Ordinary Nothing

Those who strongly oppose the latest disengagement plan have embraced the orange colour as a sign, and it is quite common to see cars carrying small orange ribbons tied to their antennas or mirrors.

And, while much more rare, some people who strongly support the disengagement, or who are just tired of seeing all those orange ribbons, have started tying blue ribbons to their cars.

In any case, if a person wants to express a political view, that’s fine. If they want to tie small ribbons to their cars, that’s perfectly fine as well.

When the cars aren’t theirs, however, I must take exception. Usually this is not a problem, and people driving company cars (at least in as so far as they are identifiable by having printed/painted company logos on them) avoid putting those ribbons on them. But not all, and not always.

A few days ago I saw one case which was very obvious, when two cars belonging to the same company were driving sompleace, and one of them carried an orange ribbon. Very obviously in this particular case, the orange ribbon was there to represent the opinion of the driver, not the company. But when there is just one visible car, this is less obvious.

The driver really should not have put the ribbon there. A car painted with company colours, and having a company logo, is not only an advertisement of the company, but also to an extent a representation of the company. If the car is involved in an accident, or just drives carelessly, for example, people watching it will associate the behaviour with the company.

A person tying something like that orange ribbon expresses an opinion. By doing it on a company car, this creates an association between the opinion and the company. This is not like in a written text, where a disclaimer can be added stating that the opinions are of the writer and not the company. When people see an orange ribbon on a car with company logo, they could regard the company, not the individual driver, as strongly opposing the disengagement. Or in a general case with other ideas which are expressed by anything attached to the car

That can hurt the company. In this particular case, the entire company is not in support, or both cars would have had the ribbons. So the driver, due to his own personal opinion, risks the company’s reputation, and hinder it with the appearance of political alignments. Very bad form, and extremely rude and inconsiderate. Even if the driver is certain it’s a good cause, he has no right to drag the company into it.

Regardless, one company is obviously greatly enjoying this whole thing. Orange Israel, one of the three large cellular network operators here. The company spent a lot of time and money trying to associate the colour orange with their brand, and their logo is not much more than a simple orange rectangle. While as a company they probably don’t have a political view about the disengagement, they’re probably overjoyed by the tons of free publicity. Their cars are also the only ones on which I suppose there won’t be much of a problem if someone will decide to hang an orange ribbon…

Local government in the US can legally seize people’s houses and businesses, in order to promote other private economic development of the land.

Yes, that precisely mean that they can take and raze houses in order to allow a mall, or a hotel, to be built, even if the property owners don’t want to sell:

The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex.

As a result, cities have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes to generate tax revenue.

I guess all those American action movies, of home-owners refusing to sell, and greedy land developers trying to scare them off the property using force, are now a thing of the past. All it takes is explaining to some city officials that the new development may bring money, and those home-owners won’t have a legal right to say they like to keep their houses… How lovely.

On the other hand, this would teach a lesson to those nasty people who buy real estate just because they think the area may be worth money sometime. Instead of negotiating with them for compensation that matches the land value, developers could get the local authorities to kick them off. Good riddance, eh?

Hmm… I wonder if we have similar laws here. That could be real useful in handling the current ill-conceived and badly planned disengagement plan. Instead of getting the people there away for the stated reasons, the government can say it wants to build many malls, bulldoze the houses over to make room, and then give the work and franchise to Palestinian contractors…

Like I said in my previous post about the food festival, I forgot something which was worth mentioning.

Or more specifically, I forgot to mention the stand for the restaurant Kimel (kimel is also the Hebrew term for caraway). Their festival menu hasn’t changed in years and years, but all the dishes are excellent, so it doesn’t really matter. And it sort of became a tradition (of the friends I went with, I only joined with them last year, and only embraced the tradition then) to take their crown offering, a dish of mushrooms filled with goose liver, in figs and port sauce. An excellent dish, and it immediately gave me ideas for some recipes based on the concept of using figs when cooking in red-wine.

It also always was the most expensive dish on their, or the entire festival’s, menu, at 25 ILS. Which is plenty in a festival with an effective price cap of 20 ILS.

The dish also came with a glass of lemonade included, which isn’t common there since drinks are sold separately. The lemonade alone costs 5 ILS, and this may certainly explain the price difference.

This year they decided not to add lemonade with it. Looking at the large menu sign, it was obvious that the text “+ lemonade” was painted over (They reuse the same sign, big billboards cost money, so if everything is the same, why change it?). They also painted over the digit 5 in the 25, probably thinking this is sufficient to indicate the matching reduction in price.

And left it like that. Giving the appearance that the cost is 2 ILS, and greatly amusing us in the process. At first when we noticed the amazing price reduction we were sure it’s a mistake, but the menu was printed twice, on the two sides of the billboard, and it was the same on both sides.

