Stealing from the honey pot

So, in face of Apple's wildly succesful iPod, Microsoft, as always trying to get a piece of action anywere there is money, ditched it's old strategy of developing software for an "ecosystem" of 3rd party devices, and built one itself. The device is called Zune, has nice touches, but is generally infirior to similarly priced iPods. What's really interesting though is that Microsoft stroke a deal with Universal, to distribute their music (much like Apple) and agreed to pay Universal royalties on each Zune player sold. Not just on each song (which is a given) but on each device. Universal's reasoning? Quoting Times,

"it is only fair to receive payment on devices that may be repositories for stolen music".

Excuse me?! First, this assumes that any customer is a pirate. Nicely done, Universal and Microsoft. Second, if I am not pirating, should I get a refund? Third, and most critical, what about my personal computer? My cellphone? They all may serve as repositories for stolen music. Should music industry get to tax me for owning a computer? What about the movie industry? The software industry (hello Microsoft)? Ah, my bad. That last one we already paying, every time we buy a new computer and shell out cash for copy of Windows we already have at home or don't need.

Finally, there is a good idea I want to give Universal. People also have memory to reposit stolen music in, and lips to reproduce it. In the spirit of things, you should be taxing our heads.

War of Intellects

As is already known, Kerry made his first self-described joke compaigning for Democrats:

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Mr. Kerry should know better. In his freshmen year in Yale he got four (4) D grades out of 10 curses, but look at him now, a US senator getting to joke about how dum Bush is. Incidentally, the "dum" G.W.Bush, also Yale graduate, had a higher GPA.

In the name of full disclosure

Joking at guest's expense

A creepy and revealing glimpse into Mr. Putin's psycho was allowed by his remark by the end of press conference with Israel's prime minister visiting Moscow, Ehud Olmert. Remark referred to involvement of Israeli president in several sex scandals. Toned down English translation you are likely to see (quoting The Jerusalem Post) is:

'He surprised us,' Putin said of Katsav in words picked up by a microphone before the sound was shut off.
Then, according to one official who heard the rest of the exchange, Putin said: 'We didn't know he could deal with 10 women.' To which Olmert reportedly replied, 'I wouldn't be jealous of him.'"

Wondering why Olmert thought Puting was jealous? Ministry of offence brings you an authentic, rather then "politically correct" translation. Read and admire both the difference and the substance:

"Say 'hi' to your president! [He] turned out to be a very mighty man. Raped ten women! I never expected of him! We are all jealous of him!".

What does this say about Putin? That he is in a habit of stepping on honor of his guests? That he would like to rape ten women? This cynical assault, masquerading as a supportive joke, is the true face of today's Kremlin. Remember it. We will soon see it again.

Silence of the Infidels

I really like reading articles by Yashiko Sagamori. They are always sharp, uncompromising, and revealing. This time I want to share two observations she made in "Silence of the Sheep", both in the same paragraph:

What genius will be able to explain to us that the term Islamofascism is absurd because Islam itself, in its entirety, is a form of fascism? Islam is the ideology of jihad. Take jihad out of Islam and all that's left will be an elaborate set of absolutely meaningless rituals. And when someone tells you that the word jihad means the internal strife of the faithful for spiritual perfection rather than genocide waged by evil savages against the rest of humanity, keep in mind that the title of the world famous classical work on humanism that enjoys ever increasing popularity among the Muslims, Meine Kampf, translates into Arabic as My Jihad.

So, what about my Muslim friends you wonder? Probably following a recent suggestion by some professor in a university in Cairo, or maybe a calling of similar sorts, they cherry-pick what they want to follow from their religion and ignore the rest. What keeps them floating are justifications like "the parts about murdering non-Muslims were written in different times".

To me, this is similar to praising a cook book written by Hannibal Lector. "It is not all bad" they say. "Some recipes are outstanding."

Hello? Yes, this is the Bomb speaking.

Remember that guy who was found with a car full of cell phones, not so long ago, in US? Remember the terror attack in Bangladesh, when 350 bombs exploded at the same time? Here is the thing. To do that terror attack Al-Kaeda used 350 cell phones, with skype with different accounts installed on each. All it took to activate all bombs was give them all a call. Since this is VOIP, they can do it in many counties at the same time, too, and still remain untraceable. And to top it all, the "invention" of this thing was subsidized by Al Zarkauwi. The one US recently killed in their "unjust" war in Iraq.

