How to exploit a robot trader

Sven-Egil Larsen and Peder Veiby are two Norwegian traders that exploited a market-making bot on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The bot was trading for Timber-Hill (IBKR). They made some small orders in illiquid stocks (to push up the price). Then the robot would place a large bid above the average purchase price and they could sell with a profit. Timber-Hill let the robot trade during two years so these chaps were able to repeat the play many times and made a fistful of dollars.

Silvio in Lampedusa

Lampedusa is being flooded with North African refugees. Silvio Berlusconi came down from Milano to have a look at the new girls arriving, hoping to find fresh replacements for aged (over 18) Ruby for his bunga-bunga parties.

The latest: Silvio cracked the joke on Mediterranean holiday island Lampedusa. "According to a survey, when asked if they would like to have sex with me, 30 per cent of women said 'Yes' while the other 70 per cent replied 'What, again?'," he was quoted as saying.

Tidbit

Steve Sailer on the SciFi idol of my youth, Robert Heinlein:

..it has been widely reported that Heinlein gave Hubbard the idea of turning Dianetics, originally a low-cost competitor for Freudianism, into the tax-free religion of Scientology..

Scientology, exploiting the psychoanalysis market?

Yishay Stops The Water Corporations Imbecility

The rebellion of the Municipalities against the forced creation of Municipal Water Corporations is succeeding and Minister of Interior Yishay has stopped the program. The idea was to extract the water and sewage operations from the Municipality, which were deemed to be corrupt and did not invest in the maintenance of the water infrastructure. The creation of independent corporations was intended to manage the water as a business, and in the second stage, to transfer it to the private sector. In fact, what happened was that the new corporations acquired luxury offices, created a complex bureaucracy of directories and department heads, so most of the income was spent on paying salaries instead of renewal of pipes. These corporations turned to be the perfect employment opportunity for political activists and the Major's dumb cousins. Netanya's Water Dept. used to have one engineer and three ladies crowded into two derelict rooms on the third floor (no lift), today the Corporation has a modern spacious building, a well paid directory and manager and asst. manager and about one hundred employees. When it was only a small municipal department, it managed to supply more water than today and at much lower prices (demand has contracted as a consequence of the Corporation's higher prices).

Congratulations Mr Yishay! Once more, you have demonstrated courage and sense.

Noch mal?

Two generation of tranqauillity, and the Germans are becoming restless. Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dr Guido Westerwelle have refused to take part in NATO's attack on and coming occupation of Libya. This is a fundamental change of Germany's post WWII strategy of full integration into the West which was to solve the eternal question of Germany's place in Europe. Der Spiegel writes:

The Germans have come up with three different answers to this question over the last 150 years. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck pursued an equilibrium, trying to preserve peace by preventing other nations from allying themselves against Germany. But even a diplomat as skilled as Bismarck wasn't able to maintain the precarious balance of power. The collapse of his system resulted in World War I. Adolf Hitler tried to solve the problem by trying to dominate Europe by force. That resulted in total defeat. Only with Adenauer's policy of firmly aligning West Germany with the West was the republic able to find its place in Europe and the world.

Once more, Germany has become the central power in Europe, with a sphere of influence that covers Eastern Europe. And the Germans are becoming restless again. What will be? Another round? Noch mal? (pic. German soldiers attack through poison gas cloud, WWI).

Anastasia

IHTG mentioned Anastasia Michaeli, a member of the current Knesset. He is talking about a former Miss Saint Petersburg who converted to Judaism, married a Jew and has eight children.

Turkey Joins the New Imperialists

The world is being divided again and Turkey has taken its seat among the dividers. Turkey is assuming control of the Benghazi airport, and sending naval forces to patrol the corridor between the rebel-held city and Crete, as it prepares to join a London meeting on the division of Lybia into areas of influence. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is fast learning the language of the imperialism of the 21st Century. He said Monday that Turkey would take control of the airport in order to coordinate humanitarian assistance to the crisis-hit North African country.

What next? Syria? Lebanon? Jordan? Azerbaijan? Illustration: The original post-WWI division of the Middle East.

Johannesburg University no Ivory Tower

Trying to learn why a friendly university like Johannesburg U turned against us, I read its website. Its exhaustive information page on AIDS and its more than one hundred tips to survive on the campus reveal much of the atmosphere.

Campus safety has become an important issue to the majority of South African Universities, who have established campus security units in an attempt to safeguard students.