Sadly enough, when it came time to order, they told us the price is 20 and not 2. And we did not really want to argue over the point of false advertising, and that the law requires sellers to stand behind their advertised prices if they make mistakes…

[Update: Told you I must have forgotten a few things. So I've written an addendum with an additional small story from the festival]

Last week I went to the annual food festival in Tel-Aviv. The festival is called Ta’am Ha’ir, which can be roughly translated as The City’s Taste. Every year a selection of restaurants from Tel-Aviv fill stands where they sell discounted dishes with samples of their foods, in addition to many more stands by other small restaurants, or other food-related businesses.

I don’t generally do restaurant review here on this blog, so I won’t take the opportunity to review the dishes we tasted there (I went with a couple of friends). As far as the food quality angle is concerned, I’ll just say that everything that we did sample this year was either good or very good. This of course does not imply that everything there was good, since we could not sample even a small fraction of the selection. Obviously we already avoided anything that looked too unimpressive to begin with, and also deliberated on which dish to order from the stands we did approach, and all that tends to clear most of the bad options.

On the good side I would say that the place that was the big mistake of last year, where we ordered a dish that was simply and totally bad and pointless, was no longer there this year. They were not one of the regulars, though, so while it’s possible it indicates they went out of business as they deserve, they may have just not come this year for other reasons.

The overall layout of the festival is pretty static over the years, with the same stand ordering, and the same groups of stands divided over the same general concepts. Plus, the main restaurants and presenters are regulars, and not only arrive each year, but stay at the exact same place each year. For these, even most of the dishes they offer are somewhat static, and remained mostly the same for a few years. Which isn’t bad as long as they are good dishes, since nobody can eat everything anyway.

Another things that remained the same for a few years is the price range. Which could have been a good thing, since the range holds dishes at costs below what they would be when ordering at the actual place (If we ignore for a moment the fact that the servings on the festival are also usually smaller, that is). But while the range remained, the distribution didn’t. So instead of having various dishes spread at a price range of 10-20 ILS, as it was even last year, pretty much everything this year just cost 20 ILS, with very few exceptions.

One small stand touted a sign saying “Heidi’s” in large letters, with a slightly smaller caption beneath it saying “Frozen Yoghurt”. That is, this is what their sign in English said. The sign in Hebrew was nearly identical, except someone decided that the best way to translate frozen yoghurt would be by saying in Hebrew something like “Quality American Ice-Cream”. No, don’t ask me how that translation works, I don’t know either.

Next to them was a very large stand of a crêpe place called Henri’s. They had a few large banners which contained the list, and prices, of the offered dishes. And also smaller signs, right where you can see them when you approach to order, with the same list. Except that, well, one of the item on the lists had a different price. They had two large banners, and two small signs. The prices on the large banners matched, and the prices on the small signs matched, but the price on the banners was higher by one ILS.

They also had, amidst the sweet crepes, something with an odd name like crêpe pesto focaccia (Or something similar, I don’t remember the exact title). This was a crêpe with pesto and cheese. Where exactly did the focaccia bead was supposed to fit in was entirely beyond me.

So I did what every overly curious person would do: approached the counter, and asked one of the workers there. For the price difference she replied that they made a mistake in printing the signs, and that the real cost is the lower one. This is an attitude I certainly approve, even though it probably cost them a little money in the short run (the higher price was more visible, so a few people may have avoided ordering the dish because of that, and those that did come were probably willing to pay the higher price). On the long run it suggests that they’re honest. As for the mysterious focaccia crêpe, the girl claimed that the name is solely due to the filling, and there is nothing there whatsoever to do with actual focaccia bread. She did however seem to think that the term focaccia indicates something involving pesto and cheese, instead of something involving dough, and her attitude was more helpful and educational than embarrassed or apologetic.

Several more of the regular stands are beer sellers. At my friend’s insistence (who was more after getting a large glass mug, I think, than the actual beer) we approached the large one, a big square compound, with several different taps on each side. The place seemed deserted, with only about 2-3 employees inside the compound. The one next to use was busy running a long conversation with some people (holding plates of what looked like plain hamburgers with fries and ketchup. You come to a food festival for that?!), and ignored us. We went around, to where the second person was standing, but he was on the inside, brushing some crates, and ignored us as well. On we moved to the third person, who was actually standing next to one of the taps. When we approached she uttered a quick “We’re not working” and went away. We looked at her puzzled, and someone else approached and yelled that they wanted a beer. They got a slightly more verbose response, this being “We’re not open today”. And that was that. Quite odd considering that this was the second day of a five day event, and they paid for a really really large area.

Tastes in foods vary, and often people don’t agree. When getting a recommendation from someone, the most important thing, in order to know how to treat it, is to know how close your tastes match. This is for example why I never bother asking waiters in restaurants which of the dishes they like, because it’s meaningless. There are people I know whose recommendations I trust, and there are people I may ask just so I’d know to do the exact opposite. I mention this because one of my friends on the evening received a very large warning from a co-worker to stay away from a certain dish. This was from a good restaurant, and the dish sounded nice (Calamari rings in yoghurt sauce, this was in a place called Orca I think. Next time I’ll write everything closer to the event before my memory will fade too much), so this looked like the perfect opportunity to evaluate the co-worker’s taste. Well, the dish wasn’t totally brilliant, but my friend will certainly go and ask that co-worker for more warnings, so we’ll know where to go and eat.

