The Cattle Train is Accelerating

Banks added the most points to the index, with Barclays (BARC.L) surging 9.8 percent, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) climbing 13.6 percent, Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) up 7.9 percent and Lloyds (LLOY.L) rising 8.2 percent. "The market is gradually becoming more confident with the idea that we are pretty close to the trough," said Andrew Bell, head of research at Rensburg Sheppards.

I think these are the last days to jump on the coming bull train. I am fully invested.

Baja on my Mind

One of the two Baja California water projects I submitted for funding has been approved by the Mexicans. It was competing against hundreds of other projects. In a few months I may be off to Mexico. I am not afraid of the swine flu, at least not yet. Those bloody phones didnt stop all day so I closed them down. My mind is already in Baja. I am not that man in the pic. I am not that fish either.

Swine Killed over Flu

The new flu virus discovered in Mexico is a good opportunity for Muslims to deliver a message to Christians: Allah told you to avoid the pig. Egypt began slaughtering all the pigs in the country, saying it was a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu. That no swine flu has been reported in Egypt is of no relevance, and that the virus is not spread by the poor animals, is even less of an argument against the massacre.

Egypt's overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which estimates put at 10 percent of the population. Our good neighbor, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan closed down all pigsties quoting public health violations.

Jewish Khazars: A Fantasy

Professor Moshe Gil wrote a long article in HaAretz April 28th refuting the whole Khazar Jewish story. Gil is a well known historian of Medieval Jewish life. The whole story, he demonstrates, started in Muslim Spain, with an imaginary correspondence between the king of the Khazars and Jewish moral writers in Muslim Southern Spain, detailing how the Khazar King has studied and compared different religions and opted to convert to Judaism. Gil, who studied this correspondence, shows that it was written when the Khazar Kingdom had long ceased to exist, and many other details that demonstrate that it was all apocryphal, imaginary, and made up to provide a suitable background for a moralistic dialogue. The supposed letters (which certainly exist and are authentic) describe a far away kingdom whose rulers opted for Judaism, a land where Jews are not persecuted nor opressed but are powerful fighters of Arab armies (The historical Khazars fought successfully successive Arab invasions). On the other hand, there are many close, direct historic sources on the real Khazars and no one ever mentions or suggests their being Jews.

Prof. Moshe Gil nails down his argument with Benjamin Menashe Levin's thirteen tome study of the immense correspondence of the "gaonim" ("geniuses", that was the honorific title of the Bagdad Jewish rabbis) of those times. The correspondence deals with innumerable details of the Jewish life in Asia, but has no reference at all of the supposed Jewishness of the Khazars or their Kings. Bagdadi Jews (Re dju'an Jewish merchants) maintained intense commerce with the Khazars and some of them achieved prominent positions in the Khazar court, but there is no mention ever of any Khazar converting to Judaism. Prof. Moshe Gil concludes that the whole legend of Jewish Khazar Kings is a phantasy born in Southern Spain. The legend certainly feeds the psychological needs of the literate Jews opressed in Muslim Spain, which certainly was no paradise for Jews (or Christians).

The legend of Jewish Khazars was popularized by the Hungarian Jewish writer, Arthur Koestler, in his "Thirteenth Tribe". Koestler was a very perceptive person and he must have understood that the whole Khazar Jewish thing is apocryphic, but he had his agenda, which was to demonstrate the foolishness of the Nazi program of exterminating Ashkenazic Jews, since they are not really of Jewish extraction. Koestler's book is very entertaining, and he dwells more on the Khazar (aka Jewish) participation in the Hungarian tribes conquest of Hungary and the establishment of the Russian State than in the Jewishness of this evanescent Turkic steppe tribe.

Moreover, I think that the fact of the historic inexistence of Jewish Khazars must have been well known among serious researchers, but people tends to avoid attacking national legends in public. No scientist writes academic articles to debunk the Divine Solar origin of the Japanese royal house, it is not a matter for academic research. The Jewish Kings of Khazaria pertain to the same category of foundation myths. It serves a purpose, let it be.

The Swine Flu Virus lands in Kever Benjamin

Israel has three persons infected with the new swine flu virus. The tree catched the disease in Mexico. The first person is 26-year old Tomer Vagim, returned from Mexico on Friday. He is in isolated care in Laniado hospital in Netanya. Health officials fear his niece may have also contracted the disease, and she is currently undergoing tests to confirm the diagnosis. The second case of swine flu is a 49-year old man who recently returned from Mexico. He is recovering in isolation at Medical Center in Kever Benjamin City. Is he connected to our Mexico project? Dont know.

This night Israel is celebrating its 61st Independence Day. People is on the streets dancing and happy. In Mexico, when alerted to the virus, they forbid all public meetings, closed the schools, kindergardens, masses, cinemas. Here we have the virus circulating around and making every effort that everybody gets infected. I think we are taking a large public health risk. I hope nothing will happen. This swine virus seems raher mild.

WHO raised its global pandemic alert to Level 4, saying the disease is no longer containable and health authorities need to prepare for outbreaks.

