Risky investment

 
I have been reflecting on investing in BAZAN for almost a year because it is the only large refinery in the Eastern Mediterranean, and its spread is growing with each missile in the Persian Gulf. Yet, it is a refiner sitting in a missile-exposed complex with its war policy nearly exhausted, so it is a very risky investment. Anyway, I am very old and have little to lose - my future is short. I am not afraid of taking risks; I bought 3.000 U$S BAZAN stock. Let's see what happens till December 2026. Pic: the Yaroslav (Russia) refinery after taking a drone attack. 

Day One: It ended well.

Day Two: Even Better.

Shaman Durek, Prince of Norway

Durek is a good-looking Afro-American alternative psychic healer and the husband of King Harald V's daughter.  He runs a website and calls himself a sixth-generation shaman.  As a member of the Norwegian royal family, he has a chance of one day ruling Norway.  White girls fall for large, well-hung black men.

Yokneam

 My daughter lives in that town; they just bought a nice apartment. The Nvidia Lab can be seen from there.

US chip giant Nvidia once again beat all forecasts in its fourth quarter results published last night. Along with the impressive numbers, the main surprise was caused by its activity in Israel - Nvidia's networking division based on the acquisition of Israeli company Mellanox. The activity, which is largely managed by Israelis such as Michael Kagan and Amit Krig and is based in Yokneam, was once again the fastest-growing division at Nvidia with 263% growth compared with the corresponding quarter last year.

Radnóti (in Hungarian)

 
A Bori környék (Szerbia) rézbányái stratégiai jelentőségűek voltak a német hadiipar számára. Magyarországról több ezer zsidó munkaszolgálatost vezényeltek ide, ahol a Todt-szervezet irányítása alatt dolgoztatták őket. Köztük volt Radnóti Miklós is.

(My father and two uncles went through the same Bor mines forced labour camp).

Radnóti 1944 májusában került harmadszor munkaszolgálatra, majd Bor környékére vitték. Fizikailag egyre rosszabb állapotban is tovább írt. Verseinek egy részét egy kis noteszbe jegyezte fel.

Ezt ismerjük ma Bori notesz néven, a magyar irodalom egyik legmegrázóbb tárgyi emlékeként. Nem utólagos költői rekonstrukció, hanem a pusztulás közvetlen közelében született dokumentum.

Amikor 1944 őszén, a Vörös Hadsereg közeledése miatt megkezdték Bor kiürítését, Radnótit és társait gyalogmenetben indították Magyarország felé. Heteken át hajtották a legyengült embereket.

Radnóti végül már járni is alig tudott. 1944 novemberének elején, Győr közelében, Abda határában őt és több végsőkig kimerült társát agyonlőtték, majd tömegsírba temették. Holttestét 1946-ban exhumálták. Ruhájának zsebéből került elő a Bori notesz.

Radnóti nem egy névtelen áldozat volt, akinek csak később próbálták rekonstruálni az utolsó hónapjait. Írásban hagyta ránk saját eltűnésének, ill. eltüntetésének történetét. Verseiben ott van Bor, az éhség, a menet, a félelem, az összeomló Európa és a felismerés, hogy számára talán már nincs hazatérés.

Asians Never Go Crazy

Arthur Koestler wrote about Zen and the Faquir,  travelling to Japan and India to study these famous Oriental techniques. He came back disappointed; the Indians were cheating, and Zen archery missed the mark; it was no more than a relaxing method. In Japan, he discovered that people suffered from paralyzing stress, and he even visited madhouses to study the phenomenon. Japanese crazy people are never violent; their madness is different. I spent time in China and found the Chinese uniformly normal and rational, not like my neurotic Jewish folk. Yet, Chinese and Japanese also suffer from mental issues. BBC writes: 

 The Chinese government has recognised the need for mental health support for teens. Those plans include counselling rooms in every school, psychiatric services in at least one hospital in every county and more mental health professionals. The aim is to build a nationwide system of psychological support and crisis intervention by 2030.

According to the State Council, 92% of primary schools and 95% of junior middle schools now have a counsellor. Many major cities, including Beijing, have started to incorporate mental health into the curriculum.

