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Is Solar Putting in a Bottom?

Every so often we like to get practical and hands-on  with economic notes that make sense even for the non Wall Street investor, since, coming up to whatever it is this spring, now could be a dandy time to be investing in solar panels. 

Not that the turn to the upside will be dramatic or sudden; this for several reasons.  First, Germany, which had been handing out big subsidies has decided to hurry the end of such public policy moves.

India, which has had some of the most aggressive solar infrastructure plans reported it missed its goal of 1,233 megawatts, but they are still putting in lots of solar.

Domestically we're seeing a fair amount of play being given Warren Buffett's solar plays with headlines like "Sun Shining on Solar Bets" and "Buffett is buy solar..."

I've been watching solar prices pretty closely, although we already have 3.6 kW of grid-tied online.  Always room for more, especially if the prices stay low.  If Buffett is buying, I figure it's like standing next to a winner at the roulette wheel and making the same bets.

A few weeks back, the best price per watt out of www.sunelec.com was 87¢ and now it's up to 88¢ per watt.  Moreover, the prices of "balance of system" components, like grid-tied inverters, DC power enclosures, and DC breakers have stabilized and seem to be firming.

If you're thinking about solar power - with an eye on what will "carry value forward" regardless of what lies ahead in the way of economic tripwires, a couple of KW worth of power to keep the frozen foods cold (and you chilled out) may (with tax credits and all) make sense now.

With oil barely under $100 a barrel, it's not a compelling case -- yet.  But, if - due to conflict in the Middle East, or just rolling blackouts from not enough source on a hot summer day - oil goes up dramatically, it will ne nice to have guilt free power and arguably solar may provide more comfort than paper abstractions in the bank.

If you don't like the Measurements

...change the measuring tape.  You know, it's getting harder and harder to be a dyed-in-the-wool economic fundamentalist.  Not that the amount of money chasing the goods and services Made in America isn't still terribly pertinent to the long-term economic outcome of the world, it's just that ever since St. Greenspan (chief Housing Bubblemeister) buried the sausage by ending the public disclosure of the broadest of money measures (M3).

When this was done (announced 2005, done deal in 2006) it was argued that M3 didn't provide much additional information than was included in M2.  Can't speak for anyone else, but the size of the difference (namely large time deposits, institutional money market funds, short-term repos and other large liquid assets was a useful number for market players who were curious when liquidity was waning versus when there was a lot of money sitting on the sidelines.  (M3-M2 = the aforementioned loose change.)

So now the Fed is changing how the narrower M1 and M2 are measured:

"The Federal Reserve has revised the measures of the money stock and its components to incorporate the results of the Federal Reserve's annual review of seasonal factors and a new quarterly benchmark. This release includes revised monthly and weekly seasonal factors as well as comparisons of the revised monetary aggregates with previously published data. The revisions to the seasonal factors resulted in a higher growth rate for seasonally adjusted M2 in the first half of 2011 and a lower growth rate for seasonally adjusted M2 in the second half.

The benchmark incorporates minor revisions to data reported in the weekly and quarterly deposit reports, and it takes account of deposit data from Call Reports for banks and thrift institutions that are not weekly or quarterly deposit reporters. These revisions to deposit data start in 2002. In addition, this release incorporates data from Call Reports on the amount of small-denomination time deposits held in individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and Keogh accounts; related revisions to deposit data start in 2006. The benchmark also incorporates revisions to IRA and Keogh balances held at retail and institutional money market mutual funds; these revisions to data on money market mutual funds begin in 1996. This release also incorporates the receipt of historical information from other sources of data.

Seasonally adjusted measures of the monetary aggregates and components incorporate revised seasonal factors, which were derived from data through December 2011. Monthly seasonal factors were estimated using the X-12-ARIMA procedure. The effects of both the new benchmark and the revisions to seasonal factors on the growth rates of M1 and M2 are outlined in appendix tables 6 and 7.

Normally, if someone were doing a paper on revising the basis for monetary operations, a college prof at the post-grad level (we consult with one of these now and then) would perhaps ask for a few samples of the impact of  (I think China might call this kind of thing and example of capitalism's tendency toward revisionist economic history)  how the changes will make the data look when viewed backward a year or two out when we should really be in the throes of Depression 2's second big downer leg.

Seasonally adjusted, the past year has seen an 18.4% hike in M1 and a 9.6% hike in M2.  Unadjusted is up 18.5% and 9.7% respectively.

"Is this going somewhere?"

Pardon moi!  Just a guess:  M1 was up another .4% while M2 was down .2% when the revisions are combined with the latest data.  Makes me think the Fed may indicate even easier money when they meet next week.  Zero percent interest anyone?

Buying the White House, Continued

So, how much is South Carolina's Primary worthy?  I reckon about $20-$25 million by the time after-the-fact reporting catches up.  But so far it's up to $12-million per this report.

Newt's Cabinet

With republicorps falling right and righter, as in the Rick Perry pull-out on Thursday, we seem to be getting a decent preview of who the movers and shakers will be in the Gingrich malministeration should we be so unfortunate.

Gingrich didn't want to talk about his ex's interview with ABC which, we understand, painted him as a two-faced kind of person.  Frankly, no surprise there since he is a career politicians, after all.

Still, as long as Romney's in this, Newt may run low on wool to pull, which is why I'm so worried about great misfortune for those who oppose the PTB ...er...picks.  Had to be careful not to drop an "r" in there...

Thought Control Department

Several people, including our news analyst dude up in Winnipeg have noted the arrest of several people on internet piracy laws down in New Zealand and elsewhere.  "Looks like TPTB have stopped playing nicey-nice on the internet. Censorship isn't pretty."

There is another way to look at this:  I wonder why SOPA and PIPA are being pushed so hard since there seem to be enough existing laws to go after even non-residents.  Say, you don't suppose political dissent was really the goal of SOPA and PIPA, do you?

Meantime, the foreign press is asking where's that much-touted "due process" America used to boast about.  And we see republicans are against the piracy laws...which means someone's gonna have to get the checkbook out to fix that...don'tcha love campaign tactics? 

Had the workings of this explained to me by a long-time lobbyist source once upon a time...that's why there is so much emotionally charged "news" (froth) leading into elections as people sell positions for....er...votes....but of course you knew that, I assume.

Birth of the Holocaust

70-years ago today, Wannsee Conference took place.

Lawyerly Notes

He's a really cool sounding way to rack up those continuing education credits:  A conference on the legal implications of self-driving cars today at Santa Clara University School of law.

I assume you know that the automatic, self-driving cars from films like Minority Report are already in the long range plans of the PTB, right?

So if lawyers used to drive you crazy, they're first in the driver's seat to drive you other places, too...

Party Time

Well, lookie here!  A Chinese New Year's card from KPMG!

Wonder if China can top their Catalina fireworks show from Nov. 2010?

More after this: 

Coping: Friday at the WuJo  and 314

We are almost swimming in oddities from the land where woo-woo runs smack into science and fights it out in the mental arts dojo we call the WuJo.  In particular we have problems with disappearing things and disappearing time as these first couple of reports outline:

"George:

Yesterday we had a power outage that lasted long enough to stop the clocks. I went around and reset all the clocks, using my trusty Timex wristwatch. We also have a grandfather clock, the kind that is wound with a key. It tends to run about five minutes slow so when I wind it up, I also reset the time, again using my wristwatch. So remember this: all the main clocks in our house were set to my watch.

I was out running errands today and when I got home, the sun was setting and it was nearly dark. I thought about going for a walk before dark and checked my watch to see if I had enough time before full dark. It read 6:30 so I decided to skip the walk. I went inside the house to put away some groceries and heard the grandfather clock strike 6 pm. I checked my watch. It read 6:35. I checked the grandfather clock and saw yup, it was at 6:00. I figured it needed to be wound so I got the key to do so. The clock was fully wound. I shrugged and reset the time to what my watch read. Then I went off to put groceries away and eat dinner. Afterwards, I went into the living room. There's a battery-operated mantel clock in there and I stopped in my tracks when I saw the time: 6:33. I checked my watch. It read 7:05 now. What the heck? I thought. How was that possible? I went and checked the other clocks, the ones on the kitchen appliances and my bedside clock. All read 6:33. I looked outside and there was still some daylight, when it had been dark before.

