Monthly Archives: August 2007

For a summer camp and its island neighbors, a cooling of relations

August 31, 2007 By in Canada, Israel, Jewish issues Leave a comment

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GABRIOLA ISLAND, British Columbia – ‘Put some ruach [spirit] into it!’ a summer camp counselor barks, and seven little girls jump up and down chanting what has become Canada’s second national anthem: Reduce, Reuse, Re-cy-cle! Only 10-year-olds have enough energy to keep this going for close to 10 minutes.

‘You guys are going to dance your tachatim [behinds] off. I want to see the ruach through the roof!’

Reduce, Reuse, Re-cy-cle! The chant reverberates through old Douglas fir trees on Camp Miriam, a Habonim Dror Jewish summer camp in the forest, 48 kilometers (30 miles) west of Vancouver, on Gabriola Island on the banks of Clarke Bay, which juts into the Georgia Strait in the Pacific Ocean around British Columbia, Canada.

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Global Warming: Here comes the sun

August 31, 2007 By in Energy and oil dependency, Environmental issues, Global warming and climate change, Israel, Renewable energy, Science and Technology Leave a comment

Here comes the sun. Environment Ministry’s chief scientist: Global warming is already visible

The Environmental Protection Ministry’s chief scientist sounded the alarm this week when he said Israel had no coherent renewable energy program and no coordinated plans to tackle the ‘already visible effects’ of global climate change on the country.
Speaking Wednesday at a solar power conference at Ben- Gurion University’s National Solar Energy Center in Sde Boker, Dr. Yishayahu Bar-Or said that although Israel was a minor player in contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of global climate change, and especially global warming, were becoming tangible in the country and that Israel needed a coherent policy of renewable energy production to be included within a larger plan of dealing with the effects of global warming.
Yishayahu has been talking about Israel’s need to tackle climate change for several years.
This year, 2007, is expected to be the hottest ever, scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a report released last month.

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Spying on Mr. Video

August 31, 2007 By in Competitive intelligence, Espionage, Israel, Mossad, South Africa Leave a comment

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 When the Mr. Video conglomerate opened one of its shiny new stores around the corner from my parent’s homey video shop in the dusty South African mining town of Randfontein in the mid-’90s, I saw it as a declaration of war.
Mr. Video could afford to rent out their videos for less than we did because they could rely on a huge conglomerate safety net, international investors and marketing teams – everything a mom and pop video store simply could not have. It was never going to be a fair fight.

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Shabbat Kassam

August 31, 2007 By in Annapolis, Gaza, Iran, Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Sderot, Syria Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

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Fire chief David Sheetrit is not a fan of crossword puzzles.

He watches as visiting Tel Aviv firefighters pour over the Friday newspapers on Saturday. They brought them with them when they came to bolster Sderot’s fire station, which during ‘normal times’ boasts a total staff of three, Sheetrit and his two deputies. ‘Three across and five letters down: What is a Muslim religious leader called? Answer: Mufti.’ A Tel Aviv firefighter scribbles in the answer, and a short discussion on the Muslims of Gaza ensues.

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I need a survival drill

August 31, 2007 By in Israel, Israel Defense Forces, nuclear Tags: , Leave a comment

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The official motto of the IDF Engineering Corps’s Atomic, Biological and Chemical Unit is ‘Survive, and continue fighting.’ Its unofficial motto, the one most of its fighters learn in their first 10 minutes in the unit, is: ‘If they’re using us, everybody else is either hiding, underground or already dead.’
The official motto explains not only the function of the unit – to protect armor and infantry on a battlefield peppered with chemical or biological agents – but also the spirit in which the unit was established: absorb the worst the enemy can throw at you (in this case, unconventional weapons); fight off enemy troops by taking advantage of the destruction and the chaos; and provide a cleansed area for the regular troops to launch a counterattack.

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An open letter to passive smokers

August 31, 2007 By in Healthy Living, Lifestyle, Smoking Tags: , , 1 Comment

An open letter to passive smokers

I had my last cigarette on Wednesday, May 28 and by this writing I have not had another, I promise. Star of David, my heart, and hope to live until 120.
On that day I took part in the treatment offered by the Abrahamson Institute, which teamed up with the Carmel Forest Spa of the Isrotel chain and hosted several journalists, including myself, who wanted to quit smoking.
The deal was you get to the spa, which is quite an impressive place, nestled in the Carmel forest range, undergo 20 minutes of bio-energy ‘Reiki-like’ treatment, and are then allowed to use all the spa’s facilities until the next day.
Amir, one of the Abrahamson practitioners, sat me down and told me he was going to rip the addiction out of my ‘bio-energy sphere.’ I smiled, safe in the knowledge that this would never work, and that I would never have to tell anybody that I let someone tamper with my ‘bio-energy sphere,’ which is very close to my heart.

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Weekends, 2007 Style

August 31, 2007 By in Gadgets, Healthy Living, Lifestyle, Science and Technology Tags: , Leave a comment

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Weekends, 2007 Style

During the week, my time is taken over almost entirely by managing the devices and information I’m surrounded with at the office: e-mail, voice-mail, land-line and cellphone calls, PDA work, Internet, on-line newspapers, news alerts, faxes, news tickers on the desktop and TV, etc etc.
 
On weekends I used to be able to relax, put my feet up and recover from the stresses of the week – listen to music, maybe watch some TV, some VOD, DVDs, a little YouTube, iFilm, meet up with friends, communicate with far- away friends – you know, regular stuff like that. In the past, I would have plenty of weekend time to play sports, go to the beach or babysit my niece.
Now, as much as I enjoy playing with the latest gadgets, I find that, more and more, technology is invading my ‘off-line’ home-life, as well.
 

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Air Force Chief: Israel must prepare for space warfare

August 31, 2007 By in America, International Relations, Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Space Tags: , , Leave a comment

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IAF chief: Israel must prepare for warfare in space

Israel will be facing a possible threat to its vital space-based assets within the coming decade for which it has to start preparing immediately, Israel Air Force chief Maj.-Gen. Elazar Shkedy told the second Ilan Ramon Annual International Space Conference in Herzliya Wednesday.
His comments came in light of China’s destruction on January 11 of one of its own satellites, an act that has sparked concern among the world’s leading space powers that potential enemies may target their space-based assets in a version of Star Wars not heard of since the Reagan administration at the height of the Cold War.

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