One stand touted a new alcoholic beverage imported from Germany. Looking among the large and flashy graphics they had all over the place, I managed to find a printed description that defined this is a drink with 50%+ alcohol content, compromised of various sorts of odd herbs (no detailed listing provided). Drinking something made from myriad unspecified herbs did not strike our fancy. Especially since they also greatly increased our trust in their professionalism by listing the two best ways of drinking it as being mixed with Cola, and being mixed with Red-bull.

There was also a stand by a new seafood place Kazanki. The actual place is very nice, good food in relatively low prices. But in the festival they did one thing which I didn’t particularly like, relating to the pricing of the dishes. Specifically, one of the dishes was one which in the actual place is a first-course, and cost there less than the price in the festival. The other dishes were cheaper (mildly cheaper, since the place itself like I said has very low prices), but this one seemed out of place. On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong, I’ll need to remember to check next time I’m there as to the actual menu price.

Our biggest dairy product seller, Tnuva, also open a large stand each year. For some odd reason they open a very large stand dedicated to selling run-of-the-mill average cheeses, which can be found on any supermarket. For an even odder reason, there are always people around there. I don’t get it. I like good cheese, and if there was something more sophisticated or high quality, I would have gone to test myself, but this? Regular cheeses which are found everywhere? Odd.

In another place, a stand dedicated to similar run-of-the-mill Greek-style cheese, they dug a little hole, made it look (if you have an active imagination) like a tiny well, and put a sign about some alleged well in Greece to which people supposedly throw plates while making a wish, and if the plates break then the gods will listen to the request. And they sold plates. Since the depth was minimal, and all the plates at the bottom appeared broken, I suppose those are especially fragile plates, customer satisfaction guaranteed. The amount of broken plates on the bottom was so large it was sad, though. As if a population that touts itself as Jewish really thinks breaking a a little plate in a commercial mini-well is going to make the Greek gods take heed and grant their wishes.

One more place was run by Elite, in an attempt to promote their coffee. Which is bad. Alright, I’ll be fair, they have several different brands, of several different qualities. The worst one (being originally designed as a way to mutilate coffee so that it could survive battlefield conditions for a long duration) I wouldn’t give to my worst enemies, unless they asked real nice. The best ones are drinkable, but not much beyond that. And for just 10 ILS you could get both a glass of their coffee, and a photograph. What a great deal, eh? Somehow we passed.

At some point when we were passing next to their area we noticed that they also put a dancer there. She didn’t look particularly good, and danced very unimpressively and unprofessionally. But she had a really really short red skirt, so she got a lot of crowd.

She danced to the sounds of music that they played of course. The problem was that too many presenters decided they need to play music, and they all did it very loud so you could hear them over the others. The end result being that in some locations it was hard to hear anything. If they would have all played quieter, it would have been a much more pleasant experience for everyone. A classic tragedy of the commons case, where each of them has a reason to want to be louder, and they end up hurting everyone including themselves. This included some of the food sellers, and some of the sponsors like cellular telephony companies and radio channels.

They also brought over some real singers to make short live performances. The only one I noticed while we were there was Ninet Tive (not sure about the spelling of the surname), who was nice, but sounded less good than her usual. The audio system wasn’t too impressive, and there were the sounds from all the other places, so I guess that accounted for it. I’m not a huge fan, but what I got to hear of her in the past sounded much better than on this festival evening.

Another great attraction, which fails to attract us, is a stand where they bring various celebrities (TV actors, singers, and such, mostly), who give you a signature for every dish you order. The income goes to charity, which is nice, but the dishes never seem attractive. This time I’m proud to say that out of the 7-8 celebrities I saw there, I only recognized one, the actress Gilat Ankori. According to my friends there was another one I should have recognized, but Dany Roop (I probably misspelled the name horribly) was standing hidden behind something, so I never physically saw him. Still, me being unimpressed did not prevent the huge crowd of screaming and ecstatic teenagers that charged on to get their autographs.

The crowds are always a problem in such an event. The early hours are relatively quiet, but at some point it get very crowded and tight, with too many people wandering around. So the strategy changes to one of walking away from the stands, where it’s relatively open, and only dashing into the fray to buy a dish and return to eat it away. This works so far. But I’m really annoyed at how so many people don’t have a problem with just letting their discarded plates stay on the grass. There were many trash cans, all over the place, and easily accessible from everywhere. They were large, and they were kept empty. So nobody had any excuse to just drop things on the ground and move. Of course, the people who do that usually don’t need excuses.