Always check the inside of the car before you enter it. Check the front and back seats. Even if the car is locked you should check.
Carry your keys in your hand so there is no hesitation upon entering your car.
Do not offer rides to strangers or pick up hitch hikers on the road.
If you suspect someone is following you, drive to the nearest open public place or to a police station and sound your horn.
Always lock your residence room door. Be sure you lock it when you leave, even if you plan on returning in a very short time. Lock it even when you are in the room/ office.
Do not prop residence hall doors open. If you find a door that is propped open, remove the prop and secure the door.
Report suspicious persons in the residence hall area or office corridors.
Do not open your residence hall room door unless you can identify the person seeking entrance.
Never sleep in an unlocked room or house.
Don't put your name and address on key rings.
Don't keep your residence and vehicle keys on the same ring.
If you lose the keys to your residence, have the lock(s) changed. On-campus residents should notify Campus Security immediately.
Don't study in poorly lit or secluded areas.
Require callers to identify themselves before opening your door.
Don't let strangers in to use your phone. Offer to make the call for them or direct them to a public phone.
If you receive obscene or harassing telephone calls or several calls with no one on the other end, immediately notify Campus Security.
Keep items of value out of sight.
Never lend the key to your residence to anyone.
Don't hide keys under mats, above doors, in mailboxes, or anywhere else they can easily be found.
If you live in a residence hall, take your room key into the shower with you.
Don't leave it in your robe or other clothing where someone going through your pockets can find it.
Do not place your daily routine schedule on any door or in clear view for all to see.

I always believed that one's name and phone number should be on key ring, so if lost, it can be returned. That's suicidal in Johannesburg.

Johannesburg Cuts Ties with Anti Zionist University

The Ben Gurion University of the Negev is the most extreme antiZionist institution in Israel, followed by Haifa University. They oficially commemorate the Naqba, the so called Palestinian Tragedy, more than the death of their own children. Ilan Pappo, a Haifa University professor, went on lecture tours demanding world universities to cut their ties with Israeli counterparts. They wrote books about the evil of Zionism, that the Jewish people never existed, that Israel was illegitimate, and they demonstrated side by side with our sworn enemies. Why are they so hurt now that their wish has come true and they are being boycotted?

The University of Johannesburg has formally cut its ties with Ben Gurion University, suspending an ongoing water purification program. It followed a petition signed by 400 South African academics calling for the University to end the 25-year-old relationship. "Israeli universities are an intimate part of the Israeli regime, by active choice," Nobel Prize Archbishop Tutu wrote. "While Palestinians are not able to access universities and schools, Israeli universities produce the research, technology, arguments and leaders for maintaining the occupation." He is only saying what Ben Gurion academics have been saying all the time. Only that the Israelis knew that it was false and had adopted that position only to show the world that they were in side of the "good" and against those "evil" Zionists.

It didnt help them.

We are hearing voices from BGU that they didnt really want to co-operate with Johanessburg, that the place is not what it was but has decayed to sheer chaos, and anyway, the South Africans are losing Israeli water technology while we are losing nothing.

High Level of Radioactivity in Tokyo WWTP

From these you will eat

Our weekly portion פרשת השבוע deals with ritual prohibitions. Moses states which animals are eatable, and which are ritually unclean and unfit for a Jew to consume. Only that we have lost the meaning of his words and we barely understand what he is talking about. His world contained few animals and they are not comparable to the ones we have today. Since there seems to be no clear rule for his classification, we are unable to rebuild his system.

For example, wherever it is written ציפור tzippor [bird], it is kosher. What about עוף off (also bird, probably a bird of prey)? It is unclean. What about turkeys, unknown by Moses? A turkey is no dove nor a pidgeon acceptable as sacrifice in the Temple, yet Jews everywhere eat them without hesitation. The system has long lost any rational if ever had one, and serves only to establish two opposing mental categories: clean vs unclean, holy vs ordinary. That is whole idea of Judaism.

Mazuz

Menny Mazuz was Attorney General when President Katzav asked his help (a former secretary was trying to blackmail him). His help got Katzav seven years of jail with sex offenders. God protect me from my friends...

The Old Middle East

When I had made up my mind about the New Middle East, it came to my attention that the Old Middle East is more probable a scenario. This region was under Turkish rule for 400 years and the Turks clearly think that it is how it should be. NATO has assigned the Eastern Mediterranean theatre to Turkey and the war in Libya will be directed from Izmir. We are apparently within Turkey's area of influence, maybe protectorate.

The New Middle East

The leftist fishwrap HaAretz, in an exceptional oversight, let slip an article by Aluf Benn that is less than virulently anti-Israeli. Basically, he is saying that the old colonial frontiers are disappearing and each tribe and ethnia feels entitled to its own country. This will cause the fragmentation of current 200 countries in the UN to at least 300 mostly new entities.

Israel is directly involved in the struggle over the establishment of an independent Palestine and the shaping of its borders, and would be significantly affected by the disintegration of its neighboring states, chiefly Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia. A smart Israeli policy, which correctly identifies the opportunities inherent in the emergence of new states and knows how to take advantage of these opportunities, will be able to leverage the inevitable process to reinforce Israel's power and influence in the region.

