Radium in the Water

The wells in the Arava valley in Israel cannot be used for drinking because of high radioactive content. Since there is no alternative water source, they are being treated by reverse osmosis. The milching cows of Yotvatah drink radioactive water, but the milk has only traces of radioactive isotopes. When I was in the Water Authority I did a lot of work on the subject, another reason why I was considered a troublemaker. Now it appears that the problem is more severe in the other side of the border, in the Kingdom of Jordan. The analysis by Duke University of dozens of ancient wells in central Jordan has shown them to be contaminated with high levels of radiation. The cause is naturally occurring radium. The problem affects also Egypt, Libya, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

Avner Vengosh and colleagues took samples from 37 wells in the Disi aquifer and found the water unfit for consumption. The finding comes in the wake of a massive undertaking to pump drinking water from the Disi aquifer, along Jordan's southern border, toward Amman, the capital of the country. High levels of radium in drinking water to be associated with bone cancer and leukaemia. My cousin Yossi, born and bred in Israel, suffers from leukemia. The head of Kever Benjamin´s Water Company had leukemia (she was cured by bone marrow implant). Mere coincidence.

California's Water Problems

Aquanomics Blog writes:

This is a pretty strong opinion: Increases in freshwater exports out of the California Delta, the operation of Shasta Dam and other inland habitat problems have not only led to the collapse of Central Valley salmon populations, but also threaten the southern resident killer whale population.

But salmon is a cultivated species and can be bought in Kever Benjamin's fish market for 10 dollars a kilo, and the killer whale is a dangerous predator which we need like the cockroach and the malaria mosquito. Why these imaginary problems should force real people to have no drinking water? No, the salmon and the whale are doing nothing, it is evil people exerting control and power over other less fortunate people.

G.Schm. Yeshiva

I have a nice project, to re-design the plumbing installation of an old Yeshiva near Kever Benjamin. It is a large compound with living accommodation for the students, a large restaurant, and the classes. They have a pumping system to add pressure, and a very deep sewage network. None was ever maintained. The place had been closed down by the Ministry of Health and they urgently need designs for remaking the whole plumbing during the Pesach holiday.

I noticed that the whole yeshiva had been transformed into a battleground, there were large IDF signs "The best to the Air Force", "The Man in the tank will win", etc. In the coffee corner (pic) it was: קפה באימונים, נס בקרב which each Israeli will recognize as קשה באימונים קל בקרב i.e. difficult in training, easy in the battle. The entrance of the yeshiva had been built into a fortified position, with sand sacks and wire, and in the middle of the patio, a miniature fake tank could be seen under the camouflage. These boys are being educated as Israel's religious and fighting hard core.

Another Project that is Ending Well

My project of twelve drinking water wells is in danger of ending in imminent disaster, as I am in harsh disagreement with my partner and currently we are not talking. The thing is going on for the last three months and it quite upsets me. Sometimes I did not answer the phone just to avoid him. On the other hand, three projects have all ended quite well with me being paid in full: the Barkan metalworking workshop (see pic), the large catering and bakery I planned in Kever Benjamin City, and the poultry houses in the northern kibbutz. Now I am working in the kibbutz´s second project, a composting facility that will be the largest of Israel, even larger than the planned Shafdan facility near Tel Aviv. And I am receiving new orders all the time. I am starting to teach next week, this time 2 courses. Busy I am, making money, no.

Big Spender

The Obama administration now expects a budget deficit in fiscal year 2009 of $1,750 billion, or more than 12 percent of GDP. Total federal spending this year is expected to be $3,940 billion, or 27 percent of GDP. This can only mean taxes for generations and expoliation of the private sector. The market knew it in advance:

Ever since mid September, 2008, when Obama became a heavy favourite to win the US Presidency, the markets of the US and the world have been dropping.(Al Fin)

Chief White House Augur

President Obama nominated Dr. John P. Holdren, the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, for chief White House Science Advisor. The man is supposed to be advising the President on science issues, an area where Obama is weak. But Holdren is no scientist. He is an ecological activist of the extreme alarmist far left, an augur of cosmic retribution for human sins against the natural order, who over the past 40 years has warned of population-growth induced "ecocide," "global cooling," global warming due to heat dissipation from power plants, nuclear Armageddon, and -- this week -- "climate disruption". The more I learn about these things, the more I respect the current Chinese government, led by a professional engineer and manned by real scientists.

Mexico Watering the Cienaga de Santa Clara?

I found an article in the Christian Science Monitor about keeping alive the Cienaga de Santa Clara, in the Delta of the Colorado River, near the Sea of Cortez. The problem is that the desalination plant of Yuma will discharge its highly saline reject to this Cienaga, converting it into a salt desert, destroying it as a biodiversity sanctuary. The Cienaga wetland is watered by the agricultural drainage of American and the Mexicali irrigation districts, and is an artificial product of the Colorado River management, but it has developed into the sole nature sanctuary in the area.

The debate about how to save the Cienaga

highlights the challenge of slaking the thirst of a growing population that draws on the already-oversubscribed Colorado River, while protecting the region’s ecological gems. The challenge is expected to grow more acute if global warming dries out the region further, as many climate models project.

If, however, other sources of water for the wetlands can be found, particularly if the water comes from sources on both sides of the US-Mexican border, it would represent “a tremendous breakthrough,” says Karl Flessa, a paleobiologist at the University of Arizona who studies the river’s historical ecosystems.

Sitting in his office beneath a pair of enlarged satellite photos of the delta, Dr. Flessa explains that such an outcome would represent the first time US water managers had allocated Colorado River water specifically for environmental purposes outside the Grand Canyon. It would also represent the first time water had been delivered across the border for environmental uses.

