Yes, the book Another Nineteen: Investigating Legitimate 9/11 Suspects is likely worth your time to read, as is a visit to author Kevin Robert Ryan’s website over here. Getting traction…
Also: Hat tip to reader Charles for the catch…and he thinks you might enjoy Project Censored’s “Exploring the Financial Core of the Transnational Capitalist Class” which gets more into those check-writing rulers behind the seats of power.
All of which, he notes, could be a nice series of backgrounders before you move along to the front-edge newsnipulations (go ahead, use it, my gift) about to come at the helm changes at the Fed. So, go read “Failing Up to the Fed, a Reporters’ guide to the paper trail surrounding Larry Summers…”
Another futuring point, as long as we’re trying to look at things as they are, you might want to spend some time on the Mark Zuckerberg article over at The Next Web where he lays out where Facebook is going “to connect the next 5-billion people.”
Oh, and you mean social map them, too?
We may never know the extent of Facebook’s relationship with government agencies, but the LA Times article this morning where Zuckerberg says “The government blew it” on leaks, is interesting.
I prefer to sit back at watch things from my skeptical marketer/investor standpoint. What I see as a kind of over-arching deal is that a further drive to connect people to social media, moves in the direction of getting more and more people to self-map into social media. Which, figures Ure’s truly, is why everyone is so hot to develop killer aps for social media…so it will become so “necessary” (like CB radio, right?) that everyone will do it and as a result, everyone will self-map, self-confess, and self-leak all over the place.
Who needs a security state apparatchik when you’ve got social tied up?
So, do I seem a bit skeptical? I figure it’s only a matter of time before not having a social media account will be a cause for suspicion and eventually even arrest as an anti-social threat to society (because failing to self-map and self confess will definitely be found to be a telltale of something)!
Carrying the thought a step further, Madison Avenue Mike (OK, Mish, but I call him Mike so his friends don’t catch on) spied this really good article in the NY Times which lays out a good bit more about how online confessional aps work under the headline “Free Apps for Nearly Every Health Problem, but What About Privacy?”
Yeah? What about it? So far, my answer has been simple. Whenever I use one of those calculators which wants to email results (like body mass, heart/blood pressure, like expectancy, and things like that) I use Zeus the Cat’s email. (zeusishot@gmail.com)
You’ll be thrilled to know that Zeus is likely to live to age 89-92, doesn’t have diabetes, and is now able to receive $250,000 worth of life insurance from just $19/month.
I don’t know how much longer I will be able to keep up this up, however. I figure it’s only a matter of time until the Department of Homeland Security will turn identity theft from a cat into a class one offense. Although so far, I’ve blown off the demand letters from Zeus’s attorneys about sullying his reputation and demanding I give him back his Gold Card that he recently received along with a bunch of hotel points.
Rotsa ruck. No mice, no card.
Speaking of Petmail
Normally, I don’t read Zeus’s emails, but here’s one he didn’t mention from back in January from Reader Jimmy’s cat Mandy Sue..
Hi Zeus,
Ask your peon housemates whether or not they noticed that the recent quake in Alaska was coincident with the big outbreak of new sunspots.
Also, demand that they feed you raw organic meat like I get.
Isn’t it great that we felines rule the world! What other species can get humans to do anything we want and we give nothing in return unless we feel like it at the moment. Looks like the democrats are starting to copy us, though.
Regards,
Mandy Sue (sorry, too old for you, at age 18)
Near as I can figure it, Mandy Sue’s reference to democrats copying cats has to do with wrapping things up in kitty litter, but I can’t be sure. I’m sure NSA will be keeping a closer eye on Zeus now because of provocative (and under age) emails like this. I’m just wondering if he’s working for them and if they wouldn’t mind kicking in a few bucks toward cat food?
Reader’s Writes
Nice to see that a few folks have picked up on our new $20/five-month Peoplenomics.com subscription rate. Especially Edward down under who’s been following our cubit discussion:
George,
First time I have written you as a subscriber (new $20 client) but have written you a few times over the six years I have read the “free side”.
The Cubit discussion isn’t my area. My partner is a long time “organite” maker. She makes a variety of pieces and a number of them incorporate copper wire coils of various lengths according to the characteristics the piece is intend to possess. For example, there is a specific length to enhance biological fields and another to affect mental states etc.
Your article sent her scrambling to find the source of the cubit lengths she uses and I have attached a .pdf file with information on lengths for the Royal Cubit and the Lost Cubit. Who is to know, as you pointed out, what the original lengths were, but the lengths identified in this attached article have proven very effective in her work over the last five years.
You do outstanding work, mate, and I will take this opportunity to say so.
kind regards,
Edward “
Attached was an article from over here, which is really good… Also be sure to read the pages on “Orgone Adventures,” too.
Hidden in Plain Sight?
All of which reminds me to mention something that has been rattling around in the back of my head that I’ve been meaning to mention to you.
Have you ever noticed how in all the discussions of alchemy and such, there are all kinds of unusual, disgusting, and outright strange concoctions mixed up?
I got to thinking about this (in terms of spiritual investigations, reconnecting with Source and all that) and it occurred to me that cubits and such might be an elaborately encoded message to humanity.
Consider how scientific reductionism works. Mainly, it comes down to the idea that “science” changes one variable at a time in order to arrive at laws and such.
But what if alchemy, cubits, and Holy of Holies and all this stuff points to something else?
