The Rings on Zarqawi's Finger

1. Taking land in a war is illegal. 2. Israel should have been invaded and become part of an Arab state. 3. It is unacceptable for an Arab minority to live in a state with a Jewish majority. 4. It is acceptable for Jews to live in Europe or America. 5. The Arab refugee problem is a real tragedy and must be part of any solution to the Palestine conflict. 6. It is acceptable to talk about the Palestine conflict without mentioning the Jewish refugees from Arab countries. 7. Israel...

1. A Jewish state that develops faster and better than all neighbouring countries despite having fewer natural resources (other than Jews). 2. American successes. 3. Black African countries that speak English and embrace western culture instead of their traditional African cultures. 4. Modern Christianity, Judaism, capitalism. 5. Equality for men and women and between “races” (i.e. no laws protecting one or the other and no special treatment for minorities based on their genes). ...

Hardware configuration: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz (only one core used in the VM) 2 GB RAM (512 MB in VM) Software configuration: Apple Mac OS X 10.4.10 Parallels Desktop 3.0 Build 5160 Microsoft Windows XP 5.1.2600 "Version 2002" Service Pack 2 DirectX support in Parallels enabled This is obviously not a Stardock supported or recommended configuration, but I decided to try it anyway. Object Desktop works fine on Windows Vista on the same computer. The Windows XP VM is my gamin...

The Sandmonkey points to an interesting article about Vladimir Putin, one of the peace camp in 2003. Discussion of the article quickly turned into the usual Iraq war argument. But this time, I think, I finally got what is going on in liberals' minds. Read the comments. It seems like liberals really do reject the concept of personal responsibility. It is not just a right-wing claim about them and it is not something the left do to "help the poor", but it really is a concept they don't un...

Just a few points, perhaps they are all wrong. 1. The Quran refers to Canaan as the land G-d gave to the people of Israel, but the "Palestinians" insist that it be called by the name the Greek and Roman pagans gave to it. 2. The worst murderer of Muslims ever has been executed and the "Palestinians" mourn his death. 3. The King of Jordan, of Muhammed's family and of the traditional ruling family of the holy cities of Islam (until the Saudis violently took over), wants peace with the ...

I fear that there are two problems that Islam faces because both are widespread among Islam's supposed adherents. The one problem is a misunderstanding of where the battle is to be fought and against whom. But the bigger problem, from the perspective of non-Muslims, is something else. It is the pathetic ignorance displayed even by those who are wise enough to know where the battle must be fought. The infidels do not in fact kill thousands of Muslims. In Iraq Muslim terrorists kill...

I will over the next few weeks move my blog from here to my .Mac site. My Web design skills are such that I need iWeb to make a good site. I will still use this site for pointers and articles, but the main activity, I hope, will be on my new site. Link So far I have one blog entry. Everybody starts with one. UPDATE: Political articles will remain here.

"Always be prepared for everything. That is my motto. See, I even have a motto." -- Moshe A. Wilkinson

"Always be prepared for everything. That is my motto. See, I even have a motto." -- Moshe A. Wilkinson

1. Don't buy anything Scottish until you are sure that you have understood the supermarkets. 2. How to cross a road: check for busses, cross the road. If you fail to check for busses first, you will probably die. 3. The Luas is a local tram system in Dublin and it has sporadic electrical problems (which the company deny) and an erratic schedule (which the company don't know about). Deal with it. 4. You are friends with everyone in a pub and back on the street the same people won't kn...

One of the strangest discoveries I made in Israel was not the conflict between Israel and several terrorist groups that want to destroy it but the way that Israelis of all types live together. I have seen racism about which I wrote earlier. But I have also seen synagogues, churches, and mosques standing in the same city, and I have seen the religions live together in peace. I have seen Muslims and Jews interact in ways which are completely impossible in Europe. It is perhaps difficult t...

My personal situation has cleared up, I think; and I now have the time and energy to post pictures. Follow the link below for pictures from the Bahai Gardens in Haifa: http://homepage.mac.com/ajbrehm/Bahai/Bahai.html And below for pictures from Haifa from above, the university campus, and Haifa at night from above. It's totally worth it. http://homepage.mac.com/ajbrehm/Haifa/Haifa.html The missiles came in from the mountains opposite the bay, I think. Haifa is a beautiful ci...

I am now back in Jerusalem. The hotel I chose based on recommendations and their Web site is excellent. I can only recommend the Jerusalem Hotel (next to Damascus gate). This is in East-Jerusalem and my cab driver was surprisingly angry at me for wanting to go there. We argued for ten minutes about the address, in Hebrew, and I finally rang the hotel and asked them to give him directions. They told him exactly what I told him (he put them on speaker). He finally seemed to believe me....

I am now in Tel Aviv, in a hotel overlooking the beach. Tomorrow I will go back to Jerusalem. Haifa was good. The University of Haifa is, I think, a nice place to study. I wish I had known about that a few years ago. Things could have been very different. Not that they should have been. I was here in Israel to learn Hebrew, and I think I did quite well. Back in Dublin there are very few people with whom I can speak Hebrew, and it seems like I am also going back to the same job. I was th...