League Aleph

 Kfar Saba Po'el ascends to the Aleph League of Israeli football teams. We are making history.

Seizing assets from Argentina

 Judge Loretta Preska ordered a series of resolutions to uncover information from the trial regarding the nationalization of 51% of YPF and the method of seizing assets from Argentina and its public companies. 

Argentina owes Burford Capital, beneficiary of a ruling for US$16.1 billion plus interest accruing at a rate of US$2.5 million per day starting from September 2023.

Preska ordered Argentina to send information about the assets of the Central Bank (BCRA), Banco Nación, Aerolíneas Argentinas aircraft, Energía Argentina S.A. (Enarsa, owner of the Vaca Muerta gas pipeline, 26% of Transener, and major thermoelectric power plants), and YPF itself.

I am shocked by Argentina, a country with 45 million inhabitants, seemingly incapable of governing or defending itself.  

Israeli society under attack

The war had a complex impact on Israeli birth patterns:

Initial Decline: Birth data from June–July 2024—reflecting conceptions in October and November 2023—show that the war initially had a negative impact on fertility rates across the population.

Subsequent Surge: Starting in August, fertility rates began to rise again. This occurred across all population groups, but once again the largest increase — by a significant margin—was among Jewish women, whose fertility rate rose to 3.19 children per woman.

Israeli Jewish births in 2024 were 134,000 compared to 131,000 in 2023. Despite war and hardships, Israelis are choosing to expand their families, contrary to trends in the West

The data shows that despite the challenging circumstances of war, Israel experienced a significant increase in births during 2024, particularly in the latter part of the year, continuing its position as having one of the highest fertility rates in the developed world.

Migration patterns: 82,700 Israelis were registered as having left the country over the past year, up from around 55,000 a year before. 23,800 Israelis returned home in 2024, and 32,800 new immigrants arrived, down some 15,000 from a year earlier

Rescueing Pigs

The Southern California Guinea Pig Rescue (SCGPR)  announced it rescued around 400 guinea pigs this week from a Los Angeles property where they slept outside "with improper food, water, and care."

Guinea Pigs are cuys, the small rats that the Andean natives fatten in holes in their homes and eat. When I was working in Ecuador's highlands, I was served this rodent for lunch (see pic), and I found it edible. They are not kosher. 

Buddhists never kill an animal and are vegetarians. SCGPR is not just another Southern California craze; they have roots in an ancient Indian philosophy. Those little critters may house the souls of dead humans in one of their stations of eternal soul-recycling.  

Common Sense

 
Trump: "Hamas didn't really want to make a deal. I think they want to die…"

“It got to a point where you are going to have to finish the Job…”

The erectus

 

The first hominid to expand successfully from Africa was Homo erectus (see ill.), a large and powerful specimen, formerly called Pithecanthropus erectus. Pithecanthropus is an extinct primate intermediate between man and the anthropoid apes. African humans carry plenty of erectus genes, and the hybrid hominins prospered and spread. Sapiens migrated out of Africa and mixed with Neanderthals already living out there, resulting in Europeans with European Neanderthals and Asians with Denisovan Neanderthals. Thus, we have three different hybrids co-existing today. Evolution continues.  

The eroding support strategy

 Contemporary wars are lost when public support for them erodes and turns pacifist. France lost Algeria not because it lost the war, on the contrary, but because the leftist French media and public opinion turned against it. They became convinced and convinced the nation that the enemy was right and its cause just. The Vietnam War was also lost, not on the battlefield, but on American campuses.

I would say that the international propaganda war against Israel has been won by HAMAS. Yet it is NOT eroding the Israeli public's support for the war in Gaza and elsewhere. The reason is our familiarity with the Arabs and their savagery. We cannot allow ourselves to give up.  Pic: Syrian soldier shaving off Druze moustaches. It reminds us of the pics of laughing Nazis cutting the sidelocks פיאות of religious Jews.

BTW, Zahal moved forces to the Mountain of the Druzes in Syria, and the Syrian army retreated to Damascus. At this moment, Syria is de facto divided, and the South is under Israeli control. For the first time, the frontier was open, and anybody was free to take a tour in the other country. 

Dancing with Khmers

 
Yesterday went to the cinema. A very long film about a dance group that tries to revive Cambodian traditional dance and culture. I never liked Cambodian music and dance; it is highly stylized South Indian culture, slow and delicate. There were stories of Phol Pot and Khmer Rouge soldiers. 

Looking at the British Encyclopedia, it suggests that the emptying of  Phnom Penh (phnom means “hill”; Penh is a woman’s name), which is Cambodia’s single metropolis, had the purpose of destroying the Chinese middle class. Like in Indonesia, overseas Chinese are physically indistinguishable from the natives, so Phol Pot sent to the countryside all the inhabitants of the cities, for their presumed Chinese ethnicity. I see ethnic cleansing everywhere. This insight of mine is probably wrong.

