Chicken Slaughterhouse: No Happy End

Yesterday the Ministry Of Environment made a surprise inspection of the chicken slaughterhouse with the wastewater problem. The slaughterhouse has a long history of bad relations with the Ministry, since it was discharging wastewaters with excessive protein and animal fat content, high BOD and COD concentration, and it had no separate systems for the organic flow, the saltwater flow and the sanitary sewage flow. Israel is now in water scarcity panic and the salinization of the aquifers has become a critical priority, so this factory is apperntly going to have to serve as sacrificial goat. Apparently, the results of the surprise inspections were unfavourable (there is no report written yet) and the management is in total panic.

The main problem was the excessive salt content of the water, which makes some contribution to the general deterioration of Israeli aquifer quality. When I took over the case four months ago, I submitted a plan to the Ministry, which was approved, and then it was implemented more or less as I planned. I installed an electric conductivitimeter (which indicates the salt content of the wastewater discharge to the public system) to register the salt content of the wastewater and it appeared to produce more or less acceptable results. Then, about two weeks ago, the Ministry visited the factory and discovered that the electrode had been moved to the bottom of the tank, where the water was not flowing, so that measurements were not representative. Worse, they discovered that the electricity supply had been disconnected and the emergency batteries were practically dead. I was shocked by the report, because it meant to me that the Management itself was sabotaging my honest efforts. I said that by now I had done my best and maybe a "heavier" expert could keep fighting the case.

They Dr. P., an Ph. D. in industrial wastewater with relations in the Court and the high levels of the Ministry. During the first meeting at the lawyer's office, he proposed to attack the validity of the conductivity measurement methodology, since the regulations related to actual dissolved Cl Na and not indirect measurements of the conductivity. I said that it was a standard technique used for ages by the Ministry of Environment, and I was not going now to mess with the Ministry's own experts and professors. Under the doctor's leadership they continued to maintain me on the team in auxiliary tasks, behind the curtains as I wished.

The Ministry heard the expert witness testimony of Dr. P. and read his technical reports, but the process continued progressing against the slaughterhouse. Yesterday, as said, they made a surprise inspection en masse, and as consequence, the management is now most nervous and depressed. They fear that the Judge will sign the closure order, or that the Police will arrive any moment to enforce a signed order. Worse, they fear the issue will reach the papers, causing an irreparable damage to their image. The consumers of their products are unable to distinguish between a purely regulatory - enviromental issue like dumping excess salt in the sewage, and a hygienic or health problem of the chickens marketed by the company.

Apparently, they are going to be closed for a while, and they will have to pay a heavy penalty. The fact that now the factory is now 100% equipped and works according to the rules does not help them, because they succeeded in making the Ministry people to hate them for cheating all these years. May be I am wrong, and the Ministry will see that NOW everything is OK and will let them go on operating. I am not optimist, because a well-publicised slaughterhouse closing-down operation would be in the Ministry's best public relations interests. This case may have no happy end.

Culture of Self-Destruction

We in Israel never had a better leader than Ehud Olmert,a man who brought us peace in the north with the murderous Hizballah, and in the south, with the no less murderous Hamas. We never had such a peaceful period in the Shomron than with Olmert. But Olmert was persecuted and tortured from the first moment he became Prime Minister, he was opposed during the Lebanon war and mass demonstrations demanded a State investigation to force his resign. He survived that first period of venomous attack, and then started an attack on his secretary, about some free tickets she received - a terrible crime in this super-moral country. Olmert had purchased a nice house in Jerusalem some ten years ago, he had to produce all the documents and bank accounts how he paid for it, and if the price was not too cheap. The police then demanded Olmert's diaries and researched each item trying to dig up some dirt. They found that some years ago Olmert had registered a sum received from an American Jewish supporter. The police then corraled the poor old man and interrogated him for days on and on. The old fellow became totally confused and contradicted himself every half an hour, but by then Olmert was embroiled in a police investigation of tremendous publicity, and he said that it was impossible to concentrate in hosting Condolizza Rice, the President of the United States, and recently Barak Obama who visited here. This night he said he is resigning.

There is lately such a hate and venomous environment of critique and destruction against our leaders that the country is basically leaderless. No leader survived inthis country for a full period he was elected, all of them had to leave in the middle, attacked by the ferocious dogs of the Ministry of Justice and the Police. Even the old impotent President Moshe Katzav was embroiled, of all things, in a rape accusation. He had to resign and he may go to jail -on the basis of the unreliable testimony of his former secretary, a woman that has accused before several other men of similar attacks. I think of Athenian generals, who after the war were judged by public assemblies and many of them, punished with death. I would have liked Olmert to finish his period, we never had such a quiet time long time ago.

Environmental Punishment in Israel

Yesterday the Knesset passed a new law called "The Polluter Pays" with severe criminal and economic paragraphs. Among them, the Authority can calculate the profits made by the polluter and tax him the sum and interests. The Authority can also calculate the cost of repairing the damage done, and take that money from the polluter. It seems very nice, but it means a further step in terrorizing the unfortunate industrialists that make their living manufacturing some physical product. The issue is formulated in quasi-religious terms. Society will spend more time and effort fighting those defilers of Mother Earth's purity, specially those who profit by defiling Earth, all in a desperate search for feeling good about oneself and living in harmony with Nature.

Since I work day and night with these environmental issues, I have developed a sense that the State's efforts are basically irrational and punitive. The State, that wields the power to punish, is passive, that is, the environmental inspectors are not motivated to persecute people out there, on the contrary, they would best like never to leave their airconditioned offices. If left to themselves, they would spend all their time talking and intriguing among themselves, attending important meetings, in seminaries and presenting papers in congresses sited far away. Only the pressure from the environmental fanatics makes them to start to move, but then, once the issue is caught by the legal machinery and the lawyers, there is no escape. The terms of the trials is esoteric to the point of religion. For example, the State accuses a Criminal Polluter that for half an hour the vapour taken from the ventilator of his lab had a concentration of 1 PPB of something "bad", while the permitted limit is 0.6 PPB. We are talking about unmeasurable differences, and things without consequences. Yet the polluter is a criminal and will be punished. Like the one that sent concentrated seawater back to the sea.

The new method that the State has developed is the self reporting requirement. They force the suspect to measure and report everything, and they search for contradictions and errors in the reports, and they present the case to the judge on the basis of documents. Last week I made a design and the draughtsman made a mistake, writing "salt water line" where it was "industrial wastewater line". The Ministry knew it was a mistake (it is so obvious) and they know the factory itself so there was no doubt that the line is not saltwater but wastewater, that the word it a draughtman's mistake. But they added the drawing to their file presented to the Judge, as another document against the factory - "Let the bastards explain to the Judge (who is a lawyer and has no idea of what is the issue) that what they said was not what they meant to say". The bureaucrats laughed at me: "What do you want from us? That we just passed on your own presentation to the Judge?". Hopefully the Ministry is feeling large today and is allowing me to correct the mistake.

What is behind this legislation? I think it is fear. The public has developed a sense of fear of unseen things lurking around them, bad polluted spirits that cause disease and infertility and death. They want to combat those evil things by purifying the environment, and fighting those evil polluters of the universe. If the good side wins and the pollution is eliminated, we will all be healthy and young and live forever. The whole thing reminds me of King Edippos, a Greek drama. The Prophet identified the cause of the pollution that was causing the terrible epidemy killing the town's citizens, and its was its king Edippos born of impure tabu sex, and prescribed the remedies to purify the defiled Earth. A set of ceremonies and political changes were to take place to stop people dying.

Just like Israel 2008, see Law "The Polluter Pays".