In summary, the scientist's proposal is that Mexico resign some of the remnants of the Colorado river it is entitled to in order to feed the Cienaga. The idea that some of the water should be allocated to Nature does not come naturally, and will be difficult concept to digest for Mexicans. I was thinking that in my masterplan I shall reserve some water (10% is the maximum) to Nature, particularly if the USA contributes equally, when I saw the comments section, where Mr PAUL F. MILLER, an experienced AZ water engineer, writes:

Mexico’s right to Colorado River water as stipulated in the 1922 Compact of the River is has about the same validity to Arizona, Nevada and California as the Native American’s water rights today. In both cases they are phantom, bogus, exist merely on paper but were never really intended to be honored as “wet” rights. Today, these three combine to screw Mexico, tomorrow they will plot and plan devising ways to screw each other.

What? International agreements are bogus, phantom, exist merely on paper? Obviously, Mr Miller is not going to agree to contribute American water for the birds and fishes living in the Cienaga de Santa Clara in Baja California. (The pic shows two canals crossing near San Luis Colorado, Mexico).

The Golden Rule

In America we follow the Golden Rule - who has the gold, rules. Unknown.

We must be doing something well

According to Israel´s Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Jewish births has increased by 45 percent in less than two decades, from 80,400 in 1995 to 117,000 in 2008. At the same time, the Arab birthrate has remained stable at approximately 39,000 a year.

Another salient data: the Israeli works an average of 60 hours a week. Only the South Koreans and the Japanese work so much. I work about 70 hours a week, but what else could I do? Something that always calls my attention when in my project sites: the Israeli Arab worker - works. They are acquiring Jewish habits.

Bad Day

One of those days when it is better to stay in the bed.

Absolutes

"Vodka corrupts; Absolut vodka corrupts absolutely." -- Stefan Kanfer

Taki Knows His Turks

Taki, the aging Greek playboy, writes in VDare about the European Union and the Turks. Although he professes love for the Turkish people (something very doubtful coming from the mouth of a Greek), he compares them to Don Giovanni, meaning that Turks will screw everybody if opened the door. The Turks are famous for their love of the anal way, well documented by Lawrence (of Arabia) in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Taki, in addition of loving the Turks, says that he knows them (hope not in the Biblical manner). To witness his deep knowledge of the Turks, he describes an encounter with them while yachting around the Eastern Mediterranean. From the story it is clear that Taki captured the very soul of the Turkish people while sunbathing on his luxurious yacht, without ever approaching shore.

The grandfather is rowing, the father shows his goods, and the grandson is taking it all in. The boy is eight or nine, with large blue eyes far apart on his broad face, reminiscent of the Albanian features of Kemal Ataturk. The grandfather looks Japanese, like a weather-beaten samurai. When I inquire, his son laughs: ‘Tartar, Tartar,’ he tells us. History is right before us, selling us carpets and nuts, hundreds and hundreds of years of conquest and migration written in the faces of three poor souls struggling for a living.

I for a change have no opinion if the Turks should join the European Union or not, but I know for sure that Taki is the one person whose opinion should be ignored, not only because of his nationality but because he apparently has never met a working Turk in his long career of spending his father´s money. The quality of VDare´s contributors is always uneven, but with Taki the Greek antisemite giving advice on the Turks, it is touching bottom.

Inflation Sighted !

Prof. Hamilton brings the last CPI graph and for the first time in a long time we have positive inflation. The stimulus seems to be working. People is buying things. The world may be saved. But today, a terrible fall on the TASE. I lost 5%.

H2S in Golda High School

In the never ending conflict in Kever Benjamin City´s Golda High School sewage odour situation, the Municipality is now demanding details from the Ministry of Health, that ordered the closing down of the school. A new, more powerful sewage pumping station, pushes the column of polluted air to the atmosphere through a manhole located in the Golda High School.¨We demand your instructions regarding the kindergarten in the neighborhood, and about the evacuation of the residents. We consider you the responsible for the health and welfare of the residents.¨.

RR, the City Engineer, reported that a new sewage pipeline is being planned, that will avoid the neighborhood. He said that there are different alternative routes and the decision is taking its time. "In the meanwhile, we shall continue being posioned", observed the neighborhood's representative.

The Ministry of Health answered in an official letter: "We were condulted about the air samples taken in the area of the school, and we gave our professional opinion. We were not consulted about the kindergarten and other areas."

A classic Israeli imbroglio. No one wants to take responsability, no one has an opinion. (The pic shows the ¨birkat ha levenah¨table in Kever Benjamin´s synagogue, that contains the blessing of the new moon to be performed at the start of each lunar month).

Why Is the Dollar Deflating?

The American Government is creating and throwing away dollars like a drunken sailor in Hamburg's red light zone, but the dollar, instead of losing value as I expected, is strengthening. Why? From all the explanations I found on the internet, davka an article by Georg Soros in Hungarian gives a convincing answer. He writes:

A dollár erősödése 2008 végén nem annak volt betudható, hogy egyre többen szerettek volna dollárhoz jutni, hanem az okozta, hogy egyre nehezebb volt ebben a pénznemben kölcsönt kapni. Európai és más nemzetközi bankok nagyon sok dolláralapú eszközre tettek szert, amelyeket szokás szerint a bankközi piacon finanszíroztak; így amikor a piac kiszáradt, arra kényszerültek, hogy dollárt vásároljanak. Ugyanakkor a periféria országainak nagyon sok dolláralapú hitele volt, amelyeket vissza kellett fizetniük, amikor nem tudták őket tovább halasztani.

