"Biofilter", The New Toy of Kever Benjamin's Greens

The Australian Friends of the KKL (a Zionist organization) donated a green water project to the city of Kever Benjamin. The idea (from Australian Monash University) is to collect rainwater and purify it by biological filters (vegetation, bacterial layers, etc.) and store it in the aquifer. Then during the summer dry months, the water will be pumped back for irrigation.

The problem I see with the idea is that (1) it does not add to the current water availability in the country - the rainfall mostly infiltrates to the aquifer anyway and is pumped as drinking water, (2) the cost of the irrigation water so produced is exhorbitant, even discounting the cost of the infrastructure, which was a present. The cost of maintenance and pumping is much higher than the cost of desalinated water produced in Israel at 0.5 dollars per 1000 liter. The project is green, it is sited in a park, but completely useless and I can assure that it will not be maintained and it will be abandoned. Kever Benjamin municipality is unable to maintain and make work even the fountains in its central park, which are dry for years.

Forgotten Repatriation

When Holland abandoned Indonesia, all Indonesians of Dutch ancestry were expulsed. Many of the Dutch colonial people had never seen the mainland. Many families had been living in Indonesia for hundreds of years. Some were given a chance to emigrate to the U.S.A. or Australia and started a new life in those countries. There were many Dutch Indonesians who immigrated to California.

I knew some Dutch colonials like Mr Sperling in Lagos. They loved Indonesian food and hated Japanese with a ferocity rarely seen among good Dutch folk.

So these people, of Dutch and mixed ancestry, who had never laid eyes on the Netherlands in many cases, were shipped 'back' to a country they had never seen. Why is this relevant? South Africa maybe?

Equality at All Costs

What happens in California today will happen in all America ten years after and then all over the world. We in Israel are early adopters and copiers of California. What is happening in CAlifornia is discouraging.

To close the racial achievement gap, Berkeley High School’s Governance Council, made up of teachers, students and parents, has a modest proposal: Cut science labs and five science teachers to “free up more resources to help struggling students.”

Science labs mostly benefit higher-achieving white and Asian-American students, the council believes. The school’s enrollment is 33 percent white and 7 percent Asian; blacks make up 28 percent and Hispanics 13 percent.

Did California go mad? This is not even Marxism or Communism. Under Communism there were countrtwide selections of talented students and privileged schools to advance their usefulness to society. I know. I was there. But Berkeley (Berkeley!) is against intelligence. It is not a place for Jews.

Családbarát - Family Friendly Rating

Hungary is waking up to the fact that needs babies more than anything else. An autonomous government organization was established - Családbarát önkormányzat - which is planning to forbid all antifamily shows and expressions in the media. They are also planning to certificate neighborhoods, shops, etc. that are family friendly.

Eleven Jews arrested in Yitzhar

The Yitzhar settlement looks down on Shchem (Nablus) from a 820 m hilltop. To reach the place one has to drive through the Palestinian village of Hawara. I drove through many times - children and animals wander on the road, cars suddenly cross the road and in general it looks like a Mexican village. Except the new large mosque, which is quite impressive. Probably it was financed by the Saudis. The people of Yitzhar are forced to cross daily twice or more Hawara as they go to work (mostly in Jerusalem) and sometimes their cars get stoned. To receive a 5 kg stone in the window of a moving car is not a small thing.

Last week they decided to respond and descended on Hawara and broke into a school and caused some damage. The (Israeli) police invaded the settlement last midnight and arrested eleven youngsters.

The pic is from Yitzhar's website. They are religious people and children are everywhere. The place is rather windy and cold.

Update (From "Palestine" Post):

The violent confrontation between settlers and police in Yitzhar continued to deteriorate Thursday as settlers broke nearby Palestinian windows, tried to burn a field, and poured oil on the road as to prevent jeeps from driving on it.

Police and civil administration inspectors visiting the central Samaria settlement found violations of the West Bank settlement freeze, and attempted to confiscate a bulldozer used in the illegal construction.

Settlers in the area then rioted, throwing rocks at the policemen. Four rioters were arrested for obstructing an officer's work.

Dont take it easy

I now fasting for the five days and feeling well. I was brought to this Russian Rasputin-like Acupuncture Doctor by my dear wife, and apparently I am following a water fasting therapy for losing weight (I am fat). Yesterday the doctor said that he will stop the beta blockers I am taking. I am googling the issue and found that what I am doing is called water-only fasting deviced by Dr. Alan Goldhamer and his colleagues at the Center for Conservative Therapy. (Pic: Gandhi in one his famous fasts).

