The Dodecagon Murders Mystery

 

Japanese cult detective story. It's about a university student detective club that takes a week off to investigate a mysterious crime on an offshore island. They occupy an excentric ten-sided building and they are killed, one after the other, by an unknown revenge-seeking murderer. Each one assumes the name of a famous detective story writer: Poe, Ellery, Doyle, Orczy, Agatha. On the first day they fight among themselves to establish the ranking, and after that, they are more comfortable. Very Japanese. I am at mid-book and suspect that the motive is secret non-paternity. Very rare in Japan but most human.

Jewish Women

President Biden takes a knee in front of President Rivlin chief of staff (a frum lady) after hearing she is a mother of 12.

If he ever comes to Bnai Brak, he'll have to crawl around...

The IQ Wealth of the Nations Solved

 

Steve Sailer's blog presents an important graph that explains the economic development of nations. Egypt was the first by much in developing civilization but it only lasted two or three thousand years. What happened? The Africans from Sudan infiltrated the country and depressed the performance of the population. Today, the Egyptian population is clearly half-African: look at the graph where it stands in average cognitive capability. The Palestinian population is about 10-15% African and it shows. Portugal, one of the most advanced European countries in the Middle Ages, was harmed by the ultramarine trade: "the highest proportion of African ancestry in Europe is in Portugal (4.2±0.3%. I stop here, because it pitches against my cognitive ceiling, as beautifully expressed by Sailer. 

The Southern Greek population (IQ around 90) clusters with Ethiopians (IQ 69) and has Subsaharan components. Apparently, they mixed in Ancient times, and in my opinion, may explain the abrupt decay of Greek civilization around 300 BC.  "The Palestinian population (IQ 84) reveals the closest genetic distance with Cretans (IQ 91) and no discontinuity is observed between Mediterranean populations. It is evidenced that Palestinians/Greeks distance is high and confirms the different genetic background of the Greeks, who have received a substantial sub-Saharan gene flow."  Now all that is to be done is to graph the correlation of % Subsaharan genes and the average IQ of a population. Prof. Lynn has already constructed a table linking population IQ and national GNP.

Imprudent General

 

We are undergoing a fiery heatwave. IDF General Sharon Asman - from my hometown Kfar Saba, a graduate of Katza - was 43 and in excellent physical condition, slim and fit. He was in the middle of his early morning running when collapsed and died. People are dying all over the northern hemisphere. In Oregon, 36 Celsius was registered and people are falling like flies. We normally have over 40 in midsummer. 

Marktstimmung: "Neutral ins zweite Halbjahr"

Sehr geehrter Herr K,

"Sommerträgheit" attestiert Joachim Goldberg dem Markt angesichts der geringen Handelsbreite von 1,9 Prozent in der zurückliegenden Beobachtungswoche. 
Mehr in der Analyse.

Freundliche Grüße
Team Börse Frankfurt

The German bourse has entered the mid-year laziness and nothing is happening. For some reason, the same is happening in the TASE, and in the last month, it was 1% up and 1% down the next day. I sold a lot of stock to pay off my debts, and on relatively good terms. It is very hot here in Israel. 

I am drowning in the amount of work. The regulators - without exceptions - demand more and more reports. The Clients are desperate and ask me please hurry, we will pay anything you ask. I shall start this weekend to send out bills. No one in my age group is still working, I had planned to stop finally 8 years ago, yet here I am. I have a new version of the software I am using, got the kick of it in a day. I am proud of myself. (Also my eldest granddaughter's end-of-year grades are super. She is gifted. I had a poor (and wrong) idea of her.  

The world is getting less comfortable for Jews

 Yesterday I met with a client who is setting up a shop in Modiin. He returned from Chicago after a decade. He had no complaints against the Blacks, who live in a separate ghetto, but downtown has filled up with Arab newcomers. They are violently anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. They have poisoned the atmosphere for Jews and those suspected of Jewish links. 

The Tablet magazine wondered what to do against the anti-Jew wave engulfing America. Their answer is that anything a Jew-in-the-flesh may do will not change the prejudice against the abstract imagined "Jew'. For The Tablet, fomenting a generally liberal, tolerant, open society is the best option. Soros program is, maybe, subtly good for Jews. I've done a full circle and came back to the liberal left. 

The Chinese change history (as we know it)

Some recent studies in Central Asia history write about the Chinese initiative to enlarge their markets and to build infrastructure in the past, such as the Silk Road. Apparently, these papers pretend to justify the ongoing initiative of President Xi - the Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 70 countries.  In other words, they are pretending that Xi's 2013 project is nothing new, it is what the Chinese always have been doing, nothing to be concerned about. 

As far as I know, the Chinese were at the end of the Silk Road, which was developed by Roman, Greek (Rhodan?), and Persian merchants, They reached China traversing the Gobi desert with large caravans. Others, like the Greek author of the Periplus went by sea. There are no records of Chinese caravans or flotillas reaching Europe. China is rewriting history. 

The University Alliance of the Silk Road centered at Xi'an Jiaotong University aims to support the Belt and Road initiative with research and engineering, and to foster understanding and academic exchange. A French think tank, Foundation France Chine (France-China Foundation), focused on the study of the New Silk Roads, was launched in 2018. It is described as pro–Belt and Road Initiative and pro-China.