The "Je ne sais quoi" of French IMF Presidents

Christine Madeleine, Dominique's replacement.

Worried about the Sogdians and the Bactrians

I have many immediate untreatable worries so I concentrate of faraway, esoteric worries, such as the fate of the Sogdians and the Bactrians. These were Persian - Arian if you will - peoples who inhabited Eastern Asia in historic times, and were replaced by Turkic peoples. There are some remnants now called Tajiks ("settled", as opposed to nomads) that trace their ancestry to the Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, and Parthians. There are also a few thousands deep in Western China.

Two or three thousand years ago the large continent of Asia was peopled by White peoples. Today we find only small, miserable, mestized remnants such as uyghurs in the most inaccesible oasis of the Gobi desert (pic), and harassed communities like the Tajiks. The Turkic peoples have expanded east to China (where they make up at least 15% of the PRChina's genome - Manchu and other semi-assimilated groups) and to the West and they genes are alive in the mestized peoples deep in Europe, like Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey.

I got alarmed by this historic process reading Nazi racist literature. The highest level of humanity is, for the Nazis, the Nordic man. Yet Nordics are very recent in Europe's North and even Germany was empty forest three thousand years ago. What they call Nordic or Germanic peoples arrived in historic times from the East. The original homeland of the Goths is the Crimean peninsula and not Sweden. They arrived escaping for their lives from Turkic peoples pushing westward, and in the end (if there is an end) they lost their homeland and had to beg admission into the Roman Empire. The Romans let the pitiable Goths escaping with their families in carts pass through the limes with the condition of serving as "cannon fodder" in their legions.

The Turkic westward pressure has not eased: so recently as the 16th century they were at the gates of Vienna. All Eastern Europe and Greece had been conquered and its population replacement was advancing. You cannot find original Spartans or Athenians in the Ancient Greek homeland; Greeks and Turks may imagine whatever they want of themselves, but the people on the street is a mixed mestizo/mulatto population.

The Goths have been pushed to the Western limits of Europe, to Sweden and Norway, to Ireland and Iceland. They are "sitting" at the extreme end of the land with their feet cooling in the Atlantic Ocean, and should the Turkic peoples move again they have nowhere to escape.

It is true that the centrifugal avalanche of Turkic peoples moving out from Asia is less visible today than say during the Mongol rule of Bagdad and Muscovia. Apparently the Whites have won and rule Asia and the whole world. Yet the inherent, genetic capabilities of these two main sub-species of man, which I call the Goth and the Turkic, have not changed. If in the 17 and 18 centuries the West had the upper hand and the movement of peoples was from the West to the East (like the German settlements in the Volga Region), in our time the direction has once more reverted and the Germans and Russians have been rapidly evacuating Asia. Ucraine (meaning the frontier) is weakening once more, opening up Europe to Asian advance.

The question is: Are those black-haired Turkic peoples fitter than the blond Goths?

Maybe we should find the answer studying what happened in Greenland (and probably in America) where the Goths had settled and were pushed out.

Ñácate!

Last minutes of TASE's trading week and somebody is dumping shares. Prices collapsed instantly. What has happened? 8% down - in one minute!

I also painted myself into a corner in a project. A year ago I designed pollution control devices for a factory, I invited contractors and awarded contract, the project was stopped by the owner. The factory operated a full year in contravention of the environmental laws. I was supposed to keep talking to the authorities but the owner owes me money and did nothing. Now they decided to close down the place in 15 days if he continues polluting. They contracted a super-expert for ten times what I was about to make (because they are much alarmed and he was recommended by the other side's attorney) and I am supposed to collaborate - assist him. I played my cards very poorly.

Ñácate! is a meaningless Argentine vulgarism.

Preparing for the missiles

This morning I had a meeting in the upper floor of the Vaad HaPoel (Histadrut). I had participated in many meeting of the Engineers Union but never had business on the koydesh ha-koydashim Sancta Santorum where the big bosses have their offices. After the meeting I went to read the contract in the sunny balcony. No, truth is I wanted to feel what the big bossed feel looking down to the ants busying themselves in the faraway streets of Tel Aviv. It's a nice feeling.

Then a fellow sat near me and I commented (I speak to strangers) how Tel Aviv has grown in the last twenty years and how it will look in twenty years from now. He said better dont think ahead. Why? Dont you know? We are at war. Missiles will fall. We have been there, I said, and nothing happened. Yes, but we have never been in a situation where Tel Aviv is frontline.

Who is he? Does he know something I dont? One thing is sure: the country is preparing itself for the next war.

The World As It Is

Now that the truth of who Trayvon Martin was (a burglar and drug dealer) and how he attacked a neighborhood volunteer who spotted him scouting the area, we can go back and see how the media reacted to the event. It is revolting. The august Economist, for example, waxes lyrical about the injustice of this world:

Before his son's death, Tracy Martin warned son Trayvon that being a black man in America could be dangerous."I've always let him know we as African Americans get stereotyped," Tracy Martin told USA TODAY. "I told him that society is cruel."

