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BBC NEWS | Americas | Prank fools US science conference

Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and
Redundancy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4449651.stm

Dear Charlie Owen,

Please find attached, for your information:
- the responses from the spokespeaple of Haifa, Jerusalem, and Bar-Ilan universities.
- the joint response of the The Inter-Senate Committee of the Israeli Universities for the defence of Academic Freedom
- an opinion article by Douglas Davis, from the spectator

You may also find this article informative:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1112668198058

Even before commenting on the content of the motions, I find several issues disturbing:
1. Item 55A.1 specifically moves AGAINST constructive dialogue. This does not carry the flavour of a peace seeking act. Even if the AUT votes for a boycott, it should have the decency to face Israeli academics and explain its position.
2. The proposers had not gone to the trouble of asking the accused parties for their response. I don't believe that this is the model of justice that the AUT wants to promote in the middle east.

As for the idea of the boycott, I suggest we take Afghanistan and Iraq as an examples. Boycotts enforced quite vigorously by institutions much more powerful than the AUT had the sole effect of harming the innocent, without the slightest effect on government policies in those countries.
I also find it quite odd that the boycott resurfaces in a period in which we witness first signs of reconciliation and reestablishment of Israeli - Palestinian dialogue.

If the AUT wants to contribute to peace and justice in the middle east, I suggest it does so by constructively supporting local initiatives, such as:
http://www.machsomwatch.org/
http://www.taayush.org/
http://www.ipcri.org/
http://www.m-e-e-t.org/

I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

best,

- Yishay

Charlie Owen wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Yishay Mor Sent: 18 April 2005 03:56 PM
To: Charlie Owen
Subject: Re: AUT - European & international affairs

thank you. could you outline your position on these motions? are you aware of the responses made by the three accused universities?

My intention, on the basis of what I have read, is to vote for the
motions, although I shall of course listen to all the arguments for and
against at the council meeting.

I am not aware of any responses by the universities.

Charlie Owen.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Coram Research Unit
Institute of Education, University of London
27 Woburn Square London WC1H 0AA UK
Tel: 020 7612 6942 Fax: 020 7612 6927
email: c.owen@ioe.ac.uk
URL: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/people/CharlieOwen
------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a rumor going round, about a conspiracy between MS & Fiat to have a TBox in every car - a MS powered computer that controls everything from the headlights to the movie the kids are watching in the back seat.

Aside from the inevitable joke, do you really think MS would trust their OS that much themselves? I mean, you can believe Fiat would go for a thing like this, but MS has good lawyers. They wouldn't take the liability risk.

Besides, the only mention of anything of this sort on either the MS or Fiat websites is a Fiat press release from July 2004.

It is now exactly 24 hours since I stoped smoking. Please tell me that I'm smarter, faster and sexier. Please.

The AUT council also resolved to boycott three Israeli universities, based on evidence presented by Open U and Bermingham.

It strikes me as a bit odd that no one bothered to e-mail the secretariats of the accused universities to ask for their comments on the charges brought against them.

So, for the convinience of the inquisative:

Bar Ilan University spokesperson: biuspoke@mail.biu.ac.il
Hebrew University spokesperson: orits@savion.cc.huji.ac.il

AUT - European & international affairs

In case you're an academic in Birmingham, you may find this interesting:

55 Executive Council welcomes the recent ceasefire between Israel and
Palestine as a valuable respite in the damage caused to higher education
and the working lives of higher education personnel in Palestine.
Council reaffirms its support for colleagues in Palestinian institutions
working in these difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions, and urges
LAs to further develop the twinning programme bringing together their
institution with those in Palestine. Council asks the executive to
continue to develop its links with the Palestinian Federation of Unions
of University Professors and Employees with the view to providing
further support.

Council also recognises that the peaceful resolution of the problems
facing the Middle East will not be brought about by the erection of
barriers, but by open dialogue. Council therefore calls on the executive
to establish contact with the Israeli Higher Education Union
representatives.

55A.1 Birmingham Delete second paragraph.

http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1182

Talk? With Israelis? Don't be daft! These apes - there's only one language they understand.

Just finished reading



It had my stomach in a knot for a week. I honestly lost sleep. Its worth it.

Teaching as performance in the electronic classroom

"Through all the intellectual storms of history, teaching has remained,
above all, a performance art that unfolds in real time."

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_4/brent/

Fortean Slips: Toilet Paper Plagiarism

In the age of chaos theory and fractal geometry, mathematics is no
longer as drab, boring and awful as it used to be. These exciting new
maths escape the confines of incomprehensible geeky formulae to live and
breathe in the world around us; their beauty is reflected in the grains
of sand on a shifting shoreline... in the whorls of cream stirred into a
cup of coffee... even in the cottony-soft quilted pattern on a roll of
toilet paper.

