El Varon de Rabinal

Pic.: A Maya carved jade plaque from Nebaj in Guatemala depicts a Maya king with a headdress sitting on a throne and paying attention to a little person to the left of the scene, who is shown with crossed arms, the sign of greeting and respect. The plaque dates from the Late Classic period, c. CE 600-800.

I am reading Rabinal Achi, a song and dance drama about a historical feud between the Rabinal and the Qiche peoples.  El Varon de Quiche destroys Rabinal villages and tries to kidnap their children. After being caught by the Varon of Rabinal, he is judged, asks for a drink and a woman, and then submits to be sacrificed. Justice is done and the conflict is solved. Amazingly for a pre-modern story, it is totally secular, and no god or spirit is mentioned. 

British Facts

 As an example of the ridiculous factors behind these misleading Western GDP statistics, he pointed out some of the items that the British had chosen to include in their own GDP:

A side note, I also ran across some less wholesome facts when doing research on the subject. I refer to a Financial Times report just for a laugh. In 2014, UK started to include prostitution and illegal drugs in its GDP reporting to the tune of 10 billion pounds a year. This raised the reported UK GDP by 5% in an effort to help the government raise its debt ceiling.

To derive at this number, the statistics bureau had to make some assumptions: “The ONS breakdown estimates that each of the UK’s estimated 60,879 prostitutes took about 25 clients a week in 2009, at an average rate of £67.16. It also estimates that the UK had 38,000 heroin users, while sales of the drug amounted to £754m with a street price of £37 a gram.”

Thus, Western economists have adopted a bizarre framework in which rising crime levels contribute to the official economic measure of national prosperity.

From Unz. But Unz does not understand, that GDP measures "economic activity" and crime (what crime?) is economic activity par excellence.

Havana Syndrome and How to protect oneself

The former conclusion about Havana syndrome was the assumption that the existence of an energy weapon—a device that could cause the kind of injuries Havana-syndrome victims suffered—was implausible and not supported by evidence. But the officials and victims assembled in the Situation Room considered whether this assumption was really valid. An independent panel of experts, convened by the intelligence community, had suggested that an energy weapon could use “pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range” to cause these symptoms.

I think I know how to protect myself. 

From the Atlantic. 

Sudan's Gezira Irrigation Scheme

 By NASA 1997

The recapture of the city of Wad Medani, the capital of Gezira province, came more than a year after it fell to the rebellious RSF Rapid Support Force. Wad Medani is the center of the large Gezira cotton-growing project. 

The conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes, and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine swept parts of the country. 

Apparently, the civil war is between a faction of the army and the central government. 

The Gezira (Island) irrigation scheme was developed by the British and covers 8.800 Km2 (88.000,000 hectares), which is the largest in the world.   The water naturally runs through the irrigation canals by gravity. The soil has a high clay content which keeps down losses from seepage. It should be a paradise but it is not. 

The smelt sardine is safe

 

It happened that there was no water in the hydrants and the reservoirs were empty. The Palisades' ultra-luxury homes burnt down to the subsoil. They were not insured, since no insurance company wanted to take the risk. 

Historic.

A line in the sand

 

I am re-reading this book by James Barr about British and French adventures in the Middle East. As WWI victors, they had to decide what to do with the collapsed Turkish empire, and the Sykes-Picot map was the only scheme available. Britain was interested in Mosul's recently discovered oil fields and a good port in the Mediterranean. The French got Lebanon and Syria. 

Both soon discovered that late imperialism was expensive and tried to transfer the pacification of the natives to local leadership. Which was not ready.  The British, influenced by Lawrence, tried to impose Faisal and Abdullah as kings, but they could not endure. The Hashemites in Trans-Jordan still rule, but only with British help. 

What will happen with these chaotic "countries" now? They are of little interest to current powers—except maybe Israel. With the Golan, we have enough—for now. 

The next generation may look to Sinai. If Egypt collapses, as it surely will, Sudan is the model. Egypt's population is about 15-20% Sudanese. This is my personal opinion, tendentious because of my love of Sinai. 

TEVA

Stanley Druckenmiller sold the high-profile AI stocks in Duquesne's investment portfolio, he was piling into one of Wall Street's top-performing pharmaceutical stocks of 2024: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE: TEVA). Shares of Teva are higher by 112% for the year, with Druckenmiller's fund adding 1,427,950 shares during the September-ended quarter. 

I am also buying TEVA.

Who is Druckenmiller? He received a BA in English and economics from Bowdoin College (where he opened a hot dog stand with Lawrence B. Lindsey, who later became economic policy adviser to President George W. Bush). If he could make money selling hotdogs, he must be smart.