For the Hungarian-challenged readers, a translation: In 2008, the dollar strengthened not because people wanted more dollars, but because it was difficult to receive credit in dollars. International banks had many dollar instruments that they used to refinance in the market, but iin 2008 this market dried up and they were forced to actually buy dollars. At the same time, the countries of the periphery have much dollar debt, which could not be refinanced so they had to buy dollars to repay them.

What now? American banks are chock-full of dollars, but deadly afraid to loan them out. The American government keeps pushing down their throws dollars at zero or negative interest rate, yet the nightmare of not being paid back or having to face a run on them, freezes their known cold hearts. This man Soros is going to make a lot of money during this krach. As a fellow Hungarian Jew I should be able to copy him. How is that I cannot? .

Shabbat Dreams

Shabbat (Saturday) is quiet around Kever Benjamin City. The city has been washed clean by the recent storm and the air is clear. I slept a nice siesta, dreaming, once more, about being expulsed and having to leave. This time I was in a tropical place like Santo Domingo (a city formerly known as Ciudad Trujillo) and I was living a phosphorescent white coral house, like the one built by the dictator Trujillo (pic), where I lived while working on the island. The interpretation may be that I am afraid of being abandoned or dying.

Prof. MacDonald Speeks (on the Psychology of Women)

Prof. Kevin MacDonald, an University of California tenured Professor of Psychology, writes in The Occidental about the psychology of women. "What do women want?" Prof. MacDonald starts his inquiry researching scientific literature on the subject. He quotes his main source (The New York Times) that

describes the result of an informal "email inquiry" on women's reactions to Obama. Some imagined having sex with Obama and replacing Michelle Obama as First Lady. Others imagined themselves at social engagements with Obama. All wanted deeply to have some of the Obama aura rub off on them. Warner's email contacts doubtless reflect her liberal readership, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they are quite general, especially among white women who voted for Obama.

In any case, he writes, women do indeed prefer wealthy, high-status men. For example, a recent study found that wealthy men give women more orgasms: "The pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance."

Wait a minute, is the Professor saying that women want... powerful, high-status men? Like, say, President Obama? an African? Horror! Oh, The Horror! The Professor is invoking the most effective weapon of racism: The sexual fear of big-fallused Africans mounting extatic Nordic girls. In the closing words of MacDonald:

This paints a fairly bleak picture...

Indeed it does! Why America cannot have better professors of psychology? God knows I have no illusions about human biodiversity, but this man is no scientist but a demagogue exploiting man's most intimate terrors for his inhuman political ends, giving a very bad name to the science of evolutionary psychology.

Taki, Nostalgic

Taki, the old Greek antisemite, cannot stop re-telling the stories of his golden youth, spent whoring around with no-good Porfirio Rubirosa and his kind. Who remembers Porfi except Taki?

When Peter, Nicola, Vladimir and Franqois were in their late teens, I was about ten years older, and could get them into New Jimmy's, the chicest club of the period. The first time Porfirio Rubirosa set eyes on Franqois, he called him the spitting image of Johnny de Caraman. 'Well,' said someone, 'who do you expect him to look like, the milkman?' 'You'd be surprised how many sons of aristocrats look like the milkman,' answered the wise Rubi.

Porfirio may have been talking from personal knowledge, as he was famous for the length of his sexual organ--Truman Capote, in Answered Prayers, described it as eleven inches long--and to this day the extra-long pepper mills in French bistros are called "Rubirosas." Taki´s anecdotes have been heard by everybody at least twice and he keeps repeating them. Chattering old fools are unbearable, and only themselves are happily unaware of it. Politeness demands that one feign attention for at least two minutes, and a few masochists are able to hold it that long. But rich men are endlessly fascinating - and Taki is very rich - even when their chattering starts showing signs of clinical dementia praecox.

Tower Still Standing

Tower, the Migdal HeEmeq foundry I used to invest in, is still around and growing. Full year revenue for 2008 rose to a record $251.7 million, 9% higher than the previous year. On Nasdaq, shares in Tower closed on Wednesday at $0.18, reflecting a market cap of $23.32 million. The market values Tower extremely cheap, which is understandable in view of its unending chain of losses. I for one cut my losses and exited from Tower, however, I am surprised to see it growing doggedly. When and if the market conditions change, Tower will be the next Intel. Maybe. Maybe not.

The drawing shows a Zaslavsky Tower, about a kilometer high, which produces energy by descending cool air. It works on the opposite principle of a Solar Tower, which generates electricity by the lift of sun-heated hot air.

Drinking People

Drinking People is not about people who likes a glass of vodka once a while, but the fact the Mexicali and Calexico have been drinking water with two persons dissolved in it.

Calexico, California (OEM).- Al estar realizando los trabajos de encementado del canal Todo Americano trabajadores del Distrito de Riego del Valle Imperial localizaron en la cajuela de un auto, al parecer hundido hace 10 años, los restos de dos personas. Las autoridades investigan en coordinación con el Consulado de México en Calexico, ya que entre los restos encontraron una credencial federal para votar.

Water Management: the IID and Netzivut HaMaim

David Zetland is a water economist that is doing some work in the IIC (Imperial Valley Irrigation) and has an astonishing (for me) insight:

IID is trying to set quantity (5.25AF/acre) AND price ($17/AF) at the same time. It's basic economics that you can't set both without getting a surplus or shortage.

Israel has been doing for decades exactly that, establishing water quotas and fixing the price, and sure it does not work. Israel water sector is in a permanent state of conflict between the Water Authority (personified by Noga Blitz, now after a heart attack) and the farmers. The water sector has been oscillating for the last 40 years between excess unused water discharged to the sea, and severe undersupply (as in recent years). Never right.

