another thing I forgot to mention last night. It seems when Anne paid the rent last week she mentioned about the shower and the hole in the ceiling in the bathtub created by leaking bath and shower water from the people upstairs. So the plumber today is shutting off our water and we can’t take a crap if we wanted to. Well I did in a plastic bag and took the mess out to the dumpster out back. Just as I came in Anne was already in and back from her outing from earlier. She got paid today. I get my cheaque later this afternoon. So the water is shut off and we’re just waiting for the plumber to arrive to put a plastic patch over the hole. That’s all they can do for now but the source of the leek is upstairs.

Anyway, Anne spent $100 bucks just now on a fancy birdcage. We’re still waiting for her ID to arrive so we can get access to those funds. The ID arriving in the mail is the big hold up. As soon as that arrives (after the weekend?) then I can get my Xp system up and running and maybe get some extra Ram to make it faster. Markus recommended a router and Fs has some nice entry level routers on the cheap. And of course Bell Express view. That and some Ram and my Xp set up fine. I also want to get all the files from my W/98 system onto an exterior hard driver for back up because I’ve been working with W/98 for the last year and I want to save all my settings and make the smooth transition from W/98 to Xp.

Anne buzzed up about 5 minutes ago. Wtf? She’s probably checking about the plumber and crap.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was the current G8 meeting going on in Germany. The real issue in my opinion is Russia aiming its missiles back towards the US. Could the cold war be re ignited again? It’s a very real and scary proposition. It’s no secret to most of us that Russia is sympathetic to Iran. Iran has vowed the destruction of Israel and if Russia is siding with Iran this doesn’t look good for Israel. Now I have no great love for Zionism. Zionism is a political concept that had its roots prior to even the first world war. Zionism embraces the state of Israel but many Orthodox Jews do not support the state of Israel. Orthodox Jews do not subscribe to the state of Israel because this would essentially mean abandoning their religious belief for a political one. Orthodox Jews have never accepted Jesus as their Messiah. The problem as I understand it is that according to the “3 Strong Oaths” in the Torah, I forget the passage. The gist of it is that according to these oaths, until the Messiah arrives the Jewish people cannot create a state, or in other words country. After the 2nd World War, and the Holocaust the Jewish people and death camp survivors embraced the concept of a state of Israel in Palestine. Zionism was accepted as a reason for this state of Israel. The Arabs meanwhile were not too happy about the European Jews returning to the holy land. From 1945-1946 all kinds of trouble erupted. Civil war broke out and like it or not the Jewish people won over the Arab states and with UN sanctioning, in 1947 the state of Israel was born.

Now I have nothing against Jews. I’ve worked with Jewish people all my life and most of them are decent people, like anyone else. Do I think Israel deserves to live as a state? You bet. I am pro Israel. I think both Palestinians and Jews can live side by side if they can settle their differences. Israel needs to stop taking land from the Palestinians for Jewish settlements. Palestinian groups like Hamas and Jihad need to stop launching rockets and suicide bombers into Israel. Orthodox Jews need to get over this idea that Israel is illegal. There is a greater threat at work here and if Iran gets its way they could have nuclear weapons within 5 years. This is serious and sober stuff folks

At the moment Russia wants to be an equal player in Nato and the European Union that’s not unreasonable of them. The G8 needs to stop worrying about the environmentalists and focus on the big picture.

So I’m watching the news last night and I see all these protestors dressed up like Crusty the clown. They make themselves look foolish battling riot police. What purpose does that serve? I watched all these clowns and idiots trying to break through security barriers. They all cry “Stop global warming.” They have no idea as to the economic impact world wide if the G8 gave into their demands and pulled the plug on oil activity. Do they think that products arrive to market by themselves? The alarmists want Kyoto accepted into Law. Again if Kyoto was accepted it would cause worldwide economic disaster over night. They say it would only cost $17 dollars per hose hold per year. Maybe but what about the bigger economic picture at stake here? C02 levels that’s even lingering in our atmosphere since 1990 won’t break down for another 83 years as C02 takes about 100 years to breakdown. Are these environmentalists that stupid they don’t see there is an economic picture at work here that will have an immediate impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of people?  The nut cases are out folks, and yet India and China are exempt from Kyoto and they are the worst environmental offenders to the planet. What are these people smoking? China and India puts out far more C02/Greenhouse gas emissions then the G8 combined and China and India are exempt from Kyoto. Yes, I'm a global warming skeptic

If these flaky global warmers get their way then I’m moving to China. Can you say Nehemiah?  

Ok, that said lets get back to F. It goes slow bit now that the hockey play off-season is over with it can pick up steam. With any luck at all I should have F stats completed by the end of this month.

Onto other science fiction goodness: Robert J Sawyer would like to remind Canadians of the newly launched wikki all things Canadian Sci fi data base of awards and other items of interest. Upon hearing this I immediate signed up an account. I never knew there was a Joe Shuster award. Cool.

That’s all for now.

e. Jim