Israeli cowboys take on American wilderness

Yee-hah!

A group of six Israeli cowboys will soon depart on a unique journey across the United States aimed at marking Israel’s 60th anniversary and raising awareness to the historic date in the American media.

The six travelers will be riding on Israeli born-and-raised horses and carry Israeli flags with them. They plan to cross the country from north to south, possibly taking the Continental Divide National Trail, leading from the Canadian border to the Mexican one through the Rocky Mountains.

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Wiki News Interview w/ Shimon Peres (as promised)

Here is the interview, as promised, between David Shankbone of Wikipedia News and Israeli President Shimon Peres:

David Shankbone: One of your big initiatives in technology has been nanotechnology.

President Shimon Peres: Yes.
DS: What made you focus on nanotechnology as a sector for Israeli investment?

SP: Well, nanotechnology is not a vocation but a dimension. It’s a new dimension and it concerns all walks of life, not limited to one, from the military to the civilian. Everywhere you turn around you can see the eventual effect of nano. It also raises some of the most complicated moral issues because until now the human race knew how to build. It didn’t know how to grow. What we did is collected wood and stones and steel and glass and we built from up to down. Structure. Now, what is common to both building a structure is the smallest particular, the nanometer. The minute you can manage it, you can begin to make things grow. And that’s a tremendous change; it is also a tremendous dilemma for humanity. Now actually, like on many other occasions, we discover the nano from the negative side. The bomb.

DS: The bomb?

SP: Yes. The nuclear bomb. The nuclear bomb was to release the hidden powers of a combination or dispersion of nanostructures. The minute you dismantle an existing structure, then you create a lot of energy and you create new dimensions and new measurements. I mean the size has nothing to do with power. You can, say, take a nuclear bomb where the core is six or seven kilos of plutonium and you can destroy a city. Why can’t you build a city with the six kilos? Same story. And the answer is clear. It was easier to destroy because then you don’t have to control the nanostructure. It’s simple when you want explosions; then, fission or fusion does not matter. The minute you want to build, you have to control the nano, and for a very long time we couldn’t, we weren’t able to see the nano, it is so small. No microscope could grasp it. The size of a nano is like 1/100th of a single hair, which is unbelievable. Or if you want to, to compare the nanometer with the meter is to compare an orange to the globe. Same proportion. That’s nothing. And the minute they discovered the microscope, the electronic microscope that can see the nanostructure, we can begin to build. And to build with materials and powers and combinations that we weren’t aware of. And then you can create a lot of things, like I said, on the military side. But it doesn’t make sense to chase it in modern warfare. It’s not armies against armies. It’s strength against, the strength of a collective army against the strength of an individual terrorist. It does not make sense to take an F-16 that costs $40-50 million and chase a terrorist. Nano enables you to miniaturize everything.
DS: To miniaturize?

SP: Yes. And from the beginning you can create invisible sensors that will inform you about every movement in armies all over the world. Then you can hand over the soldier, a new uniform made of nano which is immune against cartridges, against biology and chemical warfare. It’s a strong material because the nano material is 100 times stronger than steel and it weighs only 1/6 of it. It can warm up the soldier in cold weather; cool him in the warm weather. It enhances his strength 3 times; he can lift 120 kilos with one hand. And then you can go on and say not only to protect the protector but as well to create robots as in planes without pilots and military units without soldiers. You don’t need a soldier; you can run it by proxy. Small weapons, small robots that can penetrate or perform in conditions that a human being cannot. He is too large, too inflexible.
DS: That’s amazing.

SP: Then take the nano in medicine. You can produce the smallest instruments that you don’t have to invade the body. You can do it from the outside control, with such tiny little instruments.
DS: Are you satisfied with the progress in the nanotechnology sector here in Israel?

SP: Look, I started it 5 or 6 years ago to explain to the people the importance of it, then I was instrumental in collecting several hundred million dollars that was given to the universities and the research institutes. As a result, we have a very good group of nano experts, you see, all of the best, and now they are working with me voluntarily. I have 30 top scientists in Israel who have developed different ideas in the domain. This type of research can be applied to whatever you want: Alternative energy, because if you want to have solar energy, you need very large equipment. With nano you can condense it. The same is true about desalinization. It can replace the uniform of humankind. In the future ladies will have a dress. You can press a button and it will change the color. The nano has what has been called the lotus effect. Lotus is a flower that keeps cleaning itself. And so is a nano so it doesn’t shrink, doesn’t get dirty.

for the rest of the extensive interview go here…

Who knew — Israel’s 60th Anniversary

Pilobolus Dance Theatre to Tour Israel

Pilobolus, the internationally acclaimed American dance company, announced today that it will tour Israel later this month with famed photographer Robert Whitman. The Consulate General of Israel is sponsoring Whitman’s visit on the occasion of Israel’s 60th anniversary.

Known for his energetic trademark photos, Whitman displays a unique talent for capturing movement, whether he is working in the controlled atmosphere of the studio for top advertising and editorial clients such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft, American Express and IBM, or simply walking down the street of major global tourism destinations with camera in hand.
“While in Israel, Pilobolus and Robert Whitman will visit many cities and tourism sites – from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to the Dead Sea and Masada. The result will be a unique set of photographic impressions that celebrate our country’s rich heritage and tradition,” said David Saranga, Consul for Media and Public Affairs. “Whitman’s photographs will generate significant recognition and support our efforts to expand tourism in the coming year.”

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Business is Good

Two bits of news this week that speak to the growing role of Israel in today’s global economy, mixing it up (as usual) with foreign business partners:

They’re buying us:
IBM has paid a reported $300-350 million to acquire XIV, a storage technology firm based in Tel Aviv. IBM picked up XIV to enhance “its position in emerging storage opportunities such as Web 2.0 applications, digital archives and digital information.” And it’s not as if IBM is a newcomer - they’ve been running operations in Israel since 1949.

And we’re buying them:
Israel Discount Bank has announced it will be purchasing an 11% stake in the Dutch firm Kardan Financial Services to “enable the bank to play a role in the financing sector in Eastern Europe through a strategic partner.”

Not bad for a country of 7.2 million that started out 59 years ago growing oranges.