Safety Ad Absurdum

SALT LAKE CITY -- Heads of iceberg lettuce are being removed from grocery store shelves in at least seven states after salmonella was found in an Arizona field adjacent to the grower's property.

None of the lettuce in the markets has tested positive for salmonella but the grower alerted retailers of the test results and sought a withdrawal of the product "out of an abundance of caution."

"There's no evidence of contamination on any product whatsoever," ...

Comment: Somebody is losing a lot of money ("seven states"!) because of an hysterical regulatory decision. One can find Salmonella everywhere. May be Sudanese immigrant farm worker made his necessity in open air near the lettuce field?

Drinking Culture

­I spent a year in Africa with an alcoholic Irishman called Charlie Allen whose pride was his drinking culture. Around five pm he used to look out the window and announce that the sun has gone down so it was permitted to drink and he did so till the driver carried his body back from the Bauchi Club. His drinking knowledge was extensive and it is topical to make it available to those thirstying for culture.

A full stomach slows down the absorption of alcohol, giving the body more time to process the toxins. Greasy, oily foods are the best. Food in the stomach decreases stomach irritation, in turn reducing the likelihood that a drinker will vomit.

Mix the drink with ice (water). This ensures the body is hydrated before the diuretic effect takes hold.

Drink slowly. The body takes about an hour to process a single drink.

Dont mix drinks. Each new type of alcohol puts more toxins in the body, leading to a more severe hangover.

Beer and champagne are carbonated, speeding up the absorption and toxins buildup.

Dry (Sec) chilled white wines are safe because they have no toxic congeners. Clear dry liquors like vodka, rum and gin are better than dark or sweet liquors like bourbon, scotch or tequila because they have fewer congeners.

Take two aspirins with a full glass of water - The prostaglandin inhibitors in the aspirin decrease hangover severity.

Eat breakfast including eggs. No coffee because it will further dehydrate the drinker.

Another CIA plot

Hugo Chavez accused the CIA of spreading cancer among Latin America's leftist leaders. Not only Chavez but dozens of Latin leaders such as Lula of Brasil and Cristina of Argentina have the disease. It is no secret that the CIA has conceived many bizarre plots including hundreds against Fidel Castro (see "638 Ways to Kill Castro"). The best known attempts are the exploding cigar that was intended to blow up in Castro's face, but others have been equally bizarre.

Knowing his fascination for scuba-diving off the coast of Cuba, the CIA at one time invested in a large volume of Caribbean molluscs. The idea was to find a shell big enough to contain a lethal quantity of explosives, which would then be painted in colours lurid and bright enough to attract Castro's attention when he was underwater. Another plot was a diving-suit to be prepared for him that would be infected with a fungus that would cause a chronic and debilitating skin disease. One improbable story says that the CIA offered a succulent botuline loaded cigar to Castro - on the day he had decided to give up smoking.

Iran War Approaching

The pressure on Iran has driven it to make explicit and public its plan to close down the Hormuz Strait in case of war. According to Tehran Times, Iran plans to hold a war game in the near future to practice its ability to close the strait. The option was always there but no one talked about it because each mention only brought nearer its occurance. Closing the Strait is a casus belli of the highest rank. American soldiers loitering in Fort Hood will shortly start to train for opening up the Straits.

It is no more a racist obsession

When I started this blog, worrying about falling birthrates was a white racist obsession, very distasteful or even criminal since the mainstream was then much concerned with the population bomb. It was the time of the FAO warnings of coming famine, of the Club of Rome models and Dr. Ehrlich public vasectomy after having one daughter. Amazingly (to me, seeing it happen in front of my eyes), times are changing and population collapse is being recognized to the point that now it is almost polite to talk about it in the salon. Even the ultra-sensitive German government has taken courage and dares to mention it.

As Angela Merkel pointed out in 2009, for Germany an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. The Continent’s economic “powerhouse” has the highest proportion of childless women in Europe: One in three fräulein have checked out of the motherhood business entirely. “Germany’s working-age population is likely to decrease 30 percent over the next few decades,” says Steffen Kröhnert of the Berlin Institute for Population Development. “Rural areas will see a massive population decline and some villages will simply disappear.”

The collapse of Greece's economy is now clearly attributed to its demographic collapse.

