Month: November 2014

Coffee.

That’s what we need more of, around here.

Yesterday, for example, I missed my usual half-octane blend of regular and decaf, going for the decaf-only because it was time for my once-every-six-months visit to the doctor for the blood pressure and cholesterol checks.  Hence, no coffee…because with me, a cup of  serious caffeine is good for 10-15 more points on the high number.  I tend to add 10 points as a “white coat” reaction, anyway.

If the reference in the Monday column to Columbus Day made no sense, this morning I’d have to agree with you.  Doesn’t to me, either.  At least today is doesn’t.

Which explains why Mr. Timewarp somehow got into his head that Veterans Day was Columbus Day.  “No, you idiot,” wrote one reader directly “Ask Panama what day it is.”    Monday? I shot back.

Seriously, I would have asked the retired ex-SF/Ranger brother-in-law, but Panama was busily cleaning his favorite little .380 pistol at the time and Pappy didn’t raise no fool.  Several readers hinted at the error and I was slowly catching on.  I don’t take chances….

Going forward, we’re just going to have to agree here:  Every-so-often I will display signs of aging.  Or, I am so helplessly addicted to coffee that I can’t function without it.  I should put a little flag in the heading of each column that says something like “  Coffee:  ON” or “ Coffee: OFF.”  We might even find a correlation with spelling errors.

Where were we now?  Oh yes….

So I’m there at the doc’s place. The blood pressure was fine… although the doc is still trying to sell me on preventative medicine.

“You know, we need to talk again about you having a colonoscopy, since you’re almost 66 now….”

At this point I gave him my best upper-management Look of Death for Saying the Wrong Thing. I’m good at it. 

He looked worried, furrowing his brow as he weighed whether to press the point….and then brightened and said “Well, OK, we talked about THAT then….”  Smart man.

In a previous session I’d explained to him (in no expletives deleted terms) that I appreciate that there is a trade-off between a colonoscopy and risk of having some dreaded disease, or other.  But I also made it clear that when someone sticks various instruments and implements up in “No thank you” areas, and wants me to shoulder all the liability if anything goes wrong, no, that is not exactly “risk sharing.”  Show me some quid pro quo, bro.

Near as I could read the proposed 13-page waiver of liability fine print, if something goes wrong (like an intestinal wall is broken) that could lead (worst case) to death.  I suppose that at least would not be a tax event from my standpoint, but still….

Let me think about this:  My side of the equation is, let me see:  Money and death.

The doctor’s side of the equation?  If something we4nt wrong, they might have to do emergency surgery and that could delay the next appointment on the health care delivery conveyor belt, or in extreme cases, delay a tee time.

The good news is that there was an article in the October (yeah, the month when Columbus Day was) issue of MIT Technology Review that described how a spoonful of special yogurt and a urine sample might very quickly replace the colonoscopy.

I’m sending my doctor a copy of the article and mention that “when the test yogurt is available in strawberry flavor I’ll be taking that replacement test.  Provided the waiver of liability is less than two pages.  I might consider other flavors, too, like blueberry…”

Alternatively I should really ask if a self-inspection is out of the question since several readers have suggested that my head is already conveniently located in the required inspection position.

The “Offset of Reality” Problem

Since this is a pseudo-holiday, we can focus on the important items next.  Not that personal health isn’t, but to my way of thinking WoWW (World of Woo-Woo) reports are much more fun to study than, oh, say colonoscopies.  One is shit weird while the other is just weird shit, if that doesn’t ruin your PopTart.

Some readers think that the report from James in yesterday’s column gives away the real source of Woo-Woo reports (like jottles and such) as nothing more than perception breaks on the part of the people involved…  Reader Bobbi sent this….

Hi George,

   As much as I’d like to blame the Hadron collider, I think reader James is probably correct. It’s probably what makes the difference between an autistic person and a normal person. Maybe Woowoo is a glitch in that system.

  This morning I had a brief one. I had a rack of 40 test tubes, each with its own screw-cap lid securely fastened. One tube in the first row had its lid missing.

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OK, Ok, I get it… just the facts:

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 214,000 in October, and the unemployment rate edged down to 5.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in food services and drinking places, retail trade, and health care.

