A Chinese Mystery

 

The latest viral sensation in China is a video clip recorded by amazed citizens of Zhujiajiao, a city near Shanghai, of a cow falling from the sky in the middle of the day. To avoid panic (and leak probably secret information) the Security Apparat forbid all mention of the phenomenon. But already it was circulating on the web (pic). 

Then, a random comment in an Argentine TV show threw light on the flying cow of Zhujiajiao. Argentina procures its COVID vaccines from China, and the Aerolineas Argentinas return flight from Buenos Aires, is empty. Why not try to sell the Chinese some fresh meat and turn a fast peso? Once over Chinese territory, the pilot received a call that Argentina had passed a law forbidding meat exports; he understood that big trouble was waiting for him.  The pilot ordered the crew to immediately get rid of the cow. 

Another Chinese mystery solved. 

How is that Argentina, the land of infinite pampas, has no meat to sell? How is it that Cuba is importing sugar, Venezuela is buying oil from the Middle East, Nicaragua drinks African coffee, etc.? 

The answer in one word: Socialism. 

Memorial

 

The memorial monument/sculpture of Dani Karavan on the campus of Weizmann Institute is not bad, although the shining copper sheet needs to be cleaned and maintained frequently.  The inscriptions seem illegible, gibberish, and contain the tattooed numbers of Auschwitz inmates. It represents a Torah scroll split in half.  He died yesterday at age 90.

I dreamt that I am in Buenos Aires, and have no money for the bus. I was thinking - in the dream - that there was no need to worry, I have been in similar situations in former dreams, and I managed. Woke up not worried. 

Prime Minister Naphtali Bennet

Well, it seems inevitable. A government with Avigdor Liberman as Finance Minister and the Finance Committee controlled by Yisrael Beytenu, and six ministries headed by Labour and Meretz, will be a distinctly secular left-wing government. It will dramatically harm the Haredi community and change the status quo on issues of religion and state. 

Who is Bennet? He is, like Netanyahu, a former leader of Sayeret Matkal, Israel's elite commando unit. His parents are American. He founded the high-tech company Cyota, which specializes in online information security. The company employs some 400 workers, and in 2005 it was sold to an American company for $145 million. Bennett also served as the CEO of Soluto, which was sold for some $100 million. He lives in the neighborhood. He is bald, like me. In short, he is qualified to lead the country. 

I have to start selling stock to pay my obligations. I have about two weeks to liquidate the portfolio. Just now the political plonter is on the way to a solution and the bourse is rising... I cannot wait more and shall sell for less than I could get if I wait for more. But I cannot wait. Expletive deleted. 

Kosher Cellular Animal Husbandry

Things have evolved since my notes on extensive animal husbandry in Argentina and the Sahel. I was the first in Corrientes Province to study the profitability of cattle growing on grass and writing a paper showing that the "estancieros" were losing money. The investments in land and fixed facilities, as well as cattle, were so large that actually, they were making less than American T-bonds. I proposed planting groundnuts and soya, and Caribbean pine. I left the place in a few years and Corrientes' economy has changed. I am not saying I did it but surely helped a bit. 

Now I am witnessing a change to meat produced by in vitro cell culture of animal cells, instead of from slaughtered animals. As humanity is moving away from nature, the killing of animals is being rejected and soon it will be illegal. Cultured meat will become acceptable, which poses a question to Judaism. Is it kosher? 

According to the sages, if the original cells are taken from a kosher animal, the meat - cultured and otherwise - is kosher. The mashgichim will need to learn biology in order to stay relevant.  One may wonder what is the meaning of kosher meat: I thought it was a permitted animal slaughtered by a shohat. But what about its cell line? Is the kashrut transmitted in the genes? What is this obscurantist nonsense? I don't care: it works to keep the Jews apart from the peoples.  

Already the patties sold for barbecues in Israel have never been part of a bovine. Comment: the cheese in the hamburger above is parve, made from soybeans. 

Viejo Verde

 Joe Biden looks at a little girl in the audience, the daughter of a veteran, and says "I love those barrettes in your hair. Man I’ll tell you what, look at her she looks like she's 19 years old sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed."