The problem with the advanced West is not that it’s broke but that it’s old and barren. Which explains why it’s broke. Take Greece, which has now become the most convenient shorthand for sovereign insolvency — “America’s heading for the same fate as Greece if we don’t change course,” etc. So Greece has a spending problem, a revenue problem, something along those lines, right? At a superficial level, yes. But the underlying issue is more primal: It has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren — i.e., the family tree is upside down. In a social-democratic state where workers in “hazardous” professions (such as, er, hairdressing) retire at 50, there aren’t enough young people around to pay for your three-decade retirement. And there are unlikely ever to be again.

In Israel, the fishwrap HaAretz is waging a veritable difamation war against the religious population. HaAretz hates the religious because they are having children and are spreading to secular neighborhoods. Its latest casus-belli is modest dressing for females imposed in Beyth Shemesh religious neighborhoods. Someone harassed an 8 years old American girl in the street for dressing too provocatively. I'm a Western liberal Jew, my dear daughters dress like streetwalkers, yet my heart is 100% with the Orthodox. I care nothing if an 8 years old girl's T shirt advertises "I am Hot" or "Fuck Me", they do nothing to me, but the religious are on something vitally important. The quotes are from Al Fin blog.

An Offer to Roll Over

"My" Bank has changed my "Yoetz" (Councellor) and he is Yosy, a typical stressed Ashkenazi with an eye tic and unvoluntary lips play. It is painful to talk to him. The man is a real adviser and has re-organized my portfolio, first with a "מכירה רעיונית" which is the selling and buying of stock for tax purposes. Then he offered me a 1.5% rate loan (with all the expenses it comes to 5%) in order to roll-over older loans with higher rates. We also bought new merchandise: he pushed Melanox - a rental real estate business, that has 98% occupancy and is replete with cash. I balanced out his advise with Teva, which seems to me a healthy business and paying nice dividends. He said that after a 15% rise last two weeks, NO ONE is buying Teva. Well, I'm the "no one". I told him the tremendous backlog of orders I am having, and how Dor Alon is building two - three gas stations per month and so on, and the owner is his relative, a fact that made him self-pity: "And I am a bank employee...!" His office is in a windowless basement, I rather like the place.

He did not dismiss the social protest of last summer but said to avoid supermarkets and food companies like Strauss and Osem because they are facing the popular protest, and to avoid banks because the government is forcing down housing prices, that will hit strongly mortgage banks.

I'm reading in the financial press that many concerns have cash flow problems and are taking loans at 12% with options of exchange for stock at attractive prices. If I can get credit at 5% - why not invest in something like that? Am I a crazy risk-addict or what?

Addenda: GADOT Biochemicals Ltd.

The company makes food grade citric acid from sugar, and was hit by high sugar prices and in 2011 lost 18 million $ and 35 million $ in 2010. It has no capital at all. In September it was purchased by DELEK paying 129% premium on bourse price. DELEK is a strong concern and will honor the bond. GADOT owes some 39 million dollars in short term debt. The bond sells at 88 shekel and its schedule is:

07/05/2012 2.55%
07/11/2012 33.33% 2.55%
07/05/2013 2.55%
07/11/2013 33.33% 2.55%
07/05/2014 2.55%
07/11/2014 33.33% 2.55%

The question: if I take 3 year 5% loan and buy this bond, am I making a profit? The NPV of the bond after discounting the interest paid by me on the loan is about 10 shekel for every 100 shekel invested. The catch is that I pay tax on interst paid to me (20 - 30% G-d knows). I could balance that out with the interest I am paying, but that requires an accountant and dealing with tax authorities. At my scale of operations it is not worth the trouble.

アフターダーク Afutā Dāku

Japanese men are losing interest in women and family. We have three Haruki Marukami novels, and I have been reading them. They are about people who wander aimlessly in search of mysterious connections, focusless, letting thing to happen to them. Some say that the Japanese are the future of humanity, they are the first to reach over-civilization and the West is following their way. But not us, I beg your pardon, we Jews have bloodthirsty enemies trying to kill us, no kidding, and they will not allow us to forget our animal instincts and lose interest in life and girls.

Japan has long been identified as a sexual paradise, where guiltless sex is available for everyone, with all the variations ever imagined by men. Yet in all statistics Japanese have the less sex of all peoples (the Greeks have the most), some say only 17 times a year. 30% of new homes have TWO master bedrooms, that is, married couples consider themselves friends and roommates, not lovers. The Government is worried, the Japanese are not interested in sex and are not replacing themselves. Afuta Daku is After Dark in Japanese. (Japanese is easy...!)