Parking is another fun part, given the crowds. There are some large parking lots right next to where the festival is held, meaning that everyone wants to park there, and is willing to stand for 20-30 minutes in a traffic jam to get there. Instead of going to a nearby side street, park easily, and be there in 5-7 minutes walk at a slow speed. I’m constantly amazed at how much time and energy people are willing to spend in order to avoid spending less time and energy in walking

Near the exits, when we left, one of the soft-drinks companies offered small cans of a new lemon-flavoured cola, under the slogan “A taste of more”. Since it was late, we run a few quick lame jokes about a guy entering a bar and asking the bartender for more. Nearly everyone leaving seemed to swarm into those stands to get their tiny can, as if lemon-flavoured cola hasn’t been on the shelves for months and months.

I’m sure there are a few more interesting bits that I forgot, but this post is getting to be quite a mouthful already, so I think I’ll stop now. Overall I enjoyed the event, enjoyed the food, and certainly intend to keep going next year.

A several weeks long worker’s strike in Finland’s paper industry continues, and the impressions now are that it will go on for quite some time.

As in most cases, the strike is related to working conditions and worker compensation. In this particular case it’s not that the workers wish to improve on an existing condition, but that the employers are changing their demands and require more work days from some of the workers. And while they offer compensation, the workers are not satisfied with it, and don’t think it covers the higher demands.

So far it seems a pretty simple case, but it becomes very odd when taking a better look at the details. First, what is it that the employers demand? They want to keep the mill open and working during Christmas and Midsummer. This will require that some of the workers will come to work on what was until now a vacation day.

Not having a midsummer vacation here, I decided to check how long is this midsummer vacation. One day, it would seem. And so is Christmas. So we’re talking two days extra work, though of course working on a traditional vacation isn’t fun.

But wait, according to the same calendar:

On Midsummer Eve and Christmas Eve, the schools, offices etc are closed, but shops are open part of the day.

Not to mention that according to the article:

the employers are thought to want to keep paper plants open during Christmas and mid-summer, saying other industries in Finland do not close down for these holidays.

So two days, where most other people work already, it would seem. So let’s see what is the measly compensation that got the workers so riled up about, shall we?

The Finnish Forest Industries Federation, which represents employers, is offering 1,600 euros and an 11-hour cut in annual hours as compensation for workers who might end up working during Christmas and mid-summer

11 hours cut would be, I assume, more than a single work day, though probably less than two work days. So it’s more like shifting the vacation of those days to other days, than just taking away a vacation day. And if those days were not paid vacations (like I know some holidays are, though I’m not sure in this case), it’s even an improvement in terms, since the workers get paid for working these days, and get paid vacation days instead of unpaid vacation days.

There’s of course the discomfort of not being home on these particular days, which the workers may want, which is where the monetary compensation part comes in. 1,600 euros would be something like 1,960 USD or 8,650 ILS. Divide by two, it comes to nearly $1,000 per day. I know Finland is expensive, but that sounds like plenty of money to me.

Not to the workers’ union, though. They want more:

Paivi Turtiainen, a spokeswoman for Paperiliitto, the paper-workers’ union, said: “We want to have more leisure time; money is not the point. The offer of 11 hours is not for every worker, only for those ordered to work Christmas or mid-summer every year. Not for those who do an extra day here or there during those periods.”

Legitimate, this extra pay is not worth to the workers the few hours they lose from the deal. Understandable. So the company should maybe give them a few extra hours, and be done with it, right? Well, one small problem with that:

Employers say they cannot reduce hours any further because Finnish paper workers already have among the lowest working hours in Europe.

Which also makes me think, could it be so low that those 11 hours are full two work days? I’d expect that people who already have lots of leisure will be happy to sacrifice a little of it for plenty of money. But maybe they have so much leisure, that it usually doesn’t feel like they’re working for their salary. In this case extra work will feel more like having to start working, which is a big bother, and not just working a little bit more, which is a smaller bother.

The more amusing part of the union’s rep complaint is that “The offer … is not for every worker, only for those ordered to work…” . Because as a good union person he must believe that workers to which nothing at all happened, and who keep having a vacation exactly like in the previous years, need to be compensated for not having anything done to them. Makes perfect sense. Maybe it’s due to the emotional trauma of seeing some of their co-workers having to work.

All in all, if this news reports is even mildly accurate, I think on this case I’m strongly on the side of the soulless capitalist machine, and encourage them to exploit these poor workers for all they’re worth.

On a final note, the lack of paper of course also have an effect on other industries:

Finland’s berry industry has said it could lose up to 80% of sales this summer because of a lack of packaging to put berries in.

Because everybody knows that it’s totally impossible to put berries in anything except paper. No way that berries could be packaged in plastic, foam, nylon, or anything else of the sort. No, much better to throw away 80% of marketable produce, and blame the lack of paper, than to go and change something, isn’t it?

As the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, and the evacuation of Gush Katif, approaches, more and more protesters among the settlers are taking protest actions which are illegal. The stated intent is to show that they are strong, and can interrupt the lives of everyone else if the evacuation will go on. This isn’t about drawing attention to the problem, since public awareness is very high already. And the public discourse on the issue, whether one agrees to or not, has been going on for a long time, and is practically concluded.