It is notable (to me) that the everyday advise of "take it easy" or its Hebrew version אל תיקח ללב is nonsense. Relaxation and meditation does nothing to reduce blood pressure. People assume that "hypertension" means high levels of stress. This is not the case. High blood pressure is an essentially mechanical, and not psychological, problem.

Greece Debt paying 18% p.a.

Greek two-year bond yields jumped to more than 18 per cent. There is no way Greece can pay off its debt. Its collapse is coming soon.

The problems for Greece have spilled over into other peripheral economies in the eurozone such as Portugal, Spain and Ireland. Italy and Britain are in the line.

Cui bono? (Ill.: The Card Players, F.Leger, 1917)

Financial Panic in Europe

The debts Greece was hiding are becoming public. Germany's unwillingness to pay Greece debts has caused the creditors trying to sell Greek debt at any price - and its worth collapsed to junk. (Addenda: The German public is boiling with anger because Greece was enjoying a high standard of living without working while tricking creditors to give it easy loans and hiding the fact that it will never be able to pay back its debts). The panic is spreading - the spread on Italy’s debt yesterday rose 30 basis points to 217 points.

European countries are indebted over their heads, their debt can become worthless in a few days. The number would be huge: Ninety billion euros for Greece, 40 billion for Portugal and 350 billion for Spain.

The European MOnetary Union may unravel and a second economic depression may happen. It is not good for America either - panic is an irrational contagion. I am worried. Suddenly, bonds were worth trillions are becoming worthless. Everyone will suddenly become poorer and everything will be worth less. Including my portfolio. I am worried.

The Greek Debt

8.5 billion euros of Greece’s bonds mature on May 19, 2010. Greece has no money to pay the debt. The Germans, the only country with money in Europe, are very angry with the Greeks.

The Europeans made a mistake taking in Greece into their Union. They were thinking they were admitting Socrates, Leonidas and Aristotles, and they received Papaconstantinous.

Follow Up: The sentiment in the bourses all over the world is worsening and the prices are falling. Just now I too am having something of a negative sentiment towards Greece.

Update: The European Union has to put 30 Billion Euros to save Greece from bankrupcy, with 8.5 Billion coming from Germany. The Germans today are more angry than yesterday, they are furious. There are public protests in Greece because they resist paying more taxes. My sympathies are 100% with the Germans.

Doggy disappoints

A month ago I asked the sage commenter Doggywit about investments.

The answer: "I like BP below $60/share and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) below $41/share."

Today BP is 59 and GSK is 39.

Doggy, what's with you?

Bney Qaynuqa Back in Medina

1400 years ago Muhammad defeated and expulsed the Jewish tribe of Bney Qaynuqa from the city of Medina. The Quran tells the story:

Muhammad approached Banu Qaynuqa (allies of the Arab Khazraj tribe), gathering them in the market place and addressed them as follows:

"O community of Jews, beware that something from God befalls you similar to the curse that descended upon Quraysh, and submit to Islam, for you know that I am the Messenger as you can read in your Book and the covenant of God with you"

They replied:

"O Muhammad, you imagine that we the sons of Qaynuqa are like your people, the sons of Quraysh. Do not deceive yourself because you vanquished a few Quraysh having no knowledge of fighting; for you will find that we are real men, and that you have not met the likes of us".

Some Arab antisemites are saying that the Jews have returned to Medina and are ruling the peninsula.

You know you have been too long in Israel when ...

...you start to enjoy Yemenite Jewish prayers and you understand every word of it in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic...

Duved Krokket

...in eighteen thoiteen he fought indianers, then came the litvaks and the galitzianers, avekgeharget redskins all over the shtetl, he never lost his head, he never lost his sheitel
d-d-crocket, he chewed tobacky und gehissed und gechrocket, d-d-c king of delancey streeet



he went down south, looking for a maidel,
met a little tzatzkale called daisy fraidel
from near and far, they came to the chippe
elected him president of the bnei missisipi
mazel tov duvid crocket ah mazel tov der mame und der alter crocket, mazel tov d-c kods

Food Factory in Ashdod

A small crowded food factory bought this excellent building in the Industrial Area near the port of Ashdod. We are designing the new factory. It is near the Mediterranean and the weather was excellent. Working and fasting.

Iran-Zimbabwe Friendship

Iran and Zimbabwe agreed to mine uranium. Why Iranians need to go so far? They have enough at home. Maybe just to visit friends. Not much uranium will be mined.

Bleeding

Once more, after selling at a loss, I entered TOWER again. And I am bleeding like a Romanov. In expectation of future sales, the company has expanded its production capacity to about 900,000 8 inch waffles per year. Yorkville, an investment company, has put 60 million more in Tower. Everything is peachy but the stock is moving down!