Orckit Expectations

They are bracing themselves for breaking out of their status of "one product one contract" company, to four or five contracts in 2009:

Germany: US$80 Million
KDDI: US$40Million
Little Box to India: US$50Million from $100M
Global and other two contracts: US$40Million

Total 2009: expectation: $210Million Orckit's share should double itself, at least.

Kever Benjamin Getting Older

The Municipality decided to close down next year the Moledet kindergarten. Twenty families with children are protesting (pic), but it will be useless. The Municipality systematically is closing one elementary school and/or kindergarten each summer, because the number of children is lower than the year before. The buildings are then transformed into day clubs for pensioners or some other service for the adult population. I am seeing the demographic sea change hitting in my own little hamlet. No good.

Wall Street Discovers Obama

This morning The Wall Street Journal publishes an amazing attack on Barak Obama, America´s next President. "Obamanomics Is a Recipe for Recession", by Prof. MICHAEL J. BOSKIN from Standford.

What if I told you that a prominent global political figure in recent months has proposed: abrogating key features of his government's contracts with energy companies; unilaterally renegotiating his country's international economic treaties; dramatically raising marginal tax rates on the "rich" to levels not seen in his country in three decades (which would make them among the highest in the world); and changing his country's social insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between taxes and benefits?

The first name that came to mind would probably not be Barack Obama, possibly our nation's next president. Yet despite his obvious general intelligence, and uplifting and motivational eloquence, Sen. Obama reveals this startling economic illiteracy in his policy proposals and economic pronouncements. From the property rights and rule of (contract) law foundations of a successful market economy to the specifics of tax, spending, energy, regulatory and trade policy, if the proposals espoused by candidate Obama ever became law, the American economy would suffer a serious setback.

To be sure, Mr. Obama has been clouding these positions as he heads into the general election and, once elected, presidents sometimes see the world differently than when they are running. Some cite Bill Clinton's move to the economic policy center following his Hillary health-care and 1994 Congressional election debacles as a possible Obama model. But candidate Obama starts much further left on spending, taxes, trade and regulation than candidate Clinton. A move as large as Mr. Clinton's toward the center would still leave Mr. Obama on the economic left

I am amazed by that (1) the center of American capitalism has been sleeping till now. I for one, thanks to Steve Sailer's outstanding research work, discovered the appaling "World Bank" appropiate technology economic outlook in Obama about a year ago. (2) the violence of the attack on a popular candidate, that could end badly, because lets be realists, a few words from Obama and the people of United States will be torching Wall Street and its bankers.

Drought in the Shomron

West Bank Palestinians are suffering a serious water shortage this year as a severe drought has exacerbated already existing supply problems, said the head of the Palestinian Water Authority Shadad Ateli. Uri Shani, head of Israel's Water Authority, says Palestinians are receiving more water than their agreed share under an interim peace deal. The drought has affected Israel as well, with fresh water supplies below their acceptable minimum, but there have been no cases of community water supplies being cut off.

In the city of Nablus (Shchem), residents receive running water once a week. In the nearby village of Salem, there hasn't been running water for months and a nearby well is going dry. Residents but water in tankers, as is usual in Jordan. Shani said the Palestinian Authority was not cracking down on herders who steal water supplies - a problem Palestinians acknowledge - and could recycle waste water for agriculture, as Israel does. He said that could boost supplies from 30 to 40 million cubic liters. The only solution to this problem is creating more water, Shani said.

It is hot in Iraq

The American Army is winning in Iraq. “It’s hot out there and dusty,” General Hertling said. “The temperature the last time I was in Baquba was 127 degrees.” (51 degree centigrades).

Mosul is starting to export lots of oil and is open to Western oil companies. Soon oil exploration will be started all over the country and Iraq will be a very rich place. How can one invest in Iraq?

National Enquiry Committee on the Water Crisis

The State Control Commission of the Knesset, the Israeli Parlament, decided to create an official enquiry committee to investigate the water crisis we are having these days in Israel. The president is Zevulun Orlev, a religious politician. The idea is that the water system was mismanaged and has to be repaired. I agree.

Main Water Station

One of the main boreholes and conexion station is located in the Safari. Ostriches and gazelles crowded around the station while we were working there but they did not come near. They are used to people. The station also connects the city´s network with the National Carrier. An annex have been built for the chlorination and the fluorination equipment to be installed soon.

TCE elimination in Gush Dan

A stream of TCE contaminated water runs under Gush Dan, caused by an old (already closed) military factory. Two drinking water wells have been equipped with activated coal filters, made by Odis and managed my old friend Etzion. The facility serves two wells situated in an hydrologycal depression that drain the microcontaminants. They operate alternatively. I think that soon all or most wells in the Coastal Aquifers will have to be similarly treated. I took the pic yesterday when I was preparing a proposal to document and register (maybe for privatization purposes) all Ramat Gan´s twelve active boreholes.

Polluting the Sea with Seawater

Globes, the pink paper (it is printed on pink paper, seriously), writes that

the Ministry of National Infrastructures plans to build a string of desalination facilities along the coast with a combined capacity of 750 million cubic meters a year. The facilities will discharge 3,000 tons of iron a year into the sea. Although seawater naturally includes iron, the Ministry of Environmental Protection is worried that the discharge of so much iron is liable to damage the marine environment, especially plants and fish.

During the reverse osmosis desalination process, the facility removes iron from the seawater before it its pushed through the desalination membranes that produce fresh water. Ministry of Environmental Protection officials from the Coastal and Marine Division told "Globes" that they were unaware that the Ashkelon facility discharges this iron into the sea, in the form of "red water", and that they were taken by surprise when they learned about it.

The ministry officials claim that VID was also taken by surprise by the amount of iron discharge. The Ministry of Environmental Protection is worried that the construction of other desalination facilities using reverse osmosis technology will result in a huge discharge of iron and that there is no research on the effect on the marine environment.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection intends to ask the Ministry of Finance to ensure that future tenders for desalination facilities will require the operator to substantially reduce iron discharges.

The membrane separation process produces ion free water and a stream of concentrated seawater, including iron cations. The process just sends back to the sea what it took from it minus some of the H2O. Now they want to avoid contaminating the sea with concentrated seawater. I think I know who is behind this idea and he is not intrinsically a bad person. His problem, I think, is that the water is red and highly visible, and it may call the attention of the blood-thirsty environmental movement, always on the look of a suitable victim. What better than an Environmental Ministry high official?

The pic shows the Amazonas delta. The river flows through red laterite and carries lots of iron into the sea. Millions of tons. All tropical rivers are red.

Elections in America

Elections are getting hot in America. One of the signs is the ferocious attack on Steve Sailer, a right-wing ideologist. Since Obama appeared in the scene, much before the media started to get interested in him, Steve was fascinated by his complex personality, and spent a lot time reading and analysing his writings and story. Now that Obama has progressed to the point that he has the Presidency at the reach of his hand, the national media started to use Steve´s research and to quote him. This is drawing Steve into national politics and his ideas are being attacked (which was to be expected) by ad homine arguments. Digging in his blog, they found some "incriminating" material:

Sailer’s website is rife with primitive stereotypes. On it, Sailer claims that Asian men have a hard time finding dates because they look “less masculine” than other men. Last January, Sailer labeled Obama a “wigger.” He’s a remarkably exotic variety of the faux African-American, but a wigger nonetheless,” Sailer wrote. “Even genetically, Obama, whose East African descent is apparent in his unusual features, has only a distant relationship to the West Africans who are the ancestors of almost all African-Americans.”

The "crimes" of Sailer are having noticed the obvious, things that is very difficult not to see, but which is tabu to mention in public.