That these people do not agree with the government decision is legitimate. Not everyone has to agree. This is why we have a democracy. As much as it is often not a very impressive one, and as badly as it may work, our democratic procedure do give people a way to express their opinions through voting. Elective government and all that. And the government has made the final decision to evacuate, and that’s pretty much that. There are proper channels for protest, by demonstrations, and by attempts to try and sway public opinion over the media. They did that, it didn’t work, the majority of the population is officially and overwhelmingly in favour, and this is what will happen. It happens all the time, on myriad subjects, and always some people agree more, and some less.

But they are not keeping a civil discourse, and accepting the final outcome. If people don’t agree with the decisions of the government, they can try to change the decision by voting on the next election (Which in this case may seem impossible since it’s not a reversible decision, but they had this option on the last election), they can grumble but live with it (which many people, myself included, do all the time with laws and decisions we don’t like. This is what democratic compromise means), or they can leave the country. Barring that, one can try and make a revolution to throw away the oppressive regime, but we’re not exactly living under an oppressive regime, and there is certainly not nearly enough unrest in the public to even come close. All to say, they should live with it.

Instead they go with force and scare tactics. A few hundreds of people went and blocked major roads and highways. Creating traffic jams, and generally pissing everyone off. Those that the police caught got arrested, but the police is dealing with it badly. Many teenagers were involved, and got arrested. Some of them where left there by their proud (no sarcasm here, unfortunately) parents who didn’t come to bail them out.

Some of them refuse to identify themselves, which is a point I don’t get. How can the police fail to identify them? Nowadays, with a wealth of available private information and personal records, they really should be able to. Maybe not immediately, but certainly after a couple of weeks. By the same logic and treatment, anyone who get arrested can refuse to provide their details, and the police will never be able to get them tried, or properly process them. There has to be a procedure for that, and in this case why isn’t it used?

And the way that the police, or government are handling this, is all wrong. They are giving them special treatment over any other criminals, and not just by providing a special lock-up.

Many of the arrested kids where at the time needing to take their Bagrut exams (state issued examination by the Department of Education, supposed to grade people after finishing high school, and is a requirement for university admission), for example, which of course could not be done without them identifying themselves. So after formal declarations that they will not be able to take the exams anonymously (how could they possibly?! Who will get the grade?! Why did this take a special announcement by the Education Minister?) some of the kids agreed to divulge their details so that they will be allowed to take the exams. And they were examined in the holding cells. This is another very special treatment, since a similar kid who for example would have burned a table at school and kicked a teacher, because he got a bad grade for example, would have also been arrested, but not allowed to take the exam in prison. This is practically unheard of, I think, to provide arrested criminals special opportunity to take the Bagrut exams. If they committed a crime, and have the misfortune of being in jail, they should take the next exam date, just like everyone else who misses it.

Instead, they are put in comfortable cells with a bunch of their friends, and are allowed to have fun. Some deterrent, is it? This works so great as a deterrent, that other protesters are doing other annoying and illegal stuff, not caring if they’ll get arrested. Worse, sometime they don’t. I was recently talking with a co-worker who said she passed next to the courthouse in Tel-Aviv, and a bunch of 15-20 girls where there making a lot of sound with loud whistles, giving headache to everyone around, and seriously disturbing the peace. And 10 cops stood there, just looking at them. Now, I know that there are laws against things like disturbing the peace at public places, so why did all that excessive police manpower just observed, and not arrest those girls?

According to that same co-worker of mine, this is because they are not afraid of getting arrested, they don’t see it as a punishment, and so there is nothing that can be done to them. So first, the arrest conditions may need to be slightly less cosy and fun. Second, this should not, and cannot, be a criteria. What if instead of whistling, or blocking roads, people will come with crowbars and start breaking store fronts in commercial districts, or private houses? Would they be politely ignored because they don’t mind getting arrested? To take it to an overly-large extreme, should you let a murdered go free if he’s a fanatic who likes spending time in jail?

They claim that blocking roads isn’t such a big crime. Certainly they will be (or pretend to be) appalled by the comparison to breaking houses and trashing stores. But the comparison isn’t off at all. If you block a large road, you cost a lot of money. Starting with the relatively minor extra gas and car wear of the people standing, which isn’t so minor on a big road. But also with the time lost. Time is money. People had things to do with that time, which most (all?) of them prefer to do, and need to do, more than standing in a traffic jam. So they didn’t do something, which was more productive to them, or more productive in general. Right there is a substantial economic damage to blocking roads. Sure, most individuals aren’t as badly hurt as a store owner coming to find he lost his entire stock to vandalism (unless maybe someone was held in an ambulance along the way? Rare, but happens sometime, and you can’t know in advance), but the overall damage is larger, since it effect a lot more people directly, and a lot more indirectly.

