Looking to the sky

It is official: We are expecting Iranian rockets in the next hour. That was half an hour ago. 

Deported to Bangui, CAR

The USA is deporting illegal immigrants to African countries. Among those deported Thursday to Bangui were people from Iran, Jordan, Armenia, Turkey, Georgia, and Afghanistan.

Pic from "What to do in Bangui".

On Musk's juggernaut

Paul Krugman, a sagacious observer, came out against Elon Musk's "juggernaut". He has arguments. 

 "The immense human Ponzi scheme that is Elon Musk will eventually collapse. But traditional Ponzi schemes only exploit investors who choose to participate. This time much of the money propping up Musk’s scam will come from ordinary Americans who have in effect been forced to buy in. Approximately 52% of mutual fund assets are now invested in index or index-based funds, and over 50% of American households are invested in mutual funds. Thanks to the collusion between Musk and Wall Street, enabled by the perception that the Trump administration has Musk’s back, many if not most of these small investors will be dragged, willy-nilly, into fueling the Musk juggernaut."

BTW,   Juggernaut is the rendering in English of Jagannath, a deity in the Hindu tradition. The first European description of this festival is found in a thirteenth-century account by the Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone, who describes Hindus offering themselves in a religious sacrifice, jumping under the wheels of these huge chariots, and being crushed to death. Pic: A Jaganath cart in the Ulsoor temple complex in Bangalore, India, around 1870.

Answer quickly

 When determining whom to hire, employers care about how quickly they receive replies from the job seekers and service providers they contact. Across transaction data from a large real-world marketplace (N = ∼11.66 million) and experiments (three main studies (total n = 3,603) and five supplemental studies (total n = 5,039)), we show that providers benefit from responding to employers’ messages quickly. First, we document substantial real-world consequences of reply speed in Fiverr marketplace transaction data (Study 1), finding a strong negative relationship between the length of delay in replying to a service request and the likelihood of securing a contract. Even delays of just 5–10 minutes dramatically reduce providers’ likelihood of being hired.

Gulf Countries in War

The German press notes the disappointment of the Gulf countries, which suffered heavy losses in the war. The Europeans are deeply resentful of America. Always were. 

Satellite image of a Saudi oil facility in Abqaiq damaged by an Iranian attack on April 8. “Although our governments publicly condemned the war, the Gulf was attacked with around 7,000 missiles and drones.” (Photo: European Union / Copernicus Sentinel-2 / REUTERS)

Live long and Prosper

 For an 80-year-old in Israel today, the remaining life expectancy from the latest mortality tables is about 9.2 years for men and 10.4 years for women - so the average 80-year-old man reaches roughly 89, and a woman about 90. Put another way, total life expectancy at age 80 in Israel is about 89.9 years, well above the figure calculated from birth, precisely because you've already survived all the earlier mortality risks.

Rising Power

Russia, China, and North Korea leaders are meeting in Peking. These are disciplined people, the wives standing firm in the background.  Impressive. North Korea is selling weapons and prospering.