From the River of Egypt as far as the Great River

'ON THAT DAY THE LORD MADE A COVENANT WITH ABRAM SAYING, "TO YOUR DESCENDANTS I HAVE GIVEN THIS LAND, FROM THE RIVER OF EGYPT AS FAR AS THE GREAT RIVER, THE RIVER EUPHRATES'

The children of Ismael got the larger part. Is not fair.

The Kaliver Rebbe's Niggun

The Rebbe of Nagy Kallo introduced three Hungarian folk songs into the Hungarian Jewish folklore, that became the identified with this Judaism. One of them is Erdo, erdo (forest, forest):

Gulesz, gulesz jaj de nagy vagy,
Isten, Isten de mesze vagy,
Ha a gulesz kisebb lenne,
Isten is kozelebb lenne.
(Ha kivinnel a goleszbol,
Veled lennenk mind mi, akkor.)

Gulesz, Gulesz vie grajsz biszt de,
Schine, Schine vie veit biszt de,
Ven der Gulesz volt nit a zai grajsz gevehn,
Vol di Schine nenter geveyn.

Kaliver text in English

Exile, exile, how vast are you!
God, God, how far away you are!
Were the exile not so vast,
Also God would be nearer. .
If you would take me out of the exile,
I would be with one with you as before.

Another one:

Sirnak, rinak a baranyok,
||: Panaszkodnak a juhasznak :||
De mondja meg
A gazdajanak
||: Adjon szenat a juhanak :||
De a gazda azt feleli:
||: Van a bokorban kiszedheti :||
De a juhasz azt feleli:
Ha a nyajat itt teleli
||: Jovo nyarra meg nem feji :||

Van ket hete vagyis harom
||: Hogy a szamaradat ide varom :||
De amott jon a szamar haton
Talán az lesz akit varom

Jo napot kedves kis bojtarom
||: Juhajimban van e karom? :||

De a juhasz azt feleli:
Mig en leszek kend bojtarja
||: Juhajiban nem lesz karja :||

The sheep are weeping-moaning to the shepherds,
Go, tell your master that the sheep need hay.
The master answers: They have four legs, let them dig the undergrowth.
The shepherd says: If you winter them there, they will have no milk in the spring.

My owner is coming in one week or two.
There comes a man on ass, maybe he is the one I am expecting.
Greetings, dear shepherd,
Are my sheep safe?

And the shepherd answers:
Till I am your shepherd,
All your sheep will be safe.

It is told that the Miraclemaker Rebbe used to discipline himself by long fasts, the use of cilicium belt made from wire, not talking for days, travelling to foreign towns without documents, money or plans, to survive as he could. I am against self torture, but I like the idea of throwing oneself out and see what happens. In fact, myself invented that game and played it several times in Argentina, when I was young. Once I travelled by bus to a faraway village in Formosa, another time I spent a week in a town in Chaco, where there was a large frigorifico (slaughterhouse). I learned that I need not worry for money or anything, this planet Earth is so to say a cakewalk for me, food and shelter is sure to be available to the Secret Engineer everywhere.

Emergency Desalination in Israel

After several dry winters in a row Israel still finds it impossible to build new desalination plants. Money is available but all the projects are tied down by bureaucracy, that is, by the over-complicated multi-layered permitting system, that allows the participation of hundreds (I am not exaggerating) of organisms, some official like local and regional commissions, and "civil society activists" such as the "Defenders of the Wild Poppy".

To build something in Israel is so complicated, and the contracting procedure has so many phases and participants, that anyone can stop any project for several years with any fake objection. One person alling himself the President of the Society for Protection of Celestial Purity" can demand to be shown that the plant will not harm some holy wild critter, a gnat a fish or a bacteria, that it will not pollute the air, the sea, the sacred purity of our virgins. I mean the requirements to pass any project in Israel are grotesque to the point that not even the government is able to advance vital water factory projects. We demand such purity and perfection of our projects and our leaders that no human measures up to our standards. (Our popular head of government Olmert was defenestrated because of some unpaid for vacations he took with his family, which he plausibly argues assumed were accumulated flying miles).

Anyway, the Water Authority's last desperate proposal is to add ¨temporary¨ desalination facilities to existing plants, in the hope that "temporary" projects in approved locations will not require permitting and can be set up in less than one or two years.

Sell the News

Obama launched the Stimulus Program and the Nasdaq lost 5%. I am reading serious reservations about the Keynesian plan of pumping money into the economy. It did not work in Japan. Former recessions were overcome without any stimulus. Many consider Obama´s plan as a gigantic ¨pork¨ package to Democratic constituencies. Eastern Europe including Austria is collapsing. Something is smelling no good.

Taki, Gagá

Taki, the olympian, waxes lyrical savouring the dream of being a potent periodonikes, instead the Greek Methuselah he is. He writes in his house organ:

Guelfs and Ghibellines came to mind as the historian walked into my chalet accompanied by our chairman Andrew Neil, and two other beauties, Charlotte and Naomi. But I had eyes only for Lisa, with love being too weak a word to describe how I felt the moment I laid eyes on her. One thing is for sure. If Andrew Roberts lays a hand on her during the next five years I will squash him like a gnat, or better yet shorten him by a foot or two with an ‘empi’ (elbow strike) which will cut him down to Napoleonic size.

A word struck me like lighting: Taki has gone gagá. A French word, because only the French has an expression for this condition.

Definition: gagá, gâteux, adjectif. Dont les facultés intellectuelles sont amoindries avec l'âge.

Synonymes: diminué, gaga, ramollo, sénile.

A man in his seventies infatuated with a married young woman, boasting of sqashing his rival like a gnat, or better yet, cutting him down with an empi. The man is a public menace, possibly requiring hospitalization.