What do I think? I dont have to think anything, because I am not American and dont vote in American elections. I would think that after 20 years of being married to an echte African American woman, and having been member of an echte African American church, and having dedicated his professional life to improve Chicago's echte African Americans life, it is mean and cruel to call him a wigger (I never heard the word, but I understand it means hipster, a white person trying to behave like an African American). Of course, to write that Obama is not a real racial African American, when Obama's political fortune dependa on the African American vote, is a political attack, and it has the potential to hurt Obama and the Democratic party.

I find some more substancial aspects of Sailer's critique of Obama, like Obama's "World bank" philosophy of economic development based on "appropriate technologies", his activity as professional politician trying to channel State funds to welfare, and his wife's political job as race relations manager. Anyway, lets hope for the best that Obama will be a good President of the United States and the world. Steve Sailer should know better and never even suggest that Africans have bigger dicks than Whites and Asians. (Only a hatemonger, a racist, would suggest that.)
In summary, it is amazing that American politics is being fought at this infantile level, of whose skin is blacker or whose dick is bigger. But the fight's object is not children's play, it is extremely serious, it is for leading the world largest, best, and most warlike army. Lets pray for the best.

where the engineer finds Prof. James Hamilton admirable

Last year about this time I made a bet that the price of oil will fall around autumn, after the driving season. I studied all about the world oil market, and read hundreds of opinions, and of course, I lost all my money. I found that in this field of oil and macroeconomics, Econobrowser is the most serious site, and although I am an old man, am not ashamed of calling Prof. James Hamilton my personal teacher. If the kind reader has followed my tortured nights trying to understand the workings of oil, knows that I always found arguments and reasons for higher and lower prices, and could never reach a firm conclusion. On anything. So when Prof. Hamilton writes

Is the price of oil today too high given the fundamentals? Could be. Is it too low? Could be. But one thing I'm sure that's too high is the confidence on the part of those who insist they know the answer.

a warm feeling of vindication works its way up along my old bones and fat tissues, and am happy to have found a twin spirit in the universe. I would not be surprised if Prof. James Hamilton is revealed as a fellow Hungarian Jew (I am joking, of course).

Boring Russians

Boris Akunin (Russian: Борис Акунин) is the pen name of Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili (Russian: Григорий Шалвович Чхартишвили; Georgian: გრიგოლ ჩხარტიშვილი) (born May 20, 1956) , a Russian essayist, literary translator, and fiction writer. "Akunin" (悪人) is a Japanese word that translates loosely to "villain". In his novel "The Diamond Chariot", the author redefines an "akunin" as one who creates his own rules. He wrote Sister Pelagia: A series about a crime-solving nun in turn-of-the-20th-century provincial Russia. Never date a woman who has read it. Boring, boring, boring.

Haredi Jews excel in SAT

Thirty Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men without formal education passed their psychometric exams with a score well above the national average. "What we lacked was knowledge, but we all had a strong ambition and great studying capability. At yeshivas they accustom us to apply ourselves and aim high, and that's how we approached the psychometric exams. Don't forget we're all married with families, and we had to put in hours of homework at home, including on Friday until the Sabbath began." Glick got 730 in the exam and 70 percent of his classmates scored higher than the 400 national median. Four of them scored higher than 700 (almost 15 percent compared to 5 percent of the overall examinees and 45 percent received marks higher than 610, compared to 27 percent of the national results). Multiply by 2 to get equivalent American SAT grades.

"The ultra-Orthodox has a marked capacity for learning. It's not just the developed logic of those who studied gemara but the habit of perseverance. It's like long-distance running."

No Consensus in the Racial Front

A fight seems to have erupted in the Human Biodiversity Blogosphere. On one side, gc (godless capitalist) and Razib, two cognitive eliticists, who glorify their high IQ and look down on everyone less intelligent and literate than thenselves, which is 99% of humanity, including the large mass of White Americans and Europeans. gc is a genetic scientist, and is convinced (and possibly he is right) that the cognitive thing is genetic, so he and his equals are superior by God's Order.

On the other hand, there are White Nationalist people, who also emphasize the human biodiversity thing, and are convinced that they are naturally, genetically superior, although they are unable to define scientifically why. They are forced to admit that yes, white folks as a group, are not the brightest of humanity, and they dont have the largest dicks (Africans do), but they have some ineffable je-ne-se-quoi that makes them onviously superior to all, and specially to those abominable Jews. The blue eyed yellow haired variety are the cream of the cream, no doubt of it, even if the most blue-eyed and yellow-haired people of all (which seems to be the Estonians on the Baltic Sea) are not known for any special achievement I can remember. Before the War there were lots of Litwische Jews living in Estonia and they didnt think for a moment that Estonians were special, and after the war many ethnic Russians settled in Estonia, and they definitely looked down the natives. By some reason, the people who has been in the closest contact with the blue-eyed and yellow-haired variety does not seem to find anything special about them. In average, I would say, they are all right, with some of their girls very attractive while others are fat-assed bovines, nothing to write home about.

Now these two blogistic forces are clashing. The cognitive elitists have insulted the White Nationalists, and viceversa. They were incompatible from the start, but their confused incompatibility required five years to settle and clarify.

I find it most natural that both groups dislike Jews, although according to their standards, we Jews should be classified as card-holding members of both gc-razib cognitive elite as well as the great northern White folk. We do have (in average) high IQ and we have non-pigmented epidermis. Even German "race scientist" aknowledged that objectively, Jews were smarter and had lighter eyes than Germans, although they KNEW for sure that it we were faking it and deep down we were rainforest pigmies and/or asiatic nomads.

Now, this debate seem to have been linked to a most disturbing development: Barak Hussein Obama's victory in democratic politics and his probable eight-year long tenure as Master of the Universe. Obama is supported by the non-White minorities of the United States (maybe not so minorities anymore) and, so it appears, by the cognoscent elite symbolized by the Goldman Sachs investment bank employee network. It seems to some like Mr guessedworker as an anti-White coalition. Is it? I have no idea. Could it be the beginning of a deep-sea change like the one brought about contemporary South Africa? For a long time I have been predicting that course, and it seems reasonable to me that we are seeing its beginning, not that I am for it. But I am a total outsider, I could be living in Mars, radioing these notes with my green antennae. But I am in a small town that I call Kever Benjamin and it is erev shabath, the time to light the candles. Before the brachot, I quote guessedworker:

Ultimate interests - genetic interests - are hyperrational. All else is stuff and nonsense.

Gut shabbes.

Zurich Gnomes

Since Koor decided to take a loan to buy Credit Suisse shares, I pay attention to the Zurish gnomes. Gnomes are reputed to be hiding large gold treasures in their underground caves in the Alps. They ARE well capitalized.

"Our conservative funding structure and our position as one of the world's best capitalized banks remain competitive advantages," Dougan said in a company statement. "Credit Suisse has reclaimed its status as a survivor of the credit crisis," said Isabel Schauerte, analyst at Celent, an international financial research and consulting firm.

This is quite encouraging in view that American banks are broke. WaMu paper has been downgraded to border junk and there seems to be something like a silent run on it. In the last 500 years, Schweitz was the best managed country in the world. I had many friends from the Swiss colonies in Argentina, mostly farming families, and there were very nice, very decent and most boring fellows.

Post Scriptum July 28: Koor has sold its Credit Suisse shares with about 110 million profit, and announced that it will distribute it among shareholders. Ha!

Fibonacci

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1

A buen entendedor pocas palabras bastan.

Todeswunsch

Adapted from the Deutsche Welle´s ¨Learn German¨ section.

Arrivals

American Jews keep moving to Israel. This people must have gone crazy, to leave the American paradise for this dry hellhole. They seem quite happy in their foolishness. Welcome!

and Departures

The summer heat caused Mr. Hussam, an Arab construction worker, to go crazy and drive his Caterpillar bulldozer into a bus. The very next moment he joined 70 virgins in paradise.