Household Survey Data Both the unemployment rate (5.8 percent) and the number of unemployed persons (9.0 million) edged down in October. Since the beginning of the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons have declined by 0.8 percentage point and 1.2 million, respectively. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for whites declined to 4.8 percent in October. The rates for adult men (5.1 percent), adult women (5.4 percent), teenagers (18.6 percent), blacks (10.9 percent), and Hispanics (6.8 percent) changed little over the month.

The jobless rate for Asians was 5.0 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) In October, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 2.9 million. These individuals accounted for 32.0 percent of the unemployed.

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Check ride day, so I’m in a a no-nonsense mood.

As the chief pilot of Ure International Airways, a concept admittedly borrowed from the late Ernest K. Gann, author of The High and the Mighty and one of the finest aviation writers of all time (along with Richard Bach of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and One), there are requirements to stay current on flying skills.  These have to be dragged out and shown off to a flight instructor or check ride pilot every so often, or you’re grounded.

It was almost 35-years ago I’d met Ernie Gann.  He’d just done the television special Masada based on his mini-series story The Antagonists. 

After all these years, the home-base of great author/pilots has blurred a bit, no doubt the effect of long-chain sugar molecule relatives and too many after-flying stories.  This is called “hangar flying” and the proof runs anywhere from 3.2 to 86, depending on heat and local supplies.

Gann and his wife, as I recall lived somewhere up on or northeast of Whidbey Island, north of Seattle.  Richard Bach, and his wife, lived up in the San Juan Islands, but for reasons I never understood, they moved to somewhere down in Oregon.  Seems like a fair number of pilot/writers despite sometimes awful weather.

Let me take that back.  I do understand.

It all depends on which is more important to a fellow; sailing or flying.  If yo8u like flying and sailing or boating, there is nowhere better.

The principles are the same, in either case.  You have a wing (which is all a sail is) and you control the angle of attack (with a yoke if by plane or sheets if by sea) and the lift is what makes adventure happen.

This time of the year, and in fact usually starting in late August, the San Juans tend to develop morning fog.  Some of the best (and safest) pilots you’ll ever meet fly for Kenmore Air Harbor which makes regular stops at places like Friday Harbor and Roche Harbor.

Gann lived, as I recall, more inland, away from the foggy Straits.  I want to say Coupeville, but memory is likely bad on that.  Bach’s move to Oregon would make a lot of sense.  The Cascade range tends to “scrape the rain out of the clouds” before they head east and that means central and eastern parts of Washington and Oregon have lots of clear days.

This morning, as fate would have it, the weather looks to be clear in the San Juans, Coupeville, WA, and even Seattle looks like good flying.  Portland, Oregon, on the other hand is looking at dense fog.  Just moving to Oregon doesn’t solve all problems, after all.  Next week there will be rain in Eastern Oregon and possibly snow on the backside of the Cascades where it’s cold.

Check rides, like today’s, aren’t especially difficult. Once learned, manipulating the controls of an aircraft is sort of like riding a bike.  But it’s the “head work” that takes a little bit of doing.  Even with a good memory, the process of staying sharp involves practice, study, and testing.

So yesterday was spent mastering a course in Aeronautical decision-making which involves working out acronyms like PAVE, IMSAFE, and PPP. And just when you get all that done, you remember that you need to brush up on the colored light flashes from a tower which are still used in the event of total radio failure at night.

The education part never stops.  I even carry my Washington DC SFRA card.  (SIFF-rah) Not that I plan to fly into Washington…it’s sort of like a USCG 6-Pack Captain’s ticket for ther serous boater:  Brag point.

The main difference, though is that if you have a captain’s ticket (even a 6-pack, not a 7 oceans sailing master 300 tons) and something goes wrong, the insurance outfits will point at the captain for not avoiding trouble.  In aviation, its somewhat the other  way around:  The more study and recurrent training you can document, the more insurance companies like you.  Rates come down because 80% of aviation accidents are people issues, not mechanicals.

And then there’s the fine points of chart-reading.  What does the little “H” in a circle in the corner of the VOR information box on a chart mean?  (HIWAS service available.)  And the Acronyms go on….and on…. until you get to the final CIGARS (controls, instruments, gas, attitude, run-up, safety before take-off) and finally you can get back in the sky.

