Vignettes at 76

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Paradoxically, we can learn about “what’s ahead” by looking over our shoulders.  Because this being “birthday week” there is a ton to consider about Life.  Which often gets overlooked in the “noise floor of current events.”

Some pointers along the way, the many charts in our daily ChartPack, and some possible outcomes from presently evolving “news stories.”

A one-cupper today, but worth reading, I think.

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60 thoughts on “Vignettes at 76”

    • Zone 7
      – Trying to get all motivated – but woke up to more snow falling., hasn’t let-up for five hours now.
      Raised beds are look rather sad…

      Got it all mostly laid-out / what goes where and when.., green house is all ready for the starters..,

      Just have to work on the “me” side of the equation – motivation.

      • While you are currently only doing a limited amount of physical labor your body is actually repairing itself and your mind is subconsciously thinking about problems and is creating new solutions to them. This lack of “motivation” may actually be the most creative period of the year for you as your body steps back from it’s daily chores and repairs and re-energizes itself.

        I have come to the conclusion that a big part of the reason that people in northern climes, places with serious 4 season weather of the type that forced one inside for hours or days on end, is that FORCED period of inactivity for a few weeks a year is why those societies have led the way in creativity wrt finding ways to utilize the powers of other animals and of the earth to do the mundane activities of production of products that we all depend upon to live an ever improving life.

        Enjoy your time of “lack of motivation”. Soon Spring will be upon us and you will be busily occupied with all the tasks that appear out of nowhere so as to occupy our time and brain power so as to make it feel like we are again accomplishing something of value.

        • Agreed. Nothing like being ‘hunkered in’ for a cold winter. I consumed every science fiction book available, listened to faraway places on the shortwave radio, and became a ham radio operator to actually contact those faraway places as a teenager. Electronics fascination led me to becoming a TV Broadcast Engineer later in life.

  3. This might not be a novel idea but what if the IRS took their 80,000 new hires and had them hunt down Social Security recipients under the age of say 50 and over 100 and get our money back …….

      • I ‘preciate that, neighbor. Some day, when I stop being a grouchy old man, we may have to leave th gate unlocked long enough for a weekend branchwater when the heat comes back… only 40-miles away as the drones fly…

    • Internal Revenue Service – will be Name and Job Description changed in near future to the External Revenue Service.

      Those Boys and Girls will be busy tracking down $$$$ from everyone/thing outside USA – Where are all receipts for all the Cocaine, Meth and Fenty that have poured into US ?

      WTF has the DEA EVER DONE, ever?

      Bueller ?

      • Lol lol just consider how much of those cartel profits are spent on Congress to keep them from legalizing hemp…
        there’s so many products that can be made its amazing..clean the air reduce CO2 in the air..
        as long as. Congress can be bought .. As long as congress doesn’t have to be present to win money and influence others ..they aren’t required to actually read or write that Crap.. hell that’s to much like
        that evil word… WORK…. we need to remember they are important and the same standards for the average citizen is no applicable to their standards..

  4. “The problem is that a false flag attack on somewhere in the USA is being foretold by future-seers and – by the visions and so on – there won’t be any way to know with certainty where the attack will come from.”

    The one that keeps me awake at night is a swarm drone attack on a high ranking official(s).

    • So not really interested in Iranian missiles in CONUS, or how about sleeper cells ? No ?
      -Nevermind

      *Chabaddies need any and all reasons to initiate WW3 – to bring forth The Macyah/Mosiach, Messiah.

      Largest jewish religious org in world – chabad lubavitch spunoff from Baal Shem Tov’s hassidic movement..lovely, just lovely.

    • There was a ten, fifteen minute segment in a movie [ White House Down?] where a large SUV backs into a clear spot at a camp ground.., the back opens up and a large multi-tube launcher slowly rolls out and lifts for firing. In seconds dozens of drones are shot into the sky.., and they take out all the security guards, cars, boats and personnel protecting the President [ Morgan Freeman ] It was damn impressive., and impossible to defeat / defend.
      That one movie segment, I am sure, has given a lot of people very bad ideas.

        • That’s it. I can see no way possible to stop such a technological attack. Well., unless you had one incredible jamming device nearby – and what are the chances of that?
          .
          I will bet.., and give you a few points.., that few bad guys are working on just such a device – and training the computer staff.

      • Not impossible, and you can bet, even without asking Warhammer, that it, and other similar scenarios, have been thoroughly gamed by the Secret Service and FBI (and hopefully, by agents who’re loyal to the Constitution.)

