War Robots in Ariel University

 

The Mechanical Engineering Students's work. Robots. This one below can serve also as a  jack to lift the car. Double useful and practical. 

Too hot

I woke up at 5.00 AM hit by a wave of hot air. We are having a sharav (hamsin, in Arabic) day here in Israel, today it is prognosticated to reach over 40 Centigrades in Kever Benjamin. I am travelling to Ariel University to take an exam.

Back from the Shomron. Temperature 45 Celsius in the shade. Bought 4 kg figs from a Palestinian roadside stall for 40 shekels. Sweet native figs,  not the ameliorated type sold in Kever Benjamin. Pic. Roman fresco of a basket of  figs. 

Take my money, please!

Israeli high-tech companies raised a record $3.2 billion the first half of 2018, which was higher than the annual total capital raised in 2010-2013. Foreign money is flooding Israeli industry, begging to accept their money and do something with it. I'll have to rise my prices, just to appropriate my fair share of the cake. The god Pluto, who is blind and starving as everybody who has read Aristophanes knows, must hade Aliyah to enjoy the Bituach Leumi (Social Security) generosity. 

But that is not what I have in mind. I am wondering if I am wealthy enough to stop buying red wine in Coffix at 20 sheqel  (6 US$) the bottle and progress to something better? Coffix sells a mix of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec varieties. Malbec is a spicy, harsh variety, that is the common wine (Vino de Mesa) sold in Argentina. There was no lunch in my time without a "pinguino"  (pic right) of Malbec on the table. Today, applying will power to conquer my natural inclination, I could afford Merlot or even Pinot Noir, but my tastes were set in the proletarian Barrio of Mataderos. What I really would like is a damajuana of Vino Chinche de Rioja (Argentina) (pic left), which was considered undrinkable and very cheap. 

Israel: Zero Financial Risk

Some Asian country lent Israel a quarter billion Euro near zero (0.05%)  interest. I understand the rational of zero or negative interest rate loans to enterprises or to consumers - to stimulate the economy, but this is not the case. Apparently the world has no investment opportunities better than giving the money to Israel to keep it for them. Maybe they have so much reserves that need to diversify.  Probably they are speculating that Israel will have to pay back he debt with overvalued dollars, that is, the dollar will be more valuable in the future, maybe because the Fed will increase the interest rate. Israel could easily buy some lower rated bond, like Turkish bonds paying 15%, bear the risk and make a handful of dollars. Apparently my vision of Israel as a financial center a-la-City of London is on the way to reality. Maybe in fifty years.

Ill,: Frankfort Judengasse. 

Only in Israel: Homosexuals vs. the Religious

From Arutz 7:

"On Sunday evening, an estimated 100,000 Israelis flooded Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to protest what they said was legislation discriminating against the LGBT community.

Demonstrators were angry at the recently-passed Surrogacy Bill over its limited expansion of rights to surrogacy, granting it as a right - including public funding - to single women, but excluding same-sex couples. During the rally, much of the anger was focused at Prime Minister Netanyahu due to his vote against a part of the bill that would have allowed surrogacy to LGBT couples as well.

On Monday however, LGBT activists started to focus their anger on Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, who had reportedly forced Netanyahu to oppose sections in the bill assisting same-sex couples to conceive children.

In an interview with Army Radio, prominent homosexual rights activists Gal Achovesky vowed to fight Litzman and threatened to march in the haredi city of Bnei Brak if necessary.

"We are fighting against Litzman," Achovesky said. "Netanyahu himself is not against us - it is the haredim who are causing him to do this."

Achoevsky echoed his sentiments in an interview with the haredi Kikar Hashabbat website. "We are angry at Litzman. There is no reason why they can not do surrogacy, and there is no reason why they should not allow us to have a marriage or a marital union. We're fed up with the religious frenzy," he said.

"It is inconceivable that I can not marry in Israel and that you are sending children to conversion which is illegal in the entire Western world," he added. "If you continue to deny us equality, we will come to you in Bnei Brak, we are citizens of this country and we are sick of being quiet and humiliated.""

Of course, it is political. The secular left wants to sack on powerful minister and the government. I do not know if it is wise for the left to ally with queer buttfuckers. Personally I have nothing against homosexuals having children with the help of the State, but I would not demonstrate. 

The Jewish Nation is a Closed Club

or was in the past and tries to be. But there are strong forces against tribalism and against keeping strangers out.

Free Israel organization's head  Uri Keidar said, "The law in Israel states that one who officiates at a wedding or marries without properly registering with the Rabbinate may be sentenced to up to two years in prison. Until now, this law has not been enforced." Today a Conservative rabbi was arrested because he married a couple without informing the Rabbinate. Big scandal. 

The Rabbinate tries desperately to keep the entrance to the Jewish nation and to Israel semi-closed to non-Jews and it is failing. Thousands of ethnic Russian and Ethiopians infiltrated to Israel with false papers. People marries as they want, with the Rabbinate or without, or they travel to secular countries. The Biblical laws of ethnic purity cannot be sustained. We are trying to be different from liberal America but America is more powerful.

I'd like to preserve the integrity of the tribe, but it is difficult, mainly because most of the members are not interested.  

About the Impossibility of Racism

Today, about one in five newlyweds are intermarried, that is, they are racially diverse couples. Source. Soon there will be no Americans with no close African relatives, and most Americans will have no clearcut racial identity. In that social environment, people guard their language and say nothing that could be interpreted as racist because the next person may be married to an African or have an African parent. Past are the times when Africans (or Irish or Jews or whatever) were a separate, identifiable group that could be slandered freely without danger of personally insulting someone nearby. One probable reason why American media is full of mixed-race images and propaganda is that the creative class itself is heavily mixed and try to justify their condition. And make it popular among the population and moderate the instinctively negative reaction it generates.