Israeli's Minister of Justice Destroyed

Haim Ramon's political carrier has ended in a bitter and dramatic way. I know him, we met when he was the head of the Histadrut (Israel's Association of Unions) and I a member of the Engineer's Union Central Committee. He did not contribute one original idea to the debate and was very average in his speech, but I was struck by his physique - a tall and very slim young man, almost Anglo Saxon in his look, different from us middle aged overfed engineers. (In the picture, taken as he is seduced by his female nemesis, he looks fat and old. Time has certainly passed for both of us). He became Minister of Justice in the current government when just before the Lebanon war, he was accused of sexual misbehaviour and retired till the end of judicial process. In contrast to the President Katzav's case, Ramon's actions were done in an open office, before witnesses and filmed, so his sexual crimes were there to all to judge and enjoy.

Former justice minister Haim Ramon was found guilty of indecent behavior at Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on Wednesday afternoon, for having kissed a young woman soldier against her will. The three-judge panel delivered a unanimous verdict.
"The complainant's account is the absolute truth," wrote the judges. "Ramon, however, did not stick to the truth, exaggerated the role of the complainant and distorted the facts in a sophisticated and savvy way." Ramon was charged last August with indecent behavior for having kissed H., the complainant, on July 12, the day the second Lebanon war began. Both sides agreed that H., who was finishing her army service, asked to be photographed hugging Ramon. According to the indictment, she then tried to leave, but "the defendant continued to embrace her body with one hand and drew her near. With the other hand, he grasped her cheeks, turned her face toward him and pressed his lips to her lips, while inserting his tongue into her mouth, all without her consent." Ramon admitted to the kiss, but claimed that it was the natural outcome of a lengthy flirtation that H. conducted with him. He also claimed that the kiss was mutual, not something he forced upon the complainant.
The prosecution had argued that the two had no prior acquaintance and that nothing in H.'s behavior implied that she wanted Ramon to kiss her. It also claimed that a kiss between a young woman and a 56-year-old minister, minutes before a cabinet vote to go to war, is normatively problematic. The most important question facing the judges, however, was whether Ramon could or should have known that H. did not want to be kissed. The prosecution claimed that Ramon never even asked himself what she wanted.

I know that Haim has been crying night and day for the last six months, lamenting those two fatal minutes when he let himself be embraced and photographed with that girl-soldier. But he is (was) a politician, vain and pretty. He had built a difficult political carrier from his days as an university student leader to the high position of Minister of Justice. He was seduced by this young woman to kiss in front the camera and then utterly destroyed. From the moment he fell into the hands of the Ministry of Justice, his fate was doomed. That Ministry is peopled by our ferocious man-hating barracuda, an extremely dangerous predator inhabiting Israel's legal, media and government environment. The only way of surviving in barracuda infested waters is to extremely carefully avoiding calling the attention of the hungry predator and provoking her fury.

Now Ramon has not only lost his post of Minister of Justice and his career is destroyed, he is facing now a long legal battle for damages to the woman. Having been convicted, he cannot work in any public service position, so there he is at 56 unemployed and looking for a starting position as lawyer, a profession he hade never practiced. I never liked him but I feel he did not deserve this fatal strike and we are all much worse for his fall.

Something very bad is happening in Israeli society. I think it is an overreaction to the world's antisemitism. The world is watching us very carefully and accusing us of imaginary crimes: that our reaction to the Arab assassins in our markets is overdone, that we opress our African Jews, and so on. Now this section of intellectual class has turned around and is ferociously erradicating anything remotely uncorrect - shades of sexual misbehaviour, misunderstood ethnic remarks, disrespectful treatment of terror suspects and so on. On the one hand, this campaign has succeeded in instilling real fear in the Israeli middle class male, who has almost disappeared from sight, leaving in its place the ostentatious multi-feathered homosexual, and the proudly antisemite Arab, living off his privileged status of untouchable "native" - getting scholarships to the best universities, the best jobs and generally acting as the owner of the place and its illegal Jewish majority.

On the other hand, Israel is extreemely strong and is growing and prospering. The damage this campaign is actually causing must be marginal, at best. Maybe President Katzav, Minister Ramon and others are necessary sacrificial victims to placate the angry gods. Maybe it is good that the Israeli male is aware of the terrible punishment expecting him for the provoking the ferocious barracuda spirits. I should keep down too.

Spyware

Spyware took residence in my computer and slows it down terribly when on the internet. It makes no damage, but I cannot use the internet.

Disclaimer

The Stockdoctor, whom I suspect is the author of the Microcap Investing book, Holtzclaw, got a follower, who set up a blog called "100 thousand dollar". He is very disciplined implementing the Stockdoctor's startegy, and has doubled his money in no time. It is very dry and abstract, and definitely no fun but hard math. I like his disclaimer:

Disclaimer

I am not here to recommend anyone to buy or sell stocks or follow any of my recommendations. I am drunk most of the day and that could seriously affect my decision making. These stocks may or may not reflect my trading activity in real life. If you think you could have some fun with me, join me or else please take out your frustration at some message board, like investorshub or allstocks etc. Call a broker and get some advice on trading stocks before you make any real transactions.

I bought the book and am trying to follow his strategy, but it is almost impossible as I am limited to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Here we have only three speculative sectors: the Eastern Europe real estate stocks, the medical molecules or instruments startups, and the internet/electronics startups. All three sectors are booming, and making rich lots of people here. We have no mineral sector, except an oil-less oil sector.

BTW in the lift I met with my neighbor and he is most of the time in Ukraine, in the building entrepreneurship business. He is paying 4000 dollar per month salary to local engineers and he says they dont want to work. He is now considering bringing engineers from Lvov to Kiev, but they dont want to come as they are hated by Ukrainian authorities and their designs are not approved.

The Fifth Water Carrier and the Secret Memory Man

Israeli cabinet today approved construction of a fifth water pipeline for greater Jerusalem at a cost of NIS 1.3-1.8 billion. Construction will reportedly take ten years. Mekorot National Water Company is designing the pipeline, which will take 18-24 months and cost NIS 5.5 million.

Design cost of 0.3% of project value? I dont believe it. Even preliminary design cost about 0.5% of the estimate, and it does not have to take two full years. Engineering design costs about 5% of the estimate. Something is wrong. And Mekoroth is NOT a planning company, never has been, has no engineering design staff, it has never designed anything and less a large project. Mekorot, primarily, is a water infrastructure operating company. It has no designing experience.

After Israel was established, the establishment of its water infrastructure was delegated to three companies that had different but complementary functions: the Netzivut HaMaim, the Water Commission, which operated as the overall budgeting and programming office, and had about 50 employees (now it has about 300), Tahal consulting engineers, which was the planning and designing company, headed by Simcha Blass (a genius who invented the drip irrigation system), and later Eng. Aaron Wiener, full of the best minds of Israel. The third branch was Mekorot, which was in charge of construction and operating the system.
When Israel emerged from its original socialist framework, Tahal was privatized and sold and has became a successful contracting & entrepreneurial group, with most of its work in foreign countries. Mekorot - the muscle leg of the tripod - always envied Tahal and its people, because of their brainy image and always tried to do some of the designing by itself. Now, apparently, it is having its chance. Probably it will have to outsource the work to private designing firms - maybe even I could get a bit if I run enough after it - as really has no such personnel and it cannot be organized in short time. It also lacks the intellectual environment required for engineering planning - it is dominated by its workers union and most of its managers come from the bitzua (field work) area. That could be even an advantage, I dont know, they have a practical outlook and hate overly complicated designs.

Planning of the pipeline began several months ago. It will run from Hulda through Eshta’ol in the Jerusalem Hills and then to the city. Given the environmental sensitivity of the pipeline’s route, the eastern section may be underground, for the first time in Israel, in order to avoid damaging the environment. When the planning is complete, the project will go the National Infrastructures Committee for approval, in order to shorten the planning procedures and approve it quickly. The government will decide on the project’s contractor during 2008.

I wonder why we came to the point that five different (almost parallel) pipelines are running uphillto provide water to Jerusalem. The first was built by English Mandatorials, from Rosh HaAyin sources to Jerusalem. The second was built in Ben Gurion's times. OK, a third may have been necessary. But a fourth? and now a fifth? This abundance of pipelines and building the same pipeline several times shows an obvious planning failure. Whose? I can name names but what good that will do to me? The fourth pipeline was built only ten years ago, so why it was misdimensioned and built too small? Why we have to build a new one only ten years after the former one was completed? Does it mean that when the fifth line will be completed already it will be insufficient and a sixth one will have to be built as soon as possible? When I worked in the Netzivut, I was shocked by the lack of serious, systematic research and planning. There was no masterplan, and when it was done, it was outsourced to a 70 years old retired Tahal engineer, who wrote it almost alone. Another shocking feature of the Netzivut was that it had no library - documents were sent, when they wre sent, to the geniza, and never ever anyone saw them again. The brain and the memory of Israel's water system was Tahal, and when Tahal was dismembered, the system forgot all that had been done, to the point that many projects were repeated - instead of repairing a perfectly good pipeline, new ones were laid at a distance of a few meters. Anyway, now we seem to have a new national, state-owned engineering body - Mekorot.

Was Tahal disbanded so that Mekorot could take its place? The idea of Tahal's sale was that private competing small engineering firms should take its place. But in the end, we have only the Mekorot, a State-owned operating company, operating on a cost-plus basis, and no one ever discovered its real costs, as it is a monopoly. The funny thing of this situation is that no one remembers anything, and poignantly, the Secret Water Engineer has become somewhat of a "memory man". In Quechwa society, where there was no writing, they had a person whose professional function was to remember, to act as society's memory... Cosas veredes Sancho...

