I’m not sure what set it off, but long-time readers will remember that I’ve had occasional dreams that have had what’s seemingly “prophetic content.” 

The last “biggie” I had was before the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, which I wrote up as having aspects of oil/petroleum industry, murder, file, and warehouse which was posted here some 18-hours before the events.  (I’d put it up, but I took down the old site…though if you’re studious, it’s likely in archives on the net somewhere.)

The dream overnight was weird because it involved Elaine and I planning to go somewhere over a holiday (which we are, so nothing special there) but it also involved an Elvis Presley type singer who was belting out…

In the Harriers

Down on the carriers

holding on the deck…

And – making this even stranger – was the presence of a female officer in charge who was making this decision and a sense that something was going very badly and it might somehow impact our flying plans (Elaine and me).  Oh, and where the carrier involved was seemed pretty warm. 

Is this strange, or what?

Needless to say, I’ve asked Grady to add the words “carrier” and “Harrier” to our www.nostracodeus.com  project that’s searching of the internet for rising and falling word use. 

Admittedly,  the odds of a female-in-charge  telling the Harriers on a carrier to remain on the flight deck leading to (some negative outcome) which ripples widely is an incredibly low probability, so ifs something comes of it, well…. 

And if not, it gets me to the other idea that came along with this little IMAX-like mental event:  The idea that as Earth goes hurtling around in space, we run into invisible clouds of thought or expression of how the Universe works.

So, for example, we could be transiting (the last 20,000 years, or so, plus or minus a weekend) through an area of space where people pick-up (sort of like tuning forks) certain kinds of behaviors.  “Resonance of humans.”

As such, you wouldn’t need to actually employ any of your (traditional) five senses.  Your other senses (there may be six, or more additional ones as science keeps finding out more capabilities feeding the mind inside the skin-bag) aren’t even needed to pick up on the Noumenon.  It just is…and we’re all “tuning forks” –like it or not – and it’s an interesting notion around holiday time.

How does this “striking of that which resonates humans work?  Wikipedia’s discussion of the Noumenon is worth a look:

The noumenon /?n?u?m?n?n/ is a posited object or event that is known (if at all) without the use of the senses.^[1] The term is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to “phenomenon“, which refers to anything that appears to, or is an object of, the senses. In Ancient philosophy, the noumenal realm was equated with the world of ideas known to the philosophical mind, in contrast to the phenomenal realm, which was equated with the world of sensory reality, known to the uneducated mind.^[2] Much of modern philosophy has generally been skeptical of the possibility of knowledge independent of the senses, and Immanuel Kant gave this point of view its classical version, saying that the noumenal world may exist, but it is completely unknowable to humans. In Kantian philosophy the unknowable noumenon is often linked to the unknowable “thing-in-itself” (Ding an sich, which could also be rendered as “thing-as-such” or “thing per se“), although how to characterize the nature of the relationship is a question yet open to some controversy.

Which is where, perhaps, George’s “tuning fork” was pointing this morning – to the idea that we all go through our own assemblage points (thanks, Castaneda) of whatever it is that makes up the sharp pointy of here and now which slides down the wave front of the Eternal Now.

Dreams (and thoughts throughout the day) likely have these little “tuning fork” moments and relationships are perhaps in one sense, just shared mutual tuning fork striking.

Suppose – the End of Worlders are right.  Noumenal world make it possible to simply transit to a different area of space-time where we don’t need to consciously go collectively nuts.  We’re just struck: and in an instant what will seem a mass madness arrives.  Cheery, huh?

End Times Note:  Watch February 22, 2014

A timely headline – which few but the Rune throwers may appreciate – is how we are at a time when a lot of the world’s religions are talking End Times.

While everyone has been standing-by for the return of Jesus, and Muslims are on the lookout for the arrival of the 12th  Imam. we find it a rather bothersome little nit to realize that as many of Nostradamus’ predictions would fit nicely in here too (e.g. Black King, etc) not to mention the fact that we now have yet another big marker coming 89-days from now:

Will the world end in 100 days? Sounding of ancient trumpet in York warns of Viking apocalypse on 22 February 2014

This is when the god Odin gets killed by Fenrir the wolf and things go very badly for humans.

Oh, pay particular attention to the big “noise-makers” due, as well. 

In Biblical texts, Revelations 8:6 says “Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them…”  And in this account linked above of the Norse legend, we are also told to expect some kind of big horn which will call the “sons of Odin” off to the final battle.

