Year: 2015

I call it my LOSTD (list of sh*t to do) and it gets updated every morning after this morning column is done.

I also do a “master list” of things I want to fall into place this week.  One of these is get the airplane finished (a designated engineering representative has the ball on that while we ask for a minor/trivial variance from an airworthiness directive (AD) which is just another way to turn an annual airplane inspection into a money-sucking pit. The payoff is a safe airplane.

The week’s master project list includes the 6-month, 50,000 chew tooth inspection.  I have to remember to floss for the next couple of days.  Easy to do when dieting, so no food in means no clean-up…

Then there are lots of real work projects…all of which need to happen and it’s just a matter of putting them on the list and then knocking them off one at a time.

My point is (ah, one of those, huh?) No matter what your age or station in life, a to-do list is a great stress reducer.

When I find myself worrying about this or that in the middle of the night, I’ve been known to write it down on the LOSTD which then allows me to promptly get back to sleep.

The second point about the list is a little harder to implement…but I find it’s the most important part of To-Do listing:  Do the things you hate – first.

Remember our conversation about laying brick (or concrete block)?  Do the brick laying and then drink a beer.  Do another course of bricks of block and then another reward?

The same principle applies to the LOSTD:  Do the thing you have been delaying – first.

If you don’t start the week off with some kind of agenda, the week will drag on aimlessly.

Of course, it will anyway, but having The List will make it even more apparent.

{Premonitions}  + {Personal Noise Floor}

OK, I thought to myself on Saturday morning, upon reading the early reports on the massive earthquake in Nepal, definitely some Buffalo Springfield stuff going on.

Explanatory note to troubled youth:  Roll the video from 1967 of For What It’s Worth and maybe (just maybe) that remark will make sense.  Or, not….

If you’re late to the party, go back and re-read my January 13th about the big April earthquake.  Or, the piece about it in Friday’s column.

All of which was before the ground started jumping in Nepal.

Reviewing the data on this “quake which I knew was coming at some level” is a very frustrating thing.  Yes there was a big quake in April and west, relative to the US, and big but not a 9.

What went wrong?

Near as I can figure it, people have all kinds of “extra-sensory” abilities, but we don’t do well when comes to being able to pick out the “right signal” from the high background noise.

I’ll give you an example:  Last night (*between lightning strikes and downpours) I had a most peculiar dream about “missing a train” which was in aq Latin country.  The “train, missed” was going back to a safe country (presumably the USA). 

Myself and one other figure were going to be on the train, but we’d somehow become lost in this foreign station and our train – with our friends on it – pulled out before we were able to get aboard.

The next train through was reserved for government officials and their families only.  It was an open air affair and the officers/officials worn black pants, red short jackets and had on caps that looked almost fez like.  Bandoliers, too.  Not the kind of characters to wander through a dream all the time…

A conference with the stationmaster turned into a real ball of yarn because he kept insisting I was George with a last name that was spelled hyphenated something like Alloyicious-Hibernia.

After the second train with the officials came through, my companion and I got on the third train just as it was getting to be mid to late morning.

And now comes the problem:  First, what is the train stuff about and secondly, was there a hint about a train accident in Spain to come?

www.dreammoods.com has a pretty good dream dictionary.  And it says of missed trains:

To dream that you miss a train denotes missed opportunities. It also suggests that you are ill-prepared for a new phase in your life. You may be procrastinating or putting things off that should have already been completed.

Which is interesting because I had recently gotten out of the habit of using my To-Do list regularly and perhaps there was a “stub” of thought that needed completion.

Another possibility is that it’s a mix of a thought-stub and a premonition about trains.  There didn’t seem to be any qualifying news stories on the wire…but I wouldn’t be surprised if we did have some big train story in the next day, or three.

The problem of serious “dream work” is to find ways to reduce your “personal noise floor”.  Effective precognitive or remote viewing work is like trying to tune in to a very week AM radio signal in a big city.  Lots of noise.  You can tune around the signal, a little this side, or that, but it’s still not going to come through perfectly, no matter how you fiddle with the dials.

Still, to get “bgi quake in April” back in January wasn’t a bad hit.  But it’s not that good since we get a major quake like this once a year, or so, on average.  So a 1 in 12 chance of getting April right was baked in the cake.

