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Summer Quake #1? I've been going on and on for a couple of months about how this summer, the web bot project at http://halfpasthuman.com has been forecasting five major quakes this summer. If you're a subscriber to the future forecasting (for entertainment purposes only) project, you also know that project guru Cliff (and his auxiliary thinkware Igor) have made it very clear that summer doesn't necessarily mean June 21st. They note that to most Americans, the onset of the Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of "summer". It ends (all too soon) on Labor Day, not September 21st.
Our point this morning is that quake #1 in the summer quakes may well have been the one this morning in Indonesia which reportedly has killed about 2,500 people (so far). The technical details:
We're not posting the precise prediction yet - we'll wheel that out after quake #3 or 4 - then you can judge the technology - like you need to again. Meantime, the death toll is expected to go higher, and certainly the number of injuries could well reach into the tens of thousands. Remember: This is potentially #1 of a series of 5 - and number 5 is likely to be a super quake says our proprietary future predictive technology. Think in terms of 9-10 on the Richter scale. Coming this summer to the US West Coast is our best guess.
US Merging With Mexico Oh? You haven't heard? IMHO it's the latest crock of crap from the "gang that couldn't think straight" in D.C. is being labeled the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America." Has a fancy new tax-dollar paid for web site. Slow-motion hypnosis for the masses. We can defend Basra but not San Diego and Phoenix?
I may be a little enthno-centric, but with the border leaking like a sieve, the half-assed solution to build a "high tech "virtual border" doesn't just verge on luncacy...that train left the station a long time ago.
"Virtual borders" can only deal with "virtual people" - and in case any of the high tech lobby in Washington need help, this is a real problem which requires real enforcement. If virtual borders were anything other than a high-tech handout to money pushing lobbies, Israel would not be building a wall now, would they?
OK, the merger moves forward - the sheep are deep asleep. The CFR "soft borders" in North America plan moves along on the elitist agenda. Bah....oops. Don't let me wake you up..
Timor Oil Grab Closer We have a number of stories today about guess what? Oil! We read in Australian media about how "peace is being restored to East Timor" by UN and other "security" forces. But not without more violence in Dili today. A few readers in Oz are incensed that I would even imply that it's all part and parcel of a "Big Aussie Oil Grab" as we headlined way back in April 2004. Duh. You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Bah....bah.... bah... stupid sheep.
Still reading? Congrats: You passed our built-in reader IQ test.
Oil as a Hostage
Venezuela's Bolivia Investment Meantime, Venezuela is investing in oil and gas exploration in Bolivia, in areas that some media notes are where coca farmers live.
Train Station Stabbings Biggest railroad station in Europe was opened in Germany today. The bigger story: A 17-year old nutjob wielding a knife stabbed 28-people near the event.
Some Cannes Think
Peoplenomics: Modeling Disaster in JIT Systems Traditional econometric modeling has received a bit of attention from the general public, but it hasn’t been anywhere near popular in mainstream conversation among humans to the extent of even a moderately successful television show (e.g. “Survivor” or “Idol”). Perhaps one of the reasons is that most people think econometric modeling is boring stuff. However, these days I would argue, even "regular humans" should think about it. Why? In order to prepare for what could be a rotating series of shortages throughout the US this coming summer. So with this in mind, let's pick up our learning about JIT systems and systemic failures... If you don't know what a kanban is, you really ought to subscribe for $30 a year. This weekend's report (which I'm writing now) is titled "The Disappearance of Choice" and focuses on how one of the predictable outcomes of constrained resources and corporate cannibalism will be fewer choices when you go shopping in the future.
Link to Us If you operate a web site, please place a link to www.urbansurvival.com on your site and we will place one on ours. Click here to let me know when yours is up.
Cheapskates Journal Try "How to Live on $10,000 a year - or less - at our bookstore for $10 bucks.
Got any Friends Left? If you do, click here to send them a link to this site. That ought to drive them away - but at least you'll have more time for research...
Friday May 26, 2006 Personal Income Happy Talk. Let's see if you figure out where I focused my attention in this morning's report on personal income, released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis:
Gosh, you're smart! "The aheader they say, the behinder we get."
Three Day Weekend! Yee Haw! Well, here we are with a three-day weekend. Most government offices are closed on Monday, as are most banks. (I won't pipe up with my standard comment that a lot of government offices could be closed several days a week to save money and without negative impact on the citizenry. Big government equals bad government, because it's always looking to self perpetuate and expand - contrary to what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind, but that's a long story and you're probably looking for a short read this morning.)
UrbanSurvival will publish its usual schedule. No rest for the wicked. This weekend, our premium service Peoplenomics looks at the possible end of supermarkets as we know them. "The Death of Branding?" Subscription info.
