DamnSaxon

More bad news for the Anthropogenic Global Warming cause, in the Register again - Thermageddon postponed.

^^^ Saves me mentioning the altar story! More religious madness here. And ... They do things differently there.

Much as I hate using overused buzzwords like 'awesome' ... This is awesome.

I'm never sure whether it's Flashblock or Adblock doing it for me - as an untrusting soul I block everything I can. But Spokeshave's right, Flash does cream the processor - when I get bored enough to watch a TV prog on the BBC's iplayer, the poor old CPU runs at 100% until its through (heating it up and costing me the extra watts and green credibility). Another little "nuance" of the Flash player is mentioned here - and I'm pleased to report that that FF plugin works nicely too.

Just finished: Flann O'Brien's "The Dalkey Archive". I'm a great fan of his "The Third Policeman", and it was nice to meet the eccentric de Selby again. Even better, I bought it in the Pound Shop. Just getting into: Agricola's "De Re Metallica". First published 1556, translated 1912, and recently chucked out by the local library and flogged to me for 40p. An amazingly complete overview of metallurgy in the middle ages, from how to recognise ore deposits through to getting a decently pure product. Shame on the library for clearing out superb reference books, even tho' I'm really happy to have it.

Satisfied. (I fixed me box and made time to get back on Shetlink )

There used to be an old Rolls Royce based somewhere near here (Nottingham) with the reg 130 LOX. Yes, the owner had pushed the 1 and 3 together a bit, but you have to admit he had the car to do it on. Sadly I think he must have run out of cash to do silly things with, 'cos I saw the number a few years later on a faceless Japanese saloon.

Minus the speed of light? What I want to know is: ¿ÉƃoÊŽ dn ÇÊžÉʇ oʇ plo ooʇ ı ɯÉ

The ones we have here in monstrously excessive quantity are quite substantial things. They're square at the bottom, then circular pipe above that, the circular bit being noticeably bigger and stronger than road sign posts. If they look anything like that, it sounds like you've got 'em. If so, you may also find that when the cameras are installed, they'll add an umbrella-shaped fence of downward pointing spikes to prevent anyone from climbing up and compromising their surveillance of the population. Yes, they're ugly and intrusive. But you just try getting rid of them. Oh, and Skunnered ... "Targets for air-guns"? No, they're built to resist bigger and better weaponry than that. Interesting to note that "the main planning issue ... is visual amenity". Much easier for "responsible spokesmen" to blather on about that than have to address all those disturbing questions about why the state wants its long nose sticking into everybody's innocent business. With any luck, we plebs will then forget all that embarrassing research which shows that improving the street lighting gives a much greater reduction in street crime than CCTV and at a fraction of the price. Or that shows that CCTV makes little, if any, overall difference to crime. Or ...

Nottingham squelching on more or less as usual, but a bit slower. Perhaps a couple of inches overnight, though the city's always warmer than the country. Roads with usual cold black slush covering ... yep, I think I'd rather be watching the scenery in Shetland ...

Here's one for all unmarried Shetlinkers (and others): ---> The Marry an Ugly Millionaire Online Dating Agency

And it's not just laws, either, as this shows. I would say "you couldn't make it up" ... except that they are ...

