A Peek into a Mind

Heavy headline, isn’t it. But apparently it is exact. After US’ president Bush declared “We won’t be putting money into a society which is not transparent and [is] corrupt, and I suspect other countries won’t either.” seems the EU doesn’t count itself as “other countries”.

The EU, which together with the Arab League has been keeping Mr. Arafat’s government afloat, will continue to provide €10m (£6.5m) a month to his administration, a spokesman for the external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten, said. The Arab League provides some $55m (£36m) a month.

here, read all about it. And don’t be surprised if terror groups will have more money to buy explosives or to construct more explosives labs. That’s life. The EU spends the money, which Israel has to work hard to trash later.

Really sweet Europe. Thanks a lot.
(I wonder, shouldn’t the US now add the EU to the terror supporting countries?)
(na… I’m joking. I know the only reason the EU pays the PA is that they won’t write insulting things about it in it’s official papers, like they do to the US)

A couple of days ago there was a big fuss in Israel over a picture found in a palestinian house showing an infant dressed as a suicide bomber. The family members said (I quote):

“The baby’s family told Sky News on Friday that the costume was nothing more than a ‘joke.’ “

Well, that’s the attidute of the palestinians. Here’s anothere paragraph from the story:

Continue reading ‘Taking a joke’

Things you shouldn’t do even if it’s perfectly innocent: Finding an old condom in your wallet, opening the warp to take a look and then throw it to the garbage can and forgetting about it. A tip: When your girlfriend will come and find it there, saying “It’s an old one, I’ve just opened it to have a look.” will NOT sound convincing. And you can bet that within the next hours all her female friends will hear about it and advice her not to trust you. (specially problematic if you know those friends personally).

Not that it ever happened, of course. Geez.

Well, the semester has ended and the exams period is coming upon us. I feel depressed already. Is it only me or does anyone else always falls asleep when trying to learn boring mathematical prooves? I can be REALLY awake and all, but it doesn’t help. I keep falling asleep (or find my thoughts drifting away).

Anyway, I haven’t talked about some important things lately. When everything is burning around you (exploding would be the correct word) you really caught in the events and only when there is some quiet, you get your real life back. With all the things you really like, friends, work… Maybe that’s why so many europeans tend to be against Israel – they have time to live their lives while still looking abroad to the tiny place called Israel and they don’t understand how it is to live here, with all the fear and all. The current generation in europe doesn’t know how it is to be INSIDE the war. All they know is what they learned at school, saw in movies or TV. Of course, history has a tendency to be the winning side version, which is quite clear and forward. To be in the middle as things take shape makes you understand how small details are left out. The little calculations of when to go to supermarket to get things, and get it all at once to avoid going out twice. The second thoughts about taking a bus to the parents for the weekend. To develop an instinct to avoid crowded places. You don’t get to read about those, do you?
Continue reading ‘End of semester. Life.’

Ok, it came. Thursday. Today I give my seminar lecture. Been working on it the whole week, I hope it’s going to go fine. I also had a weird thing happen to me yesterday in this context.

The paper I present uses Kolmogorov Spectrum in several stages to simulate a realistic turbulent system. Now, they didn’t explain what is Kolmogorov Spectrum in the paper (naturally) and I felt it is quite important to the understanding of the creation of fire. So I went to our science library and looked into books on thermodynamics, but couldn’t find anything. A friend offered I’ll go to find one of the physics professors and ask him.

I reached Prof. Meerson who was very kind and explained the subject in a general manner I could understand, without going too much into physical details. Anyway, he got interested in the lecture and asked for the time and place I’m giving it, saying he’ll drop by if he doesn’t have anything scheduled then.

Oh, boy.. He’ll come to the lecture just to see me give a (probably) twisted version of what he just explained to me… Hmm… wait a minute… Maybe I could direct the questions from the class to him… Not a bad idea…

Anyway, I’ll be off to work out some notes for the slides. You can have a look at the final(?) version of the presentation. It’s almost 2 Megabyte, and it includes some images from Shrek. Wish me luck!

I just thought of letting you know I found this extremely funny clip featuring Eddie Murphy when he was young. I got the file using IMesh and it is called “SNL – Eddie Murphy – Kill the White People.mpg“. The reason I’m putting this here is that since saturday I can’t stop humming the song (which, ofcourse, is a intentionally blunt and un-politically correct). Just check it out, I’m sure you’ll like it.

This Civilization 3 game is getting on my nerves – It’s so addictive and I don’t have time for it!!! Bad Sid Meier!!