Somehow, I went back a half hour in linear time. I have no idea how it happened. There was no odd sensation, no sense of shifting. All I did was reset my watch and the grandfather clock, and think that living in the WuJo sure makes life interesting.

Thinking of changing my address so my mail will be sent C/O the WuJo,"

First right past the Twilight Zone.

But seriously, there is a growing gob of statistical evidence that as we move forward (from our perspective in time) the number of these kinds of reports are increasing at a faster and faster rate.

Had one myself this morning.  I went to the north deck door to put on my shoes and start the long commute to the office (60-70-feet).  No shoes.

Got out the flashlight and scoured the house.  No shoes.  Woke up my son (who borrows shoes now and then, since we have [not surprisingly] the same size feet.

I go back to the north door, having decided to make one last pass before putting on my cowboy boots and lo & behold, there are my shoes.  Couldn't have missed them before, but I did.  Hmmm...

WTF?

Well, I'm not the only one with this kind of thing going on.  Try this report from last January about this time which I haven't shared yet.. I just collect lots of reports, a kind of personal X-Files project....

"Yesterday I was at a swim meet with my daughters. My oldest was racing the 500-yards free with 9 other swimmers in the event. On the odd side of the pool, volunteers, mostly parents or fellow swimmers, put signs under water showing how many 25-yards pools have passed so that the swimmers don't have to keep track. All volunteers including myself were surprised when the automatic timer and bell rang the 19th pool and we were all showing the 17th sign down in the pool. We looked at each other, whispered something about who was wrong. Most swimmers came out of the water confused and asking whether they had been disqualified for finishing earlier (18 pools instead of 20). The clock showed the expected times for the age course, about 6 minutes. But we all knew our swimmers had not done the full course.

But this is south Florida and we don't have earthquakes. How can this happen? All of us realized the time showing in the electronic board was the expected one but the number of pools swam were off, but there was no official comment. I guess the swim meet officials might have been confused too."

See the pattern here?

George,

Love the column, been a reader for this one and PEOPLENOMICS for a year and a half. The WUJO stuff is interesting to read, but to be honest I sorta thought half of them were probably explainable or due to memory "distractions"

Then I had mine.

The other night, I was listening to AM 640. I'm a COAST TO COAST listener, and was listening to the program preceding it, the TIM CONWAY JR show. Well, I listened to a segment, only to walk back out into the grage 40 minutes later, to hear the SAME EXACT SEGMENT over again. Except, it was real time both times. I figured, ok maybe the radio goofed and replayed a portion of the broadcast. I left it at that, Happened again last night. This isn't DEJA-VU, more like DEJA-WUJO.

Ok, NOW you have my attention, so I did some surfing and found this:

Its a Link (GOOGLE CORSO JR ) of Col Corso's son talking about MORE Info re: the ROSWELL Incident. He claims, they were not aliens at all and the ship, as are all UFOs, was really a TIME MACHINE. Not only thathe claims OUR military has had these since. Now, if this is so, perhaps it's the use of these contraptions that is creating some sort of TIME QUAKE, or TIME BOW WAVE (that you spoke of) . If these TM do exist, thier use would most likelyhave SOME sort of effect on the rest of us, and perhaps that explains what everyone, including myself, is experiencing.

Your thoughts?

Not ready to commit to a line of thinking just yet, as long as the WuJo is getting email like this one:

"Morning George!

My favorite part of my daily read of your website, is the Wuju. I've shared several of your readers' experiences with my husband. Yes he would call BS on them, always saying "That doesn't really happen." I'm still giggling as I write this because my poor dear hubby had to eat crow yesterday. I've had several instances with the Wuju, and when I would try and tell him, he'd just say I had an overactive imagination. But now 2 things have happened that I could physically SHOW him. I think maybe he believes a little now lol.

Yesterday was my living room scrubbing day. (that's when I move furniture and get behind everything instead of the usual, sweep, mop, and dust). I took all of my books off my bookshelf to wipe everything down. On my bookcase, I have the Harry Potter series. Which I have read God only knows how many times (I'm an HP nerd lol). When my daughter was little, she got ahold of book 5 of the series. She colored all inside of it, tore out 3 pages, and ripped one of the pages in half. I didn't bother replacing the book, because I've read the series so many times, I know what's on those missing pages. Plus, she'd colored in pencil so I could see through the rest of the destruction. I would tell my husband that I really should replace the book, every time I reread the series, because the part she'd torn out was one of my favorites, but I never did. While I had all the books off the shelf, I decided to go ahead and put all of my books with the rest of their respective series. I get to my destroyed HP book and say to myself like I always do, I should get this replaced, etc. I open the book to the title page, which is where the destruction started, and the scribbles are gone!!!! I'm like WTF???!!! I start flipping through the book. Nope, no scribbles anywhere. I get to the torn out section and George, my pages are back!!!!!! At first I thought, oh haha someone's joking with me and replaced my book. I start looking the book over and it's my copy. The tooth marks where my dog got ahold of it, didn't chew, I saw him in time, but enough of a bite to put distinctive teeth marks on the cardboard of the hardback cover, are still there. A coffee stain where I accidently sloshed is still on the outside of the pages. Pages still had the dog ear creases. Everything that said it was mine is still there! Just now I have a complete copy.

I also have a rather large painting of flowers behind my couch. It's a present from my Mom that I've had it for about 5 years. Nobody famous or anything, just one of those paintings you pick up at the furniture store type paintings. It used to say the painting was done by an artist named Will S, who had signed it with his name with an upward slant. My husband starting singing "The Fresh Prince of Belair" song the when she first gave it to us, because he noticed the signature first. It has always been the source of a cute memory for me, and I always smile when I see it while cleaning it. Well as of yesterday it has changed twice. First to Velencia and now to Villancia, both of which were signed horizontally. I showed both items to my husband and he couldn't believe it! All I could tell him was I told you so....

Since I'm one of those weirdoes that's finding all of this more fascinating and funny then scary, this ride is definitely getting more interesting. Good thing I'm stocked up on popcorn and beer."

We'll be right over.....just kidding!

But seriously, a thoughtful reader recalls the concept of an "assemblage point" which was somewhere in the area of the left shoulder, which in Castaneda's books was where the Nagual was giving occasional smacks to in order to reframe the understudy's assemblage point.

The idea of an "assemblage point" is that it's the place around which we (for lack of a clearer way of saying this) assemble reality from the wavefront of the kalapas around us.  Don't want to get you reading the Fire Within  or the Art of Dreaming but to follow this next email does require a bit of deeper reading than just the Sunday funnies, know what I'm sayin'?

Hi George,

One of Whitley Strieber’s assertions about the beings he encountered decades ago (he does not refer to them as aliens) is that not only do they “assemble” their world differently than humans do; because of some ontological potency,  they force their assembly pattern onto humans in their vicinity, whether the being or the human wants this or not.

I mean “assemble” here the way Carlos Castaneda uses it to describe the rearrangement of reality his Yaqui sorcerer confidants seemed to produce. Whitley also says when humans encounter this “rearranging” in the presence of the beings the body reacts with a state of panic. I found this to be true of myself when I took psychedelics, but I could distinguish the effect from a mental panic.

He also says that these beings “live outside of time” in such a way that they are able to travel in the time stream or alter probabilities.

If they were here or on their way here – or perhaps if they were getting ready to affect our local time stream/causality/probabilities with technological intervention – it does not take much of a further step to chalk up inexplicable events to ripples in the process, time track leakage into their past and our present, or who knows what.

Whew!  Enough to do a number on your head and that, speaking of which, gets us to the follow-up on the n umber 314 which seems to be appearing a lot in people's glances at clocks and so forth.  Got'cher Cyrillic font installed for this report from Russia?

Hi George! Thank you for your work! It certainly a joke, but... 3,14 this number of π. In Russian internet (runet) people often write 3,14здец instead of пиздец because this abusive word, but sounds equally. It is possible to translate this word approximately as "f*cked up situation", crash, f*ckopalypse. (Pizdets [pizdec] Fiasco, the end of it all, something neat. The meaning can be heavily altered by the context. (Russian slang dictionary.)) Can it be an explanation?

Yeah, I suppose so, but that would be regional and from what I'm hearing the reports are Western...although it would be interesting to share notes with a Russian site if there are any discussing this point.

