Before we get into the yawn-to-the-Fed meeting work-a-day stuff, there is a very interesting tale to behold in the now 7.5 earthquake over in Afghanistan this morning.
A few of the details:
The October 26, 2015 M 7.5 earthquake near the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan (SW of Jarm) occurred as the result of reverse faulting at intermediate depths, approximately 210 km below the Hindu Kush Range in northeastern Afghanistan. Focal mechanisms indicate rupture occurred on either a near-vertical reverse fault or a shallowly dipping thrust fault. At the latitude of the earthquake, the India subcontinent moves northward and collides with Eurasia at a velocity of about 37 mm/yr.
Active faults and their resultant earthquakes in northern Pakistan and adjacent parts of India and Afghanistan are the direct result of the convergence between the India and Eurasia plates. This collision is causes uplift that produces the highest mountain peaks in the world including the Himalayan, the Karakoram, the Pamir and the Hindu Kush ranges.
All of which is sad, as it likely killed a bunch of people – some reports put the body count at 43, but since the homes in the area are not quake-resistant, a number over 300 dead may be anticipated as data leaks out.
Here, however, we have an interesting thing to report on the “predictive news” front. For one, I received a longish email from Patrick Geryl who, as you may remember, has been working on astronomical alignments as a quake predictive tool:
Hi George,
I refined my theory…
On October 26 there are a multiple of alignments with the Moon – Earth axis! They all give a big boost to 8 Triples! This is probably the largest I have ever seen. However, the Geocentric alignments with the Sun are not so strong, thus it is unknown how strong the quake will be…
October 26, 2015: Around 10:30 – 11:30 UTC
October 26, 2015: Conjunction Uranus – Moon – Earth HIGH: 10:57:26
October 26, 2015: Opposition Mercury – Moon – Earth HIGH: 12:24:52
October 26, 2015: Opposition Juno – Moon – Earth
October 26, 2015: Binovile Ceres – Moon – Earth
October 26, 2015: Sesquiquadrate Chiron – Moon – Earth
October 26, 2015: Novile Neptune – Moon – Earth
October 26, 2015: Inconjunct Jupiter – Moon – Earth
October 26, 2015: Inconjunct Venus – Moon – Earth
October 26, 2015: Inconjunct Mars – Moon – Earth
October 26, 2015: Sesquiquadrate Saturn – Moon – Earth
Semisquare Jupiter – Sun
Semisquare Venus – Sun
Semisquare Mars – Sun
Quintile Pluto – Sun
Semisextile Saturn – Sun
Heliocentric Square Saturn – Jupiter
Heliocentric Square Saturn – Mercury
They activate these Triples:
October 20 (06:30) – 26 (11:30), 2015: Triple Line Up Mars – Earth – Chiron
October 23(15:00) – 27 (23:30), 2015: Triple Line Up Jupiter – Venus – Earth
October 24 (17:30) – 27 (04:00), 2015: Triple Line Up Mercury – Earth – Uranus
October 24 (21:30) – November 15 (11:00), 2015: Triple Line Up Jupiter – Earth – Chiron
October 25 (15:30) – 29 (12:30), 2015: Triple Line Up Venus – Earth – Chiron
October 25 (19:30) – 28 (16:30), 2015: Triple Line Up Mercury – Mars – Ceres
October 22 (07:30) – November 15 (15:30), 2015: Triple Line Up Jupiter – Venus – Chiron
October 15 (17:00) – 31 (06:00) , 2015: Triple Line Up Jupiter – Mercury – Neptune
I will keep you posted on further updates from Patrick, but this arrived on Saturday night/Sunday morning early…
Now here’s the other thing. As you know, we have our www.nostracodeus.com project going. This is where we slice and dice words in news and other sources on the internet. On October 22, the posting over here offered this:
Large Earthquake May Occur
Posted on October 22, 2015 by G
2.4 quake in the San Francisco bay area today – These small quakes occur in that area all the time, but with the prediction Nostracodeus and a reader gave us coupled with the Bay area quake history, I thought it might need to be mentioned.
Welcome to Nostracodeus and thanks for stopping by.
You may use any of our information, but please be kind enough to post a link back to www.nostracodeus.com.