The FAA has a continuous education programs called WINGS and it’s a fine service.  On tap for today, amd, we’ll see how much of the following I get through to bag WINGS basic:

From the Commercial Pilot Practical Test Standards for Airplane

1. Area of Operation IV, Task A: Normal and Crosswind Takeoff and Climb
2. Area of Operation IV, Task B: Normal and Crosswind Approach and Landing
3. Area of Operation IV, Task F: Short-Field Approach and Landing
4. Area of Operation IV, Task K: Power-Off 180º Accuracy Approach and Landing
5. Area of Operation IV, Task L: Go-Around/Rejected Landing

Successful completion of an Instrument Proficiency Check in accordance with 14 CFR Part 61, section 57(d) [FAR 61.57(d)].

The Instrument Proficiency Check must comply with the requirements set forth in the currently approved Instrument Rating Practical Test Standard, FAA-S-8081-4. The Rating Task Table in that publication lists the minimum tasks required.

From the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards for Airplane

1. Area of Operation II, Task A: Preflight Inspection

2. Area of Operation II, Task D: Taxiing

3. Area of Operation III, Task A: Radio Communications and ATC Light Signals

4. Area of Operation III, Task B: Traffic Patterns

5. Area of Operation III, Task C: Airport, Runway, and Taxiway Signs, Markings, and Lighting

6. Area of Operation IV, Task E: Short-Field Takeoff and Maximum Performance Climb

As luck would have it, there’s not going to be much of a crosswind this morning, but I might propose that I “slip” the airplane in, instead of using flaps, and then straighten out just before landing.  That’s how flying was done in the old days:  By dipping one wing (say the right) while applying opposite rudder (left in this case), the airplane flies “sideways.”  Since more frontal area is presented, the airplane tends to lose altitude…fast! 

When you land in a crosswind, the process is about exactly opposite.  You make your approach normally (with flaps if needed) and you’ll be flying a crab angle in order to track over the ground on the runway heading while the wind is trying to blow you off course.

Once you get the feel of the correct crab angle, you simply fly this all the way down to the ground until you  are just about to touch down.  Holding the nose at the proper attitude (up) you apply enough “slip” so that the airplane “straightens out” and lines straight ahead onto the runway center line.  As speed comes down (and the nose wheel drops, you increase aileron down (on the into the wind side, right in this case) and smoothly slow the airplane.

If the wind is from the right (pushing you to the left), you slip with the right wing going down and the left rudder pedal.  For wind from the left, (pushing you right) the left wing does down and in goes right rudder.

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“You’re dumber than a stick, George…”

My Higher Self was explaining things after a particularly nice night of entertaining and genuinely fun dreams involving people I know in this life, along with a few who have “passed the Great Divide” and moved to whatever is next.

The overnight Panavision/IMAX-like dream involved tourism on a strange world, car racing with what were similar to Dodge Chargers like the one in the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt back in the day, and travel that involved a hotel small town in a mountain range, gorgeous bridges over headwaters, widing highways beside a lazy river and…well, it was just amazing and cool.  The restrooms in the hotel were in the train station next door, but that was just a minor inconvenience…remembered riding that train from previous dreams.  It runs down to the lowlands….

“The point is, you are looking for meaning when it is right in front of your stupid face!”

The Higher Self was being particularly harsh on me.  “Like what?”

“Well, you aren’t “getting” the tie-in- the Balance – between the LBGT Movements and Immigration, for one.

The part you miss is this:  We have too many of what in the world?”

“People?”

“Bingo!  And the way the LBGT movement works as a global Balance is simple:  It allows for expressions of love – and even sex – but without the messy leftovers of children that result – because high divorce rates result in subsequent abandonment of children when marriages break up. 

And on the other side of the equation, the young people coming in from South America?  Well, they give us a chance to actually care for another class of young people that are being unloved.  So you see, there is a Balance going on here…it’s just that most people (and sadly you) often don’t see because you get so damn wrapped up in the emotional hot button crap. 

I can assure you that the way the Ruler of All works is pretty simple:  There is always a Balance if you look for it.

Think of it as Gravy…”

“What the hell does GRAVY have to do with anything?”  Sometime my Higher Self speaks in riddles and metaphors which is why we don’t talk very often.

“There are some things that we have to keep Balanced…and the amount of Love flowing around is one of them. 

What do you do when a couple of guest show up unexpectedly for dinner and you’ve made pot roast and you don’t have enough gravy?  How do you handle that?