The most common tribal map of the Middle East is shown here. The explanation (from Harvard):

KURDISTAN--The mountainous Kurdish-speaking region that occupies portions of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Even the Romans (according to Gibbon) recognized the Kurds as fiercely independent.

NORTHERN TRIBAL AREA--Largely a Sunni Arab domain, encompassing the towns, small cities, and deserts of western Iraq and eastern Syria and Jordan.

SOUTHERN TRIBAL AREA--Also largely a Sunni Arab domain, encompassing the Saudi heartland. Its brand of Islam is the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain.

THE CRESCENT--On the one hand, ethnically Arab, like the people to the west; on the other hand, religiously Shia, like the people to the east. This arc of territory straddles portions of Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, and contains at least 20 percent of the world's proven oil reserves.

EMIRATES--The existing small, oil-rich Sunni sheikhdoms. These Persian Gulf enclaves, which unlike Saudi Arabia have a long mercantile tradition, form a natural collective--more like one another than like anyone else.

PERSIA--Occupying the Iranian heartland, the Persians have constituted a coherent and powerful cultural bloc since antiquity. The predominant religious tradition in Shia Islam.

AZERBAIJAN--A Turkic region to the east of Kurdistan, including a mountainous chuck of northwestern Iran. Ethnically and linguistically distinct from Persia, though with long-standing cultural ties, and sharing an adherence to Shia Islam.

BALUCHISTAN--The non-Farsi-speaking and largely Sunni Baluchis occupy an impoverished and increasingly restive region that sprawls across eastern Iran and western Pakistan.

ARABIA FELIX--A name from ancient times for Arabia's southwestern corner. A mixed Sunni and Shia population, highly independent, defined primarily by the mountain environment in which most people live.

OMAN--This sultanate has been autonomous and distinct for 250 years. The people are mainly Arab, but their Ibadhi form of Islam distinguishes them from mainstream Shias and Sunnis.

HEJAZ--The urbanized and mercantile Arabian coastal strip along the Red Sea. For a decade during the early 20th century it was an independent kingdom.

LOWER EGYPT--The Nile Delta region to the north, with its cities and commerce--Egypt's center of gravity.

UPPER EGYPT--Village-oriented and rural, but also clinging to the Nile's thin ribbon.

WESTERN TRIBAL AREAS--The desert to the east and west of the Nile Valley is an Arab domain closer in character to the tribal societies across the Red Sea than to the civilization of the Nile Valley.

ISRAEL--The Jewish homeland, with an Arab minority of 20 percent.

THE LEVANT--Encompassing parts of northern Israel, all of Lebanon, and portions of coastal Syria, this is the most cosmopolitan terrain in the Middle East, comprising Maronite Christians, Roman Catholics, Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and Druze, as well as a host of other small communities.

TETRAPOLIS--This heavily urbanized Arab strip takes in four major cities: Aleppo, in the north; Damascus and Amman; and Gaza, in the south. The mental orientation is less to the ast than to the Mediterranean world, as it has been since ancient times. Gaza was the terminus of the Spice Route.

CONTESTED AREAS--Places that must be considered independently include Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Jerusalem. A complex mixture of ethnic and religious factors prevent these places from fitting conceptually into any neighboring entity.

UNCONTESTED AREA--The Empty Quarter, uninhabited.

Missiles Over Israel

Yesterday Beer Sheba received a missile attack. This thing seems quite sofisticated. Schools are closed all over the South. We are at war. Mutual funds are shifting their money to foreign markets and the dollar's price went up.

Art and Money

Laszlo Birinyi, the Hungarian famous for discovering such curious novel uses for a ruler such as i.e., a stock price forecast device, pulled out his forecast for the S&P for 2013, and it is, hold on to your hats, 2,854, or well over a double in just over 3 years (and I think he is right). The pic is Bereny's Nude in a Paris Bordello, not to be confused with Birinyi Associates Wall Street Office. Love of Art and of Money are Inseparable.

About Eating Dragons

If you dream about fighting and killing a dragon, you are are a Nordic European. If you dream about eating the dragon, you are a Jew. Many sleepless Jew-nights are spent wondering if dragon-meat is kosher and how would it taste in the cholent. Now, thanks to a couple of American Jews, we have a Guide to the Perplexed. Mermaids for example have fish scales, so they are kosher to eat and/or marry (if duely converted). What about dragons? They have scales like fish but walk on their stomachs like serpents, so they are strictly trefl. Let them for Vikings or better, for secular Jews.

