A Peek into a Mind

No Iraq talk this post. Actually, I was hoping to avoid any connection to the war today (something Salam can’t do, unfortunatly). I’m feeling a little weak and I think I’m getting a cold – I’m totally shnuzel! (Shnuzel = running nose) Anyway, I thought of having a nice quiet day, no journalist calling/emailing to interview me and no SMSs/emails asking me how’s Salam or if I can see the US troops outside my window (I’m in Israel guys, even with glasses I can hardly see byond the campus…)

I did, however, added .3DS files support to my arcball code, and enjoyed wasting time on practicing my 3D Studio max (very basic) abilities in making modules with textures. I might release the source code later, though the data files are around 1 MB.

I think I’ll leave the Lab now and head home for a nice cup of hot tea.
Continue reading ‘Getting Shnuzel… Uff!’

I think I’ll code a program that will produce random titles for my posts. I never know what to write there. Ho well.

Salam is alright, so far. Still, the real battle of Baghdad is still ahead. Turns out Blogspot have created a mirror for people with DNS probs (like I had). However, I’ve decided, for safety reasons, to keep an updated mirror of salam’s blog. Just incase. I’ll be happy to remove it once the war is over and Salam’s safe.

Seems Russia sold Illegal weapons to Saddam just before the war. Hmm… I wonder what will they discover about the French?

Also had the pleasure of meeting Renata yesterday! Finally, after almost 2 years since we first started to talk on ICQ, and 8 months after she made Aliyaa and immigrated to Israel. I visited her in her house, which is absolutely beautiful, having each room in different color. We had fun talking up until 1am, with her flatmates running around – they seems to have LOTS of fun there. I’m sure I’ll be visiting her again soon.

People in Israel are getting a little fed up with all the war mumbo jumbo. Most of my friends just watch the main news edition at the evening and try to avoid hearing news the rest of the day.

And those Americans (and Europeans) are starting to look quite childish for the past 2 days or so. Like, what were you thinking a war is? I’m personally impressed that with so many soldiers and units running around, the coalition only got several dead and few POWs! Of course every person is a whole world, and I’m not underestimating anyone, but jeez, people, it’s a WAR. Have you guys been living too many Hollywood films? Or were you just living on the moon the past 100 years or so?
Continue reading ‘A Little Rant about War and Public Opinion’

I’ve got back to Jerusalem today. I’m currently writing from the lab, at the Hebrew university. It’s like we’re just keep on with our lives but with still some tension in the air. Well, tension or not, I have not seen a single person today (except some school kids) walking around with the Gas Mask. I’m not carrying it either. Everything in Israel seems quite normal – except the commercial TV channels, which keep boring people to death with endless bla-bla. Seems anybody and his sister are now qualified for showing up on TV and saying what they thinks about that news bit or the other. If we had 1$ for every minute of bullshit news on the TV we’d be out of the economic problem by now.

Still not a word from Salam. I hear that Baghdad got electricity on and off the past days. In addition seems the Iraqi ISP is offline, so I guess no internet connection for anyone in Iraq. Damn. Didn’t think I’d be that worried.

The Iraqi broadcasted pictures of 5 US captives. Yea, big heroes those Iraqis, capturing a lost maintaince unit soldiers. Showing some dead American bodies (which were probably mutilated before filmed). Geez, what would the coalition do now, I guess they’ll have to withdraw. — NOT.

I got really pissed off when hearing the Iraqis are taking civilians – including women and children – and force them to stay at military facilities and army posts as ‘human shields’. They know the Americans will bomb those places and they only want the show dead bodies later, in hope the NARROW-MINDED in the US and Europe will shout laud enough to stop the war. I wish this to be clear – Each and every civilian killed in such manner was killed by the Iraqis! It against all laws, logic and sane human behavior to do that! It’s exactly like giving a child to every soldier to hide behind while he shoot – any returned fire will kill the kid, and if you won’t return fire, you’ll get killed yourself. The big difference – in most cases the coalition forces aren’t even aware of these people so they don’t even know then make a choice.

If it wasn’t for anything else – for this thing alone I would have gone after and kill those shitty Iraqi officials. Saddam and sons should end up DEAD. Not exiled, not jailed – but trialed and executed. (I insist on the trial to let the world know all the horrors he had done, so there won’t be any more ‘beautiful hearts’ out there supporting him).

Update: US troops capture chemical plant.
Continue reading ‘War in background of life’

Salam Pax is becoming an online celebrity, and I’m not even sure he knows that. The past 24 hours I’ve been getting lots of email about him, and even was contacted by several journalists. Salam, I just hope you’ll get out of this hell which is Baghdad right now alive and well, with all your family and friends ok, too. Then, you’re going to handle a huge amount of attention.

Thanks to Jim Ancona, from Boylston, MA (USA) for sending me an updated copy of Salam’s front page. If you have difficulties reaching his site, like I have, you can check out my local ‘mirror’.

