Over

I give Israel 10 years, tops, of existance. Expanding settlements in the West Bank preclude a two state solution and while some may argue that there's already a system of apartheit in place, given current demographic trends, apartheit will be a numerical reality in about 10 years. Virulent nationalisim and extreme religious orthodoxy continute to drive West Bank settlement building at rates that are increasing by five percent per year. Stopping the building and negotiating a two state solution is the only hope Israel has for long term survival. I doubt that it will ever happen. I just wonder who will get to keep all the nuclear weapons.

Tough

It's hard being right all the time.

LONDON (AP) -- Bill Gates and other donors are giving more than $630 million to the international effort to eradicate polio, after the disease spiked and spread to seven countries that were previously polio-free......

Otaki

The gang went pseudo-camping at Otaki this weekend with some families from work. We were trying to go Friday night to Monday morning but some crazy rain Saturday night had us home by Sunday morning. We were at a campground about 100m from the beach. RC is getting pretty good at catching the waves on the boogie board, it will be learner surfboard time pretty soon. It was dog friendly, which is nice. Although I forgot the rain cover for the tent and had to go back home and get it Friday night, luckily it's only about an hour North.

Pix are here

This just in ...

People are stupid.

It's called "Herd Immunity" and people who don't vaccinate their kids deserve a good old fashioned Polio outbreak except, oops, it's not just the people who aren't immunized that will get sick, it's everyone. You have a social responsibility to vaccinate your kids. Welcome to the 21st century, these aren't your ancestor's Dark Ages.

Joe

So my friends Eric and Beth have family in San Diego. They usually go home every year around Christmas time. Get back to the states, see the family, eat some real mexican food, that kind of thing. Well, we're pretty busy right now, and Beth isn't working, so she took the kids and flew back to SoCal a couple weeks early to stay with family. Once we wrapped up some stuff at work, Eric flew back by himself. So, he's sitting on the plane, in business class, and he ends up talking to the guy sitting next to him, as you do, it's the Auckland to LA leg, you can't really ignore someone for 12 hours that you're sitting next to. Anyway, Eric asks the guy what he does for a living, and the conversation goes something like this.

Eric: What do you do for a living?
Person: Oh, I'm a singer in a rock and roll band.
Eric: That's awesome, what kind of music do you play?
Singer: Like Billy Joel.
Eric: That's cool. It's great that someone's keeping his music going since he retired.
Billy Joel: No, not like Billy Joel, I'm Billy Joel.

Ouch.

I love how Joel tried to play it off since Eric didn't know who he was. "I'm just a singer in a band". Of course Eric is the kind of person who always seems lucky, so when you hear a new Billy Joel song, and he's talking about the guy on the plane who doesn't know who he his, you'll know where the story comes from. The icing on the cake though, was this.

Eric: So, how do you like travelling with your dad?
Mrs. Joel: I'm his wife.

Twelve hours is a long time to sit next to someone on a airplane.