In Argentina, people like Biden were called - affectionately - Viejo Verde, Green Old Man. Signaling that he was immature or possibly senile. Left: a Spanish satirical magazine from 1914, documenting that the issue is not new nor unknown. General Peron used to visit girls' schools during physical education classes. Of course, he was a dirty old fascist dictator.

Houston, we have a problem.

Dark Perspectives for Israel

 It has been announced that Bennet, from the Zionist Religious Party, is forming the government with Secular Lapid and ferociously anti-religious Liberman (representing the Russian immigrant public, hated by the religious). The next government will include the far-left Meretz and Labor. And the extreme anti-Israeli Muslim parties This will be the first time that a defeatist antireligious government rules Israel, planning to dismantle the Haredi educational network and the settlements. Very bad. Hope they cannot hold it together and will fall soon and Netanyahu will come back to save the nation. 

The Land of the Windswept Bonsai

 

I am not here but inside the Inugami-ke no Ichizoku mystery, pondering the murders in the Inugami clan (a name meaning Dog God), solved by detective Kondaichi. It is a classical story but in a Japanese environment. The violence is highly stylized, the agonizing formality and politeness sound awkward in the ears of this uncultured Jew, but we are in refined Japan, the land of the windswept bonsai, not Shuk HaCarmel.  

The Old Jew Working

Designing a large factory in the "Occupied Territories". The smiling smoker is the Project Manager. The weather was perfect, a fresh sprint morning in the Shomron mountains. 

Judging character

 I caught my 8 y.o. grandaughter drawing realistic pictures of people, reading long books, and making math calculations. She has such an insufferable temper that I did not notice that she is intelligent. 

A Bot Explains the Creation

 

There are things that prove that the universe is not real, that is, we are not real in the sense we believe it. We cannot see/touch the limits of the universe because light/waves travel at a fixed velocity and the supposed limits are expanding outwards faster. We cant explain the inherent stress/instability of vacuum, how energy appears from nothing. Being simulated makes no difference to this old Jew, I still need to work and pay my debts. I shall ignore the impossible/unexplained wonders of the universe and proceed with planning the Ramle wastewater system.   ...    How is the infrastructure operating us? Its maximum operating velocity is 300,000 km per second, that is in one second it can survey and modify (following programmed laws) a radius of 300,000 km. How much information is contained in that area/volume? The total volume  of the universe - at the present time - is 3.58×10⁸⁰ m³

^{and it is expanding at a known rate. Does the addition of more volume mean that more information is added? How much information can process the infrastructure? There must be a limit to its memory and the quantity of information it can process, and when that is reached, the whole thingie will crash or restart and repeat itself in an infinite loop. As said, it makes no difference to me. My problem is not the end of the universe but getting money and soon. (Does the infrastructure hear prayers?)}

I wonder if the inflation of the universe is homogeneous, because if it is there will arrive a point when the distance from NYC to San Francisco will become so large that it will take 105 days to travel from here to there - even traveling with a fast clipper, and then, even at the velocity of the light. 

 I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderator if you have any questions or concerns.

Google Gains Moral Supremacy. Kylin Wins the Contract.

In November 2019 some 1,100 Google employees signed an open letter demanding the company they work for does more to tackle climate change. The letter calls on Google to commit to "zero emissions by 2030, zero contracts to enable or accelerate the extraction of fossil fuels, and zero collaboration with entities enabling the incarceration, surveillance, displacement, or oppression of refugees or frontline communities."

Last week 700 "Jewish and allies" demanded that Google break its contracts with Israel, and especially with Zahal. I think they are abusing the company that treats them so well, they are acting against the vital interests of their country. They will have to cope with the disturbing paradox that they are trying so hard to be good and moral, while everybody considers them evil racists and colonialists. And unreliable and disruptive. Jews, in short. 

BTW, I think the Chinese are doing a good job in eliminating the East Turkestan terrorist movement, and teaching them the Chinese language and a trade.  

Post Scriptum: I was wrong and did not notice that it was fake news and NOT Google. "Because none of the “news sites” seems to have checked and confirmed, that the "250" employees of Google really existed in reality. None of the articles identified even one employee by name – not a single name in the article in The Marker, nor in Calcalist, nor in Globes. Could it be that the "leading journalists" who wrote these "articles" did not locate, and certainly did not interview, even one alleged signatory? In today’s world of sloppy journalism – that can be. 

