Chimps are better hunters than humans

Chimp males form themselves into hunting parties of up to eight animals and trap jungle mammals with incredible efficiency. Hunting expeditions are generally successful and catch up to three Colobus monkeys, to the point that chimps are exterminating them.  There are also war parties organized to attack razzia-like neighboring groups, in order to increase the territory and to kidnap young females. Human ancestors were trapped in the dry side of the large Rift Valley and developed bipedal mobility and invented butchering instruments. I always imagined chimps to be like dwarves, but they measure 1.20 to 1.50 meters, weighting 40 - 60 kg, which is comparable to humans. I look at the people in the street, and there are many of the 1.30 - 1.60 m group. Chimps are stronger than three weightlifters together. The humans sharing the same rainforest environment became pygmies, not much more intelligent than the chimps: a comparative study would be interesting. Do pygmies also wage war?

 When pondering the goals and methods of human activities, we should try to think their equivalent in chimps, which being simpler and more obvious, offering better insights. For example, what triggers the formation of chimp war parties? When and how the group decides that the time has come to raid the neighbors?  

RED-DEAD project failed

With typical phantasioner overoptimism, Shimon Peres envisioned numerous infrastructure projects that would wave a network of common - unbreakable - interests between Israel and the neighboring countries. The Sinai gas pipeline, that would solve Egypt's energy scarcity and promote its industrialization. The pipe was laid down and worked for a while, till  ISIS sabotaged it. Cairo has no effective forces in the Sinai nor in the rest of its vast territory. On the map, Egypt extends over a million sq.km, but it has no power out of Cairo.

Having learnt this painful lesson, we made a re-appraisal of the Red Sea - Dead Sea pipeline hydroelectrical project. Does the King of Jordan exert effective rule along the 220 kilometer pipe? Israel has decided to retire from the project, and compensate the breaking of the contract with a large payment in currency and drinking water. A very costly fuckup.

We are following the American model of Nation-building for the benefit of our neighbors, but we have even less success than the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. We organized friendly political forces in South Lebanon, but they turned out deadly enemies. We tried to make Gaza a self-governed political entity so we could make peace with them. Absolute failure. The Palestinian State, another Israeli invention, is a comic opera. Thus, the potential of the 450 meter fall of the Dead Sea valley will continue unexploited, till the Moshiach comes. 

Welcome, Low IQ People!

I just received a phone call from a corporation - they had a problem with a calculation. I solved it with excel in no time. They gave me five hundred. Since childhood I receive these presents for nothing, for helping a fellow student for an exam, for translating a page from an unusual language, for solving some banal calculation, for helping the President of the University with a speech, for writing a learned rebuttal to an ignorant regulator. More dumb people make my life easier. More dumb blondies ... ("deep sigh")  … would make my life … (complete the sentence). 

Newark's Water Poisoned with Lead

Mayor Ras J. Baraka wrote a letter to Donald Trump, urging the president to ditch his potential plan to fund his long-sought border wall with emergency funds and instead send some of that money to Newark to replace faulty lead lines that are leaking ‘dangerously high levels of lead’ into the city’s tap water,” The Root reported.

Newark is still in the process of fixing the corrosion control treatment process at the Pequannock plant, which is contributing to the elevated lead levels, said city spokesman Frank Baraff, adding that the city was expecting the levels would still be high during the latest monitoring period”.

It looks that the Flint Water Treatment Plant's failure in treating the water and the subsequent success in drawing Federal Emergency monies is being repeated. 


Newark is one of the oldest American settlements. Originally it was organized as a theocracy of Connecticut Puritans, but that was a long time ago. About 10% of the population is European, the rest is African. Talk about Jews replacing the natives. 

We are in War

We seem to be in an air war in Syria. They fired one missile forcing the closure the only ski facility in Israel. We reacted out of proportion and killed 12 soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard  stationed at Damascus Airport, and a bunch of Syrian soldiers. It is interesting that the recently received S-300 Russian antiair batteries were silent, only Soviet made AA fired. Probably the Russians do not allow the brutish fingers of the Syrians to touch these powerful equipment, to avoid accidents like the last month's felling of a passing Russian carrier.  The confrontation now is between Russian technology versus Israeli/Western technology .

In the Tel Aviv Palace of Justice

Two years ago I gave a written expert opinion on the flooding of a low laying shop. Wrote a short paper, took the money, paid 50% taxes, and forgot the whole business. Yet the Justice never forgets a thing and it grew till the judgment day arrived. Today. Who is responsible for the frequent flooding and sewage overflow? The Judge's own expert wrote that of course it was the occupant's duty to build a pumping station. I said that it was the Authority's legal responsibility to evacuate the sewage. The Judge went out to lunch and left us for half an hour. In this time the insurance woman and the lawyer of the flooded party achieved agreement, 80,000 shekels. When the Judge came back he dictated the conclusion and the problem was who shall pay the experts? Lots of technical discussion that I did not follow, but in the end the lawyer promised to send me the cheque.

The place is a an enormous Brutalist style building, massive cement blocks, some of them with impressed relief signs and mysterious signs (pic). It must have some meaning. I shall read it when I have time.

The Very Long Hand of American Justice

America is policing the world and imposing American morals on everybody. I applauded when a Brooklyn Justice forced Argentina to pay its debt - that was justice. But now America has demanded the arrest and extradition of a Huawei (Chinese) executive for … I don't know what, but certainly not for violating American laws. Probably they included a spy function in their chips. The Economist has noticed that banks and international corporations are increasingly afraid of American activism. In the past, American power was never exercised in such an open way. America promoted democracy, but now it is imposing its own idealist morals in the commercial world. America is following the model of England's international campaign against slavery of the 17th and 18th Centuries. I think it is a good thing.