The Israeli invasion of Lebanon

I was filled with a sense of shock and disgust watching the invasion of Lebanon by the Israeli army. While the Hezbollah kidnapping of 2 Israeli soldiers was of course appalling and to be condemned, the heavy handed reaction by Israel was totally out of proportion, with the official death toll of Lebanese civilians killed by Israel climbed to over 1200 civilians with over 3700 declared wounded. Of course the official toll is usually very conservative so you could probably double these figures for a more realistic figure. The Israeli’s have not only done the wrong thing by Lebanon, but in doing so, have destroyed both their reputation and any sense of sympathy for their situation from the outside world.

While the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in heavily built up urban areas was bad enough, evidence has now come out that Israel used US made cluster bombs in these areas. Cluster bombs deliver sub munitions, or smaller bombs which are often no bigger than a torch battery. Many of the bomblets fail to detonate immediately on impact.

Israel and other countries which have used the weapons, notably the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo, have often faced criticism because the weapons can kill indiscriminately as they are often scattered over a large area and can pose a deadly threat to civilians, especially children, for months and even years after a conflict.

Chris Clark, head of the UN Mine Action Service in southern Lebanon, said that there had been a total of 59 confirmed casualties, including 13 deaths, caused by the explosives since the end of hostilities on August 14.

UN teams have so far located 390 separate Israeli strike sites in Lebanon where the munitions were used, Clark told a meeting of diplomats and weapons experts in Geneva. About 2,000 of the potentially deadly bomblets, which litter the areas, have been destroyed, he added.

Steve Goose, director of the arms control division of Human Rights Watch, said that Israel appeared to have stepped up use of cluster bombs in the final days of its offensive, leaving clearance teams with an uphill task. “The situation is much more severe than what we encountered in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo,” Goose said. “As civilians return, they are encountering many of these duds,” he added. “It’s going to get much worse. It’s going to be a much bleaker picture.”

The Israeli military is believed to have fired around 2,000-3,000 rounds of heavier ammunition a day, not only cluster bombs but also artillery shells and more conventional bombs in the early stages of its campaign to dislodge the Muslim Hezbollah fighters. The figure rose to 5,000 – 6,000 rounds in the final days of the fighting. Clark said an estimated 10 percent of all munitions failed to explode.

Apart from the massive task of rebuilding this broken country, the population will have to deal with these unexploded bombs for many months & years to come, which incidentally are the same size and colour as food parcels dropped to the starving population during the Israeli invasion.

The Middle East conflict.

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is an incredibly complex subject and one that I dont pretend to fully understand but a good starting point in trying to understand it is to examine where it all started. It dates back thousands of years to biblical times when the illegitimate first son of Abraham, Ishmael and his Arab mother Hagar, the Egyptian maid of Abraham’s wife Sarah, were banished away into the desert by the jealous Sarah.

It started when Sarah had found herself not having children, she arranged to have a child with Abraham by Hagar acting as a surrogate mother. Of course, Sarah became jealous of Hagar’s increased status in the household, became jealous and over time grew an intense dislike towards both Hagar and her son Ishmael. Sarah eventually gave birth to her own child, Isaac and after a while she insisted that Ishmael & Hager be sent away. The result was a bitter conflict between Ishmael and Isaac, who apparently did not meet again until Abraham died. Ishmael went on to have 12 sons, who became the founders of the Ishmaelite tribes that spread from Egypt to what is today Iraq. Many of the modern-day Arab peoples correctly recognize that they are the descendants of Ishmael, while the Jews, and the rest of the Israelites, are descendants of Isaac – but all are descended from Abraham. This bitter conflict between two half brothers and their descendants has continued on to the present day hateful conflict between the Arabs & the Israelis.

From the very first day Israel became an independent state, on May 14 1948, it has been under attack from it’s Arab neighbours. On that day it was the armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq that attacked Israel, The Arab nations that attacked Israel faced one major problem. There was nothing to co-ordinate their attacks. Each essentially attacked as a separate unit rather than as a combined force. However, the Israeli Army was under one single command structure and this proved to be very important. Israeli victories came on all the war fronts. As a result of their military victory, Israel was able to expand the territory given to the state by the United Nations after WW2. However, this could only be at the expense of the Arab population that lived in these areas.