Ho, and to all you journalist who worried if salam is real or not, in addition to taking my word for it, you can check out Paul Boutin’s investigation. He did a real research and tracking to confirm this.

BTW, if you’re up for a little laugh about the crrent and past of the Iraq war, you just HAVE to get Between Iraq and a Hard Place which was broadcased on British channel 4. I believe you can find a better version on kazaa/emule etc. then the low quality video you get on the official site.

PS – Seems some journalists now asks if I’m real. Jeez, some people just watch too many Martix reruns.

Update: Noticed on Imshin that you can load Salam’s site by using http://dearraed.blogspot.com. Great, maybe I’ll be able to remove the ‘mirror’ page soon.

Hey, I didn’t expect that! Since I’ve posted a mirror of Salam Pax blog I’m getting tons of emails… Well, I’ll clear up some issues that were coming up in several emails:

- I don’t know how’s Salam right now. I cannot access his site at the moment and had not heard from him yet (sent him an email). My guess is that as the massive attack is currently taking place in baghdad, he’s not going to be near the computer, and even if he is, I’ll be surprised to learn that the internet connection and ISP are operating. We’ll just have to sit and wait.

- I don’t host his whole site. I’ve just copied the front page the last time I was able to access it and posted that. All the links on that page are still directed at blogspot.com which currently refuse to load Salam’s site. If you’re really interested in the archives, your best chance is to relay on Google’s cached versions: Go here and instead of clicking the main link (in blue) click the little “Cached” on the end (in grey). That’s the best solution I can come up with right now.

- Yes, I’m Israeli, and no, I don’t think its weird that I’m mirroring an Iraqi guy’s blog. We’re all people, you know, we’re not robots programmed with the official political stands of our countries. If someone is fine with me on a personal level I see no reason why I shouldn’t be fine with him. Been backpacking with Iranians twice already, why should it be weird to mirror an Iraqi?

- Diana has posted part of Salam’s email reply to her, about the reports that Uday, Saddam’s son, was injured. Seems something has happened to someone. Check it out! (That is, unless you come from Diana in the first place…)
Continue reading ‘Salam Pax blog and more’

First, I must express my amazement when checking on this little site stats a few minutes ago. From my usuall 120-150 visiter per day, I’m at 500 already and still counting. Seems the war in Iraq is drawing much attention to Israeli weblogs as well.

However, the weblog you DON’T want to miss is of Salam Pax, an iraqi student updating right from Bagdad. I must note he expresses opinions which are not commonly found in westren media about the whole situation. A must read. I hold my fingers for you, Salam. Keep safe! (Seems his page on blogspot.com is on-off all the time, so if you have troubles, check out my own temporary mirror of his site)

BTW, Reneta shares some of her thoughts about whether to make a sealed room in her flat or not, and Gil has posted some images of himself with gas mask, as well.

Ho well, I’ll go back to coding. Got to work on that 2nd mobile phone game I’m doing for an Austrian company. AND update cfxweb with the new articles of Hugi 26. AND finish as much as possible the concept proposal for the new TV show. Boy, I’m up to my ears this weekend, with or without a war.

Since news from the war in Iraq are slow (which doesn’t prevent the media from chewing on and on on the pieces of information from hours ago), I’ve decided to follow out Home Front Command instructions and adjust my brand new Gas Mask. For your viewing pleasure, those of you who weren’t as lucky as getting a new mask for free, I’m providing some key steps with photos.
Continue reading ‘How to put on a Gas Mask’

Seems the Americans spotted some senior Iraqi ministers and launched an early attack this morning, hitting several government targets in Baghdad. According to news, the main attack is due tonight.

As for Israel, we were already instructed to complete making the sealed rooms and buy supply. Since this morning all civilians were instructed to carry gas masks with us wherever we go. However, on the way to the university this morning it looked like most people still walk around without it. I got my mask in my car, I saw no reason to take it me to university.

I personally feel we’ll watch this war from the side, I don’t think we’ll get any missiles this time, specially with the US doing so many efforts to take over west Iraq and do everything to prevent us being involved. According to our Security Minister, Shaul Mofaz, Israel will react on any attack, so I guess the US will make some serious efforts to keep us out of the mess.

Jerusalem was not attacked the last war. I guess Saddam realized that with his shitty precision he might hit El-Aqsa mosque… I feel pretty safe here this time, too. I’m going back to Ashkelon this weekend, but I don’t believe anything will happen there as well. All this hype is the result of the previous war, when we were attacked.

Come to think about it, I’m saying exactly the same things as I did before the first Gulf War has started. Hmmm…

This has been a long week, and I’m dead tired. I’ve spent the past week learning for a Moed Beit exam (Second date of an exam) since I haven’t went to the first date. I’ve did my best to disconnect myself from the outside world, since the material was dead boring and I’m easely “dragged” to waste time in such cases. Anyway, the exam was today and afterwards I drove from Jerusalem to Eyal in Hod-HaSharon, were all the gang met for watching the Director Version of Lord of the Rings (1). Almost 5 hours movie and so many footage and stuff from how they made it. Amazing. I’ve just arrived an hour ago, I’m going to sleep in a minute (it’s 3:00am).