Yes, the "articles", those in English at least, do provide an authentic link to a "letter" that the employees allegedly signed. There’s proof for you!

But follow the link. The letter is eerily devoid of signatures. It is in fact no more than an unsigned fledgling petition that invites you, the reader, to sign.

Furthermore, even if you do choose to believe, as an article of liberal faith, that 250 people did sign, before all these articles came out -- do not assume these were 250 Jews. Also, do not assume that they are 250 employees of Google. Because the uploaded document indicates -- in the small print at the very end -- that the signatories - if any – are not actually all “Jewish Googlers”. Instead, they are “Jewish Googlers, allies, and external supporters”. So among the signers (if any) there are some Google employees, and there are some Jews, but there are also "allies" (who are not Jewish), and "outside supporters" (who are not Google employees)...

The Communist Party's operating system hundred days battle (against Microsoft)

 From CPSNews:  On March 2, 2020, it was decided to set up a team of 100 people headed by academicians in the Hainan Innovation Research Institute, to carry out the operating system hundred days battle. Within 3 days, more than 100 party members, the backbone of research and development, gathered in Haikou from Beijing, Shanghai, and other places. On March 4, the team began closed research. Kylin Software quickly established the Galaxy Kylin desktop operating system and server operating system research and development party member commando team went against the trend. Wei Lifeng, senior vice president of Kylin Software, who served as the deputy commander-in-chief of the site, led the team to continuously fight and overcome difficulties, and successfully developed the V10 version of the Galaxy Kylin operating system. 

The China Electronics Party Group and its affiliated enterprise party committees have organized a large number of party members and cadres to thoroughly study the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s series of important speeches, earnestly study party history, and absorb the power of forging ahead.

CPSNews is the Chinese Communist Party organ.  人民领袖 is not yet "Father of Nations" but he is following his steps. The story is infantile but the V10 is a very serious achievement. 

P.S.: If the translation is correct, the message is that the V10 project succeeded thanks to an intensive militarized camp of 100 Communist scientists in a remote location. The heroic Deputy Commander in Chief Wei decided on a contrarian approach that solved the bottleneck. This is an infantile story (Bobbe maises) for the Communist Party cadres, things do not happen this way. Stachanov did things like that. Maybe Wei Lifeng too. 

Eco-corridors in their minds

 In an important project, I am being asked to report on its impact on the eco-corridors. I am fighting so the project will not become another victim of the Society for the Protection of Nature's campaign to protect eco-corridors for wildlife (see green patches on the map). The existence of such corridors first gained statutory recognition in 2016 within the framework of an amended National Master Plan for Construction, Development and Conservation (“TAMA 35”). 25% of Israel has been reserved for "Nature". In the green areas, no development and no building will be permitted. 

As witnessed last week in Sheikh-Jarrah, where the Government tried to evict 23 illegal occupants and failed, we are impotent against Arabs. The wilderness protection legislation will be applied only to Jews. De facto apartheid indeed. 

Job in Barkan Industrial Zone

 

Avgol sold its Barkan factory five years ago (because of its location in the West Bank), and now it has been rented by another company. The place has 3000 square meters. I am designing the water and wastewater systems for the new occupant. I have been involved in the Barkan industrial park since its establishment twenty-five years ago. This morning I drove around and was amazed at how much it has developed. It can be compared with any midsize European park.

Lod Today

 I went this morning to a food company I am advising for the last twenty years.  They are situated on the border between Lod and Ramle, both with a large Arab population. Lod is the center of the civil disorder aka riots aka pogrom in Israel. The police national commander moved its HQ to the Lod police station. In the factory everything was quiet, one young Palestinian woman (a secretary) greeted me with coffee and after some banter, I asked for a kiss and she embraced me. Never happened to me. The boss, a tall Ashkenazi, was stressed out and did not focus. Then came Faddy the supervisor, a really intelligent Arab fellow, and we worked out a program. I enjoy working with high IQ people and it was nice to meet Faddy again. This year they paid 30,000 dollars penalty for excess salt and lipids in the wastewater. No factory is able to comply with the draconian laws of this country. Clearly, it did not break them since they are taking over the neighboring property. 

Pic.: Eggplant. I'm allergic to it.  