In Biblical accounts, Gabriel is the trumpeter but as Wikipedia notices: “In Islamic tradition, though not specified in the Qur’an, the trumpeter sounding the trump of doom^[21] is not Gabriel, but Israfil.”

So one questions is whether Israfil has anything to do with the trumpet calling the sons of Odin, too?

There seem to be many points of agreement among major religions pointing to a terrible racket to come at the end of things, along with all their differences, as well.  But, when the points of agreement seem to herald similar kinds of things, it occurs to me to go shopping on the off chance that the noumenal world has given us signs and portents of what’s to come in phenomenal world.

In the interests of science, I’ve made a note this morning to call Bose and ask “Are ya’ll’s Bose® QuietComfort® 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphones End Times Certified?”

I’m not planning to depart in 2014…or many years there after, but in the meantime, when it comes to trumpet players, have you ever heard of Lee Morgan? 

Here…try some of Morgan’s “Sidewinder”  – it’s the kind of music I grew up with.  Along with tunes like Freddie Hubbard and Art Blakley (Jazz Messengers) doing Moanin’.  I gotta wonder if they can keep out this final trumpet stuff?

I’ll pass on the Big Trumpet for now.  Besides, anyone looking for Tribulations doesn’t need to look further than the alarm clock and calendar.  It’s Monday and pretty damn early.

That’s punishment enough.

Still, Time Flows Oddly (Wu)

I was asking last week if anyone else has noticed time flowing strangely.  Either getting incredible amounts of stuff done in “no time” or getting nothing done in large time blocks?  Reader “am” sees it:

I too have noticed a great variability in the subjective nature of time over the last few years. It has been more pronounced lately. I forget where, but I remember some philosopher opining that time was like water. Yes, it flows,( but more or less can flow down the river depending on the weather, snow melt, etc.)
Not sure what time weather is, but it has been a bit tempestuous of late.
Like regular water, you can surf it.

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I’d like to begin this morning with a highly condensed version of the implicates of Global cooling which are stacking up all over the place. 

For one, we have to admit that when the Sun is down to the lowest output level in what, 200 years? Something may be up!

And, since there isn’t much to do on an oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, Oilman2 has been counting the “Popov’s” (volcanoes) and his simple advice is what?  Bundle up and buy and overcoat because this winter could be a beast…

Etna   Sinabung   Merapi   Colima   Nishino-shima   Popocatepetl   Fuego

Not even counting the standard issue Pagan, Cleveland, Kilauea, Shiveluch, etc…

Just FYI old buddy.

Oilman2

Pappy didn’t raise no fool, and the pilot in me – the part of my personality that does weight and balance and performance deviations from aeronautical “standard days” – is extremely worried about the likely amount of snowfall this winter and the amount of flooding like to arrive in 2014 as a result of global cooling.

There’s some ugly math to be done about the amount of water that the atmosphere can hold at given temperature.

If you sniff around the net, you can come up with handy-dandy charts, like this one, from which you can look up the “hard physics” of what we’re looking at:  Air at 77F holds one-third more water than air at 68F.

Now close your eyes (unless you’re driving while reading this, lol) and image that the decades of high Sun output have raised temps X-degrees.

Apply double-sourced cooling:  The major increase in S02, not to mention the suspended particulates from the “popov’s” and the major decline in solar output.

Let’s then also appreciate that the mixing if the air masses will note be even and that while we’re in this window, we could experience more massive flooding, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1931 flooding in China which killed 3.7 million people.

I’m not saying the body count will be that high.  But, I will go out on a limb and note that the typhoon which just wrecked the Philippines made a decent start, and things are still recovering up in the Denver area.

The only question left is the matter of “Who’s next?” 

We had a little taste of unusual weather right here in the East Texas Outback overnight.  The forecasts resolutely predicted only a 60% chance of precipitation.

Instead, we’ve had massively heavy rains (driven by an Arctic cold front) which slammed temps from the mid 70’s yesterday to the low 40’s this morning.

The lightning which went along with the violent “vertical mixing” was – I kid you not – like trying to sleep on an artillery range during a live-fire drill. 

Wading through the soggy grass, out to the rain gauge, I discovered that what had been empty when I went to bed last night, and since the rain hadn’t started when I got up for some personal recycling around midnight, showed at 5:23 AM (with me standing out in the rain wondering how to turn the damn flash on) somewhere north of 2 1/2” which – in five hours – pencils out to a foot in 24-hours if the pace keeps up.

