George Ure

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/George-Ure/e/B0098M3VY8%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share UrbanSurvival Bio: https://urbansurvival.com/about-george-ure/

Coping: Monday at the (near) WuJo

A couple of interesting case reports to ponder as we look at how the oddities in Life roll past us.  Although, whether these are mere statistical improbabilities or outright WuJo events is something I’ll leave to your discernment:

George – longtime lurker – thx for the continuing insights and thought-provoking conversations.  I must comment on the found toys mentioned in your Friday column.

A couple of decades ago, Life dumped me out in the middle of the Mohave Desert.  I was in fact entering a time of my life I semi-jokingly refer to as my “convent years” but the Universe was setting me up for quantum spiritual expansion.  Some of my only friends out there were a pair of Ravens, and we began one of the most fascinating relationships I’d ever experienced.  I have stories about them that could fill volumes, but the reason I am writing is to tell you what happened when my precious 33 year old horse finally had to be put down.  I had him buried on my property and errected a simple monument to the great old soul that he was.  In working through my grief, I talked to my two Ravens about “Big Red the Wonder Horse”. 

The next time I walked out to the grave of Big Red, two objects were sitting on the fresh earth.  Two little well-worn toys.  One was a carousel horse with a little teddy-bear astride his back.  The other was a small matchbox-type semi-tractor….bright red. This was a remote area, no chance of children or anyone else coming to my property.   I have always believed these items were placed on Big Red’s grave by my Raven friends.  It gave me great comfort, and still does.

God Bless,

GoldilocksArizona

To my way of thinking is the a likely Wujo event…. next? 

This isn’t Wujo, but it’s near and nice to read about pleasant experiences now and then…

Hi, George,
I had a good experience today.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that I had lost my silver ring.  It meant something to me as I had purchased it at a gift shop at the Grand Canyon last October while I was on a 3100 mile round trip motorcycle trip with my husband.  Yes, I rode my own motorcycle all that way, so the ring was a reminder of that incredible experience, so I noticed the angst from losing it, but didn’t really know where to start looking as it had fallen off my finger and that was that.  I did not expect to ever find it again.
My husband and I have honored our Father, we have taken care of my dear Dad now for over 8 years and with working and commuting, some of our own chores get behind.  Today, I had a chance to get some housework done.  I had let laundry pile up on my guest room bed so today I was folding it all to put it all away.
As I was folding and organizing, there at the bottom of the pile was my ring!  Wow!  That was a big NICE surprise.  I was kinda shocked.  I thanked God and kept folding.
Then, as I was sorting some papers from my car that had also landed on the bed, a white bank envelope revealed itself….and there was $41.00 in it!
Wow!  A second grateful thank God came out of my mouth and I was so excited to share these 2 finds with my husband.
I don’t know if it is wujo, but I think it is an excellent sign of a reminder to me, that as small as my concerns are, I have not been forgotten!
Sincerely,
Giselle (Austin)

Computer!  Send a note to Giselle and Hubby that they should consider their next ride was the Iron Butt Association ride.  The Big Tex Rally comes up on the 18th and 19th but registration for that is already closed…but maybe next time…I assume you know about the national motorcycle events calendar over here?

I’ll Stick with Data

Madison Avenue Mike has passed along a real gem here – an online test by the NY Times that let’s you see how well you can sense people’s emotions by “reading their eyes…”

Naturally, I took the test, imagining as I did, what the rest of the person’s face would look like to go with the eyes and then guessing from there…

I scored a (lousy) 18 out of 38 which means I ought to have a hard time understanding a person’s mental state via facing clues.  But that’s OK, since I tend to make up for it by having fairly acute hearing/auditory skills and understand externalities that drive people.

Given a glance into someone’s eyes, I’ll take their bank balance, age, and other data, rather than just let the “eyes have it” thanks.

Around the Ranch: 

Dealing With “Design” Matters

Elaine and I had a most interesting discussion on Sunday and it’s symptomatic of something which has been bothering me for a long time – namely the role of design versus the role of function when it comes to building things.

The conversation started when I remarked about the wood order that I’d be picking up, this week or next, to frame in, finish roofing, then wire, insulate, sheetrock, and finish the deck at the north end of our old mobile home (modular, if you insist) out here in the woods of East Texas.