        Countering a drone swarm would be a perfect application of a computer-targeted pulsed-laser weapon (whether such a weapon can be powered from above is irrelevant, because it can certainly be powered from the ground) but something as simple as launched nets (ever see a wild animal dropped for its annual physical) will take down quad-copters or any propeller-powered drones, in whole swaths, very-efficiently, and is a very good low-tech solution…

  5. The Practice of Practice is Practice.

    #5 of 16 Methods;

    ” It is possible that part of your body may feel uncomfortable, mildly painful or have a tendency to move. You should not wish these discomforts to appear, but if they do appear, it means that part of your body may have illness and the Qi is blocked. Firstly, you should breath deeply, secondly; try to make movements; thirdly, pound the painful part gently or make a cough or some noise. Do not hold back, because discomfort means your Qi is moving and you should try to adjust accordingly. Wherever there is discomfort, you should adjust consciously with any of the above methods. If there is any discomfort in your body, it means spontaneous movements maystart at that area, but you may not have moved spontaneously before and may no t know how to move. You can consciously direct your body to move and soon the pain or swollen feeling may disapear. For instance, if you feel lack of air, you may burp, or move your shoulder around in circular motion and soon you will feel better. In general, any discomfort you may experience requires you to make some moements and you should never control your movements, instead you may make some movements or sound, laughter or cough or gently your chest or back and thereby adjust your discomforts”. -YX

    Peace

    #6 is a humdinger/doozy – serious “work” comes, “a method to lower blood pressure”

  6. Your Focus section on “Vignettes” IMHO, was your best ever… so many profound messages. As I get older (just months behind you), I find myself pondering ever more on the metaphysical aspects of existence. “Religion” is a big deal here in the Bible Belt. But many of the most important lessons in this earth school are not taught. Thanks to you and some of your frequent contributors for the deep insights.

  8. Happy birthday… I have never been big on birthdays.. the reason I grew up in a big family…. birthdays wasn’t something to be celebrated.. if you were lucky mom baked a cake.. that was it.. no parties or big get togethers.. it was how it was..

  9. A 25% tariff on “imported pharmaceuticals”. That’s not gonna go over very well.
    Wonder why Trump singled out an already expensive ‘necessity’ for millions of consumers ??
    – Hhhmmm.., doesn’t make sense to me……….,

    • Just put a limit to profit.. Even though citizens give the pharmaceutical companies research grants around a hundred billion a year the us citizens still are required to pay tens of thousands of percent more than anywhere else on the planet..
      before congress closed it..there was a pharmacy locally that faxed prescriptions to canada..where you paid a clinic fee and communication and overnight shipping.. one of my medications was 1250.00 a month the exact same medication there with all those fees was about 200.00 the one time the lot and production number was exactly the same as the one I filled locally. A generic if I was Canadian would have been under a hundred..
      the daughter got a ten day antibiotic the cost here was 350.00 the pharmacy said they would send the pills but no charge on the medication just the shipping etc. it was about fifty bucks..
      its even cheaper in Mexico..
      all they have to do is limit profit and open the borders.. A policy in new York should be available in texas.. A policy in the UK should be able to sell policies in the usa..

    • First you shift the manufacture to India, then you shift it back to the Americas (doesn’t have to be United States.) At this point in time Trump is not seeing tariffs as a taxing or revenue-generating device, but as a diplomatic lever. He is using the threat of tariffs to manipulate the chess pieces.

      Go research GATT. You can do a “quick & dirty” in 10 minutes, which will give the reader a clue regarding the many thousands of tariffs we already have on goods from our “free trade partners” and the many thousands more which they have on our goods.

      One might also discover that Reagan didn’t open “free trade” with China, as some here believe. That was done under the Clinton Administration, with the ushering-in of the WTO, which supplanted (and supplemented) GATT in 1995. The GHWB Administration laid the groundwork for NAFTA, but Bill Clinton signed both NAFTA and the final version of GATT (WTO) into existence in the U.S.

      See GATT – Uruguay Round or Marrakesh Agreement for further elucidation…

  10. Micro Strategy – Now Just ‘Strategy’ – has sweeten the deal on their offering of $2 billion in convertible bonds – for the sole purpose of buying more Bitcoin.
    – He really does want to be the biggest bear in the digital world.
    – Bitcoin went back up over $95,500 on the news.
    – Last week Sayler said that soon Bitcoin will not be affordable.

  11. Media is freaking-out that DOGE / Team-Musk has access to the IRS.
    Guess they didn’t check., but Biden personally gave 919 people access., according to the IRS.

    • Medical/IRS/Treasury-payments has to merge into one database/One System or X Everything. The name is a marketing detail.

      • Yupp..the retirement and benefit packages of members of congress and federal workers need to be part of that combination as well..its one thing to take advantage of the citizens quite another if it involves them..
        they receive the same Medicare coverage as joey down the street..