Taking this thought further, this is plain terrorism. Sure, they don’t try to explicitly kill anyone. But they do try to mess up people’s lives, and to cause property damage. Let’s say it’s like the nice terrorist who will actually call and tell everyone they need to evacuate the building, before triggering the explosives they planted. Heck, some of the leaders of these protesters explicitly said, on public media, that they do that so people will know there will be a price to pay if they are evacuated, that they could cause a lot more damage, and that they won’t hesitate to. It’s a textbook example of terrorism, and it’s criminal and illegal even if it wasn’t.

And today on the newspaper I saw that a rabbi said that blocking roads for the anti-disengagement cause is like saving lives, it has to be done, and people should do it. This is certain to make religious people who follow that rabbi seriously consider doing so. Which mean that the rabbi has explicitly told people to break the law. Yet I didn’t read that anyone tried to arrest him for that. If I went and told people to go to malls and break the stores’ windows, and people were listening to me, I’d get arrested, and rightfully so. Why isn’t he? If what he’s doing is legal (Not that I can see how, but I’m not the authority) it’s for the judge to decide at the trial, not the police. Special, and preferential, treatment again.

Overall, as you can probably guess by this rambling, I’m pissed off by these protesters, and by the treatment they’re getting. There was a decision, the issue is no longer open, it’s done, closed, finished. They fought with the tools they can use, and they lost. Happens to everyone in any democratic society all the time. They should live with it, and be done with it. Not start to break the law, and try to reign terror. They should grow up, and act like responsible people instead of little criminal kids.

And this isn’t a political view caused by me not agreeing with them. Suppose the decision was the reverse, and there was no evacuation. These people are not unlike potential protesters who would have decided that the evacuation is necessary, and they have to force people to do it. So they could have maybe blocked the roads into the settlements, reasoning that without any supply and trade they will have to abandon them. Maybe they would enter the settlements, and burn down houses of settlers there. After all once all the houses are burned, they’ll have to leave. Sounds far-fetched? Maybe, but it’s the exact same sort of the behaviour, with nearly the exact same reasons. And if that happened, I would object just as much about these people. I would object as much about anyone using these tactics and methods here, regardless of their cause and what I think about it. But the settlers who do these protests now? They think what they’re doing is right, but they’ll surely object the same tactics if used by those imaginary protesters in this imaginary case. Even if those imaginary protesters are trying in full earnest, like the real ones say they are, to save the country.

All of a sudden, several hours ago, some of my email accounts (oh, alright, one of my email accounts, so far) started to get a large amount of odd spam messages, in German. Which made very little sense to me since, well, I don’t really speak (or read) German. So I had no idea what the heck did they want from me, and what could anyone possibly have expected to gain from it.

Some of the messages came with subject lines in English, but the content was either some long text with a link to articles in Spiegel magazine (Don’t ask me. I don’t read German, remember?), or just a long list of links to sites with one or two lines of text describing them.

All in German. I don’t read German, did I mention that already?

In any case, a little search indicates that this is indeed a recent phenomenon, where a network of zombie computers infected with the Sober virus is being used to send neo-Nazi messages related to some election next week…

I think this is the first time I’m getting spam messages which are politically, rather than commercially, oriented. Instead of trying to sell me Rolex watches, increase my whatever, and lower my mortgage, they’re now trying to get me to vote Nazi??

Good luck with that guys, you’ll certainly need it. I don’t live in Germany, so I can’t vote in your election. Not only that but, while I’m very much not religious, I’m a Jew. Which statistically speaking is a very strong indication I’m not going to be very sympathetic to the Nazi agenda. Seriously.

And to the masses of careless computer users out there: Secure your computers! Install security patches, use a firewall, run an anti-virus program, and don’t open email attachments you’re not explicitly waiting for. Because if you continue to let every worm and virus out there to get control of your computer, then the terrorists Nazis have won.

Many around here in Israel seem excited over the Israeli team winning on the Euroleague games. You can catch screaming people, and people babbling without control. There are numerous celebrations on the streets and in community centres. Heck, one of my mother’s client set an appointment with her, and forgot to even call and say he won’t be arriving…

All because a group of our highly paid muscled guys turned out to be marginally more successful than a group of someone else’s (Spain?) highly paid muscled guys, at throwing balls through hoops. Truly fantastic. Of all the things we need in this country, being the best at throwing balls short distances through hoops, is certainly at the top of the list. Along with bouncing same balls on the floor while running, of course.

Sorry, did I say our guys? I meant our, as in the ones we hire and pay for, not that they are Israelis. From what I was told, about half of them are foreign contracts. So the victory, the exciting point, is that some Israeli coach was able to assemble a team of people from all over the world, that was able to shoot balls through hoops better than a team that some Spanish coach was able to assemble…. Do you get the sense that maybe I don’t quite feel the full impact of the gravitas of the situation?

I received an email reply from one of our suppliers, a company in Germany, regarding a question I had. And the guy wrote that he will go over the problem on Friday, since tomorrow (Thursday) they have a public holiday.

Immediately I tried to think about what happens on May 5th this year. And naturally, the first thing that came to mind was Holocaust remembrance day, which is the main event around here tomorrow.

