What is the next generation thinking?

The same as we do.

Bombonela Festival

From last year's festival.

China replaces America

In 1900, Argentina was a happy member of the worldwide British Empire, supplying its beef demand and absorbing British capital. Later, the Americans expulsed British companies and banks and took over. The Americans explored the land and founded a local oil industry. In the sixties, after an epic political battle led by Arturo Frondizi, the American "seven sisters" were expulsed from Argentina and their nationalized holdings were consolidated into the YPF, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales.

The century ending, nationalism lost its magic and YPF was sold to Repsol, a Spanish company owned by catalan La Caixa and Sacyr, a real estate developer. Now YPF is being sold to the CNPC, the Chinese oil monopoly, for 14 billion dollars. Argentine oil industry is at the margins of the world economy, but I think that it reveals what is happening in general. And the final outcome of the 19th Century as shown in this case study is the expulsion of the Americans from their "empire" and their replacement by the dynamic Chinese People's Republic. I am not the first to notice this trend, but I am familiar with YPF and the mass movement that brought about its creation.

Illustration: General Mosconi on how the Americans created (stole, according to the author) the Argentine oil industry. The book was published by the prestigious Circulo Militar and started the process that led to the creation of YPF. I wonder what he would say now.

Circus Israel Reports

Jewish satire is not dead. Circus Israel Blog reports about the recent encounter between Obama and Netaniyahu. Reached by telephone,

the PM himself happily recalled a favorite moment from the Washington encounter. He was particularly delighted with his delivery of the line “we don’t want to govern the Palestinians.” While he simply meant that "Israel wants land without Arabs, I can’t prevent unsophisticated observers from misconstruing my words as suggesting a two-state solution.”

The consensus among Israel’s delegation was that Obama, as a generalist and a part-timer on Middle Eastern issues, was predictably outmaneuvered by a determined and focused specialist with decades of experience in pro-Israeli advocacy. “Obama didn’t get the nuances,” said Ron Dermer, the PM’s policy chief and pool cleaner. “Not like we do. Obama’s got Chrysler and health care and two wars and the banks and all the rest of the music. We just play one song.”

Still, Arad mused, they’d expected more from the new US administration. “I heard somebody ask 'Why wasn't the President better tuned? Who prepares him?' Well, guess what?” said Arad. “We do.”

We can laugh.

Marc Faber predicts Apocalipsis

“The crisis has not solved anything. On the contrary there is less transparency today than there was before. The government’s balance sheet is expanding, and the abuses that have led to the one cause of the crisis have continued”.

“I think eventually there will be a big bust and then the whole credit expansion will come to an end”.

“Before that happens, governments will continue printing money which in time will lead to a very high inflation rate, and the economy will not respond to stimulus”.

“The average family will be hurt by that, and then in order to distract the attention of the people, the governments will go to war”.

“People ask me against whom? Well, they will invent an enemy,” Faber said.

“At some stage, somewhere in future, we will have a war – that you have to be prepared for. And during war times, commodities go up strongly,” said Faber.

“If you want to hedge against war, you don’t want to own derivatives in UBS and AIG, but you have to own them physically, like farmland and agricultural commodities. That is something to consider for you as a personal safety and hedge. You have to own some commodities,” he added.

“I think gold will go up more,” he added.

“Will it go US$2,000, US$200,000 or US$2 trillion? I don’t know,” Faber said. “But if you have money printing in the world, then the price will over time rise. It will go up more for things that you just can’t increase the supply, and the supply of precious metals is very limited.”

Faber expects the US government to increase its stimulus spending should the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fall toward 900. The US budget deficit under President Barack Obama’s administration reached a record US$1.4 trillion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Debt amounted to 9.9% of the nation’s economy, triple the size of the 2008 shortfall.

“I don’t think the S&P will drop below 800 or 900, and eventually will go higher in nominal terms, but not necessary in real terms,” he said, predicting a correction in the measure in the “near term.”