    • Lol lol its so great to finally have a president working for the people..
      as for DOGE … woof woof woof woof which translates to .( go big balls go )I am with ya . get the records released let the people know..

  12. re: “Candide”, 1759

    Folks,

    Nothing like an expresso shot of Voltaire before getting out for a champion day in the garden. The future is cloaked in possibility. Stargazers desiring a less academically cerebral yet hands-on, supercharged ride about the cosmos may wish to tune in DJ George. Throwing Romulus to the wolves, here we go with a Steppenwolf ditty:
    “Magic Carpet Ride”.

  13. – The S&P 500 ended February 19, 2020, higher by 0.5%., what followed was roughly five weeks of deceleration that wiped out 33.9% of the average’s value.
    No one knew it at the time but that was the quickest and most vicious bear market ever recorded.
    Here we are again – February 19th, but in 2025., and the S&P500 just barely, set an all-time high.., and we are more overvalued then anytime in history., with a P/E valuation setting records every day.

    What is to follow……..?

  14. Wonderful context once again as well as so much wisdom from this group. And as often happens, my day is in synch with some of the topics. I just don’t always respond except mentally.
    Just finished a light and pulse therapy session on a leg injury I incurred back on January 1. Fell into a brick fire pit on the dark and rainy night we get so often here in Rochester. No I wasn’t impaired!
    Swelled up the whole shin to about 6 inches high and way painful. Been steadily getting better with things like the RICE treatment, comfrey, plaintain and caster oil treatments as I went along. The light/pulse therapy today will be to tidy up loose ends and keep things continuing in the right direction. Feels comforted now!
    And no, I did not seek medical attention. Guidance was given and doors opened.
    Good health to all and thank you for who you are .

  15. Happy Birthday to you, George! Or, Hippo Birdies Two Ewes, as I saw on a card some years ago.

    I heard where the current Pope has pneumonia in both lungs, making his life closer to ending. How interesting that you mentioned the movie, The Conclave, which was released last year, could be an example of art imitating life. Thank you very much for your continued sharing of the wisdom learned and your fascinating life experiences.

    I think I related my swinging pendulum theory here years ago. I believe that when politics and life situations swing too far to the left, no pendulum swing to the middle is possible. The pendulum swing to the left during the last twenty years became so extreme that the resulting swing to the right now swings with great velocity. This swing to the right has so much force that it is smashing into walls, as we see happening currently. Most of this will be a good thing, but a few good things might be eliminated in the process. Big changes are afoot.

    • Understand, neither Mr. Trump, nor any member of his “inner circle” were either “conservative” or “republican” 20 years ago, and most weren’t, as little as 20 months ago.

      Back about 2004, Glenn Beck introduced the phrase: “Politics is no longer about ‘Right’ and ‘Left,’ it is about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.” I thought this an exaggeration at the time. ‘Turns out, I may have been in error…

      Musk, RFK, and most-pointedly, Nicole Shanahan (Bobby’s VP running mate) didn’t realize how anti-American and anti-civilization the Left had become, until they experienced TDS firsthand. Nicole did an interview shortly after being grilled for, like 11 straight hours in a New York courtroom, regarding her relationship with Donald Trump (whom she’d met either once, or nonce, at that time.) This was only a few days after RFK suspended his campaign and joined the Trump Train. She was amazed and astonished, beyond words, to discover the Democratic Party of which she was part, had become a totalitarian, communist/socialist entity and virtually everything she “knew” about American politics, was wrong.

      Our politicians have moved the pivot point of that pendulum slowly (so as to go unnoticed) to the Left for the last 130 years. It needs to swing really far to the right, to even put the pols back in the center. The People in this country are, generally speaking, “center/right.” As politicians have moved that pivot (and themselves) farther left, more people have come to realize they have lass and less in common with the people who’re allegedly leading us.

  16. If I recall right, it was titled,”The Nine Billion Names of God.”

    I recall the last line slightly differently:
    “Overrhead, silently and without any fuss, one by one, the stars were going out.”

    …and suddenly, I was outside, and the breeze felt cool and pleasant on my face; and I was in that scene in clean mountain air —-
    — and then, a moment later, I was back.

    • …and if you remember that, you might just know what a bopamgilvie is, and why it’s important.

    • It is indeed, “The Nine Billion Names of God”

      A short story by Arthur C. Clarke. A Hugo winner and considered one of the best F&SF shorts of all time, it was even republished by Isaac Asimov in one of his anthologies…

  17. Well., the accounting is over and the numbers are in. New York City., most elite private high schools will average a tuition of $70,000 this coming Fall.
    The microscope that a teacher goes through at one of these schools must be horrific !