I figured I’d need about 47 eight food two-by-fours and 10-sheets of roofing metal to make it weather-tight and some windows (which I’ve been scanning Craigslist for, but we may have to resort to Lowes on).

Somewhere along the way – about the discussion of the metal roofing – Elaine postulated that there may be some reason for modern roofing to be flat with ridges every 6-10 inches, instead of the old corrugated roofing which was simply a bend or roll every 3 inches, or so.

Carrying the thought further, she began wondering if the design change had something to do with how water is controlled coming off the roof and she mused a bit about how there must be some design aspect to the roofing metal that was non-apparent.

“Marketing, is what it is all about, dear…” I explained.   I then extolled my viewpoint for a few minutes about how by having a particular design with ribs in the metal x inches and flat valleys, a big retailer like Lowes  would have a reason to stick with one brand of roofing metal over time…so that people like me who buy part of a project, and then come along later to finish it off, will still have access to the same material.

“Another factor is likely building codes,” I proffered.   “By having the ridges in the metal every x inches, the metal would tell any idiot-level installer (I noticed the kitchen mirror) how to space out fasteners to meet building codes.”

Another idea I tossed out was that in the old days, corrugated was made one way, and flat & valley was rolled another…as machinery and dies to roll metal have advanced from the invention of “corrugated galvanized iron” which goes back nearly 200 years according to Wikipedia:

“Corrugated galvanised iron (colloquially corrugated iron or pailing (in Caribbean English), occasionally abbreviated CGI) is a building material composed of sheets of hot-dip galvanised mild steel, cold-rolled to produce a linear corrugated pattern in them. The corrugations increase the bending strength of the sheet in the direction perpendicular to the corrugations, but not parallel to them. Normally each sheet is manufactured longer in its strong direction.

CGI is lightweight and easily transported. It was and still is widely used especially in rural and military buildings such as sheds and water tanks. Its unique properties were used in the development of countries like Australia from the 1840s, and it is still helping developing countries today.

File:Corrugated iron manual roller.JPGCGI was invented in the 1820s in Britain by Henry Palmer, architect and engineer to the London Dock Company.

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Saturday Housekeeping: Kohn in the Wings?

That “wild trade” that I put on Thursday was beginning to look like a turkey by late Friday and maybe that $100 lotto ticket will blow up…so we’ll scan the news this morning and look at signs and portents. And sniff around the Economic Stabilization Fund again, which may be back in business and manipulating US Markets. Did I mention key source whispered this morning that Donald Kohn might well be the next Fed boss, not Janet Yellen? Then there’s a question about Bitcoin which has come up, and then we go through the charts for the week which (damn!

“Land of Strange” (and the 50.8 Year K-Wave)

The specifics of the oddities going on in ‘Merica right now have become so widespread and pervasive that I’ve put on a most unusual trade in my personal account as of Thursday.  And by way of explanation, there is a special Peoplenomics report out this morning because this one wouldn’t wait for Saturday.  Subscribers can read it here.  And, if you’re not a subscriber ($20 for five months or $40 for a whole year) you can sign up over here.

The last time I had such an intense sense about markets was 1987 and I put on an options trade the week before the mini-crash then (UAL puts, as I recall) and did just fine.  I am so moved again.

Crazy, Bumping Through Change

Although the stock market was looking to bounce up 24-points earlier, I’m skeptical that gains will hold through to the middle of next week.

For one thing, we had that ultra-high profile police chase and killing of the woman in the nation’s capitol Thursday.  An unarmed woman at that.  Any chance of a police state over-reaction here?  You might ask Alex Jones of Infowars about that.  It’s taken a while, but with the CBS DC bureau now headlining “Why did Capitol Hill Police Open Fire“?” the story may cross the great divide between new and old media.

Oh, and conspiracy theorists will find the killing all too convenient since the woman involved seemed to believe she was being stalked by president Obama…  There went a line of inquiry, will come the conspiracists rap, sure as the sun coming up.

But that doesn’t quite qualify for a fulfillment on the mass murder cycle of 148-days (+/- 2) that we’ve been tracking.  The center of that probability band comes along Monday. 

Not to be a nutter, but this has been a fairly repeatable cycle and one that definitely has my attention.

One thought on the Thursday chase is that it is a signal or kindling event, with more to follow by late this weekend.