Meeting Mrreg

Kever Benjamin's country club has a large men's locker room with steamy saunas and showers. Jews and Arabs cruise naked in the locker area, some adorned with conical felt hats and short whips while cooling off. We shower and shave wasting the Club's free hot water. Last Saturday I met there Mrreg, the gnome-like Jew that reminds me of the Frog God of the Gowachin people. It is well known that the Gowachin cannot look at Jorj X. McKie, the saboteur extraordinary in the Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab), without their blood freezing, because in his image they recognize Mrreg. Jorj is a squat and ugly man of vague Pacific Islander ancestry, with green eyes and a shock of red hair. It was impossible to identify his phyllium tattoed in his upper eyelid because of the low visibility in the sauna. No doubt in my mind: the man is Mrreg who is the longliving BuSab Agent or his avatar.

This swarthy green eyed red haired Jew used to be around 1.60 m tall. Meeting him again after a hiatus, I observed that he had contracted to 1.50 m and his swarthy skin had a sick-green hue. BuSab agents are longlived thanks to periodical re-incarnation in a younger body, and my friend obviously is in need of such a renovation. Watching our equals age is how we become aware of our own decadence. That is what I wanted to say, hope it makes sense to you.

Luftgescheften

The Bank called me that the Bank of Israel has allowed unreal financial operations by which one can theoretically sell and theoretically rebuy the same paper, earning tax rebates. Unfortunately, a few days ago I did sell and buy really and not theoretically - paying bank fees as an idiot. These kind of financial operations in the air - advanced by Israel's official financial institutes - are mystery to me. I mean these financial manipulation are done also in the USA but are considered shady, semi-criminal tax cheats. Here the government invites us to do them. The reason is to make palatable the tax rises of the coming year (next week). They play us like a violin.

Not the Best Time to Start a War

Argentina is hardening its position regarding Falkland and organizing Latin America to isolate the islands. These measures are wildly popular in Argentina. An Argentine living in the UK comments in Clarin, a Buenos Aires paper:

No nos olvidemos que la guerra en Irak acaba de terminar, por tanto todos los soldados está de vuelta en el Reino Unido, listos para emprender cualquier conflicto. Literalmente, 'nos aplastarian'. Creanme.

"We shouldnt forget that the war in Iraq has just ended and all British soldiers are back and ready for a new conflict. They will literally crush us. Believe me." Other commenters imagine that in the last war the Argentine army was close of liberating the islands and the time has come to expulse the English pirates.

Happy Christmas

Ashkenazi Intelligence

The best theory on the subject is Prof. Greg Cochran's who says it evolved as consequence of strong selective pressure during the Middle Ages that forced Jews to cognitive-intensive existences. His thesis presumes that the Jews of Antiquity did not stand out by their intelligence. I can think of two counter-arguments: (1) We know that circa year 1100 Jews were expulsed from France and they were a few thousands in number and mostly usurers (financiers). Then they were expulsed from England, about 20,000 persons, also typically very rich financiers. They had come with William the Conqueror from France and after a hundred years we find that they owned most lands in England (if to believe the antisemites). Clearly, by that time Jews were already a very high IQ group. (2) Contemporary Ashkenazim are from Poland and the frontier lands of Ucraine. These are economically undeveloped regions where Jews serviced the peasant masses (pubs, small trade, etc.). These were not conditions were math intelligence could be selected for. My theory (cannot prove it) is that the founding fathers of Ashkenazi Jewry, somewhere in the Rhine Valley in the seventh or eight century, were a society of scholars. From them we have been evolving downward and we contemporary Ashkenazim are a diluted-down version of those saintly geniuses. Pic.: Entrance to the mikwe (ritual bath) of Speyer, built around the year 1100.

Max Pechstein

Good sign. The European art market is prospering and there is demand for Modernists like Max Pechstein (pic). I like its colors, I'd like to have one on the wall. This was sold for 3 million $.

The Germans say 2012 will be good

German industry is in excellent situation, full of orders and money, and it sells for 1.1 of its capital and 9 times dividends. German industrial stocks were never cheaper. The Euro has survived the critical year of 2011 and now, strict German "schoolmasters" are embedded in all EU countries ministries of finance, taking firm control of their public finances. It is a buy situation. Model 2012.