Immigration Bill Passes Senate The Senate has passed an immigration reform bill. Highlight:
Now, remember this is the Senate. The House, which faces more elections this fall, would make illegal immigration a felony and has no guest worker program or amnesty. A fine study in "the closer to election, the more CONgress-persons fear voters.
Web Bots to Run Again I've made a fair bit of noise over our exclusive access to the web bot project over at www.halfpasthuman.com because the pioneering techniques in language shift as a way to glimpse the future in advance are far ahead of anything being done elsewhere. It's not free - in fact the six-part report this time is $200 for new subscribers. The target date range for this run is December 2006 to February 2007. If you want a good sense of what next year will be like, subscribe. If you're skeptical, just wait till after this summer's big earthquake.
Bush and Enron A very interesting report titled "Bush's Enron Lies" touches on the relationship between the current occupants of the White House and Enron execs, now convicted.
Rush to War 2 - Soldier Gathering With the economy heading into a meltdown, slowdown, or recession in months ahead, we're not surprised to see the US drawing up proposed sanctions against Iran and running 'em up the flag pole to see who will buy it. War helps the economy - as an excuse for more deficit spending. We're into about Year Three of the Second Great Depression, and the Iraq/Afghan Wars have been a fine modern analog to the 1930's Civilian Conservation Corp and Works Progress Administration of the last one. Better: The appearance (or invention?) of terrorism has kept most people from recognizing Depression 2's arrival.
However, I'm a little confused on something. Russian media reports the "US has rejected the idea of direct talks between the US and Iran again." Now, if you and I were having a serious difference of opinion about something, I'd suggest that a direct face-to-face meeting would be the way to proceed, not trying to go out and "soldier gather" as the organizational development term might be - would be one way of getting to a solution.
"Soldier Gathering" is an interesting concept in personnel/ organizational development. The way it works is someone who is seeking power (or an outcome) in a group of people starts militant conversation. They judge who will "side with them" and who will not. They build up a following ["soldiers"], and then confront [management or the issue] with their "army of supporters." So it appears, we have the same kind of "soldier gathering" going on in international affairs - not the same kind you hear around the water cooler when a new manager comes in who is not immediately popular - but the kind where the Bush administration goes out and tries to cobble together another "coalition of the willing." (England, Israel, Australia, Canada, etc.) Same "soldier gathering" technique, just on a grander scale.
By the way, the technique, which I first ran across in some obscure b-school organizational development text, is not widely written about on the web, so I can't point you to a reference. But it's out there in texts. Occasionally as a prelude to the storming, norming, and conforming meetings.
Oil Grab - East Timor Version Speaking of which: You may read the headlines about East Timor and how UN backed troops are going there ahead of "peace talks." What you want to read are some backgrounders on how Australia is trying to grab East Timor oil.
Now, if I were really conspiracy-minded, I might wonder aloud if Oz has really been funneling money to the East Timor groups that are raising the ruckus, on the theory that if there's a local 'war" then Oz can step in (benevolently) under cover of promoting democracy! Hey! Worked for the Bush administration in Iraq, so why not an East Timor oil grab for the Oz powers?
Not being conspiracy-minded, I won't even suggest it. But, I wouldn't write it off, either. 'Specially with "international support." Yeah, right. Coalition of the what?
Phone Tax Out The Treasury Department is giving up on the long distance and bundled services 3% phone tax. You'll have to wait until 2006 to claim it a refund on your taxes. For our hose, I pencil it out at $86 credit. Big deal!
New Paper The Times of London (Rupert Murdoch's outfit, is planning to launch a US edition printing at the New York Post. Thanks to Murdoch's promotion of Hillary Clinton recently (which I file in my "ruling family dynasties that have hijacked the people's government" file), I'm not even remotely interested in subscribing. I vote with my wallet when I can.
Symantec Glitch
Anti-Virus Giveaway Barclays Bank is issuing bank customers free anti-virus software.
Other Virus Tracking New report on where HIV came from.
Two more reported dead from Bird Flu in Indonesia. WHO says it's not shown to be airborne yet, however.
Thursday, May 25, 2006 Bird Flu: In Siberia Now
The Political Correctness Crisis: Now They're Crooks The conviction of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling today will no doubt cause a crisis for those who are addicted to the absurdity of "political correctness." I'm sure if I call them crooks, a wise lawyer would advise me "Don't be in a such a hurry, wait for the appeals because if they win, they won't be crooks anymore." Maybe. For today, they're crooks. The rise and fall of Enron can be pretty much laid at their feet. --- The "Crisis of Correctness" however isn't confined to the courthouse in Houston. Nope. In Washington District of Correctness, George Bush has stepped into the FBI seizure of documents from the office of CONgressman William Jefferson. He's sealing the records for 45-days for a cooling off period. But it's remarkable to me that CONgress has started whining about the FBI doing its job. Perhaps a bit too well for the (formerly) honorable gentlemen's liking? I'll observe "correctness." But maybe the old Geraldo Rivera phrase "the yet-to-be-convicted..." would be close. --- And speaking of which, Dick Cheney's likely to give evidence in the Libby trial.