Austrian Candidate: Mother of Ten

Barbara Rosenkrantz, mother of ten, the new leader of the Austrian rightwing. Not like that degenerate Haider, she is a real woman and really focused on family values. She will not be photographed drunk in a nightclub in drag or dressed up in Nazi uniform.

Two Day Fast and No Revelation Yet

I am fasting two days and maybe I'll continue another day. It is easy, only feel something undefined in my stomach. The doctor said I like to eat and have to break my food addiction. I was expecting some kind of revelation, but nothing.

CCTV in Classroom

Last week I became aware that a CCTV half-sphere has been installed in the middle of the ceiling in my class room. It does nothing, yet already it has affected my behaviour: I am sticking more strictly to my notes, I am more formal and avoid personal comments and jokes. I fill the blackboard (which is white) with complex equations and drawings (documenting visually that I am not playing around). I dont know what is the purpose of a CCTV in class and I dont ask, because my collegues are acting as they hadnt seen it or that it has been there all the time. In my university there is absolutely no violence and nothing worth stealing (we dont even have a photocopier) so I assume it is a Big Brother thing. I may be paranoid about it, may be.

(It can also to use to check cheating during exams, or to vindicate teachers falsely accused of abuse. Fact is it there.)

Wiki says that "Law enforcement and intelligence services possess technology to remotely activate the microphones in cell phones, by accessing the phone's diagnostic/maintenance features, in order to listen to conversations that take place nearby the person who holds the phone. Mobile phones are also commonly used to collect location data. The geographical location of a mobile phone (and thus the person carrying it) can be determined easily (whether it is being used or not)."

All this well known in Israel and people here has been integrating this knowledge in their behaviour.

Water War in the High Andes

The conflict for water rights in the High Andes is starting to get traction. The immediate cause of the war is climate change, which has allowed Quechwa indians to practice irrigated agriculture in the High Andes, thus exploiting the traditional water rights they have from colonial times.

It is an ethnic conflict, setting Indian communities against the water companies supplying water to mestizo populations occupying the Andes's middle and lower floors. Just now they are denying water to Interagua, the company supplying Guayaquil's water.

Laughing at Ourselves

It is year zero and a Judean tourist in Rome goes to the Circus Maxima. It is a lions vs gladiators show. After a while the Judean starts to shout for the lanista - the circus manager.

"This show must stop immediately! Those ferocious lions are going to devore the Judean gladiators!"

"Sir, those are not Judeans. They are Scytians."

"Are you sure there are no Jews among them?"

"Yes, completely sure."

After a while the man calls the manager again to complain.

"Lanista! That lion to the left is not eating!"

Worrying German Trend

Year by year, the Germans are drinking less and less beer. Germans over 15 years of age still out-drink most of their European counterparts by far, averaging 121.4 liters in 2009, but the trend is clear. Hmmm.

Detroit Transformed into a Garden

In the comments section of the note on Detroit below, the idea of ruralization of Detroit was mentioned. I thought it was an eminently grantable concept, and proposed - among others - to grow cassava in the new farms being prepared in Detroit's former downtown. As always, what appears to me as brilliant and original ideas, are later revealed to be old ideas of someone else. That is exactly the case with Detroit ruralization: there are many ideas floating around and the Capuchins already have been implementing it. In the pic a Detroit farm producing red currants for making jam. The good Capuchins brothers may have advanced too fast: According to the Doctrine of Sustainable Development, it is unwise to jump steps, and it would be appropriate to first learn subsistance gardening, then advance to market agriculture and only then, to complex semicommercial agroindustries like jam making.

What are C-Beams?

Prof. DeLong changes the name of his blog every once in a while and now he calls it "Grasping Reality with C-Beams near the Tannhauser Gate". Already I have studied the location of the Tannhauser Gate, but what are C-Beams? Are they laser-like light-beams or they are objects like I-beams but in C like profile? I am quite stressed this morning because in an hour I'll be lecturing on the F/M ratio (Food/Mass for those interested in activated sludge wastewater treatment), so this C beam problem is most inconvenient and a terrible waste of time for me, but nonetheless I cant postpose dealing with it even for a moment. The best would be for Prof. DeLong to demonstrate how he uses his C-beams and grasp a handful of reality to show me; if not, my last resource will be activating my mind (a process called thinking), which is always very painful for me.

Basically, C beams seem to be heavy ion beams very handy in cold fusion. Heavy-ion induction accelerators are the "drivers" for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) power production. The pic shows the Livermore Lab's design for heavy-ion beam fusion, featuring a thick metal shield that blocks the path of the heavy-ion beam. The energy deposited behind the shield radiates through the hohlraum to compress the capsule of fusion fuel. Iron radiation shims are used to enhance symmetry of the fuel’s compression. Just now a C-beam accelerator could fit nicely in my desktop fusion machine.

