Judge Dee Doling Justice in the Epidemic Ravaged Capital

I am reading a topical gong'an novel by Robert van Gulik, set in the Tang Dynasty. The Emperor and his court had abandoned the capital for fear of the epidemic, leaving Judge Dee as supreme authority of the diseased city. As usual, mysterious assassinations occupy Judge Dee's mind, while directing the washing out of the rat-infested sewers and repressing with deadly barbed iron arrows the famished populace assaulting the City Granary. Over this background, three decadent clans are entangled in fierce rivalry over Porphyry, a "virgin" prostitute. In the strictly policed Imperial China, carrying firearms and cutting weapons is prohibited, girls carry hidden iron balls on chains, 流星錘 , which they use with mortal effect. I have not finished yet, so cannot reveal who is the assassin and its motive. I am looking forward to learn the refined torture methods applied by Judge Dee to the suspects. 

P.S.: Happy End. All the rich people involved and their wives have been decapitated by Judge Dee and their fortunes divided between the Tribunal, the Judge and his faithful assistants. The rain washed off the capital's dirt, the epidemic disappeared and the survivors returned to their former business. 

How is that no one is destroying statues in Israel?

This destructive question is discussed in a full page by the fishwrap HaAretz and offers an illustrated list of candidates that, according to the left, should be eliminated from Israeli history books and streets. Who are they?  "Gandhi", for example, an Iraqi Jewish patriot, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Yair Stern, the  founder of the Irgun, the forerunner of the Likud party now in power, who was shot in cold blood by the British Colonial Police. (left: 1000 pounds prize offered for his head). And other patriots like them. HaAretz anti-Jewish paper would love to provoke fire and chaos like the Blacks are causing in America. Apparently they imagine that a civil war in Israel would result in their benefit. 

If you google Yair Shtern, you will be surprised to be shown many Black women with flowers.  

Epidemic in the United States

40 526 new cases today in America, according to the WHO. The stress on the society's fabric must be enormous. Hope the American society is robust enough to survive without lasting damage. Anatoly Karlin thinks that  the US is now destroying itself on account of some crazed leftists exploiting invented minority grievances, and the likely election of Biden – who is less economically progressive than even HRC in 2016 – promises renewed infighting between the neoliberal/centrist Dem elites and socialist insurgents, as conservatives skunk away to the corner. The chaos isn’t going to end any time soon. Not good.

Steven Hsu Recants

I am disappointed with Prof. Hsu's reaction vis-a-vis his accusers. He writes in his blog:

The trouble began June 10, when MSU’s Graduate Employees Union composed a lengthy Twitter thread denouncing Mr. Hsu as, among other things, “a vocal scientific racist and eugenicist.” The union claimed Mr. Hsu believes “in innate biological differences between human populations, especially regarding intelligence.”

Hsu's reaction:

[ THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A VERY SERIOUS ACCUSATION. IT IS CONTRADICTED BY PUBLIC REMARKS I HAVE MADE IN MULTIPLE INTERVIEWS OVER THE YEARS, AS WELL AS IN BLOG POSTS. ]

and so and so. Having followed Hsu for decades, it is obvious that he knows (and he may be among the best informed) about IQ differences among populations. Why is he denying the obvious? Moreover when he is right and he knows it. 

He is a rich man and could afford losing his position of tenured professor. What is to be afraid of? He could have counterattacked and accuse the Graduate Employees Union to be after his job or for substituting him by a corrupt/corruptible/flexible administrator that would fear and favor the accusers. 

I know, it is easy for me to speak when I am not in his shoes. Pic.: Galileo recanting at the Inquisition. He did not want to be an Heretic and burned. It is vexing that this is happening today and in an American university. 

El Negro: A Stuffed African exhibited in European Museums

The story of El Negro begins with Jules Verreaux, a French dealer in "naturalia", who in 1831 explored the African interior. With the help of metal wire acting as a spine, wooden boards as shoulder blades, and stuffed with newspapers, Verreaux prepared and preserved the body of the warrior. Then he shipped him to Paris, along with a batch of stuffed animals in crates. In 1831 the African's body appeared in a showroom at No 3, Rue Saint Fiacre.