Longtime reader (and master data-cruncher) Tony R. keeps us posted on his periodic updates on the trends in quakes.  As you can see in this chart (of 7.0 and larger) quakes going back to 1963 that there has been a gradual rise from a period of quiescence that ran (very roughly) from 1977 to 1995.

The reason this is so interesting is that one could take this view of things and hypothecate that Einstein’s E-MC²  is not a “one-way street” at all.  It’s very possible/likely that the output from the Sun (or some other source) condenses in the center of large planets.  This being the case – which we don’t know for sure – builds an interesting model of energy/mass relationships which as the Trinity Test in 1945 conclusively showed, works in the other direction, too.

As if this isn’t enough grist for the mill, here’s a couple of emails from our news analyst fellow up in Winnipeg that are really interesting…

Dear Mr. Ure,

Randi Zuckerberg, an elder sister of the founder of Facebook, delivers some messages in her book, “Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives”, that will surprise you. She hones in on the notion of being connected, but still remaining in the moment.

With a tip of the hat to woo-woo, or the current edges of neuroscience, “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” by Leonard Mlodinow is an enlightening read of how our conscious minds can be manipulated subliminally.

Spoiler alert – the title when the cover is held to a light reads “Psst…  Hey There.

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Manias are funny things.

After a while, when you watch the news flow and look at how markets operate, little bells begin going off now and then, especially when the market is on the verge of breaking to new 52-week highs, as was the case on Thursday.

First the set-up:

We were close to a breakout.  The S&P hit 2,120.49 during the session but closed at a modest 2,012.93 giving up a lot of its “gains” in the final hour of trading.

The Dow was more constrained: With a 52-week high of 18,288.6, the best the Dow could muster was 18,133.03 Thursday. 

And the NASDAQ, which hit a new 52-week high of 5,073.09, gave a chunk back by the close to finish at 5,056.06.

It’s when markets are at potential break-out points, like these, that we sit back and study the news flows carefully.

For example, there was an outflow of some ETF money that crossed at about 11:53 Eastern time and you can see how that (paradoxically?) seemed coincidental to a bump up in the market.  Funds redeployed, or?

And then there was that story from the A.P. about Russia claiming US forces were in eastern Ukraine.  That likely chilled out the final hour of trading. 

This morning, in the early going, things were relatively flat, but I mention this to you because once the market really breaks to the upside, we could run several hundred Dow points in a session, or two.  As we’ve been telling our Peoplenomics™ readers, the Trading `Model, which has been invariably bullish, seems to be doing far better than “gut trading.”

What this does is something else – if you’re planning on the end of the world any time soon in financial terms:  Since we know that historically, most major collapses don’t get organized until 55-days past a top, and since the odds of an upside breakout are very high, the earliest possible date for any kind of “collapsed talk” gets pushed out to 55 days some now, which would put us at June 18th or later.

No guarantees, and this isn’t financial advice.  It’s just that it’s worth noting this morning that barring lobbing of nukes or bunker-busters in the Middle East, no major earthquakes or other natural disasters, and assuming the Iran talks drag out past their next/latest rubbery “deadline” the prospects for a 1929-like market peak in the first week or two of September is starting to appear ever more likely.

For now, we’re content to watch for news flashes and study their timing and message. 

What is clear is that the global quantitative easings continue with China speaking today of further accommodations…and that should allow the global market binge to party on – dragging the US market up to stratospheric levels, along with it.

The hesitation would be that both China and Europe are still in the doldrums and that could mean a “sell in May and go away” event, with a break around June 18th.  Too early to bet on that, however, so just keep the fund switching numbers handy.

The “happy zone” for the 10-year Treasury seems to be about where we are and so regardless of what you may think of the Fed, the rally holding together is actually good news for any sane person who understands the costs attendant to global financial collapse.

If it comes, these are the good old days, so enjoy them to the fullest.