Medinat Halacha - in Pakistan

Medinat Halacha is the dream of Israel ruled by Biblical laws, the Torah. Few take it seriously, but the idea is gaining foot in the Islam. it can be argued the Saudi Arabia is ruled by the Quran, and as was Afganistan under the Taliban (divinity students). Now Pakistan government has given up the Swat Valley to the Taliban, accapting the rule of the Sharia as interpreted by the rebels. Alreadyu, the Taliban in Swat have executed dozens of government employees, including policemen, and people they accused of indulging in "un-Islamic" activities. They have banned the education of girls and bombed or torched nearly 200 schools in the valley. They have also banned the playing of music in public transport and barred barbers from shaving beards.

From 1500 till 2000 wars were always won by those accepting Western ideas and weapons. The thousands of screaming mullahs led by the Mahdi had not a chance against the English army. But now, apparently, the primitives are winning.

Biosolids Composting Plant

I have received a new project, a WWTP sludge composting project, that will process the local WWTP and Haifa WWTP´s sludge. The Ministry of Environment is for it, but demands studies and report to support its decision to approve the project. To produce those papyrus is my mission. An Environmental Impact Report. Very Urgent. Searching the internet, I came about several green victories AGAINST these compost factories. Nowadays it is impossible to be pure green because on the other side stand people who claim to be even greener than you and think YOU are the evil polluter. Example:

In HINKLEY, Calif., the evil anti-polluting greens killed an evil polluting composting project. (In the pic, an green crouched down beside a plastic bucket at Hinkley School inflating a plastic bag, to prove that Hinkley’s air is clean. He is concerned that the proposed Nursey Products biosolids composting facility to be built near the town will pollute the air and create odors.) That was in 2007.

In 2008, Judge Vander Feer ruled that the environmental review for a controversial proposed composting facility near Hinkley must be redone before the project can go forward. Opponents of the site, which would ferment waste, including human waste, to make compost, challenged the validity of San Bernardino County’s environmental review of the site. Vander Feer ruled that the environmental review needed to assess whether enclosing the facility would be feasible and needed to identify a water source for the project. On Oct. 27, the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District passed a new rule governing air pollution from composting facilities (I understand that this new rule requires the replanning and repermitting ot the plant.) On Dec. 8, the greener group HelpHinkley.org, which had criticized the rule as not being stringent enough, filed a lawsuit against the MDAQMD in an attempt to force a rewrite. (No private enterprise can deal with these changing rules and demands. The Nursery probably has abandoned the project. I know I would, letting them rot in the pure desert air - in the poverty of a place with no industry nor jobs).

Plant Closed Because of "Crawl Space"

Salmonella infected Peanut Butter is causing a closing down of many American peanut plants. I have to learn how this thing works, because it is guaranteed that soon we will have the same thing over here.

Friday February 13, 2009, PLAINVIEW, Texas (AP) -- Texas health officials shuttered a peanut plant operated by a company at the center of a national salmonella outbreak and ordered it to recall all products after inspectors found dead rodents, feces and feathers above a production area.

The Texas Department of Health and Human Services issued the order Thursday after finding a filth-infested crawl space at the Peanut Corp. of America plant. During an inspection Wednesday, officials also found that an air handling system was pulling debris from the crawl space into areas where dry roasted peanuts, peanut meal and granulated peanuts were processed.

Filth infested crawl space. All plants are full of them. You can find them everywhere. Another Texas plant was closed beause of a leaking roof, as the water contained bird droppings and possibly Coli.

We are not going away

In the year 2008, 151,000 babies have been born in Israel (up 2.5% since last year) and 18,129 new immigrants have arrived. Demography is working in our favour.

Well, not exactly demography, I am making a polite reference to our exertions. This is a hard country, we Israeli men have to work very hard.

Somali Pirates

Nabbed by American Marines in an Inflatable Rubber Boat. Well done.

Limited Attention Effect

The quantity of information available to a person has a distracting effect which causes bad decisions. That is the conclusion of a paper by David Hirshleifer et al in Journal of Finance. This paper directly tests this explanation by measuring the information load faced by investors. The investor distraction hypothesis holds that extraneous news inhibits market reactions to relevant news. We evaluate the economic importance of distraction effects through a trading strategy, which yields substantial alphas. Interesting.

Stimulus to the Wastewater Industry

The stimulus package could fast track 400 wastewater projects valued at $6 billion which otherwise would have remained on hold due to lack of funding. There are 16,000 municipal wastewater plants, of which 4000 purify more than one million gallons per day. At any one time, about 20 percent of these plants have minor modification plans and 10 percent have major expansion or modification plans including additional plants.

The funds will likely be distributed to various community projects through the existing Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund programs in the form of loans and grants and will target those "ready-to-go" projects that can begin construction within 120 days of receipt of funds. The average project will be in excess of $10 million as shown in the following examples:

Approximately $135 million is expected to be approved for construction and upgrades for municipal wastewater and sewage treatment plants in Connecticut.

Vero Beach, FL needs to build a new wastewater plant to replace a 30 year old plant which is nearing the end of its life and is inadequate for present needs. The cost is projected at $100 million. Lack of funds has prevented the project from going forward. The city is now optimistic that the stimulus funding will allow it to begin soon through availability of interest free loans.

Ah! To be young and a water recycling engineer in America! That would be a dream! and not the awful dreams I am dreaming, of my apartment oscillating in the heights by successive earthquakes...