Anyway, here are some of our save games

There is a serious debate going on in Israel about CNN news network. The claims are that CNN prefers to show only the palestinian side with only little reports on the Israeli side. In addition, Ted Turner, CNN founder, managed to say some very anti-israeli things in an interview last week. The calls were so strong that it is seriously discussed to remove the channel from the Israeli cables and the satellite network. Fox News, CNN rival, had already been added to the channels offered to israeli viewers.

I’m sure you can catch news of this in any respectable news site.

and now, to my opinion.
Continue reading ‘CNN debate in Israel’

I’m not updating for 3 days and I finds that so many events had happened that I don’t know where to start. Well, this ain’t a news site after all, so you’ll excuse me for not mentioning stuff. Thats the problem with living in Israel. So many things happen all the time you get used to a fast pace. The news broadcast in the morning is likely to be considerably different in the evening. (when I was traveling in Scandinavia for a couple of months in 1997 is was difficult at first to get used to the slow pace with absolutly nothing happening. It was SO refreshing!)

First, to all my friends – I haven’t recieved an emergency warrant (yet). I’m still around…

As you know, Israel started a new offensive this week. The government members declared we’re going to stay in the west band “as long as needed”, though the opinions are still divided between the members of right wing parties and the labor party (which want the stay to be a short as possible and just long enough for IDF to operate).

I still thing there should be serious blow given to the palestinians, though I would like to make sure we won’t cripple them untill we’ll have to start taking care of them like in the 80′s. We should leave stuff like education and stuff. Israel supply them the water, phone and electricity anyway.

== A suicide attack was just prevented. Intelligence on a terrorist trying to get to Biet Shemesh (a city near Jerusalem) were proven correct – and the police captured him. This means they keep trying.
Continue reading ‘Handful of events’

More dead. The terrorists that penetrated Itamar, a settlement south of Nablus, last night took over a house and murdered a mother and 3 of her boys, ages 15, 12 and 5. Another little sister was injured but managed to hide in the bathroom and her life were saved. A neighbor tried to storm in and help the mother and was killed as well, raising the number of dead to 5. Two other children from the family and two soldiers were among the wounded. One of the children was in serious condition, one person was in moderate condition and the other six sustained light wounds.

The Father of the family, and the big brother were out of the house at the time and hurried back just to find their home on fire and the corpses of the rest of the family evacuating. An undercover Border Police unit succeeded in killing at least one of the terrorists.

As you can see, it’s been the third day in a row terror attacks claimed life of citizens, mainly kids, teen and women. The IDF started issuing more emergency warrants to reserve soldiers and the rumor says they might call the forces of the northern frontier as well (which matters cause my unit belongs to that frontier). Well, It’s about time we’ll kick some terrorists arses.

As a result of the attack, army forces already entered Nablus, as well as being in Jenin, Qalqilia and some other places after the terror attacks the past 3 days. While not being a militant myself, I currently so no other option then to “purify” those areas ourselves. It’s a survival war, plain and simple.

Arafat called 2 days ago to all palestinians organizations to stop terror attacks. Now, considering the attack on wednesday was done by his own organization, I’m wondering whether he just announce those things in english for the media (like he usually does), or he really means it and all the organizations, including his own, are just giving him the finger. (which in this case, he’s already powerless and should not take part in any new palestinian government or peace process) (wait a minute… WHAT peace process?!)

Damn it, I got an exam on sunday to study for, and a seminar presentation to complete. And like I can concentrate, yea. As I said before, the only thing those palestinian organizations does, is leading the palestinian people to their doom.

Read some news posts: BBC, CNN, Haaretz.
Hebrew: Ynet, Maariv, Haaretz.
Arabic: ArabYnet, Palestine Chronicle (Wanted also to link to Arabia.com story, but apperantly they didn’t post anything about this attack…)

As I was writing the post below terrorists penetrated Itamar, an Israeli settlement, and are currently fortifying in one of the houses, holding the residents as hostages. There are some reports on 3 israeli wounded, one of them severely. IDF forces surrounded the area and called the people to stay in the homes with the lights off.

3 weeks ago a terrorist attacked kids playing basketball at the same place, killing 3 15 years old boys.

Great, and I was starting to think we’ll have a quiet day at last.