Kever Benjamin From the South

Trotsky in America

Dennis Mangan says:

It's permanent revolution everywhere, with the U.S. as the agitator and enforcer of the revolution. Even though no one in charge seems to have a clue as to what they're doing, whether the rebels are linked to Al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood, and whether victory would really result in any kind of democracy - not necessarily a good outcome anyway - they rush in where angels fear to tread. The U.S. government is far from being run in the interests of the American people; it's being run in the interests of a globalist, revolutionary elite who just can't stand to leave a country alone.

Exactly. His commenters are suggesting that we Jews are doing it. No denying it, some Jews are part of the movement and in the front of it, but shoot me and I cant see what good American permanent revolutionary agitation does to us.

Hated President Pays for All Serial Rapists

Katzav was condemned to seven years of jail. The conviction and even the charges themselves were a matter of hysterical farse in that no evidence was presented against him. It was a case of his word against hers - and the judges chose to believe her, convicting the man who was a former Knesset Member, Transportation Minister and President on two counts of rape. He was stereotyped as the veritable prototype of all those swarthy rapists that terrorize Tel Aviv females. He will pay for it.

The Forces of Lord Humongous

Steve Sailer provides a better picture of what is happening in Lybia than the New York Times.

The retreat from Ajdabiya appeared to have thrown the rebels into deep disarray, with one commander at the checkpoint trying to marshal the opposition forces, using a barely functioning megaphone, but few of the fighters heeding his exhortations.

At this point, he says, the rebel army sounds like they'd have trouble with the forces of The Humongous and Wez in Road Warrior.

At any point, I daresay, the forces of Lord Humongous could take over Libya in 48 hours. Show them Ghaddafi's nubile bodyguards, her blonde Ucrainian nurses, his metallic gold box under the bed, and there they go.

Bourses Love the War in Libya

TOWER (TSEM) is rising 7% on NASDAQ, ORCKIT 5% and so on. BAZAN, the Haifa refinery, expects a utilization rate of 95 percent in 2011. A new hydrocracker is being built with two Italian reactors. The 25,000 barrel-a-day unit, being built at a cost of $500 million, is expected to start operations in mid-2012. Hydrocrackers are mainly used to produce diesel.

Koko's Illustrious Family Tree

Koko mailed me an old picture from her family album to remind me of her illustrious ancestry: her grandfather Hanoman, revered as God by 1,000,000,000 Hindus.

Good legs run in her family, do they.

(Thanks Ivan for the correction).

Mendelsohn

Fighters for Democracy in Libya

Iran and Al Quaeda are applauding the intervention by foreign powers against Cnel. Ghaddafi. Pic.: The rebels aka "democratic forces" in Western media. Ghaddafi is distributing weapons among the people to defend itself against the "democratic forces".

Said as a True Jew

"If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for who we really are."

(Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, in "Encounter At Farpoint")

Germans at Ecological Turning Point?

Der Spiegel changed its color and is no more green. A large article about the failure of ecologism says that

...no price seems too high. Germany even spends tens of millions of euros on redirecting roads or building tunnels to protect animal species. Last August, for example, a four kilometer long, €50 million tunnel was approved for a highway in the state of Hesse. The reason? A colony of great crested newts had to be protected.

It even calls biofuels a swindle. The Germans are coming to their senses. Pic: A heron eating 10 million Euros worth of great crested newt.

The Great Miscegenation

By historical times, the Greeks were an homogeneous population speaking a standard language. The Greek tribes of the Illiad such as the Danaans and the Achaeans have been forgotten and no one even knows who they were. By the time of Plato, the original inbred clans and tribes have disappeared and the Greeks were outbreeding all over the Mediterranean (when not practicing their pederastic habits). When the apostol Paulus started to spread the Good News, it was obvious to the Greeks that all humanity were brothers (in Christ) and that a Catholic (universal) church made total sense.

Was this mixing of tribes spontaneous? I know of no historian giving a damn to this inbreeding-outbreeding issue, so I have to use my own head. The process started in Athens after it lost the war against Sparta. Sparta was a racist-militarist nation, following a proto-Nazi policy of extermination and subjection of its neighbors. Then Athens had a lucky break and by 510 BC Cleisthenes had the way clear to re-form Athens. Athens, like all Greek polis, were formed by a a population of "tribes" ruled by inbred clans and families. We can see that the ruling class of Athens was not so, it was not a class in the Marxian sense but a few families linked by blood. BTW, Cleisthenes himself was a member of the inbred family that had ruled Athens for centuries, and his daughter married within the family, but he decided that inbreeding was bad for the State. In order to destroy these great families that have dominated Greek history from the Antiquity, he dissolved all blood-linked families and re-formed the population. Attica (Athens's hinterland) was then peopled by four tribes divided into ninety inbred clans. Cleisthenes (pic) wanted to direct the loyalties of this population toward the city as a whole, creating something inexistent: Athenian patriotism.

