Coping: With a Short Intermezzo from Bruce

If you believe Don Juan, in Carlo’s Castaneda’s books about the way of the nagual, you’ll not doubt be familiar with the concept of “petty demons.”   And they’re not all bad, as oftentimes in spiritual pursuits, it’s the “petty demons” that offer much truth about ourselves.

Reader Bruce is one of mine.  And he (more or less constantly) reminds me that Elaine and I could be hanging out in Ecuador, with a higher standard of living than what we enjoy in East Texas, should we elect the “exit” from the great ‘Merican Ponzi. 

As is evident, I have no intention of fleeing America, although we do have second thoughts about this ‘Merica –place which has materialized – a kind of caricature of a Constitutional democratic republic – which presents itself daily as though suffering from some degenerative disease.

As such, each of us gets to watch reruns of House and then get up every morning with our diagnostician’s hat on, pick up the morning news, and try to get at the root causes of that which ails us.

To my way of thinking, that’s as it should be.  My life has purpose, meaning, and so the Great Wheels of Progress turn.

But now and then extremely cogent and challenging emails float up from Ecuador which do provoke thought. 

Like this one:

Subject Line: no, not tough questions, tough answers

George,

To put it bluntly, the part of you asking the question is not the part that can understand the answers. 

In Western cultures, the onus is put upon a person (expert) to supposedly come up with the answers.  In eastern schools of thought, the onus is on the questioner to understand the answer given. The true teacher is one who does not supply answers to someone who cannot understand. And one who does not give an answer if he does not know.

Tough questions, damn straight.  And if you get any particularly keen insights that explain how this all works, send you answers of no more than 2,000 words, plus 25-cents in coin and two box tops to Crazy George at UrbanSurvival.com

This is the reason why when chela’s (defin. 2—g) would enter the ashram of a master they would be given months or years of mundane duties to in order to get their mind into a place where they were teachable.  Here is the principle they are working with. This is so prevalent in western culture.

Noise Level

The other problem is terminology.  In your WUJO post you are using lots of technical/computer technology.  Much of this terminology did not exist 20 years ago, so there was no way to express these ideas in the english language, nor could we really even consider them as possibilities for describing reality until they came into the language.  Ingo Swann, who developed the methods for teaching remote viewing, said that it was not possible to understand the principles and teach this until the word and concept of transducer came into the english language.  It is also why, in his writings, Ingo would go to dictionaries and get ancient/original definitions of words and define them in his writings before using them.  Its called creating a foundation upon which the information comes to rest so that it actually has value.  Adapting the new information of a teaching to your paradigm will not give you what you are seeking. Its like building a dwelling on the ruins of an old without clearing the ground.

Now the problem with the language and terminology you are using today is that once the terms get into common parlance, there are multiple definitions, especially on the personal level. They cannot be used for teaching because they usually mean different things to different people, so you get different understandings when attempting to communicate this.  This is why the Hindus will say that the true teaching cannot be transmitted verbally.

Read More

Go Gold: Thank the Ponzgress

Thank you Congress.  By running back to the printing press you have jammed up the price of gold more than $35 bucks (some are excitedly saying $50), which is fine by us, but is this really the rational thing to be doing in here?

With stock futures pointing to a slight pullback at the open this morning, down may 50-75 points after yesterday’s nosebleed-inducing rally, there I was by the phone when long-term reader Nick called.

“So, George, let me see if I have this right:  Congress needed to pass the debt ceiling so that we could keep paying our creditors, right?”

Well, uh, yeah….

“So wouldn’t it be safe to call this just one big Ponzi Scheme – you know – like the one Charles Ponzi set up where the new “investors” coming in had their money paying people their “returns”?”

I bet you know what happened next, don’t you?  I spent the next few half-hour on the phone with him explaining that the difference is that when “crime” is done by government, (not Chuck Ponzi) under the color of law like this, it’s call monetary policy.  It’s theft, but Theft Lite.  It’s good for you.  (“Git those hands back up where I kin see ‘em pardnah…”)

OK, just more smoke and mirrors, since there are some who argue that there never was a crisis in the first place.

You mean theater to perp the bigger shake-down?  Gee, gosh, golly, look surprised!  Emergency! Emergency!  Everyone run from Street!