Flu Vaccine Maker BiondWax Prospers

BiondVax's share rocketed 211.1% today. The company, which is developing a universal flu vaccine, made no official announcement today. BiondVax Pharmaceuticals Ltd. is developing an innovative universal flu (influenza) vaccine, providing a multi-season/multi-strain and long-term protection against a variety of flu viruses. The universal flu vaccine is currently in phase 1 clinical trials in humans. Influenza viruses are species dependent (bird flu, swine flu, equine flu etc.) while the migratory birds serve as the reservoir for influenza strains. Antigenic drifts and shifts trigger seasonal epidemics or even a worldwide pandemic of influenza, such as occurred in 1918, 1957, 1968, 1976, 1977 and 1997 (Spanish, Asian, Hong Kong, Swine, Russian and Avian Flu, respectively). Pandemics happen every 10-30 years following a major antigenic shift resulting from a cross species infection.

The company holds a worldwide exclusive license granted by Yeda Research and Development Ltd., the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute, Israel, for developing, manufacturing and commercializing this innovative flu vaccine.

BiondVax’s offices and laboratories are located at Kiryat Weizmann Science Park, Ness-Ziona, Israel. BiondVax trades on TASE. I have none of it.

The Mighty Dollar

While one guru (example: Mogambo) says that the dollar is inflating, others say that it is deflating.

The dollar is “the best-looking horse in the glue factory” among major currencies, said Robert Blake, head of strategy for North America in Boston at State Street Global Markets LLC, which has $11.3 trillion in assets under custody.

I dont know.

The Enemy

I am hearing too much talk about the coming war. King Abdallah warned Hilary Clinton. President Shimon Peres warned our friends and enemies (sic!) to be on our side in the coming war.

KOOR to pay 60 Million dollars in Dividend

Israeli holding company Koor Industries (KOR.TA: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Sunday it would post a gain of 256 million shekels ($60 million) from the sale of part of its stake in Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research). Koor now holds 32.97 million shares in Credit Suisse, equal to a 2.78 percent stake in which it invested 3.77 billion shekels. The stake is valued at 5.37 billion shekels at the current market price, it added. Koor also said it owes 231 million shekels to financial institutions for loans it took to buy the shares.

Today Koor rised 11% on TASE.

The land of the gnomes

The Gnomes are known to be honest and hardworking little men, who during the day keep evil spirits out of the garden and during the night engage in their secret passion, which is gold mining. They dig deep shafts in the earth, hiding their gold in them. In the Enns Valley - near Großraming - deep in the Lumplgraben - somewhere in a lonely valley in the mountains that can only be reached after a long journey on foot, is the entrance into the land of the gnomes. A few lonely wanderers who lost their way in the forest are said to have been their guests and to have found their way back with their help.

Lately I have heard that there are also English gnomes named Sprin, Rumo, Pinny, Fislet and Gulcifer, but they are mostly good natured garden gnomes, free from the dark passion of hoarding gold in deep underground shafts.

Dennis Mangan: Taxes Will Keep Rising

And he is right.

The proportion of federal income taxes payed by the bottom 50% in income of the population is 3%, while the top 10% pay over 70%. Those who own stocks and receive dividends are victims of double taxation, as corporations pay taxes on their profits before any actual person sees the money, on which they then pay taxes. The government heavily penalizes those like myself, for instance, who have saved and invested his entire life. On top of that, the State of California has a top rate of nearly 10%, which kicks in at something like $45,000 a year in income. I don't see much change afoot, as the change is all in the wrong direction. The majority of the American people probably have a net gain from the federal government, so it's no wonder that taxes keep rising.

As the USA becomes more like Latin America, wealthy Americans will adopt the ways of Latin rich. Zurich (or Tel Aviv) may become the new Miami.

California in my mind

My Father's War (what I didnt want to know)

My late father wanted to tell me his terrible sufferings during the war, but I always refused to hear him. I didnt want to hear, possibly I couldnt bear it, I needed to protect myself from the horror. But now, at my old age, the file of a ten years long secret investigation by the Hungarian Secret Police has been published and I received a copy. The investiation was started in order to establish the assessins of the famous Hungarian poet Radnoty and to put them under trial. Since my father was in the same forced labor batallion with Radnoty, this is also his personal story.

Radnoty was not killed by a drunk Hungarian guard, as the legend stated. He was shot with twenty other Jews who were too sick and could not continue the forced march in the mad flight of the German and Hungarian forces running away from Serbian partisans and the Red Army (see pic taken by a German soldier in 1943 in the Bor area). The investigation established in great detail how and when it happened, and who did it and why. Let me paste in for myself (in small letters in the original Hungarian) a few paragraphs.