Those warning messages have echoed in Tracy Martin's head since his son died.
In the world as it is rather than the world as we would like it to be, certain groups face differential risks of injustice, violence, instability, or abuse. That's why black parents feel a need to give this warning to their children...

This case hit a conditioned reflex in the media's brain, and it reacted instantly, uniformly and violently. The world "Jew" was never said in public, but I wonder if it was the Jewish-sounding name of the volunteer that triggered the whole agitation. No, I am being hypersensitive.

The Guru Mendelovich

Mendelovich was the charismatic guru of hundreds of TASE investors. The students of his investment school had formed an investors club. One of his stars was EEC waste recycling technology. I studied the idea but couldnt understand how they were to make money. They didnt. All the money is lost and he was found dead a month ago.

La Pausa Que Refresca

Coming Around

From a blog: "This is not the iconic picture we’ve been become accustomed to seeing everywhere in the media, used to represent the recent Trayvon Martin shooting in Sanford, Florida. From everything the public has been told, Trayvon Martin was a fresh-faced, innocent looking teenager and the visage of the man who shot him, George Zimmerman, is right out of a booking photo.

The media narrative being sold is quite clear, Trayvon Martin is the innocent victim here and George Zimmerman is a horrible bigot who attacked the young man for doing nothing more than buying skittles while being black. Even Barack Obama seems to accept the fresh-faced innocence of Trayvon, stating, “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”

It’s becoming more and more clear however that the innocent appearance the mainstream media is so desperate to apply to Trayvon isn’t at all accurate. The picture we’re used to seeing to represent Trayvon Martin appears to be a far cry from how he actually looked once he was a few years older."

If the above (and the other data provided by the blog) is true, then we are facing a Goebbels-like propaganda or disinformation campaign. For some reason, the media has decided to avoid telling the truth and instead presents a sterotypical story of White vigilantism, fresh out of the KKK kitchen. I am coming around to the idea that this is systematic and directed to fire up Black and liberal activism, showing that racism has not disappeared but it is an actual danger. The media in the US and all over the world is searching desperately this type of incidents, and when they are not happening, they invent them. Just like against Israel. There are 1500 foreign journalists (!) patrolling the West Bank area trying to shot a good picture of a "Jewish settler" beating or attacking a Palestinian native. Since they are no such things, they photoshop or set up fake incidents. After they are published worldwide, all the explanations of what REALLY happened are irrelevant.

Drinking Pißwasser

Israel's drinking water is being increasingly supplied by desalted seawater, but this demineralized water is too good and pure for a population used to drink hard mineral-rich water. The issue today is magnesium. The Ministry of Health is afraid that magnesium-less water may increase heart attacks, and demands magnesium enrichment of Israel's tap water. Today in the fishwrap HaAretz: THE TAPWATER IS KILLING HUNDREDS!

Pumped water from the mountain aquifer we used to drink contains too much calcium and magnesium - it is very hard water. Most homes in Israel have installed water softeners, because you cant use dishwashers without it. Tea made with hard water tastes horribly. Desalinated water has no hardness, so some calcium is added artificially to make it acceptable to the population used to hard water.

So we have pure molecular water with some calcium added. What about the magnesium - are we missing it? Most water supplied in the USA does not contain any magnesium at all but people doesnt miss it because there are many other sources of magnesium. Yes, but what if...? So some busybodies are trashing the Government because it is supplying magnesium-less water. They want back their old, salty, metal-rich minedrain Pißwasser. You cannot satisfy them. Ill.: Himalayan Crystal Salt advertisement - add to water - it contains all the essential minerals required by the human body. Million years of untouched purity on the Himalaya mountaintop.

Western Hedonism

As always, we Jews are accused of doing bad magic to our neighbors. Kevin MacDonald developed the theory that current Western hedonism and decadence is a consequence of a Jewish subversive conspiracy, specifically, a delayed explosion bomb planted a hundred years ago by the so called Frankfurt School of the University of Francfort. I read some of their basic texts (and it was not easy) and I am not one to defend Cultural Marxism, because it is no Marxism and no Judaism and for me, at the J personal level, it is totally abhorrent.

I have long forgotten those abstruse tomes by Marcuse, Lukacs and others; what I do remember are those witty analysis of popular culture artifacts such as the Donald Duck comics, demonstrating their repressive, capitalist, alienating message. Donald lives with three "nephews" who, obviously, are his sons but for some reason he never recognizes them as such. He has no wife but a girlfriend who lives apart and they never marry. Comic book heroes live individualistic lives, they never spend a minute in honest work and none is ever engaged in any socially constructive enterprise. In their view, the comics are a cultural tool to facilitate capitalist exploitation. I cant explain it now, but then it made sense to me.