Faber has been warning about a collapse of the capitalistic system ‘as we know it today,’ massive government debt defaults and the impoverishment of large segments of Western society.He said central banks will continue to print money at full speed, but long-term this strategy will lead to a fall in purchasing power and living standards, especially in developed countries.

The years 2006 and 2007 were “the peak of prosperity” and the world economy is not likely to return soon to that level, he added.

Unless the system is cleaned out of losses, “the way communism collapsed, capitalism will collapse,” according to Faber. “The best way to deal with any economic problem is to let the market work it through.”

“No decent citizen should trust the Federal Reserve for one second. It’s very important that everyone own some gold because the government will make the dollar (in the long term) useless.”

Faber has built his home in Northern Thailand. The pic shows his toilet (from his site).

Zero Hedge on Dubai

Stealing time from work (I am writing the schedule of quantities for an urgent project in Nablus ?, Samaria) I followed a link provided by Dennis Mangan and ended reading some entertaining comments on the Dubai debacle which was I was long expecting.

This will be the story that redefines "BLACK FRIDAY" for a generation to come.

Mark my words, it will cause a world wide equity and bond market crash puncturing the bond bubble in many nations and taking corporate bonds down from their lofty overvalued heights.

On that note, have a Happy Happy Thanksgiving!

I presecribe 1 bottle (750ml) of Wild Turkey to help digest the next 96 hours.....

Yemeni Uprising Spills to Saudi Soil

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in Saudi Arabia after fighting from neighboring Yemen has spread into the kingdom. “Fighting has now spilled into Saudi Arabia, causing 240 villages to be evacuated and more than 50 schools to be closed, ” Sigrid Kaag, regional director of UNICEF. It is worrying, because the fighting may reveal the rottenness of the Saudi Armed Forces. The time may come that we will be arming and training the Saudis.

Dubai Fantasy World Hits Reality

Dubai, a miserable pearl fishing coast on the Gulf, suddenly became rich with oil and decided to become a world financial center like London and New York. The place was a building site and they were building the world's tallest tower and largest man-made islands in the shape of palm trees. This year it had to shelve plans to construct a new waterfront development the size of Hong Kong Island and ``Dubailand,'' a leisure park that would have been three times the size of Manhattan. Home prices are down more than 50 per cent from their peak in the third quarter of 2008, and it may become worthless.

Only 17% of Dubai's inhabitants are citizens. Only 15% are female! A quarter of India's GNP comes from Indians working in Dubai and other Gulf countries. Egypt is also dependent on the Gulf. Some 100,000 Palestinians from the territories are now in danger of losing their jobs. The concept of building a tourist and financial center based on foreign labor and credit - may fail. Dubai's location is unfavorable - it is a center of political tensions. The maintenance of the infrastructure in a desert near the sea is expensive and difficult. Fortunately, Arab boycott prevented Israelis to invest in Dubai so we are unhurt by their default.


Dubai built on sand and is heavily indebted. Today asked for a six month moratorium to pay it colossal debt, plunging the world stock exchanges into a free fall. TASE also hit an air pocket and is 2% down. This was shock was unexpected and painful. I wonder if the Saudis are not next in the line.

TSEM diluted

The last quarter results of TSEM are rather good, but the company is still burning money at a frightening rate. On Nov.18th they filed at SEC a notice that they will sell more shares and dilute the investors holdings. The stock fell and then lifted 8%. Life is difficult.

Bubbles

Mangan was right ab out gold: the metal is becoming more precious. Central Banks are hoarding gold and pushing its price to new heights. Gold production is falling and they are mining ores with a few ppm content of Au. Gold has no exclusive uses, but to serve as ultimate store of value. Everybody is very doubtful regarding the dollar, but no speculator has the resources to speculate against it. The Chinese and the Japanese could try it, but will not. Pity I did not buy gold shares when Mangan said, now it may be too late.

