George Ure

We begin this morning with a discussion of the just-released consumer price index…“

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was unchanged in November on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 1.2 percent before seasonal adjustment. The energy index declined in November, offsetting increases in other indexes to result in the seasonally adjusted all items index being unchanged.

The indexes for gasoline and for natural gas fell significantly, more than offsetting increases in the electricity and fuel oil indexes. The food index rose slightly in November, with the food at home index unchanged. The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2 percent in November. Increases in the indexes for shelter and airline fares accounted for most of the increase, with the indexes for recreation and for used cars and trucks also rising.

The indexes for apparel, for household furnishings and operations, and for new vehicles all declined in November.

The all items index increased 1.2 percent over the last 12 months, a larger increase than the 1.0 percent rise for the 12 months ending October.

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The mind reels with a report out this morning from CBS that three new studies have concluded that everything else roughly equal, there’s no statistical advantage to taking vitamins.  Holy smokes!

Not that all vitamins are bad, and yes, this means you still need to eat a balanced diet (but who really does?) and you might do better spending your money on fresh fruits and veggies.

This may have an effect on prepping, though, since one of the things we keep rotated in stock are vitamins on the theory that when the old crappola hits the thing going around, that any kind of vitamin deficiency could be very bad.  Given that under such conditions, there may not be good medical care around.

On the other hand, the story might free up some money around here, since (as I’ve reported previously) I have not noticed anything from many of the supplements which I have put through my own personal clinical trials.  That has involved taking a dose of vitamin X for three weeks to a month and seeing if there was any appreciable health effect.

Only three have cut the mustard in a big way with me, so far.  These are black cherry extract which really does seem to improve pending gout attacks.  Coupled with a couple of colchicine pills (criminally over-priced thanks to the Fooled and Drugged Administration) gout has ceased to be an issue.

The second one that works well for me is L-arginine.  It really does improve my “wake up”  in the morning.  Mental fog which I sometimes used to experience for an hour or two has been banished for good.  I’m drinking coffee, although at much lower caffeine levels, and still feeling “sharp.”

The last in the combination of buffered vitamin C and lysine which, with all due respect to the study just out, I will stick with Dr. Linus Pauling on.  Reports on the study didn’t mention whether the multi-gram version of vitamin C and lysine.  The Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University has a short summary of the approach here (which also involves lipoprotein a.

OK, so what does this do for preppers?

Well, for one thing, I guess I can reduce (or end) my personal clinical testing after I get done with the last vitamins/supplements I have.  Although I will continue on Carlson Labs Able Eyes, To Promote Healthy Vision, 180 Softgels ($72, Amazon) since I do notice an improvement in my eyesight under two conditions.  One is the high-dose vitamin C and the other is the eye supplement.  So it stays.

This is not to say everyone could, or should, and no, this is not medical advice, either.  Remember that I have cataracts removed from both eyes in the 1980’s and implants put in both eyes in the 1990s.  I am incredibly care about anything having to do with eyes.  But does a person in otherwise good health need an eye supplement?  I’ll leave that to your and your healthcare professional and I will keep reading all I can on point at www.pubmed.gov.

Gaye’s New Book

“What’s the prepper angle Ure was talking about?”

Since Americans spend something like $28-billion a year on vitamins, the money you save (if you swallow the report out today) is more than enough to build a good food storage program and get serious about prepping, if you haven’t been, already.

Gaye over at www.backdoorsurvival.com has a new book just released called The Prepper’s Guide to Food Storage which is available from Amazon for Kindle.  But don’t let that hold you back if you don’t have a Kindle yet.  Simply go download the free Amazon app over here for whatever your pick of brain amplifiers happens to be.

The book is very useful. 

Right off the bat, she gets into the 26-basic foods to put into your food storage plans.  Toss in a system to rotate your stores and it’s pretty simple to start building a little “depth” to your pantry.

She also goes into specific price comparisons on different things (like bulk foods) at Safeway, Wal-Mart (online), Costco, and Thrive. 