Amikor ez megtörtént, Tálas pisztollyal, a keretlegények pedig
puskával tüzet nyitottak rájuk. Ezt követően a járóképtelen munkaszolgálatosokat
egyenként kísértük vagy vittük a gödörhöz, ahol agyon lettek lőve. Ekkor kb. 20
munkaszolgálatost gyilkoltunk meg, majd a gödröt betemettük. Közben 2-3 német
katona is megjelent a közelünkben, akik végignézték a gyilkosságot, majd
eltávoztak." A jelentésben aláhúzott sorok nyomatékosítják: "egyértelműen
megállapítottuk, hogy Radnóti Miklós költőt és 21 társát 1944. november 4-én,
szombat délután 14-16 óra között gyilkolták meg. A gyilkosságot pedig nem
német katonák vagy nyilasok, hanem volt bori magyar keretlegények követték el."
A kivégzést követően a keretlegények is eltávoztak, miután "felrakták a lovas
kocsikra a kivégzettek pokrócait, egyéb használhatóbb személyi tárgyait". A
lovas kocsikkal a Hegyeshalom felé tartó gyalogmenetet valahol utolérő keret "a
munkaszolgálatosoknak odaadta a kivégzettek pokrócait, egyéb tárgyait, akik
azokon majdnem összeverekedtek". A Bor és Hegyeshalom között megtett
halálutat túlélő mintegy 1000 fős bori csoport továbbindult a német
koncentrációs táborok felé, a keretlegények pedig visszakocsiztak
Szentkirályszabadjára. A demecseri születésű és ott is élő, a gyilkosságok
idején 31 éves Tálas András hadapródőrmestert háborús bűncselekmények
elkövetéséért Budapesten népbíróság elé állították. A mintegy 500 oldalas
népbírósági perében nem esik szó az abdai kivégzésben játszott szerepéről.
Ettől függetlenül ítélték halálra 1947-ben. A Rákoskeresztúri új köztemető
298-as parcellájában temették el, ahol 1994 óta a márványfedeles, nemzeti
címeres díszsírhelye változatlanul áll. A másik, a jelentés szerint minden
kétséget kizáróan bizonyítottan gyilkos Bodor Sándor és a jelentés által "nem
egyértelműen" bizonyíthatóan gyilkos Reszegi István, a két MSZMP-tag ügye
pártvonalon folytatódott tovább. A két személlyel kapcsolatban a
"Miniszterhelyettes Elvtárs" által jóváhagyott javaslat alapján jártak el, és
végül a személyükkel "kapcsolatban felmerült adatokról az illetékes
pártbizottság első titkárát" tájékoztatták.

The above says that one of the criminals was one Talas Andras, and he had been already sentenced to death and executed in 1947. The participation of another criminal, Bodor Sandor, was established and " the Comrade Minister was informed and the file forwarded to be acted on by the political leadership commission", which apparently left the case linger on. By then, the Communist regime was collapsing, the sentiment of the public was changing and ancient Fascist cadres were crawling out of cracks of the woodwork.

I see trouble on the way

I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.
I see bad times today.

Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

All right! Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

Credence Clearwater Revival, by Fogerty.
,

Mexican Church asks for Protection

The Catholic Church of Mexico demanded protection for its priests against El Chapo Guzmán, after the Archbishop of Durango revealed the drug chief's hiding place. Archbishop González revealed that:

más adelante de Guanacevi (Durango), por ahí vive 'El Chapo', todos lo sabemos, menos la autoridad.(he lives a little further from Guanacevi, El Chapo is there, everybody knows it, except the Government)

The Government announced that they have no information at all that El Chapo may live in Durango. A few hours after of the Archbishop's revelation, two soldiers were found dead near Durango with a note attached that said:

con 'el Chapo' no van a poder gobiernos ni curas (No governments nor priests can defeat the Chapo).

The Gnomes Show Signs of Life

According to Reuthers, Swiss banking is not dead after all. While UBS lost 2 billion Swiss francs ($1.71 billion) in the first quarter, Credit Suisse unveils a profit of the same magnitude. CS has shown that there is life in the old dog yet.

Most of the outperformance was illusory, as so often the case with banks. CS took a 365 million franc gain thanks to the deterioration in value of its own debt (book keeping magic). And there was a further benefit of an estimated 1.3 billion francs thanks to the "market rebound" (What what?). However, the underlying performance was still better than expected. CS has won share across many businesses thanks to the forced exit of much of the competition.

In private banking, CS enjoyed a net inflow of 11.4 billion francs. Wealthy Americans started to realize that old America is dead and now they live in a Latin country where their wealth may be expropriated so some is better kept overseas.

I put my chips on CS.

Portfolio Behaviour

It is 50% below the best month, but improving. It is all blue = undiversified, and quite leveraged.

The Sail Rocket

Last week action in my portfolio reminds me of the Sailrocket. It is a little known but the fastest sail boat of the world. Its sail is like a kite and the boat almost flies over the sea. Only for the fearless.

Swine Avian Flu Epidemy in Mexico

Mexico is panicked and all the schools and universities are closed. A new virus has been found that caused thre death of dozens of young persons. CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

Brett Arends: Bank Shares? Pffuia!

Being heavily into Credit Suisse shares, I had to pay some attention to Arends's note in the WSJ. Why to avoid bank shares? 4 of his 10 resaons:

1. These stocks are gambles. They are highly leveraged bets on an economic rebound. They will be most vulnerable if the recovery runs out of steam. And the market rally has already run well ahead of any upturn in economic news.