Another war broke out in 1967, known as the six day war. It started when Egypt sent UN officials away from the Egyptian-Israeli border, increased its military activity near the border and blocked access of the Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships. Israel responded by launching a pre-emptive attack on Egypt’s airforce fearing an imminent attack by Egypt. Jordan in turn attacked the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and Netanya. At the war’s end, Israel had gained control of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. The results of this war affect the geopolitics of the whole region to this day.

Australia’s World Cup glory.

Monday the 12th of June 2006 will always be remembered in the folklore of Australian sport as the day a bunch of young Aussie’s united a nation like few events have in our short history. In what will surely be seen as a coming of age for Australian soccer, they announced to the world that Australia is not just in Germany to make up the numbers, but are good enough to mix it with the top teams in the world and beat them.

I was only two years old and too young to remember when Australia last played a match in the World Cup. That team of amateurs, created history by just qualifying for sports biggest event. The fact that they didn’t score a goal didn’t really matter. Fast forward 32 years and soccer in Australia is still a second cousin to the bigger native football codes of aussie rules and rugby. That all started to change however after the success of the new local A League competition and when after many heartbreaking near misses, the Socceroos qualified for the world cup finals late last year.

We travelled a long way from Mandurah, 70 kilometres to the south, up to the Paddington Ale House in Mt Hawthorn to be part of an english style pub atmosphere with about 350 others there for the big game, but it was well worth the effort. The whole pub stood as one to sing the national anthem at full voice before the kick off which was a spine tingling moment. After a few near misses with Australia clearly on top the crowd went into stunned disbelief when Japan scored a controversial goal in the 26th minute. Australia continued to pepper the goals, but with 84 minutes gone on the clock it looked like Australia’s rotten luck in the world cup qualification would continue into the main event.

Just when all seemed lost, Tim Cahill put the ball into the net from close range for our first ever goal in a world cup final and the whole place erupted. Everyone in the Paddo jumped for joy as strangers hugged, danced and chanted aussie aussie aussie oy oy oy. The celebrations had barely died down when he did it again, this time sending a stinging long range shot in off the left post for a cracker of a goal. The place just exploded, somehow in the space of a few minutes we had gone from a gut wrenching defeat to be 2-1 up in the world cup finals. Again we all jumped up and down hugging anyone nearby while the chant started “here we go here we go here we go…” It was a moment you’d like to freeze in time of pure unadulterated joy and just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, with about 1 minute to go in injury time, John Aloisi charged through several Japanese defenders on an inspired solo run to slot in the sealer. It was 3-1, in 8 short minutes Australia had scored 3 amazing goals to snatch victory from defeat and set itself up beautifully to advance to the next stage of the world cup.

The celebrations & singing dragged on for hours in the Paddo and all throughout Australia with thousands in the centre of Melbourne & Sydney and millions more in every pub, club & lounge room around the country. It was a night to remember, the night that Australia came of age in the game they call “The beautiful game”.

West Coast Blues & Roots Festival

I had the good fortune to get along to this years West Coast Blues & Roots Festival in Fremantle Western Australia and what an awesome day of music it was. Forget all the bad memories of last years badly organised festival, this year with the help of the Byron Bay Bluesfest organisers, they got it right… No queues for drinks – walk straight up to the massive bars, no fenced off yard for drinkers & a much better lineup than last year. It was like being at the Byron Bay Bluesfest, but only just down the road.

