With new school year starting this week, independent research institute publishes report showing that public schools system shrank by 9% in last decade, while Arab and ultra-Orthodox schools make up close to 50% of student population. 'Education in these sectors must be improved drastically and immediately,' warn researchers

so in ten years time there will be even less intelligent people that do something to promote education/science. That's even before I start talking about people that pay taxes and do something useful with their lives.

My boyfriend proposed to me.

So now I'm stuck with thinking what to do. I'm not sure what I want and how I want it.
But I'm seriously happy he did. Because for me marriage, above anything else, is the social consensus of ownership - both ways, of course.

So here I am, going crazy thinking how I want to do *it*. Pretty sure I don't want a religious wedding - but that means I need to still do something because if I get married abroad I can't have people there. And I do want a ceremony, even if not a grandiose one.

And the worst of all - what song do I choose. It's driving me crazy. Can't think of any good song that is actually about love in the right way - not 'You've dumped me and I miss you' or 'I'm an idiot for cheating' ...well, you understand what I mean. An actual love song about lasting love.

I feel like a total FEMALE now. hehe..

So my boyfriend gave me another book to read - this one is Chards of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold who is considered one of the most acclaimed writers in her field, having won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel four times (quoted from wikipedia) she also won some other awards.

Which would make one think the book would be good, right? Especially since it was given to me by a guy saying he liked it (later on after drilling I discovered he read it as a teen so please cut him some slack here)

Well.... within the first ten pages the main heroine manages fall into captivity in a situation of one-on-one with a man (of the other side of a war), start to obsess over him for no reason - and he for her - and if that's not bad enough by mid-book he says he knew he wanted to propose her marriage because of her behavior in those first two hours of their meeting (her sassy behavior, mind you). I couldn't get rid of the feeling stench of Mary Sue. I've tried my best, really.

I'm giving up after reading 139 out of 241 pages - more than half. It just feels like a bad fanfiction. And I refuse to read a bad Mary sue when I can waste my time on better things.

also wolfma would smile at these old news:
Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans. Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a 'soliciting purr' to overpower their owners and garner attention and food

I am wasting time by reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredi_Judaism and suddenly I see the picture "Haredim going to the synagogue in Rehovot, Israel." Yep, that's right.
To all those who are not from Israel - take a look - the circus is in town.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Haredim_allant_a_la_synagogue.jpg/300px-Haredim_allant_a_la_synagogue.jpg

Hugging among U.S. teenagers has become so prevalent some schools say they've banned the embrace or imposed limits on how long they last

What's the big deal with hugging? Oh-no! They are *touching*!!!

Parents struggling to get their kids to revise in the run-up to exams can now keep them at their desk using a ball and chain that only unlocks when they have studied for long enough.

Think of the possible uses....

Just a couple of days ago I read about Ramat Aviv's residents media campaign to drive the religious out of their neighborhood (Ramat Aviv is a well-off neighborhood in Tel Aviv) (sorry can't find links) and how some call it 'racism' while the others say it is a legitimate concern for quality of life.
Because you see, our religious nuts believe that it is *their right* to have it like they want (which is fine) - but it's *your* problem if you don't want to do things *their* way. And no 'live and let live' will not do.
I guess I do agree with this to an extent - while I have a couple of very good religious friends - they are not from the 'nutter' side - the total nuts won't even recognize Israel as a country (but are okay with it giving them welfare), but most are a bit saner.

This story is a bit older that the date of the article - I think about two weeks old - but it doesn't change the details of it : Shas' female workers forced to wear full head covering and keep in mind - this is Shas we're talking about. The third biggest party in the government. Not some less than 1% of population nutters.

Also this column by Uri Orbach shows a bit of it - and he's a religious person(!).

What were they thinking?!
How can they continue from that at all?
Damnit

The story about “Miss Beautiful Morals”

In other news I've seen two movies lately: X-Men Wolverine and Star Trek.
I really would like to talk about this as it is frustrating. Am I really the only one who thought the first was awesome while the other was crap? From what I hear (and read) most reviews totally love the Trek and *hate* X-Men.
I, on the other hand, though that Wolverine had an actual story which had at least two twist that I did not see coming. Star Trek OTOH felt like too much money spent on *effects* (i.e snow-covered-planet with it's monsters run) and too little on the actual characters - most seemed to be boring and one-dimensional. And that's even before I though Syler was going to open someones head at any given minute he had a close-up.
Did you see any of them? What did you think?

I'm flooded with work I didn't get finish yet - so guess where I'm writing this from. Exactly.

Yesterday to top it off my grandpas youngest brother passed away and I can't even come to the funeral today because of said crappy work.

Other than that I'm pretty much okay. Hopefully when this month passes life will get at least a bit better. I'm tired.

In other random news I went to a RHPS last month. Was awesome so I plan on doing it again (and again and again...)

An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits and drove them away, the commander said Sunday.

I suddenly have serious Zohan deja-vus.