This has tremendous implications for America’s food supplies.

You’ll see that this week’s US Drought Monitor has changed from its usual (lots of brown) look to something with only patchy yellow and the whole area from mid-Texas east has been in “catch up” mode.

Plus, thing’s aren’t looking too bad (at least improving a bit) in most of the “square states”

I’d like to suggest one change, which I think might help people a lot in 2014:  Change the title of the Drought Monitor to “Precip Monitor” and toss in some green-to-blue hues.  Not only would it be appealing from a graphic arts standpoint, but I think it could be useful.

Mr. Ure’s “news nose knows news” and with all the dead people floating about, the idea of massive flooding ahead in 2014 just sort of came to me.  While we were trying to sleep through Life on the Artillery Range.

Friday at the Wujo – Pet Theory Edition: 

Self-Fueling Power Equipment

Heeee’s baaack!  Remember the guy (Warren, actually) who had that lawnmower that just wouldn’t run out of gas?  Well his “problem” has returned…

A few weeks ago, I shared the story about the unexpected efficiency of our lawn mower and line trimmer. (The gas tanks were full when I tried to fill them, when they should’ve been almost empty.) The most recent such event happened just a few days ago, when I mulched the downed leaves in my yard. The gas tank was low by a capful, when, according to the laws of conservation and energy, it should’ve been half empty.

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I know people don’t like to think about it, but if yesterday’s incredibly tame Consumer Prices weren’t bad enough, even with the Retail Sales numbers (which were saved from total disaster by auto sales), this morning’s report on Producer Prices is further evidence that we’d skirting the edges right now of a deflationary disaster:

The Producer Price Index for finished goods declined 0.2 percent in October, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Prices for finished goods fell 0.1 percent in September and rose 0.3 percent in August. At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by producers of intermediate goods declined 0.4 percent, and the crude goods index decreased 0.9 percent. On an unadjusted basis, prices for finished goods advanced 0.3 percent for the 12 months ended October 2013.

Finished Goods deserve some discussion:

Finished goods In October, the 0.2-percent decrease in the finished goods index is attributable to prices for finished energy goods, which fell 1.5 percent. By contrast, the indexes for finished consumer foods and for finished goods less foods and energy moved up 0.8 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively. Finished energy: Prices for finished energy goods moved down 1.5 percent in October, the first decline since a 2.5-percent drop in April 2013. Nearly all of the October decrease can be traced to the index for gasoline, which fell 3.8 percent. Lower prices for diesel fuel and residential natural gas also contributed to the decline in the index for finished energy goods.

The continuation of deflation means several things, not the least of which is people on Social Security will likely see little, or no, increase next year.  And, it also means that when the budget time out is over, we will be back in crap soup as both political parties seem more prone to have testosterone disease rather than deal with the fact that in a period of deflation, falling tax revenues might result, and that’s a very, very unhappy prospect to consider.

Still, the Happy Talk Choir down on Wall St.

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It’s only a week now until we get down to the serious business of having the annual gout-encounter with the high-purine dinners that invariably spring from National Gluttony, Exploitation and Denial Day, but we’ve some not yet come to terms with the reality of next Thursday’s holiday.

Oh, sure, modern school curricula has associated the date with the Mayflower and pilgrims, trading with the Indians (one of the all-time screw jobs) and horns o’ plenty and yada yah.

But the reality is that Thanksgiving happened for the first time during the Civil War, 1863, and worse, it was a national religious holiday.  Yes, dear victim of wrongful education, the day was, per Wikipedia, the day that…

President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens”, to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26.^[1] As a federal and public holiday in the U.S., Thanksgiving is one of the major holidays of the year. Together with Christmas and New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader holiday season.

As for the Pilgrims, oh sure, they broken bread with the Indians, but the Indians were given to feasting and partying at the drop of a hat.  And why not? 

They had no budget battles, no central government, they walked with a light environmental footprint, and seemed to be able to live in harmony with Nature, which was doing a fine job of supporting the 20-million, or so, that populated North America at the time the white dudes showed up with genocidal disease (small pox) and crooked land deals backed up with a gun.  Check in with George Custer in the afterlife on this point.