Oh-Oh ‘Bamacare

Then there’s ongoing trouble signing up for Obamacare by calling in to their phone number 1-800-318-2596 which works out to 1-800 F(1)UCKYOU.  thanks to the flood of readers who send me the number and yes, it does remind us of the old saying about how “the movie is the message” or, in this case, perhaps the phone number.

But Beyond These Items…

We have and increasing level of polarization developing around the budget impasse and government shutdown, which will really begin to bite into the ‘Merican employment picture next week as government contractors begin to furlough hundreds of thousands of people because “ain’t no dough…”

As evidence of the intransigence, we can see headlines on the right like “The Tea Party Patriots blew away expectations at last night’s tele-townhall on the Continuing Resolution with 104,000 participants for Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK).”

On the other side of the aisle, the lingo was just as passionate and emo-laden with Harry Reid saying “…Boehner’s job is not as important as our country…” and the White House defending use of the “gun to the head” emo-lingo to whip up folks.

Despite the hype (both side of the aisle) the basic functions of government continue:  Customs, FAA (including air traffic control) and TSA is still inspecting and the FBI is still chasing federal criminals and such.

Taken as a whole, these data points give us an outline of a country which is in an extremely vulnerable economic position.  And that’s what’s covered in this morning’s special (one day earlier than normal) Peoplenomics post.

A simple reduction of the headlines to practicum (hands on, what to do) offers than now may not yet be the time to be moving out of bonds into higher yield investment opportunities and that the nation may have another round of serious downside to go, and indeed it could be even worse than the housing bubble collapse of 2007- 2009.

This would be consistent with long wave economics, which posits that the 1961-62 period was the modern echo of the Great Depression, which really began with a series of four panics prior to 1929, as we recently discussed with subscribers.

As anyone can see, the midpoint of these would be 1911.25 (the beginning of Q2 1911) and when we add 50.8 years to that, we come to 1962.

Toss in another 50.8 years and we come to Q4 of 2012 which is when the crap should all have started hitting the fan.

However, it is here, as we all know, that the Federal Reserve began history’s biggest-ever print-through effort through quantitative easings, because I’m certain in the back rooms of the Fed, they can read the data even better than Ure’s truly.

Students of history will remember that in 1917 (in the 1900’s panic series) we experienced the Russian Revolution.  One is struck by the possibility – when reviewing the data – that revolutions tend to occur just after the midpoint of a Kondratiev Wave series of market breaks.

Thus, we would count the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Chinese (Cultural Revolution), and the currently evolving Muslim Revolution [labeled Arab Spring, but likely to evolve a new strong personality figure to lead a transnational move] as highly probable any time now, but before five years have passed].

We know who Lenin was, and the same for Chairman Mao.  The open question is who will the Muslim analog be, and what relationships will the West attempt this time around to co-opt, or to invest in future relations?  We can’t see it all yet, but it should be coming into focus in future headlines.

But for now, from a pragmatic standpoint, as the Peoplenomics special report this morning notes – capital preservation is critical.

Why Gold Dropped

A good analysis of the latest $40 nosebleed and instant recovery can be found over at Blanchard Online if you’re still wondering how/why that happened.

Madison Ave. Mike points out the King World News report that China’s going to pile up another 5,000 tons of the yellow dog, which may put something of a floor under prices.  Either that (or my bet here) the Chinese know deflation is really digging in and they plan to buy at the bottom, bad news for short term gold bugs but long term it should work out.

More after this…

BLS: Missing Data

What will be interesting to watch this morning is how the market deals with the lack of data from BLS this morning with the scheduled release of the monthly employment situation report buggered up by shutdown (politics).

Holding data hostage is poor form on the administration’s part, if you ask me. 

We’re left to ponder Time Magazine’s “Forget Unemployment, time to worry about mal-employment” report.

I’ve said for years that if a student goes to school and majors in something based on government job projections that if the jobs aren’t there when the student graduates, government ought to eat the failed student loan payments, but no one seems to follow this simple logic to it’s logical conclusion: class action in court.

Weekly Worry Wart Watch

Oh, where to begin?  How about with the report that Bank CEO’s warn of serious risks if the U.S.

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Coping: Super-Hype or Game Changer?

We start off with an email from Peoplenomics subscriber Greg:

Hey George, what the heck is this about? Website was only registered a couple of days ago in Panama. Now instead of November the 13th, they’re going to divulge something on the sixth of October?

http://www.rememberthe13th.com/

Hmmm… don’t quite know what to make of it. 