Another Unpaid Bill

I spent almost a work-week on a complicated private house project. The family was under much pressure and they phoned me every two-three hours begging to complete the design, then they went crying to the City Engineer's office to beg for his immediate signature. I suspect the Municipality delayed the approval to show that they are inflexible under pressure. Today I called to collect my fees and was informed that the Client had jumped from the eleventh floor and today is his burial. He had some incurable form of cancer. I was paid the retainer and suspect that will be all. They owe me some 800 dollars. It is not worth my time and effort to try to collect with the help of a lawyer.

Terrorist Sadist Released

Amna Muna offered sex to a Jewish boy, Ofir Rachum, and asked to meet her in Ramallah. There, the boy was overpowered by a gang of terrorists and tortured to death. Muna never expressed regret for her deeds. She used to imitate the screams Rachum uttered before his death. In the Arab world she is known as "Al Capone Muna", because her sadistic torturing of her female cellmates. Muna asked not to be released in Gaza, for fear that her Arab victims or their relatives would seek revenge. She is now in Turkey.

Good News? Sell!

The European Central Bank allotted $639.96 billion in the first of two keenly-awaited three-year refinancing operations Wednesday, easing fears of a new credit crunch in Europe. At last they half collected themselves and went the American way. As usual, the bourses reacted to the good news by widespread selling.

Implant Recall

30,000 silicon implants are being recalled in France at the State's expense. Suddenly, France will be deflated.

Mongolian Architecture

New Museum BUILT in the new city of Ordos, built for one million inhabitants, in Chinese Mongolia. One has to admire the audacity.

Insults

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great proportion of insults became 4-letter words.

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison," and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." -- Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." -- Winston Churchill

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." -- Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." -- Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." -- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" -- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." -- Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." -- Abraham Lincoln

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." --Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." -- Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one." -- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." -- Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." -- Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." -- John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." -- Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." -- Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." -- Paul Keating

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." -- Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." -- Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." -- Thomas Brackett Reed

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." -- Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." -- Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" -- Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." -- Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." -- Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." -- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." -- Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." -- Groucho Marx

Leave the Presents under the Candelabrum

Workmanship

Every two to five years the water meter has to be replaced and calibrated. It will be rather difficult here.

Pickled Chairmen

Chairman Kim Il Sung is dead and his material remains are being pickled and embalmed for exhibition in a mausoleum. For once I am rather proud of the Jewish custom of burying the dead before sundown.

Eugenic Practices in North Korea

The North Korean regime is neither Communist nor Confusian but national-militarist. It values racial purity and practices eugenics on a day-to-day basis such as the killing of disabled infants after birth and forced abortions for women suspected of conceiving their babies by non-Korean (Chinese) fathers. This is interesting since I remember that the Japanese occupiers and also American troops were loved by Korean girls and left many descendants.

Water Billing in Sand City

My new project is a pub in Sand City (vulgarly, Holon). After long search, discovered one incoming water pipe in a manhole (pic). The local water company "Mey Shikma" ("Terebinth Waters") installed the meter in the manhole, which is unusual here. The cover was unmovable, it has been never opened. I wonder how the Terebinth people reads the meter and charges the pub. The owner said he has never seen a bill, they are sent directly to the accountant who pays it.

"We were Wrong All the Time"

Satirical Paper: "The Left Recognizes that they were wrong all the time".

Other News: "Palestinians: We are Jordanians". "UNRRA declared terrorist organization". "Ahmedenijad, Liquidated". "Only three left in the village. The rest escaped."

Holy Crown

Hungary's Holy Crown (Szent Korona) is an autentic Central Asian war helmet with protective side-chains, like those found in the tombs of Turkish horde leaders in Kirgizstan. Successive owners added a cross on the top (which received a hit in battle), and Byzantine miniature icons with precious stones. The operetta soldiers (pic) are from the Austrian era.

Erdogan: Good or Bad for Israel?

He appears to have stomach cancer and his partidaries started to jockey for his job. Is (was) Erdogan bad for Israel?

How to Identify the Leader?

Just find the fattest among them. The skinnies are fed the crumbs.

Trivia: Gefilte Fish

"Israelis are the biggest sushi eaters in the world after Japan," said restaurateur Eli Grossman, the founder of the Takamaru chain. The explanation for sushi's popularity: its similarity to gefilte fish. "Both are sweetish fish eaten cold with a piquant condiment. Wasabi is very much an equivalent of horseradish, and in both cases we're talking about a balance between tartness, sweetness and saltiness."