“Old mate” blues legend Kev Mo showed us what real blues really is all about with awesome deep vocals & solo steel guitar performance. Mia Dyson apparently rocked the crowd with her amazing vocals & bluesy sound which we unfortunately missed. Pete Murray did his thing to a big crowd… if you like clean sanitised contemporary rock. Ex pro surfer Donovan Frankenrieter blew everyone away with a high energy set that had the whole crowd singing his hits like “Free” & “It Don’t Matter”… heaps better than his mellow mate Jack Johnson last year. Jackson Brown sang to a small devoted gathering of fans, and i aint one after nearly falling asleep… Bernard Fanning did his contemporary rocky roots thing to a huge adoring crowd…

Then Michael Franti appeared on stage under the packed bigtop with nothing but his Spearhead bass player Carl Young, an acoustic guitar & a stomp box. This man is an incredible performer who gets the crowd in the palm of his hand & even though he was singing a lot of his new songs that no-one had heard before he somehow had the entire crowd singing every word. Like ive said before to many people, if your not a big fan of Franti before you see him live you will be after 5 mins.

We unfortunately had to tear ourselves away after 20 mins of Franti to see the other headline act… The awesome 2 piece grungey blues band The Black Keys. These two put out a sound so huge that if you close your eyes its hard to believe its only two guys up there. Ive seen them before, so knew what to expect but looking around at the gobsmacked faces in the crowd, they simply blew everyone away with their raw old school bluesy rock…

a memorable day indeed, cant wait for next year.

for photos & short reviews click here:
http://smh.com.au/ftimages/2006/04/10/1144521257356.html

Cool Podcasts

I love podcasts, they give you the option to listen to your favourite radio show when and where you want on your iPod. Here are the Podcasts that I have subscribed to and I highly recommend having a listen to. I really enjoy racing around doing my vegetarian food deliveries & listening to these shows.

To subscribe to these shows:
In iTunes – Click on the “Advanced” menu up the top.
Choose “Subscribe to Podcast”
Paste the URL of the podcast in the box.
Click OK.

Now these shows will be automatically downloaded to your computer every time you open iTunes. Then when you plug in your iPod, they will be automatically transferred to your iPod under the “Podcast” menu in “Music”

Dr Karl – triple j’s science guru.
An edited package of Dr Karl’s magical hour, Live on Mornings with Zan. It’s roughly an hour devoted to the collective exploration of some of the great mysteries of life, such as “why does the water in the shower slow down just when it gets hot?”

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/podcast/drk_rss.xml

Hack Highlights
Steve Cannane and the Hack team deliver the goods on what’s news around the country and internationally. They have some really interesting stories about all sorts of issues that affect all Australians & young aussies in particular.

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/podcast/podcast.xml

George Bush always planned to invade Iraq.

Citing a confidential British Memo, the New York Times reported yesterday that President George Bush was certain that war was inevitable and made it clear to British PM Tony Blair in January 2003 that he was determined to invade Iraq without a UN resolution and even if UN inspectors failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

This revelation is even more scary given the Presidents continuing agressive rhetoric towards Iran threatening invasion unless they abandon nuclear enrichment. It would be easy to draw the conclusion that like the Iraq invasion, President Bush has allready made up his mind to invade Iran & is simply going through the motions of readying the US people & the international community for a new war in Iran.

Windows XP on IntelMacs

UPDATED: Apple on Tuesday created a stir when it introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to also run Windows XP natively.

The software, which is available as a download beginning today, allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to easily install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS X or Windows XP in full speed.

http://www.apple.com/au/macosx/bootcamp/

Two weeks before Apple announced Boot Camp, a contest started by a user who promised his boss that a new MacBook Pro would boot Windows XP at full processor speed so it could replace an aging IBM desktop, was won by a guy who calls himself narf2006. He succeeded in being the first person on the net to develop a solution to boot Windows XP on Intel-based Macs that has been confirmed by testers on various systems, and won US$13,854 in the process. I wonder if Apple had already cracked it & just waited until someone else cracked it too before releasing Boot camp or did they use narf’s crack to make Boot camp?.