Durable Goods Data

Yum-yum.  Just the thing to go along with the cornflakes:

New Orders
New orders for manufactured durable goods in March
increased $9.3 billion or 4.0 percent to $240.2 billion,
the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase,
up two of the last three months, followed a 1.4 percent
February decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders
decreased 0.2 percent. Excluding defense, new orders
increased 2.6 percent.
Transportation equipment, also up two of the last three
months, drove the increase, $9.5 billion or 13.5 percent
to $80.3 billion.
Shipments
Shipments of manufactured durable goods in March,
up following two consecutive monthly decreases,
increased $2.7 billion or 1.1 percent to $246.7 billion.
This followed a 0.2 percent February decrease.
Transportation equipment, up three of the last four
months, drove the increase, $3.2 billion or 4.3 percent to
$78.0 billion.
Unfilled Orders
Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in
March, up following three consecutive monthly
decreases, increased $0.3 billion or slightly to $1,156.4
billion. This followed a 0.5 percent February decrease.
Transportation equipment, also up following three
consecutive monthly decreases, drove the increase, $2.3
billion or 0.3 percent to $734.5 billion.

Hey!  Wake up!  the clever writing resumed.

Apparently that didn’t have an effect:  The futures were singularly unimpressed with the data.  The Baltic Dry cargo index continues to hover around 2009 levels – 600’ish.

Vatican Attack Foiled

As Italian authorities raided a terrorist cell with designs on attacking the Pope’s place.

Silly Season

Say, here’s a fine problem for critics who don’t like the Clinton Cash book that is making waves.  It will make it tough for the SOWWDS/Hildebeast supporters to target the reporter/writer when his next book – one rumored to be about Jeb – comes out.,

G. Warming Notes

Winter is back with snow as far south as New Mexico.  (Does this mean chemtrails are working?)

Coming to Their Senses?  Ure’s Right Again!

Our long fore4cast merger blowup arrived!  Comcast has called off its big hoopdy with Time Waning.

Tooting Our Horn Alert!  Remember what I told you when this PoS deal was pimped to to very gullible  announced in early 2014?  Lemme refresh Ure memory:  From our Feb 13, 2014 report here:

Buyers and Sellers

Big Story in the Wall St. Journal this morning about how Comcast has agreed to buy Time Warner cable for $45-billion smackeroos.

Despite my high-powered consulting operation, somehow they overlooked calling me – either side.  Which is a damn shame because whether this merger makes sense comes down to one ugly/nasty:  Technology shift.

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If you’ve been around any length of time, you know I am as fascinated with dreams as predictors of future events – as I am with the ability of software to pick up coagulation areas in language and infer something about the future from that.

So let’s rewind to our vivid dream about an April earthquake – which hasn’t happened yet – and see if there there is anything to be learned.

The original “An Odd Earthquake Dream” was posted January 13th back here.

At the time, part of the quake was the description of a 0+ quake, West Coast, and in April.

Well, thankfully, the hot date for April has blown on by.  But not before leaving us a gift to ponder..

The premise of the dream was that there was a series of quakes up in the  Lakeview Oregon area and that when the 5.5 follow-on quake came, it would point to where the epicenter of this massive quake would be.

Well, here’s the interesting part:  On April 23 we had a 5.5 earthquake.  And this, was interpreted in the hours after my odd earthquake dream back in January, this way:

“One (and they are possibly a pairs) are in the 5.3 and 5.6 category and they connect with “Thursday” or “Friday” and after this, people who are involved will be going back to the city (this happens east of San Francisco).”

Well, there it was – April 23 – and a Thursday, so that leads me to draw some lines on the map and they point to the area 200 miles north of San Francisco.

One of the returning news crews will be stopping (on the way back to the city) to have something that’s like an apple fritter or apple scone – as a place somewhere in the area that is famous for those.

There were other oddities about the story too:  Lot’s of dog references, a kind of map of a state or national park area (it was shown as a kind of green glass layer under the area.

Obviously, the news crews and pie doesn’t make sense (now/yet, though perhaps in the future).  The dog reference is still “out there” too.  As to the maps of state parks, the line from the Lakeview area quakes through this one (on the 23rd, on a Thursday) gives us several.

First this is the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park, Humboldt-Redwoods State Park, and the Trinity National Forest all in the area described in the dream (lining up the quake swarm in Oregon with the 5.5).