The True victory...

...of Hezbollah in the recent war is that the number of people wanting to leave Israel for good has grown tremendously. Number of inquires with Canadian embassy alone has grown 5-fold. It's not just the new immigrants, but people that made aliya 10 - 15 years ago. If anything can dismantle the country, this is it. On personal level I am very confused about the situation. After all, I also made aliya 16 years ago, and now I live in Miami. What right do I have to blame them? And so I do not. There are many reasons to leave, enough to circle the globe 3 times. And only one reason to stay. When Israel is gone, we shall never go home again. I hope I will be coming back.

This is how it's done

If you read this blog you know I am not against Bush. But sometimes this fella just drops me on the floor. This time it is a 6-year old phrase:

I am mindful of the difference between the executive branch and the legislative branch. I assured all four of these leaders that I know the difference, and that difference is they pass the laws and I execute them.

--George w. Bush

Washington, DC
12/20/2000

Not that mistake again!

In his new speech Bibi said that "unilateral disengagement" is "bad" and "bilateral" is "good". Now, unilateral is sure not a solution, we got Gaza and Lebanon after that, but bilateral is even worse. It's back to the times of Oslo and Arafat, only without Arafat (thank God) and not in Oslo. We all know how that ended too.

So, what's the solution? Here are some words of wisdom from the Ministry of Offence. Step back from semantics and realize: mortal enemies are still mortal, on our side of the border and on theirs. Mortal enemies, wherever they are, means mortal danger. And mortal danger is always first on the priority lists. There is but one choice then. Crash the enemy first, disengage later.

Pallywood: all you never wanted to know

In this hard to believe footage about PA "journalism" you will witness staged battles, healthy people playing dead and wounded, and even fake baby delivery.

Next time it will be the air force

Let me make another grim prophecy here... When I first heard about Israeli tank being hit in Lebanon I tried to find out if it was Magah, or Merkava. See, if it was Magah everything is self explanatory: the tank is old and not very protected. However, Merkava is a very well protected vehicle, one of the best in the world. To my surprise it turned out to be Merkava. Since than many tanks have been hit in Lebanon, and we already know the reason: Hezbollah is using very advanced Russian anti-tank rocket launchers Vampire. Where do all those Vampires come from? They are produced by a Russian firm "Bazalt" and are delivered via Syria. Moreover, all the famous "Iranian" rockets fired at Israeli cities are also either produced or engineered in Russia: Fajr-3 is Russian Uragan, Fajr-5 is Russian Smerch, Zeizal-2 is Russian Luna-M.

And now to the prediction. Apparently, Russian army is replacing it's older but still very potent anti-aircraft rocket systems C-300. One of those took down a passenger plain with a bunch of Israelies over the Black Sea some years ago (that one was Ukrainian C-300). The new systems coming in are C-400, but it is the C-300 that worry me. Russian army includes 35 regiments (!) of those little toys on big tracks, and they are all going to be replaced in a process that starts now. Where will the C-300s go? I won't be surprised if in the next war IAF will start suffering losses from ground fire, just like today Merkava do.

Introducing: Zionist Death Snipers

IDF has called upon snipers that made aliya from Russia and fought the Chechen and Afghan wars. For those who do no know, war in Chechnia, like any war in that region by far outstrips in it's brutality daily encounters with Palestinian terrorists by IDF soldiers. Same true about war in Afghanistan. To say in addition that those people are snipers immediately makes them the military elite in any army in the world.

If IDF lets them fight, the results will be substantial. It is a shame however they are only being called upon now, many weeks after the fighting started. Their presence in the battlefield could have saved many lives. Even worse is the fact that they are no longer used in confrontations with Palestinian terrorists, even though there was a pilot period during which they were deployed. Such disregard for highly motivated, highly professional force in a time of dire need shows poor judgment and lack of leadership skills on part of the army top officers. Inexcusable for an officer, especially in a time of war.