Cleisthenes abolished of a stroke all four ancient tribes and created ten new ones in their place, each with its patron saint or eponymous hero sanctioned by the Oracle at Delphi. Each new tribe was divided into three sections - living in geographically distant areas - called deme. Democracy (government by the demes, reminding me of "All the Power to the Soviets!") was invented. The Greeks even lost their names - instead of being called Odysseus son of Laertes son of whatever, like today's Osama Bin Laden and other Arabs, they were called Thales of Milethus, or Xenophon the Athenian.

What had Cleisthenes achieved was a mixed, identity-less, Greek-speaking, patriotic population, that could be easily governed by a small self-selected committee or Boulos without any tribal attachment. Athens's immigration and naturalization rules were abolished and the concept of "citizen" was created. Athens was re-filled with peoples from all the Earth and grew to become a half-million strong city ruling about five million indifferentiated pig-Greek speaking humanity.

After a few centuries of success, Athens was replaced by Rome, another city with absolutely no family-racial awareness. Anyone could become a Roman citizen and live everywhere in the Roman world with all the privileges and State-protection of the citizenship. Paulus, when persecuted by the authorities, invoked his right as a Roman Citizen to practice a legal religion, that is, Judaism.

Conclusion: The current mixing of races taking place in America (and Israel too) is an artificial policy of the government, to create a homogeneous, governable, loyal to the State, population. It has happened before: Alexander imposed outbreeding on his subjects, Cleisthenes abolished the tribes and clans and artificially created new ones, Rome itself was created by miscegenation. One can predict that the governments in the Middle East will soon start mixing their peoples too, to create American-style patriotic democracies.

More oil in Israel

More oil exploration in Israel. People is starting to invest in Israel. Globes brings the story of the Muchkin Brothers. There are planning to sell partnerships in TASE.

Silvio's Parties

The famous bunga-bunga parties of Silvio Berlusconi used to feature two futball teams of beautiful underage girls, all naked except the black and red T shirt of Silvio's AC Milano club. This way his team always won.

Not So Superhuman

The blogosphere is busy analyzing "Why there is no looting in Japan?" - a question which I sincerely believe was among the first bloggers to ask. The HBD crowd wonders how stoic and disciplined the non-diverse Japanese are and how different are diversity-rich other countries. The more I think about it, the more I am concluding that the Japanese are not VERY different from the rest of humanity but they wear masks. Why there is no looting? The social control in Japan is tremendous, the police is super-efficient, there are cameras all over, and the Japanese are rich enough to see that stealing a color TV is not worth it. Second question: Why they are staying closed in their homes as the Government asks them and not escaping in mass? Because the Fukushima area has been surrounded by the Army and no one is entering nor leaving the area. And it is freezing outside, they would not reach far. Why there is no panic in the stock exchange? Because the Banks have been instructed to manage the situation and the employees have been sent home. Why there is no mass panic?

There is, there is. But not one that a female correspondent who arrived yesterday and doesnt speak Japanese can see from her Tokyo hotel's bar.

Should women have the right to vote?

In every human society till the early twentieth century only adult men had the vote. Women had many rights, including personal property (something that married women in Israel dont have - everything is shared). Female vote - which is less than a hundred years old - started a process of social decomposition that is leading to a total collapse of Western populations.

Let's make it clear that I am definitely against any oppression of women. I have absolutely no interest in knowing or controlling the sexual activity of anyone, male or female. That is one area that I dont care for. Everybody should receive the same pay for the same work, everybody should have every opportunity for advancement according to his/her ability and ambition. I am for granting most generous privileges to women, because they need a secure environment to have children and to care for them. Society absolutely cannot do without them. Divorce and abandoning a woman and specially women with child should be made prohibitively difficult. Women should have equal opportunity to become professors of physics as men and equal pay (and I believe they have it). In fact, if a Hottentot female can and wants to teach physics, welcome. Humanity needs talents of any size, gender, race or species. Moreover, post-menopausal women, lesbians and exceptional cases (basically, anyone insistent enough) should be granted honorary male status and political rights.

I think society would be healthier than today. And we would have better chance of survival and prosperity.

Radioactive particles soon to reach California

The New York Times published a model of the radiation plume from Japan. In my work I use AIRMOD models, but this is much superior. Steve Sailer say he'll be moving to Carlsbad Caverns to avoid nuclear radiation. I presume Dennis Mangan is not alarmed, as he thinks a little radiation may be good for health and retard aging. At the least, the rate of mutations in California will increase, boosting evolution. I advise my friends from California to buy those cool leaded glasses before the supply runs out. Lead aprons are excessive but a leaden testicle bag may be a useful to start a conversation and pick up girls in a bar.

