Circle the 18th – Markets in Sort Mode – Apology to Wiccans

There is increasing activity in China and the Western (rabid) social media about war – in one form, or another – around February 17th.  This isn’t just on social – it’s also showing up in Google Search trend analysis.

On the left, you’ll see mid December, a spike in mid January.  But we are most concerned about the angle of slope when looking at more recent data.

Therefore, we recommend you circle February 18th.  Because if you wake up and there’s no hysterical drone from media on the “new war” then “peace will guide the planets” I think is how the 5th Dimension song “Age of Aquarius” riffed it.  Of course that is a 1969 (george doing rock ‘n roll radio reference.  A good fraction of Urban readers we’re even a birth control slip back then…

Which War?

Well, two ways to worry – if your day isn’t “scheduled to the minute” and you have time to waste.  There’s the data angle which (more Trends here) looks like this on Taiwan war lookups:

Yeah, the track above offers the insight that due to the recent (possible) coup attempt against president Xi that the Western minds have swallowed the “Nah, Xi is too busy with housekeeping” to take on the West.

Thing is, if you read deeply enough, you can find hints that people in the “paid to know things” department are keeping an eye on Hangzhou.  Why then? ” Could Xi be planning to kick off a Taiwan invasion during Chinese Lunar New Year?  Lunar New Year is on Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 Zhengzhou to Beijing is about 600 KM,”  Damn shame Starlink birds don’t have cameras, huh?  Then we could all look.

More worrisome, though, is the Trends lookup on Iran.  Again, looking ahead could it be the mullahs are “playing for time?”  There has been an uptick but it’s not back to the January levels – yet.

OK – pick up your pencils and open your workbooks.  It’s time for?

Handicapping with Headlines

If you are betting on a Chinese landing on Taiwan this month, you’ll need to understand they are “properly p[issed” ab out this year’s Grammy’s.  (Not because Big Bunny got one).  The Chinese have a problem with the Dalai Lama award: Grammy for Dalai Lama makes China see red. Here’s why.

Would (master strategist) Xi take China to war over that?  Of course not.  BUT if his economy begins to fizzle out from under him, he might need a distraction.  Oh, wait! China: Economic outlook under pressure – Commerzbank.

This week our Peoplenomics focus is on implications of a nuclear exchange over Iran.  Not likely – but like inbound meteors and such – we like to have the playbook written in advance so when “plume modeling” makes it back into headlines, you will be able to “roll your own.”

For now?  Another “false peace” moment seems to be in play.  Depsite stories where US, Iran ready to talk, with mediators organizing meeting in Ankara — report | The Times of Israel are making the rounds, we figure it much differently.

What the Master Class is Watching

Timing is the most important of “futuring arts.”  You can have a great idea for an “unklimited mileage EV” but if you bring it to market in 1843 (during that depression), you probably wouldn’t be Tesla. Or, if brought to market in 2525 (as proposed by Zager and Evans) – after everyone has joined Elon’s heirs on Mars, well, not a good plan.

Which gets us to speculating on what would delay war until mid-month?

For one, a huge portion of America will have a three-day weekend coming up.  It’s super Bowl time. No, Xi and the mullahs won’t be looking at Patriots vs. Seahawks prediction, odds, date, time: 2026 Super Bowl picks from 10,000 model simulations.  They will be looking at a diffrerenet set of simulations.

Part two of their world-sized board game:  The pressure is still building on the Trump administration over their latest release of Epstein files.  G.A. Stewart’s article “Wrapping Up a Hard Truth” does a very workman-like job of wrapping up this context.

Which has what to do with futuring arts?  Well, you have go back to Stu’s January 12th post, where he calls out “The Offense of the Adulterer” and explains how all this fits into what Nostradamus may have been seeing.

While your personal “staring into starlight reflected from a pot of black oil” may yield different results, we would opt for something more tangible.  Like phone logs between the “mainland and the mullahs” for several years.

Topical Distractions

Well, it’s winter, ain’t it? Bomb cyclone brings historic snow to North Carolina, flurries to Florida – The Washington Post.  And here, all this time, we were hoping the WaPo could rise above cheap media-ocrity.  This is one of those deals where a buzz word got popular. So the meteorology-types invented a real definition for it: It is defined as an extratropical low-pressure system whose central pressure drops by at least 24 millibars within 24 hours, a process known as bombogenesis or explosive cyclogenesis.   Call us old-fashioned, but we like pipe, C4, and W-61 one in our understanding of “bombs.”  `Either that, or labeling fascists will be along with “bomb pregnancies” and “bomb emails..” Oh, wait…

Bracing for Jobs Week:  Won’t get as much press as Super Bowl but it will matter when the electric and heating bills roll in next month.