It does have an  element of count down to it.

Which reminds me, I forgot to put up the last video in the “How to Pronounce” series that was going on YouTube and apparently culminated in this one.   Which got somewhere north of 800,000 views on YouTube. 

And, near as I can figure, it points to watching the video over here….It’s pretty amusing and a fine time sink…

But as to that revelation coming on the 6th….hmmm….Can I answer in Monday’s column?

Super-Brain Interfaces Come into View

With our discussion of digital assistants in existing hardware as a starting point, along comes an email from reader Randy who reminds us that although it’s a 2011 video,  grab 9-minutes of think-time and go watch the YouTube video over here titled “Superhuman intelligence through magnetic stimulation…”

Using trans cranial magnetic stimulation to stimulate certain areas of the brain and suppress others, temporarily turns one into a ‘savant’.

Test subjects score “three” times better on math and problem solving tests.

They also have greater artistic ability.

This ‘effect’ lasts for about one hour, before it is forgotten (and/or, hidden again)

Some more ‘take-aways’ from the video:

1. He (Sydney University professor, Allan Snyder), takes normal people and runs them through a series of tests.

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Peoplenomics: Mass Impact News Event Due Monday’ish?

Yes, a warning about Monday/Tuesday.  Words like “charm offensive” and “unintended consequences” may be about to sweep over the country.  So, we depart from our usual big picture look at economic life – and how to survive whatever comes next – as we consider whether the markets are telling us something in advance about events to come next week.    For this morning it’s a statistical blip, but that has never stopped me from putting on a wild-ass trade (like the one I put on the week ahead of 1987, come to think of it).  A short rap this morning on making money on disaster.

How to Frame Healthcare

We start this morning with a quick glance at how the online implementation of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is doing.  Specifically, the AP headline “Online Delays Signal Strong Demand for Healthcare” stuck me as un-AP-like since it conveys a subtle form of paradigm pandering.

Let me explain: While it may be true that there is “strong demand for health care” as the article represents, there are a couple of other explanations which are entirely credible and which should have resulted in a more balanced headline like “Online Delays for Healthcare.”

You see, the “strong demand” part could easily have been driven by healthcare expenses – which in my personal case have gone from $267/287 in 2010 to $450 today and that’s after dropping dental in the process.  Americans shop like crazy and maybe this is just bargain hunting.

Or, to propose an alternative headline:  “Screwed over public anxious for cheaper healthcare” might also fit.

Higher probability?  Since government seems to be big on lowest priced bids to build-out this and that – it might also be a true headline if written “Online Delays signal poor computer code and implementation…”  Been there, done that, with failures and collisions on the COM layer.  And how do you load-balance a whole country on a server farm?

While we are sitting here five days from our next (high statistical probability) mass killing/public outrage which will spin public discussion off the government shutdown and Obamacare for a week, or two, it would be nice to see such reliable organizations as the AP pay a bit more attention to paradigm-selling headlines, although we’re mindful that the leash of access is easily tugged-on inside the beltway, to be sure.

Another Questionable Congressman

CNS News asked congressman Henry Waxman the other day whether he had read all 10,535 pages of Obamacare regulations which has been published in the Congressional Record. 

“Is it Important that I Read It?” came the petulant reply, along with labeling the inquiry as a “Propaganda question” according to the CNS report.

I’ve made a note to call my congressman’s office, to see if I can’t get UrbanSurvival read into the Congressional Record.  That way, even more people won’t read it.

Seriously, or nearly so, the Washington cult of illiteracy (don’t read bills, don’t read the C.R.) really ought to change. 

Virginia is for Lovers….Surveillance!

While such commentary as above is at least momentarily protected by free speech, we note that Virginia is now making up a master database to handle all records of people in the state.

More after this

Jobs and Economic Reality

Just out from Challenger this morning is the planned layoffs report for September:

CHICAGO, October 3, 2013 – Planned job cuts fell to their lowest level in three months, as U.S.-based employers announced plans to reduce payrolls by 40,289 in September. That was down 20 percent from August, when job cuts reached a six-month high of 50,462, according to the latest report on monthly job cuts released Wednesday by global outplacement consultancy
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

The September total was 19 percent higher than the 33,816 planned job cuts announced the same month last year. This marks the fourth consecutive month that saw heavier job cutting than a year ago.

And no, this has nothing to do with the government (15%) shutdown.