All of which draws out focus to Cape Mendocino, but honestly do I expect a 9+ quake over the next 7-days in that area?

Statistically, No.  But the dream still haunts, so what was it about?

That’s a tough one to answer because it gets us off into the spiritual/metaphysical realms. 

Anyone who had studied the Electronic Voice Phenomena, would have good reason to believe that there is a possibility of some kind of communications with the “other side of the veil” of what we call life.  Seers know it, and so do we parents who have had “remote knowing” experiences with our children.  Vivid, undeniable knowing when it is possible no other way than through some undocumented communications channel.  And that channel may transcend death.

On the evidentiary side, we also have to look at data starting with Ray Moody’s book “Life After Life” that came out back in 1976, I think it was.

And let’s not overlook religions (as a group) because so many of them are predicated on some kind of afterlife (bardo, etc) and on the idea of reincarnation.  There’s also a “rewards program” that covers the waterfront from passing out virgins to eternal bliss, immortal pleasures and you know that list.

Yet there are a lot of interesting groups that have shown an interest in (to use the electronic voice phenomena as an example) contacting the “other side.”  Here’s a Wikipedia note on groups focused strictly on the EVP approach to what I refer to as “the veil…”

The Association TransCommunication (ATransC), formerly the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP),^[57] and the International Ghost Hunters Society conduct ongoing investigations of EVP and ITC including collecting examples of purported EVP available over the internet.^[58] The Rorschach Audio Project, initiated by sound artist Joe Banks,^{[39][40][59][60]} which presents EVP as a product of radio interference combined with auditory pareidolia and the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Biopsychocybernetics Research, a non-profit organization dedicated to studying anomalous phenomena related to neurophysiological conditions.^[61] According to the AA-EVP it is “the only organized group of researchers we know of specializing in the study of ITC”.^[62]

Parapsychologists and Spiritualists have an ongoing interest in EVP.^[63] Many Spiritualists experiment with a variety of techniques for spirit communication which they believe provide evidence of the continuation of life.^[64] According to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, “An important modern day development in mediumship is spirit communications via an electronic device. This is most commonly known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)”.^[65] An informal survey by the organization’s Department Of Phenomenal Evidence cites that 1/3 of churches conduct sessions in which participants seek to communicate with spirit entities using EVP.^[66]

The James Randi Educational Foundation offers a million dollars for proof that any phenomena, including EVP,^[51] are caused paranormally…

The oddity that jumps out at me as a real IN YOUR FACE lack of focus is that humans as a group/species have not done a very good job – at all – of looking at the death barrier and figuring out how to get more effective communication going between this side and that.

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…for the end of the world. 

Sick and tired of the MSM?  Who isn’t! 

Tired of the crumby playlist you’ve head for the zillionth time on your FM station?

Want some information, so MP3’s aren’t ideal?

The radical prepper’s answer (and we have ours on the air) is to build your own radio station!

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We’ll get to MFMB in a minute – it’s my should-be patented secret to marital bliss.  But let’s start with the BBQ part since that takes less explaining.

This year’s competition started a week or so back, when Elaine’s son Brandon, who lives up in Tacoma, lit off his wood-fire BBQ and sent us the most delicious looking plate of ribs we’d seen either in a picture, or real life for that matter, in years.

So this past weekend we got out the BBQ here and started firing off the summer’s best.

As you can see in the top picture, Elaine likes breasts (don’t go there, we’re talking the damn chicken!) which has been rubbed with a mix of lemon-pepper marinade and K.C. Masterpiece seasoning.  On top of this goes some Jack Daniel’s  BBQ Sauce from the store and yessir, damn fine ‘Q.

My approach, off to the right here, is a little different.  Ure’s taste runs more to Asian so when I’m lazy I mix up a 50-50 of Very Teriyaki (which has enough garlic in it to be Italian/Asia) and mixed about 50-50 or whatever feels right with Kikkoman pre-made Teriyaki sauce.

This is poured over the chicken about six-hours before grilling.  First step is to toast it up on all sides, basting as you go.  A shot of tequila (warmed) will do a nice flaming glaze if you put some sugar and a teaspoon of Everclear in it…depends on if your home owners insurance is current).