Miracles

 The shekel is strong and is expected to continue strengthening. Two reasons: "The first is Israel’s large balance of payments surplus. The second is that financial institutions will start to reduce their currency exposure. TASE is better than foreign bourses."

Globes: Following the military changes that have taken place in the region, the shekel is now at a new equilibrium level and can only strengthen. 

My daughters have grown up, all have academic degrees, are married, have healthy children, and own property. When arriving in Vienna in 1956, we were so destitute that we had to beg and sleep in a police cell. I still remember the coarse jail blanket and the frozen walls. It was winter. 

Population shortage in Ancient Sparta

 
Rereading about Sparta, they seem to have suffered from massive sexual dysfunction. Men who did not marry were forbidden to attend the Naked Boys Festival. They were forced to parade naked in the agora, singing self-demeaning songs and suffering the jokes of the public. Spartan populations never took off, partly due to pederasty and partly due to the rejection of non pure-blood Spartans. Cruel, racist, military society. 

Sparta was the union of four villages — Limnae, Pitana, Mesoa, and Cynosoura located near the Spartan acropolis (see map). It evolved into the most stable polis (they were most cautious about internal frictions, living in constant fear of their Messenian subjects), well-ordered and secretive. 

My footprint in Nigeria

 

I spent a year in Bauchi, Northeastern Nigeria. Looking back at the place through Google Maps, I discovered the small dam I had planned and started to build for the cattle. The dam was completed, and it is still there, although I don't see that it is being used. The area around it is denuded of vegetation, losing out to the advancing Sahel desert in the last thirty years. 

Massive Oil Field discovered in Antartica

 The Alexander Karpinsky research vessel discovered a 510 billion barrel oil field in Antarctica. The area in question is considered by the British to be their overseas territory and is claimed by Argentina and Chile. Argentina fought and lost a war with Britain for the Falkland Islands nearby. This will be interesting for future generations. 

Enchained in Berlin

 

Deutsche Welle, an official German media outlet, reports on the colorful gay and lesbian parades taking place in many cities. I am an old Jewish fart, totally left behind the times. 

STIMULUS

Still depressed because of yesterday. But I have to finish the project. How to motivate, stimulate myself?

Claude, the empathetic Artificial Intelligence, tried to motivate me: 

I'm sorry to hear about the difficult meeting yesterday. Those experiences can really weigh on us and make it hard to find motivation. It's completely understandable to feel down after something like that.

Here are some strategies that might help you get back on track:

Start small and build momentum. Instead of trying to tackle the whole project at once, pick one small, manageable task you can complete in the next hour. Completing something - anything - will give you a sense of accomplishment and help break the cycle of feeling stuck.

Change your environment. Sometimes a change of scenery can shift your mental state. Try working from a different room, a coffee shop, or even just rearranging your workspace.

Practice self-compassion. Be kind to yourself about having an off day. Everyone has meetings that don't go well - it doesn't reflect your worth or abilities.

I took a day off and here I am. 

We need space

 Yesterday I had a meeting in Yavne. The return drive of 60 km took me 3 hours. It is summer and hot (35 Celsius). I have a feeling that we need more space and more roads. HaAretz was reporting that people were leaving the country for more peaceful places. It seems to me that it is not so.

The meeting was horrible. One fat Russian with a baritone transformed it into a drama, with himself the primo uomo of the opera. He had planned to cause my dismissal and take over the Client. He failed, but killed my will to excel.  

Argentina loses again

 (Bloomberg) – Argentina must give up its controlling stake in signature energy company YPF SA within two weeks after a New York judge sided with litigators in a $16 billion judgment. 

Judge Loretta Preska gave Milei’s government 14 days to surrender 51% of the company’s shares to a global custody account, from which they’ll be transferred to plaintiffs, former shareholders suing Argentina over its 2012 nationalization of YPF. 

Argentina’s sovereign bonds and YPF shares both dropped after Monday’s ruling. Shares for Burford Capital, which is leading the litigation, saw their New York-traded shares soar more than 20% before paring gains.

Pic.: A drilling rig shown in the Vaca Muerta shale region of Argentina. Image: YPF

I was in high school in Buenos Aires when I had an idea for a special oil additive and decided to sell it to YPF. In the main office - a monumental building in El Centro - nobody deigned to talk to me, and I was asked to submit a written proposal. Which I did, and they never answered me. Still, 63 years later, I retain the impression of that enormous organization, Argentina's largest company. 

Jews moving to Israel

 The Jewish Agency reports: 

In 2024, 32,281 immigrants came to Israel from 94 different countries. We stand at about 4 million immigrants since the founding of the state, and 45 thousand immigrants since the beginning of the war, even amid the days of 'Iron Swords'. We are seeing in recent days a sharp increase in the opening of immigration files: 92% in France, 45% in England, 34% in Canada, and 22% from the USA.