In a review, the newspaper Le Constitutionnel praised the fearlessness of Jules Verreaux, who must have faced dangers "amid natives who are as wild as they are black". This article set the tone, and the "individual of the Bechuana people" attracted more attention than the giraffes, hyenas or ostriches. "He is small in posture, black-skinned, and his head is covered in woolly frizzy hair," the newspaper said.

More than half a century later, El Negro popped up in Spain. In the world exhibition in Barcelona in 1888, the Spanish vet Francisco Darder presented him in a catalogue as "El Betchuanas", complete with a drawing in which he is seen wearing raffia finery and holding a spear and a shield. Only recently was recognized that he is a real human being and was returned to his homeland. 

The Hungarian Houses in Jerusalem

Batey Ungarin is small neighborhood in Jerusalem, peopled by religious Jews that settled here a century ago. Mostly, they live from donations of rich American Jews. The apartments are very small. When I arrived in Israel went to visit my uncle Moishi Abelesz and was surprised by the modesty of his place. He let me see old pictures of the family in pre-WWII Hungary, my grandparents and uncles. Very friendly. But I was then inflated with myself, having made a lot of money in Nigeria. I felt uneasy with Jewish poverty. I should have asked for a room then and there, and a schidduch. But I did not and the past cannot be changed.  

The Black Prophet Frantz Fanon

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara sailed from Mexico on the Gramma to liberate Cuba while I was in high school. Fanon, a Caribbean Black intellectual, was the prophet of decolonization. His books were sold on the streets and discussed in leftist youth circles. As a practicing psychiatrist Fanon explained the need for violence and chaos in the de-colonization process, that only violence can destroy the colonized's mental pain and recreate a new, free man. He fought in Algeria against the French. which was one of the last anticolonial, anti-European rebellions.

His ideas made a lasting impression but he is never mentioned today. In our days promoting violence is taboo and would be censured everywhere. Yet his idea that for a humiliated, colonized subject the only way to psychologically liberate himself is through violence, makes some sense. By fighting he becomes a man and recovers his self respect. It may seem incredible today, when teaching in an university in the occupied territories am totally considered a colonizer, that in those times, the sixties, I had been a Galut Jewish youth, a refugee (a real one) living in a hostile society, I saw myself belonging to an oppressed minority and Fanon's books spoke to me. When somebody wrote on the college's wall "Haga patria, mate a un judio" (Be a patriot, kill a Jew) - well, I felt that Fanon was right. That was then, today I am a free man. 

Singapore Sides with America

America is in a non-violent war with China, a situation that is forcing every country to take parts. Israel rejected the offer of a Chinese company for its water infrastructure project, and it will also in the coming urban train project. Australia has confirmed its American alliance. Now Singapore has rejected Chinese offer in its 5G telecommunication infrastructure, buying European technology. For all the disorder in America, its alliances are holding. 

Hauma - The Arian Elixir

The old Arian heroes all drugged themselves with soma, which is equivalent to the Persian hauma. What is this thing? It is the ephedra plant pressed and the liquid drank. Old Zoroastrians of the city of Yazd (Iran) consumed ephedra, which was locally known as hum or homa and which they exported to fellow Indian Zoroastrians.  Yazd is a remote desert city on the Iranian plateau with a large Jewish-Yazdi community, which moved to Israel. Former president of Israel Moshe Katsav is a Yazdi Jew. 

Many species belonging to the genus Ephedra have traditionally been used for a variety of medicinal purposes. It has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for more than 2,000 years. Native Americans and Mormon pioneers drank a tea brewed from other Ephedra species, called "Mormon tea" and "Indian tea".