2. And you're betting blind. Your cards are all face down. At least with, say, a retailer you have a pretty good idea what the assets actually are and what they might fetch if they had to be sold quickly. With the banks: Good luck. Nobody really understands what they own - least of all the people in charge.

6. Financials aren't even quite as depressed as they may seem. They just look that way because they got so high before. Right now they make up about 15% of the US stock market by market value. Sure, a few years ago they were nearly a quarter of the market. But 25 years ago they were only about 12%.

8. As for the Wall Street banks: They aren't run for the benefit of the stockholders anyway. They are run for the staff.

Why he may be wrong:

1. Leverage is good. One cannot get rich without leverage.

2. Nobody knows what they own and how much is worth. The same is true for any large corporation.

6. Finance is now a larger industry than 25 years ago. Some stocks are strongly depressed.

8. I am not building on dividends, but on increase in value.

The bank industry is here to stay. In the USA it will end nationalized but still there is money to be made from these stocks.

The pic shows the German sail-training vessel Roald Amundsen in Cobh after her sails were ripped to shreds by a hurricane of Ireland. Then the Amundsen continued to Portugal.

Pakistan falling apart

A barber looks at the “Shave is strictly forbidden” warning that the Taliban wrote on the window of his shop. The Taliban now control North Pakistan. (NYT)

KOOR is taking me back to my former glory

KOOR basically is an option play on CS Credit Suisse. The Bank announced: "We are pleased with Credit Suisse's performance in the first quarter of 2009. We believe that these results, in particular our strong return on equity, show that our differentiated strategy and our robust, integrated and capital-efficient business model with a low risk profile can be a powerful generator of earnings." Translation: Look, no hands! Today CS rised 16% so KOOR will rise on Sunday on TASE about 20%. So I hope. This is one of the best things happening to me in these stressed times.

I wish they all could be California girls

Well east coast girls are hip
I really dig those styles they wear
And the southern girls with the way they talk
They knock me out when I'm down there

I wish they all could be california
I wish they all could be california girls

The Beach Boys.

Bryan Caplan on Education

"You have little effect on your kid's long-run prospects, but most kids' long-run prospects are still bright. If you're the kind of parent who reads econ blogs, your kids' prospects are probably very bright indeed, because they're going to painlessly inherit your brains, charm, good looks, and modesty."

Bryan is a parent and seems to be skeptical of investing much effort in parenting. I wonder if his wife also thinks that nagging is useless. Most wives believe in the miracle effects of nagging, without it - they are convinced - nothing would ever be done.

The Coming Rally

Jim O’Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs(GS), reiterated in an interview with Bloomberg TV that his firm sees the US economy growing about 1% in the third quarter of 2009. That means that the recession is ending and people will return to their former habits. The Congress and the Senate were frightened into voting unlimited budgets for Obama to helicopter out, and that guaranties an Obama Presidency for eight years and a Democratic Party government for a generation. Come, Rally, come.

Zimbabwe Approaching Utopia

Zimbabwe is advancing fast towards utopia, where private property is nonexistent. In Communist ideology, all property is theft, so taking it away is to make justice. The country's central bank governor declared Monday that he took hard currency from the bank accounts of private businesses and foreign-aid groups without permission.

In a statement that would be unthinkable coming from most central banks, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono appeared to be issuing a plea to keep his job in the face of growing criticism. Mr. Gono said it was time "to let bygones be bygones" now that Zimbabwe has a new coalition government.

Mr. Gono's statement showed the practice was widespread. The actions were first hinted at last year, when the international aid agency Global Fund threatened to cut off funds to Zimbabwe for fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria unless money taken from its account was returned.

Reflexion: I think Zimbabwe is the "normal" state of humanity, while decency is highly anomalous. Who are the most honest people in the world? I think New York bankers. Madoff excepting.

Ecuador Offers to Pay its Foreign Debt (at 70% Discount)

We have a word for it: Ganavim. Thieves.

The Ecuadorian Government has declared retro-actively that the monies received from foreign lenders were somehow "dirty" i.e. they did not reach the pockets of the current strong men or were stolen along the way, so it will not pay them back. Since the absolute repudiation of foreign debt has caused some little inconvenience to the country, now they are offering to pay back 30 cents on the dollar.

Ecuador will pay very dearly for stealing foreign lenders's money. No one in his cotton-picking mind will lend them a quarter for less than an usurious rate of 25% p.a. They will protest "exploitation", "imperialism". Many young inexperienced youths in Western countries will believe that it is so and not the truth, that is that they are doing this to themselves.

Ecuadorian debt has been re-structured twice already. In this century. The country has the means to pay back its foreign debt. Why they have this compulsion to shoot themselves in the foot?

Post Data (April 26, 2009): These actions were taken by Ecuadorian President Correa and they made him immensely popular. He has completed his term (something no Ecuadorian President did in the last generation) and is about to be re-elected. It is not him who is stupid, the Ecuadorian people is.

