Lettre 13

etherworks: 2006 is over, and I won’t miss it.

There is very good news to FreeBSD aficionados like myself. This site is hosted on a FreeBSD VPS (Virtual Private Server) at the excellent JohnCompanies. The FreeBSD VPS is basically a jail. What I miss from the Linux VPS counterpart is the possibility to add more IP addresses, something that is not currently possible with jail. But this will be possible in the future for FreeBSD VPS.

The FreeBSD Foundation has negotiated a joint technology development agreement with NLNet and the University of Zagreb to develop virtualized network stack support for FreeBSD. With the generous sponsorship of NLNet, the FreeBSD Foundation has contracted Marko Zec at the University of Zagreb with the goal of producing a prototype implementation on FreeBSD 7-CURRENT in early 2007. Network stack virtualization allows complete networking independence between jails on a system, including giving each jail their own firewall, virtual network interfaces, rate limiting, routing tables, and IPSEC configurations. This powerful tool extends jails toward full operating system virtualization and addresses many of the known limitations of jails.

http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/press/2006Dec-newsletter.shtml#Network

With Path Finder 4.6.1, when you close a window with tabs, you get an alert that’s asking if you really want to close all the tabs. This is very annoying. On the Path Finder forum, there is a mention of that, its supposed to be on the todo list for the developpers. Mainwhile, you can use this AppleScript if you want to get rid of the warning. Just put the script in your AppleScript Menu, or better, in your FastScripts menu, set a shortcut (mine is control-w) and there you go. Its not ideal, and I rather attach this script to the File menu of Path Finder, but for that, you need PreFab UI Actions because Path Finder is not “AppleScript attachable”. Well, that’s another reason tempting me to buy this app, and also PreFab UI Browser.

tell application "Path Finder"
  activate
  try
    set allWindows to every finder window
    set mainWindow to item 1 of allWindows
    set go to true
    repeat while go
      try
        set mainWindowName to name of mainWindow as string
        if mainWindowName is equal to "" then return
        tell application "System Events"
          keystroke "w" using command down
        end tell
      on error
        return
      end try
    end repeat
  on error
    return
  end try
end tell

So the only way I have found is to ask each time for the name of the front window, and if the name doesn’t exist, then it means that there are no more windows to process. Since we took a reference to the main window with set mainWindow to item 1 of allWindows, this made sure that we won’t close a Path Finder window that is behind the main Path Finder window.

Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, 2006.

I was astonished to hear Jimmy Carter talking on an American network television in such a way when he gave an interview about his last book on the NewsHour (PBS). Ok, its PBS, but still, his critics of Israel are coming from an ex US President. You should hear the mp3 that add more humanity to the whole thing. But I tend to disagree with his assessment, when he put the onus of the occupation only on the settler and seems to separate them from the state apparatus.

And let me get to the word “apartheid.” Apartheid doesn’t apply at all, as I made plain in my book, anything that relates to Israel to the nation. It doesn’t imply anything as it relates to racism. This apartheid, which is prevalent throughout the occupied territories, the subjection of the Palestinians to horrible abuse, is caused by a minority of Israelis — we’re not talking about racism, but talking about their desire to acquire, to occupy, to confiscate, and then to colonize Palestinian land.

So the whole system is designed to separate through a ferocious system Israelis who live on Palestine territory and Palestinians who want to live on their own territory.

Jimmy Carter, Former President Jimmy Carter Examines Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Online NewsHour, (mp3)

Helena Cobban point to the flaws of the argumentation of Jimmy Carter.

If I were Jimmy Carter, which I’m not, I would have noted that there are indeed many many things that Israel’s projects in the occupied West Bank and Golan have in common with South African apartheid, and very few if any of them have to do with skin color. (US citizens have this hang-up about skin color issues, which goes back deep in their collective past, obviously. Their common understanding of the word ‘racism’, for example, completely limits it to discrimination based on skin color, unlike just about everywhere else in the world where ‘racism’ has a far broader meaning.)

The term “Bantustans” is generally appropriate in both cases.

Helena Cobban, If I Were Jimmy Carter…, Just World News

What Helena Cobban is saying is that this form of discrimination is deeply rooted in the state apparatus of Israel, even, if, following the pools in Israel, the majority of the civil society is against this occupation (and there is numerous Israeli groups that works against this occupation).

