The Ancient Spanish Privilege to Kick in the Air

The "Right to kick" (EL DERECHO AL PATALEO DE LOS AHORCADOS) is an old Spanish idiom of disputed origin. The version I know refers to the right to protest granted to people sentenced to death, specifically, to kick in the air while being hanged. Meaning: you have the right to protest as much as you wish, but it will make no difference.

Someone in Tenerife, Spain, after waiting a long time in a queue and then his request was rejected, kicked in his way out a wastebasket with such bad luck that it damaged the copying machine. The Judge granted his right to be angry and acknowledged "the ancient Spanish privilege of the hanged man to kick in the air", but you are not being hanged and as an adult, you are expected to control your emotions. I sentence you to pay 70 Euro for damages to public property.

Others say that the students of the University of Salamanca enjoyed the right to make noise to convey their protest against a professor they disliked and not to be punished. 

The Economist Cannot Distinguish Boy from Girl

The Economist has been driven crazy by sex and now cannot distinguish between a boy and a girl. It writes that 

The cost of the sensory and neurological mechanisms needed to identify another’s sex, and thus permit sex-discriminating mating behaviour, is high.

that is, those poor human creatures must invest much time and energy in investigating the gender of the other human, a procedure that evolution would have eliminated eons ago. According to The Economist, sex costs close to nothing (The Economist have never courted a Jewish Princess! and never visited Paris!) so, from an evolutionary point of view, it is more practical to fuck first and then ask what or whom, but yes, as frequently as possible. This theory explains to The Economist satisfaction why humans (some of them) practice homosexuality. They simply were not equipped by Nature to invest the time and attention necessary to ascertain that they were fucking the right kind of mammal. A hole is a hole and that's is all one needs to know!

I may be wrong, but from an evolutionary point of view, human homosexuality is very expensive, to the point of causing evolutionary extinction if it goes wrong. To write the opposite is sheer lunacy. Usually, The Economist is less stupid. 

Leaving and paying the hotel bill

I dreamt I was living in a hotel like the San Salvador Sheraton when I was working for TAHAL Consulting. The team was leaving and I had to pay my hotel bill. I was wondering anxiously how to pay. In the end, the team leader arranged the debt and I could leave.  Then I woke up.

My interpretation is that my unconscious mind is preparing me to die. My life is done and I have to pay and leave. 

Teheran Street Food

هزینه یک وعده املت برای یک خانواده 4 نفره در تهران به طور خوشبینانه 33 هزار و 700 تومان هزینه به دنبال دارد.

Waging war in far away places like Syria burns up much money and the people goes hungry. An omelette plate for four is now prohibitively expensive. A Twitter from Teheran.

Economic Experiment

It is taking place these days in Israel. This year we had two elections and the third is scheduled for January - February. So we have no active government taking decisions nor passing laws till the next government, around June 2020. Is it good or bad?

Apparently it is excellent. A small irritation with Gaza fade away in days and we have peace. The economic activity is accelerating and the GNP is growing at 4% p.a. Faster than the USA and Europe. Only China and India are growing faster.  TASE, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, is fantastic: it has added 10% in the last three months. Israelis are feeling rich and I am worried that my daughters will spend the inheritance I shall leave on fashion items. Oy!

Louis Vuitton

H&M

Hermès

Gucci

Prada

Chanel

February, 1938

The Gathering Storm, written by Churchill immediately after the war with all the documents of both sides, provides a masterful analysis of what the war really was about. In chapter 15 "The Rape of Austria" he quotes the protocol of Hitler's directive to the chiefs of the armed forces. Germany must have living space. It could be best found in Eastern Europe - Poland, White Russia, Ukraine. To obtain this would involve a major war and incidentally, the extermination of the people living in those parts.

Neurath, Fritsch, Blomberg, the General Staff were all alarmed by this policy. On February 4, 1938 Hitler dismissed Fritsch. Blomberg fell out because an inappropriate marriage. The Fuehrer assumed both political and military powers, and almost immediately, Austria was annexed, then Czechoslovakia and half Poland. The extermination policy was fully implemented on the Jews, the weakest sector, while the preparations already in place to extend it to the general population.

Hitler meant what he said and moved very fast. Churchill warns us "not to look down the decent, well-meaning British leaders" - but I could not make sense of his reasons for why not to.

P.S.:  Chamberlain et al tried to deflect Hitler's aggressiveness and waited, and waited, hoping that someone else - the Austrians, the Czechs, the French, the Poles, etc. - would resist and so let them enter the arena with Hitler already engaged in a war. In the end, that was what happened with the Russians forced to confront Hitler. Churchill did follow the strategy of his predecessors, of avoiding direct confrontation with the Germans and letting others - ultimately the Russians and Americans - to fight the war. Anyway, the war ended with Britain impoverished and exhausted. 

Enjoying Winter in the Campus

Winter in the University of Ariel. It has grown in twenty years to 16 thousand students. The Dept. of Engineering is now a Faculty. Grosso modo, ten percent of the visible students are female Muslims - well kept and modernly dressed, with the hair covered. Another ten percent are religious married Jewish women, with their fantastic turbans. I cannot classify the males, they all look alike as Balkan highway robbers, dressed in black. Here and there one can distinguish blond hair and pallid faces - Slav immigrants. The student body (and the population in general) has been moving towards a non-specific South Syrian type. IQ=92? That is not what the virgin bride dreamt of (An idiom that makes much sense but only in Hungarian).   זה מה שיש ועם זה אתה חייב לנצח (Hebrew Army Slang: That is what you have and with that you have to conquer).