Today is 清明節 the Tomb-Sweeping Day

Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, one of China's traditional festivals, is dedicated to remembering and celebrating one's honorable ancestors.

 https://youtu.be/amJjeM8omS4?si=aIZ1rhPQB7r_MgkK

Food is always a central part of Chinese festivals. Qingtuan is the traditional food eaten during this festival. It is made from glutinous rice mixed with mugwort filled with sweet bean paste. Eating Qingming cake brings good luck and health. Mugwort was brought to North America as a garden medicinal and has since become a weed.

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is a massively aggressive spreader. The plant has a strong, resinous smell and spreads by the most aggressive lateral underground runners ever. These mostly remain near the soil surface, but they are so numerous that one has to dig extensively to remove the whole underground plant. 

The War has not ended

 

Bad news. The government announced that after conquering Rafiah, the war would continue with the Hizballah in the North. The Northern towns and villages have been abandoned and the roads closed (pic). I am sick of this long war. 

British Water companies under Attack

From Financial Times: 

Water companies in England and Wales will be required to install monitors on an additional 7,000 emergency overflow pipes used to dump sewage into the nation’s waterways, the environmental watchdog has said.

Although companies often blame unpredictable weather and climate change for causing more frequent untreated sewage overflows, a study by Imperial College London last year found that by far the biggest problem was insufficient capacity at wastewater treatment plants, which meant they were releasing sewage into waterways even during dry periods. The regulator is now investigating six water companies over concerns that they might have breached sewage regulation. 

The EA is also conducting its largest ever criminal investigation into potential widespread non-compliance by water and sewerage companies at more than 2,200 sewage treatment works. Water UK, which represents the industry, said: “Water companies are committed to robust monitoring of storm overflows across England and Wales. “Due in part to their operating outdoors and in all weather conditions, some monitors will occasionally be temporarily out of action while maintenance is under way. This has improved, and the regulator has taken tough new powers to ensure the highest standards.”

Yesterday I tried Claude to admit that Thames Water's financial failure was due to over-regulation. The above article makes my case.  

Sixty Years Ago

 I was there in 1969 - in San Francisco, in Berkeley, in New York - I was everywhere traveling and sleeping with a free Greyhound ticket. Who would have imagined that the flower generation would give birth to the horrible antisemite generation of today? 

Thames Water haunted by the Specter of Failure

Effective water infrastructure management remains an intractable quandary that plagues societies globally. In a bold endeavor, the British government embarked on the ambitious privatization of London's water services, giving rise to the entity known as Thames Water. This pioneering initiative was universally embraced, but soon it failed as evidenced by the subsequent renationalization of analogous services in Buenos Aires, formerly operated by Obras Sanitarias. The water privatization paradigm has consistently fallen short of expectations across the world.

And now, the inexorable march of time has ushered in a pivotal juncture for Thames Water, where the specter of failure looms large. Prime Minister Sunak has entrusted the oversight of negotiations between the regulatory body Ofwat, Thames Water, and the environmental department Defra to Franck Petitgas, his special adviser on business and investment matters. The water company, a consortium owned by the pension funds Omers and USS, as well as the sovereign wealth funds of Abu Dhabi and China, finds itself embroiled in eleventh-hour talks with Ofwat, exploring the possibility of a temporary renationalization.

While the British government has demonstrated an unparalleled capacity for ingenuity and resourcefulness, the inherent complexities of managing water monopolies within the confines of a democratic system remain a formidable challenge, one that has thus far eluded a satisfactory resolution.

Note: I wrote the above in my direct and simple style and asked Claude to rewrite it as an IQ 140 person. See above. I find it horribly loquacious and long-winded. It is correct but I don't like things like "the specter of failure". Who writes like that? I don't.

I commented to Claude that Thames Water was forced to operate in an impossible environment, and Claude dutifully rewrote the note in a very long exposition, emphasizing that environmental regulation was very necessary, etc. I cut short that part. Here:

While the statement that "the privatization paradigm has consistently fallen short of expectations across the world" carries weight, the root causes behind Thames Water's impending failure appear to be more nuanced. Rather than a wholesale indictment of the privatization model itself, Thames Water's struggles highlight the perils of excessive regulation and the stifling of a private entity's ability to effectively leverage its market position.

Unrealistic environmental mandates and overly stringent regulatory standards, while well-intentioned, can inadvertently impose an untenable burden on water utilities with significant capital and infrastructure requirements. If the regulatory framework fails to strike a judicious balance between environmental protection and economic viability, it can undermine the very advantages that private ownership is meant to confer, such as operational efficiency and innovation.

Moreover, the note suggests that political barriers prevented Thames Water from fully capitalizing on its monopolistic status, impeding its capacity to generate sufficient revenue through measures like reasonable price adjustments or strategic infrastructure investments. Depriving a private operator of the ability to optimize operations and ensure long-term financial sustainability within a regulated market can set the stage for failure.

My conclusion: Claude is a dogmatic socialist who thinks that IQ 140 must use too many words.

Don't Stop Now

For pure laziness, I slept out the rainy day two days ago, and yesterday I overate and did no work. Now I have difficulty in starting to work again. I just rejected a nice easy job in Hilkiya. I have no desire to work. After these three days, it is most difficult to restart.  Bad.

In Islam, duʿāʾ is a prayer of invocation, supplication, or request, asking for help or assistance from God.

Winding Back the Cultural Revolution

A generation after the Cultural Madness that destroyed all tradition and antiquity, China is moving to restore them.  The 700-year-old axis was built in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), when Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan and ruler of the Mongol Empire, moved the capital to Beijing in 1264. Although construction was carried out during the time of an ethnic minority regime, the capital was built by the Rites of Zhou, a book on organizational theory that dates back over 2,200 years.

The Records of Ritual and Music in the Rites of Zhou detailed the regulations for constructing a capital city: the court in the front, the market in the back, the ancestral shrines on the left, and the sacrificial altar on the right. Beijing was constructed following this layout, with the arrangement and functions of the city extending from both sides, all interconnected with the Central Axis.

The Beijing Central Axis is seeking to attain UNESCO World Heritage status. But that is not the ultimate goal. What comes along with the world heritage bid is the revival of long-deserted ancient architecture, the discovery of scattered history, the combination of ancient buildings and city development, and, of course, an attraction for global visitors. China wants to become what it traditionally had been. I would not be surprised if a new dynasty is proclaimed.