Nice Ass

Aristophanes killed Socrates

When Socrates, the witty philosopher/teacher of Athens, was put on trial for poisoning the minds of the youth, he knew that his chances were nil. Five hundred jurors, common people of Athens, had never meet him but all have watched "him" teaching how cheat in a play of Aristophanes.

In those times, theater was the media. Aristophanes had painted him as a teacher of swindling and gaming the rules, and that image had more conviction than the truth. The jury condemned the image of Socrates to death by hemlock, and the real Socrates complied with the law.

It is amazing how modern were the Greeks 2500 years ago. Their civilization decayed and Athens became a miserable hamlet. Western civilization is following the same path.

Left: a vase representing his play "The Birds". Beautiful.

Spartan Delights

Xenophon, a pro-Sparta Athenian, vehemently denies that there was homosexuality in the Spartan army, that the system of pairing adolescent trainees with veteran fighters had no sexual connotation. They ate together and slept together, but that was for socializing the fresh soldier. Xenophon sent his son to be educated in the Spartan army.

I salvaged from the University the complete plays of Aristophanes. In  "Peace" (Greek: Εἰρήνη Eirēnē) a caricature of a Spartan comes to negotiate the end of hostilities. Aristophanes makes him speak in an exaggerated Dorian dialect, and comment a propos of nothing "What a beautiful bottom". Classic Greek comedy is very gross and physical, the Greeks are always shitting, liberating gases and so. And buggering each other. Did they do so in reality?

I don't know. According to American surveys, 10% of the married heterosexual couples use the rear entrance once while, and the percentage grows to 30% among Africans and Hispanos. In this part of the world, the Turks are famous for their love of the "white pig". 

Israel on the Moon

The Google Lunar Probe Contest resulted so difficult that it ended without a winner, but the Israeli team did not give up. In November we are going to launch the artifact to land on the Moon. After the Americans, Russians and Chinese comes little Israel. The thingie will be positioned in an eccentric orbit so to be eventually captured by Moon's gravity. The Arabs are flying incendiary balloons, we are going to the moon. 

Water from Thin Air

Google's Water Abundance XPRIZE is a $1.75 million competition. The winner is required to present a model that extracts 2,000 liters of water per day from the atmosphere using 100% renewable energy, at a cost of no more than 2 cents per liter." 

This 0.02 US$/ lt is the triple of desalination factory price. 

In principle, I am against these low tech decentralized solutions, designed for the Indian farmer. Like the toylike pedal pump proposed by the World Bank. Like the dried cowshit burning fireplace. Development people hate development, they hate modern technological economy, so the attraction of these paternalistic solutions never dies. They love to design ingenious toys for the stupid Indian and African farmers. 

The Gathering Storm in the Triangle where Three Frontiers Meet

The Syrian Army is pushing towards the south western corner of the country, and before it runs a terrorized mass of scared future "refugees". Israel and Jordan have closed the frontier, the people is camping on the Syrian side. International refugee agencies are organizing veritable tent cities touching the frontiers. We live in some kind of Elyseum and millions of desperadoes are pushing to enter. The Deraah province is well watered thanks to the Yarmuh river and its current population is Muslim and Druze. Historically, Deraah is part of the Golan and all the villages carry old Jewish names. In the time of Jesus, the Galil and these parts were the nucleus of the Jewish country. The Judean aristocrats  (the Jerusalemites) looked down these deeply religious rooted farmers, and used to say "What good can come out from there?"    

Amyloid dementia

All the drugs to treat Alzheimer, the commonest form of dementia, are useless. As the population ages and goes evermore crazier, the cost of Alzheimer’s care in the U.S. will reach $1 trillion annually by 2050. Biogen with Eisai (a Japanese firm) have an anti-amyloid something that seems to work. Who else works with amyloids, Pfizer? Buy. 

Here is a chance to be a rich Alzie.