Hungarian Nazis & David Beckham

David Beckham is a British kosher Jew notwithstanding his untypical goyische parnose - professional futball player. In view of the growing scarcity of Hungarian Jewish hate-objects, pityful Hungarian Neo Nazis are forced to travel 5,000 miles to find a suitable target for their passion. Hungarian Neo Nazis find most insulting that David Beckham is not one of their fear-ridden local Jews, but proud, wealthy and successful, and the horror! he has dated the world´s most beautiful blonde hottie schikses and ended with a nice Hebrew-tattoed (דודי לי ולי דודי) family. It sounds funnier in Hungarian:

A feltűnési viszketegségben szenvedő, vadliberális életmódot folytató, nők tucatjait bolondító, cionista beállítottságú Beckham tehát minden olyan igényt kielégít, amit a médiamanipulátor milliárdos szabadkőművesivadékok támaszthatnak az irányába.

Nacivadasz (The Hunter of Nazis) Site

Hungary is a country haunted by its Nazi past. I mean, there is an active neonazi movement there. Now a new website called Nacivadasz (The Hunter of Nazis) is publishing photographs and bios of members of the movement, and it is so funny as surprising. Many of them are full or half Jews (as Shody pictured above), half Gypsies or half Schwab (Hungarian Folk Germans), and without exception, all seem to be failures and dropouts. Shody is described as

...gyámoltalan, béna blogjával, és minden nívón aluli, ultragagyi náci videóival keresi a feltűnést és a náci keménymag elismerését. Szánalmas, izzadtságszagú erőltetett antiszemita cikkeit senki sem veszi komolyan, csak azok a nálánál is hülyébb - és fiatalabb - genetikailag bunkónak kódolt sötét barmok, akiknek egy része sajnos a felnövendő új generációt fogja képzeni. Ezért fontos mielőbb megértetni a zsidó származású, skizofrén náci Sodikával, hogy magyarnak lenni nem így kell, nagyon nem így; sőt, éppen ellenkezőleg.

A Nácivadász Szövetség megjegyzése: Ámbár teljesen komolytalan hülyegyerekről van szó, mégis szivesen közzétennénk egy felvételt, ahogy disznó módjára visítva fut el néhány antifasiszta polgár elől, akik csúnyán néznek rá, véleményünk szerint, mint minden újfasiszta nácira, egy-két kijózanító atyai pofon is igen-igen ráférne.

Free translation: This sorry boy is trying to get the hard-core nazis attention by writing ultra-antisemite articles. Although no one takes him seriously, it would be important to make to understand this schizo that he choose the wrong way to prove that he is a trueblood Hungarian, because trueblood Hungarians are not like that but the opposite. The note adds: For the sake of his hard-working long-suffering mother, please somebody give whim a fatherly smack on the face to wake him up from this imbecility.

PS: Sodi answers in his blog that he is NOT antisemite and that he is NOT a Jew nor half Jew, although he confesses that knows nothing of his Mother's historical origins (sic):

Származás: zsidó-keverék

Hazugság. Apai ágon haladva a Pannonhalmi Bencés Főapátságban több száz érve visszakereshető a keresztényi származásom. Apai ág nagyanyai oldala pedig sváb irányba ágazik el. Az anyai ágamat történelmi mélységben valóban nem ismerem, de az biztos, hogy zsidó rokonról ott sem hallottam még soha. :)

The Israeli Rabbinate is famous for its minucious investigation of who is a Jew, but Sodi could easily (should the well-deserved fatherly beating change his mind) receive Israeli citizenship on account of his mother.

We are changing very fast

Dienekes Pontikos has a note argueing that the human race is accummulating mutations at the maximum possible rate and consequently it is changing at backbreaking velocity. Very well written and clear.

...in population studies, scientists are likely observe (in the finite samples they collect) multiple descendants only of the most prolific of the Patriarchs. Thus, for the vast majority of the Patriarchs with few descendants, we are likely to sample no, or few of their descendants.

This means that there is an inherent observation selection effect in the types of Patriarchs we are likely to study: they are much more likely to be among the prolific ones. Coupling this observation with the knowledge that STR variance in the descendants of prolific Patriarchs accumulates near the germline mutation rate (0.69µ for the 100 most prolific ones in my experiment), we, once again, conclude that the STR variance in haplogroups likely to be made the object of scientific study accumulates near the germline mutation rate, and at the very least, faster than the evolutionary rate of Z.U.F.

Closing Remarks

Z.U.F. have also proposed two additional demographic scenaria under which a higher effective mutation rate would be observed:

A sudden jump in the size of the haplogroup after it appears
An expanding population (m>1)

Both factors seem reasonable for post-Holocene human populations. It is well known that -whatever temporary setbacks there were- mankind has overall experienced a substantial population growth in recent millennia. Thus, an expanding population seems like a fair assumption.

Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that in stratified human societies, a few males, (leaders, or conquerors), or groups of closely related males may have generated a disproportionate number of descendants in the short-term.

Sobre Chanchos

Oil Refiners are breaking out and starting to rocket: Tesoro rose 10% and Valero 7%. I follow only very few stocks and I was right on TSO. I dont own TSO but its Israeli equivalent. Which is going DOWN 3%. But no worry, TASE too shall wake up. As we say in the barrio:

A cada chancho le llega su San Martin.

The Asian Economic Disaster

Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore have over 40 years averaged roughly the highest consistent economic growth rates in the world. All but Korea have steadily accumulated massive surplus savings and foreign reserves. But change the national accounting principles behind these rosy numbers and a different picture emerges, one that the societies concerned have barely begun to grapple with.
They have the lowest fertility rates in the world. Hong Kong is at the bottom (excluding births to non-residents), with around 1.0 births per woman of child-bearing age (the replacement rate is 2.1). Taiwan, Singapore and Macau come in at 1.1, while South Korea, at 1.2. is on par with Europe's lowest, Belarus. None of these economies has had replacement-rate fertility levels since the late 1980s.

The Asians have been seeking wealth and GNP growth like posessed, and they succeeded. But it was done by not investing in children. Like my Uncle Schmideg, they thought having children is not important, they concentrated exclusively in getting rich. Now they are old and childless individuals, families and society. Individually and as a country, they made a very bad decision. Money is not important. Fortunately, this was one of the few principles I did follow throughout my life.

Jew Boys Firing Missiles Back to Gaza

The Hamas people are firing crude, ridiculously infantile weapons, just iron tubes filled with fertilizer, which do little or no damage but make noise and create panic. The Qassams are extremely simple, have an erratic flight path and short range - they fly just 15-20 seconds. From the military point of view, it is too expensive to intercept them. They are in the air too short a time and they are too small a target. Now some Jewish boys had the idea of manufacturing home made missiles and fire them back to Gaza. I read it in HaAretz, the fishwrap. Ha Aretz should be analysed by the Ministry of Health to check if it is safe to use it to wrap fish, because of the venom contained in the paper. Anyway, when I was in the high school, we used to think out homemade firearms and even missiles. Pistols were built and tried out. Only one Dutch boy, Van Besselaere, had the persistence to make sizeable amounts of rocket fuel, which he mixed with wax by hand in his mother´s wooden cooking plank. The Sugar plus Nitrogen Fertilizer - ammonium nitrate - thing worked well, but it needed work to form a homogeneous mass. Heated it would then poured into carton pipe bodies. It has to be launched from rails to give them direction.We used to put metallic paper from chocolates to give colour the fire and make it more impressive. That was 50 years ago. Ha!

