Water in Israel

 Poisonous article in The Marker about the recent decision of the Water Commission, formed by representatives of relevant ministries, to lower the price of water for consumers. The income difference will be made up by using natural water resources instead of expensive desalinated seawater, and by reducing the assistance to "weaker" municipalities. In my time, we channeled about 200 million dollars per year to those municipalities for water and sewage infrastructure building. 

The former head of the Water Authority, Giora Shoham (pic), declared that it was a racist discriminatory decision. Maybe, those millions went to Israeli Arab villages that were unable to finance themselves (corruption, inefficiency, crime). The idea of the Water Authority was that we were not helping them but ourselves. Absolutely true. Allowing the development of differences would be bad for us.

All these are based on the fact that 10% of Israel's population is fantastically productive and that allows the Government (every government since 1948) to be "large'  with the natives and to maintain one million Haredim that do no work nor serve in the Army. 

Flu

It seems like everyone is falling ill these days. Infectious inflammatory diseases can lead to inflammation of the heart muscle, known as myocarditis. The condition could resolve without any treatment. However, in some cases, this inflammation could progress to chronic heart failure.

Myocarditis is an inflammatory disease that involves the infiltration of heart muscle tissue by inflammatory cells. The most common cause of myocarditis is a transient viral illness. So far, 20 types of viruses have been identified that can cause myocarditis. These include enteroviruses, which cause intestinal inflammation, mouth ulcers, and rashes; adenoviruses, which cause eye and throat inflammation; viruses associated with mononucleosis (EBV, CMV); influenza viruses; hepatitis viruses (Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B); and most recently, the coronavirus (COVID-19).

From Ynet

I have the flu. Two nights with sirens in the middle of the night (Yemenite missiles attack) and the flu, and I feel like a zombie.

Tiempo ha

My mother and daughter many years ago.

In Tianjin

 It's incredible, but I was once invited to lecture at the Nankai University, in Tianjin. The statue of Tzu Enlai is looking at us. 

Overpumping aquifers in Turkiye, Syria and Lebanon

 

The NASA picture above shows the overpumping in the Eastern Mediterranean (except in Israel). Irrigated agriculture is becoming impossible, and yields are falling. It is said that ISIS was born in the impoverished northeast of Syria during a multiyear drought. The Turkish heartland is done, baked, and destined for rural stress and rebellion. Another country that has overdrawn its water resources is Yemen. The current situation is unsustainable.

We could grow jatt here and export it to Yemen because they have used up the little groundwater they had. 

Shakespeare in Jenin

 

The UNRWA West Bank office stated that it gained knowledge of the ongoing "presence of Palestinian armed actors" in the Health Centre in Jenin.

Actors? They must be presenting Shakespeare. 

Turkistan fighters in Syria

 Erdogan is rebuilding the Turkish empire and invited Uyghur nationalists to join the enterprise. Some 20,000 fighters are in North Syria. These are serious people. China will have some trouble with them. Turkiye vs China would renew a historical situation when China was conquered by Turkish nomads.

Canaan Dog Sanctuary in Gaza

Stray dogs frequently attack humans (including soldiers) in Gaza. They see Homo sapiens as food walking on two. In Korea, by contrast, people see dogs as food. In Israel, dogs are precious pets, fed the best and most expensive imported dog food. Some sensitive dogs are even taken to dog psychologists to treat their childhood traumas. 

Diversifying the Gut Microbiome

The kibbutz rugrats are let free and are enriching their gut microbiome with dog poop. Higher microbiome diversity is considered good for the health. The richer and more diverse the community of gut microbes are, the lower your risk of disease and allergies. 

The kibbutz menu of microbiome costs about 4,000 shekels       (one thousand American dollars) per month.  

Dogs dig up graves in Gaza to eat the deceased

“I received bodies in the morgue that dogs had eaten. Nothing remained but the skeleton.”, A graveyard keeper in Khan Younis described how stray dogs in Gaza that are looking for food keep coming to ... The aboriginal dogs of the race called Canaan dogs are generally yellow and form large groups that sometimes attack even living persons. Some have been seen in Jerusalem's outskirts. 