^^^ Justlookin, I don't think your view of the world is skewed one little bit - frankly, what "our" government is doing scares me shirtless. Quite apart from the obscene infestation of the UK with snooping CCTV (allegedly to "make us safer", never mind the proven fact that it does no such thing), through the grossly intrusive National Identity Database, to their stream of petty, completely unthought-out rubbish laws designed to pander to the Daily Mail's most paranoid and fearful readers. I heard someone on the radio not long ago claiming that this government (i.e. NuLab x 3 since 1997) had introduced more laws than the total there were when they came into power. Does anyone feel any safer as a result of this legislative diarrhoea? Well, with violent crime on the increase, perhaps you shouldn't - especially as most of these laws seem to be aimed at things which no rational person would consider criminal anyhow. As a trifling example, consider their latest plans to "protect children" by banning cartoons representing what might be taken to be children. Dear God! No-one in their right mind would oppose protecting children, but to extend that to banning cartoons? Be afraid. Be very afraid. For a passing fair sample of similarly "skewed" views of the world, check out the comments on that very story as it appeared in The Register today. I post there myself (though not on this story), and I can promise you from a number of similar stories that the majority of my fellows there feel exactly the same about the rate at which our "free" country (hollow laugh) is being stuffed. Yeah, hugs are always nice. But the way things are going, don't do it in public, or some warped minded creature from the pit ... sorry, politician ... will probably decide that you're corrupting the children and bang you up. Pop over to khitajrah's "Random Acts of Kindness" thread instead, it's probably safer. Apart from their plans to stitch up the internet, of course ... I really, really wish that "my" country didn't force me to feel this way about it. But it does. Stay skewed. You know it makes sense.

Thanks, Fjool - yes, I agree, we did need a bucket of cold water chucking over us. One or two (entirely peaceable) comments: Abraxas, yes, you're quite right of course about my saying "the Jewish people" rather than "a few mad extremists". If you judged any people by the specimens who end up in charge, you'd end up in total despair for the human race. I think that has got worse in recent years, too - half a century ago many of our own MPs actually had practical experience of the things they were legislating about (business, technology, working conditions etc.); nowadays all you get is "professional politicians" whose experience is largely limited to arguing about things (sans knowledge, if a lot of what you hear is any guide). The same phenomenon is slowly strangling our industries, too - now run by people who "know how to manage" because they've got a bit of paper to say so, but who know sweet Fanny Adams about the actual business they're "managing" ... but there's a whole other thread there. Thank God (and why not, as He is the same one on both sides in the Middle East and here in our "Christian" country) that there is something of a lull now. Interesting to note that quite a few people on the radio & in the papers have been saying that it would all end when Bush went - a cynical view perhaps, yet once again it turns out to be true. How long the uneasy peace lasts remains to be seen, but we can hope.

I thoroughly enjoyed it when I was at school, except, like doglover, the PE. The teacher was ex-Army (a lot were, in the 60s), short, LOUD and seemed to enjoy bullying us unsporting types. Loved scientific subjects, though (still do). Fond memories of a lad in my class accidentally blowing his bag up in the Chemistry lab ... as the smoke cleared, there was the Chemistry teacher, standing there looking very worried, it was like a successful magic trick. I know (having seen the teacher only about a minute beforehand) that he'd been at the far end of the lab annexe marking books, so he must have moved at a helluva rate. The lad concerned went on to civil engineering, perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who enjoyed blowing things up. Quite enjoyed my time as a school lab technician, too. It meant I got to play with ... sorry, I mean "set up and adjust" ... all sorts of kit, from steam engines to van der Graaff generators, much more than I ever did when learning. Not sure whether school days really are "the best days of your life", but if you get pleasure out of finding things out they should be, 'cos you never get quite the same intensity of stuff to learn when you've left. (I'm counting university as "big school" here.)

Haha, well, in my capacity of awkward beggar, I always use the ISO (International Standards Organisation) date format, which is year-month-day. Thus I'm posting this at (or around) 2009-01-15 at 21:26:15. As you see, that way continues nicely into hours:minutes:seconds (and on to milliseconds etc.) - makes all dates/times self-order on a PC, too. Quite agree about the US way, though, it's like tying the date into a knot. MuckleJoannie - yes, I think you're right. Across the pond, they had some feller called Webster, I believe, who is probably still around (or at least his "heirs and assigns). Hope it's not them scattering "zees" everywhere. On the plus side, his name gives us that wonderful line from "Road to Morocco" - "Like Webster's Dictionary we're ... Morocco bound" But then there was that news recently that international chemical names are now also to be spelt in American - sulfur, etc. (wince). For a start, if oestrogen is spelt without the O, it's an invitation to pronounce it wrongly - the "oestr-" links it to our pagan roots, fertility, etc., but Estrogen doesn't. Another linguistic link lost, moan, grumble, gripe ...

