The Next Generation

Sunny winter morning in the Holy City of Binyamin Ben Ya'akov Tomb (we are on Google Map) . Noia in the Neighborhood Communal Garden.  Apparently, they are growing beets.


Right: Family PicNic in the Rosh Ha-Ayin "Forest". Grandson Arbel.



Below: Geffen. 

Which was more advanced: The Roman Empire or the Chinese Empire?

Putting side by side technologies of the two contemporary empires, the Romans appear much more advanced and productive. Lets compare metallurgy: Roman mines produced copper, lead, gold and silver and iron by thousands of tons. Roman aqueducts and lead pressure pipes were unequaled till the 19th Century. And they drank wine like the Mediterraneans they were (Pic.:wine strainer).  In civil engineering, the Romans were the world's first major bridge builders. A list of Roman bridges compiled by the engineer Colin O'Connor features 330 Roman stone bridges for traffic, 34 timber bridges and 54 aqueduct bridges, a substantial part still standing and even used to carry vehicles. Another list by the Italian scholar Galliazzo gives even 931 Roman bridges, the majority of which were arch bridges.

"These bridges were part of the Roman road system. This spanned more than 250,000 miles (400,000 km) of roads, including more than 50,000 miles (80,500 km) of paved roads.^[56][57] When Rome reached the height of her supremacy, no fewer than 29 great military highways radiated from the city.^[58] Hills were cut through and deep ravines filled in.^[58] At one point, the Roman Empire was divided into 113 provinces traversed by 372 great road links.^[58] By comparison, in Han China, there were two known arch bridges, referred to in Han literature,^[59] while a single Han relief sculpture in Sichuan depicts another arch bridge.^[60] The Han road system, mostly unpaved, was 22,000 miles.^[61]"  And Roma had a larger population than China.

Romans, as all White peoples, took decisions by public assemblies, where good speakers became the leaders. In America it was the City Hall meetings, in Israel the kibbutz meetings in the communal dining room. The Chinese had no formal meetings and decisions were taken by strict hierarchy. Even today, Chinese assemblies uniformly vote for the leadership's proposals and applaud for long minutes, while real debate - if there is - is hidden and solved by intrigues of underground factions. The Soviet Union had the same type of governance.  Romans had extensive and public (transparent, codified) legislation, the Chinese had no enforceable laws nor lawyers.

Extrapolating history to the future, I reach the conclusion that the West needs not to fear China, and that co-operation is possible and fruitful. Nixon and Kissinger were right.

Wealthy Jews making Aliyah

While Israeli bureaucrats are sucking me dry, wealthy people are leaving their home countries and moving to Tel Aviv. The necessary conclusion is that it must not so bad here as I am feeling.

Bloomberg:  "Wealthy Londoners are leaving the city as new taxes make it expensive to inherit. Losing wealthy individuals is normally a sign of trouble in the political economy of a country. Rich people are often the first people to leave, because they can -- unlike the middle class or the poor. Cities that saw large inflows of HNWIs include Auckland, Dubai, Montreal, New York, Tel Aviv and Toronto, the report showed."

HNWI: People who has more than a million dollars liquid.

Geosmin

Today's fish tasted muddy, not because it is bred in sewage-water (which is) but because of an organic compound called geosmin. This smelly molecule is produced by my favorite mold of the order Actinomycetales, and released when these microorganisms die. 

Everyone knows that a few drops of lemon juice on the fish neutralizes the muddy odor. The molecule breaks down in acidic media.

The human nose is extremely sensitive to geosmin and is able to detect it at concentrations as low as 5 parts per trillion. This had important evolutionary impact as it helped to locate fresh pastures after a period of drought. I rather love this earth smell after rain.

H3N2

I live in the Middle East where more than 30% of the people are influenza positive (WHO map above). Much worse than in America.

So I too got it. This flu virus is bad and specially for old people like myself. For the last two weeks I have been weak, feeling bad, unable to sit down for two hours and work. My clients are demanding their projects and boiling of anger that I don't answer the phone. I have been offered a teaching job in a college that is organizing an engineering department, but I had not answered. Bad. Today is sunny, today I may regain my powers.

Nuclear War is not The End

I sense an irrational fear of President Trump, specially in Germany. The fear and horror flows seamlessly from the revulsion Germans felt during Wall Street Crash. This is worrying because Germany again is a big power: Germany exports more than America and its armed forces are more effective. Fake currency replaces real one, and the world is flooded with dollars and the real money goes to the most stable and strongest economy, which many think is the Euro.  Thus, the dollar is sinking. This could get out of hand.

Anyway, nuclear war involving North Korea and the USA could be a geographically limited conflict, but China, Russia and NATO may not be able to keep out. Here, the land of Israel is a Gruyere cheese full of karstic limestone caves so we could find one to hide in. I am not worried, war would not shorten my life by much.

Dollar Devaluation

A year ago the US dollar was worth 4 Israeli sheqels, today 3.38 and it is sinking. What happened? I assumed Israeli exports are flooding the country with dollars, but it is the dollar that lost value. What happened to America that its currency got devalued 20%? Nothing, there is no crisis, in fact, there is raging optimism thanks to Trump's pro-business policies.

The most probable cause, I assume, is the world's panic of a North Korea vs USA nuclear exchange. The Europeans succeeded in creating a crazy image of Trump and frighten themselves and the world. They are selling their dollars. For America, this is an export bonanza.