What does ephedra?  It contains ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, which are stimulants.These compounds stimulate the brain, increase heart rate, constrict blood vessels (increasing blood pressure), and expand bronchial tubes (making breathing easier). It is effective to lose weight, but the side effects are bad - it certainly causes dizziness and insomnia. In my times in Argentina, it was sold over the counter for astma, and we students used to improve exam results. 

Andrew Skitt Gilmour: The CIA re-thinks the Middle East

The CIA has published a book by A.Skitt Gilmour about the re-organization of the Middle East based on its ancient history. Basically, he explores the ways of creating workable political frameworks instead the fragmented chaos of today. The interesting parts are the analysis of religion - something foreign to the secular West today - and analysis of the Greek experience. How, for example, several rural villages succeeded in unite into the State of Athens, or how  thousands of Greek pirates encamped on Troy's beach succeeded in solving their differences. The Athenians, like today’s Arabs, also faced the daunting task of forging a social compact on more than just dominant family groups.

"The Athenian solution—conceived and executed by the Athenian archon (ruler) Cleisthenes in the late sixth century BCE—was equivalent to an ambitious redistricting program that created ten new tribes, each of which drew members from the city of Athens, coastal areas, and the rural interior. Politics was no longer tied to dominant local families from one geographic region. Instead,  newly diverse tribes had to forge a common set of interests when each new tribe’s constituent members were drawn from different regions. The unifying political idea of Athenian citizenship emerged from the creation of inclusive political institutions that transcended narrow allegiances."

The Weekly Section: The Spies

This week we read about the twelve meraglim (spies) sent out by Moshe to learn about the Promised Land and plan the military conquest. Ten of them returned with frightening reports: the land was densely peopled by ferocious giants linked by strongly armed military alliances, there was no way we could defeat them and take over the land. But two of the spies reported that it was a land of milk and honey and God is with us and shall certainly overcome.

After forty years of wandering in the desert and training for the invasion, there was no turning back. Moses punished the cowardly saboteurs and gave the order to Bibi Netaniyahu: Be strong and brave! Go! Go! Go!

Steven Hsu, Sacked from Michigan State University

Prof. Steven Hsu, wrote today in his blog: Resignation. "President Stanley asked me this afternoon for my resignation. I do not agree with his decision, as serious issues of Academic Freedom and Freedom of Inquiry are at stake. I fear for the reputation of Michigan State University.

However, as I serve at the pleasure of the President, I have agreed to resign. I look forward to rejoining the ranks of the faculty here."

I am shocked. I have been aware of Steven since he wrote the first list of human differences, some 30 years ago. He collected information and never added a personal comment. Apparently, noticing reality is enough to spoil a brilliant career in America today. But all the fury against reality is pointless, Kings can flog with chains the sea for bad weather and can rebel against God and it makes no difference. 

(I wonder what is the cause of this persecution? Has been America intimidated by Black aggressiveness? Is it fear of the Blacks? Is it fear of sinning by allowing bad thoughts? Are they purging themselves from bad elements? Bad being the natural dislike of the different like xenophobia?  I dont know. Since it is not relevant for me here in Kfar Saba, where there are no Blacks, the whole thing is theoretical for me and I shall stop wondering. For a while.)

On the other hand, I always have another hand, googling what may have happened to Steven, it drew my attention the fact that he is working with the Chinese government in genetics, and promoting IQ melioration that is eugenics. That is a serious issue. No, it is very serious issue. These days in America they are sacking people for working with the Chinese Communist Government, so his sacking - from that angle - may be understandable. America is actually at war with China. If that is the hidden reason, and not racism, then there is logic in his sacking.

On yet another hand (the third one!), it was a petition by the students union and the non-STEM faculty that moved Stanley to sack him. It was Hsu's reputation that made him in and not something palpable or defensible. 