Reconquista's Salesman Vincente Fox, according to local television is openly promoting reconquista in Washington State. That's what I'd call it when our sources reported that Fox in Spanish in the Yakima area Wednesday said that "Reconquista should take it all back - to the Canadian border." In English he calls the situation an "immigration phenomena" but to Hispanic audiences it comes out "la immigration' de reconquista." Local coverage talks about the high tariffs Mexico places on Washington State apples and ignores his invasion motivation speeches.. Meantime, Lou Dobbs of CNN is getting attacked for his reasonable report as some organizations are going out two or three layers away from the story in order to use terms like "white supremacists."
People who watch the Fox government report that it's tied in with various (no longer) secret societies.
As I see it, it's time for folks to get serious and lose the phony PC crap: This is America. You either stand up for it, or leave. This is not Mexico. If Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez was rallying Atzlan forces here, wouldn't we throw them out for stirring up insurrection? Seems Fox is too "connected" to get tossed out. Or America has lost most of its Constitutional ideals - something I don't like to think about.
Shortages Rising In what has turned into an interesting "back of the envelope" kind of study, I've been watching the word "shortage" now for over two months on the Google news search engine. While I'm aware that Google offers a means of tracking search engine frequency with their Trend Lab, the frustration I've got with it is the lack of granularity. As a result, while Google's efforts are cool and interesting, our "zoomed-in" chart of the term "shortage" offers a close-up on what's happening right now. We're up to 14,500 hits from an Easter low of 11,300:
Now come the disclaimers. We have no idea how often Google flushes its cache of search terms. We don't know if their searching/sampling is constant over the period and above all, we know that with as many pages/sources there are on the web, there's a high potential for error. On the other side, if Google scans 5,000 news sources and we have 1,4500 hits today, that's fairly large in relation to n so maybe it does mean something. In any event, we may not have long to wait if the web bot forecast is to become true sometime around/after this weekend's holiday. --- The one that I'm watching most closely is the apparent shortage/blip in the distribution system of heavy oil. Lots of readers are reporting in that certain kinds of motor oils are not in the plentiful supply they have been in the past. Here's a typical email on point:
I suspect that it has something to do with reformulation of gasoline and a focus on getting enough distilled product to make sure we don't run out or have price spikes at the pumps. It might also have something to do with reformulation. But whatever the cause, the heavier oils supply question is a serious one because they are so critical to production of items we take for granted. As an example, plastics, such as polyethylene depend on abundant heavy oil for its manufacture. --- If you're interested in subscribing to the next web bot run (that's the future predictive linguistic shift analysis that we use as a "news steering system' around here, click over to www.halfpasthuman.com today or tomorrow and look for the sign-up. (Not there yet this morning, but it may be later today.) Just as a request, let me pass along that Cliff and Igor don't have time to answer individual wildly speculative questions about "end times" "fulfillment of prophesy" and such. Their mission is to collect the data which Universe hides on the internet, make sense out of it, and report. To go any further than the data collection/analysis mission takes them off task. So if you subscribe, your conclusions are your own. But the data is what the data is. That's the mission - and as Cliff is so fond of saying, "We don't get into "why" questions because that goes to intent. We just run the analysis and it is what it is. Yup. Thank you for understanding. --- Shortages around the world are looking interesting. Everything from a shortage of affordable housing in the UK, to beaches with shortages of lifeguards, to doctor shortages here at UNM to a shortage of intensive care units in New Zealand.
GDP Forges Ahead At least that's the report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:
I was fascinated by the "current dollar" numbers:
Hooray for monetary inflation - way to go Printer Ben! Also significant: the rate of corporate profit increases is slowing.
More belt tightening to come in corps? "Planet of Slums" As I've lectured many times to you, Robert Kaplan's "The Coming Anarchy" was (and still is) a great book because it gave readers in 1994 a pretty good idea of what the macro-trends were that are pushing the globe toward a tribal/ anarchy centered future.
If you envision corporations owning/stealing/expropriating natural resources from people and then exploiting them to the max, you'll have a sense of the dynamic. Say you live in a South American slum and don't have those multiple degrees youi hold. What's your motivation to climb up the social heap? Especially when the dynamic of concentration of wealth means all but a few scraps of loose change are held by 3,000 families globally and they control the world, television, and most stock markets?