Japan: If Worse comes to Worst

It is probable that a large amount of radiation will be released into the atmosphere during a period of six months. The total amount of radioactive material is 150 tons, but even in Chernobyl only 40% was released by the fire. The radioactive dust will be spread by the wind and the rain, which probably will fall in the Pacific south east. The worst case is if some of it falls on Tokyo. A few hundred square kilometers around the plant will be inhabitable for about twenty years, contaminated with radioactive elements like cesium, plutonium and iodine.

All in all, the physical damage will be minor. The question is how the disaster will affect Japanese psyche, if there will be mass panic (it doesnt seem so), if the people will enter a state of depression, play the pachinka all day or they will escape to join me and the girls in a new world of golden opportunity on Enkelada.

Mycenians: Not Good Sports

Ajax was the best fighter among the Mycenians trying to sack Troy and enslave its people. When Achilles was killed in the fight, the question arose whom his armour should be given. One could assume that the armour was his personal property and his son would inherit it, but that was not so among bronze-age Mycenians. The brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus who had financed the expedition decided to award the armour to their unctuous sidekick Odysseus and not to unruly Ajax. In the rage of wounded pride, Ajax swore to murder them all, but the goddess Athene channelled his criminal instincts towards the cattle. Sobering up after the bovine massacre, Ajax killed himself.

One thing is clear, Ajax behaved in a very un-English way. A good sportsman would have congratulated the bastard and carry on as nothing important had happened. The name's Bond, James Bond(pic). Those Mycenians were no gentlemen.

Blogger Ponticus affirms that contemporary Greeks are direct descendants of the Mycenians. But the tendency to suicide is hereditary and Greeks are known for making noisy scenes but they never, never kill themselves. Maybe Ajax and his kin removed voluntarily their genes from the population.

No more Boron

Boron is necessary to stabilize damaged nuclear reactors, and Japan has used up all its stockpiles. They have asked South Korea, with 21 reactors, to ship them boron. The water in Israel has so much boron that it is harmful to the crops.

PS: Japan's situation has reached Level 6 and is near the worst - Level 7 (serious nuclear accident).

TASE melts down

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is melting down. I lost about 15% since Mubarrak followed Obama's orders and left Cairo. Japan is far aways but it is a very important client of us. The radioactive fumes may continue for months. Is this a black swan, an improbable and unexpectable event?

Penelope

I am reading once more Homer's Odysseus and trying to understand the story. Penelope is the wife of the main character, the "King" of Ithaca, a 120 sq km mini-island in the Eastern Mediterranean. The people of Ithaca are Mycenians and live from goat herding. Her husband joined the expedition to sack Troy, but ten years after the end of the war, he still has not returned. Penelope is in a bad dilemma: She is still young (about 32 - 35) and needs a man, because in Bronze-age Greece unmarried women had no rights (or were considered minors) and had to be under the protection of a man, but should she marry and her lawful husband returns, then it is a royal mess. So she tries to play her hand maintaining open both options: (1) waiting for her husband to return from war, as a faithful wife should do, and/or (2) attracting and flirting with no less than nine suitable candidates with promises of lands, houses, servants, goat and swine herds and the inheritance of Icarius, her wealthy father. Penelope invites the suitors to her mansion and entertains them with banquet after banquet.

Homer presents the suitors in a very negative light, and in the end they suffer abject humiliation by the returning Odysseus who kills them. Are the odious suitors Antinous, Agelaus, Amphinomus, Ctessippus, Demoptolemus, Elatus, Euryades, Eurymachus and Peisandros insolent parasytes who impose themselves on the powerless "widow", or are they victims of her feminine calculation and duplicity?

The bard leaves no doubt because the paying public wanted "good" Odysseus to thriumph over the "evil" suitors trying to get into his conyugal bed with his faithful and devoted wife. Yet Odysseus himself is no PC hero: he is a pre-viking pirate, proudly telling his adventures of sacking and burning peaceful villages, killing the men and selling young females into slavery in the next port.

Meltdown in Fukushima

Japan "upgraded" the last earthquake to Richter 9. Yesterday the cooling water pumping system (click on the pic) failed at Fukushima nuclear power plant and the fuel core is melting. If water within the core continues to evaporate and generate steam, the pressure could eventually rupture the containment vessel and release large amounts of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. What they are doing is a controlled releasing of radioactive vapor to reduce the pressure in the containment vessel and spraying seawater to cool down the whole structure.

Marine pumps are built to survive strong shocks. Why the Fukushima pumps failed? Broken pipes? Broken electronics?

PS: The on-site reports from the disaster area are amazing. No mass panic, no disorderly fleeing, no looting !, no violence or chaos. Contrast this with the New Orleans flood.