Cultural Marxism is a vitriolic attack on standard morals and ideas, considered repressive and the cause of all psychic evils. But it is not Marxist at all because for Marx, culture is the superstructure that follows the underlying arrangement for material production. All Marxist regimes were and are highly repressive and authoritarian, just look at North Korea. There is no hedonism nor free sex in North Korea, there is hard work, discipline and sacrifice. Orthodox Judaism, Hassidism and all other currents are strongly disciplined and with harshly enforced rules. Cultural Marxism is more an outgrowth of Freud and Jung, who considered repression as the root of all mental and spiritual disease. To accuse Marxism of promoting hedonism is absurd.

Western hedonism has other roots (probably Greek paganism), and it carries the seeds of its own destruction. The Islam strongly opposes Western morals but in my opinion its solidity is cracking. Judaism, in its core, is also reacting and erecting barriers. The post-Marxist Chinese are indifferent to hedonism, they care for money alone. I think hedonism must be combatted and the only remedy is religion, including Christianity. The tragic paradox, typical of the Jewish fate, is that fanatic repressive Muslims as well Western reactionaries accuse us of fomenting hedonism, while at the same time, Orthodox Judaism is the very symbol of paternalism and reactionary repression.

Of course it is all nonsense. I learned to understand antisemitism from Kevin MacDonald: he says that the content of the accusations along the ages change and never make sense, but they make sense if seen as expression by disorganized, moronic, confused masses of the fear of Jewish evolutionary competition. Since I have no solution to this conundrum, I an only hope that the Mosshiach will arrive soon.

Prices Going Down

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised that Vodka Perfect's price went down from 20 shekel to 15 shekel (200 cc bottle). Has Israel entered a deflationary cycle? Deflation is linked to population aging (see graph). Probably we are importing deflation. That is no good for people in debt like me.

Follow Up: The TASE valuation of Israeli banks is 0.77 of their capital. The reason is that Bank Israel does not allow them to declare dividends. According to Leumi analysts, given the general low valuation of Israeli companies in this pre-Iran war times, the banking sector's price is correct. Is this reasoning right? Or bank shares are cheap?

In general, TASE is very cheap these days and one can find stock offered at less that its own capital. It is a classic Graham investment opportunity (BTW, Graham, they say, was Jewish). The problem is that foreign funds are not investing in Israel because their strategy is regional (and we are ... Middle East/Africa, pfuiiaa!) and we may attack Iran. But for a person who is decided to live or go down with Israel, like me, those considerations are irrelevant. For me, this is a buying opportunity.

What's on my Mind

Alon

Yesterday I had a meeting at Alon's HQ at Yakum. Basically a gas station company, Alon Holdings Blue Square-Israel Ltd. (BSI), Israel’s second- largest food retailer, its share price tumbled 9.6 percent to $3.56 last week. It was 20 $ three years ago. Alon is the largest trading company in Israel, owned by Dudu Weisman (pic) and the kibbutz organization. Alon Energy needs my engineering services but they pay after 75 days and they have no money. They tried to lure me with long term work, but I am not in the carreer building stage. Ths skin on my hands is becoming flaccid and spotty, and it seems to me that is also turning brown.

Protalix (IV)

My small investment in Protalix is starting to show promise. Analysts says that its price will be 8$ after FDA approval (Current price 6$) and there is an 80% probability of approval before May. The significance of the FDA approval will be the validation of the plant-base cell expression system. PLX could represent an attractive acquisition to a firm seeking to become a player in generic biologics.

Bilinguals Are Smarter

From the NYT:

The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be a heightened ability to monitor the environment. Bilinguals perform better in all tests and avoid dementia in the end.

I happen to be multilingual.

Clean Water Act of Terror

From the WSJ: In 2005, Michael and Chantell Sackett bought a small property in an Idaho residential neighborhood, intending to build a home. Once construction began, the EPA decided without any notice that the plot was a "wetland" because it was near a lake. There is no water on the property. The agency's pen pushers served the Sacketts with a "compliance order" that said they were violating the Clean Water Act and would be fined $37,500 per day until they restored the property to its original condition, if not criminal charges as well.

As Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart revealed during oral arguments, the Sacketts were actually liable for twice that—$37,500 per day for violating the Clean Water Act, and another $37,500 for violating the compliance order. Mr. Stewart defended the double secret penalties by saying the EPA had no statutory obligation to disclose them.

These things happen also in Israel. Thousands of businesses are being tortured for uncomprehensible reasons.

Bureaucracy Victorious!

The Netaniyahu Reform of the Planning Process was rejected by the Knesset. The idea was to shorten and simplify the approval process for building, which today consists of three layers and requires an average of ten years (!) to get a project to the actual erection phase.

What was approved is the Clean Air Law (February 2012) which establishes a Air Emmission Register demanding factories to report their annual emmissions and a new permit system integrated to the "Rishyon Esek" (Business Permit) system. Much of my work is related to these permits, so it creates another source of work as well as an additional obstacle for doing business in Israel. The penalties for "illegal" emmission start at 1,200,000 shekel (350,000 Dollar) and 5% penalty for each additional day of pollution and two years jail.

