Frivolities

What a contrast with Michelle Obama! Our current First Lady (yes, she is) is a former professional model who shocks the fashion world with her creations. Here she is exhibiting on the background of the Sphynx her "tropical explorer" model. She is too cold and distant in my opinion.

China Realizes Its Mistake

When I worked in Tian Jin, China, in the seventies, most of the professors were very skinny. Professor Jin, who spoke excellent English, was a veritable skeleton. He was very worried about the high prices of the apartments in China, and interrogated me about the Israeli situation. He was shocked by the prices here, and that was forty years ago when the prices were a quarter of today's. He was worried by the poverty of China, and I told him that the Chinese are so hardworking that in no time China will be a middle class country. I was right. I also told him that the one child policy then imposed was a big mistake, but he said that "We are too many". That inhuman  policy was a big mistake, an irreversible big mistake.

Today China is providing incentives for a second child. Currently the Liaoning province has a TFR of 0.9 which is among the lowest and most unsustainable among the peoples of the world. 20.6% or the population are over sixty: this northern population is dying off. The province was formerly known as Manchuria and is among the most industrialized.

Being a Jew, my Chinese hosts were curious why we are so smart. I told them that we underwent the most severe selection in history, expulsions and mass murders, so only the fittest survived and did not abandon their identity. In my case, Jews in Hungary (and Bohemia and Germany) had no permanent residence permits and for hundreds of years they lived as ambulant illegal small salesmen, from one fair to the other, barely tolerated in trades that did no compete with the natives, such as money-changing and unsecured credit. One had to be a genius to survive in those trades. And my parents, among the few survivors of Auschwitz and the forced labor brigades. The Chinese left it at that, but without understanding, because in those post Cultural Revolution, intellectuals were incredibly limited and "provincial", and there was nothing in Chinese recent or imperial history resembling anything like the Jewish experience that they could even remotely compare.

Pic: A propaganda painting "National Harmony" commissioned by the Japanese regime in Manchukuo, with dancing girls of five nationalities Chinese, Manchu, Korean, Mongol and Japanese.

Snapshot of J's Morning

An unexpected sum in US dollars appeared in my bank account. It happens that Medtronics, an American medical giant, bought Israeli start-up Mazor Robotics and paid 50 dollars cash per share. I had some Mazor shares. Instead of losing 1% in currency exchange to sheqels, I decided to buy something on the NASDAQ.

It was a very hot morning so I took time resting in the airconditioned private banking area. Without provocation, a woman "sexually attacked" me and advised me to enjoy the money, life is for enjoying specially at our age. I completely misunderstood her and said that apart of helping my daughters, I know no way of enjoying myself. What could I do? Travel? Cars? I have no desire of anything. She told me where she lives, that she is a wealthy divorcee, that all she wants is to have a good time. As for this old Jew, bought INTEL and Tower Semiconductors.

Illustration: Add 20 years and 20 kilos to visualize the incident.
P.S.: Judge for Family Affairs (female, all of them are) ordered to give half of the monies received by the founder and principal of Mazor Robotics to his ex-wife. Apparently they were divorced before the foundation of the company, and have not seen each other for some time, but she is entitled to the fruits of his work. He will also pay 30% income tax. No relation between this and the yesterday conversation.  

Irreparable Damage

It was enough the accusation of a lachrymose old woman to destroy the teaching career of Kavanaugh.  Over 800 Harvard Law alumni have signed a letter calling on the university to rescind Kavanaugh’s appointment. He was hired to lecture at the university in 2009 but is no longer listed on the staff directory.His course in Yale was eliminated and he does not figure among the teachers. Teaching is the thing he most loves, and in his defense speech he said that he would not be able to tech again. He knew.

Regarding Christine's house, it is only about 50 sq.meter - two rooms and a kitchenette. She lived years in that small house with no claustrophobia. The second street entrance was 100% to create a rentable property. I am unfamiliar with her milieu, but it appears that although she lives in Palo Alto, she is not rich, and although she has academic titles, she works in a low-prestige poorly-paid job.

Mud is starting to stick to both: he was known in Yale for drinking, and she had many affairs. Her boyfriend left her for cheating. Her "trauma" did not affect her sexual appetite. No one will come out clean and shining from this affair. 

Not like that Boy Scout Kavanaugh

Fenster:

Now Ted Kennedy.  A man’s man, not like that Boy Scout Kavanaugh.  He knew how to do sexual assault right.

I believe in Kavanaugh

“So the vomiting that you reference in the Ralph Club reference related to the consumption of alcohol?” asked Whitehouse.

“Senator, I was at the top of my class academically, busted my butt in school. Captain of the varsity basketball team,” said Kavanaugh. “Got in Yale College. When I got into Yale College, got into Yale Law School. Worked my tail off.”

… and liked beer. Which Irish boy doesn't? So what.

Palo Alto residents discuss the Second Door

Psychologist Blasey Ford based her story of lifelong sexual trauma on several indirect proofs, one of them was her building a second front door on their bedroom (so she could never be locked in again). This is considered corroborating evidence by experts: "I mean, who needs two front doors?"

Neighbors went to check this second front door and truly, there is a small semi-hidden second front door. The locals wondered if it was an escape door as she presented it or just the addition of a "rentable property" that is legal in Palo Alto and very common.

The consensus of the locals seems to be that her home is in a most valuable site, near Google's campus, with the potential of producing an income of 1500 dollar per month. In fact, she said that the annex is rented out to Google interns. Apparently her love/need of that extra income is stronger than her fear of letting in strangers in her home. Maybe the interns are female or gay.

Some locals never heard of the Palo Alto University (pic from its website) where she works. The institution exists and occupies a modest commercial building. I have the impression that it takes in everybody and it is not a standard academic institution. In the mall on the other side of my street operates a "Holistic Health School", I imagine it is comparable to the Palo Alto University. May be I am wrong.


Both Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh are working elite. Following the left's accusations of the  "privileged White" one could imagine that they are wealthy, parasitic, feudal aristocrats, but these people are decent, hard-working middle-class professionals. The best of America. The whole affair is a tragedy, the Senate should not allow this circus.