Who is the Victim and Who is the Murderer

I am shocked by the world media's reaction to the heinous murder of a family in Itamar. ALL the articles I read talk about the reaction of the settlers, what NOW these terrorist-fanatic-settlers will do to the defenseless Palestinians and how the Palestinians live trembling under the terror of Jewish violence. Jewish violence! They dont stop talking about Jewish violence and terror while a three years old boy lays in his bedroom with a knife in his heart (pic) and his three old small brother bleeds to death with his throat slit. Western media sees imaginary Jewish revenge willfully confusing victim and criminal, the sucking baby with the beast with the knife. I dont make the mistake of accusing the media of having perpetrated the crime, that was an Arab terrorist, but the media definitely feels with our enemies and hates us.

Ten Million Evacuated in Japan?

避難が必要な自治体が２市５町２村に増えて対象住民は十数万人に達し、各役所の職員たちは対応に追われた。

I dont know Japanese, but Google says so.

Tales of the Hassidim

"The house of the chief rabbi of Dantzig caught fire, and the contents of his good cellar suffered. The Jews took counsel what to do for their beloved rabbi. A handsome subscription was first proposed, but overruled; then another idea was mooted, then another, each less costly than the preceding. At last it was agreed that everyone should visit the house on a certain day, bringing a bottle of fine wine. After an appropriate speech of greeting, everyone would descend into the cellar and empty their bottles into a vat prepared for the purpose. The day came, and the chief rabbi listened with delight to the flattering addresses of his guests. When the ceremony concluded, he went to the cellar with his family, all brimful of kindly feelings, to taste the result. He turned the tap, a beautiful fluid ran into his glass; he raised it with gratitude to his lips, and suddenly his countenance fell; he slipped a second time, and confirmed that the fluid was pure water. The fact was that each guest had said to himself, "What does it matter whether I put in wine which costs money or water which costs nothing? My own contribution will make no sensible difference to the total result."".

Itamar

Last night a young family of five was murdered in Itamar, a beautiful settlement up 660 m over sea level in Samaria. The settlement specializes in organic farming including organic eggs from free range hens. They are God-fearing Jews and all their produce is recognized as kosher of the highest degree of kashrut. The Givot Olam farm (pic) was founded by Ran and they say some hashishniks found peace and remade their lives there. It is one of the remotest places one can find in Israel.

PS: "This was a criminal act perpetrated by beastly men. The scenes are horrific and it is difficult for the mind to grasp what has happened," Chief of Staff Gantz said. "We will not rest and we will not be silent until we have the murderers in our hands."

Badass Pidgeons

It's a fresh sunny spring morning here in Kever Benjamin. People dressed in white with tallit (prayer mantle) on their heads are walking to the synagogue. I deposited a cheque in the wall ATM and walked down towards the shuk (market). After yesterday's rain, the city is washed clean. I found some good apples and pears which ate (we have almost no food at home, all the females are dieting furiously). Old women are speading bread crumbs on the streets, feeding hundreds of fat pidgeons. More than eating, they watch each other and attack the one who dares to pick up a bigger crumb. They take it from her beak and throw it up in the air. But mostly they are engaged in courting and cornering females, jumping on their backs as soon as they take hold of them. I wonder if the old women see the mass rape going on, or they see gracious birds of peace dancing in the sunshine.

Enkeladus Girls

It couldn't be otherwise: Saturn's moon Enkeladus is inhabited by girls in bikini. They seem surprised but unafraid.

A Saudi Oil Well

The Eastern Province produces most of Saudi oil but it is inhabited by a population that is ethnical and religiously different and hostile to the ruling Saudi house. This Shiite population has more affinity with neighboring Iran than with Sunni Saudis from the Nejd, and the ruling Saudis passionately hate them, discriminate against them and consider them abominable heretics.

The recent troubles in Bahrain were revealed to have been caused by ethnic strife and not by desire for democracy. The Shiites are majority on the island but the ruling family is Sunni. Recently, immigration and naturalization rules were changed to produce a Sunni majority, and that was resisted by the natives. It is funny how Western journalists framed the issue as a freedom, democracy, human right, free elections thing.

Apparently today after prayer there will be some demonstrations in Eastern Saudia, which could trigger a chain of events leading to Iranian intervention to protect them, and then we have a worldwide oil supply crisis. Only by thinking about this scenario the bourses have dropped this week. But having them fighting will also provide us with an ally against Iran, which is not bad.

The HBDChick thinks that the Hejazi tribes may join the melee, since they have not forgotten that they had recently (70 years?) lost out to Ibn Saud's more primitive and fanatic Central Arabia's tribes. Where are the Hejazi leaders? Only King Abdullah of Jordan has any remnant of power. And he is married to a Palestinian.

When I was working in Bauchi, I was offered a job in Saudi Arabia. But at that point I didnt want more money but to go back to Buenos Aires.