You see the problem, I hope. So this morning, I want you to click over to the Asia Times which has a review of a new book in what sounds like the Kaplan genre. The review of Mike Davis's new book "Planet of Slums" under the headline "Accumulation of the wretched" by Pepe Escobar looks at violence in slums worldwide and how that puts a very real face on "urban terror." Pertinent quote:
In the book (which is on my reading list now, we seem to get hints of what the web bot project has been talking about - the coming "duality." One way you might be able to slice and dice "duality" is to consider the very, very rich, and the very, very poor. Another? The very, very corporate and the very, very tribal.
As a personal planning note, that kind of emergent "duality" is a good reason to be very careful about who you throw in your lot with. Get this one wrong, and you could be in a heap-o-trouble down the road a few years. Which is why I'm managing my affiliations with all sides. Not that I'm advocating you become a hermit. Just become aware and don't get sucked toward any pole in the emerging dualities.
I know this may sound a little odd, but you can almost see the groundwork for the corporate/tribal wars for big cities on the horizon. Can't get the vision? To apocalyptic? Go buy a copy of Eidos Software's new "game" "Urban Chaos" [for PS2, Xbox] and you'll get a flavor for it.
For the really hands on, a trip to Ramallah where rioting happened on Wednesday offers a more "hands on" sense of things. There's been rioting in Iran by students overnight. Want more? Youth riots in Ethiopia after a Koran profanation.
And the list goes on. Surely, you remember the racial riots recently in California jails. And in Phoenix, where the local sheriff has been sending spot patrols out to the Mexican border, racial tensions in the county jail is high, leading to a preventative lockdown.
I'd also point out that governments are starting to use communications control in order to control urban groups. Brazil's government, for example, successfully prevailed upon Google this week to shut down some communities on the Internet in order to regain control over recent rioting by gangs and social groups there.
OK, enough of the incredibly important big picture analysis. Today's headlines by contrast are hardly scary, very predictable, and almost boring in comparison...
Crooked House Rules We notice that various republicorps and democorps are going on and on about the FBI raid that picked up $100-thousand in cash from representative Jefferson's office and home. Calling for hearings, expressing their outrage.
Me thinks they protesteth too much.
Cheney to Leak Trial? Court filings apparently indicate that Dick Cheney may be called in the CIA Leakgate case. No surprise here.
LaRouche: Iran War in June Prediction. Not a bad one. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see a strike over the holiday weekend on some pretext or other. International incident tomorrow? Strike while the markets have three days closed? Makes sense to me. Seems every predictors around has been saying this month or that.
Intriguing Headline of the Day "Polish ice cream ban for papal visit." No booze in some towns either. (So why go, Your Holiness?)
Texas: No Bush? We've been wondering why George Bush isn't spending some time at his ranch 100-miles west of us. One reason might be the protests about the proposed amnesty for illegals. Maybe he doesn't want to leave Washington for a while till the power struggles calm down a bit. Maybe it's because of the Morgellons cases in Texas. Still, if he comes down here to the Lone Star Republic, we'd be pleased to whip him up a batch of iced coffee if he comes by the farm. Got some questions for him...
Wednesday, May 24, 2006 MS Office 2007 Beta Our first story this morning is of things economic in general - and on productivity in particular. As you know, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Microsoft Office fan. As such, I've been reading with a certain amount of anticipation about what's ahead for the Office suite. On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled some of the new features that will be contained, including some new views for Word and a few minor tweaks to Excel. Meantime, though, I'm still concerned about the future of a "civilian" web authoring tool to replace FrontPage, but time will tell.. Been tinkering with Nvu just in case...
War Drums There are reports today that Iran is readying a missile tests - potentially threatening to its neighbors. However, the flip side is the neighbors already have missiles and strategic parity is not on the agenda. Regardless, Iran launched one test overnight.
In the background, George Bush and the visiting Israeli prime minister Olmert agreed on Tuesday that Iran can't have nuclear weapons - although we note that Iran is a sovereign country, not a state or province. This is not a "good for the goose, good for the gander" issue, apparently.
As a result, Iran, reports the Asia Times, is quietly restructuring its military. Planning in advance for guerilla warfare? Likely. --- Strategic fire? We don't know the cause, but the cargo section of Istanbul Turkey's airport is on fire this morning. --- Watching the gold prices this morning (chart above) it's been down as we prepare this morning's report - not what I would have expected with the seeming escalations toward the next war front. With the dollar way down, I expect gold to recover late today, at least some of its declines, but that's not a trading recommendation. Neither is Dow up at the open but closing down.
Russia's New Oil Bourse If you thought one of the reasons for the pending war on Iran was their plan to oil oil trading denominated in Euros, you might well be right. But if you think that scenario is troubling, consider what will happen on June 8th when Russia is reportedly planning to start trading oil in something other than US dollars!