Yes, toilet paper. Which brings us to one of the dangers inherent in
dabbling in these latest breakthroughs in mathematical science: unlike
Sir Isaac Newton and Rene Descartes, the guys who invented this
newfangled stuff are still around to sue your ass.

In a unique accusation of copyright infringement, distinguished
mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose has filed a lawsuit over the
decorative design on a brand of toilet paper. He charges that the
Kimberly-Clark Corporation unlawfully appropriated an important
geometric pattern of his creation and imprinted it on rolls of Kleenex
Quilted bathroom tissue. He is demanding that all existing stock of the
offensively designed T.P. be confiscated and destroyed, and wants an
inquiry into Kimberly-Clark's profits so that suitable damages may be
assessed.

http://parascope.com/articles/slips/fs_151.htm

gapingvoid: good for you?

it's all lost and stoof

it's all lost and stoof

untitled

“We’re talking about life over there now. We’re no longer in the days of
an attack [a Palestinian terrorist attack] every day. Even I was
surprised. I thought we would be a bit more moderate. It’s a quiet
sector, in relatively quiet times. But no. What I'm talking about
happened a few days ago, maybe a week. A Molotov cocktail was thrown at
the entrance to one of the quiet villages. The bottle was thrown onto
the pavement, nobody knew who was responsible.”

“Within about half an hour, the sector commander gave the order to go
from house to house in the whole village, to take out all the men, from
11-12-year-old boys to the old men. When the order came down – it
already seemed shocking. “Pick up all the men in the village.” That
doesn't sound good. Bring all the men out. What does that mean, bring
them all out? We took them out. I'm not from yesterday in these matters;
I'm a veteran, but this time it was different, because this was a clear
case of collective punishment. There was nothing else here, no
operational dimension. A curfew is a collective punishment too, but at
least it can be explained by operational necessity. Here, no.”

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=1151

I thought I was beyond shock. I thought nothing could hit me in the
stomach any more. Were I've been, what I've seen. And then this. First,
the text - "the order to go from house to house in the whole village, to
take out all the men". I hate analogies, but it just stood there -
staring me in the face. couldn't chase it away.
Then the context. I've seen angry, desperate young men take their
anguish out in rage on whoever they happened to get their hands on. This
is different. This is a professional commander in the cool of his
bureau, planing and ordering an action which has nothing to do with
security. It isn't even revenge, its taking an opportunity to administer
evil. If ever I saw a command which has "a black flag waving over it".
How far is this from Dir Yasin?

In winter 2002 Palestinian militants attacked a patrol of the desert
brigade and killed three of its soldiers. The army retaliated by
levelling 60 houses in Rafah. That incident was the seed of my decision
to refuse. And I could still relate to it emotionally, as much as I
resented it morally.

untitled

I liked the quote at the top of this page:

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who
are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it "

Too bad they forgot to give proper credit: Albert Einstein.

=?ISO-8859-8-I?Q?=E0=FA=F8_=F7=E5=F1=F7=E5=F1-couscous=2Eco=2E?= =?ISO-8859-8-I?Q?il?=

Couscous.

February Sunday, Masion Blanc, Hampstead 

Lambda the Ultimate | Programming Languages Weblog

lambda the ultimate. programming languages blog.

Emergent Democracy

Joichi Ito: Emergent Democracy

The essay is the result of an experiment, but it is also a good overview
of current thinking about social software and its relevance to political
life. It’s even more interestinig given the nature of the virtual
community that produced it. Joi is international (he was raised and
schooled in both the U.S. and Japan), and he spends much of his life
online establishing casual friendships with other cyberspace denizens
who are spread around Japan, the U.S., and other countries. When Joi
thinks of democracy, he is thinking of both the U.S. and Japan, since he
has roots in both places.

http://joi.ito.com/static/emergentdemocracy.html

The Hunting of the Snark - Wikisource

Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true

http://wikisource.org/wiki/The_Hunting_of_the_Snark

Edge 151: YOU CAN'T BE A SWEET CUCUMBER IN A VINEGAR BARREL

"You could put virtually anybody in it and you're going to get this kind
of evil behavior," he continued. "The Pentagon and the military say that
the Abu Ghraib scandal is the result of a few bad apples in an otherwise
good barrel. That's the dispositional analysis. The social psychologist
in me, and the consensus among many of my colleagues in experimental
social psychology, says that's the wrong analysis. It's not the bad
apples, it's the bad barrels that corrupt good people. Understanding the
abuses at this Iraqi prison starts with an analysis of both the
situational and systematic forces operating on those soldiers working
the night shift in that 'little shop of horrors.'"