Here in Israel we are having a residential real estate bubble. A four room apartment in Tel Aviv is being sold at one million dollars, and even in Kever Benjamin a similar apt. costs 600,000 dollars. The government is selling public lands at an accelerated tempo, but the permitting takes an average of ten years. So the permitting system is being reformed, eliminating one level (the provincial planning committees) leaving two levels alone. The main time consuming monsters are the "green" members of the committees, demanding total and absolute demonstration of "safety", which of course is impossible. The large military basis in Beer Sheba was paralyzed for three years till the absolute safety of breathing the air was scientifically "proved". The green project killers nest in the provincial committee level, but they may now move to the local committees, where the arguments are even more bitter and personal. Local government tends to be corrupt in Israel, so the REform may increase corruption. Not once I heard contractors and developers saying that they would be ready to pay bribes, only to shorten the permitting process. I always told them not even to try. A false move and they are in jail. Here in Israel everyone is sure in his heart that the other fellow is making millions, so they are always ready to harm the bastard. They would do it for free, but the government has in place a nice monetary reward system too. I commented about the reform with a few colleges and an Arab engineer from Kfar Kassem (with a wide face like Ghengis Khan) resumed the situation: the old woodheads will still sign the drawings, so it will be exactly the same.

Basking in the Che's Glory

I spent an afternoon with Angola's high water officers. Surprise one: They all speak perfect Spanish. Apparently theruling party members had intimate contact with Cubans, were trained by them or studied in Cuba. It gave them pleasure to remember old times in Spanish. Surprise two: They look Argentines. They have the same faces and bodies of my childhood friends in the barrio. I understand that most of the Africans that reached Argentina during the colonial times were Angolans, and they left their features on the working classes of Buenos Aires. The visitors were ink Black, but I felt like meeting friends from old times. Third surprise: They love and admire the Che Guevara, and by extension, all Argentines. Angola is enormous and rich in rivers, so in my honest opinion, they have no need for water recycling nor high tech Israeli agricultural knowledge. They need canal and drainage design, and water management knowledge. They have much money, they have come to the right place to buy the water technology suited to their needs. And I am from the Che's country.

The Protocols of Our Generation

The Occidental comments:

"These puerile charlatans (They are talking about a very small pre-War II German Jewish circle that no one heard about before. j) had set out to destroy traditional values, promote sexual perversion, mock Christianity, and, in general, create ugliness and despair — a sorry situation promoted by an art establishment that has been dominated since the early 20th century by Jewish art critics, collectors and dealers. This Jewish influence on art is of course in accordance with the openly declared aims of the Frankfurt School, a Jewish revolutionary movement dedicated to the destruction of traditional Western values — and indeed to the very people who live by those cherished values.

Unbelievable? Absolutely. If it weren’t unbelievable, it wouldn’t be true."

So that is what they are saying: there is a secret, mysterious Jewish conspiracy called the Frankfurt School, whose openly declared aim is the destruction of the Occident, indeed of the White Race. The Frankfurt School is taking, then, the place of the obsolete and discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Interestingly, the Frankfurt School focuses on the Arts: music, painting, sculpture. By conspiring to hang Albers's Homage to the Square (pic) in an Australian Museum they expect to ... physically exterminate the superior Nordic race ...? I dont quite understand how this diabolic feat will be achieved, but surely the details will be coming out in future publications of The Occidental.

As we say in the Seder Pessach, "generation after generation they rise to destroy us but our God generation after generation rises and saves us".

Is it not a time for truth?

My favorite pundit, Pat Buchanan, writes in Takimag about the decline of American academic standards since 1964. He is horrorized that many of CUNY's students are virtual morons, unable to understand a long sentence or fractions. Buchanan implies that having these people in CUNY is based on a lie, that they can learn something. He thinks that some kind of deception is involved.

I agree that CUNY is not what it was fifty years ago, and that the name of City University is no more descriptive of what it is. CUNY is a mechanism to have the city's moronic, violent youth occupied doing something they are ready to do and quiet. The alternative is having them on the streets organized in criminal gangs. Of course preventing social diseases like street crime costs money, and the fact that CUNY is being financed decade after decade by the taxpayers means that they think it is worth it. I dont think New York taxpayers are being deceived, I know some of them and they are not stupid, they know that having "the barbarians" corraled in some room in CUNY is worth every cent. Currently they are some 3 million young people in jail in America, how many more can you put in jail? That doesnt cost money?