Israeli Permitting Procedures

It appears that I was not the first to discover that Israel has a serious planning and building permitting problem

."A significant part of the corruptions surrounding planning and building in Israel is due to the prolonged and convoluted procedures in this area, and the many obstacles put in the way of citizens and developers," said Netanyahu. "As a result, over the years, dealmakers have held sway, trying to bribe clerks and public officials. In order to reduce this corruption, it is very important to remove the bureaucratic barriers and to shorten and streamline planning and building procedures."

The fact is that the reform is not advancing. The rotten system that has developed over the years is too well entrenched.

The Fiscal Situation of the City of Detroit

Something terrifying happened to the city of Detroit.

The deterioration of the economic base of the city has accelerated. There were an estimated 81,754 vacant housing units (22.2 percent of the total) in Detroit before the recession; that number increased to an estimated 101,737 (27.8 percent of the total) in 2008.

The average price of a residential unit sold in the January through November, 2009 period was $12,439, down from $97,847 in 2003. Remaining businesses and individuals are challenging property tax assessments on parcels that have lost value and, in some cases, cannot be sold at any price.

More than half of employed city residents work outside the city limits; the metro area has the highest unemployment rate of the 100 major metro areas in the U.S.

What happened is population replacement. Over 90% of the city population is African.

Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira

I would like my second daughter to be married by a rabbi like Yehoshua Shapira. A Zionist who in his yeshive's celebration of Israel 62nd Anniversary, he said that we are living not in the beginning of the Redemption (Geulah in Hebrew) but that we have already been redeemed. Unlike American "White Nationalist" bloggers, he practices what he believes: four of his children married at age 18 and the others are growing up. (In the pic he is writing - probably a marriage contract (ketubah) with the traditional goose feather pen).

מס הכנסה

מַס הכְנַסָה: שם עצם, יחיד

כל הסבל ועבודות הבית שהגבר צריך לעשות כדי שהפעם היא לא תגיד לו "מאמי לא הפעם, כואב לי הראש".

מקור: סלנג תלאביבי

Untranslatable Tel Aviv humor.

A TSO Investor Introduces Himself

I'm new the board, but not to TSO or the industry.

FYI, everytime I buy a stock, it goes down. I have been buying TSO (Tesoro Refineries, an industry I follow) trying to get my cost basis down which is now $13.29 in TSO.

I can cite example after example and TSO is no different.

I have the very worst karma of anyone I know, in particular when it comes to making stock picks (women, cars, houses and just about everything else I can think of too).

If I am given a choice of buying a stock our of a pool of 100 stocks and have been told that 99 will go up and 1 will go down, I pick the 1 that goes down.

I am the best contrarian indicator there is, that is unless I try to play that knowledge than it goes against me as well.

Sorry...

Someone answers him: "You must be my long lost twin brother".

Do-It-Yourself Tabletop Nuclear Reactor

In his garage in Pittsburgh, Frank Sanns - a banquet-hall owner - turns on his vacuum pump while wearing a dosimeter. Sanns is among about 100 amateurs who call themselves "fusioneers," who swap stories of where to buy power sources, vacuum chambers and deuterium gas (pic). They also pass along the results of their experiments in fusing hydrogen atoms. The process, if sustained, generates tremendous energy.

Apparently, achieving fusion with old science experiment equipment is easy, anyone can do it. The problem is how to capture the excess energy and start a selfsustained cycle. We have arrived to the point where quantum reactions and nuclear technology are subjects of high-school projects. The next nuclear Bill Gates must be thinking where to buy a usable vacuum centrifuge and which scrap metal contains rare metals and "depleted" uranium.

Disputing the Nile

Last week, the seven upstream countries announced that they will sign a framework agreement that will close out the two downstream countries Egypt and Sudan, and reduce their shares of the water. Egypt threatened to respond to any move that affects its ‘historical rights’. I wonder if Black African countries are capable of coordinated action over the Nile.

The story of the Holyland Project in Jerusalem

The anti-Zionist paper HaAretz has taken upon itself to demolish the Holyland Project in Jerusalem, tainted by accusations of corruption (by HaAretz). They start by interviewing Ram Karmi, the Israel Prize laureate for architecture, the author of the project.

Do you think that the Holyland building project is Jerusalem's greatest architectural atrocity?

I think it is a very ugly project, an eyesore. I think that those who carried it out murdered my concept and the buildings I planned.

Who murdered it?