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge153.html

150,000, 2 to 5 million lost their homes. So horibble, what can you do?

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Tsunami_Help
http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001853.html
http://www.architectureforhumanity.org/__Sumatra.htm

Yesh Gvul Needs You!

This came in yesterday:

Dear friend,

Well-known left-wing columnist Haim Baram recently published the following comments about Yesh Gvul and our efforts to promote a criminal investigation of IDF deputy commander-in-chief Dan Halutz:

Yesh Gvul is the most important organisation in the Israeli peace camp, the pillar of smoke and the pillar of fire going before all the others. I agree with YG activists that there is no prospect of Halutz being dismissed.... But the purifying sacred labours of Yesh Gvul enable all Israeli humanists - and there are many - to sense that they are living in their own country, and that they have allies. (Kol Ha'Ir, 26/11)

Thanks Haim, it's always a pleasure to read compliments, but fine words don't pay the grocery bill, nor do they cover legal costs !

We are keeping up our legal efforts for a criminal investigation of Dan Halutz, over his approval, as air-force commander, of the dropping of a 1-ton bomb on a residential home in Gaza, causing the deaths of 14 non-combattants (along with the professed target, Hamas militant Saleh Sh'hadeh). Our petition to the Supreme Court to this end is pending. Under consideration is a further petition against the appointment of Halutz to his present post (in effect, demanding his suspension). We insist that Halutz face criminal proceedings, and if the Israeli judicial system is not up to the task, we will seek ways of bringing the case to other courts.

Attorneys Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfard do their utmost to lighten the burden, these legal actions require considerable financial outlay, and our money is running out !

To make sure our campaign against war crimes does not grind to a halt due to a lack of resources, we are launching an emergency appeal. We call on you, and the friends who have supported us this far - please give to the best of your ability !

Donations:

Cheques to: Yesh Gvul, PO Box 6953, Jerusalem 91068, Israel

Bank transfers: Yesh Gvul, Acct. no 366614, Bank Hapoalim, King George St. branch (690) Swiftcode: POALILIT

USA: tax-free donations to Refuser Solidarity Network, P.O. Box 53474 Washington DC
20009-9474 (Please write “Yesh Gvul” on the memo line!)Credit card donations-through www.refusersolidarity.net and the "donate now" section.

Peretz Kidron - Ram Rahat

Yesh Gvul supported me during the months of my diliberation , and of course during my imprisonment. They've been supporting refusniks ever since the Lebanon war.

Chava Alberstein cries in the morning

We went to hear her yesterday at the Barbican. The flyer said she's refused to sing in Israel for the last three years. She told us how her mother would not allow them to sing of laugh in the morning. Her belief was that "if you laugh in the morning, you will cry at night". So now, she says, I cry in the morning so I can sing for you at night.

One of the songs she performed goes something like:

Every man has a shadow
But the white man has a shadow even in the dark
When the white man stops for a quick lunch with his friends
His shadow washes his dishes

I haven't visited Shovrim Shtika site for a while. If you've never been there, go now. On top of the pictures from the exhibition, they have started translating testimonies to English.

I just read a commentary in Ha'aretz the other day, suggesting that the recent dissent against IDF practices started with this initiative. It all comes down to a mother asking her officer son: "boy, did you that kind of thing?"

peace at last

I was doing a Masters in Philosophy of Science at Cambridge. I studied
with Stephen Hawking and people like that, and I had an old cosmology
text. I realized that I can estimate the amount of energy that's
available in the universe, and I know that if I look in this book it
will tell me how to count the number of bits that could be registered,
so I thought I would look and see. If you wanted to build the most
powerful computer you could, you can't do better than including
everything in the universe that's potentially available. In particular,
if you want to know when Moore's Law, this fantastic exponential
doubling of the power of computers every couple of years, must end, it
would have to be before every single piece of energy and matter in the
universe is used to perform a computation. Actually, just to telegraph
the answer, Moore's Law has to end in about 600 years, without doubt.
Sadly, by that time the whole universe will be running Windows 2540, or
something like that. 99.99% of the energy of the universe will have been
listed by Microsoft by that point, and they'll want more! They really
will have to start writing efficient software, by gum. They can't rely
on Moore's Law to save their butts any longer.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lloyd2/lloyd2_p2.html

Sorry Everybody