If you’ve got a family, the money saved will probably more than pay for the book in bulk food savings alone.

The de-emphasis of vitamins report is a biggie.  As luck would have it, I just added to our stores of meat/protein sources by ordering several Oberto All Natural Teriyaki Beef Jerky, X-Large, 10 ounce packages at  $12.49 a bag.  That’s not too bad when you look at the price of beef these days.

And last, but not least, as long as we’re on prepping and eats this morning, I need to put in my usual plug for our friends at the Tsue Chong Company up in Seattle.  These folks made the noodles I grew up on and if you visit their website here, you can order 10-five pound boxes of fine-cut Chinese eggs noodles.  We use them in place of locally available wheat noodles and they work great for spaghettis and what-have-you’s.

OK, enough on food.  Getting hungry….  Let me think….ah yes…

The Antenna Questions

.A couple of people asked Gaye “Why did George recommend the Nagoya 771 antenna in his column and you had the 701 in your article?”

Gee, beats me.  Could it be that George is an idiot?  Hmmm…

Turns out this is one of those little details in life that will likely not make too much of a difference.  Putting on my ham radio tutoring hat (which looks similar to the Pope’s mitre (a papal kind of hat explained over here, except my ham radio version has a Fluke 87 display smack in the middle of it…) let me explain.

The specs on the Nagoya 701 are on eHam over here.  Notice gain = 2.15 dB.

The specs on the Nagoya 711 are also on eHam here.  Notice gain: = 2.15 db

They are both dual-band antennas and since the gain is identical, it doesn’t seem to me that it makes any difference.  The ONE PLACE it might make a difference is if you have a different radio that the Baofengs we were talking about.  The 771 has a slightly higher power rating (10-watts).

Gaye, being suspicious of all things electronic, then asked how to test to see if the antenna (701) was working.

Simple.  What I would do is tune in either a repeater which is heavily used (like one down in the Seattle area) or tune in one of the NOAA weather channels which is weak.  This is denoted by fuzziness around the edges of the audio.

Tune it in with the stock antenna (preferably the ham band repeater, since this is where the radio will be used) and then plug in the Nagoya.  You should notice an improvement in performance (better quieting of the FM receive signal).

Might the 711 be a better choice?  Hell, until yesterday afternoon, I didn’t even know there was a choice.  But again, looking at the specs there shouldn’t be a difference.

Still, it may be like so many other hobbies and pursuits, a little thicker layer of money may improve things… I’ll be interested to see what she reports when she gets down that far on her ToDo list…

Darn Magazines

A new issue of “Worth” arrived yesterday for Elaine.  She likes to see how the other half lives, but I already know the answer to that one:  Well.  Very, very well.

But anyway, she asked me if I had any idea what a new Vertu phone was going for?  (no).  But that prompted me to find out how much dough I could piss away on a phone if I was really ‘effing crazy.

The answer, if you want to step up for a Apple iPhone 5 32GB – Black – Rose Gold and Black Diamonds Luxury Mobile Phone, is $12,379.  

I was going to buy Elaine this little gem for Christmas, but since it didn’t seem to have free shipping, so I guess she’ll have to settle for something less.

Which popped out at me big as life in the January 2014 issue of QST – that ham radio time sink on paper that I just about memorize monthly.  Page 38, or so, has an article on how to use a USB dongle as a software-defined radio and set up your own home weather radar center using FAA ADS-B signals available in many parts of the country.

Yep, just like our plane, you can see live weather…now which would you rather have, honestly?  A serious home weather radar or a gold and diamond iPhone.

No, I mean really?

Speaking of Ladies and Prepping

T’other morning a (male) reader wrote about his wife’s getting into prepping and mentioned that she sure bought a lot of various things.  But lookie-here!  The lady defends!