Back at Edrey

 According to local news, Zahal has entered Daraa, the capital of South Syria. Daraa dates back to the Canaanites. It was mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphic tablets between 1490 and 1436 BC, during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III, as the city of Atharaa. In the Hebrew Bible, it is referred to as Edrei or Edre'i (אֶדְרֶעִי), the capital of Bashan, the site of a battle in which the Israelites defeated Og. 

Next we turned and headed for the land of Bashan, where King Og and his entire army attacked us at Edrei. But the Lord told me, "Do not be afraid of him, for I have given you victory over Og and his entire army, and I will give you all his land. Treat him just as you treated King Sihon of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon."

So the Lord our God handed King Og and all his people over to us, and we killed them all. Not a single person survived. We conquered all sixty of his towns—the entire Argob region in his kingdom of Bashan. Not a single town escaped our conquest. These towns were all fortified with high walls and barred gates. We also took many unwalled villages at the same time. We completely destroyed the kingdom of Bashan, just as we had destroyed King Sihon of Heshbon. We destroyed all the people in every town we conquered—men, women, and children alike. But we kept all the livestock for ourselves and took plunder from all the towns.

Depre

 Unusually cold so I slept till 9.30 AM. Tried to work on a locked DWG file but failed. Claude could not help, it would be illegal to unlock it. Project Zikim came back to life, and they sent me a new survey, the client called me and told me that he worked 4 days with the surveyors and the biuviot, and that he is more depressed than me. He is fighting the bureaucracy for the last ten years to be permitted to invest his money to produce chickens and make a living in Zikim, which borders the Gaza Strip. He told me about October 7, 2023, when the terrorists stole from the kibbutzim cars and drove around shooting dead everybody. For some reason, they passed his moshav (village). 

I pray to l'Être suprême of Robespierre to let me focus and work. He is the god of reason, the god of the French Revolution, and the official god of the State and its hired bureaucracy. Come on Mister L'Etre Supreme lend me a hand. 

The Dosadians

  In this book, McKie meets the Dosadians, who have extreme command of body language and verbally limit themselves to “the nonemotional essentials”, “compressed communication”. The problem is Herbert builds up so explicitly to the Dosadi abilities – they are dangerous monsters with superpowers, if they are let loose on the universe it will be an utter disaster – that when it becomes clear what their powers actually are, the sizzle soon becomes a hiss.

What was the experiment about? An alien species the gowachin finds itself in a universe with many different organisms. Homo sapiens looked dangerous for their survival, the Homo species had exterminated all its competitors on its home planet. So Mrreg organizes an experiment, planting the two species on a toxic planet, and observe the results. After some generations, their tense co-existence explodes and humans start to exterminate the gowachin. Mrreg extracts the terrible conclusion and makes harakiri. 

Deus ex machine arrives as a Bureau agent, and through a complicated legal process, the Gowachin's guilt is absolved, and the Dosadians are liberated. Frank Herbert suggests that the massacre started on Dosadi ends with the liberation of the Dosadians and their integration into the ConSentience universe despite the Dosadians' recognizable superpowers. 

Friends worth millions

... you see it in Musk. Tesla stock, in the two days after Trump won, was up 20 percent or something like that, adding tens of billions of dollars to Elon Musk’s net worth. Nothing fundamental in the economics had changed for Tesla. There was just an expectation, now that he was a friend of Trump’s, that he was going to somehow be showered with federal largesse. You know, there’s a guy in India called Adani who’s Modi’s best friend, and his stocks trade at multiples 10 times that of every other Indian company. Because everyone assumes that at the end of the day, being Modi’s best friend is worth $100 billion or something like that. From Fareed Zakaria

Salvation through pain

Pat Gelsinger was the leader of INTEL, the world's largest computer company. In a mail, he asked people to pray and fast to save the company. He believes that fasting and praying are effective. He could have had himself flogged as religious Jews do on Yom Kippur. Or one of the flagellants.                                                                                                                                                       He destroyed INTEL

Mystery map

A large area undefined in the Syrian Golan is peopled and controlled by the Druze. It could only be an Israeli-protected area. Protectorate?  "There should be no doubt - we will not allow ISIS to reconstitute and take advantage of the current situation in Syria," said General Michael Erik Kurilla in a statement released by CENTCOM. Tahrir al-Sham is, in fact, a mutation of ISIS, although I may be wrong. General Mike Flynn, the former head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), warned his colleagues in the Obama administration, that supporting terrorist groups to prosecute proxy wars on Washington’s behalf, was a risky business that would eventually backfire leading to the establishment of ‘a Salafist principality in Syria.’ That warning has now become a reality.