Lies sell

I was wondering why the American media is persistently picking up untrue stories and aggravating existing grievances. The National Emergency of Flint water poisoning was caused entirely by a press campaign based on a falsity. Flint's water supply was managed by the female Black major and his incompetent African team, yet the supposed poisoning was blamed on racism. And the blame has stuck. George Floyd's choking by police violence, a story that caused the burning down of much of American best real estate, was totally fake, there had been no police violence and the criminal died of drug overdose. The fentanyl level in his blood was not visible but the police hold-down of the resisting giant was professional and unable to harm the "victim". The police officer, now facing murder charges, was aware of being filmed and yet not alarmed - he was proud of his technique. Yet, the false accusation was picked up by the press and believed by everybody. The media sniffs blood, emotion, fight, and uses it to sell paper. Its role is consistently evil and destructive. I am not the first to notice it. 

Astounding Stories of Super Science: The Ape-Men of Xlotli

IN another second the flood of ape-men had burst in all its fury over him. Crashing, thundering shots were dinning in his ears, animal death screams and the Valkyrie battle cries of the girls filled the temple. He could not tell how many of the apes were fighting him. As a cave-man’s club whizzed past his head, he drove his knife once, and yanked it dripping from hairy, yielding flesh to plunge it again. A sudden side-step carried him away from another assailant. He dropped the knife to snatch the gigantic club of one of the creatures he had killed.

....

Kirby was left with the memory of Naida’s great eyes fixed upon his, fear-filled, beseeching his protection. In a second, the ponderous trapdoor crashed into place, and she was gone.

Prophetic sci-fiction from the 1930's.

Rabbi Baruch Gazahi's teachings

Rabbi Baruch Gazahi, a member of the Knesset by the Sepharadi Party, explains the consequences of immodesty in Jewish women. .

"A woman who was used to revealing her upper parts usually is reincarnated as a cow, whose upper parts are exposed."

"That is why women have to be covered up there. This is one of the reasons women suffer from breast cancer, because everyone looks at them and it causes the evil eye."

Every day I am learning something. 

Shkeddy and the Sabtah Inna Bonding

The White Couple controversy

Google "White Couple" and you get a multitude of pictures - but none of a standard straight European man + woman couple. Among the pic I found this one the most atypical.

Google also presented an explanation (because this abnormality has called the attention of many googlers) and they say it is their word based AI that gets confused.

No one believes it. Of course it is a lie. AI can distinguish between black and white. Why they do this? because they fear the mere accusation of racism however fantastic it may be. They know their public and they think that they are savage, stupid, paranoid lunatics. Google managers will go to incredible extent to conform to what they perceive as social norms to be allowed to run their business.

BTW, Winston Churchill has become a non-person on googledom. Google explains: 

Churchill has become engulfed in controversy after a Black Lives Matter protest in central London last weekend led to his statue being defaced with the word "racist".

The vandalism was widely condemned but Churchill critics also argue he was consistently bigoted and discriminatory to non-whites during his lengthy political career, with his policies leading to the death of millions during famine in India in 1943.

They are closing Beijing

The butchery section of the large Beijing market Tzi Fa Si is the new focus of the coronavirus. The reaction is energetic - immediate closure. Also the access to the capital is being secured. I have been several times in Beijing but never visited the market. On the other hand, the Party made a voltaface regarding street hawking. In my time there were tolerated night markets, but now it is free day and night.

For a time, they stopped building a centrally planned socialist society. I think China is reverting to the Ming times as described by van Gulik. BTW, ordered more Judge Dee mysteries. 

Criminalizing Sex

From July it will be punishable (2000 shekel) to have paid sex in Israel. 

Twenty years ago, Sweden became the first country to make it illegal to pay for sex, but not to be a prostitute (the client commits a crime, but not the prostitute). Similar laws were passed in Norway and in Iceland. In  2014, the European Parliament voted in favor of the 'Swedish Model'.

It is crazy. Everyone knows that prostitutes protect the social order and married women from violence. Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian writer described in "Pantaleon y las visitadoras"  the story of an officer tasked with organizing regular sexual services to the forces stationed in the Amazonas, to reduce the violation rate. Prostitution generates 11 percent of Thailand's GNP. It is a vital source of revenue. 