It is possible that some academicians and oldtime politicians ignore that CUNY is what we in Israel call "matnas", neighborhood clubs for drawing young marginal people from the streets. They think that someone is being deceived. But only they are.

Addenda: Some parts of CUNY are bona fide university, like the Math and Physics departments. The African and Puerto Rican Studies are not. It is easy to be confused, which is the purpose of the whole CUNY 2009 thing.

Illustration from CUNY website: Funtummireku-Denkyemmireku
literally: A Ghanian Mythical Two Headed Crocodile With A Common Stomach. Symbol of unity in diversity, democracy or the oneness of the human family despite cultural differences and diversities.

Obama Kowtows to an Arab Chief

... projecting a weak impression.

Weakness of the Palestinians

Mahmud Abbas, the President, is resigning, throwing the Palestinian political system into chaos. The legal status of the Palestinian political system has been in flux since Hamas, the Islamist party, threw the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority out of Gaza in 2007. Hamas had won a legislative election the previous year, but a power-sharing agreement between Hamas and Fatah failed. There are now parallel ministries and security services in the two territories. The official term of Mr. Abbas’s presidency has already ended, and the term of the legislative council is scheduled to end in January. The future is uncertain at best.

America is Corrupting Us

The American Government's campaign ("New national minimum energy efficiency requirements for light bulbs will save more energy") to make their people aware of the need of saving energy has arrived to our shores. Israel's Ministry of Infrastructure closed its Special Fund to finance energy saving projects and transferred the budget, some 3 million US$/year, to a publicity campaign to make people use less electricity.

Instead of financing actual projects, Israeli government will now manage media campaigns urging the population to become "green". Something like the abominable campaign to save water: "Israel has no energy!". Our Minister dreams of growing tall and manly as Barak Obama and advise, with an inscrutable Chinese scientist (standing respectfully one step behind) to replace the light bulb. He envies the color of Obama's sun bronzed skin too, that is considered healthy and beautiful among we pallid Ashkenazi Jews coming from the snow covered swamps and forests of Lituania and Russia.

I dont cry for the investment fund, since it was useless as no one was able to finance any project with it. When I was the manager of a large WWTP, I tried to generate electricity from the methane gas we were burning, but the request forms and the reporting requirements were so onerous that I decided that I had no time for that and let my application to slowly expire on some dusty archive.

I do cry, however, for the corrupt mentality behind the decision to close the fund for projects and spend the money on publicity. It seems to indicate that irreality (the media world of soft "greenery" and "environment") has replaced reality (actual projects to improve energy efficiency).

Epicurus on the Existence of God

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, then he is weak - and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful - which is equally foreign to god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful, and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?

Epicurus' view was that God has reached the perfect state of ataraxia and was indifferent to good and evil. It is contrary to the Jewish (and Christian) concept of God, who has created the universe with a purpose in mind and continues managing it. The illustration is called the Secret Garden (Epicurus's School was called The Garden).

The Terminator in Israel

I am confident that the Arabs will not dare to start a war while the Arnold is in Israel.

40% Rise in Israeli Water Prices

For along time there was a ferocious debate about the Reform in the Water Sector. Also a Drought Tax was proposed. It all came to nothing, and a simple 40% rise is theprice of water was imposed. The excess income will be absorbed by the General Budget of the Treasury. Not a cent will go to finance water projects. What may one comment? Fifty years from the Water Law. Everything has changed since then, but not a letter could be changed. Mala Lex, Lex Est.

Souring Investment

Makhteshim Agan was one of my hits. In 2007 it had more than doubled (130%) its purchase price. But they changed the CEO and Mr Bigger from TEVA took over. Since then, downhill. Last week he was sacked, for leading to a large loss and one billion dollars worth unsold inventory.

I had a clear advance warning. At a party in Ecuador, I chatted with Ecuador's largest distributor of agricultural chemicals. He said that Makhteshim was failing, cannot compete against Chinese products which are yet little known but much cheaper. I registered this important fact even in this blog, yet failed to act on it. I should have sold immediately. Did I learn from this sad case? Hope so.

