Blog/December 2019/Dec 6th

December 6th

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Israel update: we have until this coming Wednesday to avoid third elections. The responsible body decided that we can have the elections on the day they fall out by law, which happens to be Purim. I would be hard-pressed to think of a more appropriate date. It’s a rat-race for real.

Just spit-balling here, but maybe for the new Israeli Elections 2020™ we could just randomly throw darts in the Knesset; and whoever was present, and survived with the fewest puncture marks, wins. At least we’d know the winner was lucky and/or tough.

In the USA, the Democrat primary races have become even more intense, as Kamala Harris drops out. If only she were running in Israel, she could still be a contender!

You may have heard of this woman who’s associated now with the Bernie Sanders campaign in the USA: Linda Sarsour. She’s an outspoken anti-Israel activist, as well as a rabid anti-Semite. Here’s an excellent piece clarifying the historical background of “the conflict”, and why Sarsour is a dangerous person. It’s also just a bit delicious that “Sarsour” means “cockroach” in Arabic. “As her name is, so is she”, as we say…

Why hasn’t Sanders, who claims he’s a Jew when it benefits him, yet bothered to make any kind of statement about the Roach’s anti-Semitic outbursts?

As for us: it was a quiet week. The most exciting thing to happen in our small world was the “book swap”. This is a charity event in which people with books they’ve read donate them, while others purchase them for a very nominal price. We both contributed books and purchased others, but I think we went a bit overboard. Apparently, I took someone else’s books as well as the ones we wanted, since neither of us recognized those books as having been ones we wanted or chose. Well, it’s a long stretch until Yom HaKippurim…

The good, the bad, and the just plain weird:

• On Ethical Algorithms.
• Climate change: How Lucky Do You Feel?. An interesting article from a former sceptic.
• A new “blue membrane” might allow us to generate terawatts of power from river-ocean interfaces. Of course, fully utilizing that technology would have a devastating effect on the ecology. And so it goes.
• Unsurprisingly, some of the stalwarts of the “clean energy” movement import dirty electricity from somewhere else. NIMBY is a real thing.
• A fascinating article giving The Surprisingly Solid Mathematical Case of the Tin Foil Hat Gun Prepper. Food for thought, indeed.
• Creepy Joe Biden’s “hairy legs” comments. He’s definitely presidential material, now that Trump’s lowered the bar.
• “Jessica” Yaniv is back in the news; which, I assume, is the point.

We got a tiny bit of rain this week. We were supposed to get more, but I suppose we didn’t pay the Water Bill. It’s been chilly, and it’s supposed to remain chilly with once in a while a bit of rain. Shabbat will be cold and dry, though.

Our guests this shabbat will enjoy:
homemade ḥalla, vegetable soup, baked chicken, turkey “shawarma”, baked yams, roasted green-beans, various salatim, and lemon-bars.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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