Pic. Exam somewhere in China. I learn something new every day. 

Why Yes to the Burka

Eating disorders (anorexia) are a growing plague in the world. The numbers are appalling. Even in China, there are some 20 million boys and girls affected by this mental disease. We have it in our family! I looked up where it is more prevalent, and Australia appears to be the most affected country. Modernity, wealth, and the cult of the body are the main factors. In Afghanistan, it is unknown. Why? Poverty and famine could be one reason, but so could the strict prohibition of female skin exposure. The burka hides the female figure (pic), so girls are less troubled by a little bit of fat. 

Claude says that about 10% of Israeli adolescents suffer from eating disorders, and about 20% of affected girls die of the illness (this is a professional's verbal statement, not a published statistic). 9% of the US population, or 31 million, will have an eating disorder in their lifetime. Up to 23% of individuals with BED had attempted suicide, and virtually all (94%) reported lifetime mental health symptoms: 70% mood disorders, 68% substance use disorders, 59% anxiety disorders, 49% borderline personality disorder, and 32% posttraumatic stress disorder. 

In my opinion, there are important reasons to adopt the burka, but all over Europe it is forbidden. The burka helps women's mental health and self-assurance. It defends them from male harassment in public spaces. And of course, it protects against the sun much more efficiently than those zinc creams. It is most necessary in Australia, where melanoma is very prevalent.  

AI Woman

 

We are powerless against AI. In ten more years, it will be more intelligent than us, and we shall be unable to understand it. The perfect relationship will be with an automaton. 

Severe High Temperature Warning

 
It is very hot in Kfar Saba, on Trailblazer  Street 开路人. I cannot work. Wifey opposes air conditioning because her feet are cold. I feel tired. Pic. Sledding dogs in the Arctic.

Hungarian Jews under Nazi Occupation

The Jewish Community of Budapest Social Committee: Jewish Brothers, in these serious times, Be Unseen and Unheard! 

A very wrong policy. But no one can judge them because they were living under a death sentence, and Eichmann was zealously organizing their deportation to the Auschwitz death camp.

Kaifeng Jews 25 years later

When I worked in Kaifeng, I toured the Jewish Street and also had dinner with a Jewish family in their modest restaurant. The woman told me that they gave gold to Jewish refugees, which I interpreted as she expected me to give her money. I had the impression - like others visiting the city - that there were no bona fide Jews but impostors trying to milk rich foreigners. When the factory tried to connect me with a "Jewish" employee, it soon became clear that she was a Hui, that is, a local Chinese Muslim. Wikipedia has a more complete history, and it mentions that the Kaifeng Jews did in fact give gold to Russian Jewish refugees. So my impression may have been totally wrong; sorry, but the past cannot be repaired. It may even be true that the factory woman was a Jewish descendant. 

The Communist control and terror drove the few Jewish clans underground, or to melt into the Hui community. According to today's Tablet, the Central Government has focused on them, and they are under close police supervision, which could lead to the revival of some kind of community. I don't think that being a Jew is a privilege (on the contrary, we are persecuted everywhere), and I am not a missionary. The commercial picture above is a famous bridge that I visited. In the photo, it looks romantic, but I found it unremarkable. In general, Kaifeng was grey, built in the Soviet style, poor and joyless. Of course, that was 25 years ago, and China is very different now. 

Eichmann in Argentina

  The Nazi criminal arrived in Argentina in 1950 with a Red Cross passport under the name of Ricardo Klement, without money. He found employment in the Province of Tucumán with a consulting engineering firm CAPRI. He worked as a hydrologist, measuring river flow rates. In 1952, his wife Vera Liebl arrived with their three sons, Klaus, Horst, and Dietter. They had another son in Tucumán. Eichmann worked on the Feasibility Study of the Potrero del Clavillo dam. The site was found unfit, and the dam was never built. Later, he worked at the University of Tucumán and then moved to Buenos Aires, where he was employed by Mercedes-Benz as a mechanic (see factory pass). Obviously, he was not a deranged Nazi; he could do productive work and maintain his family. He was assigned the job of mechanic in the car factory, and he performed satisfactorily. When given the task of deporting Hungarian Jewry to Auschwitz, he threw himself into the project and outperformed himself. Made little difference to him. 