Post Scriptum: Tahal was sold but it didnt die. Today I read that won the Istambul Wastewater Treatment Plant international bid. Their portion is 18 million euro - design. Kardan, the owner of Tahal, is an unprofitable conglomerate.

Israeli Greens Reveal Their True Color

Israeli "Green" and "Human Rights" organizations are protesting because Israeli soldiers manning West Bank checkpoints have started confiscating zaatar (Majorana siryaca, aka hyssop) bundles. The zaatar is the local variety of common Middle East herb, the oregano, and it is used in traditional foods like hummus the same way than oregano is used in pizza and fried chicken. Palestinian women collect it and dry it and sell it in the markets. Lately its price have been rising as the plant is becoming scarce.

In Israel proper its collection is forbidden by Law, having been declared (by Green initiative and pressure) a native plant in danger of extinction. Jewish farmers are cultivating zaatar (and exporting it all over the Arab world. New, higher yielding and more aromatic zaatar varieties are being developed in Israeli agricultural research institutes.

Thus, the protection of wild zaatar in Israel proper is good but protection of the same plant in Samaria is bad? A Jew collecting wild zaatar should be punished but an Arab should be allowed to continue? Is the protection of wild zaatar an absolute value or it is relative and varies according to the political circumstances?

That appears to be the case. In fact, Greens seem to care little about the wild zaatar, and much about "proving" the evil nature of government, of the "establishment". They are a covert anarchist political movement attacking the Government, any government. Kropotkin at least was explicit, honest, maintaining ideological debates with opponents and a political program of abolishing the State. Greens have no political agenda, but every one of their actions is an aggression against the State. In the Kever Beniamin area picking zaatar is a crime against the Universe and children learn about the endangered zaatar and anyone seen picking up one will be denounced and punished. Move 2 km East, and you are in Samaria, the West Bank. If you stop a Palestinian collecting zaatar in the hills and transporting bundles to sell in the market, you are a colonialist military conqueror, oppressing native peoples and their lifestyles.

The fact is that the zaatar is a nice aromatic herb that is disappearing from the Israeli landscape. It will not die out because it is being cultivated and its large genetic variability (different aroma in each valley) is being studied and stored. It is disappearing because wildness itself has irreversibly disappeared in Israel, one of the most densely populated country in the world. Wild zaatar cannot be returned to its original abundance, except by reducing the population density to its 18Th Century level, when it stood at 300,000 inhabitants. (The same area now is home to 6 million Jews and 5 million Palestinian Arabs). Greens would like the reducing and they say so.

The Bitter End of President Katzav

Israel's President Moshe Katzav vacated his chair in anger. Only six months ago he was the respected President of us, visiting fallen soldiers parents, giving out medals to winners of student competitions, throwing receptions for gaudily uniformed Military Attaches and so on. Then, out of the blue, we read in the press that he had secretely visited the Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, asking him for help against the former secretary that was blackmailing him. He had recorded her on phone discussing a 200,000 dollars compensation for his bad treatment of her.

Big Mistake, Mr Katzav. The office of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Justice in general is peopled by crazed feminists. Manless, childless, embittered, hate-filled women-of-the law. Katzav's secret conversation was immediately forwarded to the media, which sensing the sex-scandal potential of the case, stormed the former secretary demanding to be told of the terrible things his former boss had done to her. The woman, which till now had felt a confused resentment against Katzav, as it is only natural having been sacked as consequence of an office intrigue, now was put in the position of having to formulate her complaints and for that, she was imposed the eager guidance of social workers and legal expert professionals. The boring details of the office intrigues were swept aside as irrelevant, and the young woman's mind focussed on the supposed sexual goingons with the boss.

Soon she had a barracuda lawyer at her side (see the picture) and the events started to be carried away by an unstoppable dynamic of their own. In Israel, any sex between a public servant and a lower status women is considered, ipso facto, involuntary and a "rape". In Hebrew - e-noos. It is not rape but a forced not necessarily sexual relationship. The law (and the Ministry of Justice and the Police) presumes that the man is exploiting the dependent position of the woman to impose on her his horrible sexual demands. (From an Israeli point of view, the American perception of President Clinton's affaire with Monica was astonishing, in the sense that no one ever talked about rape and it was always obvious that anything they did was by mutual consent and great enjoyment). That perception is unconceivable for our average barracuda. In Israel it is automatically presumed that the young woman is in a state a shock after having his privacy being violated and of course she is consumed by fear and nighmares of the all-powerful Alpha Male, and therefore she cannot complain except if protected by the Law and a falange of female support organizations. A veritable army of official "case workers" and volunteer "support" organizations has been created and are in vigilant stand-by to fortify any young woman in her legal fight, and to send the beast to rot in jail. I am not exaggerating.

Katzav denies that they had any physical relationship. I dont know, and as Vladimir Putin said, "We all thought Katzav was a kitty cat and suddenly it appears that he was a tiger". Katzav was known as a religious Persian born traditional Jew, quietly married 37 years to the same old shapeless woman, husbanding an utterly traditional family of children and grandchildren. He was selected for President exactly for that reason, for his insipid and eventless background, his love of decorum and protocol, so contrasting to the colourful President we had before him, the glamorous fighter pilot and hard-drinking bon-vivant Ezer Weizman, which we all wanted to forget.

The media entered a state of orgasmic trance, enjoying to its very roots the saucy sex scandal taking place at the highest of all high places. The media sent out research teams to screen all the other secretaries Katzav had in his 50 years career as major of Kyriat Malachi and Minister of something. In the hysteria so created, a few aging fat women were tempted and prodded to become celebrities and be interviewed on TV fantasizing about their intimate relations with the President. Suddenly, an image of Katzav was of a manic sex machine, bedding all young woman in his reach.

Having arrived to this point, Mazuz had no choice than to let the Police to investigate the allegations of rape, which is a very rare but very serious crime in Israel. The Police, reforced by the Family Police unit, collected the testimonies of the women and presented its report to Mazuz. Now Mazuz has to decide if there is enough hard evidence of a crime to start a formal procedure against the President. But the fact that a formal police report of a criminal investigation is being processed in the Ministry of Justice is enough to destroy the President's moral authority. For example, one of the tasks or privileges of the President is to pardon convicted criminals. How can he do it if himself is under suspicion? So he asked for a temporary "vacation" and Dahlia Itzig took over her task as President.

Katzav gave a bitter sendaway speech. In my interpretation, he feels an innocent and helpless victim of a media conspiration, that has condemned him before without giving him a chance of defending himself. For example, he pointed out, no one had ever had gone to the police to file a complaint of rape or sexual molestation or whatever against him. He had been targeted and persecuted by the press alone in search of sensation of discovering a supposed sex criminal hiding under the President's skin. But look at me and look at them. I am a responsible, model of a stable family man, 37 years married to the same woman with whom created and brought up a model family. A distinguished career of fifty years in the public life and not one complaint against me. And who are those accusing me? Hedonistic unmarried media-types of undetermined gender living in irregular, temporary maybe same-sex arrangements. (I am making this up, since the President was careful to avoid criticising the homolesbi, but I hope my interpretation reflects his bitterness). He seems to feel that the immoral has risen to attack traditional Jewish Middle-Eastern family values embodied by him.

Katzav also tried to use the ethnic argument: He is of lowly Persian Jewish origin, while the media and the establishment is traditionally made up by Ashkenazim. But that argument is not catching fire in Israel 2007, where ethnic discrimination has been eliminated and reversed (copying and overdoing our idolized Big Brother, the USA), to the point that our Minister of Defense is a non-white Morocco-born union leader, who has not finished high school and has no military record, and Mazuz, our milketoast Attorney General, is himself a non-white person of undefinable Middle Eastern origin. The police cannot be accused of bias, as it is only doing its job and is the realm of "gold-chain nestled in chest-hair" ethnics, as perceived by Steven Sailer. The whole drama is being played out by actors who are non-white, while Ashkenazis are invisible or in the deep background. Nonetheless, one cannot but share the feeling that Katzav is being attacked for his Oriental traditional values, by modern liberal leftist media types who are - here and in the US (and in Poland where there are no Jews at all) - Ashkenazic Jews, even when mostly they are not. Katzav, in his guts, feels attacked by godless degenerates, who accuse him of sexual crimes. He stands helpless and bitter.

Regarding the subject matter, Katzav is no rapist stealing about at night looking for unsecured windows of nubile girls. He is a grandfather of post-retirement age, with high blood pressure and high sugar in the blood, and digestive and pissing difficulties. I wonder if Katzav or the average Israeli politician of his age group is physically able to make it. I mean corraling a healthy woman - 30 to 40 years younger than himself - latching the door, taking down her cloths, ripping her underwear while she is resisting, having an erection and making it with the unwilling partner. I for one couldnt do it, I am too fat and sedentary and timorous for that. American politicians are very fit, they run each morning in the park with their security escort, they train and watch their weight. That is not the style of the Israeli politician. At his age, Katzav must have low testosterone level in the blood and no wish for sexual athletics or adventures. Moreover, with some personal knowledge of the Jerusalem ministries environment, bosses tend to avoid complicating themselves in office affairs. The reason is all too obvious - you have only to contemplate President Katzav's downfall. Jerusalem, also known as the Holy City, is in fact company town, with Government offices being the prime employer. It is chock-full of thirty to fifty something "Shosh" (not my word) office ladies. I would not say that the Shosh are promiscous, since they have so little opportunity. All they want is to marry, for which they have even less opportunity. But all that is beside the point.