Mike Whitney writes: The 13-year-old Syrian campaign is not really aimed at Syria, but Iran. Syria is just the last obstacle on the path to Tehran. Crush Iran and Israel take the ‘top spot’ in the Middle East; it becomes the regional hegemon overnight. Meanwhile—Uncle Sam gains access to the pipeline corridors it has sought for over 2 decades, corridors that will transport natural gas from Qatar to the Mediterranean and then onward to markets in Europe. The gas will be provided by a US puppet, extracted by Western oil companies, sold in US Dollars, and used to maintain a stranglehold on European politics. At the same time, all other competitors will be either sanctioned, sabotaged, or excluded entirely. (Nordstream)

Vomited Out of the Land

The purity system of the Bible chiefly involved the Temple, sacrifices, and priestly gifts, all of which had to be guarded from ritual impurity. The penalty for polluting the Temple is karet, excision from the people of Israel. The Land had to be guarded from moral impurity lest the people of Israel be vomited out of the land as their predecessors had been. Corpse impurity was considered the most severe form of ritual impurity (avi avot ha- tumah), requiring sprinkling with waters of purification on the third and seventh days of the seven-day impurity. Death impurity was transferred not only by direct contact but also through the air of the enclosed tent or building or—according to rabbinic law—by overshadowing and grave fluids. Based on Leviticus 18:25

Wake Up North

The Uri Tzafon movement stated: "We came here as preparation for a settlement and to remember Yehuda Dror. Maroun al-Ras is the Israelite village of May Marom. Yehuda fell in battle in Ayta ash-Shaab, where Jewish priests once lived. With G-d's help, we will one day return to Lebanon where Jews once lived.

Al-Julani ante-portas

 

The Syrian rebellion is succeeding and they conquered Kuneytra on the border with Israel. The Syrian army evacuates the Golan. Assad fled to Iran. 

Is it good for the Jews? Apparently, it is. 

Idishe Kopf

 

What about me? It is 7.00 PM and I spent my day in distractions. Please, God, focus my mind on my projects!

P.S.: Worked till 01.00 AM and completed the Brenner project. Slept till 10.00 AM. Now comes the Ariel Industrial Park document, with Claude's help.

Wrong decision

 
Yesterday, I sold ICL and bought TEVA. Today, ICL announced a large order from China, and the stock rose 5.78%, while TEVA +1.82. This was not a sudden decision; I had meditated for months on this move. 

ICL Group Ltd. has announced this morning significant framework agreements to supply 2.5 million metric tons of potash to China from 2025 to 2027, with potential for an additional 960,000 metric tons.

I feel sick, and slept late. 

P.S.: The day ended with the portfolio +1.1

Next morning: TEVA jumps 2%.

Microplastics Shrink Penises

“The ubiquitous existence of microplastics and nanoplastics raises concerns about their potential impact on the human reproductive system,” the study, published in the journal Toxicological Sciences, states.

“Limited data exists on microplastics within the human reproductive system and their potential consequences on sperm quality.” To find out more, the scientists tested 23 human testes, and 47 testes from pet dogs. Microplastic pollution was found in all 70 samples - though with “significant inter-individual variability.”

Sperm counts in western men have more than halved in the last few decades, with air pollution and exposure to pesticides frequently cited as factors. One expert believes that pollution is causing penises to shrink, as well as lowering sperm count. 

Currency War Declared

 

... We needed a currency war as there were too few other wars out there!

Chief White Eagle

 

He looks like a relative of mine.

