Our trip through the World of Woo-Woo (WoWW) continues this morning with the first note being about the oddity I personally noticed on Monday when I published the “news” section of the UrbanSurvival site. Specifically this part of yesterday’s report:
“However, if Russia was ever thinking about the HEMP option, that would plunge the West into the dark ages and would give Russia a free hand to rebuild its buffer, you likely could find a similarly risky period since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
All of which wouldn’t have been noteworthy in the least, except for I happened to notice – just after publishing – this read-out on Windows LiveWriter:
However, if Russia was ever thinking about the HEMP option, that would plunge the West into the dark ages and would give Russia a free hand to rebuild its buffer, you likely could find a similarly risky period since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Which I figured was one hell of a synchronistic wink from Universe about such things, since (if you had forgotten) was when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. Pretty good for a piece of software to offer that kind of feedback, is it not?
And, as posited in the Monday column, the WoWW is not gone, says reader Patti…
George … Woo-Woo has NOT disappeared.
Just last week I had two incidents in one day!
1)It was evening and I was doing my usual “after-work” tasks.. picking up kids, going to the market(s) and preparing dinner. This evening, I entered my car after a third stop and noticed that my inside car lights would not turn off; obviously, it was because I hadn’t closed the door properly. But no, it wasn’t that or even that my electronic system was malfunctioning – somehow, the light switch on the inside roof of the car got switched on. Hmmm? I smiled and turned the switch back to the “off” position. My problem was resolved.
2)When I got home, I carried the groceries into the house and placed them along with my purse and keys on the kitchen counter. After I put away all the groceries, I went to place my purse in the bedroom and noticed that my keys were nowhere to be found. I cleaned out my purse three times! Not there, removed everything from the counter to make certain they weren’t “hiding” (inadvertently getting shoved under something). Still, no place to be found. Must have looked for an hour – my house got really clean! Well, as soon as I gave up, I was standing in the kitchen talking with my son, turned around and there they were…. Sitting right out in the middle of the counter all by themselves. I asked my son if he put them there – he looked at me like I was nuts (he’s 18) and when my daughter was asked, her only response was “Did you pray to your angels?” Of course… I did.
The universe had a really good time with me that day!
A CLASSIC example of things disappearing and reappearing. So I’ve advised our Canadian reader who had the disappearing wine rack parts to look in on them again later on today. They may be back from “vacation.”
While that’s a damn fine report, here’s one from reader Ken that’ll be a hard one to beat:
Boy do I have a good one.. My wife baked cookies the other day.. she filled up the cookie jar.
So today she leaves for work and the two boys are here and we sit down for cookies.. I give one a couple and then the second one wanted two to.. I had a couple and then they wanted some more.. so I gave a couple more to them.. There were three cookies left in the jar..
It snowed.. ( no one else home but the boys and myself no one baking .. nothing.. ) anyway I go outside to see about the snow and come back in.. One of the boys comes out and says.. Are there any cookies left.. I thought ok there are three in the jar.. so I go to pull out the last cookies and hand them over.. to my surprise.. the Jar was full again.. Now what happened I sure don’t know.. but we have been eating them all night.I call that the Twilight zone.. .
A skeptic could claim this one has already been documented in the Bible, except instead of cookies, it was fish and bread…
Then there’s the little matter of the theory about whether Woo-Woo events increase when times get stressful. Reader James is skeptical…
I think that the idea of more woo-woo going on than previously is going to be hard to prove. I mean, we are talking subjective unprovable things here.
Perhaps a better and more pragmatic theory is that OUR SENSITIVITY and AWARENESS to these events is heightened? In particular, when one is in a strange or new place, they are more sensitive to everything – like a cat entering a new room. Perhaps with all the changes rolling out and visible in the not-too-distant future, people are becoming more attentive. or take more time to be attentive
Occams razor – simplest explanation is a change in perception, rather than a change in strange…??
Might be the case…or not. Meantime, however, I’m looking for one of those self-filling cookie jars…
Dangerous Laws and Bureaucrats Rant
This is all about freedom, antennas, and fine print. You’ve been warned.
Background: One of the reasons Elaine and I live on 29-acres in the outback of East Texas is that we rather enjoy living an “unregulated” life. The phone still rings, there’s still garbage pick-up, and yes, the rural water supply is very dependable until it isn’t. But the nice thing about living out here is there is no one to wag a finger at us and tell us what color we can paint our house, and so on.
For example, if I want to have a deck on the front of my house, I get some deck screws, some 2-by-12s, 2 by 6’s, and some decking and suddenly there it is.
Or, if we want to up the size of wire going over to the shop/office building (from number 8 to number 4) I just dig the trench, lay in the conduit, and there’s no pulling an electrical permit or getting the job inspected. The job just gets done…and in keeping with code, by the way.
Lots of Americans don’t live that kind of genuinely free lifestyle. They sign it away when they move into a community where there is a Home Owners Association or restrictive local zoning laws that leave reason in the dust.
Certain building departments (and HOAs) put the intrusive security checks at the airports to shame.