As the shutdown continues, we notice the Daily Caller has a list of “Seven stupid things the gov’t spent money on during the shutdown…”  And in another outing, turns out the Obama administration ordered the park and monument closings.  Bad form.

But both sides are guilty of misrepresentations, near as I can figure it, and this morning the GOP moderates are trying to figure out where to go next.

Say, here’s an idea: Home.

Markets and Outlook

Indecisive as the Dow futures are down a tad, gold and silver are pulling back, and everyone seems to be waiting to see if the skies will part and solutions to our financial misdeeds will fall out of the sky.

In a word:  Nope.

There’s so much hope and denial about lately, you can almost shovel the stuff.

I wonder if hard reality will sink in tomorrow morning when the monthly unemployment rate confessional is due.  If it doesn’t come out, will that break the back of the market bubble?  Or, will the report showing up mean that the “shutdown” is not really the End of the World?

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Coping: Breaking the Public Mirror

T’other day I mentioned that there is an ugly tendency for the MSM to seriously censor what comments are allowed to make it through filters on major news story comments – especially when they don’t swallow the MSM corporatist pap which is being shoved down our throats by an awakening public.  An email from reader Tom expands on the point:

George;

I have noticed a definite decrease in the availability of comments sections after most MSM online articles. Because I truly am a troll and love to piss off the majority of stupid, bigoted, irrational commentators, I just assumed it was because that is exactly the essence of the preponderance of comments, from my observations.

But truer indeed, I feel, is your take that commenting is another way to homogenously spread the truth among those wise enough to perceive it. Can’t have that!  Ya hit the nail on the head again! I wonder what’s next? Blinding people chemically so they can’t read? Slowly drugging them so they no longer give a sh!T? ( already happening I fear)

Or maybe the next logical step is creating a catastrophic societal failure that would be a perfect excuse to just off everyone except the goofballs running the whole thing. I would actually appreciate this one, since it would negate the necessity and responsibility of self-elimination, thus serving to most easily remove my consciousness from the present mess and insert it into a higher, more sane ( I hope) reality.

Thanks

Tom

Well, Tom, I have to say, the conspiracy students will have a dandy opportunity to come up with another boatload of evidence around next Tuesday.

That’s because October 8 (plus or minus two days) is when we should see the next mass murder/outrage attack in the event that the 147-148-day murder cycle plays out.

If (when?)  it happens, it will likely spin several news stories all at once in a supposedly “spontaneous and unpredictable” way.

  • It will divert attention from the still continuing shut down of governmment (or 15% of it anyway)_ story
  • It will amp up the federal gun grab agenda (although that’s some superfulous due to the ammo grab which was pulled off under the public’s noses)
  • It will add emergency, emergency, everyone rujn from street! emphasis to John Kerry’s trying to get through the UN Small Arms Treaty…

So yes, come next week’s [possible, but it sure would be interestingly timed] “outrage” attack, we will likely be treated to heavily censored public comments at well.

And you know what?  I’d be willing to bet at some point the PTB through their minions have made a few passes at major poling organizations to “shade” their numbers this way, or that.  Call me skeptical or most polls especially when they deal with rights issues.

Was it The Wife or the Wujo?

We had a fun discussion earlier this week about how a reader was having problems with dryer repairs and it led us into some speculation about how the larger Reality works.  The article “Tuesday at the WuJo – Remedial Jim School” is  here.

Not so fat, cautions reader Don in Dallas…there are plenty of alternative explanations which could explain all the events noted:

George, I thoroughly enjoyed your comments about “rejoin points” and “MWI Timecode” in answer to Jim’s conundrum about who turned off the gas.

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On Peoplenomics: Trading Through the Shutdown

Even if you only have a few dollars in a 401-k plan, this morning’s report is very important since the financial waters are looking a bit stormy in here. So…This morning, after a long couple of weeks on the road, we are back home and now face the daunting task of making sense out of things, It’s a bit like walking out on a chess game, having your opponent make several nonsensical moves, and then coming back to see if that “winning strategy” you had before going on walkabout for the game still makes sense. After, of course, the usual midweek coffee and look at… More for Subscribers Become a Subscriber Subscriber Help Center Also on your reading list this morning from Gaye over at BackDoorSurvival:

Special Note: Don’t Look Now, But…

I told you recently to expect a $30-$50 beat down in the price of gold in this timeframe. Drop under $1,300, yada, yada… If you look at the chart above, which was showing gold at Kitco being quoted as down $35.70, I think I get to take a bow about here… <eom>

Obamacare & Shutdown: Our Country is Crazy….So?