GNP vs STOCK EXCHANGE

There is no correlation between a country's GNP growth and its stock exchange, yet one would expect that in a very prosperous, growing country like China (GNP 9.2% for 2011. Source: Economist) company values should at least rise modestly (they declined 17.9%). Argentina grew 10.2% and its stock exchange lost 36.6%. South Africa, thanks to gold prices, grew 3.1% yet it stocks sank 22.5%. Israel grew 4.4% and prosperity is felt all over the country, yet the stock exchange fell 26%. In our case we know that foreign investors withdrew their funds because of regional uncertainty (notwithstanding that we had the quietest year of the last decade).

The question is if this is a real incongruency and it will tend to balance itself out during the next year? I would say that in relation to the past, the above countries's stock is undervalued and are due to rise next year. Their companies are making money and paying dividends. At least that is the case of Israel.

End of Hungary

Népszabadság (literally "Freedom of the People", Hungary's main journal) writes the country's obituary: "Már csak egy-két hét, és véget ér egy korszak, megszűnik egy állam, amelyet úgy hívtak, Magyar Köztársaság." In only one or two weeks an era is ending, and with it, the Hungarian Republic. With it disappears everything you believed was solid, its laws and its independent institutions. They seem unhappy.

Conjugal Rights

Swaziland’s King Mswati III is confronting a revolt as three of his 13 queens have abandoned the palace. The queens are frustrated as the king has allowed many months to pass without “visiting” them. They accuse him of seeking his pleasures outside the palace instead.

The Man in the Wall

Prof. Arnon Sofer on Geopolitics

Prof. Sofer says that an Arab metropolis is forming around Kever Benjamin and menacing to push toward Tel Aviv. The Arab villages of Kalanzauwa, Tira, Taybe, Djaldjuliya and Kafr Kassem are growing and fusing into one large, continuous Arab metropolis of 200,000 inhabitants. Kever Benjamin is separated from the large Arab city of Kalkiliya only by a strip of land 500 meters wide, occupied by Road Number 6 and the national infrastructure strip (water, sewage, communication, gas lines etc.), as well the wall - so demographic reality will press and soon they will digest us. He also noted the silent, unobserved erection of small Beduin shantytowns in every open corner of the country, near Rehovot there are more than twenty encampments that are becoming permanent shantytowns and some are in Tel Aviv outskirts. Soon they will be demanding water, sewage, schools and they will be unmovable. Israel is the densest country in the world after Holland.

Investing in Gold

Gold well invested.

Kate Moss wearing gold with some unknown bearded bald man.

Occupy Time Magazine's Cover

It was sure as salvation that the Occupy Wall Street was doomed to fail and it did. This blog is written proof that I had foreseen its failure from its very beginning. For one thing, it started in autumn and winters are wet and cold in New York latitude. You cannot camp out in summer tents as they probably saw on TV how the Tel Aviv protesters were having a great time in Rothschild Boulevar. Apart from the physical impossibilty of holding a long term outing in wintertime, American protesters decided from the start to suffer no leaders nor organization. They had adopted the Cultural Revolution's equalitarianism and would not allow anyone to put himself above the masses. But, I pray, anthropoids as we are, can we do without leaders, sidekicks, enforcers - roles and rules? Even a symphonic orchestra made up by trained specialists needs a dictator with a baton. Third failure was the unfocused nature of the protest. What was the goal? What they wanted to accomplish? How did they measure their progress? By the number of photos in the Wall Street Journal or in Time's cover?

May be the real goal of the protest was to occupy Time Magazine's cover and that, by Jove, they did. If so, they may have confused media with reality. On the other hand, it may well be that in their social environment the media is the real thing and the rest just background and context. Conclusion: None.

Color-coded Girls

A Hamburg-based company has acknowledged renting out the Gellért thermal baths (pic) and transforming the spa into a brothel to treat its best workers to a bunga bunga party in Budapest during which twenty sex workers were color-coded according to their purpose and given stamps to tally each "encounter". It sounds so well organized that it must be true.

Noch Mal oder Nochmal?