Scandal in the Family

 

The Berlin Tiergarten (Zoo) discovered that they had mated two siblings Russian polar bears, and the lovely polar baby is the product of incest. It was decided that the female will have no more sex. 

Another worrisome fact is that polar bears are not white, but their skin is black. Without the camouflage, they look like big ugly dogs. 

Something New

 I designed a large hothouse and got the necessary permits. That is what I imagined. 

My project report started to circulate within the deep bureaucracy and each office searched for reasons to kill the project. The Nature Authority demanded a detailed lighting schedule, to evaluate the light polluting potential of the project. They directed me to a 50 pg manual about light pollution. 

The project has no night illumination, the crops grow under natural light conditions. I know that is not the answer they will accept. I need to produce an illumination timetable. 

A dry gully nearby has been declared an ecological corridor and I have to submit an analysis of how the project will affect it.  Israel has been chock-full with humans since the Neanderthals. No "Nature" left here: not as shown on BBC documentaries and none as they understand it. They are practically asking me to invent it. I"ll work out the daily drinking schedule of the lions and the buffalos in the inexistent water hole, the ecologists will have their imaginary nature, the project will be approved and everybody will be happy.  

Asperger Superpowers

 

Very high intelligence.

• Good verbal skills; rich vocabulary.
• Ability to absorb and retain large amounts of information.
• Ability to think in visual images.
• Be self-motivated, independent learners.
• Propensity to think outside the box and generate novel solutions to problems.
• Ability (in some cases a preference) for spending time alone.
• Take an interest in arcane or off-beat fields of knowledge.
• Concentrate for long periods of time on reading, experimenting, writing,
• Avoid wasting time on some activities that appeal to neurotypical people.
• Ability to notice small details of an idea, theory, number pattern, book, film, object, or visual image.
• Ability to perform repetitive tasks where accuracy, rules, and routine are important.
• Strong work ethic; commitment to quality and accuracy of work.
• Play with language and create puns.
• Enjoy sarcasm and satire.
• Relish life’s absurd, dark, or incongruous side.
• See through empty rhetoric or conventional pieties.
• Ability and tendency to tell the truth—even if it’s not tactful or in one’s self-interest.
• Desire and tendency to follow rules.

Really?

HAMAS's Big Mistake

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/349452458553546/permalink/1932515320247244/

A video from Gaza by the Gazans themselves. Bombing out the military tunnels under the streets. The comments say that HAMAS had ordered its people to hide in the tunnels. 

The assault was prefaced by a deliberate ruse in which the IDF indicated it was opening a ground offensive — prompting Hamas to send its fighters, including commanders, into the tunnels. No reports of any casualties. 

Managing the War

 

What is important

Global ratings agency S&P on Friday affirmed its long-term sovereign credit rating on Israel at "AA-/A-1+" and maintained its outlook at "stable"

Despite the security and political risks escalating sharply in the last few days, the combination of a very effective and swift COVID-19 vaccination campaign, strong technology sector performance and rising gas exports should still underpin the country's GDP growth of 5% in 2021.

"Domestic political uncertainty has also been persistently high over the past two years owing to repeated elections, but so far this also has not substantially affected the economy," according to Reuters.

 

Shocking Formosan Arrogance

TSMC chairman and founder Morris Chang warned last month of higher operating costs and a thin talent pool for the U.S. plans in a rare public speech attended by Wei and chairman Mark Liu.

 "In the United States, the level of professional dedication is no match to that in Taiwan, at least for engineers," Chang said. He warned that "short-term subsidy can't make up for long-term operational disadvantage."

Illustration: A Spanish map of Keelung Harbour "Descripcion del Puerto de Los Espanoles', when the island was a colony. 

Tunnels under the Streets of Gaza

According to Ynet, the pic shows collapsed tunnels in Gaza, a product of ZAHAL's bombs. I have seen collapses similar to the pic in Israel, resulting from washout of the sandy soil underneath. It could be leaking sewage or water pipes. I saw similar pictures in Baja California. after an earthquake. I cannot imagine why they would tunnel under heavily trafficked main streets. Ynet says the terrorists are trapped in the caved-in structures. If so, they would be shouting for help and the people in the street trying to save them. So I do not know what exactly I am seeing. 