If you just went out back next week, printing up hundred-dollar bills when you happened to  overdraw your checking account, you’d be a guest at Uncle’s (we’ll leave the light on for you) Iron Bar Hotel.  The main difference, of course, being that Congress has an Army, and consequently taxes (including Obamacare) is magically not an insurance industry shakedown (look up protection racket).  Instead, it’s national health care.

Of course, any competent business man can see that this just “kicks the can down the road” and as of this morning I think our next attempt at actuarial suicide will come in just 73-days.

Still, the Markets ought to now roll on to new heights, at least until the called-back federal workers getting a 16-17 day paid vacation (for not going to work) in this shows up on people’s screen.

All of which sets up furloughed workers who do get paid with the future prospects of getting almost four months a year of vacation.  Here’s how:  Say you’ve been around a good while and you get four weeks of regular vacation.  Maybe you could roll up some comp time and get that up to five weeks, right? 

Now, let’s say that this kick-the-can crap (coming back shortly, remember)  can be scheduled to occur four times per year.  That would make it…uh…64-calendar days or about 9.1 weeks, which when added to the five weeks of earned vacation is 14.1 weeks.  OK, it’s only 3.68 weeks of vacation.

If I had suggested this to you six months ago, you’d have been right to call Ures truly a raving-mad lunatic.

Now, I’m an economic policy realist and I’m kicking myself six-ways to Sunday for not getting a cushy federal job back in the day.

But it certainly explains a lot of past government hiring actions, like those thousands of new employees at IRS and DHS, for example.  My theory, waiting only to be proven out by events, is that the federal government won’t really be doing any more actual work.

They’ll just be beefing up to handle all the vacation time.  God, we’re generous with all that free tax loot, ain’t we?.  Makes me ever so much more anxious (even eager) to send in my Q4 tax payment in January.  You too, I bet?

Oh, here’s another meaty morsel in all this:  Mitch McConnell cut his state a fat hog – to the tune of $3-billion in earmarked funds for Kentuckians, as part of this..

Best government money can buy.

It’s just too bad that voters can hold multiple state residencies, otherwise I’d be inclined to take up residence in California. Nevada, and Kentucky, just so I could vote against the folks who jammed this through, rather than fixing our underlying (we’re bankrupt, right?) problem.

The way I figure it, about 3/4th of the senate needs to be shown the door at the next election and a like fraction on the other side of Ponzgress.  Which leaves only the matter of keeping the country from being repo’ed out from under us by corporations (and China) between now and then.

Reader Charles figures it this way:

…All that was done is the Clowns all crowded back in the car to drive in a circle in the Main Ring and get out to do it all over again several weeks along!

Bread and what?

Look, if this was really such a big deal, how come the president is waiting until this morning to sign this and get things back on track?  I know if you or I were in the White House, we’d be up till 3 AM, or whatever it took, to get ‘er done.

So the urgency is, how shall I say, a little suspect at a minimum.

Who’s Healthy?

Meantime, that blip on television of a House stenographer is out and about on the ‘net.  In case you missed it, this woman got up from here House job writing down what was going on and blurted out:

“

“The greatest deception here is this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it been, it would not have been. No. It would not have been. The Constitution would not have been written by Free Masons. They go against God. You cannot serve two masters.

Read More

Coping: Thursday at the WuJo

As promised, reader Bill (he’s about the 200th Bill around here, so it’s easy to get confused) sent in his WuJo experience:.  Wujo being, if you’re a first-time reader, those events which DO happen but logically should NOT happen…

A couple of weeks ago, my wife was sitting at the head of the kitchen table going through the Sunday coupon insert. Sitting at the other head of the table was my mother and under the table was the dog. On the chair to her right (a 90 degree angle) was a plastic shopping bag that she was putting in the pages that she didn’t want so that they would eventually go in the garbage. I was going to eat my bowl of cereal for breakfast, so I took the bag and put it on the back of what is now my chair, as I was eating, she was still putting the unwanted pages into the bag. At some point, she stopped and we were talking, I don’t remember what we were talking about. With our small conversation over, she returned to her coupons, she reached for her bag and it was gone from the back of my chair. We looked all around and found it on the floor, behind my wife and to her left. It was laying there sort of like if you took a bag in your left hand, put it behind your back and dropped it. We were both amazed and sitting there puzzled. In no point in time did anyone of the three of us (My wife, my mother nor me) got up or move and the dog was still laying on the floor under the table.