Nobel Prize for Incompetence in the Water Engineering Field

Caracas is abundantly endowed with natural water resources. You have to be incredibly incompetent to avoid that the crystal clear rivers falling down from the mountain supply drinking water to the city, but they did it. Caracas's water is rationed and most neighborhoods have water only ocassionally. The water tankers (pic) supply water at 5.5 dollars for 0.2 cubic meters, which is even higher than the exhorbitant price we in Israel pay for the water. Approaching Navidad (Christmas) prices are expected to rocket.

I have worked on the automatization of Caracas's water supply system. From the pure engineering point of view, it is a very challenging system, with topographic differences of 2,000 meters and quite difficult to manage "by hand". Unfortunately Hugo Chavez expulsed the Israeli water engineers that have been working on the Caracas system by stopping granting visas. Maybe nowaday Bolivian or Iranian engineers are operating the system. Decades of oil wealth ruined Venezuelan's will to work. Which never was too strong.

Peak Oil Now

It is becoming accepted that oil is less abundant than expected and production will decrease abruptly in the next decade. Refining capacity are already excessive so it is not a business with potential. Yet other scenarios are possible. The graph posits that total liquid comburents will double in a few decades. So there will be need of more refining capacity. Specialized refining for unconventional raw materials and new refined products. It is a though field to speculate.

Unlucky in Oil Investments

Once more, I made a bad decision in my investment in the oil sector. I had bought BAZAN, Israel Oil Refineries, for 3 shekel a share. Since the refinery business collapsed, its worth went to 1.5 and since I didnt see any future in teh refining business, I sold them at a 40% loss and bought BEZEQ.

Oil Refineries Ltd. (TASE:ORL) today published its financial report for the third quarter of 2009. The company posted a net profit of $100 million for the quarter, compared with breakeven for the corresponding quarter of 2008, even though revenue fell 45% to $1.15 billion for the third quarter from $2.62 billion for the corresponding quarter.

Net (adjusted) refining margin per barrel was unchanged from the corresponding quarter at $8.10. The net refining margin in the third quarter was much higher than the $1.60 per barrel benchmark Ural margin in the Mediterranean Basin reported by "Reuters". Oil Refineries attributed the difference to upgrades of its facilities, changes in the crude oil mix it refines compared with Ural crude, continuous operation of its facilities despite the decline in refining during renovations, and end effects in the spot market. A unique integration of the fuel industry, together with the aromatic and polymers industry gives Oil Refineries a leading standing in a competitive environment."

Oil Refineries' share rose to NIS 2.18, giving a market cap of NIS 4.32 billion.

Thoughts: Watch the Exceptional

“Much of the real world is controlled as much by the ‘tails’ of distributions as by means or averages: by the exceptional, not the mean; by the catastrophe, not the steady drip; by the very rich, not the ‘middle class.’ We need to free ourselves from ‘average’ thinking.” Philip Anderson, Nobel Prize Recipient, Physics
Some Thoughts About Distribution in Economics

Recurrent Nightmare

I am in a friendly LA country living in a luxury hotel. I leave the hotel with my car and park the car nearby. The car is stolen or I forget where I had parked it. Then I notice that my pockets are empty, my documents and money have been stolen. Somehow I get another car and drive to the next town, where once again I find myself without the car. I feel no danger but wake up with a feeling of anxiety.

These weeks I have accepted too many projects and I cant deliver. I promise it will be ready tomorrow, knowing that it is impossible.

Jefe de Jefes

The Zetas are a large mafia drug organization in Mexico and they have started to give open support to one of the candidates. The pic. says "Take care of your life", and "We the Zetas support our Boss of Bosses - the Candidate's name - to death". The Mexican Army is fighting a civil war against the gangs, and at the same time, for and against its own participation in the trade. In Colombia, the Army won, and probably it will also win in Mexico. The Mexican war has yet to spread north of the border.

America heading toward unstability?