End of Semester Picture

Left to Right: The Water Engineer, Benny, Eyal, Arnon, Moshe
Shlomit, Shira, Shmulik, Shirly
Missing: Roman and others.

It was a very good course. All of them sent by their workplaces to achieve the diploma of registered professional engineer for further promotion. They deserve it.

All Sails Set

I have finished the rearrangement of my portfolio and is set to catch the winds and move onwards. The main sail is Teva, Machteshim Agan and Israel Chemicals; then the smaller sails to catch the higher and stronger winds - made up of Kesem Sin, Kesem 30, Delek, Summit, HaHevra LeIsrael, etc. Then, in the highest level, small specialized sails to catch the wild winds of speculation, like PUT options on the price of oil futures, Ahora Options, Tower, Anter Holdings and a few more. Since the price of the oil has stabilized and Israel's economic situation is very good, I hope to catch the coming winds and move up some 30% in two or three months.

Regarding Anter Holdings, which I started collecting a year ago, with the idea that small private capital outfits were to get rich fast and make me rich, I am still losing some 10% on the stock bought at the peak, and then making some 15% on the stock bought a month ago. This Amit Berger is a very active and daring wizard, and I am giving my money to him to work with it. The Tiv Taam business, where he bought 50% of stumbling supermarket chain, is looking good. Now he bought World Group Holdings Ltd. (TASE: WRGR) from controlling shareholder Zvi Barinboim. Barinboim, another luftgescheftn macher or wizard, is switching his investments to the real estate businesses. Very little has been published on the operation, but I hope it will redund in a higher Anter Holding price. I think this Amit Berger is working as I would like to do but cannot, so let's join him through Anter Holdings. The drawing shows Pirate Lafitte boarding the loaded Indiaman.

THE NEXT DAY: It worked! Anter Holdings up 5%, Ahora Option 1 up 12% and so on. Being there no no pubs in Kever Beniamin City, we overage Jews drink our wine chatting on the the stock exchange forums, and today a Grivas person wrote almost a poem on my chochmes. He is invested a "Volvo Model 2007" (sic) in Ahora Options! A few days ago we had an exchange that the Ahora Option pricing, which is consistently higher than its Black and Scholes valuation. He wrote that according his calculation, at 70% volatility, the option is priced right, and that Ahora will behave like Rosebud in 2005, when jumped tens of percent points in a few days. The Day Trader person wrote that the Option is horribly overpriced and he would not get near to it. I wrote that Ahora stock has been behaving very stable in 2006 and always well within the 70% band, but if the public thought that 70% was right, then my opinion is that I am wrong and the public, right. And it was! L'Hayim, Grivas!

Reading Minds

>Once we were talking with Guershon Perlshtein he mentioned someone who had established a second family ("casa chica" a la Zvi Rintzler). The comment arrived from the blue, unconnected to the business 0n hand. Steve Sailer wrote a note on the advantages of retiring in a colonial country, like Costa Rica, and quoted a Rudyard Kipling poem about clean girls on the road to Mandalay. The effect is that we are reading each other's minds, that we are aware of the other old white male's recondite fantasies. Extrapolating, the older I am clearest it is that people has been built following one prototype and we all feel the same feelings, we all think the same thoughts, we all dream the same dreams. This is a hard fact, we can safely disregard anything because we know exactly what the other guy is trying to do, because "we" are the other guy. And viceversa, it is to be taken for granted that our motives cannot be hidden and the other guy sees through us as if we had a screen on out head projecting our thoughts.

When young I thought why all these hypocrisy? If you and me are exactly the same, we have nothing to be ashamed of in front of each other. But I have learned that in this world peopled by evildoers and sick minds searching for evil motives in the others, the lack of hypocrisy is self damaging and pointless. Let the others pretend they are not human beings, that they are God's saints marching on, I shall never push them against the wall and demand aknowledgement of reality. I am old and tired for that and I have other things to do in the few years I may have ahead. The drawing shows the pirate Gibbs carrying the Dutch Girl in aboard of his vessel. The other a Pirate settled with his Madagascar wife.

Captain Tew Attacks the Queen's East Indiaman

Insight. Making money in investing is to exploit market inefficency, and the are inversely related to liquidity and number of active participants. I mean, in a market like stock exchange trading of say, TEVA, which is registered in many markets, it is difficult to be more clever than others. So I should avoid the stock market in its usual form. I need more risky and difficult markets. Which are those? One is the direct involvement in business, buying failed businesses+repackaging+selling them. I am almost a year in the market and looking around but seen no opportunities. The water factory of Kfar Edumim industrial area looked interesting, but the entrepreneur did not need me. I have not seen other opportunities, I shall be searching more actively.

The second is the illiquid real estate market. I am aware of the Israeli apartments for living business, but have not found investment opportunities. The interest rate is terribly high, for example. The best I found is the small cap shares in TASE and of course he option market, which is very small and has much volatility. That Trader person on the Globes forum has learned how to work this resource and made 240% last year on this illiquid market. I, like an idiot, played the world's most liquid market, that of oil options. I bet that it will go down, under 50, and there it was going when Arctic masses of air started moving towards Europe and the USA. Now it is 52. I found a wonderful illustrated book of pirates, 180 years old, I like it. It is a cold Shabbat outside, I am taking a rest day, yom menucha.

We are not really aware of it but the world is changing more now than ever before. Enormous areas are being depopulated, like Ukraina and Moldova and Hungary. The quantity and quality of people working is changing very fast and also what they are doing. The whole postwar economy has been wrecked. Travelling in Bulgaria one only sees rusted ruined factories and abandoned villages. Turkey and Russia is importing workers from Central Asia.

I imagine myself to be Captain Tew, aboard my sail ship on the open, free, lawless ocean. I have no control over winds and currents and I barely know where I am in the vast, signpostless ocean. The drawing is interesting, as Tew's ship has a afifon like sail 40 - 50 meter high drawing the ship madly toward its prey, almost in the air, like a bird. It must have been a superhuman sensation of driving a small wooden ship that is being rised by wild, uncontrollable, furious, frantic winds into the air and toward the loaded, slow, East Indiaman with its torrid treasures and perfumed white girls. Investing should be like that, setting the sails to catch the wind and use their fury to fly and fall on the seachest full of yellow gold coins.

Malos Aires

Thinking again of stopping the blog. Thousands of robot programs searching the web for a multitude of things, from public mood to sex maniacs like our President Moshe Katzav. The ones that are consistently showing themselves and making their bids are Nigerian writers, offering dirty schemes for sharing unclaimed monies. Others sense loneliness and offer friendly services. More machines, some of them very smart, are watching, collecting information and analyzing it for an exploitable weak point. I dont like it. The drawing is from an old pirates book titled "Horrid Abuse of Helpless Women in the Cabin".

Halutz Hanged

"Captain Blackbeard at the End of the Bowsprit" reflects the end of Dan Halutz, the Army Chief. Although leading the Army into Lebanon, he never realized he was involved in a war. As a man of the air, he didnt know what to do with his land forces and didnt use them, Now they are calling back older, retired, well probed officers, and the leadership will possibly fall on Ashkenazi. He is a Golani infantry man, a neighbor and see him training very hard on the walking machine. He is no Steven Sailer's ideal: Ashkenazi definitely is the gold chain nestled in chest hair sweaty swarthy Middle Eastern type.

The Pirate (All the Rest are Just Robbers)

The pics show "English Pirates Carrousing at the Old Calabar River", and "Captain Gibbs burying the Money". The pics are topical: I completed the Pirate project. It took me a week. This is no way to earn even minimum salary. It is cold again, I am caughing again.

Prof. Charles Murray and Common People

Arnold Kling's excellent blog quotes Prof Charles Murray's new article on education. Murray argues (his facts are right) that

to have an IQ of 100 means that a tough high-school course pushes you about as far as your academic talents will take you. If you are average in math ability, you may struggle with algebra and probably fail a calculus course. If you are average in verbal skills, you often misinterpret complex text and make errors in logic. These are not devastating shortcomings. You are smart enough to engage in any of hundreds of occupations. You can acquire more knowledge if it is presented in a format commensurate with your intellectual skills. But a genuine college education in the arts and sciences begins where your skills leave off.
In engineering and most of the natural sciences, the demarcation between high-school material and college-level material is brutally obvious. If you cannot handle the math, you cannot pass the courses. In the humanities and social sciences, the demarcation is fuzzier. It is possible for someone with an IQ of 100 to sit in the lectures of Economics 1, read the textbook, and write answers in an examination book. But students who cannot follow complex arguments accurately are not really learning economics. They are taking away a mishmash of half-understood information and outright misunderstandings that probably leave them under the illusion that they know something they do not. (A depressing research literature documents one's inability to recognize one's own incompetence.) Traditionally and properly understood, a four-year college education teaches advanced analytic skills and information at a level that exceeds the intellectual capacity of most people.