Nem Normalis: Another Crazy Hungarian Jew

Eduardo Rozsa Flores was killed today in Bolivia, while trying to assessinate Bolivia's President. He was son of a Hungarian Jew and his Bolivian wife, and was educated in Chile and Hungary. His biography includes fighting with the Croats against the Serbs, and conversion to the Islam. He presents himself in his blog:

La iláha Ill'Állah, Mohammed rassul Állah!! I am a muslim, and i am proud of that! Muszlim vagyok, és büszke vagyok rá! "Én a halálban csak a boldogságot látom, míg a zsarnokság alatt csak a boldogtalanságot" Husszein Imám - - I am a traveler seeking the Truth, a human searching for the meaning of humanity, and a citizen seeking dignity, freedom, stability and welfare under the shade of Islam. I am a free man who is aware of the purpose of his existence and calls, truly, my prayer and my sacrifice, my life and my death, are all for Allah, the Cherisher of the worlds; He has no partner. This I am commanded and I am among those who submit to His Will. This is who I am. Who are you? Founder of the hungarian National Anarchist Party - A magyar Nemzeti Anarchista Párt(N.A.P.)alapítója.

He wanted to be like Che Guevara. Ended like him. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

Where Kevin MacDonald Discovers that Some Jews are Good but Puritans all Bad

One good thing about Kevin MacDonald is that he keeps thinking and evolving. In his latest note he sings a paean to the Jew Gottfried and blasts his fellow White Americans, like the “conservative” Heritage Foundation, that recently advocated a massive increase in H1B visas in the middle of a recession. He says:

Sometimes it seems as if "conservatives" and liberals are competing see which group can speed up the displacement of Whites the fastest.

What, have we (the Jews) lost our original and exclusive control of the flooding of the lands of the White Man? MacDonald may be putting in danger his membership in the ABC (Antisemite Boys Club). A few more articles like that and he will be thrown out of the Bruderband and may have to apply for membership in the Southern Poverty outfit.

MacDonald has started to study America's own original homegrown Israelites, the Puritans of New England, and finds them more (Yes, more!) abominable than the Jews themselves. While Jews use moralistic arguments to advance their own ethnic agenda, MacDonald finds that Puritans impose their aggressive morality not only on their own or on their own interest, but they extend it on all America (killing by the way hundred of thousands of fellow White Americans - "cousins" - for the cause of slaves from Africa) and eventually they go on imposing Puritan morals and democracy on the whole world. Puritan fanaticism and violence is the root, MacDonald dixit, of the suffocating Political Correctness terrorizing the White Man in America.

The academic world has become a Puritan congregation of stifling thought control, enforced by moralistic condemnations that a seventeenth-century Puritan minister could scarcely surpass. In my experience, this thought control is far worse in the East coast colleges and universities founded by the Puritans than elsewhere in academia—a fitting reminder of the continuing influence of Puritanism in American life.

Do Puritans deserve MacDonald's attack? As an European Jew, I find New England Puritan writings stultifying, their moralistic tiranny similar to my family's, but I have no doubt they must have been a virtuous people. Having many of them died of hunger during the first winter in the new land, they soon became the wealthiest people on Earth. They said no to the taxman and won. Admirable. They were among the very finest people in history.

EPA against Breathing

Obama's election was like an injection of concentrated Viagra into the EPA and we are starting to see the effects of its renewed potency. EPA has declared carbon dioxide a noxious gas and it preparing regulations for its control. Carbon dioxide is a natural component of Earth's atmosphere, part of the carbon cycle. Humans and all other carbon based living creatures produce it. We expel carbon dioxide with each breath. Is planning EPA that we procure breathing permits? Probably not yet, I cannot imagine the breathing would be deemed a regulated activity in the USA. What, would it be criminal to breath too hard? At the least, it is clear that regulation is expanding fast and occupying all the available space on this planet. The next step will to declare be atmospheric humidity, water vapor, a controlled substance. Water is the main "hothouse gas" of all (please dont tell EPA).

The illustration shows Hero's steam engine. Would require an EPA permit.

Animal House Philosophy

D-Day [a frat brother]: War's over man. Wormer dropped the big one.

Bluto: Over? You say over? Nothing is over until we say it is.

Patrick J. Buchanan's True Hate

Buchanan, in Takimag, stands up in defense of an abominable Nazi SS concentration camp guard, wasting the credit and the respect he had with me. In an article filed under "Evropa" (Evropa?) he opposes the extradition of Ivan Demanjuk to Germany to be tried for his participation in the mass killing of Jews. Demanjuk had deserted the Soviet Army in war and passed to the Nazi side, where he volunteered to SS units, where he was assigned to concentration camp duty. Normally, the Red Army shot on sight these kind of people, but Demanjuk escaped his fate and immigrated to the USA with false documents. All this he confessed and has been established in court.

What makes, then, Buchanan to write an article in favour of this Ukranian SS criminal? Buchanan provides the answer in his title: True Hate. Buchanan hates Jews, no doubt, and accuses Jews of persistent persecution of this inoffensive grandfather and going to the extreme of delivering him into the hands of ... Germans, to be judged, of all places, in the land of Germany, by a German court. This, for Buchanan, is not justice, it is hate. True hate.