There are two general schools of thought when it comes to markets:  One is that markets are perfect and that they reflect all known information at every instant, and thus, properly discount everything including the future down to a gnat’s behind.  Nice theory.

The second view is that markets are fundamentally irrational and that while some dribs and drabs about the future make be known, for the most part people are greedy, secretive, self-centered, ego maniacs who will do anything to make an additional nickel in markets including bankrupting companies, ripping out pension benefits, and coming up with incredibly complex algorithms in order to “front-run” trades by everyone they can.  The notion that individual market participants can in any way be considered rational is thus easily put to rest with a thoughtful read of financial headlines.

Now…the topper on all this (and we may see it, at least at this morning’s open) is that the rational markets crowd believes that while yes, there may be a few rotten apples (like former presidential bundlers who can misplace a billion, or a trading commission which can’t find gold manipulation although they seem intent on aluminum, on average the markets are still rational.

This morning’s first framing question is, therefore, how many crazy people can you put into a room full of people before you can quantify the whole room as “A bunch of crazy [irrational] people?”

Not that the stock market participants stand alone, mind you.  We have the foreign exchange traders, the commodity players, the Fed…just about anyone whose hands touch money seem to come down with  a touch of insanity.  It’s as though touching money makes folks crazy.

Take the US House, for example, please.

The House last night voted to send the Senate a bill which would force the federal budget mess into conference committee.  This was talked about back in April, but now with Obamacare up, guess what?  Both parties are using every dirty trick in the book to blame one another and it’s just a fine debacle.

Worse (or at least more evidence of money also impairing the capacity for reasonable thought) while the democorps were whining about how the Statue of Liberty would close today, the republicorps were busily pointing out that the Obamacare program should at least treat all people the same, whether they happen to work for a small employers, or themselves, which really are being treated differently that participants who work for corporations, in which case there’s an additional year of grace before being mandated to take part in what Justice Roberts correctly reminds us is really a tax.

Since I was up half the night watching CSPAN coverage on this, it occurs to me this morning that the democorps lied, at least insofar as the government shutdown is not complete.  Oh, and yes, banks will still be open, so despite 800,000 federal employees sitting home twiddling theirs, the world will continue.

Even during the shutdown, those at the top of the personnel heap will get (look surprised, please?  Just pretend…) special treatment including overtime and comp pay.

The republicorps, on the other hand, are sticking by their guns, and so the likelihood is high that this could stretch out for a while.  The House conference move will be sent over to a Senate where Harry Reid says there will be no “negotiating with a gun at our head.”

Latest rabid headlines out this morning point out that members of Congress and their staffs, will be able to get abortion coverage, even though such costs are largely taxpayer sponsored.

And on this, the markets, which were somehow goosed into closing down only 128 on the Dow yesterday, are poised weakly rally today at the open.

Let me add this all up for you:

The House is crazy (Passing a continuing resolution which is a dead duck from the get-go.) 

The Senate is crazy, not agreeing to evenly apply the healthcare tax to ALL Americans, not making up arbitrary tax classes between Big Corporate employees (cattle/chattel/worker bees) and small-fry regular folks.

Wall St. is crazy for not being able to spot insanity, although this can, one supposes, be overlooked, since they already have contracts with the crazy House and Senate to look the other way on some things and favorable tax (like not at all) on others.

Out of the block, therefore, we have Obamacare online and available, the House and Senate being slipshod and political, and the stock market about to show us what a fine job of being irrational they can put on.

In short, it is with a nod to Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher, SSDD.  (Same shit, different day.)

More after this…

Sandbox and Oil Notes

If you think the current spectacle in Washington is something now, just drop by in about 10-years when the momentary respite from Peak Oil shows up, after getting furloughed by the current rash of oil and gas fracking projects which are causing most people to lose sight of the larger (resource constrained) picture.

To keep this part of the big picture in focus, we keep a very close eye on developments surrounding the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and  note that:

“Saudi cleric warns driving could damage woman’s ovaries” is getting huge play.  Still, women would like to be able to drive in the kingdom.

The Obama administration is, to put it bluntly, pissing off the Saudis by trying to jawbone rather than tire-iron the Iranians and the Syrians.

