Coping: With a [Financial] Holiday & Tex-Wx

There’s not much point of writing a column at 5 AM on a holiday Monday.  Except for something to do while a bowl of chili warms slowly and I get a chance to wander out to the range gauge.

As of this morning, Tyler, Texas, up the road a short piece from us, was reporting 30.24 inches of rain.  To give you an idea of how much rain that is, we’re on track to dump in 74-inches of rain.

I was and to get the mower out and whack down the lawn, but there has been so much rain come down that the septic system is getting cranky (again) and there are places in the lawn where the grass is yellowing from over-watering!

Even Dallas is up to 26.12 inches – which would track out 63-inches if it keeps up. 

This is a story I’ve been whining about for a couple of months now.  But our news judgment wasn’t off:  The national mainstream has discovered our rain and flooding which extends from here north into Oklahoma and next-door Misery. 

(*The next-door state used to be spelled Missouri but we changed it here as part of our tourism-marketing effects centered around Misery Loves Company…which was a post-Joplin gift.  Interestingly, we haven’t received the expected kudos from the state yet, but patience is our long suit.)

The  State of Brown’s California has measured 2.55-inches of rain year to date at LAX.  It may interest you to know that the barren wasteland on the far side of Century Blvd is tracking for an annual rainfall rate of just a shade over 6-inches.  (Hmmm…a familiar number…)

Boeing Field in Seattle remains stuck with 13.09-inches for the year.

In NorCal, Lake Shasta has already been drawn down to 54% of capacity, and we aren’t even into June yet.  Perhaps instead of jet skis, the marinas could turn it into an ATV course?

Trinity Lake is down even more:  46% of capacity.

Eureka, California scores big with 8.55” year to date.

Sacramentia (sic) has collected 4.96 inches (one inch per month) but the odds of rainfall in summer are pretty slip.  Ergo, we’re thinking the desert will run from Sacramentia down to Ciudad Diego, or so.  Sacramentia is what aging California has come down with.  The main symptom is residents forget how money operates.  The early on-set is forgetting the notion of small government…

What I call North San Ysidro is another recipient of our marketing assistance: Formerly San Diego, then Tia Diego, it’s now Ciudad Diego since the Obamanizers may have scammed their way through law school spouting socialism, but they mustn’t have done well in Cartography.  Since I had to wait 66 years for Social Security why shouldn’t….oh, don’t get me started.

It has been about two years now since we began penciling out what the Great Drought Migration for Brownifornia would look like.

Here’s a list of 10 reasons why Nestle should be kicked out of water bottling operations in the Southland.  But like the great drying period leading into the Great Depression, this one is just getting started.  Remember from the Book of Landry:  “What turns a recession into a Depression is Drought” so we’ll just count raindrops and the backed up septic as a kind of Zen Lesson.

“And which Zen lesson might that be, Ure?”

Just so Crasshopper (sic):

There the story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years.

One day his horse ran away.  Hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they they told him sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.

“How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by.

The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” replied the farmer.

Climate Changes all the time.  The real variable is how well government (and people) monetize the event.  In the (First) Great Depression, planting Osage orange trees as wind blocks was one of the functions of the Civilian Conservation Corps.  The other outfit was the Works Progress Administration.

Leading into the Second Depression, we still have the blow-off market top to come, and then the market collapse.  But government is well-ahead of the problem this time around.  The government has set-up  Civilian Conservation Corps II right under your nose, and we seem to be the only ones to see it.

It’s called the “Corporation for National and Community Service and they run projects like Americorrps.gov and the SeniorCorps.gov and a bunch of other outfits as well..

No, it’s not exactly the same as the last Depression responses; you have to see the rhyme and be able to carry a tune.

Maybe.

What Did They Die For?

Memorial Day is when we remember fallen heroes who defended America and kept her great.

Sadly, I’ve been keeping track of what they died for and my list is very depressing:

1.  The right to release untested GMO seeds into the environment.

2.  The right of banks to continue collecting unlimited zero-interest deals from the Federal Reserve.

3.  To compound and build the wealth gap in America – a field where we are sadly the world leader.

4.  The concentration of even more central government powers at the expense of states.  Send us your money, we’ll stick on more strings or withhold funds entirely if you don’t do it our way, is the watchword.

5.  The right to unlimited spying on you and all aspects of your life including social and economic affairs.

6.  Rinse and repeat until this predictive headline is fulfilled: “Rich people ‘will become God-like immortal cyborgs within 200 years’

I’d like to apologized posthumously to Michael Garrett and Gil Pfeifer and all the underground housing tenants of Arlington that it has come to this.

U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler had it right when he wrote a 1935 book “War is a Racket” which according to Wikipedia contains this:

“”War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.””

