Wednesday, December 13, 2006

"What a wonderfull world"


The caption (white on blue, above the photographs) says: "What a wonderful world". (Updated)
You got to love this caption for these photographs in the 'Israeli' daily paper.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Peace keepers in Lebanon

Let me share a story I've heard from an IDF soldier , this evening on my way home.

About 500 meters from the border there are remains of a house that was destroyed during the last war. Of that house, only the concrete pillars left standing, therefore the house is called the "pillar house" among the soldiers. It is known, that in a bunker, hidden in the basement of that house, there is still, a large quantity of weapons and fighting gear.
Leaving aside the question, why didn't IDF remove these weapons during the war, I would like to convey you to you, a scene that the IDF soldiers witness from their watch post.
On the Lebanese side of the fence, from time to time you can see a group of people (Hezbollah without any doubt) arriving in their off-road vehicles and Mercedes taking out of the remains of the buatilding crates and boxes and loading them at their cars, while the UN soldiers peacefully observe, from a few meters distance, sometimes leaving their personal weapons in their patrol vehicle.

Quoting the soldier, "the UN forces are a joke", is something that was to be expected.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

The Flying Spaghetti Monster

It is probably an old news for most of you, but it is too hilarious not to mention.

Not so long ago, Kansas school board has decided to hold discussions whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution.
Bobby Henderson has decided to present his own version of Intelligent Design, as one of the alternatives to be taught at schools. According to Mr. Henderson, the world was created by his Noodleness The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
He actually sent a letter to the Kansas school board members demanding that his version of ID to be included in the program. At first there was no response, but after he has opened his website, and the school board members were swarmed by email from the numerous followers of the "new religion" some of them decided to respond.
Read the letter, the responses and the hate-mail he gets daily. Fun guarantied.

Perhaps they are as bad as I thought they are

Histadrut - the largest Israeli labor union, has arranged another strike in the last week. A short one at least, due to a court order.
I still hold grunge towart Histadrut in general, and Amir Peretz personally, for all the strikes they have organized, in many cases protecting the inefficient and overpaid employees of the ports authorities, or the electric company, meanwhile making insufferable damage to Israeli economics.
This time it seemed that they fighting for a just cause this time. There are several hundreds municipal employees that do not get their salaries for the last several months. In some cases over 7 (seven!) month without a single shekel paid to them.
According to Israeli law, there is an administrative responsibility if the salary wasn't payed till the 10th oh the next month. If the salary is delayed further than this period, it becomes a criminal offense.
The government is defying it's own laws? Isn't the government's job to uphold the law, rather than breaking it and having the Histadrut protecting it?
Well, there is a deeper problem. Most of the problematic municipal authorities don't have money to pay salaries since they are broke. They are broke because they have overblown staffs. A dire reorganization is needed, to save the situation, in order to have a sensible budgets and to have the government to agree to transfer money to them. The problem is that Histadrut prevents such moves, since it will involve termination of numerous jobs in the municipal sector.
Loop closed.

Perhaps the Histadrut are as bad, as I thought they are.

Enemies of the state

Politics is dirty business. I just can't really to get used to it, and always find myself marveling, just how much dirty they are.
Neither Arkadi Gaydamak nor Avigdor Lieberman are my favorite characters. Lieberman is proving himself as just another greedy politician and Gaidamak has made his fortune from arms deals. But there is some people in the government and the media, that so much afraid of them, that they are ready to do all they can, to prevent them in their way to power, no matter if it is illegal, immoral or ugly. If you have read the Israeli papers in the past month, you would know what I'm talking about.
By the amount of filth that was poured in their direction, you could think of them as some enemies of the state, or criminals like Benny Sela.

Have you read "Running for Governor" by Mark Twain? Some thing never change.