The architects that ended up planing it. Tishbi-Rozin, who built the residences, and we have heard that Moshe Tzur was also involved - he built the towers. When I say that they spoiled the project, I'm not merely talking about how it looks from the outside, which is horrible, and if you examine my plan and compare it with the existing plan you will see the difference in every detail.

So the owner of the plot, Charney, chose you because you are well known and the committees tend to accept your projects?

No. He took an adviser by the name of Shmuel Dachner who advised him to take me. So we planned the project and we went through three committees. I appeared in front of all the committees. I know how to convince committees.

It wasn't simple. There were 800 objections. There were people who were disturbed by the idea that there would be construction on the hill at all. There were green organizations. There were neighborhood committees. All those with objections also got ahold of professional advisers and wrote documents. So we too collected a series of advisers and we wrote a 300-page book in which there was a response to every objection, and I think that eventually they understood that the project was for the good of the entire public.

Did Charney therefore use you because you know how to convince committees and then get rid of you and build something ugly but that pays him a great deal more?

It was not like that exactly. After the permit, Charney needed an investor who would finance the project. He took Kardan and they imposed their own architect.

What do you feel when you see this catastrophe?

From the moment they fired me, I left, and since then I did not return to see what they had done there. That is what I do every time they fire me. This problem with the entrepreneurs exists in all the projects that I build.

Interesting. They used a famous architect to design a concept building - an architectural dream - which he sold to the permitting comittees. Once completed the permitting process, they fired him and took an unknown commercial architect who built a saleable property. The story is starting to make sense.

Heaven is Angry at Buenos Aires

Watching the Market

TASE lost more than 5% in the last two days. They say that foreign investors are retiring their monies, the reason being that as from May TASE stops being a developing market and starts being a developed stock exchange. Those funds that invest in developing markets are taking out their money, but those that invest in developed ones are still studying the place. I watch the market and do nothing.

Volcanic Plume coming Our Way

Above the wind for tomorrow in Europe. Slowly the wind is bringing the ash towards Eastr Europe and the Mediterranean. The ash plume is coming our way. What is the meaning for us? Our war planes cannot patrol the skies? Our spy satellites becoming blind? Crisis or opportunity?

Joke: The last wish of Iceland's economy: Spread my ash all over Europe.

Genesis of the Holyland Project

Details of how the Holyland real estate project, that may cause the jailing of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, came to happen are coming to light:

1993: The old Holyland Hotel in Jerusalem passes to the hands of Cherney who proposes to rebuild it.

1994: Ehud Olmert, the new major, pushes large building projects like the Begin Highway, the light rail, the Mamilla project and more.

1996: The Holyland project, approved by city engineer Uri Ben-Asher, was submitted to the local planning and construction committee, headed by deputy mayor Uri Lupolianski. The committee approved and submitted it to the district committee. So far, the project was essentially a tourism project – hotels and a number of housing units.

2000: The intifada broke out, and the forecasts regarding tourists expected, crumbled with the bus bombings. The project is delayed. Olmert sacked Ben-Asher and replaced him with Uri Sheetrit.

2001: The intifada became more virulent, killing Jerusalem tourism.

2002: Instead of a hotel complex that would remain empty because tourists were afraid to come to Jerusalem, Cherney proposed only one hotel and transformed the rest of the project into a housing complex. At first, Sheetrit was opposed to the change. Olmert banged on the table: the project would attract middle class families to strengthen the city. Sheetrit changed his mind and advocated the project in the planning committee, which in 2003 approved the project as is now.

2010 Lupoliansky and others involved in the project are jailed, Olmert is interrogated in a police facility. A judge (female) announces: "The largest corruption scandal in the history of Israel".

I am very familiar with the permitting process of this country and see no indications of corruption, just the regular meandering evolution that gives birth to results no one ever planned for or even imagined.

Popper Péter is Dead

Popper was Hungary's most popular psychologist. He died last week at age 76. He wrote in his last letter to his children, friends al over the world:

...össze tudod-e még rakni a családot, engem? A nagypapákat, a nagymamákat, az unokatestvéreket, az orvosokat, a rabbikat, az Aréna úti zsinagógát? A péntek estéket, a hosszúnapot, a purimi játékokat.

...egy őrült nőnek sikerült telefonon áttörnie. Előadást akart. Mondom, intenzív osztályon fekszem. Mit csinál ott? – kérdezte. Haldoklom. Kis szünet. Majd: különben hogy van? Különben?

Különben jól vagyok.

Translation:

...can you put together my family, myself? The grandparents, the granmothers, the cousins, the doctors, the rabbis, the synagogue of Arena road? The Friday evenings, the fasts, the Purim plays?

A crazy woman phoned me. She wanted me to give a lecture. I am lying in the intensive care unit. What are you doing there? she asked. I am dying. Pause. Apart from that, how are you? Apart from that?