The dispossession of White Men

Prof. Kevin MacDonald´s internet magazine has published the freshest of all viperine antisemitic blood libels. The idea is that the ongoing disposession of American Whites and the astounding ascense of Blacks, is ... guess what! a Jewish conspiracy. I feel a growing anger for the economic troubles of middle class working Whites, the tragic dissolution of families, and loss of America of their childhood and the gradual weakening of their political power. Visually, this is obvious at every turn, beginning with America’s first black president. MacDonald´s Der Sturmer writes:

How do we explain the fast-growing black presence in government, popular culture, and so on? While the fruits of the Civil Rights era account for some of this move toward center stage, the fact remains that in a socio-economic sense, blacks have yet to accumulate the resources needed to rise in American society. What then is behind their rise?

Likely, most readers are familiar with the rigorous accounts of lower black IQ and higher crime rates compared to whites. So again, how do we explain their recent success in America? ...It is the century long Jewish effort to promote blacks at the expense of whites that accounts for our current situation.

As MacDonald has explained it, historically, the content of anti-Jewish accusations varies according to the times, and it is mostly absurd and untrue. But they are an expression of distress vis-a-vis Jewish biological competition. Having established that the subject matter of the article is nonsense, I would ask Prof. Kevin MacDonald to explain why and how collapsing Jewish demography is causing fear in the hearts of America´s 150 million Whites.

A Land of Golden Opportunity

Israel.

A land of golden opportunity. Full of enterprising, audacious, energetic people, always organizing new enterprises and adventures. I just phoned the Northern AngloSaxon Religious Kibbutz (the pic shows the conquest of the land three generations ago) to ask if my chicken project has been approved (of course it was approved, the Vaada Mahozit - the Regional Planning Commission - said it was the best work they had seen, ever) and to get paid (aah, yes, j, we have received your bill, it is somewhere here, let me see, tomorrow maybe we shall do something about it .... And these are the DECENT people, at least they remembered that they owe me money, the rest suffers from incurable Alzheimer). They already consider the chicken project as done and a thing of the past, now they are focused on the very next thing: a compost factory, based on WWTP sludge. They need to replace bad soils and they can take all the sludge there is. I was asked to submit a proposal. Ha! They have no idea what a profitable business they are entering. This country if flooded with sludge. WWTPs pay 75 shekels/ton to (legally) take away the sludge. Kever Benjamin´s WWTP produces some 13 tons per day, it comes to 356,119 shekel per year = aprox. 100,000 US$. Haifa's WWTP pays 2 million US$ for the same service. There are 250 WWTPs in this country, all struggling with the problem of disposing sludge. Great.

Time! That is what I need. In this country there is no siesta. So many interesting opportunities. One is never left behind, Israel is always pressing everybody to go ahead. We live stressed but happy.

At Last Some Real Stimulus

Thus spoke Victor Niederhoffer.

Bar Refaely.

She lives down my street.

Prof. MacDonald, the New Chrisostomos

Prof. MacDonald has turned into a raving antisemite, more so than anyone I read on the web. His new diagnosis (not his, originally it was a Jew who said so) is that we Jews are schizophenics. He attributes us ideas and motives, and then condems our aggression and cruelty. Example:

We know that the invasion was designed to “to inflict massive pain on the Palestinians so that they come to accept the fact that they are a defeated people and that Israel will be largely responsible for controlling their future.”

Hear, Professor, we couldnt care less about Palestinians or about controlling them, we are not the least interested in them (nor is Prof. MacDonald), we just want them to stop firing rocket bombs on our towns. That´s all. Isnt it simple?

Are we human or are we dancers?

The Killers ask:

Are we human or are we dancers?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
And I'm on my knees looking for the answer.

J answers:

You are silly. Dada. Gaga.

Sailer Wrong on Obama

Steve Sailer wrote an elaborate psychoanalitic essay on Barack Obama, based on Obama´s literary production. He tracked Obama´s abandoning the legal profession (a Black harvard lawyer!) and seeking out a humble community organizer job for a Chiago non-profit, and attributed this strange decision to spiritual hangups from Obama´s ancestry. Sailer has been hypnotized by Obama´s oratorial and literary talent and forgot that things are always less complicated than they look. The truth, as I see it, is quite ordinary. People tend to follow their parents trade, and that is what Obama has done.

Obama´s mother was one of those professional NGO persons that infest the Third World. American protestants have lost the faith in God but they didnt lose the pattern of doing missionary work. Obama´s mother Dunham-Soetoro was a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development on setting up a village credit program (the pic show a fishery microfinance project in action, in Indonesia), then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work. Later, she was a consultant in Pakistan, then joined a large microfinance bank. She must have been one of those energetic American NGO women I met Africa.

Obama has naturally fell into the same line of work, community organization among Chicago natives. Exactly as I am following my father´s line of work in Hungary´s water planning organization and later in Obras Sanitarias de la Nación, Barack Obama has found himself in the same line of work as his late mother (the only parent he had).

Moreover, he tends to gravitate to people coming from the same non-profit environment. Obama´s mother was working in Jakarta under Peter F. Geithner, the Head of the Ford Fundation mission at that time. By coincidence, Obama has selected the son of that man to be his economic right-hand man: Timothy Geithner. They share the same language of the Ford Foundation.

Having met and worked with these people, I would say they are honest and good people with a stupid, romantic ideology. At some point Obama may propose government-financed artesanal industries to save America. He has not done it yet, a point in Obama´s favour and against my theory.

Moreover, I shall add that further this year, the idea of micro-finance, of community micro-banking, will be supported by the American Government. Obama and Geithner know first hand Indonesia´s microfinance history, they know what an unit desa is, and how ¨appropriate¨ these organisations are.

