Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Flint, Now Newark, What Tomorrow? Lead Contamination

 

The EPA took filtered water samples from Newark homes earlier this month and found that several of them had lead levels exceeding the federal threshold of 15 parts per billion. 

It was found that lead was leaching into the water because of ineffective corrosion treatment at the city’s Pequannock plant,” The New York Times reported. See the brand new Pequannanock plant (pic) that cost a hundred million dollars.  “Last year, lead levels in more than half the samples tested at homes served by the plant exceeded the 15 parts per billion standard.”

Mayor Ras Baraka and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy issued a joint statement asking the federal government for help in resolving the crisis. 

My Take: After Flint's Lead National Emergency and generous Federal grant, I was expecting another Black city with leaden water. Again, incompetent municipal governance plus lazy water treatment plant personnel. Pic.: Ras Baraka.

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Thanks to the Ayatollahs

 


The formalization of the relations with the Gulf Arab states has an immediate meaning for Israel: the opening of a vast market for our military stuff. Depending on the virulence of Ayatollahs, these small states buy about one hundred million dollars worth of materiel. The richest is Kuwait, not yet mature for business, but maturing fast. Aden should be standing in line, then the Hejaz/Saudia. These states were colonized by the British and the Americans, and when these former world powers retire, Israel included in their last will as the legitimate inheritor of these possessions. 

Illustration: The Portuguese Fortress of Macau. The military hardware was purchased from the British.  I admire British products and spent days in London and Manchester awed in the industrial museums. The Economist of today has an intelligent article about the disastrous decline of Britain. I am a lifelong Anglophile and wish it would be different.  


Friday, August 14, 2020

Vino Formosa Rosso

 

Award winning Vino Tinto Fortificado - something new from Taiwan, a tropical island. Interesting. I think it may be very sweet, made from Muscat varieties. Fortificado means that pure alcohol is added to increase its grade. I wonder what award it received. 

Thursday, August 13, 2020

The send balloons by the wind, we down them.

 For the first time, Israel has deployed the "Lahav Or" laser system to the Gaza border to intercept airborne incendiary and explosive balloons that are being launched at innocent Israeli civilians by the terrorists in the Gaza Strip.  I think it is a big deal. Balloons filled with propane gas are easy to explode, I know, but this is an important advance toward the next generation of antiaircraft weapons.

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Thinking about Kamala

 

I follow from afar American politics but it was Steve Sailer's note that revealed to me who is Kamala Harris, probable VicePresident and  subsequently (Biden is 77) possible President. She is a woman whose education and political career was focused on racism that is the legendary victimization of American Blacks. She perceives reality through the lenses of race relations, and it is worrying to put this limited and obsessed person in charge of a world power like the United States. And specially now, when the country finds itself in competition/war with a larger and homogeneous power, like China.  

Pic.: Kamala with her first political patron, her first step in her career. According to state records of the time, members of the committee had to be "selected from persons with experience in management of hospital services, risk management insurance or prepaid health programs, the delivery of health services, the management of county health systems, and a representative of recipients of service.”

Brown’s decision to appoint Harris raised eyebrows in political circles. “Both boards are reserved for political payback or occasionally for personal rewards for personal service,” said Brett Granlund, a former California Republican state assemblyman who worked closely with the commission while Harris was on the board. “The boards are considered plumb appointments as they require no work, no policy credentials, and are paid the equivalent of a full-time [state] senator for arriving at a one- to two-hour meeting each month.”

Granlund said the appointment seemed brazen at the time because of the relationship between Harris and Brown. “Screwing the speaker has its rewards,” he said. “Stevie Wonder could have seen through that play.”

She is not unattractive. 

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

The Secret Sharer

 Itzhak Suary is the de-facto leader of a complex group of Israeli enterprises, and it is buying up large businesses that are in temporary trouble because of the corona virus crisis. The group was founded in the sixties by an Israeli financier called Guttwirth, he dies without children and will. The directors, quietly, continued the management and development of the group so successfully that today it comprises many businesses. Suary is an Iraki Jew, accountant, that now "owns" de facto "half" (metaphorically speaking) of Israel. 

 

Monday, August 10, 2020

Chicago is Being Looted while I am Writing

The Chicago Police Department quietly made history when 28-year veteran Eric Carter was promoted to 1st Deputy Superintendent. Coming atop the promotion of 20-year veteran Barbara West to Deputy Superintendent in January, it now meant the department’s three highest-ranking officers were African-Americans — for the first time in CPD’s 184 years. And earlier overlooked was the history made when West became CPD’s highest-ranking African-American female officer ever. Lori Lightfoot, a Black Lesbian, is the Major. 

The Israeli papers are reporting  that 40 thousand American Jews registered for Aliyah, immigration to Israel. I do not what they are feeling, but those African mobs invading the wealthiest streets and looting the luxury items and bottles, even if there is no violence, unsettle me. I cannot understand why the political leadership is not resisting  but just moving out of the way. I am reading Naipaul's a City in the River Bend, where European are leaving Zaire (Belgian Congo). The speaker is a Muslim Indian from Zanzibar, totally apolitical. A sad story.