Blogging will likely be light the next couple of days. Passover is a busy time, and the R. family has been kind enough to invite me to their Seder this year. I’ll be heading over there tomorrow early afternoon to help with the preparations and cooking (and boy, is there a lot of cooking to be done for a Seder).

This is my favorite religious holiday. Fourth of July is my favorite secular holiday. I see a common theme there.

In any case, half a day of work and then spending the holiday with my favorite family from my synagogue. Can’t think of better than that, except for Mara to hurry home from college and join us for the second Seder.

You know, this is the first Passover Seder where I will not be with my mother and her family. It’s going to feel strange in some ways. Okay, in a lot of ways. But there’s a lot to be said for new experiences. And ooh, can Dena cook a brisket….

I compulsively take notes, whether I want to or not. Sometimes, the notes lead to documentation, and other times they lead to very large files or stacks of spiral-bounds sitting in a shelf in the closet gathering dust.

Sometimes, my notes are useful. For instance, I recently upgraded my photo gallery software from 1.5.2 to 1.5.3. However, after I did the upgrade, my Sitemeter bug vanished from each page.

Crap. Footer got reset back to normal. Same thing happened before when I went from 1.5 to 1.5.2.

So I went back through my notes, looked up “Sitemeter” and “Gallery” and found that I needed to put the code back into the wrapper.footer.default file.

I did that. And the Sitemeter bug reappeared on every page so I could track it all again.

Ta-da.

I’ve got more notes with Gallery in there. Customization tips and experiments I’ve run. This will come in handy when I gin up a gallery for photos and paintings for some friends that might turn into an online gallery for selling them.

Sure, I could blow off taking notes and just do the same Google search for these things. Or I could rely on my massive amount of Knowledgebase, Forums, FAQ, and documentation bookmarks by product and manufacturer in my browser. (I like to bookmark every driver and firmware page and then sweep through them every so often because I don’t trust “mail me when it updates” services on CNet and such.) Look it up each and every time, starting from scratch, hope nobody’s clogged Google with garbage since the last search.

But other times, it’s just good to have notes written out.

Once again, we’re playing the palestinian circle game. It goes like this:

Palestinians attack Israel. Israel says “Cut it out!” World ignores this.

Palestinians attack Israel. Israel says “Cut it out!” World ignores this.

Palestinians attack Israel. Israel says “Cut it out!” World ignores this.

Palestinians attack Israel. Israel says “We really mean it this time!” World says, “Use restraint!”

Palestinians attack Israel. Israel turns around, attacks palestinian terrorists, often hiding among civilians. Palestinians screech, “Hey! Israel is attacking us!” World says, “Hey! Israel is attacking palestinians! Cut it out!”

The UN is called to action. Kofi Annan issues a stern warning; formerly, to Israel, now, to both sides. Stories about palestinian children dying are front-page news. (Stories about Israeli children dying are, well, never mentioned.)

Yeah, we’ve heard this song before. Second verse, same as the first.

This is new and different.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Spurred by growing evidence of a link between domestic violence and animal abuse, Maine has enacted a first-in-the-nation law that allows judges to include pets in protection orders for spouses and partners leaving abusive relationships.

In helping pets, advocates hope to help battered women and others who aren’t willing to abandon their animals to be saved themselves.

Why would they do this? Well, here are a few reasons:

“It’s just another tactic to keep power and control over the victim,” said Cindy Peoples of Caring Unlimited, a shelter in York County.

Susan Walsh, whose dog and sheep were killed by her husband, said many victims stand to benefit from including pets in protection orders.

“I’ve heard so many horror stories from other women that I knew I was not alone,” she said.

When the bill came up for consideration at a public hearing in January, Walsh recounted how she remained in an abusive marriage in part out of fear for what might happen to her pets and farm animals if she left.

Walsh said her husband shot two of her sheep inside their Ellsworth barn. Another time, when she was visiting her parents in Pennsylvania, he deliberately ran his truck over her deaf and blind border collie in their driveway, she said.

Walsh, who stayed in the marriage for more than 12 years before her divorce in 2001, said she would have left sooner had it not been for her responsibilities to the animals.

“It’s kind of hard to pack up a whole barn full of animals,” she said. “And I knew that any animal I left behind would be dead in 24 hours.”

I think it’s a great law.

Of course, I’m sure that there will be many conservatives who will manage to find this to be yet another hegemonic, misandrist, man-hating law that must be stopped before it becomes nationwide and leads to yet more feminization of men, but then, most of them don’t read my blog. (Of course, watch this be the first time in years they check in to see what I’m saying.)

Gerald Kaufman, a British Member of Parliament, thinks that the Brits should consider economic sanctions if Israel doesn’t hand over her soldiers to be tried in Britain.

Never mind that the case was already investigated, and the shooter tried, convicted, and imprisoned in Israel. This is not enough. No, this Jewish MP needs to prove how much he wants to be with the in crowd, and call for sanctions against Israel even before the Brits have held any kind of discussions.

The question, of course, must be asked: Did Mr. Kaufman vote in favor of the Iraq war? Did he vote in favor of sanctions on Iraq? How about Iran? Does he favor sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program?

I’m betting not, what with his calling Sharon a “war criminal” and Israel a “pariah state.”

Eff you, Kaufman. Eff you, you ex-Jew. Please remove yourself from the Tribe. We don’t want you here.

Under a headline: Al-Zahar wants ‘Palestine from river to sea’ Ynet tells the not very new story of the Hamas’ foreign policy.

Israel must not be recognized and the Palestinian Foreign Ministry should aim to establish a Palestinian State from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, in place of the Jewish State, PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar said according to Palestinian media reports.

So Hamas is consistent, and if you ask me, it is better this way. Their attempts to master the double-tongue politics of the predecessors are not very successful - so much for the openness!

It is another point that attracted my attention in the article:

During the session, Haniyeh announced “Palestinian coffers are empty”, and added that his government inherited problems left behind by the previous Fatah-led government.

As if we do not know what is the real reason for the empty coffers…

Anyway, this declaration is a de-facto implementation of the first step in the famous three envelopes program. Interesting how much time we’ll have to wait till the next envelope in opened.

For those not familiar with this classic of the management pratices: every manager must leave, as his/her last act in the office, three envelopes for his/her heir. The envelopes should be opened in 1,2,3 sequence with an appropriate time between each. The envelopes must contain the following texts:

1. Blame the previous manager
2. Blame the inept staff he/she left
3. Prepare your three envelopes

Cross-posted on SimplyJews