Read More

Simple Questions–Hard Answers

Because there are so many moving pieces to the developing budget and debt ceiling story, I’m not going to focus on those in this morning’s report (except, to pretend I’m a play-by-play baseball announcer like my old friend Manning Slater did in real life, but another story for another time…) “It’s the bottom of the calendar, and the idiots are at bat…” is how I’d begin. Which is why CNN hires a foreigner to anchor, I suppose. So instead, something a little more hopeful:

Twilight of America: Kiss-Off Privacy

Take me off your contact list, please.  The latest pisserlation (a revelation which causes you to get what?) is that the NSA – already seized by Gestapo-like management, is now ripping off your email address book contents, according to the Washington Post this morning.

What the article doesn’t get into, in much depth, is the why they’re doing it.

So here’s the deal, down and dirty:  The intel agencies (Stasi lites?) believe that they can build up a who profile on every single human being in America by bits and pieces without outright breaking the law.

You need to closely study the Wikipedia entry on “social mapping”

In social geography a social map is the cartographic, twodimensional representation of social institutions or processus projected on a plane. The first social maps date from the early 20th century. A recent example is the mapping of the residences of U.S. Facebook users and their social links [1].

In marketing a social map is a visualized analysis of a digital identity of a person, brand or company. A social map shows exactly where a digital identity is created, formed or discussed and sets each element in context and proportions.

These social map created an intense discussion about digital reputation and digital identities. For companies a so-called Corporate Social Map is still very new and an unusual methodology, but also very effective and meaningful.

Conspicuously missing is what it means to government and law enforcement.

File:Six degrees of separation.svgBasically, it takes guilt by association (an address book entry) and attempts to electronically morph it into probable cause.  

Since everyone on earth is connected to everyone else on earth, the wet dream here is to develop software that will ‘see through’ the six-degrees of separation’ problem and will turn everyone on a contact list into a suspect.

Of course, by weighting other contacts into the mix, we can see how it might, in theory, actually work.  But, the downfall is that the digital underbelly of everyone is exposed…except for the HMFICs who are running their own game.  Yes – the same guys who talk about –  but don’t deliver what?  TRANSPARENCY.

Read More

Coping: With “Freedom” and Hells on Wheels

Nothing like riding a motorcycle, especially with fall weather finally here.  The wind’s a bit cooler, no bugs slapping you in the face causing “rider’s welts” and the colors….  And so it’s again this backdrop we’re pleased to offer this first-hand ride report from a long-time reader…

Hey George,

Interesting weekend. Helped wish one of my heroes, the great (not late) Sonny Barger a Happy 75th Birthday by riding 150 miles or so in the Hells Angels (no apostrophe, of course) poker run for the occasion. My second year doing the ride on my 2011 Harley Fat Bob, and this year, it was almost overrun by law enforcement, who don’t seem to know the difference between a gaggle trouble-making metric riders, like the idiots in New York (no Harleys in that crowd) and a pack of Americans riding American-made iron. 

They pulled a few of us over, shadowed the run with at least a dozen marked and unmarked SUVs and took enough pictures to keep Walgreens’ photo department busy for a week, printing them all up. I fully expect to have finally earned my “Known Associate” patch.

What I guess they don’t understand, is that if you see a bunch of American made Harley-Davidson, Victory or Indian scoots surrounding an SUV, one of two things is going on. Either:

A – They are changing a tire or otherwise helping the motorist

B – The SUV is the target of an Amber Alert

But then, come to think of it, with all the ex-military, gun owning (and carrying, like myself) and Christian clubs in attendance, that means a lot of potential terrorists as labeled by the current administration. Maybe they were right to be there!

Sonny Barger’s book “Freedom: Credos from the Road ” is unapologetically conservative and libertarian. Maybe another reason to put him away, again!

Tell you what, though, I love being part of a group where it’s almost expected to be large and unshaven!

Read More

Heads Up on a New Scam

Love it! Nothing to freshen up a Monday like someone calling and saying in a heavy accent: “Hello, I am calling from the support department of Windows. We have just had a report that your computer is infected by a serious virus. We need to get some information about your computer from you…” I wasn’t the right guy to ask.

There Go Friday’s Gains

Sheep, banksters, and Tarriers served up this morning:   A Monday slap of Reality is ready.

There was (predictably) no breakthrough this weekend on the debt ceiling or the budget, so this morning, the market is looking (at least in the futures, and early on) to open about 80 points down.  And to see the market blow down several hundred points between now and Thursday shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

The Rest of the World (RoW) is becoming afraid of two things:  Namely that we American’s really might be as crazy as claimed by some and that worse,  the fear-mongering bankster class might actually be partly right about their “End of the World” yammering’s.