Apart from that I am very well.

Herrengedeck

Deutsche Welle keeps improving my German language ability. What is a "Man's menu," or "Herrengedeck?" Beer and schnapps.

Population Replacement

Replacement migration to prevent the decline of population of working age (annual average)

Germany: 490 000 (net)
Canada: 165 000 (number of immigrants)
United States: 360 000 (net)
Europe: 3 230 000 (net)
Japan 650 000 (net)
Quebec: 70 000 (number of immigrants)
Russia: 715 000 (net)
Slovenia: 240 000 (additional immigrants relative to the reference)

The population explosion feared in the seventies did not happen. We have a population disaster all over the developed world. Europe and the USA are trying to solve the problem by population replacement, but the natives are restless. The Asian developed countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Singapur, Japan) are doing nothing, having apparently accepted a declining future.

Something has to be done.

The chimp in the pic has just replaced an European. His work ethics seem to be different from the natives.

But we may have the solution. The world will hate us more than ever.

Levelling Jerusalem

The media is creating an ugly environment in Israel, demanding the destruction of the Holyland apartment block project in Jerusalem, because it violates the city's skyline, and it was born in sin - through bribing of two former majors - Olmert and Lupolianski.

I for one think that the project is beautiful and the view from its upper floors is amazing. Jerusalem people is known for their developed sense of envy - that is why those living "below" dream of tearing down the "high windows".

About the bribes, I am skeptical. The bribes were allegedly paid to expedite the building permit. Yet the permitting process took from 1992 till 1999 - seven long years. If Jerusalem majors were bribed to expedite the permitting process - they did a poor work and they dont deserve any bribe. For seven years after Cherny bought the land, he was unable to start building. Seven interminable years the Planning Comittees (there are three levels) had the project under evaluation and study, demanding changes and expert opinions.

Now the police has thrown Lupo into jail and Olmert is about to be rounded up one night. Israelis seem to have an inner compulsion to humiliate and destroy anything and anybody too salient. They cannot suffer anything looking at them from above - they have to bring it down so they can punish them for having looked them "down".

TowerJazz

I invested the dividend from KOOR in TowerJazz. The chip fab received an order from Airbus. Hope it will continue rising. The illustration is a Canadian concept tower.

Update: The Olmert bribe affair gave "cold feet" to foreign investors in TASE and it lost 5% today. Bad start.

Why real estate developers have to pay bribes?

As the Holyland Real Estate project bribery investigation developes, one has to ask why a honest businessman is forced to pay out millions to the people of the municipality? All that the businessman wants is to build and sell apartments, an activity beneficial to the municipality (more taxes), to the city inhabitants (more apartements) and for water engineers like me. People should be incentivated and subsidized to motivate them to build more, instead of putting obstacles in their way as it is done in Israel.

With the arrest of former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski, Globes magazine analyses the case and gives an idea how feels to be a builder in Israel today.

The suspicions against Lupolianski relate to his term as mayor of Jerusalem, from 2003, and also to the period when he was deputy mayor, when he also served as chairman of the local Planning and Building Committee and was in charge of the municipality's engineering division, between 1993 and 2003. Throughout the period, Lupolianski was also chairman of Yad Sarah, the non-profit organization that lends medical equipment.

Lupolianski is suspected of having demanded and received bribes from the Holyland developers during these periods. He is alleged to have received NIS 1.5 million up to 1999, and a further NIS 1.4 million in the period 2000-2006. The money was given as donations to Yad Sarah.

In addition, Lupolianski is alleged to have received $30,000 for his own use, to pay political activists during the mayoral elections of 2003. It is further alleged that, in 2005, he received NIS 100,000 in the form of a donation to a rabbinical college run by his son.
In return for these bribes, Lupolianski is alleged to have acted diligently to facilitate the Holyland project... Among other things, he is alleged to have expedited an urban planning decision in the local Planning and Building Committee, and acted to bring about the rejection of nearly 1,000 objections to the project and to prevent a reduction in the height of the buildings by two floors, and to reduce betterment levies payable...

Under questioning, Lupolianski denied all the allegations, and claimed that the monies transferred to Yad Sarah were donations, and that the Cherney family, which was involved in the Holyland project, was a longstanding supporter of the organization.

In short, Lupolianski took no monies for himself. He demanded donations to Yad Sara which is a wonderful charity (my mother received a wheelchair from them, which I returned after her death with a donation of 1500 shekel). I am 100% sure that he asked for donation to his charity from every person coming to his office. I used to have a Keren Kayemet Blue Box in my office and ask people to put their spare coins in it. I asked my children to put coins in it. What did Lupo for the developers? Expedited the bureaucratic process. Exactly what a head of the Planning and Building Committee (that he was) is supposed to do.

