Buitre Funds keep picking on Argentina

Ever-rising legal costs and the inherent uncertainty of commercial litigation and arbitration create problems for companies that Burford helps solve. 

Burford is a New York legal firm that specializes in commercial litigation, assuming the risks and costs of the process. It appears that they have bought for 15 million USD the rights of Petersen (Esquenazi fly.) in YPF, which in an unthinking moment had been expropriated by the Kirchner Peronist Government. After fighting for a decade, a New York judge has established that the minimum indemnity must be 5,000 million USD, that is - Burford will profit 20,000%.  Burford is demanding 16,000 million dollars, which is more than YPF is worth today.  Pic: David Perla, the inventor of this scheme. 

The Sun is Overheating

 

The outside temperature is near 40 C which kills my mood for work. My clients are furious but the times when I could work 24 hs in summer are gone. The antigovernment demonstrations are continuing on the streets. The government is not falling for the opposition's provocations. From the outside it appears as if Israel is in chaos, yet, paradoxically, my shares are rising.

Next day: Minister Miri Regev (Likud) sent a letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, demanding that an investigation be opened against former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Forum 555, on suspicion of "criminal gathering, civil disobedience, and an attempted coup d'état."   Forum 555 is an organization of a thousand retired pilots and navigators in Israel. It is getting hotter. 

Mysteries of the Human Female

Read an interesting theory on Twitter about the paradox that all the big apes have open, visible ovulations except the human female, who has hidden fertile days and even herself has no idea of it. The theory says that she loves sex and intimacy but hates and tries to avoid pregnancy and birth and being tied down with the baby for years. So nature "has to trick" her to get pregnant by negating her knowledge of her condition. Those women who learned to avoid pregnancy - had fewer or no children and were out-selected by evolution. Those blessed with ignorance or lack of power did reproduce and became the standard model. 

Primitive societies were organized to encourage or force women to give birth, but modern societies liberated them from this issue. So the problem of population decrease is only partially due to the males that do not want to marry. Females are responsible for much of this phenomenon. And thanks to the pill, now they are able to avoid pregnancy forever. 

Henry

Henry Kissinger meets China's Foreign Minister. He is 100 years old. The pic does not show the Minister, who has not been seen for the last month. Maybe he has some skin disease, who knows? Henry is in good health. Ad mea ve-esrim! Till 120 ! and he intends to!

Patriarchy

 

Veii (pic god) was the Southern City of the Etruscan nation, which was at permanent war with the Latin nation. Rome (16 km) was its nearest Latin settlement. After hundreds of years of hostility, Rome conquered and evacuated Veii. Rome had been burned down and impoverished by the Gaul incursion, so the plebeian population decided to abandon the city and move in mass to the vacant homes and fertile farms of Veii. 

Livius writes that the Senators descended personally to the Forum to beseech them to stay and not forsake the sacred Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol and the hallowed fire in the Temple of the Vestals. The tribes voted and the Senators won by one tribe. Then, the Senate voted to distribute the ager veii among the populace, 15000 sq, m. to each adult male. 

Livius comments that the Senate hoped that having a farm will encourage them to form families and produce children. Rome was engaged in continuous wars and needed soldiers. The government was always promoting marriage with patriarchal legislation (extremely favorable to married men. A Paterfamilias was empowered to the point of selling wife and children into slavery), subsidies to children, and free bread distribution. It did not work. The Greeks before them had the same depopulation problem. Europe today abolished patriarchy and men are almost powerless, yet still, it is fast losing population. The Chinese had their Confucian cult of ancestors. It was discarded as soon as Western ideas reached them. 

What works? 

----

Los Agotes

 

“Al agote, garrotazo en el cogote” es un dicho popular de algunas zonas de Navarra que ilustra muy bien la gran discriminación que han sufrido los agotes.

Los agotes (cagots in French) no constituían un grupo étnico ni religioso diferenciado. Su lengua y fe eran las de la población de la zona en que se hallaban. Anatómicamente no eran diferentes del resto, y aún así, durante casi ocho siglos fueron víctimas de discriminación socioeconómica por lo que su condición de minoría social era exclusivamente fruto de la marginación.

-Se les impedía contraer matrimonios con el resto de la población, lo cual está en el origen de una gran endogamia. Para evitarla se buscaba relaciones con los agotes de las regiones francesas próximas, produciéndose mayor rechazo social.

-Se les obligaba a vivir fuera de los núcleos habitados.

-Debían vestir ropajes para que se les identificara como agotes y llevar un signo rojo similar a la huella de pata de oca o pato.

-En muchos lugares estaban obligados a hacer sonar una campanilla a su paso, para que los no agotes pudieran apartarse a tiempo.

-En las iglesias navarras, los agotes eran situados en un hueco bajo el coro, el campanario o la escalera para oír misa. Era frecuente tener puerta propia llamada Agoten Athea, situada al lado de la puerta principal, siendo más baja y estrecha que la principal.

-Para bautizar a los agotes se usaba una pila bautismal diferenciada del resto.

-En general en las iglesias navarras había una raya en el suelo, que les impedía acceder a una parte de la iglesia, es decir, tenían prohibido acercarse al altar. En la iglesia de Arizkun no existía esa línea separadora, sino que se levantó una verja.

-La eucaristía les era entregada con un bastón o similar.

-Se reservaba una zona no consagrada en los cementerios para excomulgados, hechiceros, suicidas y agotes. Los agotes eran enterrados al caer la tarde y sin campanas.

-Entre otras muchas prohibiciones, no se les permitía criar ganado, beber en las fuentes públicas o participar en bailes y fiestas.

-Cuando había ofrendas, las donadas por los agotes eran recogidas y puestas aparte de las del resto de los fieles.

-En el valle del Baztan, no podían sentarse en la misma mesa que los nativos del valle.

-Si un hombre no agote se casaba con una mujer agote, los hijos serían agotes. Si al agote le favorecía la fortuna y se hacía rico y se casaba con una mujer no agote, se les cantaba unas coplas burlescas en el día de su boda por lo que se les amargaba la ceremonia.

Los agotes no podían pisar el suelo descalzos, bajo la pena de abrasarles las plantas de los pies, pues se decía que donde pisaba un agote, la hierba no volvía a crecer y por ejemplo que si sostenía una manzana en la mano se podría, ya que los agotes tenían la sangre más caliente. Por eso tenían prohibido tocar la fruta en el mercado, ni podían tampoco tocar animales en las cuadras, ni pescar.

-Se les daba la paz en la iglesia con el portapaz puesto al revés y cubierto con paño. En algunos lugares se pretendía que ni se les diese la paz, sino dejársela en un banco donde ellos la pudieran tomar.

-No podían ser ordenados sacerdotes y además, en un juicio, el testimonio de siete hombres libres equivalía al de treinta agotes. Existe un documento datado en el año 1597 que dice “¡Cállate agote! Tu opinión cuenta menos que la de un perro ¡No eres nadie!”.

The cagots, apparently, were descendants of lepers. People feared the contamination of that terrible disease.

Thames Water