“OK, why the spew about zoning laws, HOA’s and all that?”
The Case in Point: Admittedly, not all building departments are bad.. Just like there must have been some kindly Nazis in WWII – but the odds aren’t there when you make that bet if you’re a serious do-it-yourselfer and you ask permission (rather than forgiveness).
We’re tracking another key ham radio tower case making its way through the courts up in Ohio. It’s known as the WW8N case and it involves state and local laws and a building department that has apparently stolen some property rights without compensation. When you read the details of this, what you’ll find is the bureaucrats want antenna heights limited to 20-feet and that’s on up to 5-acres of property.
Here’s more detail about the case.
Common sense (which ain’t so common in Swanton, OH, apparently) would simply hold that if you put up a tower (and antenna) it should be designed so that if, in the unlikely event it falls over, it would land on your own property. Or, if it lands on a neighbors property, there aren’t structures (with people in them) that could be injured. And, if it’s going to fall on another’s property, then an insurance rider might make sense.
But under 5 acres…20-feet? This is nearly as crazy as Oregon’s rainwater police (who claim the state owns the rain that falls on your property)…I view it as another example as spreading fascism run wild among people who don’t stand up to it.
Ham radio types are occasionally driven to confront the Beast because our hobby (and public service) endeavors generally work best when antennas are set up (on the HF bands) as high and, to some extent, as long as possible.
The tallest antenna structure at our place, for example, is about 61 feet when cranked up (the tower retracts so it will handle 80+ MPH winds) and the longest is about 243-feet. The 243 foot antenna works best when the tower is cranked up…
One of the posted comments on the QRZ website coverage of the WW8N case makes the point that zoning laws, HOAs and condo associations have, in many instances, erected not only anti-ham radio, but also anti-prepping, anti-survival rules. Like banning chicken coops on property under a certain size and telling you not to lift the hood of your car in the driveway lest it offense some prissy wuss who lives in the bubblehead realms.
Not to carry on endlessly here, but spring into summer is when a lot of families make their move to new housing.
And the thought this morning is that invasive government surveillance, long lines at the airport for security pat-downs, and people telling you not to change oil in your own driveway, or getting approval before painting your house are all cut from the same cloth.
America of the past was a land where minimal government, least intrusion, and freedom to “be” were hallmarks.
Actionable: Any time you sign up to buy a piece of property that has CC&Rs, a homer owners association, or a condo association, I’d urge you to vote with your wallet and vote for freedom by rejecting any deal that fences in your right to self expression, whether it’s house color or putting up an antenna.
Go dream up a handful of projects before you buy: Take the list down to the zoning Gestapo and ask them if you can do them without a permit, without inspections, and see what kind of freedom is really left in that “Your home is your castle” crap. You aren’t going to like the answer. Start with “Can I put up a carport without a building permit?” Ask about a ham radio antenna and a couple of chickens, while you’re at it.
The Urban Double Standard is that neighbors can have fenced yards with forever barking effing dogs and yet they get riled up over chickens or with antennas that offend the eye.
See how f/u’ed America’s become?
Although I disagree with the ACLU on many points, their long-term view that rights are seized first from people who are least likely to defend them rings true in housing deals. Just like a prison won’t allow antennas to be put up, a zoning department or an HOA that doesn’t make reasonable allowance for the world’s finest hobby belongs in the same class of hoodlums who steal our freedoms, one decision at a time, in other areas of life.
There’s a contradiction between living in an HOA and holding forth as a patriot, as I figure it.
See if you can get preapproval for your projects of the future in writing, too. That’s so that as a condition of buying your next property, you already will have a record of what you can do without interference. Which, of course, they won’t do because no bureaucrat worth his 7 notarized wet-signed copies is going to limit his ability to steal your freedom. They’re just not wired that way.
Extensible: There is always someone standing in line to take your rights. Got it?
Even in something as seemingly straight-forward as buying a car. Did you realize that many car purchase agreements include language wherein you give up the right to your home (and all other assets you might have) if the car is repossessed and is sold off to satisfy the debt and there’s a balance left?
There’s a way to get around this, of course: Gap insurance. Read all fine print. Put lines through things you don’t like an initial it. If they accept it, you’re written it out. Otherwise, offer gap insurance or something other than coming after your whole net worth.
This is why the rant this morning. We’re in a time when it’s no wonder the congressoids think they can get away with anything. The American public has been insidiously coerced into signing away our rights without thinking through the consequences and implications. There’s always someone there to take your rights if you let them.
Just thinking about this makes me want to put up an even larger tower and paint my house fluorescent (day-glo) Orange….
However, as luck would have it, towers over 90-feet and certain house colors may have been written into my pre-nups with Elaine. As always, it’s the anxious buyer that gives up their rights most quickly….in my case, however, the quid pro quo has been more than fair.
But anywhere else in life? Homes, cars and the lot? No sir, not now, not ever. If you can’t do what you want on your own freaking land, you don’t own it.
Someone else does.
Write when you break even…
George george@ure.net