Last year, an abandoned factory site near Haifa cought fire and some old tires emitted thick black smoke: the Ministry of Environment reacted in a highly hyserical manner and hundreds of emergency vehicles descended on the site, all of them to monitor and prevent environmental collapse. Bureaucrats dressed as astronauts were interviewed on TV, creating panic and causing the evacuation of the neighborhood. The wind blew off the smoke into the sea and the circus ended after a few hours. Air samples collected were sent to the lab and the owners duely sued. But from now it will be less of fun to be factory manager in Israel.

Israeli Spring

The Arab Spring and the confrontation with Iran has dried up TASE. Now that the financial markets have calmed down, our Minister of Economy is touring Europe to attract investments.

Massacre in Toulouse

Three Jewish children and a teacher were assessinated in cold blood at Toulouse, France. The press and the government point to neo-nazis:

L'acte d'un tueur isolé aveuglé par des haines racistes et antisémites? A ce stade, cette hypothèse semble l'emporter.

An act of killing because of simple racist and antisemitic hate. Yet I suspect it was done by Muslims. It may have been revenge for the killing of three Muslim soldiers a week before. The social body of France is showing severe racial and ethnic stress.

Update: 11/35 AM The man was known to authorities for having spent time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Gueant said. The shooting suspect, who is a French national, is "talking a lot, claiming his jihadist convictions" and calling himself a "mujahedeen." "He said he wants to avenge the deaths of Palestinians," the minister said, adding that he is "less explicit" about killing French paratroopers.

Moutai

When in China, I used to drink cheap maotai - a sorghum vodka - although it tasted like burning alcohol (known in my infancy as "spiritus") or gasoline. I liked the imaginative bottles looking like a dome-headed old sage or a phantasy dragon. The bottle made a nice present but no one liked the drink. It is too strong (more than 50%) and has a sorghum aftertaste (sorghum was used in my time to make street sweeper's brooms - yes, I used to clean my teeth with it). Now it appears that it is a 3 billion dollar business, larger than the Scott whisky franchise.

Fuente de la Juventud

According to the CIA factbook, the place where people live longest is Monaco on the French Riviera. Average Life Expectancy: 89.68 years, that's a decade longer than the average American. Of course, I know the secret.

Monaco levies no income tax on individuals.

"Arab Spring" Famine

The CIA's website ranks Israel among the developed countries, with a higher per capita product than Spain and Italy and approaching Japan, Britain, France. The ranking has a few surprises, such the advance of Singapur and Hong Kong, and the considerable impoverishment of the the Arab countries such as Jordan, West Bank and Morocco, and specially those undergoing "Arab Springs" such as Syria and Lybia (GNP=0).

What Iran Sees

Walking on the threadmill this morning I watched on the Russian TV an interview with the Iranian Ambassador. He said that his country was not trying to build a weapon and no weapon grade uranium was found in Iran. That the US, Great Britain and France are trying to topple Iran's government, just like they did with Khaddafi. Not a word about Israel.

As he sees it, once a regime achieves nuclear status, it is safe and untouchable. Like North Korea, like Pakistan. Without that, it can be demonized and its leaders hanged or shot, like Saddam Hussein and Cnel. Khaddafi. And Syria's Assad Jr.

Saving Too Much Water

Der Spiegel comments that German water consumption

has declined so much that there is not enough water going through the pipes to wash away fecal matter, urine and food waste, causing blockages. The water authorities are trying to offset the stench with odor filters and perfumed gels that come in lavender, citrus and spruce scents. But toxic heavy metals like copper, nickel and lead are also accumulating in the sewage system. Sulfuric acid is corroding the pipes, causing steel to rust and concrete to crumble. It's a problem that no amount of deodorant can solve.

The waterworks must now periodically flush their pipes and conduits. The water we save with our low-flow toilets is simply being pumped directly through hoses into the sewage system below. On some days, an additional half a million cubic meters of tap water is run through the Berlin drainage system to ensure "necessary flow rate."

Germany has a lot of water. It has many rivers and lakes. The amount of rain that falls from the skies over Germany is five times as much as the entire water requirements of the entire population and industry.

Naked Truth

Naked Josh blogger touched my soul.

I want to be a father. My wife wants to be a mother. We came close once. Two Decembers ago (2010), my wife miscarried after several weeks. Those several weeks were some of the happiest times of our life. I began to think of all the advice that I was going to pass on to our child. I kept a journal that I was going to give to our child when they became a teen including topics such as education, dating, humor, etc. I still have it, but I’m more of a “blogger” now, and I use that very, very loosely. We came up with names. We even created an announcement that we were going to give to our family on Christmas day. We finally got rid of them this year I think.

A long time ago, I too wrote a 20 pg booklet for my yet unborn children. I remember its stupid beginning: "At one point of your life your will ask yourself why you are here. It is because I wanted you very much."

Protestants en Latin America

Latin America is losing its Catholicism and beng converted and baptised by a large variety of protestant religions. I think most of the Mexicans in America are Protestants already. Evangelists and a myriad of small non-Catholic gropups are developing a large missionery effort in South America, owning most of the religious media and creating small churches. They are very pro-Israel, to the point that they learn Hebrew and sing the Hatikva.

