Today Israel launched a missile strike on a car carrying Hamas militants through heavy traffic in the Gaza Strip. The two militants in the car survived the attack, while an elderly bystander was killed and at least 20 were injured, including children.

As long as the Palestinian Authority is unwilling to confront militants on its lands, Israel’s right to defend itself against militants is indisputable. However, this strike was not a surgical military operation designed to reign in dangerous men. It was a payback strike, with limited gains and heavy civilian risk. It is the sort of thing that neither furthers peace nor fosters Israel’s security, for it serves only to inflame hatred among Palestinians.

If Israel is to retain any moral legitimacy in hunting militants, it needs to exercise restraint in situations where civilians are at risk. By needlessly putting civilians in the crossfire, Israel is shooting itself in the foot and risking the Middle East peace process.

I just read Eric Raymond’s open letter to Darl McBride, CEO of the SCO Group, and I’m impressed. The Open Source community has rallied around this cause in a truly respectable manner; instead of spouting mindless conspiracy theories about Microsoft and throwing tomatoes, people are working hard to disprove SCO’s claims before they even hit the courtroom.

I do, however, remain nervous. SCO’s chief lawyer recently crooned to CNET about the lawsuit and claimed that Section 301 of Title 17 of U.S. Copyright Law preempts any restrictions the GPL might place on use, distribution and copying. I am not a lawyer, so I am unsure if this is an accurate statement, but it hints at what SCO’s real strategy will be.
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Today Israel retaliated against Hamas for the suicide bombing of a crowded bus that claimed at least eighteen lives; Hamas political leader Abu Shanab was killed by a missile strike on his vehicle.

The media coverage of this event has not been as scathingly critical of Israel as it has been in the past, and for good reason. Maybe more are starting to understand what this cease-fire was really about.
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I started this blog about a month ago, but didn’t want to make it public without finishing a lot of work on the rest of the site; I was in the middle of a number of changes. Now that all major updates are finished, it’s time to go live.

For starters, a lot of the underlying code has finally been revamped. The first incarnation of what I call the Go Framework was a total mess, and what I have now is a lot easier to maintain. (It’s also available to anyone who’s interested.)

Secondly, as you’ve already noticed, I have a blog. For a long time I resisted the urge to journal my efforts and thoughts online, but I was mainly reluctant to do any coding. Once I gave up on trying to write my own blog software and downloaded Movable Type, I became much more enthusiastic about the whole idea.

Lastly, there is a lot of updated content. I’ve added a photo album from my summer in Italy, as well as over thirty albums from my term abroad in Russia. Several other pages have been touched up, and there is a new software development section for any projects I undertake.

This was mostly an “anti-stagnation” update, to make sure my web page didn’t fall victim to the “I’m too lazy to update this pile of old crap” syndrome. Now it’s a pile of new crap, so take a look.