Then there’s this report about how tourism involves a million Saudis.

And, in what may be the oddest (or perhaps prescient) move of all: Young Saudi men are mounting their cars on piles of rocks in strange new art trend.”

New Flu Story

You ever get one of those “Hmmm…why are they doing THAT?” kind of feelings?  Here’s a press release from Health and Human Services under the headline “HHS boosts national capacity to produce pandemic flu vaccines.”

To boost the nation’s ability to manufacture influenza vaccine quickly in a pandemic, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today established a fill and finish manufacturing network, which will cover the final steps in the vaccine manufacturing process.

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Coping: Tuesday at the Wujo – Remedial Jim School

(Amarillo, TX) Back to the front lines of Science then, as we try to figure out the strange and unusual stuff that goes on in Life…like this from reader Jim…

Hey George,

I’m a long time reader, enjoy your columns and appreciate the informative links. I wanted to share a Wujo moment I had about a week or so, ago.

I had been fighting with our ailing clothes dryer, testing out all of the usual culprits for this particular problem with my multimeter but to no avail. After a few too many trips to the launder-mat and some verbal persuasion, the little lady convinced me to have a repair guy come check it out (turns out, according to the repair guy, I was on track with my troubleshooting and there’s little chance your average Joe would have ever found what was a very “uncommon” problem).

Back on point: I have an auxiliary gas line that runs from the main line, UNDERGROUND, out to the garage and to the dryer. There is a valve fitting at the connection to the main gas line which I believe is probably very old and not so common.

I have searched for pictures of, or any type of reference to this particular type of valve and have not been able to find any. I should also add that it is inconspicuously located between some bushes and the east wall of the house.

Point being, it is not obvious where it is or what it is if you do find it.

So after a while, I hear the repair guy knocking on the back door, calling my name.

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Here’s How “Head & Shoulders” Works

With the Dow set to collapse down a hundred or more, think of this as a sore shoulder at that.

No, this is NOT a discussion of a shampoo, but a lot of the bulls are about to get a little cleaning when the markets open this morning because of how things lined up in the pre-open.

Even if you don’t subscribe to out www.peoplenomics.com newsletter. there is one chart which we discussed this weekend which you might want to take note of because it’s looking like a powerful head and shoulders formation.

The first bump in the Dow on a weekly chart on the left is called (cleverly) the left shoulder.  This happened back on May 13th.

The larger bump in the middle is the “head” (July 29)  while there’s  fair to middling chance that we will fall off the right shoulder as soon as the market opens this morning.

That red line is a moving average trend line and if we were to plug the futures price of the Dow in, it would be below that trend.,  But more on this for Peoplenomics readers on Wednesday because there is about, I expect, to be all kinds of crap hitting the market in a major way this week.

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  • Congress, which is acting like partisan idiots (no a new act, mind you) is about to let the US government go into shutdown over the budget.  This scares the hell out of global markets and Asia was bleeding red all night and there are serious cuts and contusions in European markets this morning, also, as a result.  What comes around goes around I figure.
  • The REAL scary word is deflation because that means the global financial system is imploding and anyone with half a nickel’s worth of gray matter will wake up any old time now and ask really pertinent questions.  “How come if ya’ll corp-types got all the free money on earth and no barriers to trade, we still are getting the second depression, huh?”  Smoke, mirrors, lies, and bullshit never seem to go out of style.

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Coping: A Man’s Home Is His Castle…No! Really! It Is!

(Near Weston, CO)  OK, you’ve heard the term before “A Man’s Home Is His Castle!”  All sounds good, but the courts have continued to water it down (the legal notion of home as a as one’s inviolable castle) , yada, yada, yada…but what happens someone actually starts to dream about building their own castle – for real –  with all the modern accoutrements including wireless, solar, highly insulated panels, and all the rest of it?

We  found out Sunday as we arrived at the home of long-time readers Shirley and Mike Bean who started off to use their life’s masterpiece as a bed & breakfast, but for now, it’s theirs to share with a just friends.

So, how would a modern-day castle work?  Who would design such a thing? 

The answer is Mike made his mark in mechanical and solar engineering in Hawaii (back when the islands had just poked out of the Pacific, right?) and he did OK in engineering, playing the markets and real estate such that he was pretty much able to check out from “civilized life” in the land of prefabs and coups(condos) and tiny homes and decided to really “roll his own” – a spectacular one-off Castle in the Pines at 7,700 feet in the mountains.