“Tell ‘em to get lost?”  We don’t have many friends so the Higher Self example was really obscure.

“You get some water, flower, and a bit of salt and you thin down the gravy.  Everyone get’s gravy and the small reduction in flavor is more than made up for by the love flowing around the dinner  table among friends, you see?”

“Hmmm…got to think on that one.  Any other complaints about my thinking or the column?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.  You’re not understanding the progressive dispensation model.”

My Higher Self has long known that what the Religionists call Prophets come along every so often with bits of Great Understanding to pass along.  But invariably, these get turned into collection plates, conversions, and wars, though in no particular order.  So I asked the obvious:

“What’s your complaint about me not getting Progressive Dispensation?”

“You haven’t figured out that if it works for spiritual conduct and rules of behavior, especially Love which is the organizing principle, that it also works with technology.  Doesn’t it seem a bit odd to you that there haven’t been a lot of legit spiritual leaders coming along and yet we have a zillion and one breakthroughs in Engineering?  You see?”

“No…but then you started the name-calling saying I’m dumb as a stick…remember?”

“Well, that’s because you are, you dumb-shit!  Don’t feel too bad, most humans are, too, so you’re hardly exceptional.

The Ruler of All can’t just go back into Noah’s time and start building catamarans, GPS units and iPhones very well, now, could he?  We need periodic disasters in order to set the table for the next dinner that’s coming spiritually.”

“Prove it.”

“Last night, didn’t Elaine mention Robert Felix’ book and about how at the time of magnetic pole reversals new forms of animal and plant life appear?  That was all about the Balance.  Humans destroy and then Love conquers all and everyone adapts…and if Humans want to be part of the future, then fine.  If not, then that will be arranged, too…””

“OK, I can see how Engineering is a kind of spiritual path…been on it myself.  So I get that and I know “the zone.”  But how come we can’t have things like Clean Energy and Anti-Gravity right now?”

I heard peels of laughter…so loud that it shook the house.  Elaine stirred in her sleep.

“You aren’t ready for it, you dummy!  What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m doing my biennial flight review…thought I would get it done earlier than scheduled because I haven’t been flying much and it’s a great way to keep sharp…”

“And if there was Anti-Gravity, you don’t have the infrastructure or computer horsepower to deal with it.  Look, you haven’t even got self-driving cars figured out…so lay back a bit and stop being so impatient.  Besides, one of the show-stoppers for anti-gravity –  one I know Ruler of All was kicking around for a while – continues to be all those overhead power and phone lines.

You’re not going to be ready for anti-gravity or a lot of other cool stuff like Life Extension out to 200 years, until you learn how to Love without screwing your brains out and popping unwanted kids all over the place. 

Remember what I said about Balance?  Go watch any of the Back to the Future movies…and in any of them, did they ever address the overhead power line issue, except in #1 with the Clock Tower…at which point the overhead was necessary?”

“OK, how are we going to get rid of power lines everywhere?”

“Within a year or three you will start to see Wall St., coming out with big money behind local solar and wind power.  The idea is you will sign up when you buy a house for a side-deal that will be a mortgage on $50,000 worth of installed solar equipment.  You will pay a Wall St company a discounted power bill rate.  And in return for that, they will put the equipment up and will feed any excess back into the grid.

That additional power will be used to charge electric cars and the new kinds of fuel cells that will be coming.  More like super-efficient batteries, but without the lead and lithium which are industrially ugly. 

Of course, this scares the power companies, and that is why the big press in many states to impose fees on small scale solar forerunners, like yourself, who already have solar.  They will have some success, but only briefly and then federal laws will come along that will outlaw grid-tie feed charges.

Once the power problems are solved, the wiring can go underground and by then you should have mostly electric and self driving cars and then we will be ready to release anti-gravity.

We’re not going to release it until you get the hardware ready, if you can follow that concept?  It’s like written on the front page of the anti-gravity software manual:  Requires hardware blah, blah, no drones of overhead power lines…

Still,  the dreams are still out there…and that’s part of the reason the movie Interstellar is being released.  We mention something in there about the motivation to go worm-holing…and that is eating the planet bare.  Which you are doing a really first-rate job of, we notice.

And that gets us back to the need for childless unions that still have Love, doesn’t it?”

“I gotta think about this.”

