LA PLAGA

The Twelve Days War

 
This war was not good for me.  The alarm was waking me at 4 AM and ruining the rest of the day. I did not feel it during the war, but I am still not back to my regular self.

Exhausted.

Luttwak's Take

 "The Ayatollah Has a Plan" NYT June 26, 2025

Vali Nasr who lives in Washington but follows Tehran explains that Khamenei is not the boastful buffooon who wasted 100$B+ on Assad's Syria, Hezbollah & Hamas all now dead dogs but a strategic genius

Pic. Khamenei visits Khumeiny.

He is married to a Sistani woman. Sistani, I discovered, are the Saka aka Scythian. It appears that the historical Saka still exist as a minority in Northern Iran.

Annealing Prime Numbers

 The current interest in quantum computing is based on the possibility of solving equations by annealing, that is, reaching the lowest energy level of an analog system. That would make it possible to solve the crypto coins and keywords.

 So what?

Ethnic Vote in New York

 

Mamdani is a young Muslim Indian, born in Uganda, the son of a University professor of African Studies. He is extremely pro-Palestine and socialist. One of his plans is to create a chain of city-owned grocery stores focused on affordability (low prices). The last time it was tried was under Chavez in Venezuela. The City of Flint may be America's future.

New York City has over 300,000 employees and a budget of over $110 billion. 

TASE Arms Industry Index

 

GLOBES devised an index of Israeli arms industries on TASE (pic) and calculated that it has grown 400% in the last three years. I discovered that I am invested in the worst of them. I have never looked at ARIT, NEXT, or the others. 

There are two new companies in TASE: 

טיאסג'י ואר.פי אופטיקל

TSG ? It appears to be a subsidiary of Formula Systems. 

Never heard of them

Rulers of the World

 There is no doubt: this team rules the world. 

President Donald Trump delivers an address to the nation accompanied by Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. June 21, 2025, following strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Sky is Clear

 Yesterday, President Trump sent the American Army to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program (see pic of his flying monster), and the ominous black cloud over Israel has cleared off.  The bourse jumped on one leg out of euphoria. Everybody is dead tired because of this last week of stress, but I succeeded in completing the Maccabiah project on time.   

Missiles

The defense against missiles is not 100%, and this morning, several iconic buildings were bombed: the Soroka hospital of Beer Sheva, the Ramat Gan bourse complex, and so on. There is no mention of casualties; everybody was in the refuge. I am tired because of the tension. I have to work. I promised the Schultz project for next week! How to start? Claude says to work only for two minutes, and then the continuation will come along. Ya'Allah! I am starting now.

Sleeping Much and Badly

The phone alarm and the municipal siren have been waking me up for four nights in a row. I move to the hardened room and sit on my wife's bed. Five minutes later, I return to my bed and fall asleep immediately. The result is that I'm tired all day. I can barely do any work. I feel nothing, just vegetating during this summer. The strange phenomenon that the bourse is prospering reduces my motivation to work. Israel had been preparing for the war with Iran for years, and it appears we are winning. But it is a large, homogeneous, coherent country, not a made-up militia.   

The War improved Israel's risk rating

Most unexpectedly, despite missile barrages launched by Iran towards Israel, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) indices closed today with gains of 0.5%. Yaniv Pagot says Israel's attack on Iran is a step for the better: "Anyone who has lived in the State of Israel knows about the Iranian atomic threat, which has been a cancerous growth for the economy. The rating agencies have also talked about the Iranian threat all the time. Israel decided that this cancer needed to be cut out. As absurd as it may sound, if Israel's geopolitical risk premium was a certain rating, today it is lower."

We are seeing an extraordinary show of strength today, and it is far from intuitive

TASE feels the war is going well

 

There are few changes in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange this morning. This is the second night that my sleep was interrupted by strong phone beeps and alarms, and the screaming siren of the municipal Home Defense. Elbit shares are 5% up, and "there is no limit," they proclaim on their website. My second daughter trained in the Haifa plant while serving in the artillery. Israeli hi-tech is constantly searching for young talent.

South Pars Gas Field Attacked

Apparently, Israel attacked the South Pars gas field within the framework of the ongoing war. Energy markets will feel the shock, and energy companies with alternative sources will profit. Their stock price will rise 10-25%.

The stock most likely to benefit:

Cheniere Energy (LNG): Cheniere Energy is the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer in the U.S. and the second-largest in the world Best Natural Gas Stocks for 2025 | The Motley Fool

EQT Corporation: EQT's size gives it scale advantages, making it one of the world's lowest-cost natural gas producers Best Natural Gas Stocks for 2025 | The Motley Fool

Kinder Morgan (KMI): Kinder Morgan is well-positioned for 2025's LNG boom as a middleman connecting the U.S. natural gas producers with the end markets, including export terminals Top Stocks, ETFs to Benefit From Potential Surge in Natural Gas Demand | Investing.com

Hallucinatory realism

I bought the book Red Sorghum years ago, but never had the patience to finish it. Being at war and advised by the government to stay home, I restarted reading it. I still don't like it, although the author is a Nobel Prize winner. It is a collection of folk stories of the heroic fight of Shandong peasants against Japanese invaders and local bandits. In Argentina, only horses ate sorghum silage, but my wife feeds me boiled sorghum, believing that, being inedible, it must be healthy. The story focuses on a sorghum distillery, where the wine received its special shine and flavor thanks to added piss. I had never heard of red sorghum wine.