May the Devil take them all

 The rebels took Aleppo. They are ISIS Sunni fanatics *versus* the Assad Alawite regime, backed by Iranian Shiite fanatics. Their leader is al-Julani meaning someone from the Golan. He is in fact a Palestinian refugee. He fought in al-Qaeda in Iraq against American occupation. Before the eruption of the Iraqi civil war in 2006, Joulani was arrested by American forces and imprisoned for over five years in various prisons and detention centers. These prisons included Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca, Camp Cropper, and al-Tajji.

There are Russian bases nearby. 

Let the devil take the hindmost. Even better, take them all.

ICL: To buy more or to sell all?

ICL is the worst stock in the savings portfolio. For months, if not years, I have wondered whether to continue holding it. Now, I'll try to make a decision. I woke up feeling bad, but after eating breakfast, I was my regular self.

ICL's website does not even mention fertilizers. Potash prices are constantly falling, so the company is trying to rebrand itself as a specialty chemicals producer.That is worrying. It describes the company as:

At ICL, we believe in DIB - Diversity, Inclusion and a sense of Belonging. We are proud to have many talented key female executives, and our employees include multicultural and multigenerational individuals, LGBTQ, and people with disabilities.

Kowtowing to the Great King

 The Greeks of the Antiquity refused to follow the Great King's Court ceremony of slavish kowtowing. But the tradition has not disappeared, see the high officials of the Persian Air Force being received by the Great Ayatollah. 

Sacrifice to Baal

 Following historical tradition, the Lebanese sacrifice to their god (the Baal). Thanksgiving for the "victory".

Back in Beaufort

 

ZAHAL forded the Litani River in Lebanon and is moving forward to conquer the Beaufort again. Young people will pass their milium swimming in the Qaroun reservoir. 

...but they signed a ceasefire. Just this night at 0400 AM. So it will be the next time.

Looting the Enemy

Looting the enemy's weapons is perfectly legitimate in war. And loot is arriving from South Lebanon. 
 

Voyager 1 still alive

On October 16, NASA beamed a command to Voyager 1 to turn on one of its heaters. The spacecraft responded by ghosting Earth.

It actually took the agency two full days to notice the issue. That's because Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object, and being almost 25 billion kilometers (15.3 billion miles) away, it takes nearly 23 hours for a message to get there – even at the speed of light – and another 23 hours for a response.

On October 18, Voyager 1 missed its scheduled return call. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) scanned for the signal and eventually found it on a slightly different frequency band.

It seems that the heater triggered Voyager 1's built-in fault protection system. If an instrument tries to draw too much power, this mechanism will automatically shut off other, non-essential systems to conserve energy. 

We are under attack

For the record: This Sunday morning there were two alarm calls.Hezbollah was bombing our area. 

Sleeping and doing nothing

 After the family dinner, I took 40 mg of Valium by mistake and slept happily until midday. It was a very quiet Sabbath. I watched the Judge and Mearsheimer predict once more Ukraine's imminent collapse. Now, I am trying to do some work. But no, I cannot avoid wasting time on the net.

Doing "nothing" is very important. For example, what to do with this quotation from Goldman Sachs:  Jensen Huang’s prediction of a trillion dollars of computing capacity waiting for an upgrade. It is a very big market opportunity. Maybe INTEL will get a nice portion of it. INTEL is very cheap -- today.INTC ranks 4th on our list of Goldman Sachs' top growth investors.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is the beleaguered American chip manufacturing giant that has been one of the biggest stock stories of 2024 and for all the wrong reasons. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s decision to suspend dividends and lay off thousands of employees earlier this year decimated investor sentiment. The firm is currently focusing on developing the 18A chip manufacturing node through which it aims to take process leadership away from the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and cater to the growing chip needs of the biggest companies in the world. 18A is dead at the center of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s hypothesis, and the stock will respond based on developments regarding the technology’s execution milestones. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s contract manufacturing subsidiary is another key part of its story, but since it was made into a subsidiary earlier, its impact is less pronounced.

HaAretz

 
Friday double edition of this fishwrap and not a word of foreign news. Totally obsessed with BiBi. My wife does not want to buy another paper. She loves its kitchen pages.

Pic: Guideon Levy, of HaAretz. A self-hating destructive Jew.