“Think all you’d like.  The main reason for Churches was teaching people to read and a getting them comfortable with a solid vision of the future.  Now we’ve got the 6 o-clock news and movies…so you’re not going to get away from the flow we’ve got going. 

It’s just going to be whether you see the Great Balance and flow with it, or not.  Not everyone has to get it…the flow will carry them along whether they like it or not.

Doesn’t make any difference to Us.

Time to get up, Ure.  Don’t you have a column to write?”

“Yeah… seems like all I do it write, write, sleep, write, anymore.  Thanks.”

“Take a break, we’ll send you a woo-wood story or two and a chance to help some people.  Shouldn’t take more than 10-minutes to write.  Think of it as a thank-you for getting a column right, for a change.”

The WoWW Story

Reader Chris’s report:

George I had a definite wuju moment last week. I was in Los Angeles CA on a business trip last week and on Wed or Thur I had a discussion with one of my coworkers about the rocket that exploded that was heading up to the space station. Later that night I had a dream where I was having a conversation with the same coworker where we were talking about the Virgin Atlantic space vehicle that exploded. Except the fact that it didn’t happen yet! The conversation seemed so real that when I saw him the next day at our meeting I asked him did we talk about the Virgin Atlantic vehicle exploding and he was like “What the hell are you talking about? We didn’t talk about that and that has never happened. I was like hmm I must have dreamed it. The next day we all got on planes and went home and then I think On Friday the Virgin Atlantic thing happened and my coworker called me and was like WTF are you F-ing serious? And I was like I know I am seriously weirded out about this. The thought that has been crossing my mind is remember all the Major Ed Dames remote viewing stuff?

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This morning we take up two matters of practical, personal economics:

Our first question is “What’s more important than the election returns and the expected Republican win of the Senate” in Tuesday’s elections?”  I think the answer might surprise you.

The second project?  I’ve come up with a new way of looking at those “star ratings” that Amazon uses and a discussion of how to decide on what’s worth buying follows.

Not before coffee, though, although with everyone suffering “News overload” we will skip headlines this morning and focus on these two macro topics which (unlike election trivia) are actually useful.

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While most Americans are focused on today’s election – and the corporate-owned media get us all whipped up into a frenzy of channel switching tonight – around here seems like every election headline tees-off another TV series or movie plot from the reaches of my creative source.

For example, word that US Attorney General Eric (is he gone, yet?) Holder is sending “election monitors into 18-states”  gives birth to a THEORETICAL plot like this:

The story opens with tonight’s big election coverage and word that the republicons have taken back the senate.

But, as the story evolves, tomorrow — after the election results are clear (or so we thought) — the attorney general files some kind of rarely-used writ with the US Supreme Court and has the election results held invalid in just enough states to ensure that the democraps hold onto the Senate for two more years.

Of course, it’s all fiction, but remember this:  Holder has already spoken out against the Supreme Court on a key elections case where Holder didn’t agree with the court.  He felt leaving election laws in the hands of local government on matters such as voter ID was restrictive,” “burdensome” and “out of step with history.”

As our entirely fictional plot for this TV movie works out, it is revealed that the democraps are discovered by an enterprising reporter to be part of a nationwide plot to have overwhelm the polls in states (like New Mexico where events are not so fictional )  without  voter ID laws.

While a hypothetical investigative reporter tries to sell a new network the inside story of how the election-theft was masterminded workws behind the scene, secret government forces (an illegal offshoot called Directorate 153 operating at the side of NSA) has planted incriminating government documents on the valiant reporter’s computer.

Of course, seeing as all this is fictional, any resemblance to Sharyl Attkisson’s new book –allowed to be released by the real corporate powers that be only after it would be useless for this election cycle, being released on election day morning (Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington). is purely coincidental, I tell you.  Sometimes reality just feeds into these hypothetical cases in strange ways…

As the plot reveals itself, the stock market, taken aback by the election uncertainty, begins to collapse.  And, as the matter of alleged voting irregularities heads to the supreme court, the sitting president has undue influence as to its adjudication  thanks to “control files” on each Justice./ 

The ongoing collapse of the stock market is used as an excuse to consolidate event more federal powers into the Oval Office.

Angered that elections appear to have been rigged, people take to the streets in major state capitols – like Austin – where candlelight vigils are held in the weeks leading up to an exciting showdown before the Supreme Court.  The candlelight will represent the ever dimmer light of the enlightened Constitutional government.