It would be wise to make a better use of those people in the future. I would suggest to use them as intructors in sniper courses. But I doubt anybody is listening.

Why Lebanese war can be neither won nor lost

Hezbolah was organized in 1982 from a coalition of Lebanese Shia clericals, each with his own sphere of influence. Sheih Muhamad Husein Fadula, the principal founder, from the very beginning made a tight relationship with Iran, and, to a lesser degree with Syria the foundation of Hezbolah's prosperity and continuous support. The support hurried up to arrive: financial, military and political – for the acceptable price of Hezbolah leadership answering to the Iranian ayatollahs. It is important to understand that Hezbolah was not created “because of” but rather “for the purpose of”. The situation that permitted creation of Hezbolah was the handiwork of Yasser Arafat that started in Lebanon civil war and gave Syria a reason to "liberate" Lebanon, while in effect occupying it. The reason behind creation of Hezbolah became it's hidden purpose of existence: to establish in Lebanon an Islamic republic answering to Iran. The official goal, designed to garner wide public support and divert attention from it's true intentions (which wouldn't make Lebanese non-Muslims particularly happy) was declared as "resistance to Israeli occupation". “Occupation” can of course mean different things, depending on what is assumed to be occupied. After Israel left south Lebanon in 2000 Hezbolah started to prepare for future confrontation, while keeping the border on low burner with occasional rockets into civilian population. To justify this new status quo an originally Syrian region called the "Shebaa farms" ("mount Dov" on Israeli maps) was declared the yet to be liberated Lebanese territory. As of today, driving Israel out of Lebanon is but the last step on the road to the true goal of the organization: extending the reach of the Iranian regime to the shores of the Mediterranean sea. Meanwhile confrontation with Israel serves Iran well on it's way to the bigger prize. A prize which can in turn serve Iran as a perfect starting point to deliver on Ahmadi-Nejad's promise: the end of what he likes to call "Zionist regime" – Israel.

It is obvious that in the current war in Lebanon Hezbolah will not be destroyed. As to victory, both Israel and Hezbolah are likely to claim it in the end, and both are likely to be wrong. Hezbolah already lost much in men, weapons, real estate e.t.c.. They have also already used up most of their “surprises” prepared for many years, most important of which is the illusion of many in Israel that Hezbolah no longer poses a serious threat. The price of failure of Israeli intelligence with respect to secret bunkers in south Lebanon, secret weapon smuggling routs, Chinese and Russian anti-ship and anti-tank missiles is high but is already paid up. Moreover, this war caused Israeli population and Knesset unite to an unprecedented degree – a very positive development in light of recent rim in the society. On it's part, Israel is not going to gain anything worth the loses. International force, if it enters south Lebanon, is likely to be as useless as the UNIFIL soldiers are today. Hezbolah will stay around in civilian clothes. The threat of missiles will remain as potent as ever: longer range rockets can easily hit Israeli cities even from beyond Litany river, and they regularly will. The kidnapped soldiers will not be returned, forcing Israel to engage in secret negotiations for their return – and for a big price. Most importantly, Hezbolah, the underdog, will have a claim at not being broken by the strongest army in the middle east. The perception of IDF and IAF strength, being even more important then their actual strength in keeping Israel's enemies from charging the borders today, will be damaged. That perception is one hell of a thing to build up, and very easy to loose. Finally, the Lebanon is going to enjoy wide international financial support in rebuilding. Israel will stand alone in rebuilding it's wounded northern cities.

The unlimited resources at Hezbolah's disposal, men and money (including Iran's oil money and Hezbolah's money making machine in South Africa, South America, Lebanon, e.t.c) will not be easily depleted. We must conclude then that destruction of Hezbolah, executed as a separate task, removed from the realities of the Bigger Picture is not only impossible, but more importantly absolutely irrelevant. Such forces such as Syrian Bashar Assad, Iranian Ayatollahs, Al-Kaeda, Hizbalah, and many many others can not be defeated unless we recognize them as part of the same machine. Ignorance of this fact is the main cause of USA's inability to stabilize Afghanistan or Iraq, Israel's failure with Hezbolah in Lebanon, and Fatah and Hamas in Israel itself, or Egypt's failure with Al-Kaeda in Sinai peninsula, and many others. Achieving success in just one of those places is similar to fencing out portion of an ocean. Until the world leaders start thinking big instead of only in terms of their own keep, something that requires a great deal of honesty and courage, the wars will continue, drawing us into an ever bleaker future. There can be no half-hearted victory.