Well...... I need sleep (thank *** for holidays) was fun and really amazing.

Especially amazing was "Life and Death of Liam O'Leary" (original site @ http://liamthemusical.com/?page_id=310 ). I'm playing the soundtrack for two days now - can't believe we got lucky to see it on Saturday without ordering in advance (I won't try to make that mistake again!) And I never even watched Buffy (and was half-sleeping through parts of it - I know, I know...)! Un-belieable, really.

two camels in a Subaru

According to the article they are smuggled to the west bank, to be eaten (the guy says one camel costs as much as four sheep and contains more meat).

After yesterdays rocket it seems even more how determined our 'brothers' in Hamas to avoid anything resembling peace. Obviously they are aware we have elections next week and doing this sort of fiasco isn't going to get Israeli citizens to vote left-wing.
Then again we are talking of the people who steal from UN aid (another link), so what was I thinking when I assumed they have common sense.

I dunno who to vote for. I hate the extreme right. And their love for the religious parties.

We feel the economy collapsing quite a lot at work. I work less than full day sometimes - but the people work less than a full day about half of the week. Everyone is sent to vacation and days off. It's really bad. And it's not going to improve, the way things seem.

Had the "our relationship future" conversation with the boyfriend. Got the "I don't feel the need, but if you want than it's okay" in reply. I just wish I knew what I wanted. this country sucks on this topic as far as I'm concerned. Which brings me back to the previous topic. Should I vote left in hopes that they might do something which will take this country out of stone-age or is that too much to hope for and all they'll do is just giving our brothers in Gaza whatever without asking for anything in return. Arghh, I hate this.

on the side of a story talking about the difficulties in the Ultra-Orthodox community because of the economy collapse (read: not enough donations from rich, working Jews from abroad) was a small story about a special 'credit-like money-buying card' which is funded by donation (of course) and is given by some community. So far they have successfully gave 11 thousand of those to families that are 'in lines of the criteria'. What is the criteria? Well you must have at least five small children, the father of the family must study at least one hour a day and they must not have TV.
The TV part is, of course, because tvs are e-v-i-l and show horrible things like improperly dressed women (like showing such things as elbows(!) and collarbone (!!))

The miserable part of that is that such 'help' encourages further children-spawning, which is problem that started the whole mess to begin with.

So where do I even start?...

a. South
This whole thing with Gaza unrolled quite fast and unpredictably. Luckily for me I'm not quite in the middle of it - but I'm right on the border. My parents are within and had about four hits. Another part of my family is also 'within reach' - I don't know how much they had been close.
On the other hand we have many workers from Ashdod at my work - one lives exactly in the 'best' place. Her 12 year old son was missed a couple of days ago and he is terrified since.
Now, of course, it's all gonna be much worse with the ground entrance.
I know I should be the left-wing person, but in this case I don't feel bad about our actions. Yes, it's too bad there are innocent people dying in Gaza, but this has not been a 'traditional' war for at least as long as I'm consciously following (5-10 years). And the truth is I don't think we have a lot of choice.

The more interesting aspect of this was to look at the news coverage. The BBC got less bias now, they have a sort of both points-of-view (even 'though the suffering of people in Gaza does make for better pictures). The CNN was much more pro-Palestinian, while the only time I looked at FOXnews the only pictures of Palestinians and other Arabs they had were the ones who threw stones on police/army/settlers/whoever else was nearby. That was on Friday morning - but I don't think much has changed.

b. New Years Eve
I actually didn't do anything at all on New Years Eve. By midnight I was asleep, although boyfriend tells me he kissed me. Let's just hope the new year will be better than the end of this one.

c. Jessie had her house broken into.
A woman I work with had her house broken into and all her things were stolen. That's a terribly scary thing. Unlike her I don't have plasma TVs or expensive electronics. But the PCs of her kids got stolen and that's a very scary thought to me. They weren't some fancy laptops, just your average pcs. Just imagine what you have on your hardisks.
I didn't know what to say to her the next day - and really, what can you say? Yes, it's just a lot of money, mostly. She suspects one of her neighbours, which is even scarier. Can you imagine someone you know and have over in your house doing that to you?

d. We feel the economic collapse
Now that winter is here and the holidays are over we feel it much more that now we are in a low of business. On the shorter days the kitchens can finish work at 3pm! They never finished before 5 in the summer - and now they have less people everyday. We're all afraid for our salaries. Hopefully things get better fast.

At work we have this motivational "do your job right" poster by Continental. In the end of which they signed "Safety First" and under that "Quality First" - but correct me if I'm wrong two things cannot be *first*. Oh well. Pic attached behihd cut
( if you don't believe me - look )

Reported from Kabul, Afghanistan - appeals court Tuesday overturned a death sentence for a student convicted of blasphemy but sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
His crime, you ask?
"The student, Parwez Kambakhsh, 24, ran afoul of Afghan authorities last year when he circulated an article about women's rights under Islam after downloading it from the Internet."