The Story of Avi Yaron

"I was going to die, I was desperate.  I had to do all to live, including betting on what I did not know. That was the only way to succeed."

Avi Yaron had brain cancer with little chances of successful operation. So he developed an instrument that sees the tumor with a bee's eye, as a tri-dimensional object. He was operated with full success. In 1998 he founded a start-up and today he sold it for 75 million dollars. Total investments in the start-up: 20 million. The Globes disses the project: It took too long to be really profitable.

Idiots, but this is Israel.

Be a Secret Agent

Yesterday we had a strike in the University. It was all very quiet so I had time to play with "moodle", the in-house network. Suddenly appeared a page urging me "Be a Secret Agent" - it was a call for a course in hasbara - explaining Israeli views on the social media. Since I have no free time and am old for learning new tricks, I am not interested. Moreover I am a declared Zionist since age fifteen and writing all the time about Israel. But we are so few and the world so big that overall Zionist impact is minimal.


Trying to buy something to eat, discovered that all the sandwiches were vegetarian or naturalist (tivoni) - no real food was sold on campus. The new religious right-wing settler youth studying in Ariel are mostly fanatical environmentalists, specially the females of the species, and carefully read the labels about components, and examine the kashrut stamp and which rabbi has signed it.

Chinese Sci Fi : The Dark Forest

In this Pesach week I finished reading the Cixiu Liu trilogy. There are several fascinating tit-bits in this fiction.

The story begins with a scientist discovering a message from the Trisolaris extraterrestrials. A friendly Trisolarian sends her a message: "Don't answer! Don't answer!" But she is so bitter with her Cultural Revolution experiences that answers: "Come and destroy humanity! I'll help you!" She establishes a secret movement dedicated to sabotage human defense and to facilitate Earth's invasion. I find that since Ancient Greece, In all history, specially in the Ancient Greece, there are always voluntary traitors, in fact, an enemy storming a city could always be confident that a faction would betray the defense. Why is that so?

When the Chinese decide to build their Space Force, they find it natural and necessary to create a Space Force Political Department to carry on political and ideological work. They select Zhang Beihai to lead this branch and he proposes that some of the best officers should be sent to the future (by hibernation), to re-inforce the fighters that by that time may have been weakened by "defeatism" and "escapism". More than a technological fiction, Liu spends about half of the text in imagining the political and hierarchical setup of humanity's efforts to confront the Trisolarian invaders. The setup is - surprise me ! - an idealized contemporary Communist China - the book tries to convince the suffering Chinese reader (more than 1000 pages) that the current regime is good and will be going two hundred years from now. Otherwise, Liu's book may have had little chance of being published and less translated. It even could be seen as political propaganda under a sci-fi cover.

No Eugenics in China

The Third Hospital of Peking University launched a sperm donation campaign from Wednesday to run until May 23, and listed a series of requirements for the donors. Source. 

In addition to being in good health, the hospital says donors must have “favorable political qualities”. “[The donors must] love the socialist motherland and embrace the leadership of the Communist Party,” the notice said. “[He must] be loyal to the party’s tasks, be decent, law-abiding and be free of any political problems.”

Apart from meeting the political requirements, would-be donors must be over 20 years old and show no obvious signs of hair loss, color blindness or weight problems.  

Families applying for IVF treatment wait more than a year, partly due to a shortage of suitable donors. China bans the sale of human semen and women looking to undergo fertility treatment must use non-profit sperm banks. 

For all the fears or hopes that the Chinese are improving their deteriorating gene pool, it appears that it is not happening. Surprisingly, the Chinese are as clueless as their Western counterparts. Much more, in fact, as apparently Party membership is one of the "genes" they are looking for. 

The Wolfowitz Doctrine

In short, the Wolfowitz Doctrine says that the USA should

“prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union."

Obama's do-nothing policy did not prevent anything but conduced exactly to that scenario. Now America is striving to regain its former hegemonic position.It is called Trade War.

America is in War

The Chinese Communist Party declared trade war with the USA and calls the American people to defenestrate President Trump:

 "Most Americans have their life linked with China-US trade.
As the tensions escalate, we want to expand the trade war to all Americans so that they have to choose whether to support Trump's unscrupulous move or to hold the president accountable."

China has crossed the line in the sand: It is paying for its oil purchases with the yuan, its own currency. This is a challenge to the dollar, a bold attack against America.

India is buying weapons. Russia is very quiet. Europe hates Trump and it will take time till it follows his leadership. Japan, South Korea, Israel are in this with Trump.    

China will lose but the future is dark for everybody. 

Rolpens, or Gefilte Keres

Rolpens, the Rolled or Filled Paunch (Rumen) is not a traditional Ashkenazi plate but it could be. The original Dutch filling is minced pork, but that is a small detail, fat goose would taste even better. I love these exotic filled meat and fish preparations but they are tabu in my naturalist, vegetarian, pro-starvation home.