Then there's this from the group up at The Chronicle Project which is retranslating the bible from the best sources they can find....

"Exodus 3:14

One of the most disputed lines in the bible, which popped up when I googled 314. Then I thought...hey, I could actually find out what it said.

14 And God said unto Moses: 'I AM THAT I AM'; and He said: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.'

Here you go Dude, be one of the first to read what it actually says (now you can die happy)

You think that's fun, we found where God took away the power source from Satan's spaceship to maroon him on the Earth in Genesis."

And that in turn, gets us back to the discussion about Lake Vostok and why the ice race seems to be going on to find that mass concentration underwater...but I suppose we need to call it quits at the WuJo at some point and get back to making money and not worry about the wars in the heavens that can be found in everything from Vedic to biblical records.

So long as they remain in antiquity where they belong.

Gaming:  Beyond Flight Simulator

Speaking of flying machine from antiquity and such...Did you notice that Microsoft is due out with a new flight simulator system this spring?  With it's arrival I'll see the departure of my last few minutes of free time weekly...even though shooting IFR landings is not loggable time on a basic FS system...  still keeps skills us and polishes the headwork a bit.

---

You know, my birthday is next month and since I know you're wondering what I'd like...how about an Icon A5...and I've already got some Lake LA4-200 (Buccaneer) time....so the transition time should be minimal...

Our Kind of Headlines

Gaye over at www.backdoorsurvival.com touches on something down near the archetype level this morning with her headline "7 Tipes for Cast Iron Mavens, or Soon-to-Be-Mavens..."

Iron Mavens?  I'm thinking more Iron Butterfly  (have speakers up full, unless at work...) 

Elaine's pancakes from our cast iron Thursday are still a pleasant memory which gets me to wondering why I'm still writing and not over at the house finding out if there are more where those came from.....

More for Peoplenomics readers tomorrow, more for non-subscribers on Monday, unless something BIG happen.  If it's really big we may do an update, but if it's ultimately BIG no one will be left to read it..,.  pancakes ahoy!

Monday is National Pie Day!    Get pied this weekend...

Write when you break even: george@ure.net

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What Carries Value Forward?

The Big question from a reader this morning is "Would you buy silver? and gosh, this gets into what as a b-school jock I'd call a serious multivariate problem.  Serious because we are in such a sloppy world financial right now that whole categories of "variates" are coming at us from every which-way.  And those might include?  We start with our review of a few news items.  Relax - it's like playing pool....my break and we're playin' slop....

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Safer Computing:  Swearing Off Cookies

It has been a while since I roared the praises of the Maxa Cookie Manager which you can download and install for a free test drive by clicking here.

To upgrade from the demo to full working is still less than $50 and one heck of a bargain at that, if I do say so.

I am a high-reliability computing kind of guy - and near as I have it figured, the road to a hassle-free computing experience is (like flying an airplane) a matter of going through a proper checklist before popping onto the web:

• You need an active cookie manager - because sites you visit can put small bits of code on your computer and some of these are designed for Flash, have no expiration, and can really bugger-up the computing experience.  This part gets handled by Maxa Labs' product which on my system says 184,380 cookies have been removed, 73,881 "web bugs" which can track movement from site to site and such, and I have only 10-active cookies.

• Second thing you need is a good antivirus program - and I happen to really like Avira's Antivir pro.

• Then you need to deal with Malware  so for this Malware bytes is updated and run daily.

• And last, though certainly not least is the firewall and the one in Win 7 works fine.

Like anything in computers, updates are critical so before work every morning, the computer does its update ritual - Check of Maxa (5.3.02 is current) Avira, and Malware bytes. 

Toss in a good bit of common sense (example:  Don't open email purporting to be from UPS, IRS, the US Post Office, or anything else that even has a hint of fishy odor to it) and first thing you know, the internet's actually a useful tool.

"Live on $10,000" A Year

Having a hard time making ends meet?  (Like who isn't, right?)  A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book "How to Live on $10,000 a Year...or less!"

It's an automatic download.  It's written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left.  A bonus section called "How to Build Anything" should instill confidence if you've never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too.....  Click here for the index and details.

Do Tell

Please pass along word of this site to your friends by simply clicking here to send 'em a short email.  - Thanks!

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Last week's report is always here.

Thursday January 19, 2012

The Consumer Price Myth Continued

With the latest assertion that the Consumer Price Index remained unchanged in December, we wryly note that's hardly the case if you zoom out to look at something a little broader than one month's worth of data.  Shall we begin with the official wording, please, before I get out the rusty scalpel?

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was unchanged in December on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.0 percent before seasonal adjustment.

Similar to last month, the energy index declined in December and offset increases in other indexes. The gasoline index declined for the third month in a row and the household energy index declined as well. The food index rose in December, with the index for food at home turning up after declining last month.

The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.1 percent in December after rising 0.2 percent in November. The indexes for shelter, recreation, medical care, and tobacco all posted increases, while the indexes for used cars and trucks, new vehicles, and apparel all declined.

The all items index has risen 3.0 percent over the last 12 months, a decline from last month's 3.4 percent figure. Recent declines in the energy index have brought its 12-month change down to 6.6 percent from 19.3 percent in September. The 12-month change in the index for all items less food and energy held at 2.2 percent, while the 12- month change in the food index edged up from 4.6 percent to 4.7 percent.

That's the "official version".  Now let's consider how this is to be read if you're an economist, or a regular, great unwashed mass of humanity type human:

The rolling 12-month change in energy was still UP 6.6% (note how putting the word "down to" in close proximity makes it sound like a decline if you're only half paying attention?  Got to admit, some first-class wordsmithing going on at BLS in this one.

Similarly, by putting the the phrase "edged up from 4.6 percent" in front of the 4.7% food increase, the public is left with a positive take and an impression of a tiny bit lower number.

But in the end, the Fed continues to print money (basis M1) at an 18.0 percent rate, or (basis M2) a 9.8% higher rate, or 7½ - 7⅞  percent (or thereabout) at M3b which means we're still in deflation but the rate may be slowing, since I (simple-mindedly) figure Secular Price Inflation (less) Monetary Inflation equals more or less a real inflation or deflation rate. 

Which means if I swallow 3.0% unadjusted 12-months for everything, and subtract an eyeballed 7.75% M3b Monetary rate, de facto deflation is still 4.75% which is why I haven't sold my bonds yet.  Besides, a lowering may come from the Fed next week to hook another battery jumper cable up to this flat-lined economy.

So when Housing Prices come out from S&P in a week or so, I expect housing prices will be down (year on year) about this 4½ - 5% range.  Don't hate me, I'm just the guy with the calculator.  But there are lots of policy options.  Let me think...

War works when it comes to fixing an economy as we've shown many times...which gets us to.....

Circle: March 8th

As the world turns, we see on the flip side more maneuvering over the pending Iran showdown to come.  While Russia is warning of catastrophic outcomes if Iran is attacked, and while the Israelis say it is they - not the Obama administration are the ones that called off the US-Israel war games this week - and we were reminded in an email from a colleague:

"...note that Purim is on the 8th of March. That is day the Jews took action against the enemies sworn to destroy them. Good day to start a war?"

Even if you don't get our premium Peoplenomics reports, just realize that frequently market crashes happen about 55-days after a major peak and I'd offer as an example September 3, 1929 as an example.  You do remember what happened 55-days later? Hint.  Futures are up 50+ so here comes our top!  Maybe...

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Although it borders on woo-woo, the large number of people having dreams about the number "314" - and running into it on clocks and such, has us wondering if an attack by Israel (the 8th of March seems as good a time as any and highly symbolic) that the US stand behind plausible deniability (being played in public theater on media near you) could culminate in a mushroom festival come March 14th. Cuban missile crisis was a multi-day affair, no reason this shot at WW IV should be any different.  (III was the Cold War, foo!)

It'd be a fine time to be out of big cities of strategic importance.  Maybe early for vacation planning, but let's see how this develops closer in, shall we?

The reason my thinking goes down this rabbit hole is that the Obama administration turned down the Keystone pipeline project this week. Pretty obviously, if we were serious about distancing ourselves from the teat of Middle East oil, we would be passing out solar panels (Solyndra, anyone?) and approving all the oil reroutes we could.  Not happening.  Thus the conclusion is it's not going to...