In short, he argues for colleges to return what they were 150 years ago, and to send the proletarii to vocational schools. He even mentions that good tradesmen afre difficult to get and their jobs cannot be outsourced to India and by their income, they are definitely upper class.
I commented that

Murray's argument is impressive. He is 100% right. But unfortunately he does not understand how society works and what society (and the government in general) is trying to do, which is to confuse everybody except the very smart, about the nature of our society. Why young people are being pushed into college to acquire a meaningless degree? Why a multitude of student loans and grants are being offered (no, actively pushed down their throats) to low class youngsters, why the multitude of programs to motivate them to go to college and so on? The answer is because the alternative is bad, unworkable. A society rigidly classified by intelligence and with different types of educations and degrees (or even uniforms of different colors, as in some scifi books) - is simply not viable. Blacks and other groups will not accept that they are doomed to vocational training while other ethnii goes to be engineers or lawyers. They will be no social peace in structured society like that. The solution is to confuse everybody. It is a wasteful solution, but we can afford it and it is cheaper than a society paralyzed by class/race/antisemitism/etc. And as Murray writes, everybody enjoys the college experience as it is provided today - no ego-damaging exams, yes walk-in orgies, Polynesian islands full of coconut trees where responsability or commitment are unheard of. It is pathetic that Prof Murray, having had time to reflect on the reception of his book, insists in opening the windows and letting the day light in, when it is much better for all of us (including Prof. Murray) to keep the room in cosy semi-obscurity. And a last argument against what Prof. Murray is doing: Filling up the colleges generates jobs for teachers. Easy, confortable, semi-intellectual, air-conditioned, civil service positions for those too smart for blue collar jobs but not smart enough to manage on their own outside of these wonderful institutions.

Prof. Charles Murray is a fascist, not like a Hollywood caricature war criminal, but in the ideological sense of trying to build a corporative state based on structured classes. I wonder if he is doing it out of a fascist love of order, clarity and truth, or he is unaware of his corrosive effect.

Further thoughts:

The third and shortest note deals with us, the good students. He wants to take us from the hedonistic school system where we prosper with no effort at all, and put us in a hard demanding environment where we shall surely fail and realize our fallibility and limitations. He want to beat humility into our proud hearts. That is exactly the educational system I had to endure, Ivanovna and her sadistic physical and social punishments. And if I did not learn enough humility there and in the next fifty years out there, the stock exchange is teaching me now. I am proud of my achievements, but boy, seeing the clairvoyant operations of Sachkan Yom (The Day Trader persona on Globes board), with his 240% yield in 2006, puts one in its place.

Regarding the vocational teaching for those who are not made for calculus, I think he is too generous. IQ development stops somewhere around 12 or 13 and most jobs dont really require vocational training. In fact, most jobs are learnt after a two week on the job training - supermarket cashiers, Yale fork driver, bus driver, computer assembler. Why keep these people in school till age 18? Let them out to make good money at age 16 and make children, as they are supposed to do.

Burn the Ship to Focus

Decided to drive myself into a complicated spot. I am not focusing, I waste time, and my wife noticed my laxitude and is applying pressure to make me accept a municipal job. Seven years ago, in a similar attempt to break out, I was defeated by my lack of focus, persistance and hardness. So what I am going to do is to drive myself into a difficult spot from where I shall have no alternative but win or die - get rich or face total loss.

(1) Taking up debt. Debt is a powerful incentive.
(2) Weekly meetings with collegues. Like Taly, etc.
(3) Long term commitments: Contracts that expose me to problems if unattended.

The Mall

Unexpectedly, the mall I have (partially) designed is actually being erected. I made a routine visit and the Chief himself came to see me and seen with me. I am worried because the Municipality destroyed the drainage hole I used to drain the building and built instead a square deep entrance. Possibly the original one, which was poorly built, had been flooded during the last rains.

Speculating in Oil

I am sleeping well, a sign that I am not risking enough.

Venezuela's Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said there are 700,000 barrels to 1 million barrels of excess daily crude production in the world market.

I dont believe a word of RR, but I bought kesem neft put options at 4600. It went up 13.2% today. Why, the Middle East situation seems stable, the Russians are pumping gas to Europe, so the price should go down and my put option up. The pic shows the memorable scene from Mad Max when the decoy escape tanker hits the dust and ... does not explode (it is full of sand). The 2007 Post-Apocalipsis Oil Wars, as imagined 25 years ago.

PS I lost all my money in the speculation.

Things Move Faster than Me: The New Government Complex is Sick !

I just finished a thought about the potential of the sick building business in Israel and PRESTO! here is this important newspaper piece on the subject. And a business opportunity!

At the beginning of last week, 1,700 employees who work at Tel Aviv's Kirya government office complex used sanctions to protest the poor working conditions in their luxurious office building, whose construction was finished about two years ago. The workers complained about a choking feeling, "stifling air," overcrowding, infections and eye irritations that prevented them from working. Last Wednesday, things returned to normal after treasury wage supervisor Eli Cohen promised to intervene to resolve the problem. So I am not wrong, there is a market and there are no private experts.Dr. Asher Pardo, an expert on occupational hygiene at the safety and hygiene institute (Ha MOSAD LE BETICHUT VE LE GEHUT - I have a meeting next Sunday with Alex) of the Industry, Trade and Employment Ministry, relates that in 30 percent of office buildings, workers complain of various symptoms, from feeling choked or a "lack of air," headaches, fatigue, irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and skin, to respiratory reactions and increased susceptibility to infection. When more than 20 percent of people working in one building have these symptoms, and they disappear or decrease dramatically when employees leave the building or go on vacation, this can be an indication of "closed building syndrome" or "sick building syndrome." Pardo says an analysis of the complaints indicates that half are related to a lack of ventilation. This refers not only to the number of times the ventilation system refreshes the air inside, but also to the quantity of outside air brought into a closed office. In modern construction, the desire to streamline systems and save on heating and cooling expenses led to insulated buildings with no ventilation. According to Pardo, since more than half of the work force in industrialized countries works in such conditions, the potential exists for considerable harm to public health.
Air conditioning systems transport chemical and biological contaminants within the building. Moreover, the location of a building's vents is very significant in terms of contaminants. For example, when a vent is located close to a road surface, it introduces vehicle exhaust that may affect the health of employees inside the building. Prof. Joseph Ribak, the head of Tel Aviv University's school of public health, says (NOTE: follows a textbook quotation with no relevant information, showing he knows nothing) every worker is affected differently by the physical and psychological work conditions. Some people have a low threshold and develop intense physical reactions easily, while others do not feel anything. The connection between symptoms and psychology lies at the heart of a scientific debate over the causes of the phenomenon, but it has not been proven that the workers' problems are solely in their heads. On the contrary, psychological tests conducted on office workers who did and did not complain of symptoms yielded similar results. Dr. Pardo says that when complaints stem from a workplace, there is a psychosocial factor in addition to physical, chemical and biological causes. Factors that could affect workers' health include high population density or isolation, and of course, irregular working relations. The air-conditioning system also has a considerable impact on sick building syndrome. Over time, the vents and filters accumulate dust and other particles that enable the development of mites, fungi and microbiological pollutants. Good maintenance and clean air conditioning systems are one way to improve things.The ventilation rate is defined as the volume of fresh air per person introduced into a closed space over a certain period of time. Studies found a high incidence of symptoms among workers when the ventilation rate was less than ten liters per second per person. Tests showed a dramatic improvement in symptoms when the ventilation rate was then increased. Despite the restriction on smoking in public places in Israel, second-hand smoke can be found in closed buildings even when the source is far removed. "Open space in offices, when the dividers do not reach the ceiling and the air flows unobstructed," explains Ribak, "can lead to the smoke from the smoking area at a distant end of the floor reaching the work space. Moreover, the air conditioning system can transport it." Modern construction materials, furniture and rugs can also cause problems. When insulation made of artificial mineral fibers is damaged or wears out, it disintegrates into minute particles that can irritate the respiratory system, skin and eyes. The furniture is often made from combinations of wood chips, compressed paper and glue. These substances may contain formaldehyde, which evaporates - particularly in the cases of new or worn-out furniture - and causes symptoms. Wall-to-wall carpets can be doubly harmful: When they are laid, some of the glue evaporates, and it takes a few days before the odor dissipates. The rugs also accumulate large amounts of mites and dust, which cause allergic reactions.
According to Ribak, when there are numerous complaints from workers, an occupational epidemiological investigation should be launched to find - and hopefully remove - the source of the problem. "Multiple complaints," he says, "can lead to 'mass hysteria,' when a growing number of employees complain of physical symptoms even if they aren't necessarily suffering from them." The epidemiological survey consists of a detailed survey of workers' complaints and physical conditions, and a comprehensive inspection of the building. The Industry, Trade and Employment Ministry's supervision department is responsible for overseeing workplaces. The inspectors have the authority to check to what extent a given workplace meets the standards and whether the law is being obeyed. If a work supervisor feels there are flaws that need to be fixed, he can order them repaired and set a timetable. However, Pardo says there are no specific regulations on sick building syndrome, and therefore supervision is more guidance than enforcement. In addition, two years ago the only occupational medicine institute was closed due to cutbacks at the Industry, Trade and Employment Ministry, and there is no place left that coordinates information and research, or monitors complaints. There are currently several private organizations that deal with occupational hygiene, but no central body guides the research agenda. More importantly, there is no organization looking out for new risks.
The Expert's Recommendations
Ventilation: There should be 10 liters of outside air per second per person; the recommended flow rate is up to nine meters per minute in the winter, and up to 15 meters per minute in the summer. The air conditioning and ventilation systems must be periodically maintained.
Climate control: The temperature should be between 20 and 24 degrees Celsius. Humidity should be 40 to 50 percent in a regular office environment, and 50 to 60 percent for prolonged work in front of a computer. No direct sunlight should hit the office.
Lighting: Fluorescent lights should have multiple shades. Diverse lighting creates a more comfortable environment for reading and writing.
Furniture: Furniture made entirely from wood or sandwich board is preferable to that made of fibers or MDF. Make sure all plywood furniture is covered so that particles are not released into the air. Avoid carpeting or fiber covering on the walls. Proper, ergonomically designed cubicles will prevent injuries associated with prolonged sitting and computer work.
In addition, paper piles should not be spread all over the office; paper tends to accumulate humidity and disintegrate. Water-based paints are preferable to epoxy- or polyurethane-based paints except for specific places where such paints are necessary.

