.
It also has a blog add-in (similar to the firefox addition which i was using for a while but whose name escapes me at this time- all as standard.

I am not about to give a whole review of it now, but as i play with it some more, I'll let you know how i get on.  
(one thing that seems not so easy is to edit the html of the blog posting - am trying to put a link to the flock site (http://www.flock.com for more info) but not really managing very well

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Bill 892 stops you seeing this post - please try another website

Israel has made many huge advances in the field of hi-tech. We invented here many of the things the world takes for granted now, especially in the realm of the internet ( VoIP Telephony, ICQ, etc) so it comes as a great disappointment to me to see that the Internet Censorship Law has been brought up again.

In today's Haaretz, and Jerusalem Post, there is the news of the bill proposed by Amnon Cohen and backed by the Shas Party, talking about bill working its way through the Knesset to force ISPs to block all users from accessing adult orientated sites.

How can we allow it to happen ?

The original bill was aimed at stopping children accessing these sites,but adults would have a password or biometric verification method, but it seems that this is not the case in the report now.

The world news is full of stories of other countries which ban and block sites such as You Tube. It would be a sad day for personal freedom, the internet and israel as a pioneer in the field, if this bill passes.

For more reading on this, see:a great blog post on the globalvoicesonline site when the bill was proposed in May 2007 and another site which documents the history of the Bill 892

Buying a House

I am not entirely sure how the chain of events came about, but we started to think about a place to live. It's very different from in the UK, where our options are limited really to the main centres of Jewish life. Here, we have the whole country to consider.

We have decided, through a process of elimination, to try for the Gush Etzion area, specifically Efrat, partly as we are hoping Ruth will have a job in the area.

Ruth went to see it about a week and a half ago; I went to see it on Friday
Tonight we spoke to a lawyer about it, we are talking to banks tomorrow.
All of this seems to be going very fast!

I know there is much to do in order to get a house here (my sister went through the same thing last year-ish.

Anyway - I know that the style of post is not the usual ones, but every once in a while it happens.

Snow ?

As mentioned before, there is 1 thing at this time of year which makes all Israelis excited -- Snow.
They are forecasting snow again tomorrow night. This will mean another couple of days of chaos and fun for all.
Will it snow ? Well,I for one won't get the day off, but will try to take part in some of the fun, if only I can find my gloves

Browser Compatability

I have often been annoyed how some websites don't work properly in Firefox. One solution is to use the IE Tab plugin. This has a few flaws, but is generally excellent at emulating an IE window within Firefox. I am therefore very sad to have noticed that the Blog template I am using looks really bad within Internet Explorer( at least on my laptop).

I therefore apologise to all of you using Internet Explorer, who, as far as I can make out, see my blog as:


Those of you using Firefox (and even Safari) see the blog in this nicer template of


So, until I find a template which is better suited to all browsers, or am proven wrong, please use Firefox to maximise your viewing pleasure.

The Real Jerusalem Day

As anyone who watched any news to day either national Israeli or international, including the BBC and CNN, you will have seen that Israel had some snow today.
The amount of snow amounted to about less than 5 inches, but resulted in schools being closed, public transport being stopped and other chaos causing decisions.

I tried to work at home, but due to PC problems, I had to go into the office, but the taxi company would not send a cab to my house, because of the weather! (Eventually I was able to get in, get the PC problem fixed so I can work at home tomorrow if the same thing happens)

What does result in a snow day is that the focus of Southern Israel (and anywhere close that does not have snow) is Jerusalem. Whilst driving to work we passed bus loads of people, cars parked all next to one of the main parks to take part in the annual snowman competition.They come from all over the country (on the way home again we passed a truck with logos from the Ashdod port on it)

Winograd was released today. The report on the state of the war, a criticism of the policies and handling of the war(I will write more about that once I have read more) although the main story of the day was the snow.

So, my point is this:

Yom Yerushalayim celebrates the unification of Jerusalem, which, under current political plans may be un-unified, and relatively few people from outside the city come to celebrate the festival.

It's not a day off; it's not a public holiday. No special dispensation is given to this day. Anyone who wants to celebrate it has to take one of their personal vacation days to come and join in the joyous occasion.
Today, on a day with horrible weather, when schools are cancelled, when public transport is suspended, and getting to work is next-to impossible, they come from all over the south – religious, irreligious, families, groups, friends – they all come to Jerusalem to celebrate the snow.

The biggest bigwig comes to town

As Bigwigs go, they don't come much bigger than this. W arrives in Jerusalem later this week.
There are American flags going up all over the city. An article in the Jerusalem Post outlines the routine at the King David -- including how the staff are not allowed to leave the hotel for the duration of the visit.

According to this article by the Associated Press Jerusalem has spent nearly $400,000 for this visit

I realise that I should see this as an honour that he is coming, but even now, when you call the city council hotline (106) they cannot tell you which roads will and will not be open. The only one which is for certain closed is King David street. I look forward to the chaos of getting to work, but as Ritz, from the King David hotel echoes the thoughts of everyone in the city -""There will be complete gridlock on the roads of Jerusalem,"

Hail to the Chief!

Hirchson - the full story

Friday's Haaretz Magazine has a story by Gidi Weitz which outlines the full extent, as discovered by Haaretz and based on testimonies from police statements and other interviews, outline a fantastic, (and if he had not been caught and the facts proven, the word could be taken literally) story of him using a whole network of people to carry out his embezzlement of 2.5 million shekel from the National Workers Federation (NWF).

This included
"NIS 1.2 million for permanent monthly "expenses," between NIS 600,000 and NIS 750,000 for trips abroad, NIS 160,000 as "holiday grants," NIS 115,000 for meals in restaurants and in the Knesset cafeteria, NIS 72,000 for medicines and NIS 30,000 to host members of the Likud Central Committee. The investigators also suspect that the NWF financed Hirchson's campaigns in the Likud primaries of 1998 and 2002 to the tune of NIS 600,000."

If you thought that the scandal of our prime minister and bank leumi were over, then an article, also in Haaretz stated that not only is the case still open, but they are awaiting on the results of another case involving the Dimona Silica Industries by the ministry of trade, when he was the minister.

Will this end ?