And just so everything is lifelike, we’ll pack the court, while we’re at it, with a couple of right wingers, a left-winger, a couple of near communists, a lesbian and a gay two…..just too just to make sure our hypothetical movie covers all the politically correct interests.

As long as we’re putting correctness on trial, let’s put a Hispanic American, who really was wronged (being denied her vote) at the center of the plot.  But while the heroine, genuinely wronged by discrimination and is the “sales material” up front of the Court, in the background we see agents of evil busily hacking the voting machines to ensure the incumbent party doesn’t lose the Senate.

What is revealed is a denouement (conclusion of the story) much like the Al Gore loss in 2000.  In this fictional plot, the attorney general prevails and the Supreme Court declares there to be no clear winners in the 18-states and so elections must be held again.  Only this time, voter ID is made mandatory as part of a new National ID card that consolidates citizenship, diving, identification, Social Security, and a host of other “rights” into a single source.

An implantable RFID chip.  And the sitting president issues orders to make his term of office extend beyond its normal expiration date.

Corporate media support this “legal overthrow” of government because they stand to make a cool billion in additional political advertising.

As the movie ends, the sitting president is seen sitting in the oval office chatting with  the attorney general about details of plans to chip-plant every American.  A key line is “I told you the Ebola vaccine approach wouldn’t work..but it?  People will line up to chip and vote…then we’ll use the chips to ration food and energy…”

As the line is spoken, we notice the special effects genius as a small, but noticeable set of horns begin to emerge on the forehead of the sitting president…,

The chat dissolves to a soft focus as a biblical text about working all day for a measure of wheat and a measure of oil scrolls up in a semi-script text.  (fades out/FTB).

All of this, remember, is in the context of a purely theoretical made for TV movie.

Nothing like this could happen in the REAL America, now, could it?

Whew!  I gotta lighten up on the coffee.

Around the Ranch: Long Sleeve Shirt Weather

You know weather is changing and winter is near when we make the annual reset of the thermostat and I begin wearing long sleeved shirts around the place.

Another marker of the weather is my soup-making.

If you have a crock pot, (you already have a crack pot on screen) there’s really nothing to it.  You can toss in whatever meat is handy.  Everything from link sausage to stew to stir fry meat or even hamburger (92% lean…you don’t want much fat in soup).

A bag or two of carrots,  chopped up head of cabbage, a couple of chopped onions, and half a dozen sticks of celery.

If there is anything else in the fridge that is getting on past prime time, toss it in, too.  Got some fresh mushrooms that will go nicely in today’s soup.

For the broth, a can or two of organic canned chopped tomatoes and two cans of chicken broth works.  Half a cup of wine, if you like, since it will boil off but have enough residual flavor to blend everything together.  Sometimes I skip the wine.

Last but not least is a few shakes of whatever seasonings you like.  I’ve used them all…the last batch turned out to be allspice and garlic…and it was delicious.

Scaled to the right size, this will feed me for four or five days.  Elaine’s not keen on my soup.

Come to think of it, she’s also not keen on my butter-free fried cheese sandwiches, either.

You make two pieces of toast, slap the cheese on them, and then microwave 30-seconds, or so, until the cheese melts.  Not as good as a fried cheese in butter, but better for cholesterol and I’m studying up for another blood test next week.  Living so pure I may ascend at any instant.  So if the column stops unexpectedly in mid-sentence, I’ve simply higher-vibrationed myself to the next plane of existence.  I’ll send you a Lotto ticket if I can find it through the harp section.  If it’s scorched, there weren’t any harps.

Soups  – especially with a fried cheese sandwich – sans frying – are the ultimate 3-season comfort food.  Next time we get a good visit from climate change, try it.  You might like it. A blizzard outside and hot soup inside is hard to beat.  As long as the power is on. 

Cook on high 5-hours or 10 hours on low.  At least that’s what I’ve heard.  Us Type A people never cook anything on low.  The 10-hours on low is just a rumor.

We’re due to get a line of thunderstorms through the vicinity this evening.  Inch or two of rain with it.   If I plan the soup just right, it will be ready about 5 when the first power outage of the evening becomes likely.  If I can get enough shut-eye today, I might make the ham club meeting but likely not.