The reality is that the permitting process normally takes about ten years. In the meanwhile, the developer's land is producing no income, he has to retain architects, attorneys, etc. to promote the process, he has to pay to he bank to secure the availability of a loan and is living in a general feeling of uncertainty if and when he can start building. Promoters get desperate as they see the years passing and are ready to do anything to advance the process and start building. The bureaucracy is terrible. Lupo is not corrupt and was a good mayor.

Addition: Today, the real estate developer David Appel was convicted of bribing the three public officials so that they would favor his real estate plans through his company, Migdal Hazohar Ltd.

Appel's indictment in 2003 included three charges. On the first charge, the judges ruled that Appel, through Migdal Hazohar, financed Regev's election campaign to the turn of NIS 1.4 million, and gave Regev other benefits through Tavin. Appel's interest in Lod concerned projects in the Ganei Aviv neighborhood and the rezoning of agricultural land in Moshav Ginaton for residential use.

On the second charge, that Appel gave a NIS 95,000 bribe to Ben-Ari to promote his interest in rezoning land in the Givat Shmuel Local Authority's jurisdiction, the judges ruled that exactly the same things occurred as in the bribes paid to Regev.

On the third charge relating to Tal, the judges ruled that Appel sought to create a sense of obligation by Tal by giving him benefits in kind and promises to employ his wife.

This third chargre is interesting. Appel promised to employ the wife of a bureaucrat and made him small favors, nothing that could be considered a "bribe". Maybe he brought him a bottle of whisky for the New Year. All he wanted was that the bureaucrat be accesible and friendly. Without these things the bureaucrats dont even talk to you, they rarely even answer their phones. You have to have their private phone numbers. A promise (unfulfilled) of employing the "pakid" (buraucrat)'s wife is considered punishable.

Popche and Yakosh

I am getting big dosis of culture. Yesterday we went to the Gesher Theater in Yaffo to see a heimisch musical titled Popche and Yakosh. It is in a shtetl and deals with the problem of marriage - an ugly girl gets a husband (with the help of the matchmaker) and then the problem that the boy results impotent. Of course everything ends well. The best is the four kleyzmer living orchestra and the choreography, every movement extracted from the Yiddisch comic theater. Very enjoyable. In Hebrew:

קומדיה עגומה, ססגונית ומצחיקה
על יאקיש, בחור מכוער ועני

המתחתן מחוסר ברירה עם פופצ'ה
המכוערת כקרוקודיל.

כשהשניים לא מצליחים לקיים יחדו
את מצוות הפרו ורבו,

מתחיל מסע הזוי ומטורף בו שותפים
הורי החתן והכלה, שדכן, גיס וזונה,

המנסים להביא לכך שהבלי יכולת
יוכל סוף סוף להזדווג עם הבלי צורה.

Is Pain Rewarded?

Falkenblog makes the case that the pain of taking risk is unrewarded in life, that risk taking is some kind of evolutionary inadaptation, unsuited for investors. Not only that, but positively harmful.

I put this idea in the context of the passionate debates we used to maintain in the ken (Zionist Youth Club) in Buenos Aires, if an artist, in order to create, has to suffer. We agreed that it was rather improbable that a happy, well fed, comfortable, non-neurotic artist - writer, painter, etc. - could produce something that would touch us deep in the soul. The artist had to be suffering, bleeding, feeling more deeply than the common run of humanity.

Later I grew out of this idea, and find no connection between the pain felt by the artist and the quality of his art. Now Falken is saying that also risk is useless. We may conclude that there is no justice on this Earth. Pic. Frida Kahlo.

Liquefaction in the Colorado River Irrigation District

The Colorado River Irrigation District in Mexicali has suffered extensive liquefaction of the water infrastructure. According to the wiki:

Soil liquefaction describes the behavior of soils that, when loaded, suddenly suffer a transition from a solid state to a liquefied state, or having the consistency of a heavy liquid. Liquefaction is more likely to occur in loose to moderately saturated granular soils with poor drainage, such as silty sands or sands and gravels capped or containing seams of impermeable sediments. During loading, usually cyclic undrained loading, e.g. earthquake loading, loose sands tend to decrease in volume, which produces an increase in their porewater pressures and consequently a decrease in shear strength, i.e. reduction in effective stress.

This year's crops are mostly lost. I wonder how to rebuild the infrastructure to resist future earthquakes. The pic shows how the increased soil water pressure during an earthquake expulsed sewage manholes from the earth.