Paradoxically, the most vocal of the opponents of the law in Israel is the trans guild, as it would take away their rice bowl, to use a Chinese metaphor, and criminalize their work. The Swedes have probably worked out a solution to that problem. 

The Amazing Wealth Transfer

Have you noticed the peculiar fact that despite the lockdown, the economic crisis, tens of millions unemployed and multiple corporations filing for bankruptcy, Wall Street is having a ball? CNBC‘s Jim Cramer examined this anomaly earlier a few days ago, his verdict: “we’re looking at a V-shaped recovery in the stock market, and that has almost nothing to do with a V-shaped recovery in the economy. What is going on is one of the greatest wealth transfers in history.” Jim Cramer is the only one telling it as it is.

Fortunately, I am on the side where the wealth is being transferred to. So I believe, but it may be an illusion. No one really wins when the global economy sinks. 

The Zionist Dream is Materializing

The most improbable, impossible dream of the Zionist Movement was American Jews making Aliyah. In the Goldene Medine dollars grew on the trees, Jews were free and every opportunity was open for them. And they enjoyed the highest living standard. No one believed that they will leave that paradise for this stony desert in permanent conflict. Yet this month some 1000 families filled the forms to make aliyah. It appears that America is no more what it used to be, and the Jews are starting to leave. Coming home. In the pic: A family of seven, just arrived. 

Grease Separator Calculation

The Water Authorities have been demanding calculation of FOG separators and rejecting all calculations. I discovered the European method of NS and copied it and inserted my figures but without really understanding it. Now I took a minute to learn what it is about, and learnt that NS is the throughput in liters per second. This method is valid for surface runoff, and a 2100 Romold fuel separator's NS is 6 lt/sec.

But kitchen flows are much lower in the order of 0.1 lt/sec. So the NR calculation is not valid for food industry - or is it? - , but they have been accepting my calculations. Apparently no one in the Water Authority+Ministry of Environment +Ministry of Health knows how the calculation is done. My dilemma, now, consists in how to keep them satisfied in a situation where the regulators have not the vaguest idea of the method. I'll continue with the successful pretending of how to calculate separator volume according to the desired system. I certainly shall not try to explain or teach them. That is one of the disadvantages of being too clever. 

A good baby, Ella

The Jews Are Coming

Left: portraits of four Israeli startups that are vacuuming NASDAQ and taking home billions. I find nothing special in their looks, but they are miracle workers. There is a tremendous demand for Israeli technological startups in the world. 

Wall Street reaction to Black Riots

Wall Street says: Me, worry? Blacks are doing what they always do. The market is flooded with liquidity. All the indices are rising. Mister Hoover says this is the time to buy.

Zoominfo, the Israeli company my daughter is working for, raised one billion dollars on the NASDAQ. 

The Ministry of Truth

Orwell, in 1984, imagined a Ministry of Truth controlling the papers of the day and rewriting the past. What is happening now is worse, the media is fanatically distorting reality and presenting a view - a narrative - that is fake to the bone. The recent riots in America could easily cause a race war, so the media is trying to hide the destruction and showing peaceful Blacks, all to avoid any reaction by the White majority. No politicians or leaders, no important institution is coming out openly against this pogrom and senseless destruction, which is a very bad sign of how terrified they are. In fact, the riot is done with no resistance by the police or the armed forces, instead with direct encouragement by the authorities.  The media and the establishment has adopted the slogans of the rioters: Black lives matter. That is something to wonder. 

Anything I google, smiling Black doctors and laughing mulatto girls come up on the screen, as if we were in some  imaginary Wakanda. Frightening how the media is trying to make people forget Black looting and manipulate people.  Pic.:

Space scientist, Maggie Aderin-Pocock sets the co-ordinates for the distant future

Back on the tracks

After two weeks of little doing and low productivity, finally I completed the Natania "Four Seasons Beach" project and dispatched it. Now I am starting the Mashani project. My right foot is aching - I self diagnosed sciatica and recommended rest.