Me?  I don’t buy it. 

Americans were told by the hundreds of thousand just four years ago about how we should tighten the belt a notch and get on with working and spending.  We did our part and then some.

Now, when the same is expected of government, there’s a tremendous hue and cry about how whole this isn’t the country isn’t sailing off the edge of the Earth, yet, but you can hear the waterfalls from here…  (There’s a famous painting, or two, devoted to that…)

So here we are Monday and as we begin another “…work all day for sugar in your tay…” (the Tarriers part) we can assess the overnight global picture this way, looking for signs and portents as we do:

China up 1.16%

Japan up 1.48%

France down 0.10 %

Germany down (0.08%

And the UK up 0.14%

“So,” you’re thinking “If the end of the world is really that close, how come the global collapse is not on right now, then?”

Fine point:  At least in the early goings today, what I’d expect is a lot of ‘hot’ money blowing town looking for a more rational parking place.  That’s why other countries are UP.

The Hype du Jour this morning is that Senate democorps have a new budget front to push.  Yippee skippy!

The House is playing with (itself and) another short-term debt bill accompanied by the most bolloxed-up inability to articulate the concept of “Up to our collective asses in debt” in a way the sheep can grok as you’ll ever see.

Scare stories galore including this one about ripples at the State levels.

Hats off to our Veterans who went to the Memorials this weekend and tossed the barricades back to the White House.

Not to downplay the technical dangers, here, especially with IMF Money-Princess in Chief Chris Legarde calling things “very very disturbing,”  (no shit?) but a lot of our 99er-friends who lost homes and savings in the 2008/2009 collapse see poetic justice in the wings. Want me to mention the MF Global screw-job perp in here, too, long as we’re sharpening our words?

What the Fools on the Hill may not comprehend: “Too Big to Fail” may no longer apply.  And if that’s the case, we could be “Look out below!” for the markets.

A short story and  further smack of reality here, if I may?

Every so often, when Capt. Midnight has time, he called me from the rural part of Virginia or other east coast areas when he’s off adventuring.  And usually, our phone calls will be interrupted with cell drop out once or twice during a call.

When he rings back, the common laugh-line is “Damn third world phone system…”

Except we both know that is not a joke.

This morning there’s a really good interview by Kopin Tan with legendary trader Jim Rogers in Barron’s online over here.  The paragraph I’d point out to you is this quote from Rogers:

“When I was selling my New York house, I almost backed out; I just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving. But now I’m very happy here. I fly to New York and I realize I’m in a Third World airport. Then I get into a Third World taxi onto a Third World highway. The difference now just slaps me in the face. New York is a wonderful place, with the people and the vibrancy, but I can find the same vibrancy, if not more, in Asia. “

As an occasional trader who is one foot in technical analysis and one foot in fundamentals, what I look around and see is very similar to what Rogers is describing.

What we have before us is a country on the verge of technical bankruptcy, an administration which has promised more than it has performed, backed up by a congress that’s the laughing stock of everywhere but Greece, Iceland, Cyprus and the other Euro countries which are are the same track.

When we should be taxing machines that replace humans, we instead provide real (tax and other) incentives to rip jobs out of America and stash untaxed money offshore.  Slick, huh?

Businesses here, no longer fettered by monopolistic requirements such as make sense when placed on utilities (which telcos are) have systematically underinvested bare minimums to make as much money as possible.  But at its core, we’re still coasting on infrastructure investments made a decade ago.

Free lunching is not limited to the masses of the poor – works in telecom too, which is why you can’t hardly find American tech support to save your soul.

So yeah, people are a bit skitterish.  Like reader Andy:

G,
If the gov defaults, any recommendations in terms of having cash on hand, paying off debt ect
that you might share.
What will happen to the banks?
I can’t believe it has gotten this far.
But maybe it is good.
After all, you have been preaching that this insanity must stop and so this could be where it does.
What then?
Andy from Ohio

In order:  Yes, always have 90-days of cash on hand, but own a gun and keep your mouth shut.

Read More

Coping: With “When the World Breaks”

The first thing I want you to do this week is carve out an hour and a half from Ure busy schedule to watch a movie which you can rent off Amazon for four bucks.  “ When The World Breaks” and it features a lot of interview snips with people like Jerry Stiller and Mickey Rooney about what life was like in the 1930’s. during the (previous) Great Depression.

