Happy Birthdays

OK, I am a day late. Yesterday was Tisha B'Av so I have an excuse. Happy Birthday to Saleet and Oren. Saleet now 19 can legally drink in Ontario. As the Hebrew and Gregorian dates coinside yet again she, in fact, might be the Messiah. We keep on hoping, right? Oren can now drink legally in his own country (much more useful). He will no longer need to jump from moving vans onto poor, unexpecting, drunken acquaintances, to then steal their IDs. And for that I wish him a hardy Mazal Tov.

"Revenge of the Sith"

So Star Wars Episode III is now "Revenge of the Sith". As CNN.com acurately pointed out "Return of the Jedi" was supposed to be "Revenge of the Jedi" but then they thought "Jedi's don't take revenge!", so they changed it. But Sith Lords do, obviously, hence the name. In light of this point of Star Wars trivia I am very happy with the naming of Episode III. I might not see the movie, but I like the title.

Palestinian "Hasbarah"

The "Europeans" (UK, Norway, Netherlands) set up and fund a Negotiation Support Unit (NSU) for the PLO/PA. A group of advocates/lawyers for the Palestinian cause. You can find links here or here.
How Israel allow the European community (personified by the EU) to broker and agreement when "they" actively engage in propogana for one side?

I hate chains -aka "דתיים "בעד

1. Jonathan Pollard (yes The Jonathan Pollard) wrote a "great piece" about why Yonatan Bassi is the wort person ever. Damn, I can't help but think of Tisha B'Av:
2. My new political organization: "דתיים "בעד
3. Michal Rosenfeld had a nice point: Israeli's like to define themselves by what they are not: Vatik, not Oleh Chadash; Datti, not Chiloni; Kravi, not Jobnik... This country sooooo needs to get over itself.
4. In honor of Zev Day I think I am going to go to the Museum of Muslim Art around the corner. Part of the ma'ase will be my passive, non-involvement in the "chain" from Katif to Yerushalaim. I hope that is a fitting Zev-like thing to do. (I probably have the hardest time figuring out what is especially Zev-like and what isn't).

life in 3w

so i finally got around to joining this blog. read through all stuff people (zev) wrote, and figured i might as well throw in my two cents. first of all, happy yom zev. (is this an excuse to eat meat that day? what about music and movies?) second of all, i got the highest score on my stat midterm. yay, me! ok, so we've established that 3w is a rat-trap, or at the very least, a mouse trap. i caught my second mouse yesterday, with a little help from daniel. theres at least one more mouse left, and now i'm getting started on the pile o junk next to my desk and zev's bottle garden. come on zev, a bottle garden?!? i mean, even rednecks look down on people with bottle gardens... especially indoor ones. yesterday was sorta funny. maxim had a girl over. i had a girl over. and daniel was on my computer, probably wondering where his girl is. ok, i'm done ranting. good shabbos, and have an easy fast on tuesday!

יום ז אב

So Sunday is יום זאב- i.e. the 7th of Av. I just figured this out (after 21 years) and I am soooo happy. In honor of the first Zev Day I ask people to do something especially Zev-like. Thanks!

Die Fat!

Great Onion article. Being in Israel means you get to everything later.
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4028&n=1
"I came down with obesity two years after I got married," 41-year-old Oklahoma City resident Fran Torley said. "I know it was hard for my husband to watch me suffer from this disease. When he caught obesity a year later, he got so depressed, he couldn't do anything but sit on the couch. Some days, we sit and watch television from dawn till dusk, hoping for news of a breakthrough."
Classic!

Politicking

I was very impressed by a flashmedia article which I think can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html
'Palestine Lost' (I assume playing off of Paradise Lost). Maybe we are actually seeing the beginning of reform from within. For the first time in a while I hear things like: "We (the Palestinians) have paid too high a price. It was not worth it." All along people have been saying that statements like that are needed by Mr. Joe Chumus in order to propel peace (or a lack of War).
On the front of development in Gaza I have been thinking about political regimes and what the best type of leadership/structure of government. Is there a legitamate alternative to democracy? I read somewhere, that democracy is more than being able to vote in an election between two canidates you don't like. You need civil liberties, freedoms (press, speech, etc) equal rights for all and all that goodness. I would consider forging a government which is autocratic, but provides all these liberties.
How then is change affected? Well it seems to me that Hobbes talks about a regime much like this, where it is autocratic in nature, but still representative of the people. (Sans the whole not being able to get rid of your leader peacefully- a must in these regions). It seems now that there is this funny tug-of-war which is affecting change, but through his notion of *ijma* or conensus (Rousseau anyone?). People bang their drums and Arafat - who they still respect as their leader - reacts. He is pulled by them and they by him. I could see a government where Arafat is the head and Dahlan is the representative to Israel and it sort of works like it does in America, ie the administrative branch have a veto, except here the veto is not subject to a 2/3 majority.
This is more rambling for me than anyone else I guess. Sorry.

I always wanted one of those...

Courtesy of NTY online:
Technology

Did you know that playing online games‚ like chess or backgammon‚ could bring you new friends‚ love and maybe even a baby?

Maybe all that poker, chess and sheshbesh has not all been for naught?

A Treatise On Science in Movies

Passed along from one of my science friends:
"Yes, it really pissed me off that movies do bad science research. The reason the sun looks like that is because of convection of the NONFUSING envelope, which wouldn't exist in a ball of fusion, tritium is a gas, not a pellet, and a fusion reaction wouldn't be put out by water, or create a magnetic field and pull in all metal. Cars on the other side of the river wouldn't be affected before the walls of the building. Someone in quantum physics would call it that to a student of quantum mechanics (one of the books he drops is Gasiorowitz, which you can probably find in the U of C bookstore). He wouldn't call it "advanced science". And why was he the only one who got goggles?"
If you know not of what she speaks, you have not joined 100+ million people at the movies this summer. And for this I pity you (the movie itself was not so hot though).

New #

I have new phone numbers where I can be reached for the next while. I feel wierd publishing them online so just look at the signature to any of the emails I send out and you will find them.

Work, Work, Work

Well I hope Oren got back to the States ok. I saw him off from Yerushalaim anyhow, so if he got lost in the mail, its not my fault. Oren and I both start work today, how coincidental. I am here at the JCPA right now reading the ICJ advice on the Wall (by Pink Floyd). Good album, better song. My dad offers legal advice. He tells people "You were speeding, drunk and hit Mr. Brown's cow. Plead guilty to DUI and I'll see what I can do." That's advice. But "Under International law take down the Wall." Doesn't sound like advice to me (not that the ruling says precisely that, but..) Anyhow, right not I am very happy working in the nice office with ADSL and reading about things I do in my apt will not nearly as cool a title. I hope the real world is this cool.