“Well, I’m ready for anything now,” declared Elaine. “I have my face on…”
We spent part of the early hours this morning under a tornado watch, and honestly, there’s not much going on at 2:45 AM other than talking about the weather. The www.wunderground.com display looked positively crappy.
The local weather net on the 2-meter ham band was active; seems lots of us with radios couldn’t sleep.
I would have made some breakfast (always a fine thing, 24/7) but with a vampire appointment for my 6-month old-man-blood work, that was off the table (so to speak).
“Coffee is OK, though,” I’d been told, but you can only drink so many cups.
We’ve been in the hinterlands of East Texas for a dozen years now, and we’ve been thinking again about building a shelter. It wouldn’t take too much to accomplish the task, a couple of loads of concrete, some block, rebar, and labor. I’ve been thinking about putting it under the screen porch and back-filling with dirt all over the place.
That way, we’d have a cool room in the summer and a shelter when spring lights off like it did today.
In the meantime, the combination of more-or-less continuous lightning (and how many cups is this?) gave me time to look up my pet theory that getting in a car with seatbelts and shoulder harness on would be a good move.
Not so, says this site which says in part; “Do not get in a car or truck. Vehicles are generally tossed into the air and reduced to a pile of battered junk.”
I would have thought otherwise (impact zones and crumple and air bags) but seems not.
Still, being in a tornado in tall timber country., well, that project of a cold-room/shelter might just get moved up from the bottom of the project list this year.
Billionaires Bugging Out
A few years back, we had a string of reports about rich people selling all their U.S. possessions and heading for parts unknown. At the time, it was attributed to (variously) a pending global coastal event or Niburu/Wormwood showing up, and so forth.
The rumors had been turned down to nothing here lately until this come in from a reader this weekend:
“…nope, the world didn’t end….last week. but the world that elitist /multi-millionaires and billionaires live in is certainly morphing into something that bears no resemblance to the one that relative peons like you and me are familiar with. l am very very very far from wealthy, but as fate would have it am related to two billionaires (in their mid fifties) and and am acquainted with several multi-millionaires ….funny how all of them but 2 were formerly investment bankers for some Big Hitters- they all “retired” about 10 years ago.
They all live well beneath their means-3 of them had left Texas for other states, and as we speak today, ALL of them, l repeat ALL of them have been busy lately selling their family homes, vacation properties, rental properties and other holdings such as luxury cars, boats,even their airplanes- ……very odd- most of these people don’t know each other but are doing the same thing at the same time !!
The Texans say that as soon as their kids’ school is out this month, (l mean the day AFTER, literally) they will be leaving for Europe and parts unknown for an extended “vacation”. The other “wealthies” are leaving around the same time, but are vague about their destinations…
These people have the means to do anything they want …all but one couple have teenagers or younger married children and grandchildren….Their ENTIRE families are leaving together for these “wonderful overseas vacations”….strange how these folks give out very minimal information about their “vacation plans’. l don’t think l will ever see any of these people again…..someone, somewhere has given them a BIG hint, and they are rapidly dismantling their lives here in the USA…. l guess the rest of us , without the means to re-locate , oops, l mean “leave for an extended overseas vacation” will find out soon enough what the future holds….l am scared shitless.
(Crude Words Alert!) Say: Not to pick nits, or anything, but according to one source, the term scared shitless first appeared in 1936.
This is in terrible contrast to the phrase “scared the shit out of..” which is at quite the other end of the spectrum.
As far as we’ve been able to determine, most people have this built-in confused G.I. tract. Apparently, if something is a rapid-onset event (take death for example) then the poo comes out. But, if it is a seriously stressful, slow build-up event, then the poo may go into hiding for some period of time.
Well, the reason that we delve into this Paradox of Crap is to suggest that our reader’s tensions have been building for some time. While it’s true that many of the rich may be able to be “tipped off” in advance, the fact is that there seems to be something about excess cash that has an ability to trigger what in a peon would be considered paranoia.
If you, or I, sit down and seriously discuss the unlikely odds of the world arriving at 2050, for example – relatively intact – we would be labeled by most mainstream shrinks at paranoid.
On the other hand,, if you’re rich and have lots of attribution, you are “insightful”
Ultra-Rich Patient: “I have received confidential information based on a study by [big name think tank] and I’ve made a measured decision to reallocate my resources and move to a new location less susceptible to [threat list].
Doctor: “Oh, shit. I’d do the same thing it I could afford it. Thank you for sharing this keen insight to the future.
We trust our retentive source will drop us a line and let us know when the Great Reversal from plugged-up to swimming in it takes place. Although, if it really is cause to depart and “flee for your lives” I expect things will pass a universal point of recognition.
That’s when you want to be holding stored paper products, if you know what I mean.