Bombs from Space

Russia just sent a strong message to Europe and the US. His weapons are not only dissuasive but actually deployed in war. Russia feels menaced to the point that they are trying to break up and destroy it. On CNN I saw multiple (4 -5) explosions coming very fast in a vertical trajectory. The background is the city of Dniepr. Little explosive power.

The RS-26 is powered by a sophisticated three-stage solid-propellant engine. The first stage delivers a high-thrust boost, propelling the missile out of the atmosphere and minimizing its exposure to early-stage interception attempts. The second stage sustains acceleration, optimizing the missile’s trajectory for long-range flight and maintaining speed to avoid mid-course interception.

• The third stage plays a critical role in terminal maneuverability. Unlike conventional solid-fuel systems, the RS-26’s terminal stage may incorporate a liquid-fueled component, particularly when equipped with maneuverable warheads or the Avangard glide vehicle. This configuration provides enhanced control during the reentry phase, allowing the missile to adjust its trajectory to evade advanced missile defense systems and achieve high accuracy. The missile’s propulsion system enables a demonstrated range of approximately 5,800 kilometers. Its terminal speed exceeds Mach 20, translating to over 24,500 kilometers per hour. This extraordinary speed, combined with its maneuverable payload options, ensures the RS-26’s effectiveness in penetrating heavily defended airspace.

• 
  

  The RS-26 Rubezh is designed for both strategic nuclear deterrence and high-precision strikes on critical infrastructure and hardened military targets. Its road-mobile platform allows it to be deployed rapidly and unpredictably, significantly complicating adversary targeting efforts.

  With a maximum range of approximately 5,800 kilometers, the RS-26 can target locations across Europe, Asia, and parts of North America. The missile’s MIRV capabilities make it effective against multiple targets in a single mission, while its advanced counter-defense measures and optional Avangard glide vehicle payload enable it to defeat even the most sophisticated missile defense systems.

• "If true this will be totally unprecedented and the first actual military use of ICBM. Not that it makes a lot of sense given their price and precision," Andrey Baklitskiy of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research posted on X.

They were right

At Trump's first election, German papers aggressively opposed him, describing him as psychotic and dangerous. Der Spiegel wrote in 2018: "Under the will-o'-the-wisp Donald Trump, the world has become a dangerous place." At that time, America had a large foreign exchange deficit, mostly with Germany and less with China. Trump observed that America was being bled by Germany while Germany was not paying for its defense. Germany, now I realize, was fearing Trump, and it appears, rightly.

According to the Economist, German industry today is bankrupt, its exports are falling and the Ukraine war has driven it into a direct conflict with Russia. Germany is in a bad corner and desperate. They had a reason to fear Trump. 

Now there are the millions of illegal immigrants in America who are trembling.  

ICL

 My favorite share was ICL, the Israeli Chemical (Potash) mine in the Dead Sea. The company advertises itself as a specialty chemicals factory; the potash business is now a sideline. All in all, I am losing 37% in many years of holding it. Something happened that I am unaware of. Pic The manager of this disgrace. 

Chancay - Shanghai

 

The Chancay Port project is a collaborative project between China and Peru under the Belt and Road Initiative. Located in the Chancay district of the province of Huaral, Peru, the port is approximately 80 kilometers from the capital, Lima.
 
Chancay Port is positioned as Peru’s gateway port and regional hub, connected by a tunnel to the Pan-American Highway, directly linking it to the capital Lima. This enables goods to conveniently reach Peru and other Latin American countries, significantly enhancing trade efficiency.

China is building for the next hundred years.

 The Grey Wolf is a quadruped robot armed with an automatic weapon. China is serious.

The Ingalik

 The Ingalik shared the Northern Athapaskan worldview of a universe in which all objects had a spirit or soul, yeg. In the beginning, men, animals, and inanimate objects lived together and shared many traits. They later separated and lost the ability to communicate. People were dependent on animals for food and thus had to remain on good terms with them. This they did by observing taboos and treating animals with respect so they would continue to be available for food. Increase ceremonies were performed to attract game and ensure a steady supply. The Ingalik also used a variety of "songs" or magical chants to maintain the balance between the human and spiritual worlds. These songs could be purchased, and both sexes had them. Songs were used to gain good hunting and fishing luck, enhance skills, cure illness and communicate with the spirits. Through possession of songs, nearly everyone had a little shamanistic power. Amulets, often bits of animal skin, bone, or feathers, were worn by all and were often associated with animal songs. Amulets brought specific kinds of luck or conferred special abilities. There were numerous taboos and prohibitions, many of which related to animals. The Ingalik had a rich mythology in which animals and the ritual number 4 were prominent.