    • about double what the best of the best Privates get in SE Pennsyltucky.
      Grade School/Middle Schools @$35k

      Public will get you gender bent, purple-green hair, furry tails and ears, Obidenized (sodomized) then GAY. That is when they arent Masked Up, Vaxxed Up, and completely fuckT up – but its Free ! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee what fun, no?

      • re: Drama Theory & Practice
        feat: 2nd Gen. Furbish

        NFTF,
        “Wee-tah-kah-wee-loo?” (Tell me a story?)

        Okay, if you insist. Two score years ago the present First Lady of France tutored her future husband then a private high school drama pupil of minority age. Public record offers that the student was tasked with the lead role in the great Italian playwright Eduardo de Filippo’s 1964 “The Art of Comedy”. Mr. de Filippo was born in Naples, the birthplace of pizza.

        According to the Italian “Wikipedia”, the plot of “The Art of Comedy” saw its lead heading a troupe of actors. He had received the prefect’s (governor’s) upcoming appointment schedule list in error. The prefect subsequently tried to figure out if he was meeting a real appointment-holder or simply an actor.

        The Wiki entry goes on to say the play is Eduardo’s manifesto against state censorship of its critics, and the misdirection of mass opinion and culture away from real problems. Generating confusion becomes a tool in the hands of those in power.

        Life imitates art?

        The End.

        “U-nye-wae-loh-nee-way.”
        (Go to sleep now.)

  18. Great column today! Happy Birthday, from another writer with over a million words behind him. I too, have had multiple careers. I’ve told my kids that they should have multiple careers during their working lives.
    Thanks for paying it forward in so many ways.

  23. S&P500 hit another record high today.., and, more importantly to me is that, so did my “Carnac The Magnificent” aggregate Index., by eight points. Not much, but, that is still a record high.
    However, it is right at the top of the Bollinger Bands and the 42 DMA looks to be turning over to the down side – not up, as would be expected from a new high price point. Slightly confusing.

  25. Happy Bday George. (and a belated Happy Valentines Day to you and Elaine)

    Enjoy your BALMY weather this week!!

    Certainly going to be warmer than those in the Dakota’s and Minnesota are expecting … so count your lucky stars that you won’t be as cold as there!

  26. Neat Birthday screed Mr. Ure !
    I am only 10 years behind your born date, and thoroughly enjoy the “ideas that flow from your life experience”. Plus I enjoy your “newspaper man” perspective on current events.
    On a side note regarding supplements:
    One of your subscribers mentioned benfothiamine as an adjunct to enhance such and such……
    I bit, and ordered a bottle from Amazon.
    Now I am not a scientist or rocket surgeon, but I have noticed that I do not have to pee as many times a night when I take the supplement in the evening, than when I skip. that is, 1 or 2 times, versus 4 or 5 times. Go figure. Anyone else ?

    • To really knock the “pee at night” thing, secret is Swedish Flower Pollen. Yep, as to do with prostate as we (men) age. So with it I seldom get up even one to pee but without it 2-times, or so. A buddy with an active bladder problem swears by it – he was a 5-times a night kind of guy and wasn’t getting enough sleep. he’s down to 1-2 times a night…last time we talked about it which was a few years back…

    • Works for us “ladies of a certain age” as well. Even better if you add a dose of ALA. (alpha-lipoic acid)

  27. “Many people – myself included (and especially) – never get the hang of that one career or “thing”. Or, they will do just one thing for a while until they master it (which takes about 12-years) and then go on to something else more interesting.”

    This is a social symptom of the super-intelligent. People who’re really bright tend to master a challenge and move on to the next. Unless you’re in a vocation/lifestyle which can’t be mastered, boredom is a foe for which intellect has no defense.

    • The key… at least for me… was to find a career that was constantly challenging and evolving… never boring. Broadcast Engineering was it. I completed a challenge at a particular station and moved on to the next challenge. And I found enough to keep me going for my whole career. Forty years in the Honolulu market, which was a dismal money-loser for most broadcast owners, I managed to stay ahead of the herd and build new stations for optimistic new owners. Then move on before they fell flat on their financial faces. The greatest challenge of my career came late… the conversion to digital television and HDTV. I had to unlearn a lifetime of physics and learn new, almost magical standards of the art. It was the ultimate challenge. And my reward was a life in the jungles, on an active volcano. Go figure. ;-)

  28. “That there are good people everywhere. But, for reasons I’m still working on, the good ones usually “finish last” or certainly back in the pack a ways.”

    Priorities…

    It is because they use a different yardstick.

  29. Happy Birthday, G Man. And welcome to the last quarter- Unless of course your life hacks push you into the fifth quarter and beyond.
    And which I hope they do!

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