It may be surprising but the relative size of the government in capitalist America and communist China are similar. Economist Gary Shilling has calculated that 58 percent of the American population is dependent on the government for "major parts of their income," including teachers, soldiers, bureaucrats, and other government employees; welfare and Social Security recipients; government pensioners; public housing beneficiaries; and people who work for government contractors. By 2018, Shilling estimates, an astounding 67 percent of Americans could be dependent on the government for their livelihood. Most importantly, part of the 58% spend their time examining, monitoring, regulating the productive activities of the remaining 42%.

While it is true that 2 - 3% of the American population produces enough food for half the world, and 10% occupied in industry export a third of all world trade, the situation seems to me unheard of. I am inclined to accept the idea, like Dennis Mangan, that a democratic regime is incompatible with the majority of the population living off the State. Moreover, the producing population is ethnically different from the State-dependent population, so we have two ethnic groups with opposite economic interests. Illustration: The Grain Dole in Ancient Rome.

Absence of Permanent Canines

Prof. Hans Grueneberg in Journal of Heredity (GRÜNEBERG J Hered.1936; 27: 225-228), wrote an article about a German Jewish family with hereditary absence of permanent canines. He published the genealogy of the family, too. Since I have that dental anomaly, it is certain that I am descended from the same ancestor, however, I know of no family connection to those German Jews described in 1936. My daughters apparently have their permanent canines, I never investigated.

Yemen Falling Apart

Having projects in Rosh Ha Ayin, a neighboring town peopled by Teymanim (Yemenite Jews), I got interested in the current Yemeni war. From a report:

The conflict between the Shiite al-Houthi rebels and the predominantly Sunni government may be taking place on a small stage in a country whose role in international politics is usually as a contender for aid dollars, but the implications of this conflict will have an impact well beyond Yemen’s borders. At a regional level, the battle has the potential to emerge as an all-out proxy campaign between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

Probably, a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia would be bad for world economy, as high oil prices could send it back to recession. It is frightening that the world is dependant on barefooted "soldiers" like in the pic. The machine gun mounted on a jeep seems to be the standard weapon in the Horn of Africa, yet I dont understand how it works, the gunner is salient and unprotected, he is easily taken out by a protected sharpshooter. Saudi Arabia has attacked the rebels with F-15 bombings, it must have been the most useless thing to do. The Saudis used to have a disciplined beduin army, like Jordan's Arab Legion. Will they fight?

Agriculture in the Shomron

Another of my projects advances towards completion. The treated wastewater pumping station of A.M. settlement in the Northern Shomron, near Nablus, is ready and we completed the "Dry-Run" Test and transfer to the Moatzah, the Local Authority that will be operating it. There are large almond nut tree plantations waiting for the water, and plots readied for planting wineyards, Vitis vinicola. I dont know what is going on at the high political level, but the Local Authority's stamp says A.M.-Nablus. Are they preparing to become an administrative unit of the Palestinian Authority? This place was once called Palestine and the Jews carried Palestinian passports.

Zaydis vs Wahhabis in the high Southern Arabian Mountains

The Saudi Kingdom is now in war. The Zaydi rebels maintain that they are purer Muslims than the rest of the gang, the Wahhabis disagree. This development should increase the price of the oil, yet two years ago I lost a nice sum on a wrong bet on oil. So I dont know.

La Fiesta de la Mama Negra

La Mama Negra, El Capitan, El Abanderado and other figures will re-enact the 200 years old carnaval of Latacunga, Ecuador. It is a time of fun.

Ecuador is suffering from a severe drought and the reservoirs are empty. Quito, the capital, has no electricity during six hours a day. The rest of the country has electricity only occasionally.

Investment Opportunity in Florida

The Dizengoff Group, a family-owned real estate company based in Israel, has bought 118 condominium units in a complex called Portofino in Jensen Beach, Fla., for $6.75 million. That works out to $53 per square foot, compared with an average price of $204 when the units were offered by the developer in 2006, says Ronen Saban, the manager of Dizengoff’s office in Boca Raton, Fla.