No, we're not really doing that, are we?  Sure!  I figure it's some fine orchestrating of events to keep up fully committed to defending the Middle East which is what keeps young men and women otherwise occupied (or Occupy would be even bigger) while at the same time artificially raising employment which in turn keeps prices firm (see first story) especially the price of energy, and oh, yeah, keeps the PTB firmly running things including politics....which gets us to....

Meantime, Back at the Kabuki

I can't help but notice that disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has zipped (predictably) to the number two spot in the freshest Rasmussen GOP presidential poll.  This leaves only some great misfortune to befall Mitt Romney to provide a clear path for PTB ownership of both sides of the ballot.

One fly in the ointment seems to be Gingrich's ex-wife doing an unload interview, but while the debate continues over whether that will see the light of primetime, which I doubt, at least before elections in SC, so I find myself wondering where's the organization that will go back a year from now and check bonuses of those in the MSM who will (no doubt) cave in and shelve the interview for a while till Newt is in the driver's seat and the reedit version of the interview airs? 

But in the meantime, Mitt Romney's clay feet could be the admission to having some investments offshore in the Cayman Islands.

Near as I can figure it, if Romney pulls out a win in SC and the Cayman Islands stuff blows over, then the PTB would be reduced to more direct methods (great misfortune)  that derail his run.  He just might be too independent-minded.

In the meantime, Gingrich is playing ugly with claims the Romney camp is "dirty and dishonest" which is the pot calling the kettle black if you don't remember Newt's ethics sanctions which ended his House leadership.  Oh, this is so rich - and meaningless.  Pick an idiot, any idiot....and we usually do.

---

Oh, and worth mentioning:  Rick Santorum did win Iowa, apparently, by 34-votes in front of Mitt.

Name That Blonde Dept,

Yep...as the details keep coming in about the tragic sinking of the Costa Concordia, we keep hearing more and more about the mysterious [well-dressed] blonde on the ship - n ot jnust the cabaret act troupe - which screwed us up a bit on the interp since the ship of state label really fits since the decks of the now defunct cruise liner were named after countries of Europe...marvelous web bot hit.

Foreigners TIC'ed

Speaking of sinking...If you pop over to page 2, line 21 (Net foreign acquisition of long-term Securities" issued by the Treasury in their TIC report), level is about half of what it was running in the previous year.

A Fine Time

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has socked Citigroup Global Markets unit with a $725,000 penalty for failure to disclose conflicts of interest.

March to the Police State, VIII

NYC is, according to this report, going to put scanners on streets to find illegal guns.  Apparently mayor Mike has seen the light of turning the Big Apple into Police State Corptoplis, which means, I figure, he'll be put up for some plum federal job in the next Obama administration. 

Coverage is being served up all friendly-like referring to hizzoner as "Mike" instead of "Hermann" but whatever.

The minor nit is that the Constitution prevents (or at least, used to) illegal search and seizure.  But as Gotham residents are about to find out, there's no constitutional ban on cooking people.

Still, might be a useful tack.  Why, just think of the social benefits of being able to thaw nearly frozen homeless people!  Yum.

Your "Useful Life"

Speaking of cooked:  Sources and intel suggests we will be seeing a big flare-up in cell phone dangers soon.  Seems that inside the US public health organizations a battle is raging over whether to admit to the public that cell phones may reduce lifespans dramatically.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer is among the groups gathering data...and the buzz (thanks to the bots reading fora) is the global cell phone craze could be a self-limiting phenom...

Snowpocalypse

See Clif's pictures of Olympia - south of Seattle, here.  Ansell High.

Coping:  Vostok and Mascon

Although it would be tempting to jump right into the further discussions and disclosures of the upward move in "woo-woo" we have a couple of other items on the agenda which may possibly be of more immediate concern, namely the goings on and race to reach the bottom of Lake Vostok.

Where?

Let's back up a bit.  You know that as part of the fallout from the predictive linguistics development over at www.halfpasthuman.com, that in order to broaden the perspective of the web bot project there are multiple languages mashed up by the automated language processors?  A kind of "geek point" of interest perhaps to those who develop and program in the the somewhat arcane prolog language, indeed.

But the main reason for mentioning this is that in addition to Western Americanese and Eglish, the web bot project "eats" (last time I asked) something like 23-languages one of which is Cyrillic/Russian.  So when certain things light around here, it is oftentimes, if a US/Western/English/Americanese source is not cited, something that popped up off a foreign discussion forum (o0r fora if multiple) which is why web the GlobalPop and Terra entities in modelspace are examined we are in fact looking at global events.  Or, if in a single-language or national origin, then we take it as something going on in Russia, and of interest to Russian scholars and followers of woo-woo.

Except, this is not woo-woo.  There is a race going on down at the Antarctic to get more information about a "mass concentration" which is under a body of water beneath the icecap called "Lake Vostok."

To sneak up on my point a bit closer, it seems, so Clif tells me, that in the current non-English speech sources, there's something of a bump in the data suggesting something like this:

The Russians have been heat-burning/pumping a hole in the snow/icecap at Lake Vostok of some considerable size and the reports seem to indicate that a "breakthrough" of the lower boundary of the ice and into the underlying waters is expected sometime shortly.  That'd be within 11-hours from a time mark yesterday, though that's just a marker.  The Russians have reportedly been in a race with first NASA and lately the NSA to get through to the lake's waters, so submersibles can get closer to the "mascon" and find out if it is of non-terrestrial origin.

All off which wouldn't be particularly notable except for a couple of things, one of which would be the apparent NSA blocking of ultra-high resolution mapping of the Lake Vostok area by satellites and the space station, and because there have been plenty of books written (think 2001, A Space Odyssey ) about what happens when a monolith left behind by a previous or visitor culture is activated.

Not that people with looking glass/time-viewing technology (separate and apart from the web bot project; possible of non-terrestrial origin) haven't had a decent idea that this is how things would come together temporally for some time.

---

In fact, it could be argued, and this is a huge thing about the movie "2012" that people miss:  The movie begins with those couple of old men at sea who are killed  and the focus on their lounge-act in the opening of the movie..  No, it is not a perfect fit with the goings on with the ground/sinking and notoriety of the entertainers on the Costa Concordia, where rescue diving is back underway this morning, but it's close enough at the archetype level to have a certain ring to it, except for the possibility that certain earth-features moving (was the ships GPS thrown off?) that we are compelled to remind you of one of our favorite points of guidance around here:

The Movie IS the message.

An Apology and Clarification

Several times in the past few days people have asked me about the data gap which had appeared in the HPH data.  I had been under the impression that the data gap had disappeared with the ability to "tunnel through" the mass of high immediacy values and into the longer term linguistic values.

But on Wednesday, Clif explained that wasn't correct:  We do, in fact, still have the data gap and we're at the very leading edge of that.

I asked him how we could have the data gap and the long-term values (since I'm about as bright as a stone.  Let me paraphrase as best I can before 6 AM:

"Dude, it's like language we have sampled now sets out the expectations in the longer term values.  But the sample would still imply future events, even if we were all vacuumed off the planet right now, so the data gap is still there..."

Oh.  Say, that's not very reassuring, is it?  Which means that nuclear war this spring (or very late winter) is not off the table, which would explain a few things, but more on that when we do a fifth order house audio on events just ahead...

Friday at der WuJo tomorrow.... much happening....

Tuesday January 17, 2012 07:55 CST

Fed in the Box

The economic boogeyman is in our immediate future, because regardless of what the Fed does at their rate meeting next week, it's bound to be wrong.  If, as some are hinting, the economy actually is staging a modest recovery and we keep rates constant, it could delay recovery in Europe.  Europe's big financial headline this morning is that the ECB may benefit from low inflation numbers which could lead to a rate cut over there.

But while the Fed eyes the possibility of lowering rates here next week, to jumpstart the economy with a little bigger battery, there's this morning's Empire Manufacturing report from the NY Fed to consider:

"The Empire State Manufacturing Survey indicates that manufacturing activity improved in New York State in December. The general business conditions index rose nine points to 9.5, its highest level since May. The new orders index climbed above zero, to 5.1, and the shipments index advanced eleven points to 20.9. Input price increases steepened, with the prices paid index rising six points to 24.4. Selling prices increased only modestly, with the prices received index inching down to 3.5. Employment indexes were mixed, showing a slight increase in employment levels but a slight decrease in the length of the average workweek. Future indexes rose sharply for a second consecutive month, with the future general business conditions index climbing thirteen points to 52.3, suggesting a return to the high levels of optimism seen earlier in 2011."