The Shabbat has arrived. I stop. My downstairs neighbors (echte Iranians) are praying-singing at full volume. 

Art Deco

A nude by Tamara de Lempicka (a "countess" from Warsaw. The "de" comes from her time in Mexico as a Jewish refugee.) 

Price: about 6 million pounds.

51 public works contracts = 500 million US$

"51 contratos que le fueron adjudicados al Grupo Austral, propiedad de Lázaro Báez, ex socio comercial de la ex vicepresidenta." 

 The former President of Argentina (pic) has been sentenced to prison for corruption, specifically for the 51 public infrastructure contracts with a company called Austral, which is partially owned by her. She and her partners in crime will have to return 500 million dollars to the State. 

La Monde: La toute-puissance technologique d’Israël

 La toute-puissance technologique d’Israël ne lui a pourtant pas épargné le traumatisme du bain de sang du 7 octobre 2023. Mais même un tel choc n’a pas convaincu l’armée israélienne de changer d’approche à Gaza, où le recours systématique à l’intelligence artificielle, plutôt qu’au renseignement humain, a été dévastateur pour la population civile.

Are we all-powerful? Is Claude managing the war in Gaza? Some French philosophers think so.

Austria Today

 This morning,  a former student of the Bundes-Oberstufenrealgymnasium Dreierschützengasse (BORG Dreierschützengasse), a federal upper secondary school in Graz, Austria, assassinated 8 students and 2 teachers. Twelve others were wounded. The criminal shot himself.

I spent time in a Vienna school and have good memories of fellow students. They were generous and helpful. I cannot imagine the anger, the hate, the criminal had in his black heart. Pic.: a random BORG class. 

Morning anxiety

I slept well, but in the late dreaming phase, I woke up in fear (aka morning cortisol spike anxiety). I was taking part in the announced action to enforce the blockade of Gaza, and I carried a military shoulder bag containing my weapons and my money. I lost it and found it with Ilana Ben Ami's help. Then, in the chaos, I lost it again and did not find it, so I woke up in fear. Pic.: Gerta receiving a sandwich from an Israeli girl combatant. 

Another successful project

 

I had a pair of days when I did no work at all. I had been working intensively, focused on the supermarket project, which was rejected once and again by a new מגישה girl called Sahar. She did not even open the zip files but said that it was no good and that she would not further it to the Ministry of Health for approval. I got so depressed that I stopped working on the project and informed the Client to hire another engineer. 

Then I was informed that the Kfar Bilu Country Club permit, after a year of successive rejections, had been approved, and I'll be paid next month. It was a difficult project, with several swimming pools, gyms (pic), pilates, classrooms, hardened refuges, a boiler room, and 15 other facilities. This unexpected success restored my spirits, and here I am working on another problematic project in the Industrial Park of Hartuv. 

Me, worry...?

 For the record, Paul Krugman says on Yahoo that the dollar interest rate is extremely high, and at the same time, the dollar is losing value.  Conclusion: The world is losing confidence in us. The Treasury said that it cannot see how the US can repay its foreign debt, causing Krugman to wonder what made him say that.

The NasNas

We in the Middle East have an abundance of Djinns, which are even mentioned in the Holy Koran and seen by innumerable generations. The most interesting of this cryptid family are the Nasnas - see left illustration -. Unfortunately, I have little recent information on the nasnas, but I promise I shall expound on it - eventually. Just now, a Houthi missile is coming in directly at my neighborhood.

The Fearsome Hodag Cryptid

The ferocious, fearsome horned HODAG is a famous cryptid roaming (but captured only once in the 19th Century) the white cedar and black ash forests of Northern Wisconsin, near the city of Rhinelander. It was born, according to local legends, from pets tortured to death by their owners. It is included in the List of Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN).

Vomitabile

The Italian President's word for the President of France.  

"Vomitabile" is an Italian adjective meaning "vomit-inducing." It describes something so repulsive that it makes you feel nauseous. 

It's a strong term to express revulsion in Italian.

The Most Serious Military Threat Since Cold War

 

Pic.: Pitt speaking in the Parliament.

The British leader, Starmer, said that the U.K. Faces Most Serious Military Threat Since Cold War, and declared a state of war against Russia and ordered the strengthening of the army. 

On the other side of the Atlantic, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned of a crack in the bond market and said the U.S. should be stockpiling military equipment instead of Bitcoin.

As Victor Davis Hanson writes in "The Father of All," war is not caused by material reasons. "It is time to smack the asses of unruly children", said Xi justifying China's attack on Viet Nam. 

The West is rearming. 

Alarming.

The Soul-Sapping Grind of Re-planning a Grocery Store in Bureaucratic Israel

 
For ten days, I have been working (WORKING!) on updating a supermarket in an industrial zone in the periphery. The Client is going crazy, they want it - yesterday! I am fed up; I have other projects waiting. And really, I do not need the money. I am an old-old man who works because that is the only thing he knows. Better people than I are resting in Punta del Este or are long dead.