Marx as Obfuscator

I'm stressed because I received several excellent job proposals so my mind thinks of everything but. Thinking of Murray's conclusion that American society is stratifying according to IQ, I'm surprised why no one ever thought of that obvious truth. Marx wrote a monumental book on the Capital as the factor in the formation of a class society, yet in my life I always thought that getting capital for a good idea was the less of the problems, that there is plenty of savings looking for profitable investments. No Google nor Facebook billionaires made their wealth from capital investments. Therefore we can think of Karl Marx as an early obfuscator of the vital importance of inborn IQ, in the same order as Diamand and Gould. For Marx, human beings are interchangeable and only the possession of capital defines one's social position. It is the physical infrastructure, the land and the machines, that create wealth. This may have been so in a static latifundist society, but I doubt it. I have seen in Argentina how fast the penniless gauchos judios became the owners of the estancias.

Legionella Attack

A baby (pic) infected with Legionella bacteria died in the hospital after three weeks of aggressive antibiotic treatment. The Legionella is water born pathogen, and I am among the few water engineers with experience in projects related to it. This tragedy will cause panic and intensify the requirements for Legionella control. Work never ends, but my energy does end.

Histadrut Project

Today I received four work orders, I dont know what to reject. The morning I went to Tel Aviv, to the old Histadrut Building on Arlozoroff Str. (pic), and toured the underground passages under it. It has large anti-bomb refuges below, that are mostly used to house the organization's archives, which no one ever visits. Like all old Tel Aviv, it is built on a sand dune, and it is sinking and the old infrastructure is cracking. Two years ago (I think it is more recent) they made extensive improvements, but it was done badly and now they need to remake it. It is a lowly plumbing engineering job, not hi-tech nor innovative, but money is what I need. The restaurant was full of Knesset members, I took fish balls, not haute cuisine.

Social Trends

I dislike Heartiste's hedonistic philosophy, but I read with respect his social analysis, because this is a thinking man with personal field experience. He is not just speculating, he has had the courage and persistance to work the field and he has generalized his conclusions.The man is talking about men dropping out of The Game.

1. More jobs require skills/female-oriented dispositions that working class men don’t care to learn.

2. Women have priced themselves out of their dating pool of men by becoming economically independent. A woman’s instinct to mate with higher status men than herself dooms her to limited prospects if her own status has gone up relative to the men in her dating milieu.

He also says that up to 40% of the girls are clinically obese and unattractive. That is not happening in Israel and anyway, for me at his age all washed girls were attractive. But modern life seems increasingly dysfunctional, much in disharmony with our biological organism. We need patriarchy and we seem to have lost it. Heartiste thinks (wishes?) that all will crash and then start again.

Self Stimulation

Dr Mesmer was the first to discover the phenomenon of animal magnetism and since then every once in while new magnetic/electronic devices appear that pretend to sooth pain, improve appetite, depress appetite, improve memory and now to accelerate learning.

tDCS is one of the coolest pieces of health/ self improvement technology available today. The US Army and DARPA both currently use tDCS devices to train snipers and drone pilots, and have recorded 2.5x increases in learning rates. This incredible phenomenon is achieved through a very simple device called a tDCS machine.

You can buy one called the GoFlow β1 for $99. The tinfoil cap is not included.

Erdös, Turán, Sidon and Other Crazy Hungarian Jews

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Simon Sidon of the anecdote was a Hungarian Jewish mathematician (like Erdös himself and Turán). He was killed by Hungarian Fascist boys who could hardly read. In fact, Hungarian maths (Bauer Mihály, Csillag Pál, Kõnig Dénes, Sidon Simon, Szûcs Adolf) ended abruptly together with the extermination of Hungarian Jewry.

I have to comment on Turán. This mathematician had a perfectly serviceable Jewish-German name, but he changed it to a Hungarian one. No, he did not take a regular Hungarian family name like Kovács, Nagy, Kis, Fekete, Sárközy, etc. He went to the hyper-Hungarian mythological homeland of the Magyar tribes, in the Turán mountains. Turán even has strong racist and antisemitic implications. As my Father said, Hungarian Jews were crazy.

Fast Track

A bureaucrat-engineer of the Army's Home Front Command has been arrested, accused of "accelerating the approval of plans of reinforced rooms" ("mamad", Hebrew acronyms). Among the myriad signatures required for any building in Israel, the easiest was the Home Front approval of these standard bomb-resistant rooms in every apartment, office and factory. Lately, these hardened refuges were being re-styled as just another room. The event signals that (a) the Army is taking seriously the possibility of massive bombardment and "covering their ass" in view of future casualties; (b) another bureaucratic approval will become more precious than gold, so difficult will be to get it.

Purim in Tel Aviv

Greek Catharsis

The Greek debt crisis is being "solved" by exchanging Greek bonds for European bonds at 15% of their face value. The bourses of all the world are taking a breath and rising. The European financial system is absorbing its losses. Now the only obstacle to prosperity is the Iran/Hormuz crisis - the price of oil. See another class of oil: Zapatistas marching, by Orozco.