So what does a modern castle look like when you come in the front door?  Here’s the entryway into the Great Room:

Upstairs, the kitchen as everything (yes, big gas stove for gourmet cooking and there’s an icemaker in the fridge, I mean what’s a castle without a martini?) and looking up from the Great Room (where this morning’s report is coming to you from) it looked like this last night just before dinnertime.  That’s Elaine and Shirley looking down from the dining hall which is one level up with a panorama down into the great room…

The ladies ( I prefer wenches of the castle) deliver drinks  downstairs to the men of the House and when done,  up we go to the dining hall, and a feast on Burgundy elk, harvested in season on the property.

Now, this is not a remodel.  This is a serious ground-up effort that’s 6,500 square feet.

Interestingly, we have something in common in our fascination with the castle era and lifestyle.  We’ve both been members of the Social for Creative Anachronism, and like Elaine (oops!  Lady Elaine) and me, they also dropped out. (I could never figure out the org chart of the SCA and apparently I’m not the only one.

So here’s more of what the local Renaissance Faire types are missing out on:

So, this morning I have to sit back look at the pile of crap that needs doing in Texas, wander around the castle rooms….and ask myself….”So if the world ends tomorrow, do I have anything anywhere near this cool (less the boiling pots of oil up on the parapets) to make our stand in East Texas?”

No…not even.

What’s the coolest thing about the home?  Besides eye treats in every possible place?  The answer I think is the people who built it.  How many people do you know who have set their eyes on a big, serious dream and then set about building it and seeing it through to completion?

We’ve been fortunate enough to meet two such couples on this trip and – if you live in a small apartment or condo – it’s especially encouraging that people can still find a patch of ground and built a dream with their own hands from the ground up. 

It’s not common, but it is seriously cool and an inspiration to anyone who’s ever picked up a tool with the idea of creating a “life’s work.”

Government: Buying Friends?

With plenty of people asking about the role of government, and especially given the cozy, soft-ball questions from the mainstream media, you can’t imagine how happy I was to see a good-sized report on the growth of government public relations efforts over the past 20-years, or so.

This one isn’t a particularly easy matter of public policy (though the Statesman article makes it clear that maybe the pendulum has over done it…a lot) but having tried to deal with government in the early 1970’s – just as the government PR move was coming along – I can see two sides to the story.

On the one hand, public officials can literally be hounded too death by reporters at all hours of the day and night.  And most don’t have the luxury of personal protection other than a key contact in the local police department in event of issues.

But the other side of it is that PR types can – and do – serve as gate keepers.  And that means less access and more “soft-ball” questions.

Where the role of PR morphs into propaganda orchestration is when gag orders come down for Department Heads from an “executive.”  I remember the days when a county official, like the county engineer for example, could talk openly with any reporter who wandered along.

But not these days, at least to the degree as previously.  A county executive, mayor, governor, or even president, can quash and squash reporter inquiries.  This gives the executive even more power than they really need as well as it gives them a way to slip untold numbers of stories under the rug if they don’t seem to pass PR muster.

Ultimately, if comes down to the executive level tightening up their reins on control and the co-opted major media who go along with this crap get more access at the expense of the little guy.

Makes you wonder how many people remember Ben Franklin was at one time part of the alternative media?

Fukushima Fears Slowly Growing

While we actually looked at a home on a golf course during our Seattle area visit last week, we ‘re both in no particular hurry to sock away a few profits from our life in Texas and then turn around and invest it in an area which is downwind and down-current, from Fukushima.

Reader John sent an email this weekend which edgesd up to the point:

I have been looking over responses to the latest information. The official responses are now admitting localized trouble, ie FDA banning of seafood from most of Japan. But they are adamant that dilution will prevent any effect on CONUS.  As you know from reading EneNews and other sources, there are educated opinions to the contrary.

If we use the “follow the money” method, it might be construed that both sides have something to gain from their statements.

So another method of reasoning is necessary. I propose that, although the ongoing catastrophe is enough to make us stop eating seafood, it is not enough to make us emigrants. But criticality of the reactor 4 cooling pool rods could easily cause us to take a one-month vacation to the dry side of the state.

Our canary indicating permanent relocation is the evacuation of WA or CONUS by those American experts watching Fukushima. But how do we keep a close eye on them?

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