Your Email is welcome: nostracodeus@gmail.com or post a comment
Recommended web sites: www.urbansurvival.com , www.peoplenomics.com , www.nationaldreamcenter.com , www.theageofdesolation.com
Comments are posted as anonymous:
A reader who tracks quakes and Nostracodeus suggest a large earthquake may occur on or about October 29th.
I was perhaps remiss for not posting this all when Patrick’s prediction came in, but it was the weekend, blah, blah, blah….
The key thing to observe is that TWO APPROACHES to earthquake prediction were “hot” in this period and – sure enough – a quake shows up of sufficient size to call it a “hit.”
This is also HUGE from an understand of the future standpoint. We know that small, individual events, don’t rise to the top of global mass consciousness. But there seems to be something about earthquakes that makes them a particularly good target for zooming in future predicting technology.
The problem, as always, however has to do with specificity. It doesn’t do too much good to pull out something like “earthquake”. So the challenge for both approaches now will be to add some geo-location techniques to the mix in order to improve accuracy.
In the meantime, there’s much to be found in pondering why quakes are so prominent in thinking and leak so much. Perhaps because at some primordial level, we are still crawling out of the mud on a volcanic cinder…prehensile brains might work that way. Might tie in to lunacy as well…
Financial Quake? Not Yet…
The Federal Reserve is meeting this week. Since the markets ran up to recent highs last week, we will be watching closely later in the week to see what the market reaction is to the Fed decision due out Wednesday afternoon.
This does have a wee bit of the “buy the rumor, sell the news” whiff to it.
The UAW and GM came to tentative terms this weekend, so strike talk is off for now.
Durable goods and the Case-Shiller Housing report tomorrow. Fed decision Wednesday, GDP Thursday and the National Savings Joke on Friday we snidely refer to the Personal Income and Outlays data.
Meanwhile, the futures – like the punchlines around here – are nearly flat.
Processed Meats Cause Cancer
That’s the assertion of a new study published in Lancet summarized this way:
In October, 2015, 22 scientists from ten countries met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, to evaluate the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat. These assessments will be published in volume 114 of the IARC Monographs.1
Long and short of it is bacon, ham, hotdogs and all those other carnivore treats are associated with higher cancer risks. Red meat (plain) is something they’re still working on but suspicious of.,
Might want to adjust portions down or do without…
Whale Watching Tragedy
Five dead from a whale watching tour boat capsizing.
School Data? Who Needs It?
We do.
We can’t help but notice the Obama administration is planning to reduce the number of standardized tests that students take.
Maybe a test a month is a bit much – how about 3 a year, or so?
I’ve long held that teacher’s should be paid based on their average incoming test scores and scores at the end of a term. Bonus the teachers xxx percent based on size of delta. It would be some work to sell the teacher unions on this, and how to keep teachers from encouraging poor students to drop out…but incentives work and no reason we can move more in that direction.
It would bring excellence more into vogue in the classroom. There ought to be a limit on administrative overhead, too…but that’s a long discussion for a non-Monday.
Education, II: Peoplenomics Addendum
A colleague of mine pointed out that in Peoplenomics this weekend, I mentioned Bernie Sanders plan for :”free college” didn’t have a means to pay for it.
Colleague says no, not true. Sanders is proposing a small (read: fraction of a penny) transaction tax on stock trades. Found the info on the Sanders’ website.
This, pointed out the colleague, would be a “two-fer” – first it really would pay for free college and secondly, it would drive a long overdue spike through legalized front-running of stock trades if they are fast enough, also known as high-frequency trading.
I like it. But then I don’t buy politicians and I don’t like some suited-jerks front-running my honest trades and adding to my cost basis. If there was a small transaction tax – fraction of penny and all college was paid for, I’d go back and finish my Ph.D. in business…
Internet At Risk?
Note from warhammer:
Good Morning, George,
I hope you and Ures weathered Patricia suitably well. By all appearances, parts of E. Texas received feets of rain. I hope your ranch is still high and suitably dry.
A scan of the news rags reveals some heightened level of concern for the integrity of undersea communications cables, particularly from potential hostile action.