After browning up, you set them to one side of the grill and then roast for about 30-40 minutes at 350’ish.  Experience teaches that the thermometer on a BBQ is useful.  So is a timer.

The next big BBQ plan this week is for my Chinese-flavored country style ribs.  Then we will send the Tacoma division of family a couple of pictures so they can have to wash the slobber of their monitors; like we did when the kids rib pictures showed up.

The recipe isn’t terribly difficult.  Try it – it’s to die for.

The sauce/marinade:

About 1 cup of brown sugar.

About 1/2 to 3/4 cup of soy sauce  (adjust to your desired salt/sweet taste)

About 4 tablespoons of mushed up Maraschino cherries with some of the juice to boot.  No, no pits or stems…

A heaping teaspoon, or better, maybe two teaspoons of ground ginger.

A half-dozen ground up garlic cloves

Several solid shakes of Cayenne pepper.  No…make it a bit more…lot’s more, depending on your fortitude and whether you like spicy or mild pork.

The lazy way to do this?  Take all these ingredients, and throw them in the Vitamix.  Hit high a few times (things will warm up, and melt since my chainsaw doesn’t have the power of the Vitamix.  Let it sit overnight so flavors blend.

Next morning toss the trimmed, fat-free ribs into a bowl, toss with about 3/4’s of the mix and wander off for 8-hours.  Work on something else.

When you are famished:  Heat the BBQ, quick brown on a hot flame, basting lightly with some sauce to get a nice glaze going.  Then kill heat on one side, slide the ribs over there, and turn the other burners down to maintain 350-400 degrees and have an adult beverages.

When you run out of things to talk about, or begin to stumble, or the chips and salsa aren’t enough, the ribs should be done.

Remove, cover with foil (keeps insects off them) and haul out the dipping sauce.  Made of…

1/4 cup catsup (or ketchup of however you spell it)

1/4 cup of  freshly ground prepared horseradish.

Long-time readers will remember this as our shrimp cocktail sauce, too.  Yes, dual purpose sauce and it does well with Chinese/Asian foods.  Heavier on the horsey, or not.  Depends how close the fire department is.

A purist would go to Tai Tung in Seattle and have real Chinese food, but it’s a 2,130 mile drive from here…so we make-do at home, instead.

Having grown up in Seattle’s Asian community, I am partial to “blow the roof of your mouth off, freshly made Chinese hot mustard.  The right way to do it is to mix up dry powder, give it 10-minutes to hot-up and then serve in a three-tray with sesame seeds and ketchup with a dash of honey and/or cherry juice it in.  That would be the RIGHT  thing to do.  Plum sauce, too, or Hoisin.  Nice dipping assortment.

Seems absurd in Texas to have to order a whole case of  Dynasty Mustard Powder, 2-Ounce Jars (Pack of 12) for $29-bucks, so I make do with the fresh prepared horseradish (just the horseradish, not bunch of wimpy sauce crap with it).  Anyone who buys premixed Chinese mustard probably likes frozen piazza, too.

All of these BBQ treats taste really good cold, or just barely warmed.  That’s one of the real tests of good BBQ – how is it cold?

Fine, so now I’ve got you thinking of BBQ – so what is MFMB?

Matching Food, Matching Breath.

Mr. Ure’s lone contribution to marital bliss.  Eat the same foods as your partner/spouse/whatever they are nowadays, and since body chemistry should roughly synch up over time, you will have similar breath!

(My other contribution to marital bliss [“whatever you say dear…”] hasn’t be adopted by large enough numbers to be statistically measurable.)

Gee, I don’t know which would more rewarding…being a cook or a marriage counselor, but I’ll go with cooking and whatever is behind Door Number 3.

Hell of a Woo-Woo Story

We were speculatin’ Monday on the possibilities of timelines, time jumps, thinking CERNtain thoughts and such in in popped this amazing report about the Woo being out and about this weekend:

“…oh yes, temporal reality -there-is-a-portal-in-my-bedroom- is alive and well.

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Not sure it’s a word, but….After showing signs Friday that someone in the financial world (besides Ures truly) had brains, the market this morning is set to bounce hard and high while reality sinks in.

And the reality is what?