The Pilgrims, on the other hand, had plenty of reason to celebrate (all three days worth according to the Edward Winslow account).  They had a new scam in “proclaiming” property ownership, lots of cheap labor to help them out, and an unspoilt landscape to the west.  How does it get better for religious zealots running from a King?

National Gluttony & Exploitation Day is, to my way of reckoning, a far more honest label to hang on the event.  And – what the hell – I’ll even admit that we’ve gone the Pilgrims one-better in that we now extend the holiday by an additional day.

Whereas they were done in three days, we’re now done in four:  Gluttony/Exploitation Day, the attendant Black Friday, and then two days which I’ve dubbed “Credit Card Burn days; so named for the frenzied pace of credit card use.

I have to wonder why more people aren’t honest about the event.  Like Halloween’s victimization of witches (and their allegorical “flying” drug use ), American Denial is all-pervasive.  We haven’t evolved very far from the Salem Witch Trials:  Puritanical drug laws and then throwing people in jails to rot, instead of burning at a stake directly. That’sa some progress…but we’ve had to build a prison industry so that we can publicly trade in shares of misery.  Aren’t we clever?

As we sit around on NGED, consuming too much of everything, I wonder if anyone besides Ures truly will see the parallel between the original Thanksgiving period and the present blow-off top?  Or, what’s more, the parallel between the Salem Witch Trials and the current operation of the modem security state apparatchik?

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As we assemble, once again, to watch the sun rise over the cuckoo’s nest (it’s clear in Washington DC this morning), we can’t help but be somewhat bored with the lack of substance to the day’s headlines.

Why, you’d think in a world full of terrorism, nuclear weapons, climate change, pandemics at every turn, not to mention Planet X, that something more than an unfortunately ‘routine’ bombing outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut killed 23, and there’s no winner yet in Mass Media’s current contest to see who can report the earliest date that the Obama administration knew their website wasn’t going to end happily.

Both stories, however, are worthy of some elucidation while we wait for markets to do more than noise trade pending data later this week.  We can start with the more pleasant of the two:

Fox snooze is leading the “early warning” pack at the moment, revealing HHS warned about the website issues in March, but please!

Are you and I the only humans left who understand the difference between “information” and data?  Data is just that – a fact or factoid – as opposed to information which has some actionable aspect to it.

Suppose for a moment that I could produce a document dates June 26, 1953 which warned that The Obamacare website is not going to work out of the box.  Fine.  So what?  Would there be any other way of seeing the present clusterf*ck revealed by the next earlier date?

Congress, in case you haven’t noticed, is sitting on its thumb (changing hands now and then) on most matters – and the odds of them doing anything other than buttering their own bread is (how to break this to you?) incredibly small.  Other than give you a reason to absorb 18-minutes per hour of commercial content, is there a point?  Ha ha ha!  Hardly .

Now this Iranian Embassy bombing deal?  That’s a different kettle of fish.  Let me ‘splain you, Lucy.

We know that the Israelis and Saudis were starting to work together in preparation for war with Iran, specifically to wipe out the Shi’ite’s chance of getting a nuclear weapon, while the Sunni/Saudis already have theirs and more on order from Pakistan.

A half-way reasonable guess is that the most militant Sunni groups (Wahabi/ al Queda sound familiar?) may have supplied the human material to pull off this morning’s suicide bombing, and thus, in the great chess game of camel countries, try to goad the Iranians into some kind of major attack or response which could be punishable by what?  Why, an attack on their nuke plants of course!

Hey! Since it’s Tuesday, let’s toss in the heavy water plant, too!

With our web-scanning software colleague Grady over at www.nostracodeus.com has put up this morning’s data and the hot word of this morning is “Israel” and the surrounding word mix has increased the “spicing” of the words “rapid” and “protocol” which seem to be a broad hint to be looking for more goads and tweaks (a “protocol”) designed to elicit a [“rapid”] repose at some knee-jerk level from the Iranians.

it’s always useful – when marketing a war – to have some marketing tools at hand.  So an expectation-setting this morning would be that we’re now into what might be considered the goad and tweak protocol looking for a marketable justification for what would otherwise be counter-sold as a vile first-strike.  Particularly vile if first-use of nukes is employed which then blows back on the Israelis and falls out on the Russian’s southern tier.

Key lesson:  Apparently, you don’t need to be a gringo to be an Infidel.  Although we’d suspected as much, that, of the morning’s headlines, may be as close to actionable, as we’ll get on the first cup of coffee.