Chemtrail Report Review Most of us know the difference between a contrail and a chemtrail. One of our readers sent in a review of the Los Angeles chemtrail story aired last night:
Hats off to Paul Moyer and KNBC for covering this previously "taboo" story.
The Disease Front While we noticed the headlines about bird flu possibly going human-to-human in Indonesia, health officials are becoming less worried the outbreak which has infected 7 and killed 6, will spread. However, a number of medically aware folks are emphasizing the danger of human-to-human (H2H) transmission - and it's a story that I'm keeping a close eye on.
Morgellons Rising As incidents of the mysterious disease continue to crop up, the story is percolating harder around the edges of mainstream media. A Bay Area reader reports in:
Meantime, we're picking up reports that the Centers for Disease Control is planning a Morgellons Task Force. While such reports sound like promising developments, the emphasis should likely be on the word promising. CDC has been more talk than action on their task force - no named head of the task force exists, at least so far as we've been able to find. Until there is, it's a PR move only.... Why?
14% Inflation Land While there may be some places in the country with "low inflation" as reported by the government (e.g. something around 4% annually) the Atlanta Journal Constitution has been looking at the detail level and finds that Atlanta residents experienced a 2.2% jump in two months! That's a 13.94% annualized rate - Right in line with what we've been reporting for some time. --- We've been hearing a few more reports about the "motor oil shortage":
Web Threatened The inventor of the Internet says the two tier internet plans (fast lane, slow lane) are a genuine threat to the 'net. Imagine that! Corporations and government conspiring to slow down the free exchange of ideas on the 'net. Who would have thought?? We expect the republicorps and the democorps will support such moves because it will repress third party challengers that might be more pertinent to the interests mainstream America.
Tuesday May 23, 2007 GBD This is a day that I can almost take off because I've christened it "Global Bounce Day." This follows "global crash day" that I wrote about during the day on Monday. Today, I would be surprised to see the market do anything but bounce.
What is so amazing to me is that there has been almost no coverage of this global wave in the US mainstream media. Been deathly quiet - almost like the invisible hand is sitting on this story. Outside the US, responsible media are reporting it. The BBC for example says the "World stock markets still nervous" but here? Talking head MSM spinnervision says nothing.
Granted, after the fact, Reuters covers the "bounce" today. But rather than talk about the global collapsing wave, the LA Times calls it a "Global cooling of the Markets." Well, call it what you will, it's a day when we shouldn't need our seat belts unless things start to unwind near the close.
But, I wouldn't bet on it. Why? because there's a very powerful market trend that is now coming into play: markets tend to go up before a major holiday. This coming weekend is a three-day weekend. Ergo, the markets should level out this week and the VIX (volatility index to newbies) will likely come down a bit. It's the "fear factor" indicator, or so I think of it.
OK, so Japan fell, but maybe a hand full of JPN calls on a quick-turn trade would be profitable once the Nikkei gets into bounce mode, too.
We'll be watching LatAm's today.
Option Issues The SEC is getting deeper into how companies hand out options to top execs (and how they report such options on their financial statements). The issue has been around a long time - but now the SEC seems to be getting serious about it.
New Country? Montenegro is cutting ties to Serbia and looks to be heading out on its own. I find this really astonishing because it underscores to me a major global divergence. On the one hand, we have the corporatist elite and their "one world government" concepts, and on the other hand, we have the retribalization forces that are springing up in places like Montenegro and in the whole Reconquista/Atzlan conflicts. My bets are that retribalization is here to stay and as rocking global markets show, globalization may be teetering.
Exclusive Morgellons: Still a Mystery I mentioned the outbreak of Morgellons disease in California in this past weekend's report. A number of readers have wondered if maybe the disease is this or that. Nope, no clear answers yet, says the leading researcher in the field. Except that the fibers associated with how the disease presents are not the worst part...
Wymore tells me he is flooded with emails from people - all claiming to have "the answer" but so far, no one does. By the way, in a separate email (also posted with exclusive permission) Wymore notes that:
I'm mystified why this story hasn't shown up in prime time as at least one major network has had a detailed report in the can (e.g. ready to run) for a couple of months now. Too scary, maybe?
Reminder 11 o'clock tonight, Channel 4, L.A. - chemtrails story scheduled. If you see it tonight, send me a review!
Short Report Today's report is a bit shorter than usual for two reasons: Been up working with a client half way around the world and when I haven't been working on the tractor, following yesterday's global melt and looking after the garden here, I've been working on a provisional patent application for a new bit of technology I've cooked up which would be a major improvement to your home theater system. As soon as I get the PPA filed, (and maybe a search for prior art) I will tell you more about it. Really cool/useful. Man's gotta eat...