Love it is not, for sure. I for one dont love Ukranian SS concentration camp guards. He should have been shot ipso facto when captured. But it is yet not too late. If possible, that missed shooting has to be completed. For justice, for revenge, for illumination of the confused minds of Mr Patrick J. Buchanan and other soft hearted people.

Pic.: But Buchanan cannot be entirely bad, as he was a swimmer and a lifeguard in his youth, like this Engineer.

Another Kibbutz Job

This morning I went to a nearby kibbutz to re-design the water system. The infrastructure had been built about sixty years ago for a collective village of about a thousand persons, and maintained and repaired consecutive times. Of course, no one has a drawing of the system. Moreover, the kibbutz gives the impression of being dismantled, with its different economic units sold or rented out to pruvate entrepreneurs. No one seems to care much anymore. The custom of eating together has been abadoned a long time ago, the large central kitchen was rented out to a catering business that left it in a pitiable condition. It took me a long walk under the rain to find the central intersection of the water system (pic.). No one knows how it works. This is a large kibbutz, the members still live in asbest-carton "temporary" huts, there is a mechanical workshop, a milk cow farm, an a large factory of something, and a country club with swimming pool. The kibbutz is retooling the pecan plantation irrigation system to use treated wastewater instead of fresh water.

Two Minutes to Death

The Army is distributing maps, gas masks and other civil defense equipment to each person in Israel. The map show how long we have to find a refuge between the alarm is given and the actual missile impact. We in Kever Benjamin City have about two minutes.

How depressing.

Meditation

Here I am on the surface of this planet, more or less free to do anything I may want all within the biological limitations of my advanced age. There is a strong crisis working its way through the economic world and old structures are falling apart and the new factors have yet to reveal themselves. In five years we shall know who are those who had not been wasting their time and managed to emerge stronger from the ruins. I have to think who may be these people, where they are now and what they are doing. Think, J. The painter is Guan Yong.

The Gnomes are Scared, so am I

The Swiss Banking Industry seems to be in a difficult situation. UBS's newly appointed chief executive, Oswald Gruebel, said that clients continued to withdraw their cash in the quarter. "I am not able, as yet, to offer you any good news." The Swiss had betrayed their private banking clients and provided names to American tax authorities. This may be the last nail in the coffin of Swiss banking that started to flourish in 1937 as the Swiss offered a safe heaven to German Jewish money (and as we know now, they stole much of the money). The less said, the better.

If I were a Greek multibillionaire living in Gstad, like Taki, I would be worried for my money. You cannot pretend to be a bonvivant for long without money. For his consolation, I am in trouble too. I have much invested in Koor, that is leveraged on Credit Suisse.

Bishop Lugo and Viviana

Bishop Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, the popular "Bishop of the Poor", was allowed by the Pope to run for the Presidency, and won on a leftist platform. During the campaign, the ruling Colorado Party accused him of having seventeen children, something disturbing for a high Prince of the Church, except in Paraguay. Paraguay was founded by Jesuit Missionaries and in spite their celibacy, they left a white looking population. Lugo was elected President of Paraguay.

The pic shows him with Viviana, a girl young enough to be his daughter, a reminder of his past indiscretions. Viviana says that Lugo "seduced" her when she was a 16 year-old confirmand and when Bishop Lugo was staying at her aunt's house in Choré, San Pedro, where she was living. Vivana had a child by him while Bishop and decided to sue the President since he refused to maintain his son and even hit her on her face. (Times are changing. In my times, social differences were so large in Paraguay that an procedure like that would have been unthinkable). Ironically, only hours before his public acknowledgement of his son, Lugo still told a Spanish TV station that he still believes in celibacy:

- Do you believe in celibacy?

- Yes.

- Have you respected it?

- It's an imperfect matter. In traditional theology, the only thing perfect is God. Everything we humans do is imperfect. The human race is imperfect and thus we might have weaknesses, make mistakes, or leave our convictions aside at any given moment.

I got troubles, whoa-oh

When I woke up this morning
You were on my mind
And you were on my mind
I got troubles, whoa-oh
I got worries, whoa-oh
I got wounds to bind

And I got a feelin'
Down in my sho-oo-oo-oes, said
Way down in my sho-oo-oes
Yeah, I got to ramble, whoa-oh
I got to move on, whoa-oh
I got to walk away my blues

Pic.: Ian and Sylvia

Mexican Frontier Gangs

An antiaircraft weapon found in the possession of a Mexican drug gang operating in the American frontier. The masked ninjas are commandos, the good guys.

What kind of gun is this? It seems to me a 20mm Flak 38s, dismounted and stolen from a museum display.

The body of Shane Pennington, 19, was found in Playa de Tijuana. He was a hardworking and likable teen. The Pennington family is from North Carolina and moved to California because “We wanted to live large and free.”

Tower Semiconductors (TSEM) rises 18%

The stock has tripled it worth in this week. Someone knows something.