The crew over at Gearlog have even benchmarked the speed of 3 intelmacs running Windows XP. They booted XP on a 20″ iMac, a MacBook Pro, and a Mac Mini Intel Core Duo all in the same room, and ran various tests between them and compared them to a few dual core Windows laptops. The MacBook Pro beat four other Core Duo laptops on the Photoshop test. The two Mac desktops outran even blazing-fast single core systems, which typically do the Windows Media Encoder test in 10-13 minutes.

http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/03/21/8212.aspx

This opens up huge possibilities for thousands of people who really want a Mac, but need a quick pc for work, to play PC based games or to do programming on it in Windows XP. Now they can boot into Windows XP to do their work & then restart into Mac OSX when they get home to do all the fun stuff! It’s two computers for the price of one. Of course Apple knows like we do that once people start using the vastly superior Mac OSX, they wont bother booting into Windows unless they absolutely have to.

Cool gadget – The iTrip fm transmitter

As far as cool stuff goes, theres not many nifty gadgets around that are better than this. Anyone who owns an iPod should get one of these amazing accessories that plug into your iPod & transmitt the songs or podcasts playing to the nearest fm radio, whether it’s in your car, home or work. Theres no need for batteries as the iTrip draws it’s power from your iPod.

All you do is plug it in, tune your radio to 87.9 ( or change it to suit your needs) and you’ve got your own remote control mobile jukebox. The sound quality is surprisingly really quite good. You can get various models to suit any iPod, from the original pictured above to new versions with digital tuner & buttons to choose the frequency.

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/itrip/

Desalination Plant in Port Kennedy

As a long time resident of Golden Bay, a one hours drive south of Perth Western Australia I have watched these once secluded pristine beaches gradually become more & more developed to the extent that “Surf Beach” at Secret Harbour is now the Perth metropolitan area’s second most crowded surf spot after Trigg Point with sometimes close to a thousand surfers using the beach on any hot summers day.

In the old days 10 or so years ago we would drive our 4wd’s along the deserted “surf beach”, pull up at an empty peak & surf perfect waves all day long. When the Secret Harbour developers came along we surfers watched them bulldoze the huge 60 – 70 ft sand dunes right down to the water to provide a nice view for the future residents & for the car parks & surf club. We didnt know it at the time but by flattening the dunes they also destroyed the natural sand flow, hence ruining the waves for many years to come.

Now the Water Corporation of WA proposes to build a desalination plant at Port Kennedy & run intake & outlet pipes either at Secret Harbour( surf beach) or at Golden Bay. The obvious question that must be asked is why would you ruin these pristine beaches & upset their delicate ecosystem of seagrass, fish, penguins dolphins & sharks, by putting in an environmentally destructive desalination plant when there are already areas of coastal land which have been totally ruined up in the Rockingham/Kwinana industrial strip that you could use instead?

To voice your official protest , contact Toni Cowell – Project Environmental Officer via email at: toni.cowell@watercorporation.com.au or phone her on 08 9420 3253.

To email more WA government ministers go here:
http://www.srosurf.com/gennews/desal.html

For more information email: desalination@watercorporation.com.au
or go to: http://www.watercorporation.com.au

An unjust war

Now onto a more serious subject. Is it just me or does anyone else see the great irony of the illegal invasion of Iraq by the US, Great Britain & Australia. Originally we were told we had to go to war in order to help rid the world of weapons of mass destruction ( WMD’s) by getting them out of the hands of an unstable & dangerous tyrant.

The weird thing is though, Saddam didnt have them in Iraq after all, but now Iraq is full of them. However it is not the Iraqi’s that are firing them, but the coalition forces. Since the first gulf war, the US has been firing depleted uranium (DU) ammunitions all over Iraq with devastating consequences.

This depleted uranuim is a waste product from nuclear plants, is molded into shape & put on the warheads. This apparently makes the bombs cut through metal easier & also makes it explode & burn “better”, while at the same time spreading radioactive particles around the area. These particles however have been shown by numerous studies to become airborn and can travel many hundreds of kilometres.

http://www.cadu.org.uk/intro.htm
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm

The incidence of cancer in the Iraqi people is now tenfold of what it was 20 years ago and the growing number of gruesome birth deformites cropping up every day in their hospitals is proof that the invading forces have created a Vietnam style quagmire of pain & suffering for the Iraqi people. Is it any wonder then that they show their frustration & anger towards the occupying forces?