Thrown Out of the Court

Our litigation against the Water Corporation was thrown out of the court by the judge. She said that an expert witness document like I wrote is not enough, she needs statistics of how many water meters are installed in the city, how many are calibrated each year, how precise is their metering, how much the corporation is overcharging, and so on. Without solid information she is unwilling to accept the case. The information she demands can be obtained only by looking at the records of the water corporation we are sueing. We hoped she would demand that information from the Water Corporation, but instead she advised us to ask the corporation to reveal all the data through the Freedom of Information Law.

I have experience trying to extract information from the Water Authority regarding the location of a borehole (because the Ministry of Health rejected one of my applications saying that it was within "radius magen" that is the sensitive area around a well, where no "polluting" activities are allowed. I have inside friends yet the request was ignored, simply because Israeli public organizations (very wisely) keep no records, they are always under restructuration and moving people from one post to the other, and they dont have the manpower to deal with outside requests for information. In my experience, the legal department holds even letters for weeks before granting its approval, and they are extra careful to filter out the smallest piece of information that may be turned against the organization. There is no chance that the Water Corporation will supply information useful for sueing it in court.

The lawyer says that the judge is known as always standing by the State and its organizations. So all our effort was wasted. The lawyer is having something like a nervous breakdown.

Viva America!

This is a comment unworthy of me. Prof. Leon Panetta, former CIA Director and current Secretary of Defense, looks like a monkey. When I visited Michigan State U at East Lansing some 45 years ago, there were no people like him in sight. In Nazi Germany he would have been sent to Dachau if only for his looks. America today has changed and is better, and they know it!

Elbonians Everywhere

Vodka and Apple Cake

Tired, worried, exhausted, I think of other things, like that vodka and apple cake in the pic. After baking it, very little actual ethyl-vodka remains in the cake, so to achieve that unforgettable vodka experience, each piece has to be consumed with a big glass of vodka.

Reaching the End

After five years of full time water and sewage engineering practice (teaching is a hobby for me), I'm starting to receive offers of interesting projects. I was approached by the Histadrut, the Israeli Labour Federation, to consult for them. The Histadrut is not the dominant economic agent in Israel as it was thirty years ago, but it continues playing a large role. The contact may develope to something interesting. Yesterday I was received a phonecall from a farmer who is building a 500 head feedlot operation. He heard of me through the turkey farm work I did in the same area two- three years ago. The project may be the largest in Israel. Animal husbandry is an area where I have special experience and it is growing business. There is demand for meat and it is very profitable. Once, I would have taken the assignments with enthusiasm, but today I'm feeling overworked and overextended. I'm teaching 8 courses (!) this semester, and I'm unable to deal with my current workload. I'll have to cut down and it feels very bad.

Alexander Hassidim Coming to Life

The Alexander Rebbe ruled the largest Hassidus of pre-WWII Poland. When the Nazis occupied Poland, the Rebbe refused the passport to Palestine offered by the Zionists and ordered his followers to stay and voluntarily enter the ghettoes. He was gassed with his family. Not one of the dynasty survived. The Alexander Hassidim of Poland were exterminated by the Nazis almost to the last man. Seventy years after the fatal decision, a few descendants returned to Poland to pray on the tombs of their ancestors.

The remembrance of the Alexander Hassidus's fate is relevant to what is happening these days. Bibi Netaniyahu, our leader, went to Washington to ask American permission to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. A war with Iran was preferible for Israel than having a nuclear-armed Iran, he said. Obama's permission was not granted, but we may do it anyway. Zionism has taken us to a very dangerous corner, and it is legitimate to weight if it is not another of the many bad decisions our people had taken in the last two thousand years, starting with the rebellion against the tolerant and just Roman goys. As always with me, I dont know, I have no answer.

Distresss in TASE

The Israeli regulator has ordered large corporations to divest financial activities. Mutual funds are ordered to hold only supersafe AA+ papers and are forbidden to own the 5 largest corporation papers. The government is dead afraid that the value of the public's savings should go down and they lose the elections. The outcome: mutual and retirement funds are forced to sell everything they have on the TASE and have to diversify into more "safe" assets like T bills. The bourse is sinking like the Titanic.

Citizen Water Scientists

U.S. EPA is very innovative. Now it has launched a community activist program (like those led by Barak Obama in Chicago) and calls it "citizen science" research. "Citizen science" is not science in the academic sense but a form of research that enlists the public in collecting environmental data. Projects receiving funding through the citizen science grants will be expected to promote a comprehensive understanding of local pollution problems and identify and support activities that address them at the local level. Proposed projects must also consider environmental justice and should engage, educate and empower African Americans.

The Invaders

Gemma Strofford (pic), the British swimming champion who is built like a refrigerator, is an alien. Aliens passing for humans can be easily identified by their unbendable little fingers. I learned that secret from architect David Vincent of The Invaders, a TV series of my youth.