I'm inclined to agree with doglover - seen it. But ... Yann Arthus Bertrand makes some fascinating artwork out of aerial photography. Worth a look.

Okay. Enough ad hominem argument already. It's time to let the Jewish people speak for themselves of their peaceful and democratic intentions. With citations. "We must expel Arabs and take their places." - David Ben Gurion, 1937 ("Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs", OUP, 1985.) "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." - David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99. "There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" - quoted by Nahum Goldmann in The Jewish Paradox, pp. 121-122 "Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves ... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country." - David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech. "If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel." - David Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth's "Ben-Gurion" in a slightly different translation). "The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever." - Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine. "Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen." - Golda Meir, 1961, in a speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner, October 1961 "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." - Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969 "How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to." - Golda Meir, March 8, 1969. "This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy." - Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971 "We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!" - Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979 "[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs." - Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982 "[israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat." - Yitzhak Rabin, explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry, quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.) "[The Palestinians] would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." - Israeli Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988 "Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories." - Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989. (Benjamin Netanyahu was also Prime Minister of Israel 1996 - 1999) "The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya [=Jewish immigration], and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country." - Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service. "The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple." - Yitzhak Shamir, Maariv, 02/21/1997 "It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." - Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998. "Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them." - Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998. "The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more".... - Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000 "If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...." - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000 "I would have joined a terrorist organization." - Ehud Barak's response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha'aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian. "Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial." - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online

Just read Njugle's post from October about -ise and -ize. I think the -ize is entirely an American thing, I certainly never used to see it when I was a kid. They seem to be getting overly aggressive about it, too - I have, quite recently, seen horrors like "realize", "devize" and "surprize", which have roughly the same effect on my eyes as sandpaper - Aaargh! I'm with Shakespeare on this one - Kent, in King Lear: "Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter!" - since -ise is always pronounced ize. But then the Americans spell vice (the tool, not the naughty pastime) as "vise", which I always see as "vize" before correcting myself. As for capitalisation (the s is right there, too), there's that wonderful, if probably apocryphal, story of the Londoner whose friends ticked him off, in the early days of text messaging, for using only capitals. His reply? I LIVE IN ONE, WHAT ELSE SHOULD I USE?