Hello George, this is the wife of the author of the below email. I feel, as a woman, I need to defend my actions in said email. Yes my husband did send me to get feminine products in bulk, which I did come home with….but as a woman, we almost never get just what was on the “list”. My husband goes through about 1 loofa a month so I decided to stock up on those too, for no other reason than to have them on hand for the “now”. This purchase had nothing to do with the prepping actions that we are taking. Unfortunately my husband didn’t ask, and therefore just assumed it was a prep purchase. Also to comment on the amount of loofahs I bought, I purchased 6…..which is hardly a lifetime supply :) I just felt the need to clear that up.

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First off, hats off to CBS News for one hell of a fine discussion about what the NSA does – and does not do relative to American citizens, privacy, and related items, like collection of meta data about phone calls.

You can watch the segment, if you missed it, on the CBS website:

For me, since I wrote a book a while back (Broken Web The Coming Collapse of the Internet ) the key part in the transcript of the report was the disclosure by the NSA of something called “The BIOS Plot”.

The pertinent part of the interview (from the transcript) was this:

“This is the BIOS system which starts most computers. The attack would have been disguised as a request for a software update. If the user agreed, the virus would’ve infected the computer. “

This is exactly the kind of internet nightmare I outlined in my book as a possibility:  A virus that spoofs an update from Redmond or Cupertino and off goes the Internet.  And what of all those counterfeit routers that were discovered a few years back? 

And how many exploits have potential enemies found that even our best and brightest may have inadvertently baked into the cake?  BIOS warfare remains, for now, one of those dark clouds on the horizon.  But it’s out there and my sense is that it’s very important to follow it closely.

The other key part (about 9-minutes in)  is the discussion about the damage done by Edward Snowden.  And, in a refreshing change, the Agency is quite candid about what Snowden did, how he did it, and what it means.  the Snowden “Keys to the kingdom” quote is at 11:18 in.

And now, there’s discussion of whether Edward Snowden should be offered amnesty – in return for bringing back all the lifted documents.  But, as is discussed in the video, there are issues with that.

It’s a rare look at the “sharp point of the spear.”  And while you and I may have (very deep) concerns about the possibility of infringements on America’s traditional liberties, the other side of it is that countries and “non-state” players exist who would end our way of life.

For exposing the “inside” perspective, agree with it or not, 60-Minutes got this one right.

China’s Moon Wander

Speaking of potential adversaries, down the road (if and when we stiff them on massive bond holdings) the second Biggie this morning is China’s adventuring on the Moon.

Not only does Chinese state media have pictures of their moon rover activities up through this link, but they have also have graphics like this one that explain what they’ve done.

While the US has been busy mothballing NASA, we sadly note that the Chinese have announced another follow-on to occur in 2017 when Chang’e-5 will be launched.

In a very pathetic sense, the US is in process of acceding the Moon to another country.  Near as I can figure it, this is just one more reason than virtually no one in Washington deserves reelection.  Time for a little more old-school Americanism:  Lead, follow, or get out of the way. 

Ever see a whole country forfeit its leadership role, like we have?

And, meantime, speaking of China:  This from our news analyst fellow in Canada:

Dear Mr. Ure,

On Friday, “China Daily” outlined stated aims of the 2014 Central Economic Work Conference which included a drive for Chinese self-sufficiency in subsistence grains. One day earlier, the “Associated Press” reported the charging of six Chinese nationals by US prosecutors for allegedly stealing patented seed in Iowa.

The kissy-face on finance and the espionage in the back room – that’s the kind of thing that is being exploited in terms of developing American cognitive dissonance.  Whether that’s “real” or merely an exploit, I’ll leave it to you to discern.

But check out this note on Chinese security improvements:

I wonder if a QKD through free-space realization means China could complete all space functions from domestic territory and forgo currently required ESA landlinks?

All of which is bad…very, very bad for our “independence” – or is that the plan and why cognitive dissonance is being planted?  Again, for you to discern.

More after this…

Robotics & Productivity: Blessing and/or Curse

New figures are out from the Labor Department this morning on Productivity. 