People are pretty well trained by single to be single-variable critters. Bring along calculus /simultaneous equations, and most people’s brains begin to explode.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could teach people now to be “long chain thought” users, which I fancy myself to be in training for? You start with single thoughts, then connect another, another, and another, until you can get some very elegant long-chain-thoughts put together.
By extrapolation, is alchemy really telling us that there is an answer to all secrets of Universe by simply connecting enough discontinuous items?
Granted, I would likely never ingest a mixture of chocolate chips cookies, a slice of dill, one blueberry, a caper, 1/2 stick of butter, and mix well with a ball of piano wire, removing the wire, of course before drinking…
But wouldn’t it be interesting if some n number of anti-logicals could open odd doorways to new realities? Is that what all the metaphoricals are telling us?
More Seriously: Did I Mention?
In Wednesday’s Peoplenomics report, I mentioned some math that has come along our www.nostracodeus.com project that we’re now building into code to see how it flies. In the meantime, circle the 8th of October (plus or minus three days) for our next outrage/mass killing event. If you’re a subscriber, you’ll find this to be incredibly interesting, given our trading model approach…and this weekend, we’ll discuss its ramifications for tuning the trading model.
Worldview Framing
Oilman2 sent an interesting note…which he figures most people aren’t connecting the dots on: the “Amount of raw materials needed to sustain economies of developed world is significantly underestimated” says a report over here. It’s just another reason that bearish investors like me expect that before we all start playing together nicely and in a cooperative way, we’ll have to experience a major decline of lifestyle (and with that come massive market declines) before we recognize some of our shared fundamental follies.
We figure to at least hold onto some purchasing power by betting of humans being greedy pigs.
Trips Ahoy!
We’re not quite sure when exactly, but family business up in the Seattle area got us planning a visit in the next week, or two. As part of the process, I ran out the usual numbers: Do we drive, fly, or take a train?
Usually, in September we can find great airfares. But not this year. Getting the two of us from our favorite airport up to Seattle and back came in about $1,100, but at that end we’d have to pop $250 for a car, so that puts us into the $1,350 range.
I looked at taking our own airplane (since this is an ideal mission) but the fuel cost is right up there with the cost of flying commercial. Even so, this would be a no-brainer, let’s go have some fun, until I got to looking at weather along the route: Since we’d be flying the Rockies (and I haven’t finished my instrument ticket) seems to be foolhardy to take on mountains up there under anything less than perfect August weather. The coast-route works, across the lower end of the country, but now the costs go up because that adds 4-hours each way, times 8.7 gallons per hour times $6-bucks for avgas. The plane will stay in its hangar.
Taking the train would be a lot cheaper. In fact, out of Houston, we could make it up to the Seattle area and back for something like $540 total. Which sounded great until I started to read the fine print: There would be no real sleeping, since all that gets you is a reclining chair. I don’t do well sleeping sitting up. My idea of sleep is clothes off, two pillows, and I’ll wait up when I damn well feel like it.
I also got to reading the fine print about how long the trip would take by trail: It runs somewhere north of 30-hours to get from Houston to Los Angeles’ Union Station. The math? 30 hours to go 1,200 miles? About 35-miles an hour. Hell, I’ve driven from the ranch out to Burbank and it was a long drive, but doable in one (beat-down at the end of it) day.
Oh, and no internet on the train, so I wouldn’t be able to serve you up the nearly-daily typographical nightmares here.
Which got us onto driving up. Turns out, Streets and Trips 2013 with GPS ($37 bucks, Amazon) figures our gas bill would be around $317.76 each way, or a trip total of $635.52.
I know, you’re thinking: What about the hotel/motels along the route?
We figure our stops would be one night in Amarillo, the next up at Grand Junction, CO, the a night in Boise before getting to our favorite hotel up in the Seattle area. Hitting Travel Advisor and reviewing hotels, I figure we can do fine for about $110 per night, so with six “sleeps” along the route, that’s another $660.
Which means that taking the car is just about exactly a push to taking the commercial airplane, except that the plane would get us there in one day, whereas the car would involve a total of 8-days traveling across the country.
Which one to take, right? Well, that’s what’s under discussion today. Streets and Trips is about the best tool I’ve ever found for playing “What If’s” for driving trips. Turns out there are two slightly different routes that make sense: One would take us up through Denver. That one takes 287 north of Amarillo and the other cuts off just north of Masterson, TX and meanders to the northwest, nicking the northeast corner of New Mexico, and then through the Sawatch, across and over to the Wasatch, eventually down into Salt Lake after going by the new NSA build-out along the way.
Part of me argues that I should really be taking the place saving time, so I can do more work. The other part of me is saying “You know, that kind of a trip, coming back, early fall, could be kind of pretty….besides, what are you saving all that time for at age 64.5?”
I’m inclined to drive it… I get no end of enjoyment out of being a fledgling travel writer, taking pictures, and with Elaine and I sharing the driving duties, 4-hours a day of driving isn’t so bad. Toss in a notepad, some classic motivational/thinking CD’s to keep the brains fired-up, a ham radio to keep in touch on 2-meters along the way…
What’s more, we have a friend up in Montana who’s invited us to drop by, but I don’t know if that’s going to work, or not. One thing’s for sure, though: The idea of a “sudden” (“Hey! Let’s go somewhere and do something and take care of some family stuff…”) trip is sure a fun idea.
We’re pondering it, but if you’re a reader along that route, ideas and suggestions (and good hotel hints for Amarillo, Grand Junction, and Boise) are always welcome…
We can push the family business around a little bit – so ideas on when the fall colors are best would also be appreciated…
More tomorrow, write when you break even…
George george@ure.net