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Rising

Counterintuitively, the TASE 35 index is rising.   Also, the US dollar is rising. These two parameters are very important for me since I have a large debt to pay in a few weeks. The economic situation of Israel is healthy, the communal riots are limited to a few poor mixed towns, and the big question is if foreign investors (like pension funds) will be frightened by biased media reports and doctored pictures and take their monies to safer coasts. 
 

The Arabs Smell Weakness in Israel's Government

 

In fact, it is worse than that. We have a transition government without the mandate to take decisions. The nation is divided into two enemy camps and no workable coalition - even after four consequent elections - can be agreed. One intelligence eminence on YNet said that the government (lead by Netanyahu) cannot give the order to counter-attack and stop the missiles because the leftist opposition would protest, call for civil disobedience and reserve soldiers may desert. We are in a bad position. We need a legitimate government, but our sordid politicians hate each other and cannot agree. In Hebrew: Sinat Hinam, Hate for No Reason At All. 

The Arabs are starting to annoy me

I worked hard on upgrading the KATZAA oil terminal kitchen and dining room near Ashkelon. Got paid 80% of my fees. The rest was to be paid after the actual completion of the building. 

Last night a rocket hit the oil tanks (pic) and black smoke reached 30-40 m high illuminating most of the South. 

When, if ever, shall I be paid? The Palestinian behaviour is starting to irritate me. 

HAMAS blocks Leftist Government in Israel

 

We are in the middle of the organization of a Leftist government in Israel. The participation of Abbas, the leader of the Islamist party, is absolutely necessary to reach the 61 votes needed to form a government. This afternoon, the Islamists in Gaza fired missiles at Jerusalem (pic), and Zahal's response makes it impossible for Abbas to co-operate with the Zionists. The inflexible Arab Code of Honor paralyzes him. On the other hand, those crazy feminists and corrupt Russians will stay powerless. Which is very good. 

Ella

 

She is growing nicely. I live and work only for them. 

A Jerusalem Paradox

Efforts to form a unity government made significant progress in marathon talks over the weekend, but the coalition could be endangered due to the skirmishes over Muslim prayer in Jerusalem that upset Ra'am (United Arab List) head Mansour Abbas.

Abbas's four votes supporting the coalition from outside are key to establishing a new government. Obtaining a majority of 61 requires Ra'am's votes to join the 57 of Yesh Atid, Blue and White, Labor, Israel Beytenu, Meretz, New Hope, and Yamina, which is down to six votes without rebel MK Amichai Chikli.

The Arab protests in Jerusalem may become the obstacle to the creation of a pro-Palestinian, left-wing government in Israel.  

Google shows only pics of brutal Jewish police persecuting unseen protesters. It is biased and political. The world is against us.

Second Thoughts on INTEL

Coffee makes me sleepy in mid-morning, it weakens the tyranny of my Superego, letting me be assaulted by troublesome doubts about INTEL. The Asians have been outcompeting and destroying, one after another, Western industries. It started with the transistor, invented by Americans in 1947, which the Japanese made synonym with a small battery-operated radio. Sony, Sanyo, Panasonic destroyed Emerson, Raytheon, Westinghouse, Sylvania, Phillips. The American television industry was erased from the face of the Earth and the only TVs on the market are Korean or Japanese. Who remembers Admiral, Sylvania, Zenith?  Sony walkman created a new industry. The Japanese started to make hand-watches, and the old Swiss watchmaking industry suddenly disappeared like the Neanderthals, and Rollex and Doxa which were the non-plus-ultra cannot be found anymore, only as luxury collector's items. The photograph market was invented and dominated by Kodak for a century, and the Polaroid, suddenly was no more and Japanese digital cameras took over. I remember the American auto industry, the enormous Ford and General Motors factories, which are ruins, and their shares. worthless. Toyota, Subaru, etc. utterly destroyed these admired and apparently indestructible champions. After such a pattern of defeats, what are the chances of INTEL?  

I do not want to follow this line of reasoning to its logical end. 

Betting on America

 

There is a desperate fight to the death in the chip (processor) arena. INTEL, the aged Alpha Male, lost its edge and is unable to produce the 7-nanometer processor already sold by its competitors Taiwan Semi and Samsung. America is pouring in billions to catch up, as do the Asians to keep their advantage. Israel is a member of the American team and will benefit from the coming technological revolution. I hold INTEL shares - should I sell as the experts suggest? 