Hezbollah and it's new-found friends

I have been censored here: http://pvanhoof.be/blog/ and it's been an honor. The reasons given: I am "writing six-page opinions", "post 3 comments in a row" (it was a comment and 1 short clarification) and "starting a fight". I am really surprised and disgusted by the behavior of the blog owner, especially given the fact that he is considering himself a proponent of freedom. Apparently, not as in "speech".

The answer was in response to a commenter named "raphael" who claimed things like "Hezbollah cannot be defeated", "Israel is killing way too many civilians" and "talks are the only way to peace".

...

Israel is only targeting military-purpose constructions (infrustructure, weapons, e.t.c). Civilians die because Hezbollah - just like Hamas and Fatah before them - is using civilian population as a human shield. Have you ever heard of multi-apartment buildings in which the entire upper floor is dedicated to a missile launching stations? If people choose to live in those buildings it means that they approve of Hezbollah actions, and people that don't evacuate the buildings even after all this started cannot be even called civilians because they put themselves in harms way on purpose. In the same way Hezbollah are keeping their weapon stockpiles inside civilian houses, in the basements or bunkers beneath. Same story. Just recently I read on a blog of some journalist that stays in Beirut in a hotel full of journalists how one morning he woke up and discovered a rocket launcher in the hotel's parking lot. Interesting, isn't it? Now if Israel chooses to destroy it, bunch of journalists will start reporting "the atrocities they witnessed". And if Israel doesn't, well then, they can start launching rockets at Haifa. I am also interested to know where is Beirut's law enforcement in all of this. Don't you think they should be responsible for not having a frackin' rocket launcher in the middle of the city?! Apparently not. Finally, I will not be surprised if not all the civilians reported as killed are in fact, ahem, civilians. Have you noticed any reports about Hezbollah-proper casualties? One here, two there. After all this time? I don't think so. Reported numbers are definitely funny, and there is no way to verify them.

Now to possibility of defeating Hezbollah. War is an unpredictable thing. You cannot say "we can't win" because nobody can. You try to depict Hezbollah as some sort of Borg or Terminator III, and in the same breath of air say "so lets let them advance their cube of death on earth because there is nothing we can do. Instead, let's negotiate with Borg about how they are not going to assimilate us". Not going to happen. Hezbollah is created to fight and destroy (with help from other countries I suppose) the state of Israel. Not drive it out of Lebanon (Israel been out for 6 years now). There is nothing to talk with them about. Finally, I hope you are not suggesting that the entire Lebanese population supports Hezbollah, or even have inclination to. Besides, nobody is trying to kill all their supporters, just the Hezbollah proper. So, enough with the exaggerations.

Also funny you should mention Syria, since they are not even the first problem. The problem is that Israel is fighting Iranian revolutionary guard in Lebanon and gets hit by Iranian rockets. That same Iran who's president calls for destruction of Israel on every occasion. Do you want Israel to negotiate with his people maybe? I am sure any first bullet point in an agreeable document will be "... and the Zionist entity is no more".

Outsourcing myself

A post on a different blog, by your's truly. Go and read. I am as facinating as always :)

Honey... Am I Home?

Recently a fellow blogger Irina talked about her experiences of visiting Israel. Even though it is her first visit she talks about amazing feeling of returning home, one that cannot be matched by any other place in the world, for there can only be one home. I was surprised to hear this because I myself always had the same, very unambiguous feeling about Israel, but always though it was just my imagination or a consequence of growing up in Israel. Of course, I had this feeling even when I just came to live there, so I guess you caught me. Now not only I hear the same sentiment from someone else (not for the first time too) but turns out many readers of Irina's blog had the exact same feeling. I am amazed. What's going on here? Does it works the same way for all Jews? Only Jews? What is the reason? Genetic memory? Some sort of collective magnetic field created by the people who live there? I know that whenever I am in a large Jewish crowd, even in United States, I get a glimpse of that feeling again.