Ah, well, back again. Apologies for not getting back on Friday - I was just about to post when a visitor arrived, then had a busy weekend. That's another few score Palestinians won't be able to read my golden words. Where's the right of return for the cavemen? Where are the cavemen demanding it? I'm not bothered about who was there *first*, just about who had been living there for centuries when the Zionists arrived and started driving them out. The "chauvinistic arrogance" I mentioned is probably less a Jewish or Zionist problem than an Abrahamic problem - the Jews have us, the "Goyim", to regard as inferior for not being Jewish; the Christians have the "heathen" who fail to recognise the truth of Christianity; the Muslims have the "infidel" who must be taught the truth of Mohammed's teachings. If anyone's watching "Around the World in Eighty Faiths" on telly, they'll recognise the yawning chasm between the Abrahamic attitude to "unbelievers" and that shown by the Buddhist girls shown last week happily making an offering to a Brahmin god (to inspire them to get good exam results!) because they respect all faiths. My guess would be that the contrast arises because if you only recognise one god, you have a vested interest in establishing that yours is *the* god, whereas if you recognise (for want of a better phrase) the "godly impulse", the impulse towards unity and co-operation, you are more open to seeing the same inspiration in others' beliefs. Look at China (pre-communist, of course, though they are slowly re-adopting some of their traditional beliefs). For centuries, they cheerfully kept to a mixture of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. None of these was so "right" that its devotees felt it necessary to kill those who believed differently - most people simply took it in the same spirit as those girls on TV and cheerfully accepted the truths and benefits of all the faiths. By contrast, the Abrahamic tradition more resembles left-wing politics in our country - quite ready to declare war on someone who was your brother last week, never mind the opposition. Judaism has Orthodox and Reform, Christianity has Protestant and Catholic, Islam has Sunni and Sh'ia - and all have sub-sects, sub-sub-sects ... - all quite happy to declare the "unbeliever" to be somehow less than human, and thus safe to kill without having to worry too much about what our "god of love" said about "Thou shalt not kill". As to finding an "unbiased citation" for my comment, 'tis difficult since that was merely one remembered detail out of all the stuff I've read over several decades. 'Tis also difficult because it would require prior agreement over what constitutes "unbiased" ... what? a Jewish author? Obviously a crypto-Zionist! An Islamic source? Obviously antisemitic! (And very nice to see Shetlinkers keeping that word under control. A truly antisemitic solution to the Middle East's problems would involve killing off all Jews and all Arabs. Generally this is not quite what the abuser of that word means!) The involvement of Britain in that dreadful "solution" to the Palestinian strike is undeniable but nonetheless an indicator of the way the situation has been going ever since. I was intrigued recently, not altogether off that topic, to come across a claim that Leopold Amery, the author of the Balfour Declaration, was "secretly" Jewish. Does that sound anti-Jewish? The article appeared in the Jerusalem Post, a decade ago today. I harbour too a deep suspicion that an awful lot of modern politics is driven by (again for want of a better phrase) "undercover Jews" in this way. Why would "Christian" America (approx 3% Jewish) or the UK (less than 1%) support Israel as intensively as they always seem to? It isn't "democracy" - Hamas were democratically elected. And it does not escape the attention of anyone who cares to look that the vast bulk of media and broadcasting across the Western world lies in Jewish hands to an extent which appears almost unbelievable when compared with the percentage of Jews in the populations of those countries. This undoubtedly explains why the coverage of the grim business in the Middle East is invariably pro-Israel, with the Palestinian viewpoint seldom even mentioned. That point goes further, too. Okay, you'll probably dismiss me quoting Radio Islam as me using an "anti-Jewish" source - in fact, I use it as somewhere to find stuff to investigate. On that site, however, I found an astonishing claim. I'm sure we all remember the "Danish cartoons" which caused such a predictable reaction across the Islamic world. And it appears that the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten (JP), the person who commissioned and published those offensive cartoons, was ... Flemming Rose, a Zionist friend of the Jewish/US neocon extremist Daniel Pipes. Wow, what cultural sensitivity! Even a total atheist could have predicted the sort of response which followed the publication of those cartoons, yet this "cultural editor" seems to have felt that stirring up hatred between Islam and Europe was okay. Cui bono? (If you didn't do Latin, "To whom the benefit?") How many such activities go on quietly in the background of international politics? We'll probably never know, especially if we never