Times are not particularly bad…yet. 

Oh, sure, we’ve had a lot of people lose their homes, and we’ve seen a huge fraction of the US manufacturing demand shipped off to the third-worlders, but in terms of starvation driving people to steal in order to feed their families?  We’ve been spared that, but I’d add again: Only for now.

If – or when – bad times ever return, the best  few words of advice I’ve ever heard are “Look for the work that needs done.”

I’ve always been amazed by a friend of mine in the cell phone business.  He never has a single ‘job’ per se; he’s always doing something new and usually making extremely good money at it.  What’s his secret?

“I look a companies, figure out what they need to get done, and then make them an offer to do it..” he explained.

The “Man on the White Horse” theory is simple, and along the same lines.  An employer in hard times doesn’t look for an employee who will do anything.  Most companies hire to solve one problem.  All you need to do is explain how you can solve that problem, better than anyone else, and you’ve got the job 7-times out of ten.

Since there’s so much work that needs doing in the world (an inexhaustible supply, even for my own overflowing List of Stuff to Do) there’s really not much reason to be out of work.  With a few exceptions, of course:  Need to be legal to work, need to be able to do what needs doing, and some rudimentary skills in sales.  But given that short list, that’s about it.

A lot of people disagree with me on this, of course.   But I’ve seen it work, more often than not, and as we roll through what could still be a couple of difficult months ahead, just remember if you need work to keep your eye on what needs doing.  Watching that video about the (last) Depression carries an undercurrent of that the whole way through and it’s definitely worth your time.

About the Murder Cycle, DNA/Telomere Weapons

Long-time reader says our “murder cycle” work may not have been far off:

Hello again, George!

You were right about your Oct 8 event:

Well, likely NOT, since there’d be something of a telltale from such events, but like yesterday’s mention of Dr. Bill What’s-his-name’s article about DNA/nano weapons being dispersed into the environment, seems to me that there’s some of “odd harmony” out and about.

Reader Rob read that Peoplenomics report, and sent in this:

Good Morning George,

Sitting here at an RV place in Fort Worth, went to Dallas yesterday and saw ‘where’ they took out Kennedy & replaced him with a politician who understood how business works almost 50 years ago.

Follow The Money, it was as true 50 years ago as it is today.

I was thinking about your kill-switch rumor. 307 million + dead bodies in a moment, what a mess and what a vacuum to be filled!

Actually the story was been done many years ago, “Earth Abides” by George R. Stewart, of course that was the whole world…

As a directional switch it would be great for dealing with protesters, other than the mess.

Read More

Advisory for Peoplenomics Subscribers, Interested Readers

As you may know, the topic of Peoplenomics this weekend was a purely hypothetical solution to the devastating consequences of an economic collapse that would involve the mass euthanizing of Americans. As happens so often, what is envisioned in our report is being overtaken by events revealing themselves on the web. This weekend, writer Dr. Bill Weld has released documents which allege that the Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) has an active program in place which is releasing nano-devices into American food and water supplies and that by January of 2014 (less than 3-months from now) more than 98% of the US population will be effected. While we cannot attest to the accuracy of the report, the idea seems to be that once dispersed, the nano-devices which could theoretically operate at the cellular level, could be activated by radio transmissions from such sources as cell phone towers and airborne drones.

The Solution No One Wants to Talk About

Tired of hearing endlessly about the Ceiling and the Shutdown? Well, there really is a solution no one talks about but it’s a very ugly and messy one. Many times in the past, we have referred to our purely hypothetical Directorate 153 as being a kind of Central Command for a shadow government which really drives US sociopolitical operations. Envisioned as being an outgrowth of the Cold War, when the US was at a long-term strategic disadvantage in policy implementation, due to the longer duration of Soviet and now Federation (State Duma) committee plans, our hypothesized Directorate at least gives the West a somewhat equalized footing on the timeline; one less subject to political breezes that blow through Washington in the wake of each election. This morning, after a cup and a crumpet, we’ll consider what we do best around here:

Interplanet Janet’s Rally – Change Point Weekend

“She travels like a rocket with her comet team, and there’s never been a planet Janet hasn’t seen…”  That’s one of the lines in the Schoolhouse Rock episode which I mention this morning because I loved the rally yesterday.  OK, so a little later than I expected, but the bottom line here is this:  The prospect of a new Fed boss who’s going to make Ben Bernanke’s helicopters look puny could just push the market on to new highs any old time.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the latest Money Stocks report from the Fed shows M1 up at an annualized 8.3% for the month recent three months and similarly, M2 is up 8.2% for the three months, so maybe Led Zeppelin should rename word the song printing a stairway to heaven…

But, before we go there, the troublesome 1,690 line on the S&P remains and it’s best captured in Forbidden Zone’s “Bim Bam Boom” in terms of how it all works out.

