Token Economy

The bitcoin and other crypto currencies are falling some 50% because of the Chinese government anti-speculation restrictions. The whole phenomenon will end badly, said Damon, like the Dutch tulip craziness. Israeli banks actively discourage their clients when try to buy bitcoins, because they do not want to be exposed to this kind of business. That is, they fear that it is for illegal transactions or cheating on tax, or that the client may sue them for his   losses. I have no bitcoins yet my banker is calling me twice a week to warn me of my non-diversified high-risk portfolio.

I think that these tokens (there are hundreds of them) will never become a real currency, because their worth is unsupported by an organization and varies according to the whims of the public. You cannot make a contract on a currency that changes its worth from day to day by 50%. When the government lost its control of the Argentine peso, people used the American dollar and the economy was dollarized. Only the strongest and stablest currencies can survive, like the Swiss franc and the American dollar. And in our days of miracles, the Israeli shekel.

Knesset Member Guetta Sacked for Attending his Nephew's Marriage

Many American political analysts viewed Oriental Jews as less fanatical and more open to Arabs than Israeli Ashkenazim.I always maintained that the Mizrahi Jews, coming from a Muslim environment and very familiar with Arab culture, are the real hard core of the Jewish people. Judaism for them is not an intellectual construct, but God's Law.

The Nephew of this eminent and powerful politician of the Shas (Sepharadim) party, was sacked and expelled from the Knesset for attending the marriage of his nephew. His nephew married a man.

Israel large on the Cryptogeography

China just now has prohibited crypto blockchain currencies and America is moving to the same position. Damon just said that the bitcoin is a fraud.

Israel is different. Bancor raised $150m through an initial coin (“ICO”) offering in June. Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s largest bank is moving to secure documents digitally. The Bank works with Microsoft Azure, a market leader in blockchain development.



I am feeling too old to join the wave, I'll let it pass by me.

Alanbrooke and Churchill

I am reading Alanbrooke's war diary and it changed my view of Churchill. The Brits under his leadership avoided like hell fighting the Germans, he resisted American and Soviet pressure to launch an invasion to the continent and sent British forces to defend the colonies, Egypt, India, Ceylon. All the while protesting that he was preparing to fight the Germans.

I understand that the British were afraid of fighting a land war because Verdun had exterminated a whole generation of British youth. But Churchill, in addition, was a former Minister for the Colonies, and his strategy was to maintain intact the Empire - he was the quintessential British colonialist. In the nineteen forties, colonialism and imperialism were already obsolete, and Churchill's obsession of maintaining the Empire prolonged WWII two or three years and bankrupted England.

Alanbrooke describes how Stalin begged Churchill to open a second front in Europe to divert some German forces from the Eastern front, with zero results. Churchill did not care about the tens of millions dying in the East, he was protecting the Suez Canal, England's lifeline to India.  

As soon as the war was over, The Empire cracked and England gave it up because realized that times had changed and colonialism was dead, that peoples were rebelling and the English themselves lost their will to rule and exploit colored folks. In summary, Churchill and his sidekick Alanbrooke caused untold unnecessary suffering to humanity.

First Americans as seen by the Japanese

One of the warships of Perry looking for whaling space and coaling stations as recorded by a Japanese artist. They were not perceived as friendly, I gather.

Gadi Taub on Cleansing Consciences

You might think that the human rights argument would long ago have settled the debate about the occupation. The occupation is a human rights violation, a human rights violation is a grave injustice, and therefore Israel must leave the territories immediately, with or without an agreement, to put an end to this injustice. What could be simpler?

...[but] ending the occupation cannot be expected to lead to any improvement in the area of human rights. Just the opposite. The probable alternative – Hamas, or even the Palestinian Authority – would evidently be even worse for the Palestinians than Israeli military rule. So whoever wishes to make the case solely on the basis of human rights could easily end up substantiating the idea of perpetuating the occupation rather than ending it. 

...I’m familiar with the next step in the debate. But, they say to me, what the Palestinians do to the Palestinians is their business. If others end up committing even greater injustices, that doesn’t sanction the injustices we’re committing. We are responsible for our own actions, not for the actions of others, they say.

That’s all well and good. But if that’s their real motive, those who profess to care so much about human rights ought to stop selling us the lie that they care about the Palestinians, and cease propagating descriptions of suffering dripping with piety. They ought to just tell the truth straight out: They could care less how much the Palestinians suffer, and they have no qualms about letting Arabs be brutalized...The cleanliness of our hands and our consciences is all that matters, not what happens to the Palestinians...the concerns of these people are limited to themselves and their consciences. For them, politics is basically a form of therapy. It’s all about the self and not others, about the self-portrait reflected in the mirror, not about responsibility toward other human beings, not about reality. It’s a decorative ornament bestowed by a “clear” conscience...

...People who seek to cleanse their consciences at the expense of others’ suffering do not inspire respect. Especially when they adopt a pose of feeling sorry for those whom they’re quite prepared to sacrifice.

The Disaster of the French Revolution

Chou Enlai was asked about his opinion of the French Revolution. He answered that it was too early to judge.

What an INSIGHT ! It is becoming evermore clear that the Revolution was a disaster for civilization. "Liberating" us Jews from the ghetto destroyed the religious/organizational framework that sustained Judaism and launched the Jewish assault on European elites. Freedom, equality, brotherhood has been decimating us for two hundred years. Judging from its fruits, it brought about the elimination of Jews in Europe and the dissolution of American Jewry. Bad, bad.

As for what it did to the French nation, just take walk in Paris and try to find where they are now.