Israel's Demographic Reservoir

After the emptying of Jews of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, there seemed to remain no more important Jewish populations in the Diaspora. American Jews, apparently, were dwindling and intermarrying, and they were so prosperous that they would never consider aliyah ("ascent to Israel"). Many political analysts wrote that Israel has lost the demographic race and it is condemned to Arab majority. They were all wrong.

Firstly, Jewish natural increase is growing. Today it is higher than any Western country and approaching our enemies. In addition, it was discovered that some ten million Jews were living in the United States and they were not all wealthy and prosperous. If only 10% of them came to Israel, they would change Israel's character.

According a recent study,

in addition non-Jewish adults living in households with Core Jewish or Jewish origin individuals number around 2.2 million. The “Extended Jewish population” in the U.S.—the number of eligible Americans under the State of Israel’s “Law of Return”—which was estimated at 8 million people in 1990, is currently estimated to number more than 10 million persons.

American Jews Welcome.

Gynaikonomoi: Moral Police in Antique Greece

Since gender studies is in such fashion, I wish to remind my female readers that the Greek of the Antiquity were no feminists: They had officers called gynaikonomoi, charged with controlling the moral behaviour of the female part of the population. Wehrli, who studied the issue most deeply, concludes that they were a general moral police. I imagine them as the moral police existing in Saudi Arabia and Iran, beating women dressed inmodestly. We have a mild version in Jerusalem and Beyt Shemesh. The pic shows moral police in action in Turkey today.

Oil Rush

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 122 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, recoverable natural gas and 1.7 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, that can be recovered with existing technology, are in the Levant Basin Province in the eastern Mediterranean region, according to a new report.

The area includes the coastal areas near Israel.

“The Levant Basin Province is comparable to some of the other large provinces around the world,” stated Brenda Pierce, USGS Energy Resources Program Coordinator. “Its gas resources are bigger than anything we have assessed in the United States.”

Our living standard will be like Norway's. By Julius Malemba's logic, also our girls will be tall, blonde and with brilliantly colored eyes, like Norwegians. Good.

Chinese Gold Demand

The Chinese are saving money and investing in gold. The demand is growing and China is a net importer of gold. Most of the gold to be exploited is in South Africa which is a Third World country liable to destroy the golden eggs laying goose. Gold will go up.

Israel Full of Business Opportunities

From the fifties, all public housing apartment buildings staircases and lobbies were decorated with a beige low quality sedimentary stone, infested with petrified marine snails and shells. As Israeli building quality is improving and the country is becoming wealthier, this characterless soft stone has been replaced by Jerusalem and Hebron chalk stone, glaringly white and esthetically satisfying. Richer office buildings are using real Italian colored marble.

Now Wisconsin University is going to use our humble stone (pic) renamed Ramon Golden Stone for its lobby. The initial order is for eight containers. A very smart marketer - has packaged this common stone and exported it to America for exhorbitant prices to "create a friendly environment in the University's lobby". You can sell anything to architects and interior decorators.

The Einstein-Rosen Bridge Connecting White and Black Holes

The Economist View blog of Prof. Mark Thoma speculates on the origin of our universe:

A white hole is connected to a black hole by an Einstein-Rosen bridge (wormhole) and is hypothetically the time reversal of a black hole. Poplawski's paper suggests that all astrophysical black holes, not just Schwarzschild and Einstein-Rosen black holes, may have Einstein-Rosen bridges, each with a universe inside that formed simultaneously with the black hole.

Commenter Kharris observes:

The worm that makes this sort of hole...common earth worm, do you think? It would have to be a very large worm in terms of our universe to make a wormhole large enough for our universe to reside within the hole...

This made me think. If following the Big Bang we live in an inflationary universe, is the inflation of the US dollar - inevitable? The logical thing to do, then, is to invest in gold.

I always follow the best economists and base my decisions on hard science, that's why I am making money on the bourse.

Uri Tuval Prefers to Live in Iran

The last scandal in Israel is the case of a leftist girl soldier who copied thousands of secret documents from the Army and gave them to Uri Blau, a journalist from that abominable fishwrap Ha Aretz (the suscription costs me 250 shekel per month). He is now hiding in London.

Another HaAretz journalist Uri Tuval has caused a mini-scandal because of his comments on his Facebook. He doesnt wish to live in a country with fascist-jihadist people (he is referring to the patriotic-religious family of a soldier fallen in Gaza) as for that he could as well live in Iran.

These fellows imagine they live in an invulnerable democracy like America, and anything they say or do will not harm their country or themselves. They forget they live in Israel, a miniature, embattled, hated, fragile "entity" in the Middle East. Objectively, they are aiding the enemy.

Down With CO2

Europeans demonstrating against climate change. The message is the media.