This week I’m going to concentrate on coding the cotest entry of Code Art, a contest of the interdiciplanary center in Hertzelia (a long name for a college…) and progressing the concept document of the TV show I’m developing/hoping to produce. I’ll fill you in on details tomorrow.

Gotta get some sleep…

I’ve got an exam coming up on Thursday so I won’t be on the net till it’s over. Anyway, I just wanted to leave some remarks, since in the past weekend I’ve been quoted on some blogs.

I am aware of all the recent Israeli activity in the territories. I’m also aware that some of the dead Palestinians were innocent civilians (though a much lower number then some would like you to think). From my experience in the army, soldiers and officers are very careful, but these things happen. It doesn’t mean I like them but they does. However, I have extreme difficulties to accept the Palestinian numbers of ‘civilians’ since the minute a terrorist that is shooting on IDF soldiers is being killed, someone takes his rifle and he’s suddenly a ‘civilian’. In addition, every time several terrorists are killed from a ‘work accident’ making explosives-belt or an explosive device, the Palestinians rush to the international media shouting “Israel did this!” (this exact thing happened on Thursday in Jabaliya, killing almost 11 Palestinians). So I’d be extremely sceptical about Palestinian figures. Killing of innocent people IS wrong and to be avoided as possible. Killing of militants and terrorist is to be Encouraged (yes, just like that senior Hammas member. And he was invloved in arranging terror attacks so spare me the ‘political figure’ argument).

Well, I’ll be off. The word is that the War is going to start sometime next week or so. I really hope it will be so and that they’ll get it done already, I’m tired of this ‘temporary’ state of life. You can’t make long term plans, you can’t tell what’s going to happen, so let them get this thing over with. Ho, and please, will someone give me a good reason for NOT attacking Iraq? I mean a GOOD REASON, not the bullshit those anarchists dreamers are spitting. And spare me the French position. Seems the wild theory I’ve brought here a few posts ago are turning more and more real.

Maybe the French should support more research in this direction: Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer

Just noticed it on Gil’s weblog – Forbes magazine’s list of the world richest people got a new category reserved for kings, queens, and despots. And guess who made it there this year? Arafat!

While the Palestinian people are struggling to live, seems the support money from Europe finds it’s way to other places. Arafat is worth at least $300 million! No curroption? Yea, right, just like the PA is not funding Terrorism with European money. Dream on.

In addition, the Forbes only tryed to be on safe grounds when saying $300 million. Here is a snip out of the Jerusalem Post Article:

The Forbes figure is modest in comparison to other estimates of Arafat’s riches. In a briefing delivered last August to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, OC Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon (Farkash) Ze’evi reported his net worth at $1.3b. In 1990, the CIA reportedly estimated that Arafat and the PLO had between $8b. and $14b. worth of assets at their disposal. In 1995, the US General Accounting Office compiled a report on Arafat’s finances, but it was kept secret due to “national security interests.”

I knew the man is on the take, I just never thought he’s that big money.
I wonder what the avg. palestinian is going to think about this.

I really hate to say it but it was expected that sometime it will happen. about 2 and a half hours ago a suicide terrorist exploded himself in a public bus in Haifa, Killing 16 and wounding more then 50 (current numbers) – most of them students and the bus stop where it happened (the largest on the bus’ route) was also full of school children. The explosion caused the roof of the bus to fly up. The bus driver, a christian arab, was lightly wounded. Some of the wounded are in critical condition so the number of dead might, unfortunately, rise.

Why have I said that it was expected? Cause we live in a false quiet. The recent lake of terror attacks the past 2 months wasn’t due to Palestinians not trying to execute them. On the contrary. The Palestinian terror organizations are working very hard to execute as many attacks as possible the past few months. The only reason they don’t succeed is cause IDF is fighting them intensively. The IDF soldiers enter all the Palestinian cities and villages, going from house to house and catch (or fire if being attacked) every terrorist they find. Dozens of factories of explosives and rockets were found and demolished. Houses of terror activists were destroyed. That intense fighting is what lowered the number of successful attacks to almost nothing (not including missiles shot at the city Sderot). Security Forces says that in the past 2 months alone they’ve stopped 122 attacks before they took place, and warnings reach sometimes to even 62 notices a day! (Each notice/warning is specific to 1 attack planned. This means sometimes there are around 62 attacks planned/about to be executed for a single day! Source for these numbers – Israel’s Channel 2 news)

So don’t get fooled. It’s not cause the Palestinians are quiet. It’s cause our army and security services are working extremely hard. Then again, you can never promise a 100% safty in these kind of things. And sometimes a terror attack or two do happen.
Continue reading ‘Terror Attack in Haifa’