The Invaders. Alien beings from a dying planet. Their destination: the earth. Their purpose: to make it their world. David Vincent knows that the Invaders are here, that they have taken human form. Somehow he must convince a disbelieving world that the nightmare has already begun . . .”

I always look at little fingers to see if I am facing a real human or an invader.

Kopfschmerzen

"Not tonight, darling" in German is called Kopfschmerz (headache). Among Germans (not pic) this condition is perfectly legitimate since it has been proved that it is caused by Wetterumschwung, "change in weather." Deutsche Welle reports that Wetterschwung is a well known cause of many kinds of ache or pain. In Germany, a sudden sunny streak or rain shower completely dislocates any bedtime projects and can even be very dangerous for the health.

Elbonia

"Dilbert" comic strip features the exotic country of the Elbonians. Elbonia, it turns out, is not a made-up country. Idi Amin is Elbonia's fashion dictator and they actually wear those hats.

Female Leaders

Angela Merkel is the prototype of a successful and durable female leader. Yet having a female leader does not mean that feminism has triumphed because her cabinet is 100% male. Like our Gold Meir. I suggest these mutant females should adopt the pharaonic habit of using a fake beard.

A Zionist Appraisal of Charles Murray's Coming Apart

American sociologist Charles Murray discovered that American middle class is disappearing and sinking into alienated lumpen. This new class forms no stable families, possesses no real estate nor savings, is semi-analphabet and politically passive. Culture, family, decency are being found mostly among the new high class.

As a Zionist, one asks "and what about American Jews?" They are by wide and large, middle class. The book does not deal with them (trying to avoid being sucked into America's violent racial debate) but one can surmise that the Jewish middle class tends to disappear even faster than native American middle class. A few will form part of the new high caste, that is, Jews will form a significant portion of the new high caste, but the majority of Jews will find themselves drawn into the Great American Sink of lumpenization (or is it lumpenification?).

American Jews are, if Murray is right, losing their social position. Even without the push of antisemitism, their lifestyle is being dislocated and they are being expulsed from economic niches they tended to occupy. Curcumstances are maturing and making ready these declassé Jews that are sinking into the great mass of American lumpen, to consider seriously the idea of leaving for Israel.

I have some relatives and friends in America who are much distressed by the ways of their sons and daughters, and they very fervently desire their children NOT to turn out like the American natives among them they are living. Some of them are sending them to vacations in Israel or are trying to integrate them into the reform synagogues they never visited.

If the dislocation described by Murray deepens, these people will try to find escape among decent, middle class environment and will not find it in America. Declassé Jews will not be able to find a decent social environment in the high class because they lack the professional cachet and have no capital. Will they come to Israel?

Some will, sure. But others will go to other countries of opportunity. Which countries are competing with Israel in attracting American middle class Jews? We have the Anglosaxon countries yet untouched by American decay: Australia, New Zealand, Canada; we have European countries like Germany, interested in receiving productive immigrants. And we have the new America: China. China is very friendly towards Jewish immigrants and offers excellent economic opportunities.

What should Israel do to direct the coming American Jewish emigration towards Israel? First, Hebrew and Jewish culture must be spread among American Jews; second, English should become a working language in Israel. This is being done: However amazing, our Central Banker is a Rhodesian Jew who found a good environment in Israel without much Hebrew, and we have many professors that function in English alone.

We cannot offer the same opportunities than other countries, like China or Germany. We could try to establish tacit agreements that those countries would make difficult for American Jews to move there, but that is difficult because - should America stupid enough to harass its Jews - everybody would be happy to have the Hollywood movie industry, the Silicon Valley computer industry and Wall Street financial industry move into their countries.

May be American social decay described by Charles Murray will take a crisis point, and instead of a prolongued process of emigration (like that of Argentine or South African Jewry), a rapid evacuation may be possible, like the transfer of Iraqi Jewry in 1950, or the Ethiopian community in 2000. Regarding Argentine Jewry, I think Israel lost the opportunity to pack the whole community into Hercules planes and bring them in mass to Israel in 1973, when the antisemite military dictatorship would have welcomed such action.

My point is that America is undergoing dramatic social changes: its middle class that is to say the Jews, are losing their positions. Zionism is more relevant than ever for American Jews. See you in Kever Benjamin City.

Can One Get Pregnant In The Water?

I have succesfully orientated my third daughter towards a sports B.Ed. at the Wingate Institute, which she likes, and got her a job in a swimming school and as lifeguard. Now I am trying to develope her career. I have published two promotional articles on swimming under her name and am looking for a suitable pool to rent next summer and start her own swimming course for children. I am vicariously living through her, which is as it should be. I for one enjoy it.

My first article was about teaching children to swim, explaining that drawning was the number two cause of children death (the first are road accidents), and how their lives could have been spared by a few swimming classes. My second article was about shaving in competion swimming, which is highly regulated in the USA (to avoid entering swimming pools with small bleeding cuts) but in Israel no one pays any attention to the issue. Moreover, I applied my fluid mechanics expertise to examine if the aerodynamicaly distributed hairs such as those on the human body increase velocity (by arranging the flow in a linear profile) or cause turbulent flow and decrease velocity.