look outside the mainstream media. I'm not going to try to make any points about "rich Jews" controlling all the money, either - although again they are disproportionately represented. It was, after all, our own "good Christian gentlemen" who reasoned that, since usury (charging interest) was sinful for Christians (as it was also for Jews, of course), we should let/encourage the Jews to defile themselves with it, thereby in effect making them rich, if "spiritually defiled" by the usury. It's also worth noting that Islam still (in my view, quite rightly) adheres to this - Islamic banks do not give or charge interest. Gibber, you seem to approve of the "mechanisms in place to retain the Jewish demographic, mechanisms required to ensure a Jewish homeland that ensures a sovereign state where Jews can live without being murdered". I say again, why should there be a "Jewish homeland" when there is no (no other) "Christian homeland" or "Muslim homeland"? The "Christian and Muslim countries" are not "homelands", they're just countries which have ended up with Christian or Muslim majorities - I don't, btw, want to play down at all the intolerance shown by those majorities, to Jews, blacks, communists ... you name it. The Jewish people, had they elected to make Israel a non-exclusive democratic country rather than an exclusive Jewish one, might have achieved in their project a country where Jews were "merely" a majority, but where others were welcome. Instead, they have chosen to go for an exclusively Jewish country where non-Jews are second class citizens. That's just religious apartheid. Oh, and if you truly believe that Allah, rather than the iron fist of Jehovah, controls Gaza, there really isn't anything I can say. You don't need to be *in* the place to control it. Another thing nobody seems to ask - why do Jews want that particular "homeland"? After all, Abraham, if we could ask him, would probably describe himself as a Sumerian (Sumeria was southern Mesopotamia (Iraq)), since that's where the Hebrew culture seems to have started, and they weren't native to there - remember that, fairly recently, archaeologists claimed to have found the site of the Garden of Eden, north of there towards Turkey. The "Wandering Jew" has been nomadic for a very long time. As to my "bizarre utilitarian system of morality" (less a morality than a rough rule of thumb to work out who's behaving worse) - if Israel had been taking out Germans since WWII, the six million would count in that. I did say "the parties in any conflict", not "the sum total over history". It was not Palestinians, or Muslims, who killed Jews in Germany; they are just the unfortunate recipients of what Israel is doing in their area, in a separate conflict. The figure of six million seems to have been revised somewhat in recent years, anyhow, though not very publicly; I'm still waiting for history's final verdict on that one: with fulltime historians having trouble finding definitive evidence, it isn't likely to come quickly. If targeted assassinations are "ineffectual" against Hamas, then they're exactly as effective as the current slaughter, surely, and likely to alienate a lot less support than killing hundreds of civilians. Oh, and I'm sorry if my comment on the Lebanese guys came across as my seeming to accept them as "some chaps down the pub I am vaguely acquainted with" - not at all my intention. It's the traitorous interwebz failing to transmit my tone of sheer exasperation, which is what it actually was. To me, their attitude looks much the same as kids who, seeing a fight going on, chuck things at the fighters to keep it going - as I did say, they aren't helping anyone. Nor, come to that, is Israel - there has been quite a bit more unfavourable comment this time around than for their previous activities. They may yet regret this. I'm going to have to bow out of this thread before long (until the next time?). It's getting so that every time I drop in on Shetlink I feel I have to try to justify all sorts of partial understandings of my previous comments. Actually, as EM said, it is the current crew (and previous extremists) which offends me most, although I still have problems with an administration which routinely denies rights to non-Jews. Sure, if we were in Israel, we would be allowed to start and run a political party which supported the extension of rights to Muslims and Christians. However, when it came to electing the next Knesset, Israeli law would forbid us from putting forward any candidates. Every time, democracy, the rights of non-Jews, come second to the "Jewish homeland" - which aims at (with thanks to paulb for reminding us of the Vatican!) the *second* religious "homeland". Ultimately, I think that possibly the truest comment on the whole Middle Eastern question was made almost incidentally on the comment pages of The Register by their "moderatrix" Sarah Bee, who raised a wry smile from me on Friday with her response to an "Anonymous Coward" (AC) ... Y'know, I think she's quite literally right. And ah, dear Albert. Sharp feller - I seem to recall he turned down the job offer of Prime Minister of Israel, too. Cheers, Albert. I don't think it's patronising to call your attitude relaxed or agreeable, not least 'cos I share it.