I do not know why I am working so hard. I hate social occasions, and hate sports, have no TV and never go to the movies. I cannot take my eyes from the girls but, should I catch one, what would I do with her? I follow the TASE pondering how to invest my handful of sheqalim, but I cannot understand how Central Banks pumping money is not causing inflation. The multiple stimulus of low energy prices and excess liquidity is just maintaining the real economy afloat, ergo we must be in deep depression. Now what?

Misinterpration of the American Riots

I have yet to seen a correct interpretarion of the current riots and looting in American cities. It is not against police (which society can survive without police?) and not against the rich, and certainly the poor are not famished and are looting bread. It is simply a standard communal strife, the same kind that occurs in India among Hindu and Muslim communities, and anywhere where two communities live en close contact. The solution is like India: total separation. Or Israel: a tall concrete wall. The South African solution, "separation" (apartheid), failed because the dominant side lost its self- confidence. That is happening in America too: The Government has lost faith in its moral right and has ceded the power to the "other" community - without ever achieving peace. Pic Manhattan today. 

Second Wave of the Corona

Israel has loosened all retrictions and now is on the verge of a second wave that will lead to a widespread outbreak of the coronavirus. "The hospitals have difficult cases the likes of which we haven’t seen in two months."  51 schools have been shut down (mostly in Jerusalem) after 261 cases of coronavirus infection were discovered among their students and teaching staff. About 8,000 teachers and students are in isolation. The Ministry of Health reported that 32 Israelis had been diagnosed with coronavirus in the last 24 hours and the total number of cases was 2,103. Of the active cases, 27 are in serious condition and 25 are on respirators.

Now I am worried. Look at the graph - 8 to 10% death rate at my age. My leg is aching and I think it is the sciatic nerve. My big daughter has problems with her husband and we are helping with the girls. I am not working hard.  

Mongol immigration to Israel

Yesterday we went to the supermarket (after two months) and observed a tall mongol middle-aged man and a big eskimo woman cleaning the floors. Asked about them and the Arab employee told me that they speak only Russian and are freshly arrived immigrants. To provoke, I asked: Are they Jews? She grimaced. I assume they are from BiroBidjan and their grandmother was Jewish. Welcome. We are expecting 40-50,000 new immigrants in 2020, many from the former SSSR, France and the USA (the Jewish community has been hit hard and frightened by the corona). These are large numbers for this small country. 

TASE - Up or down?

We have 25% unemployed, whole branches crashing (airlines, gas, turism, etc.) yet the bourse is rising. Energy prices are supercheap all over the world, and that should mean prosperity. Central banks are buying industrial loans and bonds, flooding private sectors with liquidity. I am not investing in the last month and missing profits. I dont know what to do.

Yesterday I ate about 150 gr roquefort style soft blue cheese with black bread and red wine. I had been feeling tired and dispirited. At night  it was burning my insides so bad that I thought that the green fungus had poisoned me. Yet in the morning felt well. I am too old for excess. 

Towards the Abolition of Biological Race

I thought that the right direction was to personalize medicine, to taylor treatment to the biological group and then to the individual. But justice (as above) demands to treat all as a homogeneous mass.

Obsession

On the refugee front, I spent an entire chapter of my dissertation trying to understand why Black folks in the US don’t qualify for asylum elsewhere, and the answer is, as usual, racism.

(Did she try Nigeria?)

De-Globalization

The West has learned that globalization was good in the short term but it is harming it in the long term.  Globalization, tht is the opening up of national markets, a constant drive of imperial powers since England tried to achieve free commerce with Spain's American colonies, is now reversing. It happens that China is producing better and cheaper manufactures and the West cannot compete. Just as Manchester's mechanized textile industry (pic) destroyed India's home manufacture, China has now destroyed much of America and Europe's local industries. Huawei is so advanced that threatens to destroy America's communication industry.
My impression from the latest annual meeting of the CCP is that they understand the situation and the violent rage it produces in the West. Since they do not want war, China will focus from now in developing its internal market.

De-globalization means higher prices and inflation. The only refuge is the stock market.