Dark Ages Ahead

I am following The Economist's weekly data table and wondering why GNP growth has stopped across the West.  In the USA, the size of the workforce has fallen by over 1 million people in the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s now 169.1 million, compared with 170.4 million last July, according to agency data. The strongest factor is the ongoing retirement of baby boomers. The youngest boomers are now in their early 60s, and their continuing departure from the workforce is “the most steady thing pushing the rate lower. That’s the clear, sustained decline.

Europe is no different. But the most dramatic case is Japan, which was once the most dynamic economy of all. More than stagnating, it is contracting rapidly. If they start to sell their mountain of dollar savings, the dollar will lose its value even more. 

Difficult times are a-coming. I have played my cards and shall sit on the side as a kibitzer. 

Obituary of a Scotsman

 Andrew Wemyss, Fife laird. Born: 3 October, 1925 in Edinburgh. Died: 30 June, 2026, in Dunfermline, aged 100

He was a direct descendant of Augusta FitzClarence, the illegitimate daughter of King William IV, who reigned for seven years until 1837. Second son of Michael Wemyss of that Ilk and chief of Wemyss, and a distant cousin of the 13th Earl of Wemyss (chief of Charteris), Andrew’s maternal grandfather was the 6th Duke of Portland, through his mother, Victoria Cavendish-Bentinck. Victoria, in turn, was the last surviving goddaughter of Queen Victoria, after whom she was named.

At the coronation of King George VI in 1937, Andrew served as a page to his ducal grandfather – whose duties that day centred on carrying the crown of the new queen. Coincidentally, Queen Elizabeth was Andrew’s kinswoman, since her mother was a Cavendish-Bentinck. Further queenly connection occurred through his mother-in-law, Alethea Abel-Smith, also kin.

Clarification: "Of that Ilk" is a Scots territorial designation meaning "of the same" — from Old English ilca, "same." It's used when a laird's surname is identical to the name of his lands, to avoid the clumsy repetition of "Wemyss of Wemyss." A laird is the Scots term for the owner of a landed estate. Many clan chiefs are lairds, but the two are distinct: chiefship is headship of a family; lairdship is ownership of land. Wemyss happens to be both. I am learning something every day. 

AI-products

 Pic. copied from the internet. It is tagged as an AliExpress product and is obviously AI-generated. Very attractive, better than the original. How can an 80-year-old man resist these images? 

AI is playing us. We are fried, as they used to say. 

Don Inodoro

A rare example of Argentine humor. 

Mendieta the dog: What are you doing, Don Inodoro?

Don Inodoro, the gaucho: I am working to find dinosaur bones. 

Mendieta: A long time they have not been seen in these parts.

Inodoro: A dinosaur?

Mendieta: No. Somebody working.

Amulet for Enrichment

Ashirus means Enrichment in Ashkenazi Hebrew. 

"The leader of the Edah HaChareidis, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, may he live long, a leading halachic authority, has announced that “those who donate to Merkaz HaTorah Teshuvos V'Hanhagos will receive wealth."

"Support the establishment of the new Merkaz HaTorah Teshuvos V'Hanhagos Kollel in Beit Shemesh and receive the leading halachic authority’s exclusive Golden Protective Coin, which is said to be a treasured spiritual merit associated with livelihood, wealth, and success"

Fast! Get your Golden Protective Coin and get rich! If the Jews buy the coin, it must be worth it! The Jews are not stupid!    BTW, I am very much for donating to Jewish schools, except that I am a penniless Hungarian refugee with a big family and genetically schmutzig (in the sense of stingy, mean, ungenerous). 

Structural headwinds for Elbit

 Elbit published Q2 2026 before the open this morning, and this is a "sell the news" reaction to results that look strong on the headline but thinner underneath.

The headline numbers actually beat: revenues $2,287.1M vs $1,972.7M a year ago, backlog at a record $32.0B, GAAP EPS $3.61 and non-GAAP EPS $4.14, against a consensus of roughly $3.24 EPS on $2.22B revenue. So why the 7% fall? 