Monday May 22, 2006 Russia's MICEX stock exchange suspended trading in shares after that market dropped more than 8.5%. Russia is not alone!
Swedish Krasch! Subscriber report out of Sweden just in 11:00 CDT:
India Crash Suicide watch for brokers and investors today.
9:49 CDT Update Mexi-Melt, Argen-toast, Bashed-zil Mexico's stock market is down more than 3% at last check. Brazil down about 4 1/2%, Argentina down 4 3/4th % Dow has a small gap down at the open to fill. Then?
West Coast Warning This is odd: A curiously ominous warning to the west coast on one of the boards we monitor: See the "Today is May 22" post. And subsequents from poster "googles bin hijacked." Odd and maybe useless, but popped up on our radar...
Ready for Crash Day? Say, I don't mean to start off the day on a bummer kind of a note here, but there is some speculation that the markets are in a similar position to 1987 here and could go through something like a "mini-crash" as trading progresses. The British paper, The Times, says market conditions are eerily similar to 1987, as they see it. But more important to us is something a little more obscure called the Metonic Cycle. It's basically a 19-year/234.99 lunar month cycle.
Bombay (Mumbai) was doing it's best to crash last week, too. Germany and France this morning are down more than 1% - the UK down 3/4's of one percent.
Maybe someone besides me and the boys in the oil patch will look at the relationship between oil and inflation (link) and figure that wild inflation is just ahead. Oh well...
Not that such an event - a crash - couldn't happen here today. For example, there are three stories which broke over the weekend - any one of which could be construed by the markets as a big enough external shock to push the markets down. They are 1) The Ebola virus story out of England, 2) the reports that Morgellons disease is spreading in the Los Angeles/SoCal area, and 3) the shortages of motor oil that are popping up anecdotally. You need to read up on all three of these held over stories, if you're not already up on them. Any of them could turn into an exogenous (crash inducing external factor) for the shaky markets. --- Back in the mid 1990's I used to be very active on an internet discussion group hosted by the University of Colorado's Center for a Sustainable Future (pieces of which are still around the 'net) where a group of academics and interested folks engaged in speculation about how and when the Fifth Grand Super Cycle advance would come to an end.
One of the comments that still echoes with me from back then is that market crashed don't develop "out of the blue" and one author, I forget which one, said "You give me a rapid 2.7% decline and I will give you a crash." He had correctly noted that crashes are preceded by an undermining of confidence.
To drive home the point that we are in "possible crash" conditions, recall that two weeks ago the Dow closed business at 11,577.7. Last Friday it closed at 11,144.1, a decline of about 3.7%. This morning, the futures are pointing to an even lower open. So yes, we are in the range of oversold market conditions from which a crash can occur. --- This may explain why corporately run news media don't want to talk about anything scary in today's headlines. While most folks will slurp up the reports that Tony Blair went to Iraq, and that 76 "Taliban" have been killed in Afghanistan.
Meantime, an Iranian op-ed column piece suggests something that may be uncomfortably close to the truth as it headlines "U.S. military-industrial complex creating phantom enemies." Well, duh. --- I've often pointed out to you that without war (or its economic equivalent in famine, pestilence, disease, etc.) to accomplish demand and capacity destruction, capitalism would run out of work to do and would need to transition to a sustainable economic model. Most folks would love to see this except for a tiny fly in the ointment - there's no alternative complete and tested economic model out there which is self-regulating and which doesn't destroy personal freedoms and incentives.
You'd think with lots of computer horsepower to throw at the problem, a think tank somewhere would have already come up with the changed structure of finance and governance to allow life on the "full Petri dish planet" to work along near planetary carrying capacity. But, no, dream on. If there is such an animal, damned if I've been able to find it.
Hard money (which can't be diluted by government buying paper and ink to just print more) is likely part of the answer - as would be a change in the global view of debt and interest/usury. However, such a sweeping series of reforms would throw millions of banksters/scammers/ and paper-hangers out of business, so little work is done on the core problem.
Of course, adding to this, we have two fresh examples today of how corporations are trying to govern the electorate through their checkbook proxies - and I suppose this morning we could start there.
Democorps Tried to Sink Nagin? The Drudge Report has a story today on how the DNC and Howard Dean allegedly tried to sink Ray Nagin's successful bid to return as Mayor of the Big Easy. Now we're hearing that the DNC is talking to its attorneys about the Drudge story.
So why didn't Landrieu win? I dunno - honest voting machines, maybe? NewAmerican Whig Party, anyone?
Another CONgressman Caught Reports are that the FBI has videotape of a member of CONgress accepting $100,000 in $100-bills to ensure the success (through a bribe) of a business deal in Nigeria. We'll be really interested to see how democorptic CONgressman William Jefferson (again, Louisiana) tries to talk his way out of this one.
