Machine for Thinking

One millimeter of cerebral tissue.  It's rather complicated. From/

The first I saw a brain tissue color preparation on a glass was on the University microscope. I stole the glass rectangle to study it more at home on my home microscope. That was the only time I did something "bad" (not counting harvesting and eating the kohlrabi of Professor Sivori's experimental plots).  That was sixty years ago. So the picture at the left is what I expected. Yet it is amazing, how evolution could produce something like this - and there is no doubt that it did! 

Nazca Aqueducts

 

Another mystery solved: the Nazca spirals are mechanisms to create pressure in underground channels. It is very ingenious. It embodies the universal paradox that the contemporary people living in the place seem totally incapable of inventing or building the antique marvels found there. This paradox is valid for Greece, Western Turkey, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, Burma, etc. I remember being perplexed by a mysterious massive Olmec stone head standing in the chicken coop of a mud house in Guatemala nowhere. 

Motivation

 

I need to improve my physical condition. Friday in Rehovot I felt dizzy and had to rest half an hour to get going again. Exercise or else!

We are motivated to seek food, water, and sex, but our behavior is also influenced by social approval, acceptance, the need to achieve, and the motivation to take or to avoid risks.

I want to make money to give to my grandchildren. 

Japanese Yen devalued.

 
For the first time since 1990, the Japanese Yen weakens to 160 against the US Dollar. This comes as the Bank of Japan kept interest rates near 0% even as their currency is sliding. Last month, the Bank of Japan raised interest rates for the first time since 2007.Still, their currency has lost nearly 20% of its purchasing power against the US Dollar over the last year. Exports jumped 7% and imports fell by 7%. Japan registered a positive balance of payment.

Resistance

 
Students in the West are taught the supreme value of resistance. It is Foucault who said that the enemy - the oppressor- cannot be identified, therefore it must be fought through resistance. In the last decade, there have been many resistance movements and protests, all without concrete demands: against climate change, against the extinction of animals, Wall Street, etc. It was inevitable that ultimately it would focus on the Jews. 

I am not afraid of antisemitism. We Jews lived in Europe for centuries as tolerated foreigners, without civil rights. We were not accepted in universities, we were beaten on the streets. Those drunken, stupid peasants were pestering us, but we were steady and prospered. 

The current anti-Jewish encampments at American universities will turn us inside and make us stronger. I am not worried.

 

Nazi Romantics in Europe

 

Reading Hungarian racist literature, and then similar European publications, it becomes clear that Putin's analysis of the West is based. The Azov regiment was  Nazi (it was destroyed by the Russians). Hungarian racism (pic.) is most bizarre since there is no Hungarian race and there is nothing genetically particular or related to the conquering Central Asian tribesmen. It is impossible to classify European racist literature as "right-wing" - it is empty of social or economic content. It appears to me a pointless and hopeless revival of Nazism, directed against hapless immigrants. And Russia. The paradox is that Russia is not communist, it has no Jews, but it is a White-majority and officially Christian State. European racism is a confusion and the war in Ukraine is senseless. Maybe Europeans, as a "people", cannot tolerate peace and thirst for blood. 

The Chinese should be afraid. Very afraid.

Colluli Potash sold to the Chinese

 
Thirteen years ago I discovered the  Danakali company established to develop the fantastic potash resources of Colluli in the Erythrean depression. I did not invest in it because its shares were available only in Perth, Australia, and to buy it would have been complicated, and needed an Australian broker in the Perth stock exchange. Pity.

 I thought that the Israeli firm ICL had invested in the firm, but now discovered that Danakali had sold it to the Chinese company Sichuan Road and Bridge Group. The share is valued at 0.42 Australian dollars and it is paying back 100% of it to the stockholders as DIVIDEND while continuing to actively look for other projects. It may have been a good investment. 

Ted (a commenter on Danakali's site), writes:The reason Denkali sold its interest to Chinese is they can’t raise the necessary capital because of the west make it hard to do business in Eritrea. Ask the executives they will tell you the reasons. Eritrea was consistent in its interest to work with mining companies from Canada and Australia but the business environment purposely made hard by the west to do business in Eritrea. The gap is filled by Chinese only because they come with the necessary cash, technology and human capital.