Obviously, if the recovery is already underway, lower rates could over-stimulate and that would fan the flames of future inflation.  But, on the other hand, we have the other glove:  Inflation in a deflationary word is not a problem.  Especially when there's buzz on the net about the Fed being forced into a defacto devaluation later this year as the economic vice tightens.

In the short term, gold popped up a further $20-bucks this morning and that sends the Dow skyward as I keep waiting for that last big pop to the upside  (2-billion shares on the NYSE and a blow-off top sense of it).

Pobrecitos of Banking

There's a report that Morgan Stanley is limiting bonuses to $125,000.  But as you read into the fine print that's the immediate cash.  No telling what the deferred comp and options work out to.  My guess?  The banksters will do just fine.

March to the Police State

Ever wonder what the world would be like without the public/share encyclopedia efforts of Wikipedia?  Well, you may get a chance to find out since it's reported that the Wiki folks are going to black out Wikipedia for 24-hours to protest anti-piracy legislation.

Time for government to....er...drop the SOPA.

Russia Takes Things Syriously

Western diplomats are trying to figure out what Russia is getting at in their latest proposal to deal with violence in Syria.  Seems strangely worded, ambiguous, and unclear.

Wonder if they've been taking writing classes from the folks who write the US Tax Code, or write federal laws in the US....hmmm...

War Drum Update

Meantime, latest out of Israel seems to suggest that if Iran has nukes, expect a higher belligerency quotient from Hamas.

Couldn't just be white phosphorous blowback, could it?

CES Picks

We're starting to read about some of the top products popping out of Las Vegas where the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been underway.  I kinda like the idea of a 4 mm thick 55" OLED TV, myself.  Now if it were just free....but not till October and by then, TV may be the last thing on our collective minds.

If TV is still online, then we'll just have to see if pricing will mean a bank robbery or simply a convenience store stick-up to afford it....

Bigger Shakes to Come

Reader Tony Ring is kind enough to get us the monthly update of earthquake activity of 7.0 and larger going back to 1973. And if the red line (fifth order polynomial fit) is anywhere near right, in the next month or two, we should see some decent-sized 7.0 and larger earthquakes..

If you were a good little conspiracist, you'd be asking "Why isn't anyone mentioning this?"  The answer is simple, of course:  No point is causing stress in the herd since governments and leaders in science et cetera  like to speak only when then have real answers.  Global warming mess is fresh in the mind.

Except at election time, of course.  In those special days, politicians will say damn near anything to grab a vote, but like a good drunk, they seem to have no recall of "promises made" upon reaching office. 
 

Election blackout is what we'll call it...  Obama called it "change" and the Bushistas called it something else...but that's what it is: faulty recall.  Either that, or the President is actually held hostage by advisors and a shadow government and really isn't given any personal policy choices, for, if taken, they'd go Kennedy, if you know what I'm saying...

Which is why I steer clear of conspiracy thoughts and just deal with the data on the table...like....

Peak Oil

The number of Peak Oil deniers is really interesting..and I'm getting hate mail from people who don't understand that oil is finite and the only way anaerobic oil works is if you don't mind waiting 5,000 years at the gas pump.

The recent spate of earthquakes up in Oklahoma, the outbreak in Arkansas a while back, and in other areas where natural gas fracking is taking place is the only reason energy is cheap, sorry. 

Oh, and yes, EPA is getting concerned about water-injection schemes...with good reason.  Turn off fracking and we're right back into the grips of peak oil, sources in the oil industry tell me.

Coping: With a Really, Really Bad Thought

"Why is it an otherwise reasonable consultant/economics geek would spending so much time wondering about events down at the WuJo, Ure?  People are fallible and their memories aren't perfect...so of course, you're going to have oddities and inconsistencies crop up...what's the point?"

That's the typical question I get posed from readers who would just as soon I still with the "well worn path" and just be another economics wonk, albeit with a stranger sense of humor than more.  You know - park the rickety time, and stop mentioning all the oddities out of the WuJo reports and stay to the "straight and narrow" (widest part of the shared reality consensus bubble) - that kind of thing.

The reason is obvious:  The middle of the river is not where the action is.  It's along the banks (er...so to speak) and to best know where the river will turn next, it's easiest done by simply keeping a watch on the outliers in the data inputs that make up each of our individual lives.

So before I present my really, really BAD thought for this morning, how about a few more of those WuJo reports - the reports of woo-woo from people who are normal and have, at least until recently, lived woo-woo lives.  Like this lady...

"After reading your wujo just now, thought I would send this along for what its worth.

I've not had first hand experience until now with anything clearly, CLEARLY unexplainable. A couple weeks ago noticed the light bulb just outside the kitchen door would blink out at night. I noticed this tendency for perhaps 3 or 4 successive nights. I would check to find it was loose so just a matter of turning it a quarter, half turn and problem solved. I couldn't explain why it would do that...maybe the increasing winter cold could turn a light bulb? No clue. But here's where it gets weird.

On the 4th or 5th night when I found the light bulb off, turning it did not work. It was not loose, so I unscrewed it, shook it, and sure enough, realized the light bulb had burned out. So, went immediately inside, dropped it in the garbage, went into the pantry, grabbed a 60 watt, went back outside, screwed it in, hit the switch, it worked, left it on for the night, problem solved. Then went to bed. Next morning, went out the kitchen door to get wood that is stacked to the left of the door, and just happened to glance up at the light fixture, noticing that it was not on. In fact, there was NO BULB AT ALL in the fixture! The only other person in the house who could possibly remove the bulb, my mom, never touched the fixture (that's my job,,,replacing bulbs and fixing stuff). And she is not a sleep walker. And I hardly think anyone would remove the bulb as a prank. (it did occur to me maybe someone would remove the bulb so another night they could creep inside unnoticed if they had the idea of breaking into the house and robbing us...but that is just my imagination getting the best of me).

So there you have it. Absolutely I did change the bulb. It is something I just do. See a burned out bulb and change it on the spot. I would never just wait to replace it unless I was out of bulbs. And I looked high and low for the bulb in case it just dropped out of the socket but nowhere to be found. A mystery!"

My money is on the pending burglary - or light sleeping neighbor whose bedroom shades weren't keeping out all 60-watts.  So this on is seemingly explained.  But try this one..

"I keep a little spiral notebook in which I write my daily use of pain meds (old back injury) and my meditation hours for the day. The way I prepare the pages is I draw freehand lines across at the top and in the middle, then a single line all the way down the page in the middle. This gives 4 day spaces in which to record the information.

I don't make these pages up in advance, only as they are used. That is when I run out of the four spaces I turn the page and make a new page.

So last week because of the way the calendar went my Friday space was the last for the page, bottom right. To my amazement when I got to the Friday space, that is when I noticed it and wanted to fill it out for last Friday I found that it was competed and had the times for the two pain meds and the hours for my meditation written in already. Although the preceding day had been of course Thursday. So here I was with two Friday's in that week !! I investigated all the usual explanations. There is none, I just had two Fridays. Not sure what to do with the extra one...

Things are getting pretty strange no?"

NSS!  Or this one...

"Dear George,

A bit of Wujo for you...

I have a pair of silver pierced earrings that I have owned since the 70's. They are my favorites and I wear them all the time. They hold a great deal of sentimental value as they and I have been through a lot together. The last time I wore them was New Years Eve. The last time I knew that they were both on my ears was when I was dog sitting for some family members that had gone on a long drive to the Indian casino for New Years. I drove the seven miles to their home to let their chocolate Labs out at 7pm and then again at 11:30 pm. It was cold and I had bundled up complete with scarf and gloves. That night getting ready for bed, I noticed that one of them was missing. Heartbroken to have lost the earring, I stayed up half the night looking for the lost earring. I took apart my bedding, my coat and scarf, the couch cushions, the car, and even the dirt cannister on the vacuum cleaner, running my hands through the dirt just in case. It was nowhere to be found. It is hard to explain how connected I felt to those earrings, I was so upset.