Destroying America

The devil is in the details, and now that we are getting access to the specific part of Obama´s stimulus program, I dont like what I see. While Bush threw money to save bankrupt banks, Obama will channel monies to create and maintain a patronage system for his voters. Take the $142 billion for schools, which is nearly double the total outlays of the Department of Education in 2007. The Wall Street Journal describes the Milwaukee Public School system, for example, that will receive $88.6 million over two years for new construction projects under the House version of the stimulus -- even though the district currently has 15 vacant school buildings and declining enrollment. Between 1990 and 2008, inflation-adjusted MPS spending rose by 35%, per-pupil spending increased by 36% and state aid grew by 58%. Over the same period, enrollment fell by a percentage point and is projected to continue falling, leaving the system with enough excess capacity for some 22,000 students. "In general, MPS facilities have been described by school officials as being in good to better-than-good condition," reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Why taking away money from the pockets of the private sector and giving it to unproductive public employees should stimulate the economy is beyond me.

Fluid Dynamics

I have a new course in Fluid Dynamics. I hope to succeed.

The Wind Turns

I am re-reading Captain Horatio Hornblower's always enjoyable adventures, which explains my use of circa 1800 naval expression. Bank of Israel reports that in December 2008 foreign investments in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange totaled $93 million - $40 million in shares and $53 million in bonds. In the previous two months foreign investors had sold shares - about $1 billion in October and $400 million in November. Well, this explains the tremendous drops in TASE and the current favourable environment. I should buy more, but have no money. It is very difficult to collect debts.

Gel dynamics? Entanglement computing?

The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will pay you to solve the following problems:

The Dynamics of Networks. Develop the high-dimensional mathematics needed to accurately model and predict behavior in large-scale distributed networks that evolve over time occurring in communication, biology and the social sciences.

Capture and Harness Stochasticity in Nature. Address Mumford’s call for new mathematics for the 21st century. Develop methods that capture persistence in stochastic environments.

21st Century Fluids. Classical fluid dynamics and the Navier-Stokes Equation were extraordinarily successful in obtaining quantitative understanding of shock waves, turbulence and solitons, but new methods are needed to tackle complex fluids such as foams, suspensions, gels and liquid crystals.

The Mathematics of Quantum Computing, Algorithms, and Entanglement. In the last century we learned how quantum phenomena shape our world. In the coming century we need to develop the mathematics required to control the quantum world.

Computation at Scale. How can we develop asymptotics for a world with massively many degrees of freedom?

there are more.

Cryptosporidium

Water problems never end. Milwaukee was the site of the largest cryptosporidium outbreak in U.S. history. The old "Town of Lake" water tower (pic), known as the Howard Avenue Water Purification Plant, became contaminated on about March 23rd and was shut-down on April 8th. Over 100 died, mostly elderly and those with weakened immune systems.

In Israel, we do have Cryptosporidium in Lake Kineret and all surface water streams (the few ones we still have). The source is domestic sewage. However, no mass disease episodes were reported.

The Golda School Affair (cont.)

Follow up of Kever Benjamin City's Golda School affair: The school's air smelled bad and contained H2S as consequence of a change in the sewage pumping system (The school houses a central stilling chamber). Now it is an endless local political issuel. The Ministry of Defense of the Environment has been drawn into the dispute and is checking the air (now for two years). According Michal Tal, the City's Director General, the Ministry of Health assures that the air in Golda does not cause any disease. The opposition argues that this conclusion is not based on any survey or study. The opposition maintains that they too received a letter from the Ministry of Health and it states that they compared the Golda results to the Almog Commision standards and since they were in infraction, they had ordered the closing of Golda. The Almog Commision's Report is a 120 pg long document, based mostly on EPA's Reference Air Concentrations criteria. The criteria are so complicated and full of conditioning (example: external experts input) that any air can be classified as doubtful and potentially non-standard. The Almog Report says that the EPA did not take into account some cancerigenous effects. So the opposition may consider the letter not final and reject it.

Conclusion: A sewage odor problem, once mismanaged and allowed to develope, will linger and never go away. National ministries are week and will adopt a firm position only when cornered. And even then they will leave an escape route. (Pic.: an "odorless", sealed, wastewater treatment plant designed by H.G.M. engineers).

Nothing that inflation will not cure

Professor Krugman writes

... it’s quite clear that we’re in serious paradox of thrift territory here. Or perhaps more accurately, we’re in a paradox of debt. Consumers are pulling back because they’ve realized that they’re too far in debt. The economy is shrinking in large part because consumers are pulling back. And the result, almost surely, is to leave household balance sheets worse than ever. Without question the ratio of household debt to personal income has been rising, not falling, as consumers try to save more.

INFLATION IS THE SOLUTION. Deflation, despite its wonderful lowering of prices, is bad since America is much indebted. It would be very good for the Chinese, whom the Americans have mortgaged their mothers. Therefore America must inflate the dollar, like it or not.

Red-Dead Seas Project: Jordan's Only Hope

I prepared a presentation on the Red Sea - Dead Sea project for my course, but I said that it was being frozen by political problems with Jordan. Now I read in a Jordanian paper that I may have been wrong, the Jordanians want it and hope it will solve their problems.

A ministerial conference for the Mediterranean region was held on 23 December under the auspices of the European Union on the shores of the Dead Sea to
discuss means of tackling climate change and its impact on water resources. Of the 19 countries taking part in the one-day event, Jordan is the poorest in terms of water resources. Jordanian officials presented their case to donors with a call to support the long sought-for Dead Sea/Red Sea canal, that might prove to be the only life line for the 5.6 million population as water resources continue drying.

The strategy aims to maintain the quality of water and reduce pressure on water resources through better water management. Ministers in the conference decided to adopt a long-term strategy to tackle the water problem, but for Jordan an urgent solution is needed to provide water.

However, implementing the Dead Sea/Red Sea canal project could be harder than Jordanians hoped, according to Jordan's former minister of water Hazem al-Nasser. He said political problems among the neighbours might delay the project.