The Tradition of Butler’s revelations is alive and well.  The other night, George Knapp had Susan Lindauer on Coast To Coast AM to discuss her book   which you can buy from Amazon.  Part of the show summary page at Coast gives you the flavor of what this modern patriot had to say and what the cost was:

“She was accused of warning her second cousin, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Secretary of State Colin Powell that War with Iraq would have catastrophic consequences. Gratis of the Patriot Act, her indictment was loaded with “secret charges” and “secret evidence.” She was subjected to one year in prison on Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas without a trial or hearing, and threatened with indefinite detention and forcible drugging to shut her up. After five years of indictment without a conviction or guilty plea, the Justice Department dismissed all charges five days before President Obama’s inauguration. “

The long and short of it was this:  The CIA had already negotiated what would be, in effect, a total surrender of Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq and complete access to weapons inspectors and all that.  In other words, as the Amazon summary put it “Lindauer discloses the existence of a comprehensive peace framework, which would have accomplished all major U.S. and British objectives in Baghdad without a single casualty.”

To my way of thinking, if you really want to do something for your country *(which will be a little more involved than 5-minutes of flag-waving), get and  Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq on your reading list.

The corporate siege of  America is all but over – something we should all be embarrassed about.

Like them, or not, the only two people standing up against the extension of the Constitution-busting Patriot Act extension are Rand Paul and Elizabeth Warren.

If they could blow past the corporate party labels and run as a team, if would be hands down a better country, in my view.  Third Party that would make sense.  Best of class ideas…not the crap that passes for government presently.

Go read the poll over here:  More than 37% of voters think the new Congress has seriously underperformed expectations. NSS?

Why do you think that is?  Because “Dee New Boss is de same as de Old Boss, yassah.”   We’re all field hands anymore.

You know the country has been sold-out when people like sinator Mitch McConnell break faith with the Constitution and start voting on secret laws. Odiferous male cow pie, that.

Are voters in Kentucky exceptionally stupid?

Maybe.

Passings: John Nash

Noted by our Winnipeg News Analyst:

Dear Mr. Ure,

The Wikipedia page of the American mathematician Dr. John F. Nash, Jr. has been updated with his unfortunate passing on May 23rd. He offered insight into complex matters. An executive editor of Brown University’s “The Brown Daily Herald” wrote a report on the occasion of Dr. Nash’s 2005 presentation. Another of her articles published 10 years ago on Tuesday although lacking reader comments, may appeal to your journalistic roots even if your alma mater was of a different palette.

There is a fine side of Nash’s work that bears discussion on this solemn day, as it’s a matter of great concern to all patriotic Americans.

It’s all the “Prison’s Dilemma” and the Wiki of it goes like this:

Imagine two prisoners held in separate cells, interrogated simultaneously, and offered deals (lighter jail sentences) for betraying their fellow criminal. They can “cooperate” (with the other prisoner) by not snitching, or “defect” by betraying the other. However, there is a catch; if both players defect, then they both serve a longer sentence than if neither said anything. Lower jail sentences are interpreted as higher payoffs (shown in the table).

The prisoner’s dilemma has a similar matrix as depicted for the coordination game, but the maximum reward for each player (in this case, 5) is obtained only when the players’ decisions are different. Each player improves his own situation by switching from “cooperating” to “defecting,” given knowledge that the other player’s best decision is to “defect.” The prisoner’s dilemma thus has a single Nash equilibrium: both players choosing to defect.

What has long made this an interesting case to study is the fact that this scenario is globally inferior to “both cooperating.” That is, both players would be better off if they both chose to “cooperate” instead of both choosing to defect. However, each player could improve his own situation by breaking the mutual cooperation, no matter how the other player possibly (or certainly) changes his decision.

And therein lies the Patriots Dilemma, just change the term from Prison and you’ve got it.   The Corporate-Government has already figured this out, and that’s why it is so important for them to monitor the internet and social media.  (To ensure the “cooperate” mode is alive and well.)

Maybe.

Patriot Act will go Lazarus after the holiday…they’ll be back.  Can’t get too much of a bad thing, don’tcha know…

Shirley – You Jest?

Music icon Shirley Bassey bemoans the passing of “class.”

We’ve seen it, ourselves.  On our February cruise this year, I was the only one in a navy blazer at dinner.  Everyone else was in what looked like golf attire.

Will it change?  The problem with showing “class” nowadays, since the egregious sins of the bankster class, is no one wants to be identified with “rich.”  So instead, everyone dresses down to hobo/dumpster-diving levels.   Can wed turn that around? 

Bring back skirts and hot pants, suggested Elaine.  Jackets, ties, and shined oxfords for men.  Wouldn’t that hep?

Maybe.

Adventures in Sleep and Dreams

Chis McCleary, who runs the www.nationaldreamcenter.com has just completed a site rework.  Site is faster than even UrbanSurvival, he noted (confidently) in a note.

Maybe, but check your mobile views before counting them chickens, Colonel.

Speaking of Dreams / George the Oneironaut

We’ve been sleeping on the grounded half-sheet for a little over a week now and yes, there is a change.  Small, but Elaine reports her aches and pains are less, my dream quality has been improving, and I can hardly wait to get into the serious part of my research.

In addition to sleeping on a grounded sheet (  ) I picked up a cheap dual channel DDS function generator which will generate square waves.