Pic.: the INTEL complex in Ocotillo, Yavapai county in Arizona. The place has zero AfroAmerican population. 

Jewish Poverty

 The poorest people in Israel are a large (500,000 person) group of Haredi (religious) people.  The men study in yeshivot and at age 18 marry and continue studying. Not that they are inactive, because caring for a large family is work and to fulfill the innumerable religious customs up to their tinfoil extremes (see the pic of a Haredi kitchen during Pessach) is work, but they do not hold regular jobs and live off Social Insurance. They are Jews, a people historically linked to commerce and money management, but the Haredim choose to live an intellectual life and material hardship. 

This holy poverty also characterized the halutzim, pioneers, who left Europe to dedicate their lives to manual labor in the Holy Land. Their extremism went to the point that they had no personal property nor even shirts. They lived in communes permanently exposed to cruel criticism for bizboozim (wasting resources) such as putting too much sugar in the tea. 

Jewish mass poverty exists, and in our days it is a choice. Other peoples have fakirs and mendicant monks, but our poor are a mass movement. Myself feel the call to holiness too, but for me it is late. Maybe the next time. 

Belt and Road

 

The Belt and Road initiative has been running for a couple of years so it is possible to form an initial appreciation of what it is about. It builds infrastructure necessary for Chinese exports. It is financed by easy loans, tempting the countries to go into debt. This resembles the British Empire's policy in South America in the 19th Century. The republiquetas were unable to pay even the interest, and it was followed by "gunboat diplomacy" such as British banks taking over the customs of Venezuela. Apparently, it is benevolent, like a usurer giving loans to poor people who most probably will not be able to return the loan.    

The China I like

The video clip shows a sanitary worker cleaning a dam,

a rather dangerous job, in Yun Taishan Nature Park. I recognize his accent as the Henan dialect - so different from the unnatural, upper-class Mandarin spoken by officials. This is the China I know and like.  

 

Caveat Emptor (when dealing with Swiss banks)

Lost my balance and hurt my right hand, so I have spent the day studying the markets. Anglo-Saxon banks are scrupulously honest, but Europeans are highway robbers. African banks are chaotic, Asian banks - I am unsure. The Chinese, in my experience, are dishonest. Credit Suisse, my personal bête noire, is being sued in the Greensill affair, which at last understood.

It is like this: Credit Suisse froze $10 billion of Greensill's funds, causing its insolvency as it found itself unable to repay a $140 million owed to Credit Suisse. Incredibly, Credit Suisse continued to market Greensill funds as a fully insured, low-risk product despite a decision by insurers to discontinue coverage. All that knowing that Greensill was broke (they had caused its bankruptcy, did they?).  Seems to me a clear case of fraud.

Did I write Sullivan's Speech?

 

Reading the transcript of the American-Chinese meeting in Alaska last week, it jumped into my sleepy brain: I wrote this thing, did I? 

SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and welcome to Director Yang and State Councilor Wang. It's fitting that we're meeting here in Alaska. We may be far from the continental United States, but there are few places that are as quintessentially American: big-hearted, resilient, intrepid. This is truly a fitting place for us to host this meeting.

Prof. Moshe Many, President of Tel Aviv University, had to speak at a Board of Governors Meeting and asked me to write him the opening speech. I wrote "It's fitting that we are meeting here in TAU campus, in Israel..." etc. I too used the recherche word quintessentially. The speech was a great success and I was paid 200 dollars. Prof. Many was Syrian Jew who specialized in venereal diseases and travelled frequently to Saudia to treat King Saud. Since then, I keep finding my rhetorical inventions recycled on the most unexpected occasions. For example, in every Annual Meeting since then. "This is truly a fitting place for us to host this Annual Meeting of TAU's Board."

Th. Nöldeke and Allah

Th. Nöldeke, a German academic specialized in the Quaran, writes:   A closer investigation of the apparent Jewish and Christian elements in the Koran will lead to the conclusion that the primary elements shared by Christianity and Islam are of Jewish colouring. For example, the familiar Muslim creed: 

 is derived from a Jewish formula; verse IISamuel 22:33 = Psalms 18:32  מבלעד יי השה מי-אל and appears in the Targum as ליחא להא אלא יי