Tobacco Trade

The Sinai Peninsula Beduins maintain an active trade route across Israel's Southern border. What is profitable to bring to Israel without paying taxes? Apparently there are three categories of mechandise: Weapons for the Arab population (for self-defense against other Arab clans, not against Israel), drugs (mostly raw smoking marihuana), and ... tobacco leaves. Tobacco is a monopoly in Israel, and the sole local cigarette producer is Dubek. Once I calculated that the tobacco monopoly in Israel must be a good thing to invest in and searched for ways to buy into Dubek. It is impossible, it is a private outfit owned by the Ghel family (manager: Dr. Roy Gehl, grandson of the founder). I dont smoke and dont know the price of cigarettes. I never buy cigarettes in airport's duty free shops, in fact I dont buy anything. I do keep an eye on Dubek and it seems to be most secretive. More of a reason to study the tobacco situation in this country.

Quantitative Easing

People around is noticing that everybody is trying to fight their way out of the current recession by printing money, or as it is called today, by quantitative easing. Since everybody is doing it, even the dour Swiss, they all cancel each other out and all fail to achieve their aims. Or they all do, as debtors are paying off their debts easier. Invisible inflation is what we are living today, and there is no escape, but we shall survive, since we always do. The pic from the Anglosaxon Blog, with permission.

Sent to the War with no Weapons

With age one learns that things are not simple. The Hungarian nation is erecting a memorial to WW2 Forced Labour Battalions's dead. Prof. Szita, a historian, explains the history of these bizarre military formations, which caused the death of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews, but also - to a certain point - protected them against Nazi demands to deport them to Auschwitz. My father survived the war within this para-military unit.

The Munkaszolgalat was set up in 1939 under the Horthy regime as framework as auxiliary military units for ethnic Hungarians unfit for full armed service. They were attached to fighting battalions and carried their number. In 1941 Jewish men were drafted to these units, and sent to the Eastern front. From the beginning, these were not pure racial units, but included also certain proportion of non Jewish but politically suspicious elements, such as labor union members. Consequently, similar units were set up for minorities such as serbs, wends, romanians, rusins and rutenians. The Hungarian Army's defeat at the Don River caused severe casualties also to these units. In March 19, 1944 the Germans occupied Hungary and the labor units changed their status to "prisioners of war" (a munkaszolgálatosokat „hadifogolyszerű őrizetben” kellett tartani.) After the fall of the Communist regime, memorials were erected to the Hungarian soldiers fallen in the Eastern Front, including those of the labor battalions, and their pension rights were fully recognized.

I should dislike Hungarians, who delivered Hungarian Jews to Eichmann. But as said, things were not so simple.

What is important

The stock exchange rally continues. In Tokyo, Daikyo rised 35%. Daikyo is Japan's largest condominium developer.

Navy Seals Snipers 3 vs Somali Pirates 0

MK11 Navy Seals Snipers Rifle. It works.

Latino Illegals Rescue WASP Captain Phillips

Capt. Richard Phillips shakes the hand of Comandante Francisco Castellano ("Papa Pitufo") after being rescued from pirate captivity off the coast of Somalia. Crewman William Rios Gonzalez ("Narcosatan") promised to make a peregrination to La Virgen Negra de Guadalupe in Mexico to give thanks.

Engineering Humor.

Ecuador Loses Touch With Reality

The Congress of Ecuador has passed legislation directed to make "transparent" all foreign investment in the country. A State organism has been mandated to submit within six month a list of companies with foreign investors.

En las disposiciones transitorias se determina que las compañías que entre sus socios tengan a personas jurídicas, nacionales o extranjeras deberán disolverse, a menos que tales socios sean reemplazados por personas naturales de manera voluntaria. Las compañías que después de seis meses continuaren teniendo entre sus socios a sociedades extranjeras deberán disolverse. Si no lo hicieren dentro de los 12 meses siguientes, quedarán disueltas de pleno derecho.

As said above, within this period all foreign companies with investments in Ecuador have to be replaced voluntarily by Ecuatorian nationals (persons, not companies). Those not complying will be legally dissolved after 12 months.

Those devious foreign devils will not stop at anything to secretly invest their money in Ecuador, will they?

Pic.: Children's bullfight in the Belmonte Ring, Quito.

Yehuda Simon vs Sendero Luminoso

The Sendero Luminoso guerrilla has attacked two patrols of the Peruvian Army and killed 13 soldiers (plus two that disappeared). Yehude Simon (one of Peru's 2,000 Jews), the Minister for Interior, promised to fight back. The attack took place at Sanabamba, in the remote Apurimac River Valley. Apparently, the guerrilla is led by the brothers Victor Quispe Palomino aka Jose and Jorge Quispe Palomino aka Raul, after they took over the Ramirez Durand Faction (after Ramirez was captured in 1999). Some also mention an ayacuchan student José, and one called Alipio.

No one believed that this new faction could to survive in opposition to the main senderista line of Abimael Guzmán, led by Feliciano and Artemio (in the Alto Huallaga Valley). But the new faction allied itself with the coca farmers of Vizcatán and created a disciplined fighting force that terrorizes the Peruvian Army. Last November the army sent 800 soldiers to the area and established a basis in Sanabamba, the one that was attacked yesterday. I presume that now it will be abandoned, since to keep supplying it through enemy lines is difficult.

I love Peru, I love Francisco Pizarro and ceviche, but is it a country stable enough to put one's savings in it?