Britain rejected the new European pact and choose not to be part of the emerging European Federation leadered by Germany. Is this a sign that the old alliances are re-establishing themselves? Germany in Middle Europe vs the Anglosaxon and Slav areas. May be I am reading too much into Cameron's last-minute insistence that UK banks be protected from yet-to-be-agreed rules on financial services. Pic: What are those shiny metallic helmets with antenna for? Are there related to my observation about tin foil hats?

Rollover Risks

Rollover risk is the threat of a country not being able to refinance or rollover its debt, forcing it either to turn to the European Central Bank in the case of eurozone countries or to seek emergency bail-outs, which happened to Greece, Ireland and Portugal. The OECD says the gross borrowing needs of OECD governments is expected to reach $10.4 trillion in 2011 and will increase to $10.5 trillion next year – a $1 trillion increase on 2007 and almost twice as much as in 2005. This highlights the risks for even the most advanced economies that in many cases, such as Italy and Spain, are close to being shut out of the private markets.

In the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel, once every 49 years all debts were erased and slaves went free. Everybody obeyed because it was written in the Bible.

Bad genes spread by water

I see superstrict environmental legislation a-coming!

"A study on the impact of tertiary-treated municipal wastewater on the quantity of several antibiotic resistance determinants in Duluth-Superior Harbor was investigated. The abundance of three different genes encoding resistance to tetracycline (tet(A), tet(X), and tet(W)), the gene encoding the integrase of class 1 integrons (intI1), and total bacterial abundance (16S rRNA genes) as well as total and human fecal contamination levels (16S rRNA genes specific to the genus Bacteroides) were evaluated. The quantities found were typically 20-fold higher in the tertiary-treated wastewater than in nearby surface water samples."

J's interpretation: What they are saying is that tertiary treatment of sewage (the highest required today) is not enough. It is a significant source of release of bad genes into the environment. Quaternary treatment is required, the problem being that no one knows what is may be and how much it will cost. I presume Siemens is already working on this new potential market.

On Paranoids

It is perfectly normal to want to keep your most secret thoughts to yourself. A tin-foil hat will make 100% sure that no one can read them. Not the CIA, not the KGB not even the MOSAD. Scientifically proven.

I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them. Susan Sontag

What is What They Want?

Enabling the World to Survive

Interesting comment on Jewish mystic thinking (the book of Zohar). The Bible suggests that before this world was created and allowed to exist, there were several other creations that failed. According to the Zohar, those former worlds could not stand on their own so they ceased to exist. Their collapses stemmed from the absence of internal harmony, from an imbalance between mercy and justice, masculinity and femininity - the building blocks upon which reality is founded.

What emerges here is the essence of the Zohar's almost ideological viewpoint, which sees marriage as an absolute necessity. Bachelorhood is a sin because it is imbalance, a world that cannot, as it were, stand on its own feet. Whereas the bachelor collapses, the married one, who obeys the commandment of "Be fruitful and multiply," enables the world to survive. Pic: Tomb of the kabbalist Luzzato ("The Ramchal").

European Federation

The euro crisis is creating a new entity which Chancellor Angela Merkel calls a "fiscal union." But in reality, Europe is on the path toward becoming a federal country. Great Britain is out. Der Spiegel asks: "What kind of future does Great Britain have without the Continent and without the euro? What is this small country's role in a world made up great powers such as China, Russia, Europe and the US?"

Investing in European Bonds

Investor George Soros's family fund bought about $2 billion of European bonds from MF Global Holdings Ltd. As remembered, the investors and regulators of MF Global were seized by such a panic that they demanded their money back NOW, causing a run that finished off MFGlobal. Soros is old and less given to hysterics, so he bought very cheap those papers. We old Central Europeans have learned German earnestness. They will pay their debts and make pay their partners too. If his speculation comes out right, Soros will have added a billion or two to his fortune. Not a cent will be given to Jewish causes: Soros says he doesn't deny he was born a Jew, but he doesnt want to belong to nor have to do anything with the Jewish nation.

Sdom ve-Amora (Sodom&Gomorrah)

In each generation since Senator Marcus Porcius Cato, old people censure and condemn society's moral decline. So do I. But what can one say about current porn-influenced obsession with removing pubic hair? Or the surgical procedures like labiaplasty (trimming or removing the labia - see pic*) and vaginal rejuvenation (tightening – usually referred to by "designer vagina")?
(*) Studying the pic longer than five seconds is regarded as masturbation.