I decided that I would save the other one and try to find a silversmith that could perhaps make a mold of the remaining earring, or copy it somehow. To add insult to injury I had just spent sixty dollars getting the wires replaced at a jeweler's since they were very intricately designed and the wires were integral to the design. I was sad but what can one do?

Two weeks later I got the dreaded message "check engine" light on my dash. I immediately took my car to my mechanic and they took it right in to check out the problem. As I got back into my car to go home, there sitting glinting in the sun was my missing earring, big as a fifty cent piece, sitting on the middle of the driver's leather seat. I went back in to the mechanic's and asked if they had been the ones to find it. They had no idea what I was talking about. I had torn that car apart looking for it, and I had been in and out of the car over thirty times doing errands and such. I had looked every time that I got in the car on the off chance that I could have found my missing earring. There is just no way that it could have been there all that time. Being leather, it is not like the earring had gotten hung up on seat fabric. I still can't figure this one out. If I had not gotten the check engine light, it might still be gone. Maybe the universe was sending me a message......

I love your column and keep up the good works along with Clif. pls keep me anonymous thank you."

And this one - call it the adventure of the SUV cat is pretty good, too:

"Last night took the wife into the church so she could pick up some items for her Bible study group. She got out and went into the church while I sat in the Suburban for about 6-7 minutes. The area is lit with a street light across the street from the church. She returned and we started down the street for about 50 feet and a cat suddenly appeared on the center console of the Suburban facing the front of the car. This cat either jumped from the back seat or plopped out of nowhere. There is no way for the cat to get into the back without coming in the front passenger door and traversing between the bucket seats. Neither of us saw a cat when we arrived and I am sure the wife would have noticed one around the door when she returned. Regardless no cat jumped in when the door was open. The cat was friendly and wore a collar so if it did come in through the front door it would have probably stopped on its way to the back seat. Thinking about it later I assumed he jumped from the back seat but "plopped" on the console may be more correct.

One other instance of weird. I was at the drive thru at McDonalds and when I was at the first window to pay I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed a car at the order board that I had just left. When I went to the second window to pick up my order I looked again and there was no car behind me. Now I suppose he could have backed up the 40-50 feet and go out the other way but I was the only other car ahead of him so it would have been easier to continue on behind me."

Did I mention the mystery of the mysterious water?

"Returning to Arkansas from a trip to visit family in Albuquerque, NM, I unloaded my minivan and placed all the stuff we brought back with us into it’s proper place within the house, i.e. luggage in the bedroom, groceries in the kitchen, etc. Upon opening my suitcase (a hard sided Sampsonite with wheels and handle for hauling) I discovered everything in my suitcase was WET. There was absolutely nothing in my luggage that could have leaked since I put such in my wife’s tote bag. My suitcase also has a very tight seal preventing anything from outside from easily getting in. My investigation showed no wetness in the van or on any of the transported items We had taken advantage of Christmas discontinued item sales in ABQ and had about 15 paper bags (we chose paper over plastic since they ride better) with bought items inside, neatly folded down and stacked two high. Nothing wet! I found no evidence of leakage anywhere in the van! Later on when unpacking my CPAP machine from it’s bag in the bedroom, I discovered that the well sealed gallon jug of distilled water used by the machine was nearly empty (also jug well checked for leaks). This item rode on top of the paper bags about 2 feet from my suitcase (my wife’s fabric suitcase was between mine and the CPAP bag). No evidence of leakage anywhere, no wet bags, no water stains, yet water was missing from sealed jug, and contents of my suitcase were wet!!!!"

BUT:  here's one that's a real "topper"...

I read your column just about every day and find the WuJo accounts quite interesting, since I've been having these for many, many years. I'm pretty used to them now, so they don't quite surprise me as much as they used to. However, what happened on Saturday really freaked me out.

I'm a huge 49er fan and was pretty amped up about watching the game against the Saints. My oldest daughter (22) was going to watch the game with me as well and was pretty excited too. I'm in CST, so the game started at 3:30. In the morning we discussed what to do for appetizers and I made a shopping list. (I planned on making a few dips and chicken wings.) My daughter, who had been out late with her boyfriend and friends the night before, was home with me, but pretty tired and just resting on the couch (with the TV off). I asked if she was inviting her boyfriend over for the game (he also likes the niners) but she said that he had to work and he was pretty bummed out.

I left for the grocery store around 1:00. While there, I changed my plans as they had a special on fresh Dungeness crabs, so I picked up a couple, a baguette, and some butter. (IMHO, the best meal on the planet!) I was pretty jazzed that I could score some crabs for the game and I knew my daughter would be too. I was only gone around 40 minutes, and when I entered my home, I heard the TV on, and my daughter's laughter as well as her boyfriend's. I walked into the living room and they were sitting on the couch watching one of the pregame sports shows. My daughter turned toward me and said, "Hi dad!" Her boyfriend, who always addresses me as Mr. [last name], turned to me and addressed me as usual. I replied to both of them, saying it was great that he could get the time off and come over to watch the game. I walked past them, dropped the grocery bag off in the kitchen, and went into my bedroom (right next to the living room) to take off my jacket. I hollered out from my bedroom that there had been a change of plans regarding food, as I got some Dungeness crabs. No response. I'm thinking, "TV must be drowning me out," so I walk back into the living room and say again that I've got a real treat, fresh Dungeness crabs. As I do so, it's like I'm watching a movie that slowly fades out. The TV fades out to completely off, my daughter and her boyfriend literally fade out in front of my eyes and there's now complete silence. I'm pretty freaked at this point, so I start yelling out my daughter's name, going into every room. Nothing.

I call my daughter on her cell and get her voice mail. I even text her to find out where she is. No response. So I sit down on the couch and turn the TV on again to watch pregame shows. Around 2:30 my daughter walks in. I ask her where she's been and she tells me that right after I left she remembered that she left something at a friend's house and went to get it. She tells me that she's been gone for around 90 minutes and that her boyfriend never came by because he's working.

Did I walk through a previous event (like an akashic record) or some future event? Or was it a scenario that was playing out in a parallel universe? Just bizarre...

Oh, and the Morse code event your reader described today? I had a similar experience recently. I was working at a client site about a month ago, on a Saturday, and I had to do some proofing. I went into the publications area to pick up the files and I just decided to stay there and proof, as I was the only one in the department that day. I sat down at a table next to one of those old, mechanical file storage systems for microfiche or datacards where you press a button and the rows cycle through in a circular motion.

As I was proofing, I could hear the control panel kind of buzzing off and on (like a clicking sound), and I knew that this machine had a tendency to act up, so I just ignored it. After 30 minutes or so of proofing, I began to notice a pattern that sounded like Morse code. At first I thought it was random, but then as I paid attention to it more, it was definitely a repeating pattern, and it kept getting faster. I don't know Morse code, but I tried to write down the dashes and dots, but eventually gave up, as they were pretty fast and close together.

The question is, who is trying to communicate with us?

Hit the pause button.

Now I'm starting to get a bit sketched out.  Why?"

Remember the past of the Alta Reports - and in some of Clif's "Shape of Things to Come" reports where we talk about people who get "stuck" - and go into "drooling and just standing about unable to process things?" 

What IF we really are heading into a period of increased Woo-Woo at the WuJo and this turns into an epidemic?

Noticing that I've had a tripling of WuJo-like experiences over the matter of just a couple of weeks - and it seems to be in an odd way almost tracking the moving about of military hardware in the Middle East and such, what IF - and this is a big IF here...

What IF WuJo experiences are a kind of "bow wave" (i.e. water pushed ahead of a boat before it actually arrives) except that the bow wave, in this case would be problems down at the detail level of reality where the arrow of time operates on a gazillion things all at the same time?   And what would rip the multiverse such that the bow waves would become non-normal in the period just ahead – and perhaps accounting for a huge spike in WuJo reports?

Schematic, please?

Bang!!!  Rip of space-time as energy and matter dance directly.  We would have missed the effect in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since they didn't have the internet at the time and there was so much other death/stuff going on that a subtle effect would be swamped by other inputs.

Our colleagues down the hall working at the quantum/quanta/kalapas level already know that time is not absolute but is highly relativistic and wonky is how it averages in a direction...and that means bow waves possible along with aftershocks, although the aftershocks are much larger because why?  They are "recalled" as history. 