^^^ Yes, though he had to have it translated into Gaelic.

And you really wouldn't want to be the one filling in the insurance claim ...

I like the Reciva Radio Portal - been listening to some fine reggae stations from here and there. Same need for continuous connection to the net, of course, so not for the drive into work unless you can afford satellite linked internet in the car.

Ah, good, the thread's still going. It would have been terrible to have a day off and find it had petered out. (Very likely! ) I'll work through the points in Gibber's last post back at mine, there are altogether too many points in total and my posts are quite long enough as it is. (And Gibber seems to be on the numerically thinner side, so has too much work to do as it is. Sorry, mon - like Mark Twain, I never can find the time to write a short post.) As far as the historical question goes, it's probably worth noting that even Tacitus mentioned "King Antiochus' irregulars, a strong force of Arabs, who had a neighbourly hatred for the Jews" (Histories, Book V) - but I think we are all agreed that this is scarcely a new problem. I'll mention also that some of the cleverest, funniest and most aware and compassionate people I've known have been Jewish; Judaism per se is not at all the problem. Modern Zionism, on the other hand, I still find deeply worrying. I quite agree that there was a very egalitarian element in it originally - the principle of Jews, Christians and Muslims living in peace within one state - as, of course, we do, give or take, in so many other places. This only makes it the more tragic that, a century later, the situation is as it is. I have wondered often whether the Romans' "solution" to the problem was the result of the Jews of the time acting with the same sort of chauvinistic arrogance as the present extremist element controlling Israel. Even at the beginnings of Zionism, however, there was the seed of the less tolerant, downright arrogant attitudes of the present leadership: as Gibber correctly observes, a century or so ago, Jews started legally buying farm land in Palestine. It's also worth noting, though, that the Arabs from whom they were buying the land had a pretty tenuous claim to it themselves, having mostly just bought it with their spare cash under the laws of the failing Ottoman empire, and owning it as absentee landlords until the Zionists offered to buy it. It is very well worth mentioning also that the Zionists' typical methodology, even then, was to buy the rights to the land, then kick the Palestinians off it, leaving them homeless and without a means of support. Not a very peaceable approach, however "legal", and certainly not one aimed at an inclusive society. As I commented a few posts ago, no respect. And of course, the condition of the Arabs in the modern world - fragmented into separate squabbling states - is mostly a problem introduced to the area by our very own British occupation. I suspect that the situation would be very different had the Arab world been integrated enough to act in concert over the last century or so without the white man meddling in their affairs. I don't, BTW, try to excuse any of the many errors made by the British Empire - we succeeded in royally screwing up probably more of the world than any empire before us. The Americans seem to be doing much the same now, it's the ol' Anglo-Saxon crew still creatin' mayhem. Alas. And no, my levity of tone is not approval. It is very much incidents such as the Hotel David bombing which unavoidably colour my view of Zionism - along with the wholesale slaughter of the Palestinians to end their General Strike in the 30s (10 Arabs killed for every Jewish death, a figure which doesn't seem to change much), the activities of the Irgun in the 30s and 40s, killing Arabs and Brits whenever there was disagreement, the killing of Lord Moyne - who favoured a Palestinian state - in '44, and the Stern Gang's 1947 "despatch" of Folke Bernadotte, a man who had saved thousands of Jewish people from the camps during WWII but who dared to have (unforgivably) ideas of his own about the next step - and God knows how many others. This is not the history of the compassionate Jewish people (whom we should all support), this is the history of the extremist element who have taken over and mutated those original peaceful aims. I recall hearing years ago (from a lovely Jewish lady, now deceased) that, shortly after the 1967 war, David Ben Gurion (who could also be a devious beggar when he wanted to) had flown over the newly occupied lands with some of the then Israeli leadership. "Of course," he is reported as saying, "we shall have to give all this back." This seems the perfect illustration of the difference between the compassionate and the extremist wings of Zionism - and 40 years later, we're still waiting. My Jewish friend grieved over the dichotomy - she was one of those I mentioned, who feel horror and despair at what Israel has become. I entirely agree that an EU-style union in Arabia would be an excellent idea, if the Arabic countries could but bury their differences long enough to form one. The condition of much of Africa (now we Europeans have pulled out and left another grim mess) suggests that that continent would equally benefit enormously from something similar, certainly something a good deal more effective than the current AU. I also feel bemused by the continuing story of Turkey trying to join the European union, given its historical position in the Arab lands (and its own internal friction between secularism and Islam). To me, it would make a lot more sense, politically and geographically, for them to work with, and try to unify, the Arab lands, and then try to act as a mediator between them and the EU, but there you go - politics (especially international) frequently seems composed of strangely inexplicable positions driven by some obscure historical fact. BTW, I wasn't trying to imply that historical conflict lines are immutable, so much as making the point that almost none of the present day conflicts is at all new. I would love to be able to support *a* New World Order of peace and international government, were it not for the fact that everything you hear about "the" NWO suggests a rule closer to an intolerant militarism than an inclusive peacefulness. And I certainly don't think that Britain is anywhere near the vanguard of enlightened internationalism - just the opposite. There's far too much frustrated imperialism in the British leadership, and little if any enlightenment in any of its pronouncements. Whether Israeli Arabs share the same legal status and freedoms as Israeli Jews is something of a moot point, to put it maximally kindly. Since the inception of Israel there has been tension within the double definition of the state as, first, democratic and second, Jewish, which has led to much of their law, not least land ownership