Israel Prepared for Missile Attack

Israel is prepared for next missile attack. It has been divided into 17 alert areas, so hen the missile is coming, the targeted area will be alerted while the rest of the country can continue sleeping in peace. I am in the green area, we are not expecting a flying bomb in the near future.  We shall have 90 seconds to seek refuge. 

The Czar Nikolay

Trotsky in his history of the Russian Revolution analyzes the Czar the last of the Romanov dynasty. He was a good looking sportsman, a man without emotions, "'without insides" (said the monk  Grigori Rasputin), a mediocre nobody spending his time in paddling in a canoe and noting down in his diary that he had tea on the terrace.  Probably he was quite stupid, too. All the while his army was destroyed by the Japanese in Tsushima, and later by the Germans. Russia's defeat in WWI produced millions of embittered soldiers who had been brutally flogged "to elevate their fighting spirits" and had witnessed the incompetence of the noble officer caste and were more than ready for a change. They started to doubt the divinity of the Czar and that the Jews had killed the Son of God. The Jews they knew personally had fought courageously and seemed good leaders.

Trotsky describes the vacillating Kadets during the revolution and how the extremist, terrorist left - the Bolsheviks - seized the power. This minuscule political illegal organization was the most virile, daring and decided element in the whole Russian universe. The Czar was unaware of their existence, he did not fight them, he was pleasantly occupied in open air sports, attending the Orthodox Church ceremonies and drinking his tea in the terrace. Soon after the Russian nobility found itself driving taxis in Paris. "Europe had a debt to history, and had to pay it".  

Trouble in China

A million strong demonstration is marching in Hong Kong central street. They are resisting the extradition law, meaning they do not want to be under Chinese Communist dictatorship. Taiwan is able to maintain its independence now for seventy years. It is a bad example for China mainland, it means that separation is feasible. Will the Peking government order a military invasion and massacre? Anyway, trouble down the way.  

Nostalgy for an America that is No More

Pinkwashing Homonazism

"Cosas veredes, Sancho... " quote Don Quixote. You will see things...  never imagined things. Israel is being accused of promoting Gay Parades, etc. to pinkwash itself, to be seen as a liberal society, hospitable and friendly to everyone. To make a contrast with the surrounding Islamist societies, where women are kidnapped and sold as sex slaves and gays are thrown down from tall buildings (remember the Islamic State?).

What can we say? Nothing. We should not care about what our enemies say, they hate us and will turn everything on its head, we should keep doing what is right.

Personally I am tolerant of homosexuals, because of something that happened long time ago in Buenos Aires. A Hungarian Jewish teenager, only son of Auschwitz survivors, of my acquaintance, killed himself. For being different. Better have him dressed as a prostitute and star in a parade.   

Guilty of Conspiring to Fuel Sales

A federal jury in Boston found the company’s top executives, including the founder, John Kapoor, guilty of conspiring to fuel sales of the drug, Subsys, by bribing doctors and misleading insurance companies.

This accusation against a Pharm company, for selling Phentasomething an opioid painkiller, a totally legal and FDA approved medicine, is something new. The company, Insys Therapeutics, agreed to pay 225 million dollars as forfeiture and other kinds of extraordinary tax. In other legal actions, TEVA agreed to pay eighty million dollars and the "toxic" Sacklers are begging for bankruptcy. The Sackler brothers are one of the most generous philanthropists, but giving out money for museums and medical schools did no good to them.

The future of pharm companies, and of large corporations in general, seems difficult. TEVA is being sued for manufacturing cheap and good medicines and for "fueling sales" in many States. That in addition to the very difficult problem of mountainous debts. Maybe the low valuation of the company is justified. I did not sell TEVA shares, it was a mistake. 

Fakenews: Was there any massacre in Tian An Men?

I remember the pictures of the Peking student demonstration carrying a giant Styrofoam statue of the Goddess of Democracy. There were few mentions of shooting students, the "massacre" meme appeared years later. Today, when the relations between China and the USA are tense, the Western press speaks non-stop of a massacre. I do not know what really happened, a Communist dictatorship is able to erase the memory of any event including famines, purges, anything.