New usage model for falafels

Jpost reports an interresting new usage for falafels: smuggling drugs into your sandwich. I think this can only happen here, how the hell did the policemen think abouth searching INSIDE the falafel balls of the sandwich the guy was bringing. This gives you an idea of how ingeniously the smuggles and the searches are done around here (and also gives you a hint of what I have had to go through countless times at the airport :).

Qassam vs Airstrikes

Well it all restarted, Gaza pullout is finished, and the circle of I shoot you because you shot me restarted. You can read articles on Haaretz,
or Libe, or any other press on the web...

The difference now is that they are not anymore Israelis occupying Gazas, and the Gaza border follows the UN recognized border. So what is it changing ? Well Israel is deploying artillery and might just start to shoot a little less carefuly because there is no more Israeli to injure. So i guess things are heading again in the wrong direction :(, I thought that the disengagement truce was a first step in the right direction and hoped for it to just be the start, but some seem to refuse any idea of peace.

Gaza/Egypt border

With Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the border control got handed to egypt. The first days Egypt took a popular measure of opening the border so people could visit their families, etc... This was very nice of them, and probably improve heir image in Gaza, however, as usual in this type of case, the porous border was used to smuggle a big load of weapons into gaza, so much than NYT reports prices halved on AK-47 and handguns in Gaza. Is this doing any good ?
Obviously this just comfort the anti disengagement in Israel, that this was a bad thing to do for security, darkens even the picture of PA security forces that just look the other way when this happens.

Finally, I am almost not surprised to see that this is ignored by the french press which focuses on other aspects of the future of Gaza (economical ones, which will be fundamental if peace happens one day). So once again you get half the information reading the french press (like le Monde or Liberation) and the other half reading the US one (WP or NYT)and the remaining details with Israeli and Arab world press.

Red nose ecologists

Hating SUVs inside cities like Paris started to do some commando actions against them. Find their blog here.

PS: kind of private joke for Izard.

Paella

Oguz was rightfully pointing at the fact I didn't publish any paella pictures even though I spent one month in spain. Here is a picture of a nice paella very similar to the one we had together on the Barcelonetta piers. I have to say it was pretty darn good ;). 

PS: sorry for the soft g, it doesn't appear on my keyboard ;)

State of law in Gaza ?

I just wanted to point out these articles about the assassination of Moussa Arafat: Libé, Haaretz (2), NYT...
(btw they don't seem to agree on something as simple as his age).

I can't really understand all the implications and reasons around that, but having a man being assassinated by a little army without any opposition from the security forces does not sounds especialy good. Maybe a little trial for corruption would have been better before the execution, no ?

Some News

I haven't given news recently so here they are. My passport is being stamped by the proper Israeli ministry so I'll finaly be fully legal here until ...

We have started to plan fifille's vacation here and we might manage to get everything ready more than 1 month ahead which would be a personal record :).

I am starting to plan a trip sailing from Haifa to Cyprus during Rosha Shana week (new year here). It'll depend on the weather and how many people we can get but it looks like some good future fun.

Being a kid in Pensylvania USA

can get you charged with a felony... This is basically what is explained here . In their school the kids were given a laptop for their studies (they couldn't refuse taking it or return it, some tryed). The admin password happened to be written on the back of the laptops, the kids used it to gain access to the computers and do all sorts of things that were originaly blocked on the laptops, like chatting together, watching porn, etc...
As a deterrent the administration did put 13 of them to trial (while a hundred or so used the pass). Hopefully with all the bad advertising around this the charged were dropped and they had to do some community service. Did they even think of punishing the admins for being incompetent and the persons that took those decisions for being stupid ? No...

Original story found on slashdot.