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 3.0 percent annual rate during the third quarter of 2013, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

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A number of readers have asked me “What do you think the four blood moons will bring?  ould you discuss it in your column sometime?”

Huh?  About here, the I-Ching Inbox, that seems to deliver hints and clues about how the Universe operates came through…in spades.

It was an email from my friend Chris Tyreman who’s head of that small Jewish studies group up in Canada which for years now as quietly been working an embedded “error correction” system built into ancient Hebrew.  Upon discovery they have become quite expert at getting to the original meanings of many thinks Biblical.  An example may help.

One of the larger linguistic debates over interpretation deals with the often-cited “Thou shalt not kill” Commandment.  In some versions of the Bible, this is said to be taken literally.  Others, however, tune the Commandment to “Thou shalt not murder.”

This distinction is important, especially if you’re trying to raise an army to go conquering far-off places.  But, when the Chronicle Project’s technology is applied, the meaning comes closer to “Thou shalt not leave a member of your tribe alone in the wilderness…:” or words roughly to that effect.

Since the “wilderness” is a big, bad place (before the days of GPS, beef jerky, trail mix, Sig Sauer small arms and AK long arms) leaving someone in the wilderness might be sort of like killing them, or murdering, or a combination of both.  Plus, as an added bonus, that person’s bloodline dies off when they do, so only the cooperative members of a tribe survive.

That approach to Human Resources is a longer topic for another day, namely how humans can either breed totally at random, or, over generations of cooperative efforts, can reduce the prevailing level of anti-social behavior with a few “rules” that effectively prevent the “worst of the worst” of humans from reproducing. 

Eventually, though, social rules that differentiate fade into the background.  Along comes a modern day movement (like young Christianity)  based on “best practices” of those who came before.  But as their good/right/tuned efforts to move along get bigger, they are – as always seems to happen – taken over and changed-up.  And this is where something like a “corporate Church” begins to reinterpret the “best practices” and monetize it.  It is spun into something new and in the process, some of the “best practices” get all wrangled up and wrapped around the axel.

Which is why Led Zeppelin’s “…buying a stairway to Heaven…” lyric is so powerful, poignant, and historically astute.  Who would have thought? 

So what does this have to do with an email from Chris Tyreman about his irritation about Blood Red Moons and his irritation with end of the world theories?” 

Read for yourself:

Jews and the Blood Red Moons.

Ed has been sending me info on the next upcoming blood red moons in Israel as some Pastors have been touting them as a harbinger of things to come.  So I did an article on it for our upcoming newsletter.  I thought it might be up your alley

Seven back-to-back, blood-red moons have fallen on the first day of Passover and Sukkot, with the eighth time coming in 2014 and 2015

Ed was wondering what my thoughts on them are.

So let’s muddle everything with the facts:

First, you might want to know what a blood moon is, so… Here’s an article from EarthSky that’s on point.

It is the Hunter’s Moon, in skylore, is also sometimes called the Blood Moon. Why? Probably because it’s a characteristic of these autumn full moons that they appear nearly full – and rise soon after sunset – for several evenings in a row. Many people see them when they are low in the sky, shortly after they’ve risen, at which time there’s more atmosphere between you and the moon than when the moon is overhead. When you see the moon low in the sky, the extra air between you and the moon makes the moon look reddish. Voila.

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“George, you know that favorite frying pan of yours, the one you love to do eggs in?  Have you seen it?” Elaine asked at breakfast Wednesday.

Oh-oh.  Not again…

We live in a very modest little manufactured home out at the end of the string (life past cell phone coverage) and there are only the 2 1/2 of us who would know anything about this frying pan:.  Elaine, me, and my retired brother-in-law.  But his quarters are off in another building with its own cooking capabilities, bathroom, and so on.  Sure, he comes over for breakfast most mornings, but except for boiling water and making oatmeal, or toast, or whatever, it’s just me and Elaine in the kitchen.  He doesn’t borrow dishes.