Something is going on, but that is not the subject of this post. Instead I want to pose a simple question to all the people who feel the same way, and in particular to Irina's readers since they already expressed their opinion, and of course to myself. If you are so in awe of the land, if it is such a great experience to even visit there for a short while, let alone for a long while... What are you all doing in diaspora? Seriously, what? Is it money? Is it comfort? Is it security? Is it "I will get there eventually, just give me 2.. no 10... no 20 years" ? If it is Home, how can you live away from it? Who are you kidding? Remember, today you can go ahead and feel all you want at home in Israel for one reason only: some people are already living there, and making it feel home for you. But if they fail, if they fail because so many of us chose to be guests in our own home, we will loose it. This time maybe forever.

Who's Prime-Minister is this?

Apperently, Ehud Olmert considers "zionism" a bad word, and forgets which side he should be negotiating for:

"There are no zionist considerations behind this, as you claim. On my part this is a fair, real desire to give a lot and recieve very little in return"*

*note: this is a translation from russian which is a translation from english. I couldn't find the english original.

Israelis want disengagement / consolidation?

Latest poll done by Haaretz-dialoge shows that the absolute majority is against the consolidation plan. Namely, 56% are against and only 37% are in favor. Yes, statistics are lies, and dynamics change. But it is a known fact that in Israel poll results are biased in direction of the left and lately of Kadima and disengagement. Mr. Shimon Peres is a good example of this effect: he always wins all the polls and always looses all the elections. So I would say that the conclusion that can be made from this poll is that as of today at least 56% and at most 37% are against and in favor respectively. This, my dear readers, is called "a crushing defeat".

Theory of modular politics

Software world and politics have many parallels, but one in particular is of great educational capacity. In software there is a concept of platform, and of a plug-in. For example, any operating system, like Windows or Linux, is a platform. So is Internet. Other programs can be considered platforms in a more narrow sense - for example Photoshop is image manipulation platform. Biology, surprisingly, also works the same way. In every tissue there are so called HK (house keeping) genes, and TS (tissue specific) genes. HKs are a platform, and TS are modules specific for every tissue (or several). What makes Photoshop or HK genes a platform are two things:

1. Breadth of coverage: they provide all the necessary basics for performing set of "house keeping" tasks. For example, operating system talks to hardware, manages memory, communication over network, security, e.t.c.

2. Depth extensibility: they allow easy plugging of additional components that are designed to help perform very specific tasks. In operating systems world this means applications, in photoshop - special effects plug-ins.

This second part, and it's design, are very important. Every user wants something different from the system, and those interests overlap in some parts, and don't overlap in others. If one was to take the union (in Venn diagram sense) of those interests and try to integrate them all into a platform it would quickly become apparent that the system is capable of much more then any single user needs. This comes at a price: the system becomes much more difficult to manage and use. Another reason this is important is that no single group can hope to unite everyone to work on the same project - the platform, because people's priorities and agendas are too different, and so we naturally tend to modularize our efforts.

This is how all this relates to politics. A ruling party can be looked upon as a platform. It provides the breadth coverage of all basic ideas of how to manage a state. In dictatorial regimes the ruling party is also integrated with all it's modules. In a democracy there is a possibility of appearance of modularization: smaller parties that defend specific agendas but only marginally step on each other's turf. Those parties form the ecosystem of the platform: the ruling party. If two small parties try to address similar problems in dramatically different ways they are usually flocking to different platforms. This ecosystem is absolutely essential and without it the platform becomes irrelevant. Party that alienates it's ecosystem by attempting to build modular functionality into it's own core is going to loose on two fronts: it will become harder to manage, will be teared by internal conflicts, and will confuse voters as to what the agenda is, loosing those who do not support the new agenda in it's entirety. But most importantly the alienated ecosystem will go to a different platform, or unite around brand new one, taking all the alienated voters with them. In essence, attempt to integrate ecosystem makes the platform less, not more attractive for voters.

This is a crucial point, contradicting the idea that ruling party needs to be as big as possible and have a say on every issue. The opposite is true: the best platform is party that represents the smallest common denominator of a given cluster of ideas.