George, every major nation engages in surveillance and strike planning activities that would undermine a potential adversary’s national power. The targets of such activity are, generally speaking, political, economic and military. Specifically of interest to John and Jane Q. Citizen are critical national infrastructures such as power, energy (gas/oil), water, rail, road, agriculture, internet and ‘brick & mortar’ commerce. Any nation worth its salt has ‘off the shelf’ options, preplanned to degrade any potential adversaries ability to function normally. Attacking such things increases public anxiety and degrades a nation’s ability to respond, increasing what is otherwise known as ‘the fog of war.’
I’ll let Ure imagination run a bit with potential scenarios. America and her NATO allies have quite literally imaged and mapped every square mile of Earth’s ocean floors. One can get ‘hints’ of what the military has done by working over the ocean floors for any global location on Google Earth. Often one will see grid patterns on the ocean floor. These are not remnants of Atlantis, but do show the precise search grid used by agencies, commercial or otherwise, who are mapping the ocean floor.
Turning a famous quote on its head, as below, so above. One can go online and view ephemeris data for well over 95% of every object launched into Earth orbit. You can be sure military agencies are quite a bit more exhaustive in the cataloging of objects which occupy from low Earth orbit (LEO) to geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO). It’s just what powerful nation-states do.
Putin is announcing to the world that, like it or not, Russia is stepping back into the superpower club. He is directing his military assets to do all the things necessary to maintain parity with America or any other country’s military. Putin is what is known as a realist. He understands that to further his national agenda, he must operate from a position of perceived strength. Many view this as Russia returning to a Cold War posture. The ‘Bear’ has not quite climbed that tree yet. But Russia may only have to go half way up that tree, since the American Eagle appears to be nesting on the power tree’s lower branches these days.
Years ago I was fortunate to have interviewed U.S. Arms Control Ambassador Paul Nitze. It was just after the fall of the wall. He cautioned against thinking Russia was going to be a minor power to the West, reminding me that ‘the Bear’ had the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. The Russian economy might falter, but as long as they had nukes, they held considerable geopolitical power. And so it is.
Why else do you think Iran is working so hard to develop nuclear weapons?
Good luck with the water situation.
Yeah – right. Only 7 inches at the ranch, though over 20” up the road. Lots of Texans are fondly remember the drought of a few years back…
Suspicious Observers raised its earthquake forecast on Saturday because of the development of solar coronal holes (as well as celestial alignments).
http://www.QuakeWatch.net is a free site that lists current earthquake factors and their relative importance. It is managed by Ben Davidson of http://www.Suspicious0bservers.org [Note the “O” in observers is actually a zero.]
if that 11 yr mag reversal cycle means anything IT WAS 11 YRS ago that Boxer Day Tsunami happened…p.s. another theory was many small quakes, then nothing, then a big one (San Ramon, CA near where I live has had unprecedented? small ones for weeks!)
Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Suspicious0bservers
Explaining quake watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_W2KKvQHbo
Was about to add that, Ben’s latest work is really good and combined with Nostracodeus and Geryl’s would be a fascinating set of measurable metrics!
glad someone mentioned SUspicious Observers – that community gives honest, well cited information on the sujects of the sun and its relations to earthquake, volcano, and tropical storm activity.
Hey George, regarding this comment on teachers and testing:
“I’ve long held that teacher’s should be paid based on their average incoming test scores and scores at the end of a term. Bonus the teachers xxx percent based on size of delta. It would be some work to sell the teacher unions on this, and how to keep teachers from encouraging poor students to drop out…but incentives work and no reason we can move more in that direction.”
We had something like that up for vote in Missouri recently. It was voted down pretty heftily, me casting a nay as well. Tell you what, I’ll get on board with this type of philosophy once the single most important factor in K-12 education is taken into the equation – the parents. The parents set the stage for learning. If a kid doesn’t improve over the course of a year, fine, dock the teacher, but also hit the parents. Tax them extra for raising someone who can’t participate as an educated member of society and publish their names in the paper.
Now, I don’t support such an idea, but this whole notion that the teacher is the sole driver of a kids education is one of those easy, false assumptions that lead to intrusive and self-defeating laws because some state politician wants a few cool soundbites.
Just my two cents.