Vanunu

There is something no one wants to mention: Under Echud Olmert, the Israel Tax Authority's upper echelons had been infiltrated by corrupt inbred ethnics. Today, Vanunu (Chief of the Investigation Dept.) has been arrested.

Temptation in the Autoclave Industry

The environmental profession is expanding exponentially. The newest frontier is medical waste, which particularly frightens the public. On the other hand, medical institutions such as hospitals have the money to spend and become "green". This promises to be the next gold mine, but I dont see myself as exploring and mining it - I am too busy and too dispirited. The world continues throwing me unexpected, shining, new golden opportunities; it opens before me doors after doors of wonderful new horizons.

The problem of my life is always the same: Temptation. After I conquer a wonderful girl and have a good relationship going on, a new girl presents itself and tempts me to leave and start a new adventure. On the girl sphere, I have stabilized because of a natural decrease of the urge (aging and tranquillizers), but the fire is still strong on the professional sphere. What shall I do?

MK Dr. Rachel Adatto said the Knesset Health and Environment Committee had begun looking into the levels of medical waste in the wastewater, which is particularly important because the water is reused for agricultural purposes. She said she had placed a bill before the Knesset this week to regulate the issue. While the UK, US and many other countries have quite advanced environmental regulation systems, Israel’s development in this sector is still in its infancy.

For example, in the UK, new testing methods have discovered that traditional treatment techniques such as autoclaving weren’t actually rendering the waste harmless. As a result of the testing, autoclaves is being overhauled. This is something new for Israel, where autoclaves are just being installed in the catering and food industry. Somebody will make money from it.

Is it heresy to eat fish with milk?

This is an issue that I am pondering in the last forty years (Should I never have other problems!). Meat and milk is clearly prohibited by our sages wishing to protect us from comitting the mortal sin of consuming goat cooked in its mother's milk. But what about fish and milk? Is fish - meat? Rabbi Brody does not have a straight answer, but he elaborates beautifully on the complications of giving an answer to this question. Sephardis are forbidden by their Talmudic sages to eat fish with milk, but we Ashkenazis are permitted. May this profound doctrinal difference lead to an all-out war, like Monophysitism vs its antithesis, Nestorianism, or the Shia vs the Sunni? Better to avoid theological problems and continue with my fasting.

Self-Desintegration

Hollywood's best paid actor has been sacked. His former employer's lawyers said: "Let us state the obvious: (Sheen) has been engaged in dangerously self-destructive conduct and appears to be very ill. Now, the entire world knows Mr. Sheen's condition from his alarming outbursts over just the last few weeks," lamenting "the public spectacle of his self-inflicted disintegration."

Sheen answered that "This is very good news. Now I can take all of the bazillions, never have to look at whatshiscock again for as long as this warlock exists in the terrestrial dimension," apparently referring to his former boss.

Chimps on the Warpath

The discovery that chimps on the wild form expeditionary forces to kill chimps of the neighboring troop (pic) has confirmed the biological roots of human warfare. There is a permanent low-level hostility going on among human families and tribes. So it was predictable that the loosening of social (and police) control in Egypt would lead to pogroms. We, old Jews who have some memories of Eastern Europe, know that. My parents during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 were very alarmed by the possibility of a pogrom in Budapest, and they rarely ventured out to the streets.

The "clashes" between Christians and Muslims have escalated in Cairo. Soldiers fired shots in the air to break up the clashes that broke out south of the capital while people burned tires and smashed parked cars. Tensions remain high nearly a month after mass protests ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

A "Criminal" Food Factory

Yesterday I was invited to give a price proposal for designing a pasta factory. The new factory is part of Israel's largest food processing - catering complex, that is fighting a closure order by the Environment Police (no kidding, we have one). The grease interceptor looked like this (pic). There were automatic 24 hs sampling machines on the site - reporting to the Environment Ministry. The management was on the verge of total nervious breakdown. When they saw me taking pictures they became furious and violent. They are dreaming/planning to escape to another town.

Sighting Saturn

In the distance, identified Saturn.

It's a Blue Pandora Up There

Resting on the beach in my new planet, Enkeladus, I watch the Blue Moon of Pandora passing through the night sky. Where is North? There are no good maps of this moon, the best is a colored grapefruit (pic). I see a geyser on the horizon, I am off exploring this wonderful water out-world.

Will Libya Be Fragmented?

El Satrapa as the Spanish language press calls Muammar Ghaddafi is fighting and reconquering rebel areas. According to Spanish press, which is generally well informed regarding North Africa, the rebels are done and running away (pic). The European Union is weighting the Yugoslovakian solution in Lybia - send in the troops to create ethnic cantons a la Bosnia. The markets are nervous.