I am maturing a third article in my own name featuring my open ocean lifeguard wisdom acquired during my summers in Monte Hermoso (a Patagonian beach on the cold Atlantic Ocean), in Mar del Plata and my last two glorious summers ruling the exclusive Punta del Este beaches of Uruguay. It was there that I used to be approached by mini-bikinied girls asking the title question. My prepared answer was: "Yes, of course you can get pregnant in the water!" If the girl was worth it, I went into a learned explanation that seawater is a weak spermicide but a tight fit will avoid its intrusion into her relevant anatomy. But more than sex, I was interested in exploiting the girls as a source of food and I used to ask them to bring me sandwiches to the beach, as I could not leave it unguarded. I remember those lettuce and mayonnaise sandwiches as it was today; the girls I have long forgotten.

Israel's Self-Destructive Urge

TASE is dying and stock prices are agonizing. Israel Corporation, Discount and all other large corporations have lost 50% of their values in the last three months. The disaster is causing me much damage and I am distressed because what is happening in the bourse goes against my instincts of what the bourse should be doing.

After three months I am starting to see more clearly what is happening. It isnot hat foreign funds have confused Israel with Syria and retired their funds. They are less myopic than I presume. It is us. Last summer's middle class protest against the price of cottage cheese (!) and Pesek Zman candy (!), thanks to the incitation campaign led by HaAretz against the wealthy, has cowed the government and it is acting forcefully against "capitalist swines" (sic in Hebrew). Firstly they ordered our Potash mining Company KIL to "save the Dead Sea", meaning to restore that geographical concept into some ideal pristine state. I cant say that it is a "green" environmental demand since what the "Greens" want is to restore the original deadness of the Dead Sea, to reconvert into a lifeless body of salty water. By the way, Minister Landau has been accusing the Greens of irresponsibly killing the Ashdod Termoelectric Station Project in order "to save" some coastal sand dunes and causing a severe electricity deficit in the country.

The venomous campaign against the wealthy has succeeded to the point that most corporations in Israel are unable to pay their debts (Tshuva Group reached an arrangement with its bondholders to pay back about half) and now they are being ordered to divest their holdings. That is, a bank or financial entity is forbidden to have any relation with a "real" company producing material goods. I had no time to think out the logic of this new law, but it goes against what is happening all over the world. The trend is toward large mixed corporations with partly State ownership, because only these large conglomerates are able to compete in the global marketplace and carry out large projects. To break them up makes little sense to me, and even more because we are talking about conglomerates that are large only at the Israeli scale, they are veritable midgets out there. Anyway, Israel Corporation has lost 50% of its worth and even Nochi Dankner's wonderful corporation has been ordered to sell its banking or manufacturing assets (and its price is down).

Endless Work

A supermarket project in Givatayim blew up because the contractor discovered hidden pipes in the floor. Soon I provided a solution with a pump. The Client phoned, angry, why I changed the plan after the project had been budgeted. I said I had been hurried into planning without proper architectural plans with precise level measurements with laser. I'm learning to work more methodically, not like the "happer" I used to be.

Fast on the Take

Is the new generation slower than its ancestors? A study proves that and explains that what it is being measured is purified IQ extract and that the decay is caused by environmental neurotoxins.

I was convinced that fast-moving TV series and computer games have refined young people's ability to react faster than old folks like myself, raised on slow monopoly table games or the boring movies of the thirties. Now it appears that Victorians were much faster on the uptake than modern folk!

Yet there may be something in it. In my youth, typists prided themselves in typing 60 words a minute or more and it was marvelous to see their dexterity. I have not seen that in contemporary offices, it takes a lifetime to get them type a letter. I used to type faster than any typist in Tahal, which was an ability I was much interested in hiding, as bosses tended to ask me to help them when they were in a hurry. Which was always.

The illustration is a metal ring puzzle that were very popular in my barrio. Those complicated wire puzzles were devised in Devoto, the neighborhood jail, where time was illimited and materials scarce. I havent seen one in ages.

The Water Meter Litigation is Coming to a Close

This morning the lawyer is submitting our response to the Water Company's defense. In my expert witness document I am losing all restraints and calling the other expert a lying lackey of the Arad - Dalia water meter company, a man unfit to be called an Israeli water engineer, who has sold his professional integrity for money. I compare the things he writes with the documents he wrote for other clients, and find hundreds of contradictions. The lawyer helped me to find contradictions in his defense paper and prepared a comparative table of what he says here and what he says in other documents. The laywer is very optimistic, he says that judge had just awarded 75,000 shekels to the lawyer sueing the Carmel Water Company, for his expenses. I think we are in a sacred mission of forcing these monopolies to be sensitive to the public and to bill according to the volume of water actually deliver. Lets hope for the best. Pic.: Arad-Dalia's Model M (blue) and above Model F (black plastic). The defense says that Model F is the one installed all over Jerusalem. If you have visited Jerusalem, please comment if you have ever seen that black HDPE plastic monster meter. I have never seen one.