I took these photos this week in the Banyas waterfall and Tel Dan spring in northern Israel. I think water is a huge issue in these parts, and always was. I’m not the first person to think that one day the price of water will exceed that of crude oil. Thousands of years ago [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Banyas, Israel, Israel water, water | No Comments »
Woke up this morning alive, everything is fine. I guess the curse didn’t work. Here’s the blog post from last night:
I’m going to bed very soon, and I’m still alive. If I die tonight in my sleep its because a ‘religious’ man cursed me in Jerusalem today. As my friend and I drove past him, [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Next week, the Standards Institution of Israel (SII) is hosting an international conference with the relatively innocuous and convoluted title of “Crisis Management of Water Utilities - ISO/TC 224 WG 7.”
ISO stands for International Standards Organization, TC stands for Technical Committee number 224, and WG 7 is Working Group seven. In simpler terms, what is [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: desalination, drinking water, irrigation, Israel, Renewable energy, water, water contamination, water resources, water security | No Comments »
Israelis, especially in the south, have been drinking desalinated water from the tap for the past two years, but increasingly, that trend is not catching on in the rest of the country as the perception that tap water is unhealthy continues to take hold. The desalination plant in Ashkelon produces much of that region’s [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: desalinated water, drinking water, Israel, Mekorot, tap water | 2 Comments »
Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz has been grilled by the local press over the past few days for saying in an interview that should Iran continue developing its nuclear program, Israel will attack it. Some commentators even went as far as accusing him of putting his political primary race, which hasn’t even been announced yet, above [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Iran, Kadima, Shaul Mofaz | No Comments »
Last year towards the end of May I stopped smoking. To be totally truthful, I’ve had one-and-a-half cigarettes since last May.
The first one was in Istanbul.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Smoking, passive smoking | 5 Comments »
Israel can lead the world in alternative energy technologies and policies because it has the right mix of experience with desert farming, water desalination, and high technology, and a looming energy shortage, says Isaac Berzin, a maverick scientist and entrepreneur hoping to establish an institute for alternative energy policy in Israel that will guide the [...]
Filed under: Energy and oil dependency, Environmental issues, Global warming and climate change, Israel, Renewable energy, Science and Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged: oil dependency, energy, Alternative energy, cleantech, greentech, Isaac Berzin, crude oil, oil prices, algae, biofuel, energy-producing crops, desalination, energy farming, food prices, world food crisis | No Comments »
Just came back from the BBC studio in Jerusalem where I was a guest panelist on the World Service Newshour radio program with Julian Marshall.
You can hear the second part here. I can’t find the first part online yet but will post it as soon as I can.
It was my first time on radio, so [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Today, Israelis chose the Duchifat, or Hoopoe in English as our national bird.
Some quick research shows that the Hoopoe fills its nest with its own fesces to ward off predators. So basically, to keep itself safe, it has to live in its own crap, along with all the constant bad smell. It also can apparently [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Legend has it that last year, when the first Winograd Report into the Second Lebanon War was about to be dropped like a cluster bomb onto the Israeli political and military scene, political king-maker and spin-master supreme Reuven Adler switched off his cellular phone, packed his bags and hopped onto a plane to New York.
Adler, [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Israel politics, Kadima, Labor party, Morris Talansky, Reuven Adler, Tal Zilberstein, Tzipi Livni | No Comments »
This is such a great surprise. One of my all-time heroes Jonty Rhodes is coming to Israel in July to play some cricket as part of Israel’s 60th celebration, and he will be on a special Invitation XI team. Now if the Israel Cricket Association were really smart, they would create some buzz before Rhodes [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Israel, cricket, Jonty Rhodes, cricket in Israel | No Comments »
This is the fifth installment of Cries from the Beloved Country blog posts, chronicling the latest issues in my former home, South Africa. I’m desperately wanting to write about good news from SA, but lately I can’t find any: Electricity outages, worsening crime, racism on campus, the return of Jacob Zuma, and now this xenophobic [...]
Filed under: South Africa, Uncategorized | Tagged: Cape Town, South Africa, South Africa violence, South African Jews, xenophobic attacks | 1 Comment »
Just heard that Or Yehuda police have turned this hot potato over to the national police HQ for investigation. I’ll be keeping an eye on this, because if there is a real inquiry and arrests are made, then this will turn into a massive issue with the ultra-Orthodox likely to get really offended. And if [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Israel, Jews for Jesus, messianic Jews, New Testament Bible, Or Yehuda | 2 Comments »
Here’s an interesting twist to the non-enforcement of the no-smoking in public places law.
On Thursday night I was at the Foster’s Bar on the corner of Shlomo Hamelech and Frishman in Tel-Aviv, a small, intimate bar with an upmarket vibe. It was my housemate’s birthday party [about ten of us] and there were about 40 [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Just sat in on the final panel of President Shimon Peres’ ‘Facing Tomorrow’ Conference, where Mr. Television Haim Yavin hosted Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu.
All four politicians were asked by the moderator to give a speech, lasting ten minutes, about what [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Eli Yishai, Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni | No Comments »
Here is the applause-o-meter from last night’s President’s Conference at the Jerusalem Convention Center honoring 60 years of American-Israeli friendship. There were several thousand people in the hall, many of whom were participants in the conference, as well as many Israelis with connections to American think tanks and organizations; and many American citizens.
The applause-o-meter is [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: America, Bush, Israel, Olmert, Peres | 2 Comments »
Current plans for water conservation and existing desalination facilities are insufficient to meet the country’s growing water demands and rapidly decreasing supply, the Environmental Protection Ministry warned on Tuesday.
Due to the “serious threats to Israel’s water resources, there is a need for a visionary plan exceeding the one in place today,” Dr. Yeshayahu Bar-Or, the [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
This week the spokesperson for the National Fraud Squad, the police unit investigating Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Moris Talansky, Uri Messer and Shula Zaken on suspicions of financial impropriety, told The Jerusalem Post that none of the media reports over the past two weeks had emanated from the highly secretive unit. “You have no idea [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Ehud Olmert, Moshe Moris Talansky, Uri Messer | 1 Comment »
I almost got swept away in all the nice things people were saying about Israel and the Israelis now that its our 60th birthday and all. But I just got out of the Ben Shemen Forest [a good mountain biking and hiking spot between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem] and this most beautiful of forests has pockets [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Seems like the message is finally starting to get through to the army, which has really let this thing go on for far too long. This is the first tangible thing to have happened since I published the original article exposing all this stuff.
A soldier serving in the IDF’s elite 8200 military intelligence unit was [...]
Filed under: Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Uncategorized | Tagged: Israel, Facebook, Israel Defense Forces | 2 Comments »
My StumbleUpon Page