Off to the USA for a week or so of holiday and visiting.

See you all online when I get back.

By the rivers of Bbylon - there we sat and also wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows within we hung our lyres. For there our captors requested words of song from us, with lyres joyous, 'Sing for from Zion's song!" How can we sing the song of G-d upon the alien's soil" If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my toung adhere to my palate if I fail recall you, if I fail to elevate Jerusalem above my foremost joy. Remember, G-d, for the offspring of Edom, the day of Jerusalem - for those who say 'Destroy! Destroy! to its very foundation.' O violated daughter of Babylon -- praseworthy is he who repays you in accordance with the manner that you treated us. Praseworthy is he who will clutch and dash your infants against the rock.

I'm having a strange time, I posted something to my other blog that did not have the result that I wanted. I have been acused of being against peace and being a rasist because I hate Hamas et al. I wouldn't care about this per se but for the fact it was 2 very old friends who I had this fight with.

The problem is as I see it that all the so called peace plans for Israel to be acceptable to the Arabs involve Israel comitting national suicide. I find any plan that consists of "Israel moves a huge number of jews out of their houses, and the arabs promise to not hurt us again" to be unaceptable.

I don't really have anything more to say on it.

L'Shana Tova... May you be inscribed in the book of life for a good year.

And there is a Jewish tradition of opening the new year (now a few days old) with a clean slate, so if I have offended anyone here in the last year I would ask you to forgive me for it.

Well Its offical on monday I asked Devora to marry me. She said yes. So we will be getting married on August 1 in New York. (date subject to change) THe two of us along with her 2 girls will be living on the same Yishuv (Settlement) that she lives on now.

I've not been around much so I thought I would give an update to my friends here on slashdot. First of all You can now find me on Live Journal.

Major news from my life:

1) I found a great woman, looks very promissing.

2) I moved I'm still in the Katamon section of Jerusalem but a few blocks over. Nice place, good room mate. The Landlords are crazy Chabadniks. And the bus service is not as good as at the old place.

3) SCA Israel is going quite well (YEA)!

4) I managed to get my ID card when the Ministry of the Interior opened on Tuesday. And my Benifits from the Min of Immigrant absorbtion on wed.

5) I will be starting Uplan Etzion to learn hebrew in Jan.

I'm starting to work as a free lance perl programer. If anyone needs a perl guru, or the like please let me know. Or if anyone has any tips on good places to look for jobs online etc that would be great too.

Oh if you need someone for midnight to 8:00 am I can do that too, if you don't mind the fact that I would be remote. I am 7-10 hours ahead of most of the USA so it is no problem. I charge very reasonable rates.

My cat Tigger ran away a month ago, and I felt like I had lost my best friend. I got him as a small kitten, and have had him for about 5 years. He has lived with me in at least 5 different appartments and even came from the USA to Israel with me. After a month I had more or less given up hope of finding him. But thank G-d, my flat mate found him walking home from morning minyan today.

He is much thinner, (he was fat before) and lost a little fur on his sholders. And well kind of needs a bath. But he appears to be in good shape and is very happy to be home. I need to go to the pet store, he did not have a collar when he got out, I'm going to fix that now.

I have an iBook and I was wondering if anyone knows of a linux version that I can put on a CD and run from time to time that way on my iBook.

Thanks

I've been attacked by the Slashdot idiot squad. After all Saddam was a nice dictator and GW Bush is the source of all evil in the world.

Oh and for the record, I'm 30, live in Jerusalem and studied physics.

Bashar Assad is probably realizing he is up shit creak about
now. Lets be honest dictators are out of fashion these days, and
those that train terrorists even more so. It is common knowledge that
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, Hizballah et al are based in Syria
and Syrian-occupied Lebanon, and funding is channeled threw Syria
from Iran to these groups.

For those of you not used to the mid-east you have to understand that
this area is not very big, its maybe 300km from Damascus to
Jerusalem, and maybe 50 from the Golan to Damascus. In other words
minutes in a modern fighter jet. Beirut is not much farther, maybe 60
km from the border.

A military conflict between Israel and Syria probably will not
happen, unless Israel wants it to. Syria will not start a war with
Israel for one good reason. They will loose. in the 1980's the
Israeli and Syrian air forced fought over Lebanon, the result 79
top of the line Syrian MiG's reduced to litter on the floors of the
Beka valley. In those dog fights 1 Israeli jet was hit by a SAM.

In addition Syria can't help but notice the US forces in Turkey and
Iraq. As well as US naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Gulf.

The world seems to be urging us (Israel) to respect international
law. Which seems odd, International law seems to be quite firm on the
fact that nations have a right and a duty to protect
themselves. Israel is in a war for its very existence, and has been
since we were a country. Our enemies have never been shy about their
goal of driving us into the sea. So far the only thing that has
stopped them from doing this is the fact that our army is better then
their army. I firmly believe that if they thought they could get away
with it Syrian tanks would be crossing the border to attack us, like
they did 30 years ago. And I don't think the world would do much to
stop it.

Thankfully our army is stronger then theirs.

I don't have much time, as Yom Kippor starts soon, but our air force has responeded to yesterday's bomb in Haifa. The Israeli air force has destroyed a Islamic Jihad training base in Syria.

Fast starts in just over an hour. I will write more tomrow night.

Another day another bomb in Israel. After Shabbat ended and I logged onto my computer I saw the news, 20 dead in a resturant in Haifa. It may be more, who knows. The great Irony is that the resturant was owned by Arabs, who were probably decent folks just trying to make a living. But Hamas and the other murderers don't care, they just want to kill and to maim and to inspire fear. 3 of the dead may be children.

In Gaza they are probably dancing in the streat now. Dead Jews is a cause for celibration there, ofcourse they danced on 9/11 too, dead Americans are almost as good.

The war on terror is not a war like World War II, Like WWII it is a battle of good and evil, and like WWII only one side will still be standing when it is over. The West or radical Islam only one will walk out of this one alive. Unlike World War 2 this is not a stand up battle of armies.

Twice before Islam has tried to take over Europe, in 711 the armies of Islam crossed into spain and quickly took control, and were only prevented from the conquest of Europe by the army of Charles Martel who defeated them at the battle of Pointers in 732 ce. In the 16th century the Ottoman empire was at the doors of Viena when they were stopped.

This time they are trying to do it differently. Muslims are already the largest minority in many parts of Europe. Many of them are young, disafected and radical. How long until they start trying to elect an Islamist goverment in Holland or France? Or until some form of Islamist revolt breaks out into open warfare on the streats of Paris or Amsterdam?

More later, I am off to brave Jerusalem's busses for a date.

L'Shana Tova

To all my friends (and everyone else here) i would like to wish you a L'Shana Tovah, Happy New Year, Rush Hashana 5764.

I will be offline from now to sunday night.

Jerusalem is rather large city. We have about 600,000 people here but it seems like a very small town. It seems that everywhere I go I seem to run into people I know. And I've only been here a month. I was leaving the Kotel (western wall) last night and as i was leaving on the number #1 I saw a friend out the window. I was litterally in the middle of saying how often I run into people I know when I saw her. The only problem was the bus was pulling out so I didn't have time to get her contact info.