Well, in case you missed it this weekend, the IMF movers were warning us all that they are going to print more and pump just like we are, so the global printing festival – driving markets higher  – will continue at least a while longer.

What is some of the “sand in the Vaseline?”

To start with, the IMF is scared that Greece will stiff them on payments.  So our favorite financial dom is pre-scolding the petulant Greeks.

Filed under “50-shades of Euro” we can almost hear the Bankster’s telling the Greeks “Vee are go-ink to vip you and you vill like it!”  Uh-huh…sure. Greeks aren’t buying it.  Why should they be screwed so a banker gets a payday?

Since public opinion is easily spun, the next ham sandwich of distraction will be delivered in the form of boats of immigrants who are pouring in from Africa and points east…Sorry to hear about the dead in the capsizing of a ship this weekend, but it’s an ongoing problem because not many people want to live in war zones

Meantime, one of our well-informed readers suggests:

“Turkey and the Saudis will show their power.

This coming week Obama is having a meeting with Middle east leaders to discuss his Iran deal.The Turks and Saudi’s are as worried about Iran getting a nuke as Israel. If they come away from this meeting. Feeling betrayed by Obama. They may well make some preemptive power moves against Syria or Iran themselves.”

And that moves our scan of the World Messuation along to the Middle East. Saudi officials are just waiting and defending against a homeland oil processing or mall attack, because that is the likely blowback from going into Yemen.

The Houthi’s are thumbing their noses, and we await the arrival of the Iranian supply ships for the next outburst of break dancing on the military front.

Oh, and lighten up on your lib/dream bet on an Iran Deal:  The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards isn’t biting on any kind of inspection plan.  Is our imperial what’s his name gonna buy off on blind faith?  Nothing surprises us, anymore.  But congress?  Not frigging likely.

Our sage reader is right:  If the Obama administration doesn’t get their Iran deal, the whole thing could “go Chihuly.”  (If the reference doesn’t make sense, click here and put Ure thinking cap on.  Puddles of glass…OMG, are you like NOT on the bean yet, today?)

(cue some transition music)

Continuing our morning travel/news/log eastward, we find the Chinese have cut key reserve requirements, but as this CNBC report says, it sure looks like a desperation move.

The reason is simple:  In just over a month, the Hang Seng has gone up almost 14%. Go ahead, annualize that…I dare you.   And that would be a classic market bubble.

Globally, the (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) competing banks are all worried about what happens if something blows out the top end like this – and then collapses. 

Or, (going a bit more east) something like Japan re-implodes into another bout of deflation since they are having a real bitch of a time with hitting inflation targets.

There’s an interesting bet here:  The gnomes of Credit Suisse think Japan could fall back into deflation – and there’s good reason to think that.  But, the head of the JA central bank says “Naw…nothing to worry about – we got this…” or words to that effect.  I’ll take the gnomes and 10.

Fun little trip around the world this morning, huh?  All circular references because in a complex but still-closed system, anything blow up here will lead to a ripple or a nuke there.

As my deflationist pal Jas Jain writes (and he has been impeccably right about deflation so far, and sees much more to come…)

What is going to happen this time around is going to be lot different than the Crisis of 2008. I will shut up if the global depression doesn’t begin during 2016-18. China would be a big contributor to the coming crisis and would take the house (the global economy) down.

During the worst depression in centuries, democracies would fall one by one and many countries would disintegrate.

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First things first:  The latest Consumer Prices report is hot off the wire from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index declined 0.1 percent before seasonal adjustment. Increases in the energy and shelter indexes more than offset a decline in the food index and were the main factors in the rise of the seasonally adjusted all items index.

The energy index rose 1.1 percent as advances in the gasoline and fuel oil indexes outweighed declines in the electricity and natural gas indexes. In contrast, the food index declined 0.2 percent, with the food at home index posting its largest decline since April 2009.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2 percent in March, the same increase as in January and February. Along with the shelter index, a broad array of indexes rose in March, including medical care, used cars and trucks, apparel, new vehicles, household furnishings and operations, and recreation.

The index for airline fares, in contrast, declined for the fourth time in the last 5 months. The all items index declined 0.1 percent for the 12 months ending March.

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