I have to add to this: As a senior learning a new Asian language, I’m challenged beyond belief. I’ve had excellent teachers, but it still takes a personal effort to find the most effective way of learning. Teaching “HOW TO LEARN” as an ongoing course would make sense. Unfortunately, too little effort has been made in this field, though home schoolers tend to figure this out on their own.
Re: Bernie’s free tuition plan. This may or may not be a worthwhile idea but for once, I’d like to hear a plan for a new program included with a plan for paying for it by eliminating an old, worthless program. Let’s not use tax increases to pay for new programs.
wrt the Lancet study: I wonder how many of the paper’s authors are vegans. …as well as who paid for the study.
In any case, I’ve lived long enough to learn that any study published today will be ‘disavowed’ a few years down the road.
also see: ‘Fraud in science’, ‘scientific misconduct’, et al.
iow, they can leave my bacon the hell alone.
George
I have to be honest, I have been cowardly pursuing your column almost from the week after I gave you the Adios so many weeks ago.
Your columns grab me by my brain and gut with the same effect a sensei might have, when at the exact moment of passing knowledge to his Student, give said Student.. The bitter facts of Truth, Beliefs, and Complete Freedom of choosing either!!
You grabbed me hard this morning with your description of how we are each riding ‘The Horse’ of our Rodeo! Mine is getting pretty bruised up and lame, but he/she has carried me through the mountains, valleys, and deserts that you describe as our memories.
Thanks George, your dedication to putting finger to keyboard in the UnGodly early hours of East Texas, is well appreciated by this Cowboy!
Al
From ‘Podunk Iowa’
Sent from my iPhone
School testing means teaching the test and these days schools are big business with a healthy chunk of the borrowed Federal funds & taxes taken from the 99%.
Way back in time like 1914 things were different, kids went to school to be educated not to pass tests that determined where the cash was going.
http://www.amazon.com/California-Sixth-Grade-Reader-Pournelle-ebook/dp/B00LZ7PB7E
This is what 6th graders were reading back then & I’ll wager the cost/student was a lot less than today. I will also wager that education was not an industry then either.
Warhammer said, :Any nation worth its salt has ‘off the shelf’ options, preplanned to degrade any potential adversaries ability to function normally.” How difficult would it be for “the Russian spy ship Yantar, equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible craft” to drop off a prepared package that could sit next to a submerged cable that would await a precoded message to arrive when it would explode and atomize the adjacent cable, even at a depth of several miles? And, don’t you think the US has similar contingencies in place? And I think it is probable that similar plans are in place for handling satellites performing the same functions.
Interesting about the earthquakes..
I had forgotten about this one small event from a couple of years ago until I was scanning the newspapers and a Chinese news paper had brought up in todays news the severity and spread of radiation and how it has affected marine and land life.
http://enenews.com/former-govt-official-elephant-room-fukushima-radiation-when-comes-pacific-ocean-die-offs-govt-totally-failed-inform-public-about-full-extent-fallout-mentions-coverage-enenews
Don’t mess with my Bologna is all I can say about those healthy people wanting to do away with it.. LOL
to advance the education of our citizens will only expand the marketability of our youth.. right now our kids are being undersold by our own leaders.
“The first thing he didn’t define is who is gong to pay for all this free education. Sure, we have mountains and mounds of student loan debt – true that – but who will take on the additional debt burden to pay for “free school?”
for one.. I think an open education is important and bernie is right no on that.. our industrial market is slowly closing outsourcing jobs and industries because we as a nation can’t compete academically and the reduced cost of labor offered there leaving us at the mercy of the third world countries as our primary source of products. we just cannot compete..
this is a quote from the Huffington Post..
“While the average U.S. scores look respectable, the result masks a deficit in U.S. performance. Students in even the highest-scoring states don’t match the top-performing countries.
“The bad news it that students in even our highest-performing states — Massachusetts and Vermont — cannot compete in math with students from the highest performing education systems, such as Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan,”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/international-tests_n_4152094.html
In my opinion the cost of an overall free college education doesn’t matter. and where we get the money doesn’t really make any difference. with our country already so far behind the so called third world countries we cannot help but bring academics of our people back to the forefront of the world. if we can spend two billion a day in overseas Military Operations not even considering the cost of rebuilding their countries and infrastructures afterwards being placed on the backs of the average wage earners of our great while we as a nation are Neglecting our own nations needs.