I didn’t take the idea too seriously, of course. It’s just that the thought of Germany having a public holiday to celebrate the Holocaust remembrance day was so… elegant, that I couldn’t entirely disregard it. Was certainly worth a few chuckles.

The guy isn’t nearly good enough a friend for me to pull an embarrassing practical joke on him by replying with something like “Have a happy Holocaust day, then“. That’s not the sort of humour one can use with work relations. So I just wished him a happy Ascension day instead.

In case anyone missed it, and until recently I’d never have though
of it as a possibility, the Pope John Paul II has died. A few weeks ago.

I’d have thought anyone and everyone have already heard about it. It
was covered in about all the news and media sources, all over.
Certainly in the "western" world, but in right about everywhere else as
well. If you told me that there’s a person who managed to miss that
fact, I’d have said no way.

That is, until I met that person last Wednesday. I was meeting with
a few friends, and during the course of the evening the conversation
also drifted in the direction of the new papal candidates, and the
terrible coverage in the media. And one of them suddenly said something
like "How old is the Pope now anyway? He’s really old, right? Must be
around 87 or so?".

We all stared at her agape. She looked back, saying "What?".
So I politely explained that the current Pope is dead. Has been for a
couple of weeks. And the other people nodded, and added that it’s true.

Which got us a nice "What? You’re kidding me, right? Right?". It took us
as long to realize she’s serious as it took her to realize we were…

Don’t get me wrong, I make fun of her here (well, it is a
funny story), but she’s otherwise a very intelligent and nice person.
But as she explained, she doesn’t really follow the news. Lives in a
dorm without a TV, and doesn’t pay too much attention to the
newspapers.

Or as she put it "So how should I have heard?". I was as
nice as usual (Yep, I’m like that even with friends. But it’s in a
friendly-teasing manner, so that’s all right) and said "You could talk to
people occasionally". Which she actually does, but apparently the topic never came up during all that time. Amazing.

Needless to say, it took her some time before the red colour receded from her face.

And I can proudly say I had the honour of meeting the last person on
the world to hear about the Pope’s death. And the double honour of
helping close that category of people.

Now, should I tell the Guinness committee? Is she eligible for world fame?

The Pre-Eurovision show was just broadcasted here. The supposedly best
singers and bands Israel has to offer were competing to decide who will
represent us in the Eurovision contest.

And I must say that so far I’m impressed. No, not with the songs, those are all seriously bad. They’re so bad, that I think it must be done on purpose.

Think about it. International relations are not too hot for us this
year. We’re practically bound to lose votes due to politics, even if
the song would be excellent. The result would be a lot of angry people
complaining about it. Complaining about how all those countries (which
would be labelled by the angry people as anti-Semitic for that) vote
against us on purpose. That’s not the way to encourage harmony and
peace. So instead, someone found out a way to prevent that.

We’ll send a bad singer, with a bad song. That way when we get poor
votes, nobody will take it too hard when we get voted down. It’s
downright brilliant.

And how do you make sure that the winning song here is bad? Easy! You
make sure all contestants are bad. Which they were. Some were plain
horrible, but the best were merely unimpressive and uninspiring. Either
the song was bad, or the singer/s were bad, or both. Mostly both.

Very sad. We do have some good singers here, good musicians, good
songs. Honestly, we do. But none of them made it as far as the
Pre-Eurovision contest…

At the start of this month broadcasting networks in the state of
Connecticut in the US announced to people that due to a state of
emergency the entire state is being evacuated.

How did this happen? They wanted to run a test of the emergency alert system and pressed a wrong button.

If it wasn’t so sad, I’d have started laughing. Oh, wait, I did…

This raises two important questions:

1. Why the heck is there a button pre-wired to a message about the
   state being evacuated ?! Is this something common? Do they evacuate the
   state a lot? Do they really believe there are any likely events that
   would justify evacuating the whole state ASAP ?
2. How
   do you evacuate an entire state or country? Where would you place all
   the people? Heck, how would you get them there? This is less a
   logistical nightmare, and more a logistical impossibility, no?

No wonder I love America. It provides so many wonderful amusements.

North Korea is apparently a wonderful country in good condition. It’s after all a well known fact that you only get to deal with minor trivia once all the major problems are no longer pressing. So knowing that they have no pressing military, social or economic problems must be a comfort.

I mean, how else can you explain the fact that they have the time to worry about hair length?
Which should be shot. Sorry – a Freudian slip there, I meant short.

They even have a good reason for it, you see it just so happens that:

It stressed the "negative effects" of long hair on "human intelligence
development", noting that long hair "consumes a great deal of
nutrition" and could thus rob the brain of energy.
Men should get a haircut every 15 days, it recommended.

Yep. That’s what they say. If it weren’t a real country, and there weren’t real policies that affect real human lives based on this, I’d say it’s really really funny. As it happens, it’s just tragic.