And we do have a few more pans, I suppose, than some people.  But we both get a tremendous amount of enjoyment from cooking, and I like to keep the “chef-wrist” tuned up, but doing perfect flips of two eggs over easy.  Great for hash browns, too.  To do this, you need a particular kind of pan.  One with very gently sloping sides to it. It went missing – on its own.

So there we were…wondering if the local ghosts (“the visitors”) had made off with another one of our goodies.

So we took the kitchen apart, including the oven, in which our cast iron gear lives so we don’t have to worry about mixing it with the Cuisinart hard-alloy, which would likely be ruined by just being around the cast iron.

Anyway, we both looked for about 15-minutes.  Then passed it off as simply gone.

And hour later Elaine exclaimed “Found it!”

Turned out that it was under the pizza pan, also in the oven.  We also season and dry it there, yada yah.

The problem is that it was there earlier…at least I didn’t see it when I looked, as the pizza pan was right on the rack…not above it as it was when Elaine showed me.

All of which was pretty damn interesting…It points out how Wujo-like events can often be solved:  You are simply tricked by perception and expectation.

Or, did it just return from the “wherever” and decide to pop up under a pizza pan where neither of us would put it, at least while in our right minds.  Deep rabbit hole there.

Still, the experience underscored for me that when people experience Wujo, they may simply be experiencing absolutely “normal” things going on that live below the perception threshold.

And then there are stories like this one from reader Georgann:

Hi there George,

A few weekends ago both my husband and I had something weird happen. I woke up in the early wee hours, with extreme time disorientation. I thought it might be weekday. And in my mind I was trying to find something to reorient myself, then I remember that I hadn’t met a friend for coffee yet, which was scheduled for Sunday morning.

Later that morning my husband wakes me up thinking it Monday and I needed to get up for work. He was surprised that it wasn’t. And you know, the whole day was off about 3 hours for both of us. It was very unsettling.

Would this fit as a WuJo?

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“Dot connecting class is now in session.  We have a whole string of dots, but do follow along and you can connect them as we go…”

In an article back on Monday, November 25th, I had a crazy dream described in “Winds of Noumenon” that related to Harriers on carriers, sitting on the deck.  I thought it was a goofy, although potentially revealing dream at the time about what’s ahead. 

Two days later the news stories begins to increase around the word Harrier.  As in “Harrier by Jonathan Glancey, review” and lots of others.

Heck, the word pops up all over the place.  Shows up as a video game (Space Harrier for Nintendo 3DS) and it’s the name of an oil exploration ship the Sea Harrier which is on the move.

But while things like this slowly come up in the language surveys from our www.nostracodeus.com project, we also can’t seem to put down the idea that maybe there’s a war out there on its way.  Mid to late 2014.

OK: Where?   As of this morning we have two leading candidates.

Our first nominee for Harriers to be used (thus fill some more headlines) would be in the Central African Republic which (since trumped-up Syria didn’t work out so well) is coming in as the stealth replacement war to keep the West solvent based on war spending.

Two French soldiers, for example, has been killed in fighting there, as detailed in this BBC report.  And, since your tax dollars have made it possible for us to wage war everywhere, the US has ordered support for the efforts to disarm people in the Central African Republic, (CAR)  as well. 

As soon as that was done, US SecDef Chuck Hagel put out the world to start moving war materiel to the region.

OK…why?  Well, a check of the CIA World Factbook tells us (among other things and to borrow from their work (paid for with tax money, so WTF)…

Timber and diamonds account for most export earnings, followed by cotton. Important constraints to economic development include the CAR’s landlocked position, a poor transportation system, a largely unskilled work force, and a legacy of misdirected macroeconomic policies. Factional fighting between the government and its opponents remains a drag on economic revitalization. Since 2009 the IMF has worked closely with the government to institute reforms that have resulted in some improvement in budget transparency, but other problems remain. The government’s additional spending in the run-up to the election in 2011 worsened CAR’s fiscal situation. Distribution of income is extraordinarily unequal. Grants from France and the international community can only partially meet humanitarian needs. In 2012 the World Bank approved $125 million in funding for transport infrastructure and regional trade, focused on the route between CAR’s capital and the port of Douala in Cameroon. After a two year lag in donor support, the IMF’s first review of CAR’s extended credit facility for 2012-15 praised improvements in revenue collection but warned of weak management of spending.