The foreshocks aren't historical...yet.  So since we all share a societal bias (no psychedelics, not even a good smoke is allowed most place) we have buried the shamanistic "reaching out and touching" the archetype level - mass consciousness - where things can (and are) touched remotely and/or in advance... so people that spend time in The Stream tell me - and it's from The Stream that events seem to coagulate into our physical reality.  This junior time monk in training stuff is brutal.

So I find myself wondering "Gee, do big events have major impacts on us humans like this - on top of the already established fact of people's language is changing down at the preconscious level ahead of events - which is how our predictive linguistics stuff works?

Fact is we have never seen a mass of data - almost a singularity of so much crap all happening at once - and what we saw five years ago as a data gap is not a gap so much as the shadow of a much less directed/by the PTB world.  They simply turn to dust and go away.

The only question is what is big enough to be global and push this big a bow wave?  Global famine?  Economic collapse of the West?  Toss in some nukes over Iran or wherever?  How about something from column A, something from column B and then whatever from behind curtain number four?

And so as we get closer to events of momentous size, do we see a corresponding increasing in high strangeness/oddities/ and WuJo-like stuff?

Oh...we also seem to be noticing an increase in reports from dream land over at the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site.

You keep sending in oddities, and I probably should do a scatter chart to see where this leads....or not. 

One one other thing to ponder?  If you do happen to here the Morse Code message I'd be real curious if it is this:

dit dit dit dah dah   (3 short dits and two long dashes) a pause and then

dit dah dah dah dah

dit dit dit dit dah

That'd be 3 1 4 in Morse.

Would be a wonderful promotion for National Pie Day on January 23rd, or what?

Pie up.  All of humanity is about to play in the freeway.  Think Newton's second law of motion.

Further Reading Dept.

Our friends who put together the www.dogstarmist.com site have a couple of good reads talking about money changers and the temple in one and :Devaluation by any other name" in the other.  Worth coffee and...uh...more pie.

fifth order house Back Online

Yes, I managed to squash the .mp3 where Clif and I talk about the short term value sets down into a much more compact 6-mb file instead of 22 mb...and I bought some more bandwidth for the project, so we're back up to serving the file again.  Thinking we might get a report put together around the 24-25th...some where in there, but we shall see how that goes.

If you're mystified about all this fifth order house talk click here to learn more.

Monday January 16, 2012

So, Where's the Blonde?

No small number of readers have been after me to answer the question this morning whether the sinking of the Italian cruise ship this weekend with considerable panic/loss of life was somehow related to temporal markers in recent outputs from the "rickety time machine" - more correctly the predictive linguistics from www.halfpasthuman.com.  Specifically, they wonder if this part of the December 5, 2011 report might have been telling us something:

'Blondes on Boats

Further support for the [underwater] supporting sets for the [financial/banking system] include imagery at the secondary level for [leaking (ships of state)] that will [run aground] and [destroy (under their weight)] the [international (predatory) financial structure]. While vaguely interesting and not at all noteworthy, these supporting sets do include that a [blonde woman (attorney?)] will be a very [visible] temporal marker in the near term future (December?) as the [last (of the) bright (lights)] of the [old markets paradigm]. The data shows the [well dressed blonde woman] in a [visible] incident in a [corridor (below decks?)] in the [traverse (pathways/halls?) of power] that will come to [symbolize (to the populace)] the [corruption zenith]. In many respects this [blonde woman (of failed power)] is the Maire Antoinette of our times, this current [age of revolution]. Any person foolish enough to still have [faith and trust] in any [paper debt] document will be able to date the [shattering of faith] to the [corridor confrontation] of [blonde ambition] and [common cents]. That the data sets are associated with [boats], and [leaking ships], and [ships running aground] should not be [over-looked].

 

As the [duality (dueling opposites)] theme takes over the data through Winter of 2012, the Markets entity shifts, albeit [slowly] and [painfully] through [under water/drown] 3.

By the peak of the building tension language in March of 2012, the [underwater/drown] archetype has been overtaken by the [flame/fire] archetype.

 

The [flame/fire] archetype is instantly interesting as it also is expressing the greater [duality] within the language in that the supporting sets at the primary level consist of [flaming out], but also [firing up/ignition]. The sum of all the supporting sets brings us to the descriptor of [fire], but as noted, in this case the [heat] is described as being both [consuming], and [kindling]. The data sets in support at the primary level show the [duality] even at the accretion level in that the sets are clearly separate, yet both support' 

[Quoted with exclusive permission from Shape of Things to Come report #23, Dec. 5, 2011.]

OK, you're thinking to yourself, so who's the blonde?  Well, a reader - not me - has been following this rather closely and offers this:

"Page 5 Dataset 23. I think this is a potential bot hit albeit not entirely accurately related to the financial crisis, however just read the words in square brackets and then look at the link to the blonde dancer who escaped from the ship.

Have to admit that the candidate is certainly an improvement over the usual old men with odd sexual peccadilloes that we usually see in the data...

As for the incident between decks, we have a couple of nominees here, including a "streetly teenager hero"  and the little matter of the captain being on the wrong deck (bar?) when he should have been attending to duties like monitoring ship operations...

If you're wondering how could all this be mashed up with the names of countries in Europe and how could there be so much wrong in that it's all tied in with failing countries of Europe and all that?

Simple:  The Costa Concordia's decks are named after countries including according to the site www.cruisedeckplans.com the "Polonia, Austria, Spagna, Germania, Francia, Portogallo, Irlanda, Gran Bretagna, Italia, Greciua, Belgio, Svezia, and Olanda" decks.

---

Staring into the future looking at "word stew" is an interesting pastime. Although I do get people asking "What about that Big Tipping point in November of 2010...what was that all about?"  But, as a reader offered:

"Hey George...in Saturday's peoplenomics a reader asked about a seemingly non event around tipping point in Nov 2010 as I remember that was when that rogue missile launched off Catalina and if memory serves it was right about on the date of the foreseen tipping point I remember thinking to myself that the bots hit another one....that launch having prolly been done by China could represent a shift in power which seems could be a tipping point alright."

Than and the "occupy" idea and 99 and such were starting to get legs...but yes, it's at best a looking into the future through a window with Vaseline smeared all over it...but better than nothing.

Oh, next temporal market should be nation's marching toward war and such which gets us to the second item(s) of the morning.  Though straightaway, I can see why people hate Mondays...

This is No Game

The Obama administration has canceled planned military exercises with Israel and there have been reports that Israel is getting ever-closer to popping Iran's nuclear development. 

Naturally, as you'd expect, we are seeing the predictable "disappointment" response from Israel.

The "war lobby" is going full tilt now, with former UN ambassador John Bolton tossing in his two-cents worth...Meantime well connected Israeli sources have been beating the drum, too, claiming within the next year Iran will test a one kiloton device underground.  And if that's not enough to f/u your day, the US has moved 15,000 troops into Kuwait.

Right now there are five assault ships and four carriers out if you check the US Navy deployment page here, and when the carriers out number gets to six, or higher, then you might want to have your stock of N-100 masks at the ready.

Economy Sucks, But...

That doesn't preclude the happy-talk among the death industries whenever the scent of war is in the air.  Since gold was up a bit, we might expect the markets to start the week on the upside, as well, since both gold and ownership of company shares tend to run in the direction of inflation...up about 3.25% annually, that is, if you date from the founding of the (not really) Federal Reserve in 1913.  Oh, and that includes the Great Depression, so in "more normal times" the inflation rate is higher, which those of us owning gold and silver are keenly aware of...

But I digress.  The stock market will be closed in honor of Martin Luther King's birthday today and those oh, so hard working broker types, won't get another holiday until my birthday next month.  Pobrecitos.

The real jollies will be along Wednesday with Producer Prices and then outright laughter and guffaws will arrive with the alleged Consumer Price Index on Thursday.

Me?:  I'll be the guy up in the green house plugging in the seed mats to get started early on a bunch of plants for the garden this year. A garden won't eliminate your grocery bill, but it can take a bite out of it...so to speak.

Huntsman Out

After betting his stake in New Hampshire, Jon Huntsman is widely expected to drop out of the president contest today.  Now if we could get Newt to do the same thing, I'd be a lot happier...

Parking Meter Roulette

Since this is a national holiday, parking meters will be off most places for the holiday - like in Washington.