Futuristic Weapon

This plastic object looks like a space wars sci-fi film styrofoam prop but it is the real thing. Iran exhibited the top-secret US stealth drone RQ-170 Sentinel captured on Sunday, Dec. 4. Its perfect condition confirmed Tehran's claim that the UAV was downed by a cyber attack, meaning it was not shot down but brought in undamaged by an electronic warfare ambush.

Hanuka Physics

Our next festivity is Hanuka, which celebrates the Jewish fundamentalists's victory against the Greeks and the Jews that had adopted the Greek, that is, universal non-ethnic Western civilization. The candles are for the miracle of continued candle-light when the oil had been consumed. In my home we follow old-time religion and use olive oil instead of candles. Jews in the Galuth are unaware of the meaning of the festivity, they would reject Maccabean ethno-fanatic extremism and condemn their destruction of the symbols of Western civilization such as science schools and youth sports clubs.

Kever Benjamin Mysteries

The local paper reports the mysterious apparition of a stone angel on Dr. Brodiansky's grave in the old cemetery. The good doctor died 63 years ago and her two sons visit her grave every year or two. The angel had not been there a year ago. There are no stone or otherwise angels in Orthodox Jewish cemeteries. Who set the statue on the long-dead doctor's grave? Why? A deep mystery!

The Best Investment Guide: Mao's Red Book

From Mangan's Breviary I learn that the Best-Performing Asset Class over the past 12 months was long term U.S. Treasury bonds: up 28% compared to the next highest, gold, at 19%. Nasdaq and mini-Nasdaq (aka Tel Aviv Stock Exchange) underperformed almost every other alternative.

The Chinese Goverment maintains its reserves in long term US T-bonds, so their paper profits are incalculable. Billions, Trillions, Zillions of US dollars. Those Communists have more alpha than all capitalist money managers together. What only confirms the correctness of Marx's Capital and Mao's Red Book. If not so, how can one explain their astonishing understanding of the capitalist system?

The Sick Man of Europe

I'm talking about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's president, who underwent laparoscopy. Pic: The Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani visited Erdoğan at his home. Clicking on the pic will give you nightmares of being held up by a desert bandit.

The Curapipe Concept

Yesterday I met Dr Peter Paz who developes the curapipe startup. He has an excellent English and has the strange quality of hearing carefully before he speaks. This discipline is amazing for a man like me who talks too much and always feels that he has to hammer his argument harder into the head of the dumb hearer. Peter previously co-founded Telegate, a high-growth company later acquired by Terayon for $400 million. At Terayon (subsequently acquired by Motorola), he served as Corporate VP Business Development & Marketing, where he was responsible for integrating the businesses of nine acquired companies.

The curapipe concept is a liquid glue that is passed through water pipes between two "pigs". It closes small holes and faults. Its problem is the approval of the glue by health regulators. It has great business potential.

American Jews Dont Like Zionism

A few days ago Israel broadcast a few ads in American TV with the message that the children of Israelis in America should come to Israel. There is nothing special in the campaign, yet it was badly received. Ireland is also trying to attract Irish descendantsa do all Eastern European countries. Hungary will extend Hungarian citizenship to my Israeli born children and it has extended Hungarian citizenship to all Hungarian speaking people living in foreign countries.

One Israeli ad depicted a New York couple, an Israeli woman identified as "Dafna" and her apparently American Jewish hipster boyfriend; he's oblivious that she is in mourning because it's Yom Hazicaron, Israel's day of remembrance for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. The voice-over at the end says "They'll always stay Israelis. Their spouses won't always understand what it means. Help them come back to Israel."

The reaction of American Jewish Organizations was nothing but seismic: "Outrageous and insulting message". The campaign was immediately pulled. Yet the message, a most watered down version of Zionism, is not directed to rooted American Jews but to recent Israeli emigrants, and does not mention the word Zionism or any heavy idea behind. It shows nostalgy, sentiment, grandmothers fretting. Zionism, with its view that the Galuth is unsustainable in the long term, is tabu for American Jews. Even in a diluted, soft version. They are not ready yet to face Zionism or - in my opinion - reality.

Seawater Desalinization Plant

A project took me to the Hadera desalinization plant today. Good weather, nice plant, well maintained, efficient. I learned something: The consorcium supplies its own electricity because Israel Electric Corporation monopoly's prices are astronomical. The IEC is permanently justifiying its being a State-monopoly by its superb efficiency and low prices. Untrue.