Building Crimes

To receive a building permit in Israel is an extremely complex bureaucratic ordeal requiring hundreds of signatures from various authorities. During my time serving on vaadot (councils) that deliberated and approved projects, I often struggled to fully understand what was being discussed.

Recently, the Land Authority concluded an extensive investigation into several buildings and is now prosecuting fifteen former members of the Bnei Brak city councils, two former City Engineers, and multiple architects and directors from the Register Department. They stand accused of a serious crime: issuing permits for illegal construction projects, including two high-rise apartment buildings erected on public land. This is being handled as a criminal prosecution, with the physical existence of these buildings serving as tangible evidence of the wrongdoing. Money changing hands has not been mentioned. 

I never imagined that participating in those soporific proceedings could land someone in jail.

Imprisoning both current and former City Engineers, alongside numerous past members of the vaadot, will certainly send a powerful message. The inevitable consequence will be municipal bureaucrats becoming even more reluctant to sign documents. This heightened caution will create additional obstacles to obtaining permits, making it substantially more difficult to advance not only my construction projects but everyone else's as well.

The Tel Aviv Central Project

 
Yesterday I took the 567 bus to Tel Aviv to see the next project. Basically, it is a fuel ("soler") station and a garage for buses within a closed environment. I had to walk the labyrinthine corridors and driveways to find the place. Already it is the next day and I am still feeling the effort. But I am not yet dead, so I have to concentrate and work! I'll have more than enough time to rest in the grave. Pic: Prague.

Quam-Core processor

 I know nothing about quantum computing, but this thingie seems very advanced. Israeli, of course. Not Palestinian from Gaza. 

Germany's Mirror

 
Spiegel's editor writes an opinion piece:

There is no reason why 500 million Europeans shouldn’t be able to defend themselves against Russia on their own.

But that changes nothing about the fundamental shift that has taken place: Trump and his cronies have shattered the world order that has guaranteed security and prosperity in Europe and the United States since 1945. It was a unique system built on the foundation of an economic and military alliance within which the U.S. held the leadership role, but which depended on close cooperation.

The new U.S. president only sees the burdens this alliance placed on America’s shoulders; he is blind to its benefits. He sees the world through the eyes of a 19th-century imperialist: In his view, the world’s great powers should divide the world among themselves and demand complete subservience from their vassals. But Europe cannot succumb to this worldview. It must now rediscover its economic and military strength to survive in this new world – one defined by the naked pursuit of power.

Germany is very important. Spiegel is well-informed (it was the first to accuse China of the COVID epidemic). Not long ago its industry outcompeted all. Is Germany homecoming to its historical obsession, the "pursuit of power"? 

Memories from Budapest 1956

These very sounds bring to my memory the shooting on Almasy Ter where we lived during the October revolution. 

Nightmare

 
Around 1 AM, I watched X about the massacres of Alawis in Syria. The Muslim rebels made the prisoners walk on four and bark like dogs. Then I heard dry shots and they were dead. The worst short was a rebel with a big knife, asking three little boys who they wanted to be slaughtered first. The boys, were terrorized, pointed at each other, and waited for death. Before waking up I felt myself in a room with other children and my mother, and many Gilette razors and knives flying around, I was terrorized as I imagined the flying razors cutting cleanly into the muscles. As far as I remember, I never had nightmares. I am changing.

Selling to China

 
Colonial Mexico's silver poured into China because the Spanish could not sell anything else there. For 300 years, the British tried to trade with China, but they too had to pay with silver, which caused a recession in all of Europe. Only by selling opium (an illegal drug) was the balance of trade established around 1800. When the Chinese government tried to stop the contraband, the British Navy attacked and conquered China. Today, China is more advanced in every industry, beating the world even in AI and quantum computers. We are, once again, the Western Barbarians. We have nothing to offer them.