If this morning's column seems a little shorter than usual (and might even get spell-checked) it's because the flow of news has slowed to a trickle until later today. 

I hope.

Coping: A Holiday WuJo Festival

Once again time to dig out some of the strange goings on down at the mental martial arts dojo where the woo-woo meets Mr. Science...we call it the WuJo.

As you may (or may not, if you're lucky) be aware, as we get into a more and more complex future (more people, more technology, thus more possibilities) we are apparently pushing physical reality so hard to keep up that occasionally things don't work like they should and we get reports like this one:

"Hi George-

Here's another little story about a vanishing item-

My husband had purchased a little wooden box for our son that he needed for a project he was working on but it was the last one in the store & since he knew that our son needed more than one he asked me to save the receipt so that he would be able to order more.

My son called me a few days later and asked if I knew where the receipt was because he was coming over to pick it up & I told him that it was on my desk. I happened to sitting no more than 10 feet away from my desk at the time and I could clearly see the receipt laying there in the same exact spot where it had been placed when it had been given to me. Shortly thereafter I decided to bring the receipt into the kitchen where my son would be sure to see it but the receipt had totally disappeared & nothing that even resembled a receipt remained on my desk- it was truly gone!

Thinking that I must have already picked it up & done something with it I retraced all my steps and checked all my pockets many times over. Since there was no one else in the house at the time, I was beginning to think that I must surely be loosing my mind because I couldn't remember ever having even touched that darn receipt.

When my son arrived I explained what had happened and how his receipt had simply vanished even though I know that I had clearly seen it sitting on my desk when I had been speaking with him on the phone. We walked over to the desk as I showed him where it had been laying on top of the now completely empty left side & as we stood there I started rearranging my stack of books & papers on the far right side even though they hadn't been touched in a couple of days.

Low & behold the receipt was sitting there at the bottom under the stack of papers which was most definitely "not" where it had been just a half hour earlier.

I know that I am getting older and that my memory isn't quite as good as it used to be but this is the first time that I actually questioned whether I was actually loosing my marbles.

My son tried to reassure me by saying that he had heard of this same kind of thing happening to some of his friends and that he had read about similar things occurring to people on FaceBook & that's when I remembered that it had also happened to some of your readers. So I thought you might like to add this to your growing list of strange & unusual stories of items going missing in time & space.

Perplexed in FL.- "

Well, Mrs. Perplexed, at least you can take comfort that you're not the only one looking at strange things going on.  Remember that case last week of the lady who bought some clothes at a discount store only to find that the labels changed over time to something else?  Of the couple who were in an empty parking lot that had people suddenly materializing out of nowhere?  Well, those readers have lots of company...

"Hello, George:

I was almost relieved to read about the recent reports of the couple who were bumped by the sudden stranger at the curb and the woman whose Cabella vest transmuted into a lesser garment. I had two of these "WTF" moments in the past few weeks and thought I was going crazy. My partner and I do a lot of reading and research on the coming dimensional shifts and fully believe that we are in the midst of a major change. Just never expected to be caught "in the cracks" myself.   ("quick - look surprised - g")

The first incident happened while doing my daily dog stroll around the neighborhood. One cold, late afternoon a strange woman passed me on the road, walking briskly and clutching at her coat as if she was chilled. No one else was on the street. She appeared to be very focused on getting somewhere. I said Hello but there was no response and she went on by me.

A few moments later I paused in my tracks to say a few words to a neighbor on my left who was standing on his driveway. We chatted for about 5 seconds. When I looked up and resumed my walk I was astonished to see the strange woman suddenly coming toward me again from about 75 feet out.

She made the identical movements - clutching at her coat - and passed on my right. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. It thought, how did she get in front of me, fly over my head? I would have seen her reverse direction and make the long loop around me on the narrow road but no one went by in the few seconds I spoke with the neighbor. And if I missed it how did she travel that quickly? It was as if I had pushed "replay" and the previous scene had started over. I stood in the street for awhile with my mouth hanging open wondering if I had had a brain fart. Something right out of the Twilight Zone! Was she even "real?" I've not seen her again.

Then, a few days later, my favorite winter scarf just up and disappeared, the same one I had on when I saw the strange woman. I am very habitual about my daily walks and always put my walking clothes in the same dresser in the front hallway. At first I thought my partner had borrowed it and insisted that there must be a practical joke at work.

Not!

We've searched the entire house, behind furniture, everywhere. I guess I'll put less focus on the research for now. LOL. Two WuJo events will hold me for awhile.

Love your column!

And to make it a perfect trifecta of WuJo events, try this one on for size:

I had my own WuJo moment today! I was preparing to drive from Las Vegas to Sedona, AZ, and I was checking my pants pocket for cash. I know I had $15 or so in my left front pocket, but I couldn’t find it this morning when I put my pants on! I checked all my pockets, but no bills were to be found. I thought, I’ll just have to hit an ATM on the way out of town, but of course I forgot. I stopped for gas just outside Kingman, AZ, and happened to put my hands in my pockets to keep them warm while pumping gas (it was a rather nippy morning), and I felt something in my left front pocket. Lo and behold, I pulled out $18 – three $5 bills and three $1 bills that I KNOW weren’t in that pocket when I left! Odd…

NSS...but that's what it takes to make for a good WuJo report...so it you run into any of these moments like the ones we report about here...keys falling through the floor into the downstairs living room, cars morphing into something else, missing time, shape-shifting clothing, wandering receipts, people twice-encountered, or money that comes and goes...send it along so we can share your WuJo moment - anonymously, of course.

Like the old joke goes, I have good news for you and I have bad news.

The good news is you're not crazy.  The bad news is Universe and everything in it is...

Not convinced?

Morning George;

I love reading the WuJo stories best of all and recently had my own WuJo event. My husband doesn't think this was WuJo, perhaps carelessness on my part, you decide.

Before Christmas I bought 4 new printer cartridges for my Ep... printer, blue, yellow, magenta and black. I have always purchased generic brand cartridges and carefully dispose of the old cartridges. I have never used name brand cartridges.

When I installed the blue cartridge the printer showed it was only 10% full. I then installed the other 3 and found the yellow and magenta had 30% ink and the black was full. This week, I removed the cartridges, put them back into the original generic boxes and returned them to the stationery store.

I explained the situation to Mike the store owner and showed him the printouts which showed low ink. Mike removed one of the cartridges from its box and out popped an Ep... brand cartridge. He removed all three and they were all Ep... brand. I could only stand there with my mouth hanging open. I did not notice what the cartridges looked like when I removed them from their sealed packages originally.

Perhaps there was some kind of switch done beforehand but they were all sealed and looked like new when installed. How could three packages all have contained switched product when no other customers have had this happen. The generic box clearly states that the contained product is not an Ep... product. The black cartridge was generic. I'm stumped on this one.

This isn't a for-sure WuJo event.  But just in case, did you buy a lotto ticket?  I have this pet theory that when Universe goes wonky it's a cloud of events, some you notice, others you don't.  So buy a lotto ticket when wujo's about and send me 10% for suggesting it...thank you.

Around the Ranch

G2 (my son) has been visiting, and like all father-son relationships, ours eventually comes down to dad funding gasoline through carburetors.  First in the truck and then in the airplane.  Seems his fright instructor (sic)  is pleased with his progress. 

---

We're making good progress weeding out the ham gear, too - should get at least some of it on eBay this week.  Meantime, I've decided to keep only one tube-type rig - an HT-37, the matching T.O. keyer, R-48 speaker and SX-122 receiver.

---

Oh and speaking of Morse code (reminds me of this WuJo report):

"George, musician for most of my 55years, so tinnitus is my roommate full-time. Yesterday sitting outside reading my left ear pitch completely stopped, then began a four minute or so session of what I would have to call Morse code. Never happened before and I sat quietly observing the patterns to discern their non randomness. I actually wanted to get up and try to put the message to paper, but first, have no idea how to transcribe dot dash end..second, didn't want to disturb the flow.

If not neuro linguistic programming and someone's trying to convey a message to me, wish they'd get a little more sesame street with their conveyance.

Had to tell somebody beside my wife...she doesn't even roll her eyes anymore, progress..."

And here this fellow may have hit upon why married couples end up with glasses...rolling their eyes at one another!

OK, I'm going to go snooze.  What are you doing up this early, anyway?  Don'tcha know it's a holiday?