We could also toss in that China is looking to expand its influence and ties with Africa and (look surprised here) this is likely a new front in my (hypothesized but real-looking nevertheless) Manufacturer’s Resource Wars with even more at stake than Afghanistan.  Cheap labor and resources plus diamonds.

Oh, and you did catch the involvement of the IMF which – if you’re read John Perkin’s The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World, ought to have caught your eye.  Wars for banks and industries, eh?

Well, seems to me that Harriers would be well-suited to a country which may not have a lot of long airstrips.  So maybe this is where things point?

The other war-in-the-making is the one between Japan (or what’s left of it post Fukushima) and China.  This one, says our resident war gamer, could be a dandy:

“George,

The headline sure is an attention grabber! “China-Japan Could Lead To WW III.

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I’m just fond as hell of the phrase “Everything’s a Business Model.”  But now, I may be forced to a revision of that outlook due to a conversation I had with a buddy of mine (Howard) last night which has really given me “cause to pause” for a bit and rethink the whole EBM concept.

I don’t think Howard would mind me sharing this.  He called and we got to talking about this, that, and some of the very high-end hi-fi gear he’s selling on eBay. 

Turns out, one eBay lately, there’s a new kind of exploit which has been developed by unethical buyers.  They buy something, take delivery, and then swap out a bunch of parts.  In electronics it might be tubes, highly prized original knobs, and things like that. 

Then, they turn around and exploit the seller by demanding a return – and they send a stripped out piece of junk back!

Doesn’t happen on every sale, of course.  But it has led to sellers ((including my son, who sells things once in a while) putting in long, involved disclaimers about “no returns” and “buyer agrees to no return under any condition” and that kind of thing.

You see the point?  Yes, I’m sure eBay has had issues with unethical sellers, but now they also seem to have occasional unethical buyers.  And might that, I wonder, over time imperil the eBay business model?  Hmmm…

And  we got on to talking about the book he’s writing and how economics of ebooks push out.  He’s been writing a cookbook (it’s really good since he is nothing short of a phenomenal cook) and he was thinking about releasing it as an Amazon ebook.

One thing led to another and I explained how ebooks, while fun, and not a major source of income like they once could be.  The reason?  Everyone and his mother/brother/son who has delusions of becoming a famous writer is cranking out ebooks on Amazon, hand over fist.

Some of the ebooks there, self-published and in the 99-cents to $3-dollar price range are really good.  But, the other side of it is that there’s a lot of trash and slop out there as well.  Collections of crap copy-pasted from Wikipedia and then sold.  That takes either some gumption but more fitting is the word exploit.  

You might remember that I’ve written a couple of ebooks myself, such as “How to Live on $10,000 a Year, Or Less…”  When that ebook first came out, before Amazon self-publishing came along it was sold directly on the internet as a .pdf delivered by email, it was $9.95 and it sold maybe 1,500 copies over a 5-year period.

That was then.  Along came the digital thieves and the book value has gone pretty near to zero now, although I think it’s still full of good information.

But it has been something of a turkey on Amazon, due to the huge increase in the number of ebooks for Kindle.

Then there’s a rise of writing “schools” which are now teaching people how to crank out 99-cent to $3.99 ebooks all day long, and flood the market with a huge number of titles instead of flooding the market with highest quality.  The theory is that if you write enough you will get some sales.

In other words, Amazon has been part of the very “commoditization of writing” that mirros what has gone wrong in many other parts of life.  Everything’s a commodity, now.

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