So we’re back where we started yesterday, distinguishing our efforts here at thinking the unthinkable, while the mainstream media continues unthinking the thinkable.

More after this…

(which is also actionable, since the software is usually out before the first of December so you can start working on your taxes over the holidays which is really a nice add-on to a Yule log – a Yule owe, lol….)

Market Records and Obamacare Weighs

OK, it’s nine days early, but the turkey so far this week – playing the old game of “Close, but no cigar” – is the Dow which failed to hang on to a momentary spike over the 16,000 level yesterday.  And the gravy was the S&P which spikes briefly to 1,802.33 and failed to hold.

Looking at the headline this morning we are not totally surprised.

For one thing, the president “stuck his foot in it” by claiming that 100-MILLION Americans have enrolled in Obamacare.

If nothing else, this alone should scare the markets into retreat this morning because this guy’s handling of math might have some bearing on how he looks at the economy.  You think?

Another sector to watch in the coming week or three might be the prescription drug boyz since the epic fail of Obamacare signups “…May Shave 30% from US Drug Sales…” reports Gloomberg.  I’m pondering that as a possible short in my own account.

Oh, and another nightmare for the markets may be found in the “80 is the new 60 when it comes to retirement” story in the NY Post this morning.  Here’s why:  We are already in a collapsing jobs market, right? 

One of the traditional ways for young people to move up the corporate food chain has been for the “old flux” to retire.  So what follows is if the geezers don’t pack it in, the young pups becoming limited by the “gray ceiling” and guess what?  No family formation, big home sales fall and the Millenials who are New Minimalists anyway simply stack cash in safe places but not the market ‘cuz they’ve seen how that screw turns already.  That ought to scare the hell out of the street, but they are still wired direct into IRAs and pension funds, but there again, retirement plans are drying up among the working class…..

President Obama’s job approval rating is now down to a career low.  If his track record doesn’t start to improve, he’ll end up ‘stealing defeat from the jaws of victory.”

Now heap on top of that the report that US banks had to take extraordinary steps when the US default loomed a month and a half back and – in case you’ve forgotten – there was really nothing solved other than a ‘kick the can down the road’ and that road ends in January, so that would be the logical time for the markets to sober up about how F/U’ed the countries finances really are.

I made a note tomorrow morning to see if I could figure out where comet Ison is, since its passing could mark a kind of starters gun for things to really hit the fan.  Holiday cheer and joy may hold the markets up for a while longer, but this whole economy and our approach to it, needs a couple of months in rehab.  We have to wonder if that might not help some policymakers, too.

Actual Data

Enough opinionating!  How about some facts…like this on the Employment Cost Index just out:

Compensation costs for civilian workers increased 0.4 percent, seasonally adjusted, for the 3-month period ending September 2013, following a 0.5 percent increase in June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries (which make up about 70 percent of compensation costs) increased 0.3 percent in the September quarter, similar to the 0.4 percent increase for the previous period. Benefits (which make up the remaining 30 percent of compensation) increased 0.7 percent, compared to a 0.4 percent increase for the 3-month period ending in June. Civilian Workers

Compensation costs for civilian workers increased 1.9 percent for the 12-month period ending September 2013, unchanged from the 12-month period ending in September 2012. Wages and salaries increased 1.6 percent for the current 12-month period. In September 2012, the 12-month increase was 1.7 percent.

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The trading indicator, which Peoplenomics subscribers see twice weekly, has really ticked me off this year.  I am *(as you probably figured) a dyed-in-the-wool bear who loves to make money on the short side of markets and who does extremely poorly when ‘gut trading” in a rising market.  The Indicator, however, with a single weekly exception, has been resolutely bullish since last December and continues its long position, even now.

Historically, Fall has been a great time for markets to pull major dives and yet, at least so far, we haven’t exactly gone off the high board.  While there’s a chance of a decline come Wednesday, we can’t help but wonder if some of the “enduring optimism” (financial snort) hasn’t been due in part to the busting up on regular economic reports thanks to the government shutdown when 83% of government couldn’t even get the regular statistics turned out…

I mention this because the Cost of Living report which has been previously issued around the 14th of the month won’t be out until Wednesday.. 