I think that what the Jew Boys are doing is technically challenging, but it should not be done. The reason is to avoid a weapons competition which inevitably will cause the Hamas to invest intellectual effort to improve its weapons. If do not react to their infantile and ineffective weapons, they will not be forced to improve it and they will stay at that level. Every time Israel counterattacked, it caused the development of the enemy's capabilities. Lebanon's Hizballah was a gang of bandits, and by attacking them, we made an army from it and caused it to acquire weapons and training. We do not need to be the trigger of ther transformaton and upgrading. Should have been best to leave them alone in their illusionary fantasy world. They felt they could intimidate Israel and have some control over it. That gave them a sense of security and peace of mind. They should be left in their savagery forever.

KOOR Is Pleased

The board of Koor Industries Ltd. (TASE:KOR) has decided to double its investment in Credit Suisse Group (NYSE: CS; SWX: CSGN; XETRA: CSGZ) to up to NIS 3 billion. Koor said that it will make the purchases from time to time on the basis of opportunities in the markets, and at the company's discretion.

Koor is a subsidiary of IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH), controlled by chairman and CEO Nochi Dankner, held through Discount Investment Corporation (TASE: DISI). Last week, Dankner told "Globes",

"We're pleased each day that Credit Suisse's share falls. This suits our strategy, and lowers the average price of the investment."

I am not pleased.

Credit Suisse has been badly battered by the global financial mess (shares from 70 to 45 see chart) but is coming out very strong from the night. Nochi may have made his move in the bottom. Only G-d know the future, and he is saying nothing.

How to blog, get tenure and prosper

John Hawks started blogging four years ago, a time when blogging was death for the academic career. His blog was very professional and serious, allowed no comments nor debate, and became an authority in a politically sensitive subject where serious scientists kept silent - anthropology. Now her received tenure, and published his blogging strategy and how he avoided the death traps of blogging. He did it by careful planning. The question is if blogging helped him in achieving tenure? Apparently, not.

The benefits of blogging he mentions are several:

(1) Practice in writing.
(2) Networking.
(3) Journalists read blogs and a blog will establish you as an authority (in the eyes of the public, not of your professional circle) in your field. This brings invitations for writing articles, for speaking, for participation in public events.

The drawbacks are:

(1) it will not pay your bills.
(2) People will accuse you of wasting time, and worse, blogging during the time you are supposed to be working (and paid for work)
(3) Unavoidably, you will antagonize people. You develope hidden enemies.
(4) It may be addictive, it may become your life.

What did strike me is Prof. Hawks's purposeful, meditated approach to blogging. I would like to be like him, but I am not. I have given up trying to become "anything".

The Fourth Fast

Today is Yud-Zayn Be Tammuz, the so called Fourth Fast. I am not a Talmud scholar so I am unable to explain what disaster of the interminable Jewish history it commemorates. Jews love to fast, and they need no special reason for it. Zachariah the Prophet says:

"So said the God of the Armies, you shall observe the fourth fast, the fifth fast, the seventh fast, and tenth fast..."

כה אמר ה' צבאות צום הרביעי וצום החמישי וצום השביעי וצום העשירי…

So there we go. Females are exempted.

Summer

Readers may wonder how can the Israeli Engineer pray and fast and meditate on the words of the Prophets, while focused in the pic of this culito brasilero? Is this old Jew so deeply conflicted, so thorn apart by inconciliable forces of the spirit and the flesh? The answer: Ha!

The Economist Misses the Pot

and make a mess of the salon. They write about the world water scarcity and think that the solution is free trade. I wonder how they dont see the contradiction implicit in their orwn article:

Local conditions and needs vary so much that talk of a global water shortage is misleading. In total there is more than enough water for all, but it is often in the wrong place and is difficult and expensive to transport. And discrepancies are likely only to get worse as the effects of climate change becomes more pronounced. That Canada and Brazil have more water than they need is of little consolation to parched Yemen and northern China. Even within individual countries distribution is unequal. Cherrapunji is one of the wettest places on earth; elsewhere in India, Gopalpura receives only a few inches of rain a year. Surprisingly though, it is Cherrapunji which suffers the water shortages.

So, my dear stifflipped Economist writer, if Gopalpura has excess water and Cherrapunki has shortages, sure free trade could solve the problem? Ah, you said that transport is expensive. How expensive? About 1,000 dollars per meter of 10 inch pipe, that ism 1,000 kilometer pipeline requires 1 billion dollar investment. And pumping 1,000 kilometers is 10 dollars a cubic meter, depending on the topography. Now, lets trade!

If there is one subject where Israel is "green" and "efficient", it is its water management. But The Economist cannot pass without finding a way of condemning Israel. It must be commended for NOT writing about the swimming pools in the Settlements, while nearby Palestinian huts have no running water. They found something more condemnable: Israel growing potatoes, while the Palestinians grow olives.

Mark Zeitoun, a researcher at the London School of Economics, suggests that agriculture is responsible for the greatest waste of water, largely because of government subsidies. Farmers often plant water-intensive crops which slurp up supplies precisely where they are most limited. Growing potatoes, a thirsty crop, in Israel looks to be particularly wasteful, especially given desperate shortages of water in nearby Palestinian territories.

This example, Mr Zeitun, is imbecile, on two counts. One is that Israeli agriculture is based on recycled wastewater, and absolutely all the potato (a crop which accepts secondary wastewater) is irrigated with wastewater. Moreover, Israel produces potato seed for export, which is a high price speciality crop, and not commodity potato. Potato seed can be irrigated with lower quality wastewater, and that is the reason we grow it. Potato seed is one of the most profitable crops that can be grown with low quality sewage. Anyone who writes it is wasteful is an ignorant as well as a malignant ogre.

Regarding the accusation that Israel wastes water while its neighbors are suffering, it is worse than a lie. Israel maintains its water system at high level and its level of losses is about 5%, while London's losses are 50%. Amman's losses are about 70% meaning that each cubic meter supplied to the Jordanian capital, 70% escapes and is not consumed. Broken pipes are not repaired for weeks. In Israel there is no more open air irrigation by channels, by inundation or furrows, which are very wasteful in water because most of the water goes to produce mud and is not absorbed by the plant's roots. in this ocuntry, all the irrigation is by pressure systems, through sprinklers, microsprinkers, and drop irrigation, and specially underground drop irrigation, which uses less than 10% of the quantity of water required by more primitive agricultural techniques. Who is wasting water?

But the comparison is distasteful in its very essense: Why should Israel, which has about 1% of the water of Egypt, be singled out by The Economist for not sharing its water with its unfortunate "developing" neighbors, while the water-billionaires of the neighborhood like Egypt, Syria, Iraq or Turkey - are not even mentioned? The answer is obvious to me: The Economist writer was too lazy to check the facts and to walk to the nearest toilet, so he pissed in the office plant pot. But having been upset by Israel, he missed the pot and made a mess with his pants and wetted the floor. That is what I call wasting one's water.

The Rules of Waterpolo

Waterpolo, born in Scotland as a rougher variation of rugby played out in a river, is the bloodiest olympic sport around. In the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, when Russian tanks were invading Hungary, the Hungarian team was seized by such a vengative mood that at the end of the game the pool was red with blood. The result was Hungary-Russia 4-0. No Hungarian waterpoloist dared to go back to occupied Hungary and all asked for refugee status. According to the rules, a defender may hold, block or pull an opponent who is touching or holding the ball. Simply put, the very instant you get hold of the ball, you become free prey, you may legally be drowned or dismembered should the naked opponent in the water able to do that. From experience I say that no one can see what goes on under the water. I for one was always full of blue, green and yellow spots on the body. I gave as good as I received, probably more. A man without the ball is untouchable. That is, in the rule-book, not in the water.

Jewish Science Fiction

"I look around, and I remember the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel—'I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven'—and I think to myself, 'A promise is a promise, but even a promise can go too far,'" says Milchik the Jewish-Venusian TV repairman. "The stars themselves are more than enough, but when each star has maybe ten, twenty planets...."