Fire Or Ice I'm not sure whether to put my money on Robert Felix or Al Gore.
"How's that?" you ask over the second cup.
Let me explain. Unless you've had a serious concussion this morning, you may recall that Al Gore has been a champion lately for global warming. In fact, he's using the Cannes Film Festival as a pulpit from which to preach his Gospel of Global Warming.
Fine - except I've also read Robert Felix's book "Not by Fire by by Ice" which says the Next Ice Age (NIA) is a lot more likely than a continuation of global warming.
"OK, why can't you make up your mind?" you're asking.
Let me share this snip from a personal email from a friend in Virginia that will answer the question:
No 90's in store for DC again this week, either. While we have no rain on the horizon here in East Texas, I have to report in all honesty that the humidity this year has been fairly low and the temperatures not that hot, at least so far. While a fair number of readers have suggested that Elaine and I pack up and move northward (somewhere like Wyoming), we're comfortable right here.
To those who have expressed concern that the coming violent/rebellion/revolution language shift associated with September might involve war with Mexico, we're waiting to see if the planet (terra entity in modelspace to HalfPastHuman web bot subscribers) kicks global pop's butt first. --- Speaking of earth changes/kicking butt: Some Caribbean aircraft flights have in some cases been disrupted by the volcano on Montserrat which is popping off again. --- By the way, looks like the next web bot run will open for subscribers around May 26 - will post the link when it's up. It will be focused on the August to December/January timeframe - which really oughta be a sleigh ride.
Shortage Meme With the web bot's "encounter with scarcity" expected next month, we found a list of "100 items to disappear first in a panic" which you might want to use as a checklist for family preparedness. We're not predicting shortages - but we are watching a linguistic shift indicating it's a possibility.
Hats off to Channel 4 in LA - doing a feature called "Toxic Sky" - about chemtrails and such - in tomorrow night's 11 o'clock news show. (I'd set our VCR but I still haven't figured out how to program it...)
Accidental Crooks The British Home Office is apologizing for branding 1,500 people are criminals - who weren't. Stuff happens, eh old boy? Not that we don't have a bunch of innocent folks on our US no-fly lists, mind you.
Carrier Hotels I haven't been thinking about internet reliability for a while, and with a big West Coast quake possible this summer (web bot forecast window Memorial Day through Sept. 21st or so), I've been thinking about how the internet and telco traffic will fare. Our Canadian Bureau Chief Tim B has been studying telecom reliability and sends along an interesting find:
A "carrier hotel?" New one on me. (I might need to brush up on my Itanium-powered co-lo IT-speak.) Interesting concept though, good marketing and an ideal place for any kind of wire communications company. I was impressed at the depth of the redundant power system: "multiple 2 megawatt power generators." Wonder if NSA has a suite there? Truth out on HBO If you haven't seen Baghdad ER on HBO, you might want to catch the encore.
Let's Buy a Stock Exchange All you need is to be named the NYSE and have $10.2 billion laying around. NASDAQ has been edging into ownership of the London Stock Exchange.
Hero Passing Journalist and investigative reporter Sherman Skolnik. From www.clockanddagger.de:
Coincidence that Google's logo today is:
MSM Stonewalling? Ebola Scare in UK Virtually no media coverage of this in the US, but a woman who flew with 259 other passengers from South Africa has died - apparently of deadly ebola virus - in a London hospital. Virtually nothing from UK press (except in the Mirror). We're tracking it through medical discussion boards and other sources. With an incubation period of up to 21-days, an outbreak of ebola (or other hemorrhagic fever) in a highly populated area could be disastrous.
Bot Hit: Dread Companion? What's worse than Bird flu? What's showing up in Los Angeles? What's now just starting to go "mainstream media?" The answer: Morgellons Disease - a story we have been aware of for months - thanks to some readers who are dialed in to www.morgellons.org - the national group which is trying to gather facts on this emergent disease.
What makes Morgellons so bad and nasty are a couple of things:
Yes, it sounds like a nightmare disease - and we've even been told by some researchers in the field that at least one major networks has held off on doing a prime time story about this breakout disease because it's not only damn frightening (think about the movie "Alien") but because except for high-power antibiotic treatments which just keeps things in check, there's no source identified and prophylaxis.
Anyway, now we can talk about it without breaching too any confidences. Check the mainstream emerging report in the British paper the Times. At some point the report is likely to show up in prime time on the tube. We wonder why MSM sits on stories that like.
While some of the outbreak has been reported in the Austin, TX area, with LA now reporting, it looks like Morgellons may be the bot's "dream companion." As a friend said: "You & E got out of L.A. just right, eh?" NSS = "no __ Sherlock."