In the meantime, when it comes out, the market is likely to be further cheered by what will be (predictably) lower than expected inflation, despite the wholesale printing of money.  There is, you see, a well-orchestrated international G20 print festival going on, and as long as the illusion persists, we may expect the following to continue as a consequence:

• Gold will not drop through the floor ($1,200) until the ravages of deflation become clear and the printing speed globally may prevent that.
• The Dow and US stocks will continue to climb as long as the money is being “watered down” while at the same time, falling yields are putting even higher targets (think Dow 20,000 and S&P 2,000) in sight.
• And electronic digital replacements like Bitcoins should be doing very well indeed. And they are.

So the Good Times should arrive once again this morning with the Dow set to tack on another 40, which will put 16,000 in sight for tomorrow, if not this afternoon, and even with a modest pullback at mid week, the mistletoe is coming along with the eggnog down on The Street.

Time to order your Stock Trader’s Almanac 2014 (Almanac Investor Series) if you’re a bear like me.  It might help to jot down the license number of the bus that’s been running over us bears lately.

Us bears, that is, (like Ures truly) who are addicted to disaster porn and don’t follow our own well-performing systems that we developed to keep us from losing money. 

One of my buddies called to tell me he was loading the boat on SDS call options (on the 2X S&P short ETF) for December.

“You are???”  I asked incredulously…

“Well, January might be better, but I’m thinking that the budget crisis will come back and maybe worse than before…”

Maybe.  But what’s going on right now is sort of living synchronized water ballet or parallel fed printers:  The printing presses are getting warmed up in the EU and the if the German Court says the German people really can be put in debtor yokes to bail out Greece by an unelected government, well, then I’m afraid my friend won’t even get the license number of the bus. 

If the republicans can learn to articulate, well, maybe.  But absent that, the last go-round scared them and for all they are, they are not complete idiots and the budget “crisis” might be short-lived.

It’s a race, to be sure.  But sometimes the best way to make money, is to sit on your wallet until a clear change of trend becomes apparent.

And it doesn’t seem to be on tap this morning.

Global Warming to Cooling?

We’ve been considering the notion of late that the transition from high solar output to much lower output of the Sun – the lowest in more than 200 years – would cause large temperature gradients, and with them, extreme weather.

The national coverage, like this report over here, don’t go into this global warming cum cooling issue, but we know from our required flying education in meteorology that high temperature gradients (between hot and cold) are one of the predictors of extreme weather.  Toss in some pressure gradients and it’s a pretty simple matter to figure out when is a good time to go flying and when’s a good time to sit on the ground.

This morning, winds are strong and not much fun up in the Ohio/Pennsylachia area and out on the Oregon Coast.  We are only a month, or so, from the onset of winter and the storms are a hint.  So keep at eye out for temperature gradients and you’ll develop and eye for this stuff, too.

More after this…

Shaky Monday News

I assume you saw my 7.8 quake showed up, more or less on schedule, a couple of days late, this weekend?  Can we relax?  Lemme see…how’s about we start off with this which popped in from the Jakarta desk overnight?

Hiya chief!

Can’t say we don’t get good shows around here…  Mount Singabung popping.  [Hell of a picture! – G]

Sinabung is located in north central Sumatera near Lake Toba, which itself is the crater of a supervolcano similar to Yellowstone Park.  I’ll let you know if the lake starts boiling.  May want to seek a fresh planet at that point.  Luckily, there are an estimated 8.8 billion of them in the Milky Way.

Sampai jumpa,

Bernard Grover

Managing Editor, Indonesia Bureau
P.S.- all the Philippine crew have checked in with minor damage.  Most of the bad stuff is limited to the southern end of the country.  Folks still say the 10,000 estimate is well short of the real situation and that likely thousands have been washed out to sea.

If you haven’t read on the Toba catastrophe theories about, this snip out of Wikipedia ought to get it onto your learning list:

The Toba supereruption (Youngest Toba Tuff or simply YTT^[2]) was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred sometime between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia). It is recognized as one of the Earth‘s largest known eruptions. The related catastrophe hypothesis holds that this event caused a global volcanic winter of 6–10 years and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode.

The story continues over here at the Wikipedia site.  So if you’re thinking Obamacare is a problem, just imagine the global impacts of another supereruption and picture how that would change people priorities around about what’s “important”.

Toba’s not enough?  Well, how about the article this weekend “Volcano discover smoldering under a kilometer of ice in West Antarctica:  Heat may increase rate of ice loss.”

Now close your eye and imagine that puppy going kah-blooey! 

Kind of like Mt. Etna which is going off light up the sky over Sicily.

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