Milchik is the 28th-century narrator of William Tenn's "On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi," the first story in Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy & Science Fiction. Published in 1974, and still in print, the book signaled the emergence of a subgenre that was inevitable—too many Jews write science fiction for it to be otherwise.

"There was a time, you know, when you didn't associate Jews with science fiction and fantasy," Asimov wrote in his introduction to Wandering Stars. "To write great novels—yes, that was permitted Jewish boys....After all, what else are all those great Jewish novelists to write about? Methodists? But science fiction and fantasy (in cheap magazines yet—feh) was different. In the days when I was an avid groper for those cheap magazines, the stories dealt entirely with Americans of northwest-European extraction who fought Homeric battles with space pirates, outer-world monsters, and evil wizards (to say nothing of Martian princesses in brassieres). What kind of place was that for Jewish boys?"

The question of who is a Jew? has preoccupied these writers of science fiction as much as it has writers of mainstream fiction. "On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi," for instance, is a monologue, delivered with profoundly anachronistic borscht-belt flair, on the central debate of the First Interstellar Neozionist Congress: Should the Congress accredit the delegation of Bulbans—small, brown, tentacled, pillow-like creatures from Rigel IV who claim descent from a community of Jewish immigrants?

For William Tenn—the pen name of Philip Klass—Bulbans are a proxy for everyone who has ever had to prove that they are Jewish enough—to the more Orthodox, to disapproving fathers, to the state of Israel. Particularly poignant, and funny, is Milchik's account of the Bulbans' testimony before the hastily convened High Rabbinical Court. The aliens deny any dilution of their blood; they make the Lamarckian claim that their bodies have simply adjusted, after centuries of persecution, to the environment of their adopted planet.

One of the rabbinical judges asks, "But while this was going on, you looked like Jews? I mean, the kind of Jews we're familiar with?"

"What we looked like particularly, we understand, was Jews from New Jersey," replies the Bulban representative. "I, Yitzhak ben Pinchas, am the direct descendant of Melvin Cohen, the assistant manager of a supermarket in Paramus."

The story grows more complex from there, as science fiction often does. But the Yiddish diction and dry humor remain familiar, as do references to the Holocaust (in this case, a first and second Holocaust), ideas of the Diaspora, and existential questions of Jewish identity. The solution to the Bulban paradox, too, is delivered with a certain Jewish flair for ambiguity, a recognition that some kinds of questions can only have provisional answers. (from an article by Daniel Oppenheimer).

The Odor Industry

I am always on the look for new niches to make some money. I have now two daughters in the University and the third is starting the next year, and the cost is equivalent to maintain a family plus three mantenidas (second-homes). The girls are all working and saving money, but I want them to exploit me till I can be exploited. I am like the eskimo old man who walks out of the igloo into the snow storm, to quietly sit down till the polar bear comes, allowing his people to trap and kill and eat the bear. Anyway, an odor industry is being organized in Israel and all over the world. One example is Odournet which pretends to help industry in the art of being a good neighbour by providing specialist services for the measurement, assessment and management of annoyance odours. Their site writes:

Achieving a balance between conflicting interests of industry and the public typically involves quantifying the magnitude of the emissions, assessing the scale of their impact, definition of targets and defining a management plan to attain those targets. To achieve this Odournet selects the most appropriate techniques from a comprehensive range of in-house sampling and laboratory capabilities and consultancy expertise. Laboratory services include sensory analyses (olfactometry to determine odour concentration EN13725, hedonic tone, odour character) and chemical techniques, both for screening in the field (H2S, NH3) and advanced laboratory analysis (GC-MS).

Consultancy services include on-site process evaluations, source sampling, field odour panels, impact assessment using dispersion modelling (which I also started doing), selection of environmental targets (what is this?), dose effect studies, selection of optimum odour removal techniques for cost effective odour control, abatement plant evaluation, BAT (?) selection, definition of integrated odour management plans etc. These services are supported by a strong R&D capability to develop odour analysis and measurement tools (diluting stack samplers, olfactometers) and provide research to underpin regulatory policy initiatives

Are they making money?

Water Conservation Idiocy

The Israeli public is suffering another Governmental media attack against water use, the same campaign that in the past has been proved totally useless, imbecile and idiotic. One popular idea, that I thought I have killed for good, has been refloated: Urban grass can be irrigated only at night, and a new-fangled water police roams the country to impose this law. The law has wide public approval, and those watering plants during daytime, are verbally attacked by neighbors and passersby. Because we all know that water is scarce in Israel and watering during the day evaporates the water woithout benefiting the plant.

Nonsense. Plants have chemical pumps operated by photosynthesis, which takes place only with light. At night, the plant closes its stomatae and goes to sleep, and takes up no water from the soil. Irrigation at night creates mud, but not a drop is lifted by the plant. Only during the day the plant is able to absorb water from the wet soil. The science of day light irrigation prohibition is simply wrong. When at the Water Authority I was able to impose this idea in a meeting about water conservation, but wrong but popular ideas never die.

Gravity toilet-flushing capacity has been reduced by law, and now all "niagara" tanks come with two handles, one for liquid and the other for solid wastes. Also in the USA the mandated standard tank capacity has been dropping, from 5 gal. to 3.5 gal. and recently to 1.6-gal. Water is to be saved even in the floating boat casinos on the oceanic Mississippi river.

Old 5-gal. toilets could flush down turtles, cigars, feminine-hygiene products, bullets, Popsicle sticks and an occasional diaper with little effort. The new 1.6-gal. toilets sometimes struggle to flush the daily loads of human waste. But law is law, and the law is the National Energy Policy Act of 1992, which requires that all toilets made or sold in the USA meet new federal water-efficiency standards. To conserve water, those standards set the upper limit of a single flush at 1.6-gal.

Gravity toilets depend on gravity to pull the water-and waste-through the system. When the handle is pushed, a flush valve opens, and the water in the tank drains into the bowl, either through rim openings, through the large siphon-jet opening across from the drain at the bottom of the bowl or through a combination of both. The gravityfed speed of the water pushes the waste through the trap and into the drain. In Israel the law requires two-step emptying, the first about 0.6 gallon and then the rest.

Complaints against the 1.6-gal. toilet include sluggish or incomplete flushing; a small "water spot," as the area of the toilet bowl water surface is called; staining; and the need to double-flush or triple-flush. If a 1.6-gal. toilet is flushed more than twice, it uses more water than the now illegal 3.5-gal. toilets. In Israel, everybody has to have a plunger. Most houses dont flush down the toilet paper, since the water flow is too week to carry it down, and have baskets where to trow them. It stinks to heaven.

Plumbers know that that installing a 1.6-gal. gravity-flush toilet in an old house could lead to clogs and backups. Often, older waste pipe is 4-in. or even "6 diameter cast iron, which is rougher on the inside than modern plastic pipe. When the cast-iron pipe was installed, toilets flushed anywhere from 5 gal. to more than 7 gal, of water. But now that they're down to 1.6-gal., that's often not enough water to power the waste through.

Supposing that there is a real water saving with the 1.6 gallon toilet tank, the total amount of water saved in Israel could sum about 25 to 35 million cubic meters a year. (5,000,000 persons x 2 flushings per day x 1.9 gallon saved each flushing x 365.25 days a year). That is about 2% of the total water quantity supplied for urban use. Since water costs about 0.5 per 1,000 liter to desalinate, and is sold to the customer for about 1 dollar per 1,000 liter, the whole saving is about 12 to 17 million dollar per year. In summary, because of the inability of the Israeli State to allow a private enterprise to set up a seawater desalting and water supplying plant, we have to see our natural load of waste float in the toilet bowl, or see the yellow color of unflushed urine, and suffer the smell in our summer heat. Everybody would happily pay the difference in his montly water bill just to have the right to flush down his toilet with enough water.