The quality of the beat. Buried in the release: the Knesset's new R&D incentive law (March 31, 2026) was applied for the first time, with a cumulative year-to-date impact of about $40 million — roughly $0.80/share, recognised in this quarter. Strip that out and the "beat" is largely gone.

Tax is now a structural headwind. The effective tax rate went from 5.6% to 16.4%, driven by the OECD Pillar II global minimum tax. That is permanent, and analysts will now rebase forward EPS on a mid-teens rate.

Written by Opus 5. 

August is a Difficult Month

We are suffering here from a very hot August, and we are spending all day in our air-conditioned cave. I am receiving many work orders but am not in the mood for work. This morning I felt half suffocated. Wife is depressed; her friends are aging. She is on Russian literary podcasts. The big Sunni nations have signed a mutual defense pact. It could be against the Shi'a (Iran) or the Jews (Israel).  The sheqel is very strong, 3 sh/US$. Facebook was fined half a trillion for its sick influence on adolescents. In truth, the internet smells like a Nigerian bordello (Argentine quilombos are clean and well-ordered). The painting ("The whores of Avignon") is signed by Pablo Picasso, so it is HIGH ART.  

Spain Frightened

"The Spanish Armada deploys two frigates in Ceuta amid fears of another attack from Morocco."

Why is a large, rich European country suddenly terrorized by unarmed children who all they want is to get a servile job and eat? It is a typical overreaction of old, impotent invalids to a group of vital youths. 

The reaction of Italy is even more hysterical: they closed the borders to anyone coming from Spain. 

The last invasion of Spain was by Napoleon in 1808 (the Dos de Mayo) and ended in 1814. Since then, nothing serious. That is more than 200 years of peace and security.

Discounting the last "attack from Morocco". 

The Sky as it really is

It is the same sky as on Earth, but we have a thick atmosphere. The night sky on Mars is not black; it is green-blueish.

Danakali found gold

I was "potentially" among the very first investors in this South Australian start-up. I did not buy a share because it was being quoted only on a small South Australian stock exchange, and my bank had no correspondents there. I don't know how the Erythrean potash project is advancing, but the enterprise has expanded its operations and is, among other things, exploring the Saudi desert for gold (see pic). It is 54 degrees Centigrade there. Danakali has so much money that they are planning to expand into capital management. I should have paid the brokers' double fees and bought some Danakali.  

Negotiating with Opus5

 I have a new boss: Opus 5. I wrote a technical report, and "he" rejected it. Then I modified it a little, and we reached an agreement:‎

Yes, this is a formulation that I can sign – it is factually correct, it presents the gap openly, and determines the solution. ‎

"He" can sign the paper!  Am I still the engineer, or is he the final authority signing the instruments? Opus 5 feels superior to me, corrects me, and gives me orders. Do I care, or does it hurt my self-respect? 

We are not poor anymore

The Economist ranked Israel as the second most expensive country (the first is Switzerland).  What does it mean? That we are flooded with dollars. As always, we Jews tend to float to the surface. Since I don't like its soft-and-sweet buns, and the family is prejudiced against meat and processed food, McDonald's prices are meaningless for me. 

August-time

 35 degrees Celsius and little energy to work. Pedro Sánchez announced that Spain needs immigrants and, from now on, it will not return them to North Africa. The Moroccans read this in the media, and 70,000 swam to Ceuta. The doors were open. One hundred died in transit. Spain developed an inferiority complex and compensates by forbidding the use of American bases in Spain, by sending its Navy to "protect" the terrorist flotilla, and by suspending trade with Israel. Reading Spanish reactions to the Ceuta "invasion", they unanimously blame the Jews and America. 

Surtaxing the Kulaks

New York Mayor explains that "the pied-à-terre tax is something that will be levied upon non-primary residences that are worth more than $5 million".  The surtax has certain similarities with the first steps after the Russian Revolution and the Mao takeover of China. The kulaks were "rich" agricultural property owners, who were declared "class enemies" and subject to expropriation and later, severe punishment. Property being theft, they were considered criminals. The surtax smells antisemitic, as very few Afro-Americans and recent Hispanic immigrants own much real estate. But New York Jews do.