Figure it I set it to 7.83 Hz, the fifth harmonic of the Schumann  Resonance will hit at 39.15 Hz which would be very close to the 40 Hz results reported last year over here.

Might want to try on the word Oneironaut – as in Person who explores the world of inner/lucid dreams

There…call if Monday.  You may have your life back after you buy something…

Maybe.

Come back tomorrow and bring reinforcements; write when you break-even…yada, yada.  Back to horizontally polarized for a while…

George   george@ure.net

15 thoughts on “Coping: With a [Financial] Holiday & Tex-Wx”

  1. No, not all Kentuckians are exceptionally stupid. LOL

    Voted for Bevin myself against McConnell. Funny, in that the democrats were driving around with “Ditch Mitch” bumper stickers, and I told my husband that I had to laugh because for once I actually agreed with them.

    McConnell’s attack dogs smeared Bevin and a lot fell for it and also, in my opinion, a LOT of cheating behind the scenes and/or simply name recognition for the zombies who show up to vote and don’t know anything about either candidate but vote because “that name sounds familiar.”

    When Heiner re-hashed McConnell’s same smears this time around in the governor’s race, the people were awake and didn’t fall for it. Re-canvassing of votes scheduled for this Wednesday in the Bevin/Comer tie (83-vote difference statewide). Heiner came in third, even after outspending the others 3:1. Still wonder how the votes would have turned out had it been a two-way race and not four-way.

    May you have a blessed Memorial Day, George.

    • Sorry Pam, but I have to disagree, the majority of voters in KY are exceptionally stupid. They continue to send the very same people to the courthouse, statehouse, and Washington time and time again because they have either voted the party ticket or they watch the commercials on television. The fact that Rand Paul got elected was a fluke – Kentuckians aren’t generally that smart. The main reason for voting for McConnell was that he’s been there so long that he has built up all this power, and KY wants and needs someone that powerful in Washington to look after our interests. Bull-friggin’-s#%t, he looks after his own interests, doesn’t really care what we think of him or what we want. He is just one more example of why reasonable term limits and campaign finance reform should be part of a national plebiscite, but chances are that we would either screw it up or the process would just get hijacked like every other process whereby Americans make decisions.

  2. Do I recall that you’re area of Texas was in a drought three or four years past ? The Pres. visited and proclaimed ( at that time) “global warming in action” Then all Texans were asked to Pray along with the Gov. for the rains to return. There is always some place wet and someplace dry on our little old planet, someplace hot and someplace cold and on and on it goes.

    • Or does the rain prove prayer works…but there’s a fair bit of hysteresis in the process?

  3. Hey George,

    One good thing with all the rain is the ponds are full and you can catch all the catfish and crappie right under the bridge over the river down the road.
    The great state of Misery does have it’s issues no doubt. Crooked politicians and such are indeed the norm here as everywhere else. On the good side here on the ranch, location of which is a tightly held secret known only to the other patients er….. residents, we are blessed with being a poor enough county that we don’t have to get a permit to take a leak on the back 40 and if we want 5 strand barbed wire instead of 3 it’s OK. Hell they still keep tax (aka rent) payment records in a big ole ledger and print receipts out on an ancient dot matrix printer if you choose to mail yours in. I got mine hand written the last time I was in the courthouse to pay my taxes. The current collector is the daughter of the previous one and won the election cause it was her turn this time.

    Probably never break even but I’ll still write anyway.

    • Like ya’ll up in in Misery, we enjoy many of the same benefits of living in a backward county. Low taxes and no proctological lawmaking processes.

  4. Familiar number: after seasonal adjustments, rainfall, etc., and recalibration, I believe the familiar number is closer to 5.5″. Deflation after inflation? Changing demography/demonography?

    Consider, there’s more mirth in girth–anecdotal evidence. Hard to get double blind evidence.

    73

    WC md

    • As a medical fellow, I’m glad you brought this up. After the first blind, how does the second one matter? Or is my impertinence by asking these questions the main reason I have MBA after my name instead of MD?>

  5. Thanks for the brief update on your response to sleeping with the earthing/grounding sheet. Please keep reporting back (not sure I want to drop that much at this point, but am very interested in upping the number of lucid dreams I can achieve). Just ordered the book you linked to last week as well.

    Happy Memorial Day.

  6. Hi George;
    My wife and I go to a nice restaurant and we have both noticed the lack of class in the clientele. I dress in slacks and shirt and people look at me like I’m some kind of idiot. A large percentage are wearing shorts and some wear flip flops.
    We went to the funeral of her aunt last month and I was the only man there dressed in slacks and tie. I was going to wear a suit but the wife said I would look out of place. Some were dressed in shorts and t-shirts. No respect.
    I’m 74 and in damn good health. “Sloppy dress-sloppy mind,” my mother used to say.

  7. Grounded Sheets Great idea as I have been dragging a grounding wire capped with a static discharge wick for years that runs up my leg and is attached to the Aluminum hat that I always wear even in bed. I learned this secret when I was talking to the thousand year old Athenian warrior that resides here in Yelm with the Ramitha center.

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