• Hair grows regardless of it’s length.
• Hair doesn’t consume any nutritional resource by itself. Dead men tell no tales, and dead cells don’t eat. Hair is dead cells. Hair growth does take a small amount of nutrients, but hair grows regardless of it’s length.
• Even if hair did consume lots and lots of nutrition – it still wouldn’t effect intelligence. Unless they’re claiming that this is what brings people to starvation. But if it causes starvation, long term effects on intelligence are the least of their concerns. Hair growth doesn’t barrow down into the brain to suck nutrients. Honest.

Now if you’d tell me that the persons that came up with this plan, and with these justifications, had really really long hair, I may be willing to reconsider. It still won’t prove a cause and effect relationship, but it would at least show strong correlation between hair length and negative effects on intelligence. That’s something…

I knew it was just a matter of time (last paragraph). Apparently it took more time for me to find about it than for it to happen. Well, now it’s official, the cause of the Tsunami:

The Egyptian nationalist weekly Al-Usbu’ has published an
investigation by correspondent Mahmoud Bakri, titled "Humanity in
Danger," claiming that the earthquake and tsunami in Asia may have
resulted from joint nuclear testing by the U.S., Israel, and India

Good
to know. I’m glad the the relations between Israel and India are good
enough now that we feel comfortable making joint nuclear testing.
Especially considering that:

The three most recent tests appeared to be genuine American and Israeli
preparations to act together with India to test a way to liquidate
humanity. In the[ir] most recent test, they began destroying entire
cities over extensive areas. Although the nuclear explosions were
carried out in desert lands, tens of thousands of kilometers away from
populated areas, they had a direct effect on these areas

What can I say?
<sigh>

This post isn’t about the disaster itself, there’s enough out there by other people, and I could give no added value. I just wanted to report about some of the smaller things related to this mess that got published on local papers, and that may be relevant to the Israeli angle on the thing. So as a list of brief tidbits:

Most coverage and media attention here goes to the Israelis that were, almost were, and weren’t, involved in this. Everyone seems really shook up about the number of dead and missing Israelis, which on last count amounted together to about twenty something people. That’s compared to the more than one hundred twenty five thousand people dead and missing total. Less than meaningless statistical noise, except to the people themselves and the families. On the other hand, I’ll be surprised if things are different on other countries that had tourists in the disaster areas.

The search and rescue operations and assistance by our authorities seem impressive. In a rather short order we had people looking on the scene, and everyone that was found could get a quick transport home. According to today’s morning papers the Swedes were also impressed by the Israeli response, and annoyed at their government for seeming to do less.

Idiots kept complaining that not enough effort was being done to help their children and relatives. Finding and rescuing a small number of Israelis in a huge disaster area is not easy. The complaints that were most galling were those by people whose children were vacationing on areas that were outside the area and unhurt. How much can you bloody complain that nobody rescued a person that was in no bloody danger and didn’t know there was a problem ?!

I heard some radio interview with someone worried about a person that recently embarked on a month-long trek in India. The family was very worried about not hearing from him. Why is this news?! He’s on a trek, possibly inland, and let them know in advance that he won’t be in contact for a few more weeks at least. Stop wasting everyone’s time.

There was one news article about a jerk that only agreed to come back on business class, and then complained that he was forced to pay a lot of money in order to be rescued… Apparently he think someone owes him to rescue him on his own terms, and by his own conditions. Words such as "ingrate" or "self absorbed prick" don’t begin to describe this (All insults of course assuming that the news reports were accurate).

Sri Lanka refused the Israeli offer for a rescue mission and personal. Responses in the media immediately started claiming that they’re worried about the fact that most rescue personal are military, or other claims to similar effect. Nobody noticed that our relations with Sri Lanka are good enough for them to actually buy lots of military gear from us, which doesn’t really fit this profile. Nobody also waited enough to notice that they refused help from nearly everyone else as well, and claimed the reason is that the damages are in terrorist (insurgents, freedom fighters, rebels, whatever) area and they can’t vouch for the safety of the rescue workers. Makes sense, but a much less sensational story. Sometime it can be unsafe for the rescue workers as well.

Of all the possible international news reports passed by Routers and Associated Press, what did our local papers had to get and publish? That bloody stupid article about how animals must have sixth sense since no animal bodies were found… Never mind that nobody had time to bloody look for animal corpses with all the human dead around. Never mind that small animals would have been carried away in the floods. Never mind that the places rescue people came to, the heavily populated beaches, don’t have much wildlife. Never mind that birds can bloody fly away. No, animals must have sixth sense and sensed the tidal wave in advance. This is stupid, and the fact that papers everywhere pick up on this story instead of dropping it is sad

One of the stupidest responses to the thing I heard from a real live person: "If it’s not Osama, it’s… Tsunma… Tsonama, something like that… You notice how close are the names are? Terrible, just terrible. All those deaths by things with these strange names". I agree, this linguistic idea is indeed terrible.

I’m still waiting to see how long it is before someone blames the earthquake, and resulting tidal waves, on some clandestine Israeli underwater atomic bomb testing…