As I wrote a couple days ago, I have to lection in a seminar next thursday. I eventually chose to lecture on the siggraph 2002 paper “Structural Modeling of Natural Flames” from PDI/DreamWorks. It describes the fire algorithm they have ued in the movie Shrek, which is an excellent excuse for me to wast half the lecture time on clips from the movie (the ones with fire in them – I suppose to get a mark on this lecture!)

Anyway, I’m more then half way into the presentation. I’ll give it to Dani, the head of the lab and the professor incharge of the seminar, for rejects and things to fix. I also have an important exam on Sunday which I’m going to spend the weekend prepering for.

I was afraid for another terror attack today, but so far so good.
Continue reading ‘Working on my Presentation!’

The dead from the brutal attack yesterday: Gal Eizenman, a 5 years old girl and her grandmother, Noa Alon. The Gal’s brother (1 year old) and their mother are still in the hospital. Other dead: Gila Sara Kessler (19), Hadassa Yungreis (20), Shmuel Yerushalmi (17), Michal Franklin (22).

I’ll add more of my mind later.
Continue reading ’5 years old died in yesterday’s attack’

The Israeli police announced a while ago that there are still strong intelligence that more terrorists were already dispatched to carry out suicide attacks in Jerusalem. The police and the security forces are still on extremely high alert all over the city. This might be a long night and even a worse week then what it is today.

I guess I’ll buy a serious supply today. The less I’ll go out to the supermarket the better.
Hey, why play russian rullet, come live in Israel. Much more interesting! (Sarcasam again, ouch.)
Continue reading ‘Not the last attack’

I was just visiting Moonlight, my gf, at the dorms, when her roommate rushed out of the room and called us in – “There was an explosion in the French Hill!” We hurried to Alex’s room to see what’s going on on TV. In the big junction next to the Mount Scoops Campus of our university there was a a familiar scene – another terror attack.

Apparently a car stopped at the junction around 19:15, a terrorist (female?) went down, and ran to the several bus stations that were located on the other side of the junction. 2 Border Policemen noticed it and started chasing him, but he managed to reach the stations and explode himself. To make it clear, Mount Scopus is the main Campus of the Hebrew University and many students (as well as other people) are used these stations to get their daily buses. The report, up to now (20:30) talks about at least 7 dead, at least 40 people injured. As we all know the nature of early reports, the numbers are probably much higher.

The organization that took the responsibility is the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a part of the FATAH – Arafat’s movement (and don’t even bother telling me he was not involved). Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is on the American list of terror oganizations, though somehow, the US decided thier leader, Arafat, isn’t a terrorist… Logic of politicians.

Israeli government decided a change of policy yesterday, after the bus attack, and declared it will capture PA territory for every such attack, and will keep it for a long term, until all terror attacks will cease. Yesterday IDF forces went inside Jenin. A few minutes ago a spokesman from the government declared that tonight more territory will be captured as a result of the attack.

Here is what I think:
Continue reading ‘Another Day, More Terror’

As you might have heard, there was a really big terror attack this morning in Jerusalem. By the time I type this, 19-20 people are dead, 50-70 wounded. A palestinian suicide bomber went on a bus at 8:00am this morning and blew himself up in the middle. It was a rush hour as people were going to work and kids going to school. By the way, there are school children amoung the dead and injured. The Hamas took responsibility for the attack.

It was a hard night. I could barely sleep with this throat infection, also kept waking up Moonlight every time. I woke up at 8:00 to the sound of multiple sirens. I live a short distance from Sheari-Tzedek Hospital, and the sound of several ambulance sirens always means one thing – a terror attack. I crawled out of bed, grabbed the radio and crawled back in. I’ve turned it on and found myself in the middle of a terror attack report. The usual mess, nothing clear, no one knows how many wounded, what’s the situation or anything. The only thing I’ve understood was that it was near Pat junction – very close to the my Campus. Moonlight was already awake from all the noise, and as I went into the shower she turned on the TV and watched. While brushing my teeth I heard something like 20 wounded. “20 ain’t so many” I thought – then I grabbed myself. The life in this country, with the constant risk and so many victims does has a price – you can’t handle life here unless you’re getting harder. You find yourself thinking “hey, it’s only 5/10/20 people, no big deal.” – while even 1 person dead is terrible.

5 of the 19 dead were identified so far: The driver of the bus, Rahamim Zidkiyahu (51, m), Shiri Negari (22 y.o. girl) – both already brought to burial. Others are Boaz Aluf (54, m), Liat Yagen (24, f) and Leah Baruch (59, f).

(continues…)
Continue reading ‘Terror Attack in Jerusalem Bus’