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.