law, being significantly asymmetric. For all the fine egalitarianism found in Israel's Proclamation of Independence, there are plenty of laws, on citizenship, land ownership and other fundamental matters which remain heavily biased in favour of Jewish citizens in a way not found in, say, our own "Christian" country in favour of Christians. Might not the growth of swivel-eyed "Muslim fundamentalism" be largely a response to the appearance in their midst of a band of swivel-eyed Zionist fundamentalists? (Egged on by the no less swivel-eyed Christian fundamentalists in the US, for their own bizarre apocalyptic ends?) Surely, too, there's a valid distinction to be drawn between a (Jewish/Christian/Muslim) "nation" and a (Jewish/Christian/Muslim) "homeland". Let's face it, if there is one true Christian homeland, it is one and the same as the Jewish "homeland" and the Muslim "homeland", since all three "Abrahamic" faiths derive from the same roots. Okay, Israel wasn’t created based on the elimination of everyone else - but that was because they'd already started buying up land and chucking the Arabs out - the elimination was already going quite nicely. (And I think I've already mentioned my own sentiments about so very, very much of British (/English) history. ) Poor old Abraham must have been rotating uncomfortably in his grave for centuries at the atrocities carried out by his namesake religions, often, if not exclusively, against each other. Is a Shetlander's love of Shetland - or the littlest Englander's of England - based merely upon whether or not it is part of an "officially approved" country? Or is it a warm attachment to the place, the "feel" of day-to-day life, the pleasant feeling that your parents and grandparents probably felt a lot of the same sort of love for a lot of the same sort of things? The Palestinians who have been so summarily dispossessed of their land and living would surely feel very similarly about their land. As far as I'm concerned, the way Britain got out smartish when the Zionist extremists started taking too much of a toll on us was shameful. We should have dealt with the extremists then, but absolutely failed to. I'm under no illusions that our own peaceful existence is not a rare luxury in history. Only recently, I was chatting with a friend about the fact that we (in our 50s/60s) are the first generation of Brits for a long time who haven't been conscripted to fight this or that war, and wondering whether it might be the resultant lack of self discipline over the last two or three generations which has given us some of the more depressing aspects of modern society. (Conclusion: Very likely.) It is, surely, the attainment of such peace which results in us having the leisure to sit at our boxes of tricks discussing the sorry goings on elsewhere, enjoying the pleasures of setting the world to rights without having to fight for our survival. Of course I would expect my government to do something about people who wanted to blow us up for whatever reason - as, of course, they do, wrongheaded as I find a lot of their actions. However, on finding that some of our own dear fundamentalists come from, say, Yorkshire, the gov't doesn't find it necessary to reduce Yorkshire to a pile of stones as Israel does to Gaza (etc.) ... "Israel doesn’t control the Gaza Strip"? What??? So who is it, then, keeping the place down to mediaeval standards with their iron control over its borders impeding aid, supplies and everyday movement of the suffering inhabitants? Oh, dear Gibber ... (sound of tearing hair) ... oh, yes, they do. Oh, yes, they do. In spades ... no, make that no trumps. I'm sorry if I have appeared only to be paying "lip service" to denouncing Britain's imperial past when I am perfectly serious about it, or saving my "real vitriol" for Israel as though I found it uniquely - rather than generically - vile. No. My aging hippie instincts are still that the root cause of most of these problems is the ease with which the average human being can be persuaded to denigrate, attack, kill anyone perceived - usually not even by the individual, but by someone with "authority" - to be of a different race, religion or whatever, allied to the ever-present stream of hate-filled people ready to do the persuading. I scale my condemnation of the parties in any conflict according to the relative counts of the dead - not the very best or most scientific measure, maybe, but it serves well enough as an indication of the warring parties' relative inhumanity. On that basis, most of Israeli history - going back to the birth of Zionism - earns them my disapproval in, as I mentioned above, about a ten-to-one ratio. I agree that the founding ideals of Zionism as presented contain much that is admirable, but there's a very uncomfortable and very obvious dichotomy between the pacific ideal and the ever-violent reality. Do I "approve" of targeted assassinations? I don't "approve" of assassination or death-dealing generally, but count the bodies that way, count the bodies they've arranged over the last week or so and work out which represents the more effective solution and minimises "colateral damage" (or "slaughter of civilians", if we may use a less euphemistic phrase). And it's not as if Israel hasn't considerable expertise in that sphere. If I thought that there was any possibility of its happening, I'd say that the perfect solution would involve the re-introduction of the peaceful aspects of early Zionism and the re-integration of all the residents of the area, but realistically the swivel-eyed ones aren't going to let that happen. Re. accusing EM of equating Zionism with Nazism ... 1941, wasn't it, when the Stern gang were planning a Jewish state “on a nationalist and totalitarian basis, which will establish relations with the German Reich†and protect German interests in the Middle East? What lovely people. As my Mum used to say, "you can tell a man's character from the company he keeps". And it's these loonies, not the relaxed and agreeable Jew in the street, who run the Israeli show now. And now we have some of the lads in Lebanon putting in their two penn'orth of big bangs and instant death. It makes you despair. Okay, guys, we know you hate 'em, but you really aren't helping anyone. An archaeological friend reckons that humanity's first error was the invention of the city, for which read, the state. When you look at the torrent of blood which has been shed over the ages for no more than "control" or "ownership" of land, it's hard to disagree. When you add the trivial ease which modern technology brings to that vile business, and the fervour with which "national borders" must be maintained, it's hard even to feel any optimism for the human species. Gibber, I'd cheerfully buy you a drink and settle down for a good wrangle if we were in the same bar, but I still think you're arguing completely the wrong side.