Rabotay (Gentlemen), these people are bureaucrats and as so they see their role as regulators, legislators, inspectors, media-interviewees. They just dont give solutions. That is NOT what they do or are supposed to do. The will not take responsability for any concrete action. They contract an outside expert, say Dr J. They make J to do all the work. NO HAY TIEMPO QUE PERDER. MANOS A LA OBRA.

The Nature of J. As We Move Forward

I am facing a number of challenges in my current attempt to establish myself as an independent professional. It is the same set of difficulties I faced in my former attempt of the year 2000: I acquired lots of good work orders, but I was unable to organize myself and deliver on time. In 2000 I got so frustrated that after a few months I gave up to my wife's urging and accepted a civil service job (which I later discovered, was quite an important position). This is my last opportunity in life. What I need is a misgueret - a framework. Respected business partners and ineludible responsabilities (like debts) that will not allow me the luxury of navigating all day and waste time as I do. I must burn my boats like Hernan Cortes to everybody to see that I am fully committed and have not a chance to retreat. I have to think how to structure my life in that way.

When in a similar confortable situation as I am now, in 1967-8, my dear uncle Ivor ז"ל put down before me an offer of a trip to America if I complete the degree in the year 1969. The Szabo gave me everything I asked for, a salary which I went to receive each month at the third floor of their Tucuman Str. fab, an empty apartment - first near the Corrientes & Medrano streets (with cases of expensive whisky) and then in Cabildo Str.- and so on. I gave up everything and concentrated on giving exam after exam, ten in 1969, and there I went to Montreal. How can I structure myself into a similar committed situation?

PS.:
(1) Taking up debt. Debt is a powerful incentive.
(2) Weekly meetings with collegues. Like Taly, etc.
(3) Long term commitments: Contracts that expose me to problems if unattended.

Tower (TSEM)'s Way is Not Simple

I have been collecting TSEM because the analysts were against it, saying that the semi business, being cyclical, was facing a crisis. And TSEM being a small, struggling outfit, was bound to suffer greatly. What is happening is exactly the contrary: demand for chips is growing, TSEM is prospering. Even the free newsletter Taipan pushes the same line. I

have been keeping tabs on the semiconductor sector recently, watching many of these firms either trend flat or head south for the last several months. While investors have been glued to the price of oil and the decline in housing, tech stocks have very quietly made a variety of technical bottoms. In the meantime, many classic technology names are trading at discounts to their historical forward price/earnings ratios.

That may change later this spring. The semis are a very cyclical group and they discount economic activity very early. In other words, their prices began to reflect a slowing economy and weaker consumer spending last summer. As a result, most smaller-cap semi stocks have had a tough go of it lately; The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, or SOXX, fell over 20% last spring as emerging markets corrected and has since clawed its way back only roughly half the distance. With the sector off the radar of most investors and valuations in the sector compelling, there is a strong likelihood of a rebound in the group before summer. And when one looks through the program from last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, it’s apparent technology continues to be ever more pervasive in our lives. Chip demand is alive and well.

Korean Companies

It came to my attention that at Berkshire Hathaway's last annual meeting in May 2006, Buffett said that if he were starting his investment partnership over again, he would invest in securities around the world and focus on smaller companies. To illustrate this, he used the experience of his relatively recent investments in Korea, stating that since companies with strong balance sheets were trading at a meager 3 times earnings, he would have been almost 100% invested in Korea. What's more, he said he wouldn't expect all of his small investments to pay off, but would only need a few to pay off very big.

So I started to learn what Korean companies were available for foreign investment. There is a problem of culture, I hate those azure and pink flowers the Koreans seem to have everywhere. They use common English words but they seem to be talking about something else. Their big round rosy faces are unusual in these parts. I know that they are very intelligent and hardworking, but it may take time till I feel confident around to investing in Korea. Maybe it is too late for me, younger people will do it for me.

Hunger in Kever Benjamin City

My dear wife lives in permanent panic since I am not drawing a regular salary now for almost a year. Today, we went to our weekly refill of the fridge and she decided to go to Zol-Po ("Cheap-Here") lowest quality food market as against the protests of the daughter, who is convinced we are rich, very rich and she can be satisfied with nothing but the most publicized branded products and the most expensive. My wife answered angrily to her protests: "You, little kartziah (tick), you have connected yourself to my main artery and are sucking my blood!" Zol-Po caters to the haredi ultra-religious community, which is the poorest section of Kever Benjamin City, mostly Oriental, and regular Palestinian families that are stuck on this side of the Wall and are peacefully assimilating into K.B.City's invisible lumpen-proletariat. (I estimate that about 20% of K.B. City's daytime population is Palestinian, and are becoming indistinguishible from Oriental religious Jews. Of course, Oriental Jews would not sit down and eat with them, but the Palestinians seem to me very attracted to the Oriental brand of Eastern European ultra-ortodox lifestyle developed in Israel). Zol-Po does not carry big brand names, but unknown cheeses and cereals, it has several stands of baby-foods in giant packages and a cheap (but strictly kosher) second rate chicken meat section, no red meats, no fish, and a definitely reject quality fruit and vegetable section. All the products have the kashrut stamps of one of more exotic rabbinical beyt-din, as the Zol-Po public doubts the holyness of Israel's public kashrut certifying system. The market has also a large alcoholic drinks area, with many grape juices with different rabbinical approvals for ceremonial purposes, one for shabbath and other for pessach and so on, in pretentious bottles and all sweetened to vomit concentrations and artificially coloured into hues of violet and pink. They also offer actual wines from the settlements, all glatt kosher le-mechadrin (super kosher with all the biblical mandates of 10% left to the poor and land unplowed every 7 years and fermentation untouched by less-than-holy Jews and so on) and certified by the holiest right-wing rabbinical authorities, and all undrinkable. I loitered around selecting something to buy for the cold night and could not find anything remotely to my taste. No supermarket could receive a harsher condemnation by me. What I am coming to is that I am unable to relax my wife, and even flooding the home bank account with excess cash, has no relaxing effect on her. She is seriously convinced that we are extremely poor and in possible risk of dying of hunger. Are we?

Macho Odor Inspection Tool

Professionals must use impressive, strange-looking, mysterious light & noise - emitting devices to be taken seriously and be paid accordingly. A sick building therapist should be equipped with something macho-looking black odor-identifying-gun like in the picture. I like the look of that toy, which in fact is an ultraviolet lamp and nothing more.

Use to identify mold, bacteria, urine, counterfeit money, patches on the walls of a rental home and lots more. Use to find the source of an odor or other contaminant so that deodorizer treatments can be limited to the areas that really need it. When the UV light is held over an area with urine such as a toilet or a rodent trail the urine spots glow a bright purple. Mold and bacteria glow several different colors depending on the strain.

4 Watt handheld UV inspection light UVL-21 (4 watt) fits comfortably in the hand. This is clearly the version for the less than macho odor fighting professional. Lamps are lightweight. This lamp is available in 115V or 230V versions.

I went to Rosenberg hardware shop and there are UV lamps but for partying purposes. I could buy a lamp and manufacture the black plastic + aluminium foil gun and hat !

I definitely need the black one.

Ozone Generator

Ozone is clearly preferred desinfectant than chlorine, abut it suffers from the problem that its effect is momentary and passing, and it has tobe generated in situ. If there was a cheap and efficient way of generating ozone, that would be marketable. Clarizon and its partners (the Universities of Hong Kong and Newcastle, UK) have demonstrated a unique, patented electrolytic cell for generating ozone with high efficiencies. This relies on a combination of materials deposited in a nanoscale structure.The ozone concentration in the generated gas ranges from 20% to over 35%, in comparison with a typical range from 2% to 12% for conventional, cold corona discharge.The energy efficiency of the electrolytic generation process is at least as efficient as the cold corona discharge process. However, the (conventional) cold corona discharge process suffers from a number of disadvantages:

It is temperature dependent. Typical systems require large quantities of cooling water at 15 °C to achieve their efficiency. If this water has to be cooled from, say, 20 °C then this requires at least as much energy again as for the ozone generation itself.

It requires the input gas (air or oxygen) to be very dry and cold. Again, achieving this requires an energy overhead.

Clarizon’s electrolytic cell suffers from none of these disadvantages. Its overall electricity consumption can be as low as half of cold corona discharge systems, although the exact saving depends on the ambient temperature and whether oxygen is used as input to the cold corona discharge system.

