Monday, December 21, 2020

Tired

The government has fallen and new elections scheduled. 

Tried to register for the anti-corona vaccine: May be after April. Kupat Holim is struggling to function.

Much pressure in my projects.

Test for the auto. 

Wife hostile.

Dreamt I am in a Hamas camp in Gaza. 


Saturday, December 19, 2020

When It came to The Worst

 

A year ago, on Greg Cochran's blog, we were speculating what were the chances of the corona virus mutating into a more virulent incarnation. Most viruses (virii) are stable and rarely improve their virulence. And for almost a year the corona stayed the same. But now in England a variety was detected that is five times more transmissible. It is incontrollable. We don't know if the new injection is effective for the mutated virus. I tried to get the injection but there is no place in the queue. That in spite my Mathusalemic age. There are 500 very sick corona patients in Israel. 

The Economist warns about the danger of imminent inflation. 20% of all circulating  dollars were printed this year. My conclusion is that the current dollar inflation is very modest vis-a-vis the flooding the markets with paper, meaning that the world economy is in deep recession. Massive multi-year stimulus is unable to cause an erection and make it potent once more. I am quite depressed.

For Israel, All the World is "Red"

A new Israeli directive paints the whole world in red, as dangerous because the corona virus. Incoming travelers are quarantined two weeks. While preparing mass vaccination, it is imposing severe isolation measures. The vaccination campaign in the USA is not proceeding smoothly, there are pockets of resistance and the nattering nabobs of negativism are spreading skepticism. Sweden's "light" quarantine has failed. Having survived a year of the epidemics, I am still confused. 

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Fighting corona through Enthymemes

   Driving home, I heard on the radio that a fast way to check if on got the corona virus is to smell the coffee. One immediate and sure symptom of the disease is the loss of the sense of smell, so if you don't notice the aroma of a steaming cup of coffee, you are done for good, go and write your last will. Applying syllogism - the indisputable deductive reasoning first described by Aristotle in Prior Analytics - it becomes obvious that smelling strong coffee all day will protect you from the virus. I have always a large cup of coffee on the table, it runs away all the airborne corona. 

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

The stuff of which our universe is made


 UFOs appear all the time and are photographed and measured. They maneuver in the sky, they organize battles, they never contact humans nor leave any physical prove of their existence. They are here to make us nervous. 

The latest about the stuff of which the universe is made maintains that mass is positive, gravity plus dark matter is negative, and the total is approximately zero. As Diogenes y el Linyera used to say No somo' nada. We are nothing. 

Monday, December 14, 2020

Gravitational tsunamis


The fabric of the universe is an elastic membrane, but how elastic? Surprisingly, it follows well know physical laws and can be calculated. It is very resistant, you have to strike one big black hole against another one to originate perceivable waves at a large distance. In the immediacies it must feel like an earthquake. Every body deforms the spacetime - see ill. The most astonishing aspect (for this old engineer) is that it all follows easily understandable physical - mathematical laws. One asks oneself: "Is this all that there is?" and then "What for is it?" 

Sunday, December 13, 2020

The White Man's Curious Beliefs

The Aztecs suffered from night panics and solved this infantile mental issue by enacting a nightly ritual of killing a man. It always worked, the sun - fortified by the fresh blood - managed to rise early morning. Unending obscurity is terrifying, specially if you have neither candles nor electricity. Lunatic, but there may be something in it. White folk, on the other hand, consider eating animals a sin. Even wearing dead animal skin is so contra-natura that in due curse it will be punished. If not by the Great Animal Spirit above, other White people will volunteer and correct the offender. The fearless Chinese will eat everything.