A couple of observations from someone who's been using a soldering iron almost longer than a knife and fork: Whenever a problem appears following a bang on or near the case, it's a tenner to a penny that it's being caused by an intermittent connection momentarily making or breaking a circuit somewhere inside, or where a cable plugs in. Given the speed of a modern PC, even a one millisecond glitch might corrupt several million instructions or bytes of data, so a repeatable problem almost seems like a Godsend, given that almost anything is possible. Traditionally, a dodgy connection would have been a "scratchy" switch or connector, but things have got more complicated since our overlords decreed that consumer electronics may use only lead-free solder. Proper "60/40" tin/lead solder works, and works well. The new stuff is a nightmare. It doesn't "wet" the surfaces as well as leaded solder, so that even a joint which looks OK may be duff. (And, in fact, even a good joint looks "dry" by traditional soldering standards, which doesn't help.) If it does make a good joint initially, it is nevertheless prone to "unmake" it at some arbitrary point afterwards. And as if that wasn't enough, when you leave near-pure tin for a few years, it grows tiny "whiskers" which can short across to the next joint - probably blowing something up, and also vaporising the whisker so as to make diagnosos impossible - for more detail, google on "tin whiskers" (with or without quotes). Everything (electronic) you buy is now made using this stuff. Expect strange intermittent faults and inexplicable failures to become the norm. That's the bad news. The good news is that your kids can now eat their Playstations without getting lead poisoning. This is called "progress".