We as a civilization should be able to invest in our children so that we as a nation can compete in a global market that has outpaced our county in every way.
Anyway.. I think it should be done at whatever cost it takes.
thanks again for a great article..
processed meats cause cancer because of an ingredient preservative that theybe id’d a long time ago but now seem to have been forgotten. it called: SODIUM NITRITE-
this creates NITRIC ACID in the stomach HNO3, which as any chemist knows, is so strong in fact it is the only acid that can dissolve gold. and in yuor stomach it requires an enormous amount of alkaline to neutralize it, via acid/base reaction. where does the body have stored of alkaline substance: CALCIUM = BONES. it will eventually reach yuor bones (cancer) where in becmes neutralized by the alkalinity of bones/calcium. bottom line is anything with sodium nitrite in it will cause cancer in time via the aforementioned reactions.
btw, dont expect to wiki this info or md.com or any other conventional sites as they will not admit this fact.
HCl + NaNO3 = HNO3 hydrochloric acid in stomach + sodium nitrite yields nitric acid
meant to add this to my previous comment but inadvertanly hit the post button
I get a kick out of this horses_it: meat is bad for you because most folks can’t afford it – so if it’s bad know one wants it and it clears the road for GMO intake. Also this nonsense about everyone is seeking “small” in housing – isn’t it just the coolest trend – again because no one can afford a real house. No child left behind – never funded – left them all behind – common core – we want you all stupid – there it’s all fixed – higher education for what? If you make em too smart they’ll actually figure out they have been screwed – remember – it’s for the children……
We have FREE primary and secondary now. It is interesting how this education in the years since the 1960’s has failed our children. We pay ever greater sums to these two groups for education. Then, we dumb down the classes, fill the textbooks with nonsense, and fill curriculums with “PC” subject matter. Where are the Vocational Education classes of the past??
What do you believe we will get with free college education. It will be more “Liberal Arts” degrees which will be worthless. You want to compete against those countries of the Far East mentioned above; you need the curriculums found there and beginning at the primary level.
In those countries families demand excellence from their children. Testing in those countries determines who advances and gets the slots in higher education. Finally our students will continue to take 2nd place for “STEM” jobs as our national government authorizes ever more H1B visa. FREE college will serve our country well, Don’t make me laugh.
{mm}
Wondering if you might want to comment about your new Texas neighbors http://www.wbaltv.com/money/chinese-company-to-buy-texas-oil-fields-in-13-billion-deal/36046552
Seems odd the deals would go through when we just dispatched a destroyer to the South China Sea to test borders.
Psst as a nation we are broke We have so many plans in effect that nobody knows what is really happening except we are in a financial disaster area. We are living the rise and fall of the American empire we even have American troops in 70 countries for no god given reason as the Roman Legions soon learned, it is financially impossible to maintain while maintaining the nations problems at home
Processed meat causes cancer. Is it any wonder how hard various corporations (and their guys in the USDA) try to keep this info from spreading? Everything that is treated and processed with chemicals should be steered clear of if you want a shot at having half a brain and healthy body for a normal lifespan.
If the agri-corps had to pick up the tab for the cancer their practices cause they would quit using the poisons quick enough. But they have the system rigged (which George explains so very well) so don’t expect that to ever happen. We the taxpayers will pay for cancer treatments for one out of every two people? This is normal? Let me guess. The agri-corp execs are invested in…health care! Right. Of course. Another double dip.
What you put in your mouth is the only thing you can really control about your life. Don’t believe anything the government or industry tells you is safe. If you don’t defend yourself no one else will. Count on it.
End of rant.
…rememberthe “harmonica virgins” event that never happened many years ago??…ha! (pronounce like Chris Matthews)… yes sirreee, if the baloney in the fridge don’t get you, the baloney spewed by people like Pat Geryl will: both may get yer heart to attack you. Let’s just all agree that times are veery skeery, and live in the NOW moment because that is all we have ever had or ever will. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you may die.