פרסומים אחרונים במדור "חדשות"

Well, we can only hope that he'll keep to his word.

The Likud is a Right winged party which supposedly holds the train of thought that as many services as possible should be operated by the private sector and here is an act that goes against that train of thought.

Another thing is the Mekorot as a governmental company didn't do too good a job so far anyhow and should not be given the prize of controlling more of our water.

(I'm sorry for writing english but I'm using linux and have no way of writing hebrew in netscape)

Actually, someone offered me some program that allows writing in Hebrew, on Linux. Ask around the Computer Science Linux Farm.

I have various who do it, but none that can be pasted to netscape, I use both vim/gvim and LyX and none is paste-able to netscape, I just tried.

I've asked Tal Cohen for the PHP code to support upload of text files for comments so that I can write in vim and upload but he said "no can do" (not exactly in these words though), so now I've downloaded the form and will try to write a short program to submit the comment programmatically. (Tal: If you read this and agree I'd be happy to have a test page to do my tests of such a beast later on)

Actually, I've been told that my writing style in English far surpasses my writing style in Hebrew, so I am doing this my choice.

I do tend to speak in my own, odd dialect of English, taking things that I like from the dialects that I am aware of, out of my own sense of aesthetics. I'm sorry if it makes you feel a tad uneasy when you read my writings, but that's just it.

Thing is, I am forced, more or less, to write in English, mostly, due to the fact that the only computers generally accessible in my faculty's computer farm are Linux computers. Though I have been using a Hebrew _reading_ extention for Linux (for X, more specifically), I did not get a Hebrew _writing_ extention, nor do I think that I will have room in my account to install one. This could be less a matter of necessity than a matter of laziness on my part, but that's that.

In conclusion, in order to be somewhat consistent in my posts, so that people will be able to assure themselves that I am the same person, I choose to use English.

" ... People expect more from IBM ..."
Lou V. Gestner, IBM CEO

Likud is indeed associated with the economical Israeli right, but what guided PM Sharon to make this decision was, I gather, his belief that Israel should have as much control as possible on its water sources.

There are various things that have not been done yet and should be done. Like reusing the waste waters for agriculture, this will reduce the consumption of fresh water by one its larger users. It's not a problem of the agriculture to use the water as was said here in regard to the sabres farm, but the problem of building the right units and the pipes. It will be faster and _Cheaper_ to do than setting up all those sea water transformers(whats the correct phrase?).

I believe that agriculture users can be converted to cleaned waters instead of fresh water and thus saving more than the aforementioned 200 million figure.

However it probably sounds better to have the sea water machinery than to do The Right Thing(tm).

I wish somebody would read these things, other then just typing it in.

Not accurate.

Most researchers predict that rainfall will increase as the earth gets warmer.

The evidence is both in enviroment models, where more water will evaporate, and less water will stay locked in ice.

But also on historical evidence, in a period warmer than today, before the current iceage, Saharah desert was enjoying enough rain for few serious rivers.

1. This issue is rather contraversial. neither of us can be certain because there isn't enough hard data. We both have much research to support each position, so no point in arguing.

2. The evidence I'm refering to are the cave drawings (obviously prehistoric) and geological evidence (which isn't historical at all)

If we agree that point 2 is true, then we know that there was a time where that area got much more rain than today. I believe that it was under warmer weather than todays. (from the timing of the cave drawings and our knowledge on iceage cycles)

In anycase I would love to see evidence supporting you claim that the rainfall will increase in europe and canada and will decrease in the middle-east.

And here's one supporting your point of view:

http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80858e/80858E0...

By the way you can find opposing views, scientifically supported for almost any argument you choose.

Which is why truth is so difficult to sort out. Big companies will show you research on how healthy smoking and hamburgers are. Its very difficult to tell, especially since the popular media randomly chooses a side and only report findings that support their view.
Defining credibility is becoming more difficult too, because goverments, once considered a disinterested funders of research now also have their policy to justify (Bush and Kyoto for example)

The question is, what a company means when it says that some "research" was done (usually, it's focus groups and surveys). And whether the research papers were peer-reviewed (not bloody likely).

My father is a biology Professor.
One of his latest research projects involved comparison testing between diffrent toothpastes.
The research was funded by a swiss company, the one that produces the Elmax toothpaste.

He had a clause in his contract saying that the research will be publicized no matter what.
(He said its part of the standard contract)

The research decided that in a specific case (gum problems) a competitor product was an order of magnitude more effective.

The research was publicized, and the competitor used it in a campaign (the one with Gabi Nitsani)

Moral? Don't fund independent research if you aren't sure of your product.

Another story: Microsoft funded a benchmark comparing Linux to NT, the test was highly biased, and Linux didn't look too good. The research was happily mocked by the Linux community.

One of the things Microsoft claimed, is that Linux's thread handling isn't as efficient.

The Linux community may have laughed at the biased benchmark, but the thread system is now fixed :-)

"Elmex"