If I were a subversive, I would say water your plant during the day and re-install the old big 5 gallon niagara tank. But that would go against my personal interest, because as everybody understands, water engineers do profit from the water hysteria of the public and the government. So I advise nothing.

Kosher Chicken

Wastewater is a fundamental water resource in Israel and about 70 to 80% is treated and supplied to agricultural irrigation or maintenance of rivers. The background salinity of tap water is about 250 to 400 mg/lt ClNa and the normal domestic use adds some 100 mg/lt. Therefore, each cycle of use and reuse adds salt to the water till some aquifers like the coastal aquifer are almost too brackish for irrigation of non-tolerant crops, which are most. The Ministry of Environment leads the battle against the addition of salt to the water and the worst "criminals" are chicken slaughterhouses. In the picture we see the cause: In Israel, meat has to be made kosher by the addition of salt which draws out the blood, which is forbidden to eat in Jewish religion. So the chickens are generously salted and then lifted to a chilled water reservoir and then drained. Behind me when taking the pic, stands a mashgiach, a bearded young Jew from the Ministry of Religion (in fact, the Ministry was abolished not long ago, so I dont know who pays the salary of the inspector of religion), whose finger can be seen in the pic, making sure that all the chickens are properly salted and no blood is visible. The workers, who must be Jews too, show no love for the holy man lording over them from a stand built with piled sacks of salt, and he does not like them either. The brackish cold water is then drained into large tanks, the grease floated away, and the clear liquid transported to the Rishon Le Zion WWTP (the SHAFDAN) which operates a sea outfall.

Of course, working with 20,000 chickens a day and tons of salt, some brackish water does escape and filters into the municipal network. The environmental inspectors cought this slaughterhouse dumping some salty water into the public pipe, and the judge gave an order to close it down. The owners, a family of exotic folk juden, contracted me and then Dr. Avi to find the cause of the problem and to avoid the close down order. Today I worked in this thing, it is nice to feel that one's work is important and the livelihood of hundreds of workers depends on one's success. The salting of meat is an ancient hygienic technique, and being religion, it is quite a headache for modern Israel. 50,000 tons of salt are added each year to the aquifers, mostly because of the requirements of kashrut.

30 interceptor missiles

The US Army informs that

Iran is working on an extended-range version of the Shahab-3 and a new 2,000-kilometer medium-range ballistic missile, which they term the Ashura”. Last week, Iran launched several short- and medium-range ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel and the U.S. bases in the Middle East. Longer-ranged missiles are capable of striking Europe. The U.S. concern with the spread of the technology was such that the current and previous administrations invested in fielding the missile defense program. “We needed to protect the United States and then to expand that protection for our deployed forces and our allies and friends in the European theater,” Obering said.

The layered missile defense strategy melds boost-phase defense, mid-course defense and terminal-stage defense together. Various systems from ground-based interceptors, to airborne lasers to sea-based platforms provide protection against a rogue regime trying to launch one or two missiles at the United States or its allies. U.S. officials are making great progress in integrating the missile defense systems with NATO programs, the general said. Obering discussed some of the systems’ successes. “In the boost phase, we've had great success with the airborne laser,” he said. The laser is mounted in a Boeing 747 and fires through the nose of the aircraft to destroy missiles just launching. “We have generated the power that we needed on the ground in a 747 fuselage mock-up, and we've also flown the aircraft,” he said. “We've demonstrated the tracking laser performance and an atmospheric compensation laser performance. All that goes together to show that we can shoot down a boosting missile. And we're on track to do that next year in a flight test.”

Thirty interceptor missiles at bases in Alaska and California make up the only defense the United States has against long-range missiles, Obering said.

Since you need several interceptors to get down one incoming missile, the US is practically defenseless, as is Europe and is Israel.

TSO Once-A-Life Investment Opportunity

Did people realize that TSO shares have fallen so low that it may take only 2 million dollars to take control of the company? Tesoro is a large American oil refiner. And there are not making new refiners, the permitting mechanism is paralyzed by the holy fear of Ecology.

Portland Public Water System: The Benson Bubblers

In 1912, Simon Benson, lumber millioner and teetotaller, commissioned 20 drinking fountains with a $10,000 gift. He wanted to offer his loggers something cold on the streets to quench their thirst so they will not get drunk, at least not during work hours. Benson once said that after the fountains were installed, saloon sales decreased 40%. A. E. Doyle, architect of the Multnomah County Library and the Meier & Frank Building, designed the graceful bronze four-bowls. By 1917, the City had installed 40 fountains - known as Benson Bubblers - throughout downtown. There are now 52 Benson Bubblers (four-bowl fountains). The fountains have timers so they flow freely from 5 am to 10 pm daily.

Kever Benjamin has a lot to catch up with Portland. Our problem is not lumbermen felling dead drunk in the middle of Weizmann Street. Summer temperatures here are veritably hellish and there is no drinking water anywhere. The Municipality should install coolers in public places to fill in with cold water the water bottles that many people carry.

May T Bills End Up Contaminated?

The US Government's backing of the insolvent Fannie and Freedie monsters may end badly and extend the contamination to American T Bills. The danger looms because of the enormous sums involved, not billions but trillions. Treasury Bills are considered the ultimate refuge of value, if they are suspected, and investors are like liebres on the run for their life during the shooting season, they will try to diversify out of them. WSJ writes:

The Federal Reserve Act’s Section 13(13), created in 1933 and amended in the late 1960s, allows the Fed to lend to any individual, partnership or corporation with collateral backed by U.S. government securities or securities issued by federal agencies. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt is generally included in that latter category of safe holdings, even though it’s not directly guaranteed by the U.S. government.

In March, the Fed used Section 13(3) of the act to extend its lending arm to investment banks during the Bear Stearns liquidity crisis (first with an initial Bear Stearns loan and two days later in creating the primary dealer credit facility). That provision allowed the Fed to lend during “unusual and exigent circumstances” only if a firm can’t borrow elsewhere. The latest Fed action Sunday requires neither finding. The collateral allowed for investment banks was much broader, while the Fannie and Freddie lending would be safer from the Fed’s perspective because their holdings are more liquid and don’t require the same safeguards. Lending under the 13(13) provision has occurred at various times from the 1930s through at least the early 1970s.

Lets shout the Spanish conquistadores's battle cry: ORO....y mujeres. ¿Or was it SANTIAGO? No, gold it was. And women.

The KOOR Fuckup

Nochi Dankner is the owner of KOOR (although I am also a very modest, infinitesimally modest shareholder). This Nochi person did not know what to do with KOOR, to sell it or not to sell it, and being a genetically hyperactive anthropoid, had to do something. Instead of scratching his beytzes and do what monkeys do, he took out a giganteous loan to buy Credit Suisse shares, more than half billion dollars. Of course, a week has passed and the bank shares have collapsed, and following the worldwide financial meltdown, they are in their way to oblition, soon to be worthless. Bad, very bad decision, Master Nochi!As corollary, my own purchases of KOOR had been demonstrated to have been wrong.

Was Jim Rogers Right?

... when he predicted a general collapse of the world banking system? I did not believe him then but I am wondering now. What is the meaning of the following Reuters news?

PASADENA, Calif., July 14 (Reuters) - Hundreds of worried IndyMac Bancorp Inc (IMB.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) customers descended on the company's branches on Monday to withdraw their money, after regulators seized what was once one of the largest mortgage lenders in the United States. Regulators took over the Pasadena-based lender on Friday after a bank run in which customers -- panicked over IndyMac's survival prospects -- withdrew $1.3 billion over 11 business days, regulators said. At a branch at IndyMac's headquarters, customers began arriving at 4 a.m., five hours before the doors opened. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp now operates the thrift's 33 Southern California branches. The FDIC said the renamed IndyMac Federal Bank will cover insured deposits, mostly up to $100,000, and initially cover 50 percent of uninsured deposits.