I’m not affiliated with Ergonis Software, just a happy user of their Typinator. You can get it for US $9.99 today, a 50% rebate off the regular price. The offer is only available for December 12 2006. If you don’t know what is Typinator here’s the official blurb:

Typinator is an automatic text software that boosts your productivity and eliminates errors by automating the process of inserting frequently used text and graphics.

There’s a number of competitors in this market, but from my experience, Typinator is one of the best.

The lesson in that is clear and sobering: As bad as things may seem now, they can yet become worse, and not just in Iraq. The longer we pretend that we have not lost there, the more we risk losing other wars we still may salvage, starting with Afghanistan.

The members of the Iraq Study Group are all good Americans of proven service to their country. But to the extent that their report forestalls reality and promotes pipe dreams of one last chance for success in this fiasco, it will be remembered as just one more delusional milestone in the tragedy of our age.
Frank Rich, The Sunshine Boys Can’t Save Iraq, nytimes.com [subscription needed]

There is more than anti-syrian and pro-syrian parties in Lebanon.

The March 14 Coalition, however, insisted that every wrong happening in Lebanon was the doing of the Syrians. Aoun was shunned for his views and, in a fit of rage, he lashed out against them, reminding the Hariri bloc that they were the same ones who legitimized Syria in Lebanon in the 1990s by assuming government office during the heyday of Syrian power under the late prime minister Hariri.

Siniora, after all, had been minister of finance when Syria was in control of Lebanon. Marwan Hamadeh, one of the loudest anti-Syrian voices, was minister of health, and Walid Jumblatt had been a close ally of Damascus and minister of the displaced under Hariri. The dramatic U-turn by the March 14 Coalition, and its continued anti-Syrian tone even after the exodus of the Syrian army, shed serious doubt on the government’s convictions, loyalties or beliefs.

Sami Moubayed, The anti-Siniora craze in Beirut, AsiaTimes

See also this article by Simon Tisdall in The Guardian.

Having looked on helplessly, or unhelpfully, during Israel’s destabilising summer bombardment of Lebanon, Britain and other European countries are now scrabbling to shore up Fouad Siniora’s shaky pro-western government. The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, and her German counterpart were in Beirut at the weekend. Messages of solidarity have come from France and Italy. Even Israel is warning of dire consequences should Mr Siniora fall.

All agree that this week’s Hizbullah-organised, largely Shia Muslim demonstrations, although broadly peaceful and “democratic” so far, must not be allowed to topple the government. Their attitude contrasts awkwardly with the approving western view of last year’s anti-Syrian street protests by Sunni Muslims, Christians and Druze, whimsically dubbed the “cedar revolution”, which ousted Lebanon’s then prime minister, Omar Karami.

Simon Tisdall, Iran v Saudis in battle of Beirut, The Guardian, December 5, 2006

“Canada changes, the Conservatives change and do certain things, all we need to do is make a gesture of openness to Quebec and we have just done exactly the opposite,” a former Quebec-based federal cabinet minister said on the convention floor.
What really frustrated the Quebec delegation — including several MPs who were sounded out a few minutes after Dion’s victory — was to see, in the words of one, “that the English don’t understand what they’ve just done in electing Stéphane Dion.”
The fact that Gerard Kennedy and his most celebrated supporter, Justin Trudeau, who are both opposed to the concept of a Quebec nation, rallied to Dion’s side has not improved his standing among Quebec Liberals.

Vincent Marissal, Delegates chose man most like Chrétien
But support not there in Quebec, Toronto Star.

Though Liberals now celebrate Dion as “the next prime minister of Canada,” the rap against him is that he remains unpopular in Quebec, where the former unity minister is known for his acerbic wit, stiff personality, and uncanny ability to rub sovereignists the wrong way.
In the words of a senior Bloc Québécois official who attended the convention as an observer, “the biggest party tonight isn’t going to be here — it’s going to be at our headquarters.”

Sean Gordon, Improbable, yet unstoppable
Stéphane Dion’s win is seen as a victory of convictions over charisma, Toronto Star.

I’m starting to blog again. I blogged in 2004-2004 but lost interest. See my old blog here. I intend to post less links this time and more substance. I want to blog also in English and French. I decided to go with a bilingual blog with a predominant French presentation (dates for example are not translated in English). I’ll see whether it stick this way or if I get too much complains from my English readers.