Sick Building Therapist

Since people spend most of its life in closed indoor environments, the problem of ensuring high quality air is becoming a profession. To the best of my knowledge, the area is free and open in Israel. Even in the USA it has not been regulated nor professionals licenced to work and profit in this field. But the EPA is fast taking posession of the field. From the EPA site:

Many office buildings have significant air pollution sources. Some of these buildings may be inadequately ventilated. For example, mechanical ventilation systems may not be designed or operated to provide adequate amounts of outdoor air. Finally, people generally have less control over the indoor environment in their offices than they do in their homes. As a result, there has been an increase in the incidence of reported health problems.
A number of well-identified illnesses, such as Legionnaires' disease, asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and humidifier fever, have been directly traced to specific building problems. These are called building-related illnesses. Most of these diseases can be treated, nevertheless, some pose serious risks.
Sometimes, however, building occupants experience symptoms that do not fit the pattern of any particular illness and are difficult to trace to any specific source. This phenomenon has been labeled sick building syndrome. People may complain of one or more of the following symptoms: dry or burning mucous membranes in the nose, eyes, and throat; sneezing; stuffy or runny nose; fatigue or lethargy; headache; dizziness; nausea; irritability and forgetfulness. Poor lighting, noise, vibration, thermal discomfort, and psychological stress may also cause, or contribute to, these symptoms.
There is no single manner in which these health problems appear. In some cases, problems begin as workers enter their offices and diminish as workers leave; other times, symptoms continue until the illness is treated. Sometimes there are outbreaks of illness among many workers in a single building; in other cases, health symptoms show up only in individual workers.
In the opinion of some World Health Organization experts, up to 30 percent of new or remodeled commercial buildings may have unusually high rates of health and comfort complaints from occupants that may potentially be related to indoor air quality. Three major reasons for poor indoor air quality in office buildings are the presence of indoor air pollution sources; poorly designed, maintained, or operated ventilation systems; and uses of the building that were unanticipated or poorly planned for when the building was designed or renovated.
As with homes, the most important factor influencing indoor air quality is the presence of pollutant sources. Commonly found office pollutants and their sources include environmental tobacco smoke; asbestos from insulating and fire-retardant building supplies; formaldehyde from pressed wood products; other organics from building materials, carpet, and other office furnishings, cleaning materials and activities, restroom air fresheners, paints, adhesives, copying machines, and photography and print shops; biological contaminants from dirty ventilation systems or water-damaged walls, ceilings, and carpets; and pesticides from pest management practices.
Mechanical ventilation systems in large buildings are designed and operated not only to heat and cool the air, but also to draw in and circulate outdoor air. If they are poorly designed, operated, or maintained, however, ventilation systems can contribute to indoor air problems in several ways.
For example, problems arise when, in an effort to save energy, ventilation systems are not used to bring in adequate amounts of outdoor air. Inadequate ventilation also occurs if the air supply and return vents within each room are blocked or placed in such a way that outdoor air does not actually reach the breathing zone of building occupants. Improperly located outdoor air intake vents can also bring in air contaminated with automobile and truck exhaust, boiler emissions, fumes from dumpsters, or air vented from restrooms. Finally, ventilation systems can be a source of in door pollution themselves by spreading biological contaminants that have multiplied in cooling towers, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, air conditioners, or the inside surfaces of ventilation duct work.
Indoor air pollutants can be circulated from portions of the building used for specialized purposes, such as restaurants, print shops, and dry-cleaning stores, into offices in the same building. Carbon monoxide and other components of automobile exhaust can be drawn from underground parking garages through stairwells and elevator shafts into office spaces.
In addition, buildings originally designed for one purpose may end up being converted to use as office space. If not properly modified during building renovations, the room partitions and ventilation system can contribute to indoor air quality problems by restricting air recirculation or by providing an inadequate supply of outdoor air.
The pic illustrates what we are talking about.

Sentado en el solcito

Winter in Kever Benjamin, my name for this Kfar Saba shtetl. This morning I stopped worrying about Pirat HaAdom design (Kol Ha Aherim Stam Shodedim) which I am not working on for more than a week, and went to patzieren and eat a little schwarmah on the sun. Nice to sit on the winter sun on the main street, doing nothing. I feel like a retired person, and I love it. Daughters above, I feel like Sholem Aleichem's Tevie the Milkman.

H2Q Metatronic StartUp - A Joke?

Cosas veredes Sancho... From Globes:

Strauss-Elite Ltd. (TASE:STEL) is joining the list of Israeli companies investing in water ventures. The company announced that it will invest $10 million in H2Q Water Technologies Ltd. in three tranches, under terms that were not disclosed. The investment gives H2Q a company value of $17 million. Strauss-Elite will provide H2Q with an initial loan of $2.75 million, convertible to shares upon meeting a certain milestone. Strauss-Elite will invest an additional $3.5 million for a 51% stake in the company, and has an option to invest a further $3.75 million for another stock allocation that will boost Strauss-Elite’s stake in H2Q to 59%.

In a laconic notice to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), Strauss-Elite said that H2Q is a water venture aided by Israeli scientists and research institutes. Sources said that the CEO of H2Q is Rami Ronen, the CEO of Ramdor Systems and Computers 1990 Ltd. (TASE:RMDR) until he quit after a struggle for control. Oddly, no key figures in Israel’s water industry have heard of this company, which has won a generous investment in terms of the local market. Strauss-Elite declined to provide details about the company, the milestones that it will have to meet to be eligible for the balance of the investment, and what the purposes of the investment are. Industry sources believe that H2Q is a holding company based in the UK. Ronen is presently en route there.

I never heard of Rami Ronen. To the best of my knowledge, he is not a figure in our small Israeli water pond community. He may have something going in Spain with his brother Gadi. I googgled H2Q and the results are ... METATRONIC HEALING TOOLS. No, this must be wrong! Anyway, this is interesting.

All tools are constructed to order by Buddhist Monks in the Mt. Shasta area of California. A portion of the proceeds goes to support monasteries in Nepal and India. Items are made to order by monks in Mt. Shasta and can take 6-8 weeks for delivery.

THE SACRED SCIENCE OF METATRONICS

Buddha Maitreya is designing Metatronic Tools which work at the level of the etheric body which is the level at which vibrational realignment takes place. When we use Metatronic Tools such as the Vajra, Etheric Weaver or Metatron’s Mat it facilitates the geometric simplicity of the evolution of the atom to manifest a complexity of DNA, which is the mind of God permeating matter into form as a pattern of Divine Harmonic Design - ever-growing in the Law of Love emerging as a manifestation known as the human being - The Angel.

In this enlightened most auspicious time of the coming forth of Heaven on Earth, the ending of illusion will begin as the Angel of the Presence begins to manifest in all of us. Every human being is an incarnation of the great collective Soul, embodied in Love. As this collective Soul emerges from the world of humanity a new form of human being will manifest and a new word known as the Monad will become known as the Awakened Angel.

The Science of Metatronics works with the energy of light and the electron, and communicates through geomancy. Geomancy is the light form that creates the Word, found in the Tetragrammaton located inside of the Tetrahedron. When one holds the vajra it affects the meridians, the minor chakras prana, and their body and the vajra becomes one. Their physical form begins radiating light and attracting light and this enhances love magnetically.

Vajras (Tibetan = dorje, meaning "lightning bolt).
These are metatronic devices that promote alignment of the several subtle energy levels through dispelling of illusion in consciousness.
Etheric Weavers = Healing wands that align the major and minor chakra centers of the body. The Etheric Weaver is a Metatronic Tool designed by Archangel Michael which consists of a perfectly clear 7inch lab grown quartz crystal covered with a clear color gel, two magnets are placed parallel to each other on either side of the crystal and copper wire is wrapped around the crystal and magnets. A gold plated chain with a small crystal on the end is used to hold the hanging Etheric Weaver, like a pendulum.

The Etheric Weaver is used to naturally balance and align the chakric energies, it can be used as a direct as well as distance healing tool - both on oneself and others. The etheric weaver works with the energy of the Seven Rays - the colors of the rainbow - to heal and align the whole body and its hundreds of chakras, rather than focusing on the seven primary chakric centers.

Tower Shows It Can Manufacture Polyphony Sound Generators

Tower is rising 5% on the NASDAQ while the rest of the market is falling. The firm announced that has collaborated with Modiotek Co., Ltd., the new spin-off company from Macronix International Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq:MXIC - News; TSE:2337.TT - News), to successfully introduce 32-polyphony sound generator into ULC (Ultra Low Cost) handset models, following manufacturing 10 millions of MAP S32i series products for the past two years. The MAP S32i is built for ULC phones with FM tuner and hands-free features. It is equipped with 32-polyphony MIDI engine based on wave-table synthesis technology, providing best performance-cost ratio handset ring-tone solution. Moreover, it has integrated 16/32ohm stereo headphone amplifier, 8ohm loud-speaker amplifier, two stereo auxiliary analog input ports for FM audio sound input and speech signal from analog base-band chip residing in the cell phone system implementation; its unique function integration provides total system cost improvement for ULC handset application.

The MAP (Mobile Audio Platform) family consists of half a dozen different products, customized for the specific cellular phone models and applications which were built, using Tower's FAB2 0.18-micron mixed signal process technology and shipped during 2006. The MAP (Mobile Audio Platform) products represent a business of thousands of wafers each quarter for Tower.

Among the handsets using these products are leading models by two of Top-5 handset brands and a dozen well-known handset makers. The market for ULC handsets is estimated at 48 million sets in 2007 and expected to grow to 150 million sets by 2010, according to market research company Strategy Analytics. The derived demand of sound generators is going to ramp up gradually.

"In our drive to optimize our manufacturing capabilities, we selected Tower Semiconductor to manufacture our highest volume products," said J T Chung the newly appointed president and CEO of the Modiotek that develops the audio products. "Tower's excellent engineering and manufacturing capabilities resulted in fast products ramp and smooth volume delivery, which is a must in the competitive consumer business."