Lets take a look at a recent example in Israeli politics. In previous elections Shinui positioned themselves as a cross-platform modular party. The reason for the rise of Shinui was specificity and unambiguousness of their agenda. One of the reasons for their subsequent downfall was their ambition to become a platform party while still carrying most of the properties of a module. The voters were confused and left.

There are two platforms in Israel: Avoda and Likud. Each has an ecosystem of parties that support them. Compared to Likud, Avoda has a small ecosystem because they keep cannibalizing it, integrating every successful party that appears on horizon into Avoda itself. Meretz, the lone holdout, is the only hope for Avoda to ever come to power. If they ever integrate Meretz into Avoda it will be the end of both parties. In fact, the perceived weakness of the right wing camp, multiplicity of parties, is also their biggest advantage - unrecognized and unleveraged.

Kadima, the new platform in town, suffers from near absolute absence of ecosystem. Their only true ally is Gil party, but Gil is a fashion party, and like any fashion will soon go away (that said, the reason for their rise is, again, narrow agenda). After beating every other party in the elections they got a chance to create their own ecosystem by stealing it from Avoda and Likud. But greed for power closed their minds to reason, and instead they did the unthinkable: they accepted another platform into their ecosystem. This is the equivalent of running Linux inside Windows, or, if you will, using house keeping genes for tissue specific tasks. Those misused genes will keep trying to step on the turf of house keeping, until eventually something will break because 2nd task is unmanaged and first uncoordinated. In other words, Avoda will try to act as the ruling party, eventually bringing the coalition down, and all the mismanaged ministries into stupor. It is, well, in their genes. The future of Kadima is bleak. They will not be able to form loyal ecosystem because there is nothing to form it around.

The optimal political system is one of competing platforms, each pestering their own ecosystem of satellite parties. The most important point here is that a platform party and module party have very different purpose and architecture. One can't just grow or shrink one into another. Winning platform will be the one with the best ecosystem. That means making a right decision about what not to include in the platform. It also means creating interfaces for coordination with modular parties: a plug-and-play architecture. Public statements like "we are delegating task X to a satellite party that is designed specifically for X and proves it has the public support in the elections" can go a long way. In fact, this opens the door for true technocratic governments where every party specializes in specific areas, and fights for specific ministries. For example, party with military expertise can fight for ministry of defense, and one filled with businessmen for the ministry of trade. In addition to cases mentioned above there are many examples how public claims for specific office bring a lot of popular vote: it happened with IBA when they claimed ministry of internal affairs (the famous "MVD pod nash control"), and recently with Lieberman who proclaimed he fights for ministry of internal security. Finally, such plug-and-play architecture (and it's fair and consistent use) can create a lot of confidence in a satellite parties that the platform is not going to monopolize them away, and hence grow the ecosystem to be very large, diverse, and competitive. This will in turn up the quality of the parties and give voters more flexible choice. Such a platform will inevitably carry the elections, essentially turning them into battle of ecosystems instead of battle of fat men with 5 funny arms.

Trends in Israeli news sources

There is a new service from google, called "Trends". It allows you to compare frequencies of searches for different things on the internet. So, I thought it would be an interesting idea to compare israeli online news media. Lets take a look:



Legend: Blue: haaretz, red: maariv, orange: a7 (I didn't pick it, I promise!), green: jerusalem post, violet: ynet.

Notice how the a7, the right wing portal of the seventh channel radio in israel, beats or on par with any other news source except the very popular ynet. However, if we take a look at region distribution we see that in israel itself a7 is merely a blip on a radar - not unread, but not a significant presence either. Conclusion: it's popularity comes from the overseas. Indeed, in several countries, like (surprise) France, Germany, Italy e.t.c it is much more popular then any other news source. In germany in particular it's popularity is overwhelming. One would think that since a7 has a russian version of their portal, and germany is filled with russian jews, that has to be the reason. However, google claims that the queries were made in german and dutch. How is a7 in german? Hm... can this be attributed to ambiguity of a7 query? I wouldn't rush to this conclusion, since google is very good at guessing what you mean (trust me, I know the algorithm, and saw the stats). The mystery however, remains.