=jplt10 Letters etc. to the JP etc. From 7 April '04 ================================================================== GOO-GOO 2U2 A search engine which devises a complicated algorithm that gives first place to a piece of junk ain't too smart. An algorithm that determines relative 'relavance' ought to ask: 'relevance to what?'. From an end-user perspective, the major Internet Search Engines look practically alike and are customer-unfriendly. None even distinguish commercial sites from data-bases. So the Internet, which should be a world-wide public library, has become a practically impenetrable maze of highways so filled with billboards that an honest user can barely glimpse the landscapes. ================================================================= [not to send; NO OK to print] Re: Peace Index: March 2004 -- "Threats of revenge don't make the majority blink twice" (HaAretz (English) 7 April '04 "According to an overwhelming majority of the Jewish Israeli interviewes, fears about Palestinian retribution for the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin have not affected their daily lives" New Item, HaAretz (English) 7 Apr '04 (Yaar & Hermann) I'm prepared to risk being killed for the historic privilege of living in the State of Israel; amd anyhow, my life, for all its bright spots, has been a bit dull and disappointing. But I'm darned if I want to walk around with a few nuts and bolts in my guts; it's hassle enough to have turned 60. ================================================================= Every day that the Israel Attorney-General refuses to indict the Prime Minister facilitates Sharon's campaign to unilaterally surrender Gaza (first) to organized international terrorism. ================================================================== Sharon's disengagement plan might prove problematic: it's a bit difficult to negotiate with a tiger at a barbecue. ================================================================ WHO IS GAZA? I am prepared to support the Gaza disengagement plan, if U.S. guarantees prove sufficient. I make no demands and set no preconditions, but would only point out, as a matter of cultural interest, that it ain't easy to get a drinkable bourbon hereabouts, especially at this time of year. ================================================================ Semt JP 13 Apr '04 If Sharon -- in close consultation with the Bush team and the EU, if not his own cabinet, Knesset, and electorate -- intends to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, he might as well assist the PLO in issuing tenders for biologic warfare research and development facilities. ================================================================ Sent JP 13 Apr '04 BON VOYAGE Sharon is rather a large loose cannon; throw him overboard. ================================================================== How can one fight anti-Israel Media-Bias when much of the worst of it comes daily from HaAretz? [HaAretz, daily newspaper published in Tel Aviv, partially included in English translation within the Israel publication of the International Herald Tribune. ] ================================================================= DISENGAGE FROM SHARON, NOT 'AZA or A BIT OF A PUTSCH, WHAT? If the Likud has only 200,000 members, half of whom would rather watch basketball all day than vote to decide this country's future, who precisely does Sharon represent? [N.B.: The title does play on an unacceptable comparison with that half-hung house-painter; I plead that no more than a specific political analogy was intended. For Sharon, much as Israel as been failed by its founders in their sentimental granparenthood, is a man, who seems to love the land and farming, and the desert, and who once did bold deeds, first on his own and then for his country, only to find his victories dissipated by predominantly USA politicians. For he encircled the Egyptian armed forces and might have removed that country from Israel's opponents; and he removed a PLO mini-state poised to attack and maybe invade Israel from the north; only to find it resurrected by the USA and then by those who cannot forgive Jewish religion. ================================================================= New lead sentence, inspired by a speech from George Bush, Jr. Speaking as a (dual) citizen of the civilized world .... ================================================================= This last crusade of the Washington Neo-Con's against neo- traditionalist Islam is a war to preserve the civilized world; but it's not clear which side represents it. =============================================================== EXCEPT SHARANSKY Does any politician whose statements you report ever say what he means? Sharon has lobbied and bullied through his wishfully- termed 'disengagement plan' with a sequence of double-talk bluff and razzle-dazzle enough to befuddle a Superbowl quarterback. ================================================================= SENT JP 13 April '04 WHO NEEDS MA'ALE ADUMIM? This Mohav is prepared to endorse the disengagement plan, provided we get free access to the beach at Tel Aviv. [It was reportd on that evening's English news that (a) Sharon had stated that Ma'ale Adumim would not be abandonned; and (b) that the Mayor of Ma'ale Adumim had endorsed the disengagement plan. As Dave McReynolds said of the New York Times: You have to read between the lines, but at least there are lines to read between. ]] =============================================================== THE WIMP FLIPS The Attorny-General appears to have acted illegally if not irrationally in ordering an immediate and complete freeze of the transfer of all funds to all communities in post-1967 Israel. His rationale, reportedly (IBA English afternoon news 15 April) based on several undisclosed items in a Comptrollers's Report which will not be released until next month, is the alleged illegality of the placement of a small number of 'carvans' on unused land adjacent to and arguably within the boundaries of existing settlements. Determination of that alleged illegality is essentially a matter of intrepretation of legislation and adminstraive regulation; not of ascertaining facts. It is not clear how this technical question can be extrapolated into justification for a complete and immediate freeze on all legislated government assistance, as if (as in the PLO ) the bulk of funds were being skimmed off in corruption. And the Attorny-General's further reported (ibid.) opinion that soldiers ought not defend such (allegedly) illegal habitation is preposterous: a government is required to constantly extend the full protection of law to all persons within its borders; regardless of the legality of their activity. ================================================================= sa, Mevo Modi'in, 15 April '04 -- 24 Nisan -- gvurah sh'b' GVURAH =================================================================