Bot Hit: Echoes of Kristallnacht II Whipping Iran War Fever Canada's National Post has backed off from a claim Friday that a law passed in Iran would require non-Muslims to wear identifying badges. Shades of Kristallnacht. The key thing about this is that it's only a story - as in fabrication. But, right on cue, Australian Prime Minister John Howard got sucked into this mis-info story. While he's commenting on a "news report" that initially presented the law as "fact", the original source has now reworded the lead to something like "Experts doubt...".
A few web sites are on to the this tactic of misinformation. One site for example, Peace, Earth, & Justice News, reports the story under the headline ""Creating Kristallnach: Hating Bating at the National Post. " --- This is the same sort of "spin" and planted story that has left most casual media consumers with the notion that Iran wants Israel annihilated and "wiped off the map." But that's not what the president of Iran actually said - an ugly distortion that US mainstream media hasn't bothered to clear up. For a more fair and balanced look at the story, check out the SF Indy Media story here. Pertinent quote (my emphasis added in bold):
See what I mean? MSM spin you and left you with false impressions of what is being said in order to lay the groundwork for the demonizati0n of Iran - a campaign which is in full swing by by pro-expanded war parties. --- Our goal in discussing this today, however, has nothing to do with choosing up sides in the debate or teaching you about spin.. Rather, it is to look again at this evocation in mass consciousness of the term "Kristallnacht" because in future predicting web bot model space, the evocations of Kristallnacht appear semi-simultaneously to "gun control." --- ALTA series subscribers (to the www.halfpasthuman.com project) may recall that in November 2005, the future-predicting technology made reference to gun control and the "echo of Kristallnacht" in Europe. Think back to the riots in France earlier this year. That precipitated discussion of "gun control" and was anecdotally followed in mid March - as we reported - here in the USA, by shortages of certain calibers of ammunition. --- In ALTA 806_4, (February 25, 2006) the web bot project principals lamented a bit about the seeming inaccuracy of the "Kristallnacht" forecast (portions posted here with exclusive permission. reposts must contain links to both www.halfpasthuman.com and www.urbansurvival.com ):
Today's appearance of the National Post story explains the seeming (at the time) drift in accuracy of the web bot forecast (of Nov 2005) about the "echoes of Kristallnacht" linguistic set. The only "flaw" in the interpretation of the data was that it the "echo" is now seeming to come in two parts.
As rickety time machines go, we've run into this "two-part events will get you" in past predictive runs. For example, we initially believed that the August 2004 earthquake predictions about "electric water rising" within a data set about earthquakes, was just a linguistic fluke. Especially when we got the September earthquakes in Southern California that caused the evacuation of the Redwood City courthouse during the Peterson trial. At the time, we were surprised that the data discussed "300,000 dead, land driven back to a previous age." It didn't make sense because the California quakes were smallish - 5.6 Richter if memory serves.
It was only later that we discovered - very much to our surprise - that when two future events share common elements (So. Cal quakes in Sept, the Sumatra tsunami in December) that the future events can be misinterpreted if their attributes are similar. What was "300,000 dead" and "land driven back to a previous age" was ultimately correct - and "electric water rising" was close linguistically, but not perfect because the event was a "shocking rise of water." Being right in the face of two-part events is tough. --- Thus, today's references to Kristallnacht, as the outgrowth of the National Post "fanning stories" may blow up into mainstream coverage, we will turn our attention to stories developing over calls for "gun control" which is the semi-concurrently arising linguistic flavor of the time.
Gun control stories are popping out this week in diverse place such as: Thanks to the bot run, and the National Post headlines, we're now looking for "gun control" stories to percolate up into the public mind over the coming few weeks. --- The next future predictive series (which will focus on late summer and into winter events), will start May 29th or so. We'll let you know when subscriptions open for the series. I can hardly wait.
Shortage Watch Motor Oil Shortage? As you know from reading yesterday's column, we've been keeping a weather eye toward next month when a long predicted series of events in computer model-space called "encounter with scarcity" is due to arrive. This is not based on word frequency, or other simple to implement analytics. It's the output from a very sophisticated linguistic shift analysis protocol well documented elsewhere on this site.
In our Friday report, we posted the experiences of a reader who was having a dickens of a time finding motor oil at his local Wal-Mart. While we suspected it was just a fluke in the JIT stocking system of WMT, I was taken aback by an email from an industrial source:
This raised an interesting question about how an "encounter with scarcity" could take the US by surprise. Suppose for a minute that the tracked distillates are doing OK, but the other petroleum distillates are getting tight. One reason to suspect things are getting tight is a [different] reader who says he's having an increasingly difficult time getting vinyl gloves for working on cars:
So, when you are out and about shopping this weekend, please take note of motor oil supplies and if you see anything odd, please drop me a note. Thanks News from Elliott Wave International
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George Ure, The People's Economist
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