Ure’s Useful Axiom #312: Poor people ask doctors if they are Paranoid. Rich people tell doctors they are not.
UUA #31: He who has the Gold rules.
Chris, the Business Scholar
Reader Chris has been paying attention to our advice that “Everything is a business Model.”
His homework this weekend involved spotting this article about online dating scams. And for dessert, this fine article on how to disappear almost a billion dollars from Moldovan banks.
We really ought to confer degrees around here for clear-headed thinking and flip one Chris’s way…
The Problem with the Future
Our news analyst fellow up in Winnipeg has been hard at it:
Dear Mr. Ure,
This BBC article notes that live Ebola virus is believed to have survived in a recovered US patient’s eye. It seems efforts are underway to determine other potential reservoirs of the virus in the human body. As a curious coincidental nod to hemorrhagic fevers, the integer in the BBC link is a GPS coordinate about 30 miles from Marburg, Germany.
On a whim, I decided to roll the dice and see if blog entries on the Nostracodeus website had bundled any correlations for us through yesterdays’ tomorrows by searching for “eye”. There are results, but what does it mean?
Ah, indeed, that is the problem of futuring via software.
Having now wolfed down some number of books on linguistics (and while Grady continues applying new kinds of math to the problem), the problem if that the harder you look at language, the more it becomes apparent that there’s something holographic about it.
Set aside for the moment how prominent “The Word” is in Genesis, and think about it more like the duality of light.
In one instance, it is – to all intents and purposes – a particle. But, change observer expectations and now it becomes a wave.
So that’s how language is: There are only about 5,000 words that are used for 99% of our thinking at the meta/earth-sized/mass consciousness level. They are all bound to occur at some degree of fineness.
This stuff we agree is “the future” rides – surfer-like – down a wave-front of words.
The future – like a good surfer – will tend to arrive on the “best” wave (though oddly, not necessarily the largest) so we only get so many glimpses of it – as other word wave-fronts obscure things.
One approach is to simply sense things at the archetypical level. The problem is that while this will occasionally catch a very large wave (which would impact a large enough segment of mass consciousness to matter) that’s a lot like a “direct-conversion receiver” in the sense that it may be sensitive, but not particularly selective.
My thinking at the moment runs toward developing the super-heterodyne receiver combined with the diversity receiver analogy.
Now that our databases are large enough, we are approaching the point where we will be able to take basic word frequency data of individual words or concepts and calculate ratios related to adjacent words.
(To visualize adjacency of words, see Thinkmap’s http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ site and look up a word or two to see how it works…)
Now apply math.
In answer to your question, it may be that the frequency relationship between Ebola and eye (or eyeball) may have changed in a mathematically significant way.
Or not…which is what keeps Grady at our www.nostracodeus.com project up later and back to work early…trying to sniff this stuff out. Computer code is dandy for specifics but not when comes to generalizing and that’s, well, let’s just say a largish task.
Our Sign-Off Line
A reader included this in a recent post:
…could you stop ending your columns with that snide “write when you break even”, sounds like you are doing far better than most folks who ARE trying to ‘break even’, or do you just like kicking dirt on the rest of us?
Nothing of the sort!
That’s just my odd quirky ending. So, something different then (if this is OK?)
Write when you get rich some, (open to other suggestions)
George george@ure.net
(4:40 AM, storms are died down, back to bed for some snoozy-eye….)
Nothing wrong with your signoff. Rich is a state of mind, and I’m rich and always feel that way even if I have no money. Most of the time any money I have is tied up in something or another, but the resource value is there, and I have confidence that I can access it if I need to.
Of course, I always live below my means, mostly because there’s no reason to spend more. That said, the departure of a significant number of super-rich is cause to pause, and wonder exactly what’s going on. It would seem that sadly, the USA is no longer always the best location for a primary residence, and certainly not for an “only” residence.
George,
There is absolutely nothing wrong with your sign off: write when you break even. The reader who complained is not worthy of a response. Having said that, I’m amused by: write when you get some. Your sense of humor never fails to put a smile on my face.
I’d like to think I’ve broke even, George…..sorry I don’t write more often because of it.
I’m not rich in a monetary sense. However, a loving and devoted wife, children, grandchildren, family and friends…..a good job offering a means to pay bills and maintain expenses while having the ability to enjoy my life circle is quite “rich” in my book. Chasing the dollar can be overwhelming and detrimental to any sane person. While having lots of dough could make a life filled with all sorts of toys and things, there are enough examples out there how folks with large sums of that green papery stuff are miserable and are wrought with stressful lives because of it.
I’m happy with what I got. No complaints here my friend.
Please, let the reader who doesn’t like the sign off go read something else. I’m not even yet (considering the mortgage) but not offended in the least. Sad sign of touchy society “how dare you have yours, when I haven’t made it yet!”