The Prophet

My entry on November 13, 2008 registers that Prof. Hamilton started buying stocks. He loves to calculate esoteric indices and apparently they make sense to him. In spite of being a macro economist, he gave a one-handed advice: Buy. The man is a prophet. Hamilton wrote on Nov.13, 2008:

One thing that's clearly underweighted in (my) portfolio is stocks in the financial sector. But in the brief time I've spent looking at a dozen or so of these, I didn't find one that didn't have some bad smell to it. What I'd really like is a regional bank that's been run with a paleolithic conservatism during the go-go years. Any such entity would be in a good position to profit mightily from the current mess.

Aristicide in Cambodia?

Prof. John Glad proposes the intriguing idea that the Cambodian (and Biafran) genocide was an "aristicide". I was always wondering why the obviously superior peoples like the ancient Greeks and Romans disappeared, and why the fantastically talented Hungarian Jewry was exterminated. Glad proposes that it is all and the same process: aristicide, the killing off competitors by the mediocre.

Out of a 1970 population of probably near 7,100,000, Cambodia lost 4,000,000 people to war and mass murder. Most of these, 2,400,000, were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot began his campaign to turn Cambodia into an equalitarian peasant society by by declaring, "This is Year Zero"; society was about to be "purified." Foreigners were expelled, embassies closed, foreign assistance refused. All media were shut down, bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone curtailed. Money was forbidden. Cambodia was sealed off from the outside world.

Cambodia's cities were then evacuated. At Phnom Penh, two million inhabitants were moved into the countryside and forced into slave labor in Pol Pot's "killing fields" where they soon began dying from overwork, malnutrition and disease, on a diet of one tin of rice (180 grams) per person every two days.

Anyone educated or "intellectual" was killed. The country's 60,000 Buddhist monks were killed. All the teachers were killed. Ethnic groups were attacked including the three largest minorities; the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cham Muslims, along with twenty other smaller groups. Fifty percent of the estimated 425,000 Chinese living in Cambodia in 1975 perished.

How much did Cambodia's IQ average fall?

Sechura Solar Pond

The Canadian Engineer directed me to the Bayovar Project, a potassium mine in Peru's Province of Piura, in the Sechura Desert. Interesting technology, large potential. The Brasilians are already there. The question is: How stable is Peru? It is an Andean country, between Bolivia and Ecuador, two expropiation-crazy, foreign investments - unfriendly countries.

The Rally is Here

Bank of America rallied 35% while Credit Suisse rised 8%. I was right in this one too, after the panic and despair, came the manic phase. People will be afraid to be left out of this party. If I cannot think something else till Sunday morning, I will continue adding to my collection of KOOR stock.

Magic Bus

Magic Bus, Magic Bus, Magic Bus, Magic Bus
I want it, I want it, I want it...(You can't have it!)
Think how much you'll save...(You can't have it!)]
I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it ... (You can't have it!)

Who is Obama?

I formed my opinion of Obama mostly influenced by Steve Sailer, who based his image on the analysis of Obama literary oeuvre. But it appear that Muravchik, from Commentary, did a clearer analysis. Muravchik starts by noting that Obama voted with his party 96 percent of the time. In the prior two years, his number was 95 percent, making him the fourth most partisan member of the Senate. And not just partisan, but also highly ideological. According to Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), Obama voted “right” 90 percent of the time. If we discount his absences, Obama voted to ADA’s approval more than 98 percent of the time.

Abandoned by his father when he was still too young to remember him and then sent at age ten by his mother to live in Hawaii with her parents, who enrolled him in a prestigious prep school, Obama spent much of his teen years searching for his black identity. Late in his high-school career he found a mentor of sorts in Frank Marshall Davis, an older black poet. According to Herbert Romerstein, former minority chief investigator of the House Committee on Internal Security, FBI files reveal Davis to have been a member of the Communist party not only in its public phase but also when it officially dissolved and went underground in the 1950’s.

According to Obama, Davis told him that a white person “can’t know” a black person, and that the “real price of admission” to college was “leaving your race at the door.” Perhaps influenced by this, he reports that at college,[t]o avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

Despite Obama’s tone of self-mockery, the passage discloses the milieu in which he immersed himself. In this light, it is not surprising that, upon graduation, he decided on a career as a “community organizer,” even if it was none too clear to him what exactly that meant. Thanks to a grant from a left-wing foundation, he was hired by a small group of protégés of Saul Alinsky, the original apostle of “community organizing.” Alinsky’s institutional base was the Industrial Areas Foundation, which he called a “school for professional radicals”.

Obama, then, is a highly disciplined ideological radical within the Democratic Party. He is the point man of a long tradition of American radicalism. The world should be expecting a socialist revolution, instead we are expecting a Nasdaq rally. I certainly am for the rally.

Addendum:

President Obama hosted a Jewish Seder Dinner in the White House. The meal included matzo ball soup, brisket and kugel. The Seder was overseen by Eric Lesser, a special assistant to White House official David Axelrod. "There is no question, Obama is a true friend of the Jewish community." And has an iron stomach.