"We are happy that Modiotek chose Tower for manufacturing the Sound Generators products family," said Yossi Netzer, general manager of the RF and Mixed Signal product line at Tower Semiconductor. "The sound generators cooperation is a good example for a close partnership that drives products success through matching technology and competitive time to market. Tower's customer support and manufacturing teams worked closely with Modiotek, to ensure smooth delivery and quality execution. We look forward to a continued working relationship with them for the coming generations of this family of products."

This morning, the Sachkan Yom board member asked me about my holdings of Tower. He suggested it is very dangerous and that I should sell it. Coincidence? As I get to know active board members, I am learning their personality. This Sachkan person is very intelligent, but somewhat unstable, acting by fits. He says did 240% in 2006 and I believe him. There is gold in speculative markets.

One of my fears about Tower Semiconductors is that will be unable to compete against Chinese cheap and very industrious labor force. But there are voices that disagree:

The reason is simple. Manufacturing represents only a small proportion of the value in any good - there is invention, design, financing, marketing, transporting, warehousing, advertising - and even then wage costs are not decisive. A Chinese worker may earn 4% of the wage of an American or British worker, but is only 4% as productive. The consultants McKinsey, for example, estimated that only a quarter of Indian engineers and a tenth of Chinese engineers are equipped to work in multinationals. In a McKinsey survey of California, the savings from offshoring to China ranged from 13% in textiles to a tiny 0.6% for hi-tech companies. Cheap labour is not everything.

In The Economist last edition there is an article on Dov Cherney, a wunderkind that created a confection empire sewing T shirts in California. T shirts? California? Universities teach and papers write nonstop on outsourcing to Asia and how it has destroyed America's manufacture, and you have this young Jew who did not hear about the whole thing and in a few years made a buchta selling T shirts made in California.

And there goes a big one!

Today, Michael Berube closed down his very interesting three years old blog. I started to read him through PZ Myers's Pharyngula. He writes:

So today’s the last day of this humble blog’s existence—though I hear there might be some fireworks here tomorrow (and of course I’ll keep all the archives available). Thanks to everyone who’s stopped by in the past week to pay respects, offer condolences, ask me to keep at it, or just say hello.
But I didn’t tell Scott the real reason I’m retiring the blog, which is this: I’ve now taken the medium as far as it can go. I feel it’s too constrained, too limiting. My new project for 2007 will involve v-casting my enormous looming ghostly head directly into your living room so that I can harangue you and your loved ones at any hour of the day. This new form will also be available in eight-track format with a “citizens’ band.” And we hope you like our new direction!
So, dear friends and assorted enemies in a healthy 9:1 ratio, thanks for helping to make these three years of blogging so edifying. I still think this here blogosphere is a great venue for public intellectual work, and I’m deeply grateful to all the blogging liberals and progressives and lefties who decided they’d had it up to here with the “liberal” opinion industry of Joe Klein and Richard Cohen and Peter Beinart and decided to take matters into their own hands. I’ll be reading you all for as long as you keep writing. And don’t forget to look for my pseudonymous comments on those blogs! I’ll be the guy who sounds like me.

Truth is that I am unable to distill from his long and complex farrago of worldplays a coherent argument, but the problem obviously is in me. Since Berube obviously loves blogging and the adulation he gets for it, I daresay something is wrong, but I cannot put the finger on it. The fact is he is stopping. There goes a big one!

Another One Bites the Dust

Another blogger decides that blogging does no good to him and stops, this time, it is the Evanston Jew. He is an Orthodox Jew commenting contemporary issues, limited to frum environment but daring to talk about schidduchim and so on. He decides to stop, for obscure reasons ("Today will be my last post on my blog, at least for now. I will keep my blog up indefinitely, but in time I will block all new comments. I have personal reasons for stopping."), but he does mention something called Zniut (modesty) Committee and a Committee for the Protection of the Evanston Jew's Behind, which may be imaginary organizations but they certainly sound ominous. Bloggers, eventually, discover that blogging is not good for them and close down their blogs but without ever actually giving their real reasons for it. In my mind, they may become aware that colleagues in the office read what they are writing and sending strange meaningful looks in the general direction of their desk or among themselves; schoolchildren (all of them connected to their mobile pones and computers, at least in my town) discover and identify the hidden blogger and make fun of their children; it may well be that the blogs are even used as weapons against them in the ferocious battles we all have to maintain to get a marginal promotion or just to avoid demotion, to maintain one's professional name and to sell another profitless project, or just to maintain friendly relations with important people such as the neighbors or the bank manager in our limited environment.

I am also afraid of unknown strangers of the Hinkley kind, crazed loners who stalk other people and find pleasure in hurting them. I am not in the Ronald Reagan, John Lennon or Robert Kennedy league of famous persons, but blogging is in some remote way an invitation to those seeking to agrede the prominent. I am also afraid of wicked old women, starving for a target whom they can engage in a fight. I am not kidding: On the street, vicious old women start insulting me and/or other drivers if the car does not stop before the line, or if pass on yellow light, or ask something without standing in the queue or whatever. My Mother in Law is such a woman, she is always involved in fights with the children who play in the street under her window, or the administrator of the old age home, or whomever has no choice but meet her. This morning, in the bank, I had such an encounter: I was waiting to talk to the pakidah and when she became free, I entered her partition and started to tell heer about my business, when a very angry old woman stormed in shouting at full volume that I had jumped the queue and it was her turn and that I knew that and did it in purpose. I froze, and didnt look at her. That made her even more furious, and increased her volume and made a public drama shouting "ATA HARA!" - YOU ARE A SHIT. I didnt move to avoid provoking her, since she was dying for a fight and for attention. After retiring her checkbook (what was she wanted to do) I continued my business. I had done nothing and said absolutely nothing, but a public scandal had been created around me in the bank, with the manager etc. all eyeing me, asking themselves what kind of troublemaker agredes such a sweet old lady customer of theirs. In a word, I am afraid of calling the attention of these kind of older women, so exceedingly abundant in our small country. Blogging feels like sticking a big red circle with a cross on one's back, saying "Attention to all crazy people! I am Here!".

Daniel Drezner, a blogger I admire, solved his crisis (he was denied tenure, aka sacked from his job) by eliminating all personal references in his blog, which is now a more or less a dry, serious, formal, professional, classroom like weekly comment. No hint of what he thinks on contemporary issues, except in a formal, neutral, ex-cathedra way. No even remotely making fun of anybody, no mentioning of names nor actually identifiable goings on.

The blogger that seems to have solved nicely the problem is Bryan Caplan, his comments are topical and funny. His partner Arnold Klinger is sometimes brutally honest, up to the point of political uncorrectness and one wonders how is looked at in the teachers' room, if there is such in their university. They may be protected by their libertarian ideology, something between left wing permissiveness and extreme capitalist freedom. And by their absolute cleanness in the personal department: they seem to have no sex lives to talk about (exemplary family people, as we Jews tend to be), they have very modest savings and are seem utterly uninterested in money (they are salaried employees with no other income, not even consulting), and they truely have no other interests outside of their profession (economy, teaching). Greg Mankiw, an economy teacher in Harvard, has a very good blog, again, very friendly but utterly formal in format and professional in content. In the speculation area, people is necessarily reticent to mention what they actually do and losses taken are only suggested. Only some young starting speculators actually write down their positions and reasons for being there. But most of their comments are worthless. I would like to have friends commenting on TASE, but people does not like to speak about sacred, intimate issues like their money. And possibly lots of criminals are watching out there and thinking of ways of stealing that money for themselves. The most I felt that presence is through Nigerian business offers, but they are so incredibly naive and transparent in their black intentions, that they are no more fun and stopped reading them.

The blogworld is more and more becoming a part of one's work environment, a part of the formal social world, to the point that even The Economist has a blog where its journalists comment on their work and environment. There was a nice piece of a journalist writing on his laptop but whishing to go to the coffeeshop to take out a cup of coffee, if the laptop could be left alone and what kind of messages were being interchanged and so on. It is formal but less so, chatty only to the point of helping to sell the main product (the magazine) and witty with the specific aim of showing off the journalist's intelligence, and a few poisonous remarks about low salaries and sel fpromotional material (which are not allowed in the magazine itself) about academic titles achieved and so on.

In my case, I started the blog with the idea of creating an auxiliary instrument for self-promotion, but soon lost that character and became a confessionary diary. It appears I need no auxiliary instruments at all, what I need is to finish my textbooks and write articles in trade magazines. That is not only promotional but it is paid. It would be focused, effective and sufficient. All in all, blogging have had no impact on me, no back beat, not that I am aware of, maybe those bad people out there are watching and collecting more data so they can hit me with force. It is also possibly that there are no bad people out there, that those identity stealers are not really interested in me, every one of us is fully concentrated in his own self and problems.

But I see other bloggers pulling back and becoming less exuberant and more serious about tossing their thoughts in bottles into the vast internet ocean. Currently I am sick, some fever, it is very cold and humid out here in the Kever Biniamin neighborhood. That 12 y.o. smiling thingie has sacked my old photograph box and is writing her memoirs. Appropriately, her book of memories is titled Sefer Zichronot.

Towering Inferno

Zacks.com mailed its recommendation of BUY Tower Semiconductors with a reminder that Tower was located in Israel, and therefore, by definition, a most risky investment. Who the hell is Zacks? Leonard Zacks says he has a PhD in mathematics and thinks he can find patterns in stock market data that lead to superior investment results. Must be another Russian Jewboy who lost his way to Eretz Israel.