57,000 dollar per apartment? It is dirt cheap!

The company plans to rent out the units until the market recovers. “We have no intention of selling any units in the short term,” Mr. Saban says. Dizengoff is looking for more purchases in good locations.

The Twilight of the Apikursim (Hedonists)

Frequently one thinks that one's ideas are original and no one has arrived to the same conclusions, only to discover that ideas are floating in the air and many have cought them. Holt in Takimag seems to be one writer whose mind works on the same frequency as mine, so we have received the same ideas floating around in the ether. I would say Holt has the clarity of thought and the spiritual courage to put it out in writing, a thing which I never did. While his mind cuts like a hot knife in butter, my mind is confused and troubled by fears. Holt writes:

there seems to be two ways to have a replacement fertility rate in the modern world.

A) Be really religious.

B) Be really r-selected.

Since Europeans aren’t Africans, that leaves option (A) as the only proven method for replacement Caucasian fertility.

I have seen this law in practice during my life: My uncle Moishy made aliyah from Auschwitz to Meah Shearim and lived all his life piously in the famous Batey Ungarim, the houses of the Hungarians. The Abelesz are a tribe once more, they had run out of names of the deceased to give to the newborns. On the other hand, you have my Mother and her sisters, who lost their religious upbringing and lived a more comfortable life, what is commonly called in religious circles as "apikursim" (a corruption of Epikoros, a Greek philosopher). I am an only child and have only one cousin. The only difference was religion.

My parents did not know that they were followers of Epikuros of Samos (pic), as the West in general ignores that their fate is, in fact, a philosophical dispute between a Greek sage and Moses and Aaron, founders of the Jewish religion. For Epicurus, the purpose of life was happiness and tranquillity, characterized by ataraxia, peace and freedom from fear, and "aponia", the absence of pain. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that events in the world are ultimately based on the purposeless motions atoms in empty space. Jewish religion is the very opposite of Epicurus's philosophy: The universe was created by God with a hidden purpose, human life has a definite purpose, that things are either sacred, pure (kosher) and permitted, or they are evil, forbidden, contrary to God's will. Good deeds (mitzvot) are accounted for and evil acts are punished in some mysterious way. We a people of priests and have to live according to the Law and fulfil God's plan. Christianism and the Islam have similar outlooks.

I tried to "return" to the Jewish religion, but that is unpracticable after certain age. I am physically unable to read the long texts that Jewish practice consists of. I certainly cant believe in Biblical nonsense. I do what I can, which is not much. I only hope that the tide of returning to religion that is affecting Israeli society will also carry off my own family.

America preparing to abandon Pakistan

Pat Buchanan writes another of his cleareyed and honest notes. America, apparently, is going to abandon Afganistan and Pakistan, as did with many others allies before (He forgets to mention Hungary in 1956). He says:

And if we are going to abandon these people, as we have so many others in the past, let us at least tell them, and ourselves, the truth. We didn't know what we were getting into. We don't have the stomach for a long war. We're sorry we got you into this. Your big mistake was in trusting us. You folks should have known better.

Galton and the Worth of Different Races

Galton, more than a hundred years ago, wrote a very interesting book on the worth of the different races. Astonishingly, his classification closely matches current IQ estimates. He has a chapter on the Greeks of Attica, that he considers the best of humanity has produced. I find it reconforting that my opinion, formed before learning about Galton's, is to similar to his one. He considers that Attica's high level was reached not by eugenic methods, but by selection (selective immigration), and considers that Attica's rapid decline was caused by moral causes

."...morality grew exceedingly lax; marriage became unfashionable, and was avoided; many of the more ambitious and accomplished women were avowed courtesans, and consequently infertile, and the mothers of the incoming population were of a heterogeneous class. In a small sea-bordered country, where emigration and immigration are constantly going on, and where the manners are as dissolute as were those of Greece in the period of which I speak, the purity of a race would necessarily fail. It can be, therefore, no surprise to us, though it has been a severe misfortune to humanity, that the high Athenian breed decayed and disappeared."

Attica is a very bad omen for us.