As long as I have my world’s first EconoJay  (e-J) hat on this morning, here’s a song to play which summed up what we figure will be Interplanet Janet’s Fed policy in a nutshell.

Now, this is where things get interesting. I don’t think the prospect of buying a stairway to heaven (or printing it, either) will work, so Ures truly waded back in to his next wild-ass short side trade at the market highs yesterday.

NO!  This is NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.  This is a crazy man barking at the moon, but is there a chance that the market could briefly venture over that 1,690 level today and touch back down on Earth before the close?  We should know in a week or two who’s more irrational: me or the markets.

Budget Follies Will Decide

I should play poker with John Boehner sometime…and hopefully, if we ever do, he should bring a big bankroll with him because I’m gonna get rich off off him. 

Why?  Lousy poker player.  Obama called his bluff and Boehner folded…so this morning more talk is expected, but Boehner, who’s quickly losing support of the Tea Party wing for being to accommodative on the debt ceiling is also basically handing over the GOP’s future in 2016 by not hammering on the reality of what’s going down.

The issue, as I’ve tried ever-so-gently to explain is compound interest…and nothing more.  All Boehner would need to say is “Our Country is Blowing Up and the American people will not see their home foreclosed, the job-jacks to India, and then bless this administration’s bankrupting the US dollar to boot!”

Boehner won’t have the balls to get down and call it like it is.  Nor will he point out the heresy of claiming poor on budget and then having shock troops enough to turn away veterans from the Memorial while allowing pro immigration promotion at virtually the same time.

Nor, will he say the boondoggles which Faux News has been rolling out, are mostly at the feet of Fearless Leader not actuarial science.

Still, the government remains shut down, and despite the Interplanet Janet blastoff to the markets, I wouldn’t be surprised by a first stage burnout when people figure out that gravity (and pernicious debt-driven inflation) are not so easily fooled.

But for this morning, we should see a few more of the people, some of the time as futures are pointing to an effort to achieve orbit.  My money says it may look like Sputnik, but remember, the first satellite was up only 90-days. 

The markets should be so lucky.

With public confidence in both the poker player in chief and the inarticulate budget-aware realists cratering, polls are showing a high level of distrust and disgust.

It’s one thing to say the markets can “climb a wall of worry.”  It’s entirely another question when we ask “Can markets climb an asylum wall?”

More to the point, when was the last time a market staged a serious rally when 60% of poll respondents said to fire every member of congress?

Look for video later this morning as truckers plan to Ride for the Constitution.  And to be followed Sunday by a Million Veteran March at 9 AM at the National World War II Memorial.

Enough is too much and potential is high that this will be a change point weekend.

More After This…

 

JP Bleedin’

So, how does it feel to post a loss of a third of a billion plus?  Might want to ask the execs at JP Morgan which took a $7.2 billion legal hit this quarter.  Meantime, where there’s a fail, there’s a sale, as we say around here.  So word’s out this morning that JPM is looking to sell its commodities biz. 

Always ready to snap up a deal, I’ll call a couple of buddies and I’m sure we could make an offer.  I’m thinking about a $1,000 in cash and the seller to take back a note with no recourse to buyers.  Want in? LOL….  Oh, did I mention the no liabilities for past transactions clause?

Mideast Killing Fields

There’s so much murder and mayhem going on in the Middle East these days it could provide many lifetimes of storylines for someone like Joseph Wambaugh.  Here’s the latest body count:

Syria:  190  Number of civilians executes says Human Rights Watch.

Iraq: 42:   Number of people executed in a “clean up the streets” campaign following sectarian violence.

Also related:  the dynamite-paid Peace Prize has gone to a chemical weapons watchdog group.  Wiki fact check:

Dynamite was invented by the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Germany, and patented in 1867.

Read More

Coping: SimOfTheDead and other WuJo Implicates

We have a longish discussion of WuJo this morning, one with many reports, some interesting speculations, and even some directions for additional research, so let’s get after it, shall we?