Tower Semiconductor (Nasdaq: TSEM), he writes, is a pure-play semiconductor wafer foundry with two IC plants in Israel that manufacture embedded flash-based memory, analog/mixed-signal, and CMOS image-sensor devices. September quarter top and bottom-line were in-line with consensus estimates. The forward guidance is for a 3-11% increase. TSEM appears to be hitting its stride as the company decreased the cash burn rate and completed a restructuring. Tower can expand from here, and increase sales by 58% in 2007. Then Zacks reminds his readers that Tower is located in Israel, a most dangerous place. Risky, risky, crazily risky to invest in anything remotely linked to Israel. True, I too had strong difficulty to understand how perfectly normal people was ready to risk their dear lives to visit Israel, not to speak of those living here. After finishing a whole bottle of taxfree whiskey, on August 1976 I took courage and landed in Tel Aviv. As the alcohol vapours evaporated, I was surprised how healthy the people of Tel Aviv looked. They walked purposefully on the streets and others were sitting on seaside coffeehouses chatting seemingly free of all worries. On Allenby street (all the while looking fearfully for falling bombs and Arab fedayeen) I wandered into an air conditioned Viennese "konditoria" with sweet cream things, and subsequently, I continued filling up in the next door Hungarian restaurant. After a while I couldnt keep the truth hidden from myself anymore: The food was good. Tel Aviv seemed to be chock-full of Hungarians who tried to fool each other that they actually spoke biblical Hebrew and that their name was Avigdor Bar Hai or Achitzedef Ben Yizkiyahu, and not Zimmermann Gyuri. Crazy, but I felt rather at home in this mortally dangerous place. I mean, me cago en las amenazas de Zacks, Tower seems to be a good investment.

Poyke

The girls organized a birthday party for wife & me at Poyke, a South African Restaurant in Yaffo. Poyke is the black iron cauldron used to cook on open fires. In Russia. (Dont ask.) The pic proves that men are marginal, intermediate thingies that Nature uses to make more women.

My Next Product (Idea #1): Mold Sink

Having slept most of this cold and rainy Shabbes I am thinking of new product/service to trade for money within the framework of my expanding engineering practice. Inhouse air quality problem interests me, and I feel soon the EPA will regulate the mold (moho) presence in breathing air, which will create an exploding demand for products able to collect mold and reveal its presence, instruments on a wall or in an air conditioner tht measure on line air quality, especially biological contamination, mold traps and sinks, and in general HEPA filters and cleaners. I was remembering that after the collapse of the Twin Towers, EPA gave out information on biological dangers and asbest content of the dust, and so on, meaning that they are constantly sampling and analysing the breathing air in big cities.

People are sensitive to molds, and exposure cause nasal stuffiness, eye irritation, wheezing, or skin irritation. "A major concern associated with exposure to biological pollutants is allergic reactions, which range from rhinitis, nasal congestion, conjunctival inflammation, and urticaria to asthma. Notable triggers for these diseases are allergens derived from house dust mites; other arthropods, including cockroaches; pets (cats, dogs, birds, rodents); molds; and protein-containing furnishings, including feathers, kapok, etc. In occupational settings, more unusual allergens (e.g., bacterial enzymes, algae) have caused asthma epidemics. Probably most proteins of non-human origin can cause asthma in a subset of any appropriately exposed population." Some people with chronic lung illnesses, such as obstructive lung disease, may develop mold infections in their lungs. Employees working in sick buildings uses to sue their employers and so on.

Standards or Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) for airborne concentrations of mold, or mold spores, have not been set. Currently, there are no EPA regulations or standards for airborne mold contaminants.

Air conditioning and biological infection: The Israeli Ministry of Health as well as of Environment are forcing to install air conditioner systems, setting the number of air changes per hour and so on. This regulatory mood, added to a natural growth of artificial closed conditioned environment, is setting the ground for the aparition of a great variety of problems in indoor air quality and the market for its detection, prevention, treatment, etc. Air humidity is the dominating factor, and control strategies should involve decreasing the moisture content of the indoor air.

EPA advises to have the air ducts cleaned if there is substantial visible mold growth inside hard surface (e.g., sheet metal) ducts or on other components of the heating and cooling system. Many sections of the heating and cooling system may not be accessible for a visible inspection, so ask the service provider to show you any mold they say exists. Although a substance may look like mold, a positive determination of whether it is mold or not can be made only by an expert and may require laboratory analysis for final confirmation. For about $50, some microbiology laboratories can tell you whether a sample sent to them on a clear strip of sticky household tape is mold or simply a substance that resembles it.
If you have insulated air ducts and the insulation gets wet or moldy it cannot be effectively cleaned and should be removed and replaced. The beauty of the mold problem is that if the conditions causing the mold growth in the first place are not corrected, mold growth will recur again and again. Only an expert can really solve a well established mold problem.

Products demanded by this emerging environmental market:

* Wall or hidden mold traps. Consist of an air entrance, a sticky or absorbent media to trap and fix the mold spores or whatever, an air exit. The trap should be easily removed and sent to analysis, and replaced for a new period of observation. There seem to be three different brands, all working on the same principle (see illustration above). The uniform air flow seems to be a problem, passive samplers are less successful.
* Mold traps but for purification purposes. The air should be actively displaced and put in touch with the sticky trapping media, and then the flow expelled. The media color should give an indication of the dirt it has extracted from air, and could be easily changed or washed and replaced.
* Industrial mold traps or solutions for specific industrial situations, like wet working conditions (wastewater systems), animal breeders, lab rat handlers, etc.
* HEPA filters
* HEPA filters and mold filters for vehicles, like trains, buses, airplanes, commercial and private vehicles. All these are equipped with air conditioning.
* Ozone generators (shock ozoners). It seems that ultraviolet light or low concentration of ozone will do nothing to molds.

I found this interesting product for professionals:

Combat mold and mildew odors with high ozone shock treatments by attacking and destroying the offending organisms.
These are the machines the professionals use to kill mold spores in high humidity and flooding situations.
Ozone generators with lower ozone outputs not only take longer to get the job done, they can't do the task as well as the Air-Zone® XT-28000.
A tremendous amount of ozone is required for serious remediation.
If a high parts per million concentration of ozone is not reached within a given area, all the bacteria will not be killed.
Mold will then grow once again from any remaining live spores, and strong odors may return.
Lower output machines, even run for many hours longer than the XT-28000, can never approach the extremely high ozone levels that this machine can.
Since ozone naturally breaks down very quickly, usually within an hour or less, a smaller machine
will never be able to kill as much of the mold, and bacteria as well as the XT-28000.
That's why the XT-28000 is a better choice for the true professional, who has to get the job done right the first time, every time.
The XT-28000 can even achieve high levels of ozone in high humidity environments, where it is difficult to maintain high ozone concentrations.
The XT-28000 can be used in homes, offices, basements, motel rooms, and more.
The XT-28000 is also great for removing smoke & mold odors in mold, flood, fire, and crime scene cleanups.
The XT-28000 is also available in 220 volts.

Hereby I copy Blackman Legal Group's webpage of Toxic Mold

Toxic mold exposure, sometimes known as “Sick Building Syndrome” (SBS), is the focus of a growing number of lawsuits across the country. Mold is a tenacious, unwelcome house guest. It climbs up bathroom walls, invades carpet and infests drywall. Certain molds are toxic, meaning they can cause serious illness to persons who come in contact with them. All mold found in buildings are not toxic. Unfortunately, it is impossible for homeowners to distinguish between toxic and benign molds. Such cases may be early signs of a big, expensive wave of mold repercussions, ranging from what a home seller needs to disclose to the spawning of whole cottage industries that test for and remediate mold. In between, there may be mold issues for home builders, insurers, inspectors, appraisers, moving companies, relocation firms and others. In May 2001, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld a $1 million award to two women suffering from respiratory problems who said their landlord failed to fix water leaks, causing mold to grow which in turn caused significant health problems. In June 2001, a Texas court awarded a family a $32 million judgment against their insurer, after the insurer mishandled their claim for repairs related to a burst pipe in their home. The water caused mold to develop, essentially making the home inhabitable and the family ill. Toxic mold claims can be brought on grounds of negligence, strict liability, failure to warn, and breach of warranty.

Mold contamination claims were virtually unheard of a few years ago, but people are becoming more aware of indoor air quality issues because of the expanding scientific and medical knowledge of the toxic affects of mold. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), five varieties of household mold that are harmful to your health: Penicillim, Aspergillus, Stachybotrys, Paecilomyces, Fusarium. These mold are different from benign mold because they produce myotoxin. Mycotoxins are poisonous substances that are produced by fungi. Mycotoxins tend to concentrate in fungal spores, and thus present a potential hazard to those who inhale these airborne spores. Toxigenic spores can have a significant affect on the function of the alveolar macrophage and be a health hazard to those exposed. Stachybotry mold is particularly hazardous to children. People with weakened immune systems (i.e., immune-compromised or immune-suppressed individuals) may be more vulnerable to these health effects (as well as more vulnerable than healthy persons to mold toxins). Aspergillus, for example, has been known to infect the lungs of immune-compromised individuals. These individuals inhale the mold spores, which then start growing in their lungs. Since toxic mold requires water to grow, buildings with moisture problems are highly susceptible to myotoxin problems. Delayed maintenance, insufficient maintenance, and construction defects are common reasons for toxic mold growing.

Well, this is for a start. Currently I know of no Israeli working in this area. There is one or two odor control experts, also selfdeveloped in the last 3 or 4 years (growing out from the air pollution area), but no mold experts. I could easily be the first and the best in this field.