Israeli minister of infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said his country strongly supports Jordan's calls for building the canal. He said Jordan would pump around 60 percent of the water from the canalwhile Israel and the Palestinian territories would get the remaining 40 percent combined. Jordan is counting on the project to be one of the kingdom's main energy resources.

The canal would cut through the desert bordering Jordan and Israel in Wadi Araba, creating a natural borderline between the two countries, which signed a peace treaty in 1994. According to the plan, a total of 650 million cubic metres would be pumped from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea annually. The flowing water would also help generate electricity as water is drawn from the Red sea, raised 170 metres above sea level and then released to the Dead Sea at 400 metres below sea level.

A rapid decline in Dead Sea water levels has alarmed environmentalists in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories who fear the biblical site might dry up within 50 years. Experts are at the final stages of a feasibility study funded by the World Bank to determine the environmental impact of the canal, with Egyptian authorities already saying they fear for the corals on the Red Sea if the canal is built.

The obvious solution, proposed by Harvard University, is to share water between water rich Egypt, water rich Turkey, and desolate Syria and Jordan. But it will not be done. As Syrian Water Minister once said:

Syria's water policy is rooted in Islamic rulings and quoted Prophet Mohammad as saying that: People are partners in three [matters]: water, food and fire. Syria in not going to buy water nor sell it to anoyone.

ZIM starts to move

I bought Israel Corporation stock partly because of ZIM, a large shipping company. It was a bad deal, as shipping companies collapsed. But now Israel Corporation (TASE: ILCO) led the market upwards with a 10.7% gain shares thanks to subsidiary Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd., which got a boost by a rates hike for containers announced yesterday by Moller-Maersk Group A/S (OMX: MAERSK).

Touching Bottom

It seems that the world economic crisis is touching bottom and the situation is stabilizing. Credit Suisse is rising, now is 27 (it was 80 a year ago) and most Israeli papers are higher than two years ago. Heard on the BBC that the British are printing money and lowering interest rates in order to combat deflation and create a mild inflation to painlessly erase debt. I think that is what going to happen, and if so, the Israeli shekel, which is in a relatively good position, should strengthen. In fact I am well positioned to exploit that situation and dont have to do anything.

P.S. Two Days Later: Since I wrote this note NASDAQ and TASE have lifted about 10% my stocks. Chevre, you dont have to follow so slavishly my suggestions!

Not Only Our Problem

During conversations with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, former Russian President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin referred to Iran’s activities as Russia’s “No. 1 security threat.”

Irish Technology

The W&WW magazine writes that world odor control market will grow 30% in the next decade. I think that in Israel it will grow much more. We live one over the other and eat lots of hummus. There is a short note on an Irish company producing biological beds for odor control based on sea shells (!) coated with bacteria culture, which seems a good idea. Shells are CO3Ca and neutralize the sulphuric acid produced by H2S biofiltration. It is an Irish company called Mona something, a Gaelic name, and it seems that they have sold many plants in Europe. Much better that active coal used here.

Study proposal for Mexico

I have written two proposals for studies in Baja California. If we succeed, I shall be living on the Tel Aviv - San Diego air line most of this year. I have worked in five States in Mexico some twenty years ago. Then, they had published census data for unreachable places in the Hidalgo mountains down to the level of half a chicken. Apparently I shall have to buy satellite imagery from the USA's EROS system.

Grad Missile in Ashkelon

This morning in Ashkelon. Alarms, running desperately to the nearest refuge, the fall, the explosion, the terror. People is living on tranquilizer pills. Supposedly we have punished Hamas and they have agreed to a ¨Tehidah¨ - postponement of the conflict.

I have never seen a Grad. What are those two lateral pipes still streaming out grey fumes?

The Big Frightening Project

A year ago (!) I signed a contract for the design of the water, sewage, fire protection design and supervision of a rather large and complex multi floor building in an expensive location. By now all the other designs (architecture, structural engineering, electricity, etc.) are all done and approved and I am the last one. I had been avoiding to work on the project because I felt it was too complicated for my capabilities and would take much of my time and also, I may fail. Now it is impossible to keep postponing it and started to work on it. In two hours I understood the problem and solved it. Now all that remains is hard work. Nothing is difficult. I was stupid to be afraid of this project, I underestimated myself. It is surprising that at my age, when I must have about half or less of the number of neurones I was born with, suddenly I discover that am able to do these kind of complex things. I suspect I misspent most of my life, more or less. Because I can do anything I focus my mind on. I dont know. I am so satisfied with myself that am going to bath my neurones in vodka. Crazy.

The Yeshiva Project

There is large yeshiva (Jewish religious high school) in Petach Tikva, near Kever Benjamin City, and they need a plumbing design. So I spent a few hours today at this yeshivah, which is not what you think. It is an ancient, unmaintained, cheap, three store concrete (bad concrete) structure, very dirty and smelling putrid sewage which was in fact dripping on the students in class. They didnt seem to take notice. The teachers have an authoritive stupid look, fat old women with funny hats, young Sepharadi men in second hand dirty shirts. The only person who had an idea from where the water was coming was Ahmed, a compact Arab, who sat in the table of the girls, visibly fascinating them with his masculinity. It was raining so the place was full of dog-excrement sludge.

Theoretically, I love Jewish religion and religious people, but when confronted with them in mass, I feel something in the stomach. All my life I wanted to be religious but cannot suffer the nonsense of Jewish prayers (which I understand), which are recited in superfast rythm because they are so interminable. I love Jewish tradition but I physically suffer when a religious analphabete tries to tell me an imbecile Hassidic tale with wolves and miracles, as it was the cusp of Jewish teology. And the superstitions, the magic, the amulets. And the dirt of the yeshiva.