A numbers of readers took the time to comment (thank you) on the events this week which seemed to describe a “teleportation” event.  If you missed yesterday’s column, she (thought) she’d shut down everything in the living/media room and come to bed, only to awaken a few hours later, luxuriating in the comfort of the bed, only to open her eyes and discover she was still in the living room. 

Reader Dan picks up the trail from there?

Does Elaine recall around what time she thought she came to bed but didn’t?

Last (also Wed- G)  night my wife and I had a brief time-slip wujo moment ourselves.  I think it was around 11:20 pm Eastern because we had just watched the weather forecast on the 11pm news:

I was in the kitchen getting some water.  I use a water filter pitcher and filled my glass from it.  I turned around to take my glass out to the living room and my wife asked me to fill her glass before she went to bed.  I went back into the kitchen, opened the fridge but the pitcher was missing.  I looked in the sink and it was there, having just been filled with more water but the lid was still off and the pitcher was just sitting there full of water.  Okay, I must have filled my glass, decided that the pitcher needed filling, put it in the sink, filled it, but just left it there in the sink without replacing the lid.  Mind you, no alcohol or any other things consumed last night, and I routinely stay up until after midnight so I was definitely not too tired yet.  I was just about to pass it off as a slip of the mind albeit something that is not common to me but then my wife exclaims “what happened to my phone?”

I went back out to the living room to see what she was talking about and she said she was getting ready for bed and set her phone down but now it is gone.  She went into the bedroom and found it on the bed next to the nightstand but did not recall going in there to place it there.  This had occurred at the exact same time as I had apparently filled the water pitcher.

So in summary, sometime around 11:20 pm Eastern both my wife and I took action on an object, moving it somewhere, without having any recollection.  And we did it at the exact same moment.

As soon as I realized that, I chalked it up as a Wujo moment and made a mental note to write you about it.  Well, after reading Elaine’s experience, I can only wonder if it happened around the same time?

It was really strange, and I asked her about the possibility that she might have gone through one of those “abduction” experiences that we read so much about on the net. 

Two points: First she admitted that she had an odd sore on the inside of her lower lip, something that didn’t seem like it was a normal (as in bite your lip) kind of experience.  First, because she doesn’t bite her lip and secondly because of what she said about it…

“I was going to mention it, too, now that you asked, but I talked myself out of it…you know…don’t want to make too big a deal about it.  And besides, it has gotten better (less painful) as the day’s worn on…”

The other oddity that persists:  She’s extremely uncomfortable just talking about it such that even trying to remember details about it makes her uncomfortable.

Next time it happens, I’ve made sure that Elaine knows what the immediate follow-up will be:  Run to the bedroom and see if the bed there – the real one, one the tactile/dream-state version – feels like it’s been slept in and is warm.  That would have been a useful clue.

And though she’s too polite to mention it, in going over the details with her (for the umpteenth time) she pointed out I was in error reporting that she woke up in the media chair with the comforter on it (the west chair).  She’d awaked with all that tactile stuff in my chair, the east chair and it didn’t have anything on it…just a leather recliner.

Barring a reoccurrence, not much else to say about the case now but it goes into our files as an unsolved mystery.

A WuJo Puzzle Solved!

The good news now is that at least some of the mystery behind some of those “hum” stories is starting to peek out due to some diligent detective work by reader Cris.  If you hear “the hum” or the sound of “heavy machinery, almost like a diesel running at night” read this one for sure:

I’ve been hearing this for years off and on; a low hum that seems to come out of the very ground and I put it in the unexplained category until a few days ago…..

I was checking the upstairs toilet for leaks (there were none) and turned away after I thought the tank had filled….. No sound of running water for at least a full 60 seconds when: the hum began.  I happened to look in the tank, saw ripples and pushed down on the float….
The hum stopped and I could turn it on and off at will by pressing on the float!  Once the tank overfilled it could no longer be induced to make the noise.

A mundane explanation for a VERY spooky sound.  The delay was long enough that you would not think having just flushed.  Very common valve assembly of Asian manufacture,
Cris

And this might explain some of the sounds in other areas, too (thinking the Windsor or Taos hums, too):  Could it be that a larger but similarly designed valve is being used at a local waterworks and it’s seating allows for some hum-inducing vibration?

Something to check on, next time you hear it in the middle of the night.  Get up wit the flashlight and check the loo….

Read More

+ More