– – –

This week we finally got around to upgrading from our slow DSL to a higher speed Excede home satellite system.  At first, they wanted $200 and change for equipment, but now it’s down to $81 for old low-speed Wild Blue customers.  I’ve seen upwards of 8 MB down and 3 MB up, which would be faster than our DSL except for the satellite delay time.

Seems like years since we’ve had any real downtime.  The serious cloud hosting and multiple redundant ways to get there pay off in high reliability.

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So will the rally in the US stock market.  The futures are down about 40 points when I looked  earlier, though car sales will help,  and we can now see how the markets are telegraphing the most likely outcome for tomorrow’s republicon romp.

What the markets seem to be telling us about the future scripts out like this:

• The GOP will win the Senate
• This will set up a divided government
• This will be very, very bad for the economy
• And so we are in buy the rumor, sell the news mode..the news being tomorrow’s election.

There, that’s pretty simple, isn’t it?

As to Ebola?  A scientist is predicting 130 cases in the USA before the year is out.  In order for that to occur, it would be statistically satisfying to see a new case, or three, this week.  But I’ve got a $5-bet that says we won’t have any new cases reported until Wednesday.  Don’t want people staying home because traditionally, R’s take an edge in bad weather so anything to keep the fair-weather libs in ought to be panned by corpmedia.  So it will be so…

Same thing with immigration, though to a lesser extent.  The president was heckled in Connecticut for not getting more done.  But he blamed the other party – the R’s  But as to the executive amnesty which will likely be here within three weeks?.  Well, that will track between now and January because when the new Senate takes office we will be in what we’re really been stuck in all along:  A divided country.

Except with Version 2.014 of the software that runs ‘Merica, a new “feature” will be added.  Think of it as the BSOD of Windows, except without customer support.  A White House-Congressional Impaction is what an oral surgeon might call it..  Patient symptoms include Tourette’s-like speech, disorientation, fever, and paralysis.

An intelligent bet, therefore, would be to cash in any long positions and be ready to go short.  The market has arguably put in a double-top and with the recent decline, the 1,740 level on the S&P could arrive before the year is out – if I’m reading this right.

I’m not the only one.  Even my friend Howard Hill seems to be a bit concerned about this DC standoff prospect. 

If you thought Government Shutdown (1) was fun, wait until the R’s hold the Hill and the D’s hold the White House.  Any time either side attempts to do anything… it will be a full-scale press battle.  Which we all lose.

By the way, my recommended read  this morning is not a press release.  You don’t really think we would have any major final confessionals before elections, did you?

Instead, read Howard Hill’s discussion of what it’s like to be one of the world’s first “financial engineers”.    Or look at the futures and weep.  Either way, I promise to let you know when Howard’s new book is out. 

Do try to save a box of Kleenex for Wednesday through Friday, though.  We may need it when the market realizes what the past week of manic rally may foretell.  Just as manic depressive episodes come following ecstatic highs, no reason we shouldn’t expect the market to act any differently.  Manic is manic, after all.

October 29th was supposed to be a turn date and so Friday should have been the high water mark.  The next one comes in early December…and for that one, Ures truly is short.

More after this…

Saved by Car Sales – Again

One of the recurring features of the retail sales has been auto sales.  And if Chrysler earnings this morning are any indication, the auto sector may be the major thing keeping the economy afloat.  From the Chrysler press release…

• 55th-consecutive month of year-over-year sales gains
• Chrysler, Jeep®, Ram Truck and FIAT brands each post sales gains in October compared with same month a year ago
• Jeep brand sales up 52 percent; best ever October sales
• Nine Chrysler Group vehicles record best ever October sales
• Chrysler 200 sales up 40 percent; best ever October sales
• Every Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram Truck brand vehicle experienced year-over-year growth in October
• Chrysler Group LLC earns nine awards at Texas Truck Rodeo; Jeep Grand Cherokee wins ‘SUV of Texas’ for fifth-consecutive year

So we expect similar good news today in other auto sales, so maybe the market can squeak out one more day.

Winter and Air Travel

Just as we got the earliest snow ever in South Carolina this weekend, Alaska Airlines is dumping up flights to Mexico…

The airline kicks off its new nonstop service between Seattle and Cancun on Nov. 6. Flights will operate daily through April 27, 2015.

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