Today is a “data sleeper” – sort of.   Look for an ISM number mid morning today.  Then set a snooze alarm for the day. The Labor JOLTS report lights up Job Week. ADP comes Wednesday,
Challenger job cuts Thursday, and federal confessions Friday.  (Check local listings for variances.)

Early Dow, S&P and NASDAQ futures were down 62, 39, and 235, respectively.  My holding a short over the weekend comes through.  Smart money figures a “turn-around Tuesday” I mentioned in Peoplenomic’s ChartPack this weekend should be along by lunchtime tomorrow, though maybe earlier.  Depending on news flows.

Around the Ranch:  Apology to Wiccans

Terrible oversight on my part last week.  I failed to mention this past weekend was Imbolc (sometimes spelled Imbolg or Oimelc).  Not dialed-in?

Imbolc is a cross-quarter day in the old Celtic calendar — the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It lands around Feb 1–2. That’s why it feels like a “hinge” rather than a full season change.

What it actually marked (originally):  (Since this was a livestock and light festival, not a flower-crown affair.)

• Ewes begin lactating ? milk returns
• Days are visibly getting longer
• Winter is still dangerous, but no longer dominant (though don’t try to sell that in the Carolinas today!)

In survival terms it means yes, winter will end at some point; “We’re not safe yet, but we can see the exit.”

Originally linked to the pre-Christian goddess Brigid,  the event is about

• hearth and fire
• smithing
• healing
• poetry

And also about “managed light” since days are getting noticeably longer (outside the A/C bubbler most live in).  Which means:

• Candles, hearth fires, lamps
• Cleaning the house
• Repairing tools
• Checking stores

What struck me this week is how differently belief systems map time. Earth-based traditions like the old Celtic calendar are superb at seasonality — tracking light, cold, animals, tools, and timing work to biology. They tell you how to live right now.

By contrast, the big prophetic religions (BPRs like Judaism and Christianity especially) are lousy at gardening calendars but excellent at making sense of major Earth changes — floods, plagues, collapses, resets. They explain why disruption happens when systems drift too far out of balance.

Somewhere in between sits the Chinese view — seasons, cycles, corrections, and renewal all wrapped into one operating model.

Modern life stripped most of us of the seasonal layer while leaving us only fragments of the prophetic one, which is why people feel unmoored when weather, food, energy, or institutions wobble. Imbolc, stripped of costumes and crystals, is simply a reminder to get ready early: clean, fix, check, stock — because winter hasn’t released you yet, but it will. And when you live close to the land, that’s not spirituality — that’s just good ranch sense.

National Construction Worker Day

Time to right another social injustice. National Construction Appreciation Week, held annually during the third week of September.  Which is now obviously the wrong time of year.

See, I got reminded, in the rawest way possible, that human bodies still obey physics — and they do it differently depending on stress and environment. When I started deck detailing Sunday in 21-degree air my brain and fingers were in Cold Stress Protocol mode, edges dimming, precision margin shrinking; by mid-day when it warmed and I was sweating under a jacket I was in Heat Stress Protocol, juggling metabolic demands from two conflicting directions.

What’s fascinating — and what people who’ve never lived it don’t intuit — is that the brain doesn’t just shut down or stay constant. It anticipates, it reacts, and you literally feel cognition narrowing before the system recovers, so you back off, slow your actions, and let the body return to baseline before full precision returns.

That collision between CSP and HSP isn’t punishment — it’s a built-in warning system, and learning to respect it isn’t just good sense; it’s a kind of embodied self-awareness forged in real weather, not air-conditioned hypotheticals.

Having been reminded of hands numbed by cold on the outside and sweating like a pig in my work jacket, it just seems the screaming social justice me-me’s miss a lot more than they think.

Somewhere, in the snow-hit Carolinas today, there’s a Wiccan smith or construction worker noticing seasonal change and holding to the Olde Ways.

Write when reasonable people rule again,

George@Ure.net

More of my notes on more effective living at:

ShopTalk Sunday: More Decking Around- UrbanSurvival.com

In Gardening, Math is Your Friend! – Hour a Day Gardening!

We Need to Talk About Workflows – Time Engineering

Hidden Guild’s Monthly AI Status Report – Hidden Guild