Absolutely nothing wrong with your signoff.
In our society and country, it seems like something will always offend someone somewhere whereby resulting in someone always complaining about something. There’s just people like that – have to complain about something-no matter how insignificant it may be.
If they don’t like your sign off, they don’t have to read it. It’s that easy.
Just leave it be. The vast majority of your readers know that it is ‘your’ signature line for this column.
And btw – thanks for your columns that you put so much time into – I, personally, sincerely appreciate your writings.
Millionaires bugging out? We’d all bug out if we could. Just waiting for this train wreck of a global economy to spin off WW III.”O” will make it so. But you know, there will be no place to hide – the ‘troubles’ will find you. All one can do is prep and hope you can withstand die off.
Oddly enough (or perhaps not) your selections for reading do relate to the tale about ‘the exclusive rich’ – if true, they have a belief that is re-enforced among their social and financial group perhaps without merit . . . it is really not that much different from the ‘tulip mania’ in Holland where people made and lost vast sums of wealth from ‘flowers’. (In the same general vein – though I would draw one’s own conclusions – are the books by Charles Forte. He collected books of impossible facts some of which are still current . . . isn’t human nature wonderful!)
Write when you get the proper internet usage and response form (IURF15) approved by and returned from the NSA.
George – regarding your quirky ending – our world can never be a ‘perfect’ place. Someone or some group will always be upset, offended, or otherwise poorly-opined about ‘something’ related to anything and everything. The real issue is what is THEIR agenda and how does it serve THEM not the rest of us! Trying to keep uber-critical people happy – especially those would hide their agendas, or worse, have no idea what their agenda might be – is a sure path to perdition! If someone is so bored with life to write to you complaining about YOUR personal sign-off, then ignore them so they can focus what’s important in their own life.
You could sign off, “This could be the Big One”. As to people leaving the US, why not since our liberties are disappearing. Costra Rica and places farther south would not be EMP targets and have strong ag bases.
The US is going to be sent back to the 1860’s via an EMP attack and George neither your nor my PV systems will survive.
Mark “Red Dog”
I never took your “break even” as a monetary comment. To me it is a gambling term and as all our life is a gamble: money, love and circumstances, breaking even is a pretty good outcome. Don’t get PC on us.
Well, George, although I have begun each morning reading your column for years and years, I have to agree with the guy who called your sign off phrase “snide.” Or, maybe “smug.” Or, sarcastic.
Since most of your readers are loyal ones, maybe you could say, “See you tomorrow,” or “I am looking forward to your feedback.”
Also, with all the building and prepping you do, I am amazed that you do not have a tornado shelter. Please build one so I don’t have to worry about you and Elaine so much.
maybe they read this article and followed the trail of threads to even more specific and accurate predictions.
http://nationaldreamcenter.com/forum18/showthread.php?tid=759&pid=5653#pid5653
while i was reading down one of the connected threads, the blog author (who had also shut down his blog and moved to ‘safer’ ground) said on the 22nd april that there would be a huge earthquake on the 25th. it was the 25th when i was reading this and right after Nepal happened. chills.
his thesis is built around the passage of a large regularly occuring (about every 3600 years) solar system anomaly. the due date of the ‘line time’ crossing of the CHANI report is MAY 15. Do the super rich know more than the rest of us? seems so.
aloha
b
wow.
Penalty flags on the nine yard line here…I sat up when I read the post this morning.
My neighbor is one of ‘those’ of which you wrote, only its her children selling all and bugging out for Europe and parts unknown for a year. Sold house et al. She is staying put. Too old to galabant around.
Very odd indeed, especially when it gets close and personal like your reader.
Stay calm, for ‘That which is true, its opposite is also true’….
I create another reality for myself, one that doesn’t include all the crap.
Enjoy the week.
George,
I would like to take a WoWo poll. Anyone out there have dizziness or vertigo. I have been experiencing plus one other in our office. I just got off the phone with someone a few hundred miles away at our mother company and they are going to the doctor for the same thing.
I do enjoy your blog and no I am not even close to even.
Best Regards,
Larry
I’d ask fellow followers of Ure’s to guess what exactly has prompted those with plenty at their disposal to vacate the palatial in favor of the unknown.
Hints: its not the vision of Baltimore or Ferguson, its not Jade Helm, its not the 86% of minimum wage workers being in their mid-thirties.
What is it that is sending them to a, yes I’m gonna say it, a new world?
RPW
I like the standard ending.
I think you should combine that underground shelter with a root cellar…excellent place to store foods….and protection from the weather…or even nuclear fallout, and other nefarious unmentionables including a rogue planet flyby and 3 days of darkness….
As to how you end the column it realy dosen’t matter much to me as both are highly unlikley.