Source: The Internet

The Right Wins

 It seems to me that the American government will be dominated by rightists who are interested in foreign affairs. They want to re-organize the world. The Democratic party's campaign had degenerated into a disgusting carnival that Catholic Latinos could not accept. A new yuga is starting. 

I am sleeping too much and working little or nothing. Battling the bureaucracy is dispiriting, and impossible to find interest in the work. 

Now, go to work!

The suffering of Odysseus

 

Reading Homer's Odysseus, Ulisses is well received when he leaves Calypso and lands in the paradisical city of the Phaeacians. Where is this city? Outside the Odyssey, the Phaeacians have no existence at all. There is a reason, of course, that the Phaeacians have no tradition outside the Odyssey, and that is that the Odyssey, which brought the Phaeacians into existence and gave them the function of “home-bringers,” also takes this function away from them. After delivering Odysseus to Ithaca, the Phaeacian ship is turned to stone by angry Poseidon on its return trip.

Another interesting point is that Menelaos does not sail home after the ten-year-long war in Troy but goes to Egypt. Those  Ἀχαιοί (Achaeans) as described by Homer, were blood-thirsty pirates and slavers. The sea-peoples' attack on Egypt is real, it was registered in the Egyptian royal archives. In Homer's story, the Phoenicians are a friendly people. It seems true that Lebanon was spared of their attacks. The Ekwesh of the Egyptian records were possibly the Acheans, but they were circumcised. In Homer, the Acheans burn their dead, while the Bronze Age "Greeks" build tumulus (burial mounds or kurgans). 

Yehiel Leitner, Ambassador to USA

 
Yehiel Leiter was born in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel four decades ago. He lives in Eli, East of the city of Ariel. His son Moshe was killed in combat in northern Gaza about a year ago. 

The post of ambassador to the U.S. is Leiter's first diplomatic job, after working for decades writing and researching in the Shalem Institute and Herzl Institute. He also served as a senior fellow at the Kohelet Policy forum.

In his youth, Leiter was active in the Jewish Defense League, an organization founded in the U.S. by Rabbi Meir Kahane and later designated as a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities. He was part of a group of activists within the organization who eventually moved to live in settlements in the West Bank.

Kahana's name and ideas were tabu in Israel under the socialist regime. I hesitated even to write his name for fear of losing my job. He was a soft-spoken New York Orthodox rabbi, fighting for the emigration of Soviet Jews. 

The sack of Lindisferne

 Anno 793 the great house of religion at Lindisferne was sacked by the Vikings, giving start to the Danish invasions of Great Britain. But the catastrophe only fired up English religious fervor. King Burgred of Mercia retired to a monastery when the Danes conquered his kingdom, and many royal princesses entered nunneries in their widowhood. The pilgrimage to Rome was very popular, although disastrous for females, as Cuthbert wrote "There are indeed few cities in Lombardy, or in France, or in Gaul, in which there is not an adulteress or harlot of the English race". Leofgifu, a London woman, died on the road to Jerusalem in about 1060. A Lincolnshire thane called Ulf set out for Jerusalem just before the Norman conquest and was never heard about again. West Saxon Wynfrith who took the name of Boniface became the archbishop of the Germans and it may be said that Western Europe was converted by English missionaries. 

All that from a book by D. Whitelock.

Then, in 1066 the Normans crossed the Channel, and divided the country among 180 Norman tenants-in-chief and innumerable mesne (intermediate) tenants, all holding their fiefs by knight service. The replacement of the English aristocracy with a Norman one was paralleled by similar changes of personnel among the clergy. The Saxons became the lower class and even today, a thousand years later, old French family names are frequent in England's aristocracy.