It looks obvious

The Save Darfur organization collected more than 500,000 post cards to mail to the white house, urging the president to take action to stop the genocide in Darfur. If you haven’t signed yet or if you would like to download a copy and have more people sign please visit this site . I also want to remind the rally on April 30^th, the public pressure is crucial and it is depend on us.

I read this article and wonder what the reason it is published now is. The fact is that the Israeli army starts to revolutionize its conception and structure many years ago.  Most of the changes Ze’ev Schiff describes are results of the understanding of the results of the missiles attacks during the first gulf war.

The Israeli army enjoyed the intellectual and academic work of people like Shimon Naveh, a brilliant officer and world renowned military historian, which developed the theoretical operational concepts.  Shimon Naveh’s book, In Pursuit of Military Excellence, describes some of the concepts and their historical developments.

So the question is still up in the air, why now? What is there to gain? What is the news value of this story? Is this a message to the Iranian that although we are facing problems stopping the rocket shooting from the Gaza strip we can handle ballistic missiles with nuclear warhead from Iran? Or maybe this is the first shot in much more crucial war, the war on the budget - Convincing the public that the army cannot change its structure and arsenal without proper budget. One can only wander.

Link: A different war outline

It is impossible to change the perception of the war outline without changing the structure of the forces. This begins with issues on which Israeli intelligence needs to focus so that it is not surprised, and influences the types of unit that are intended for dealing with the expected threats and, of course, the kinds of weaponry that the IDF develops or purchases. If it is no longer expected, as had been the case in the past, that there will be a massive attack by armored divisions, then it is clear that the number of tanks in the IDF will decline - but with emphasis on the fact that the smaller number of remaining tanks, as compared to the past, will be more advanced in their fighting capability and better defended.

Many of us read spies stories, but this post is real and it seems that real life is creepier than any book. Apparently one of the methods to transmit encrypted messages is by using shortwave radio stations that broadcast series of numbers at scheduled time.  I guess you need to be uber geek to actually listen to these broadcasts…

Link: Numbers in the night

Just as I was thinking that we’ll never know any more about these, I found out that Cyprian television discovered the location of at least one transmitter associated with the Lincoln Poacher network. It is located in a RAF base in Cyprus. As expected, no confirmation or denial has been issued. But this still leaves many other stations, broadcasting endless numbers and letters for whole world to hear, but for only a few to understand. This just creeps me out.

It would be interesting to know what these scientists wrote in the grant application. The next research will be about the necessity of breathing.

Link:   Sex cues ruin men’s ability to make decisions

Bram van den Bergh and Siegfried Dewitte at the University of Leuven in Belgium set 44 student volunteers aged 18 to 28 a financial game to test how they reacted to fair play. The game required the students to split into pairs and before half of the games, one of each pair was shown images of a sexy woman or asked to rate how much they liked a

The results showed that men exposed to what the researchers call "sexual cues" accepted unfair play far more than men who were not. The researchers later ranked the men according to their testosterone levels and found that the more testosterone a man had the worse he fared in the tests, they report in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Read/Write Web post a very nice review of 3 web technologies that will enrich the user experience using web applications.

In the coming months we will see a new wave of Rich Internet Applications that will blend the web application and the desktop application in exciting new ways. There are three technologies on the horizon that will change the way people use the web: LaszloSystems’ OpenLaszlo, Microsoft’s WinFX (codename Avalon) and Adobe’s Flex 2.

It is nice to remember the modest beggining of the web . The development of the web and its uses in just  a few years, in historical perspective, is simply amazing.

I saw the Matrox TripleHead on Paul Kedrosky’s blog , and you know what? I want it too. I can hear my wife muttering that it is is already imposible to drag me away from the computer as it is and she is not going to make it worse, don’t listen to her!

At last the major TV networks start fighting the FCC’s decision to enforce fines due to violations of the decency act. I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised by the sudden courage of the networks, but I guess censored TV is not as successful as its competition on cables.

Link: Networks fighting back over indecency fines

Late last week, the networks filed lawsuits in federal appeals courts in Washington and New York to challenge indecency rulings against CBS, ABC and Fox involving coarse language. The rulings they are seeking to overturn involve obscenities that were used on the CBS news program "The Early Show," "Billboard Music Awards" on Fox and "NYPD Blue" on ABC. The networks maintained that many of the remarks that were found to have violated the indecency rules were blurted out spontaneously, although the ones at issue in "NYPD Blue" had been scripted.

 "The FCC overstepped its authority," the networks said in a joint statement Friday, "in an attempt to regulate content protected by the First Amendment, acted arbitrary and failed to provide broadcasters with a clear and consistent standard for determining what content the government intends to penalize."

Here is our latest finding of unique and original technology development. This time we bring you mobile TV:

(via urban legend ) 

I don’t know how much influence the Euston Manifesto going to have but I think it is very important document. In recent years the political left seemed to be hijacked by the extremists. It become refuge to racist ideas in disguise of liberalism and lost touch with western values.

The Euston Manifesto , although contains many point I disagree with, is important step in the right direction. It set a clear voice of the foundations and believes of the modern left, it’s clear commitment for western values and moral. If the left will adopt the manifesto as a modus operandi it will return to be relevant for western development.

We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.

The present initiative has its roots in and has found a constituency through the Internet, especially the "blogosphere". It is our perception, however, that this constituency is under-represented elsewhere — in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.

The broad statement of principles that follows is a declaration of intent. It inaugurates a new Website, which will serve as a resource for the current of opinion it hopes to represent and the several foundation blogs and other sites that are behind this call for a progressive realignment.