Apparently, there was a run on a California bank and it was taken over the State. On Wall Street, the whole banking sector is being liquidated. National City Corp. fell 23 percent, to $3.41. Zions Bancorp fell 21 percent, to $20.38, while Washington Mutual Inc. fell 30 percent, to $3.48. Losing 30% in one day is extreemely dramatic. There is massive wealth loss today in America. I am very unhappy. And afraid.

The media is not reacting to what is happening, trying to act responsibly and avoid increasing the panic. But the blogosphere is starting to react. Sudden Debt writes:

The ripples in the financial crisis pond keep getting bigger and bigger. IndyMac was just taken over by the Feds and now the behemoths Fannie and Freddie are, too. Obviously, this is very bad news: hundreds of billions of taxpayer money will be needed. This is orders of magnitude bigger than all previous bailouts. These are no longer ripples but waves.

And what if it doesn't work out? What if, after an initial positive knee-jerk reaction, the market prudently decides to "give" (sell to) the Treasury as much stock in Fannie and Freddie as it has , while there is big buyer? What will the government do then? Double up and buy even more? Trying to put an artificial floor under stock prices is a fool's game and always ends up creating a bigger mess.

And the size of the two GSEs is so large that a BIG mess is all but guaranteed. The real danger here is that these actions ultimately lead to a cross-infection of the Treasury bond market. If this happens the wave will be a tsunami that will wipe the US off the global financial map.

Jim Rogers must be watching from his corner office in Doha Towers.

Kever Jonathan Ben Uzziel

The 2,000 years old tomb of Tannaite Master Jonathan Ben Uzziel in the Amuqa Forest in the Galil, near Tzfat (Safed) has magic powers and thousands of single girls visit it in their quest to find a husband. Rabbi Jonathan was scholar of Hillel the Elder's circle, and it was said of him (Sukkah 28a) that his powers of concentration were so fantastic that any bird flying over his head would fell incinerated. A legend developed that his tomb was effective in finding husbands, and if a girl left an intimate piece of her garment on the tomb, she would find her soulmate within a year. Thousands of bras and female underwear cover the tumb, many are tied to the ironwork windows and the branches of surrounding trees. Some girls bring their "offerings" ready from home, others enter the shrine and take it down in-situ. Even a long dead Saint cannot lay unmoved when covered by hundreds of body-hot, still-wet, fragrant, pink lingerie.

The Shuk of Kever Benjamin

We have a small shuk in the center of the town. It was never a typical Middle East sleepy and dirty shuk, but an active noisy Israeli market. Wife a bit depressed so we went shopping and found that the shuk has gentrified and a French girl took over the cheese shop, and has all kind of exotic goat cheeses, all very clean. One of the two fish shops has closed. The bastot are passed on from father to son, and the old Iraqi fathers have their chair in front of the shop where they sit, drink their coffee, observe the happenings, and help where they can. Once the shuk had tea shops where Iraqi Jews could drink tea and pass the day playing blackgammon, but that generation is no more. Russian babushkot frequent this last remaining open air market, they think it is cheaper than supermarkets or have better merchandise, they stand and touch every fruit and vegetable before buying two potatoes. Interestingly, plastic bags are marked as made in Doha, in the Gulf. Nothing can stop commerce.

Fear of Falling

TASE is falling strongly and my stocks are falling the most. A bad feeling.

Putsch in Israel

There was no Israeli Prime Minister that was not under permanent attack by the police. Or we are managed by a bunch of corrupt politicians, or we have a corrupt police intent on destroying the country and taking power. Most probably, the police is hiding their own corruption, and prefers to counterattack boldly. I am not talking about how our President Katzav was destroyed, humiliated, shamed, his pension annuled, etc. because a secretary´s accusation that he raped her in a hotel where they used to meet secretly. I am not talking about the Minister that was condemned to public service and suspended for a year because he acceded to kis a girl who wanted to get a picture with him kissing her. I am talking about Prime Minister Bibi Netaniyahu, who is a war hero and son of an ideological revisionist, was permanently investigated by the police, and accused of taking some worthless presents from his official premises to his home. A criminal act. He was photographed countless times entering or exiting police stations after seven or eight hours of interrogations. No country does this things to their leaders. Sharon was permanently under police investigations and had to come to police headquarters once a week to confess his "crimes", mostly trying to find a job to his not-to-brilliant son, and to have no idea how his campaign was managed. His son was sent to prison for a few weeks, Sharon himself is a vegetable in a hospital so he is left alone. Now Olmert, he is being accused of having bought his house too cheap, and then they discovered that he raised funds in the United States, funds which were not declared, and now, that he took his wife with him in his tiring foreign trips, mostly on the basis of points accumulated in air companies. That is a practice that is accepted in every company and ministry, the accumulated air miles are not accounted. I suspect that it may not the police itself but the Ministry of Justice which is constantly inciting against our leaders. That Ministry has more than 60% female employees and more in the higher echelons, most of them ferocious barracudas, man-hating frustrated aging childless attorneys. HaAretz:

The message of Olmert's associates Saturday was clear: The police are aiming to unseat the prime minister. They even used the word "putsch."

Airless Tires

War is the Mother of Progress and Prosperity, I think. The last Iraqi War is already generating lots of innovative technologies and products, from driver-less trucks (to avoid losses by roadside bombs) to airless tires (that cannot be sabotaged). After wars always comes a period of prosperity, caused by the application of new military technologies to civilian economy.

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?

Marco Tulio, alias The Chickpea (Kikero in the original Latin) was a Roman Senator. Children should learn his speeches as I did instead of "Gender Studies", or other stupidities.

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt? Patere tua consilia non sentis, constrictam iam horum omnium scientia teneri coniurationem tuam non vides? Quid proxima, quid superiore nocte egeris, ubi fueris, quos convocaveris, quid consilii ceperis, quem nostrum ignorare arbitraris? O tempora, o mores!

Kever Benjamin's Twin City: Qalkylia

From my window I can easily watch Kever Benjamin's Palestinian Twin City, Qalkylia. We used to be almost one town, and their major used to invite Israeli children to visit their zoo. (Kever Benjamin has no zoo.) We used to go to Oriental restaurants there, and buy cheap fresh fruits and vegetables in the shuk. They learned Hebrew and I learned a few words in Arabic. Ah, and there was a flourishing mechanic repairs business - they had several gangs stealing Israeli cars according to specific orders to have spare parts. Since the intifada, trade has declined and the town’s shops, restaurants and other service providers have been adversely affected. According the Mayor, as a result of closures and the fence, 4,000 people have left Qalqilya and over 30 percent of the businesses have closed (600 businesses out of a total of 1,800). Some have migrated to surrounding villages and others have left the country. Nowadays, you can leave your car in Kever Benjamin open with the key inside, and no one will touch it. We miss our nearest neighbors. But not too much.

The Only Truth is the Panga

These weeks CNN brought us no news from the civil (civil?) war between the Lemna, the Kikuyu and other tribes of Kenya. May be they felt it would affect American elections. One eye-witness, twenty-one-year old Pollack, writes that he feels safe despite warnings from the U.S. Embassy. Pollack, a New Yorker in Kenya to help build an orphanage, ventured out with his camera Wednesday. He submitted photos to I-Report, showing burned-out vehicles and eerily empty streets in Kibera, a slum of Nairobi. "People are ready to riot. They feel wronged," he says. For them, according to Pollack, "the only truth is the panga [machete]." Pollack believes he will be OK because, "it's a tribal issue; their problem doesn't have to do with me."

I hope we will see him back alive, and not in a beheading video.