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Name that Phenom: Confusonomics?

Maybe the top is in...Don't look now, but if someone tells you they know what's ahead for the economy, look 'em bang in the eye and tell them "You're full of crap."  NO ONE total understands the dynamics in play and if you make a sincere effort to sort out wheat from chaff in the headlines, you're no doubt falling victim to "confusonomics."  Pronounced: confuse-o-nomics.

A typical case, just here in the last 24-hours was the report that the "Economy likely ended 2011 with strong growth". This is one day after the housing numbers kicked the broader market (as measured by the S&P 500) down almost 6-10th's of one percent.  And to quote from the Census Housing report:

"Sales of new single-family houses in December 2011 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 307,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 2.2 percent (±13.2%)* below the revised November rate of 314,000 and is 7.3 percent (±16.6%)* below the December 2010 estimate of 331,000.

 

The median sales price of new houses sold in December 2011 was $210,300; the average sales price was $266,000. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 157,000. This represents a supply of 6.1 months at the current sales rate.

 

An estimated 302,000 new homes were sold in 2011. This is 6.2 percent (±3.6%) below the 2010 figure of 323,000."

The next data point we get to look at - and it's confusing, too - is the weekly check of M1 and M2 from the Fed and we can also consider M3b (reconstructed by Trader Bart, since St. Greenspan hid the sausage on M3 in time to blindside people with the housing bubble...).

So in this week's data, we see M2 is up 9.6% basis the most recent 12-months.  $9.7127 trillion, please make note of it.  We'll need that number again in a sec.

All of which is pretty useless by itself, but as luck would have it, the latest GDP figures are hot off the presses over at the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  Envelope, please?

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 1.8 percent.

The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4). The "second" estimate for the fourth quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on February 29, 2012.

The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter reflected positive contributions from private inventory investment, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, residential fixed investment, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by negative contributions from federal government spending and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

--- highly cynical sidebar ---

This morning's cruel joke in this press release is the part where BEA makes this assertion about personal savings:

"Personal saving -- disposable personal income less personal outlays -- was $429.3 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $456.5 billion in the third."

Why do I call this a cruel joke? The allegation is that 312-million people (.312 billion of us) on average saved $1.375.96 for every man woman and child in America.  But wait!  It gets better.

Look up this month's civilian labor force (.153887 billion) and you come up with each worker accounting for how much savings?  Rounded off: $2,790 in the quarter?  Which included Christmas?  Are we really so many blow-monkies as to buy that? 

That bald spot on my head is developing mange from scratching it so much.  Hand me the ViseGrips, would you?

--- end excessively cynical sidebar ---

Now, while all of these numbers may seem confusing, let me see if I can pull it all together for you: 

1.  A prime indication that we are in the Second Depression ought to be a collapse in the velocity of money.  Oh, sure, the Fed has been stomping money into the economy as fast as they can in order to paper over the Second Depression's deflationary impacts, but with this morning's GDP figures and the aforementioned Fed M2 report, we can work out the newest possible Velocity of Money calculations...remembering at the bottom in 2009 it was down to 1.63, or so from a bubble high midway between 2 and 3. 

Today it's  1.5533399...   (GDP/M2, might want to check my math, it's early...)

But, if that's not bad enough, to tell you the crap is about to hit the fan with another huge downturn immediately ahead (and this is without woo-woo or predictive linguistics) let me whisper this little tidbit:

Oh...that...Truly ugly is the fact it collapses and then the market is crushed a few months later.  Say....in the wake of March, maybe?  My, what a nice fit.  And down now to levels last seen in 2008-2009...whew.  Only this time it doesn't seem to come back...

I suppose it's comforting that Chairman Ben at the Fed is planning a series of lectures to college students in March. 

Better them than us, I suppose.  Why, if he'd ask people like me (Or, Joe Granville, father of on-balance volume who is predicting at least a 4,000 point drop in the Dow this year, my number's about twice that.) he might come up with somewhat more difficult questions.

Mine, for example begins "WTF dude?  Do you really think we're all befuddled by confusonomics?"  Handwriting is on the wall which we will be up against shortly.

Short Takes

Gov. Jan Brwer in Az has released the letter she laid on prez O t'other day.

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The AJC reports the administrative law judge passed on his findings in the Obama birther challenge to his being on the ballot in Georgia.  More to come on this, it seems.

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Dozens were killed in a car bombing in Iraq overnight.

Arrival of the Govt Money Cams

Maybe it's because Elaine and I have kids up in the Seattle area, and we tend to watch the Washington State Department of Transportation's elaborate web cam system here, but there's a new camera at the south end of downtown, just west of Pioneer Sqare and south a few blocks which is a view of SR-99/Alaska Way Viaduct replacement work.  The time lapse display is really neat.

We were able to watch the new Tacoma Bridge go up with the Tacoma Narrows (SR-16) camera here, too.

Reason for mentioning this?  It occurs to me that we're slowly evolving a new system of government "money cams."  In other words, the ability is evolving to provide for watching our tax dollars being spent on a real-time basis.  Maybe C-SPAN is part of this wider behavioral drift, too...

And seems to me that's a lot more costly than DirecTV of Dish bills, lol...

More after this: 

Coping:  We Do What?

As you may know, I belong to a couple of professional associations related to news writing.  Not that it will help, coming from a radio background where the printed word is just there for hints about what kinds of noises should come out of mouth, but the idea is to pick up on current thinking and technique.

So one of them has a writing awards contest going, and I submitted an entry into what I thought would be the right category.  Turns out, my guess wasn't so good - and not sure what's going to happen to my entry.

What's interesting - as I set about trying to explain what the UrbanSurvival/Peoplenomics efforts are about - is that most "news" is almost purely reactive, rather than anticipatory.

Which means what?  Well, to people who don't live "10-minutes in the future" doing things like referring to Clif's predictive linguistics with the recent ship sinking ("So, who's the Blonde?") or what's coming in the first half of March (more specifically March 2-9, +/- three days) to be followed by 90-120 days of never-before-seen levels of "release language", may seem like rantings of an idiot.

Not that they'd be wrong, at least until mid-March.  But it brings up the interesting question of where on the roughly Rayleigh Curve of arriving events in consciousness - events "plug in".

For the "math curious" there's a great Northrop-Grumman intro to the Rayleigh Curve available as a PowerPoint here.  As you'll find, it's really the Norden-Rayleigh (N-R) curve and the form of most interest to us might be the form v(t) = 2adte^(-a*t^2 except instead of tracking something like 'e' effort or expenditures, we might consider 'e' as emergent data points in consciousness...and they are distinctly nonlinear from where we live the illusion of "timeline".  

The main thing to be aware of is that on a linguistic/probability basis, there is a heightened chance of something big happening and we may not be bright enough to see exactly what it is that's coming.

We're cautious about playing "Name That Event" since that the "release language" around the 9/11 events (which we discussed in this summer 2001 report which foresaw something of large magnitude inside a 45-60 day window (with an equally inadequate drawing of the "tipping point" that was to materialize as 9/11) demonstrated that even getting aspects and attributes right [military/accident] which would [forever change how we live going forward] (which 9/11 did), we are only somewhat better today.

Yet we do have some candidate events in mind:

• Despite a "hands off" by the Obama administration, odds are increasing that Israel will be screaming shortly for the US to join in a pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, and that failing this, they will "go it alone" and stuff flares up immediately thereafter after the three day pause and some wet work bound to make headlines.  Hope to be wrong on this, but that kind of "glowing" future is my personal pick as most likely.

• With reports in multiple countries (five) bird flu could go airborne and maybe something like that could fit the international outlook out 3-4 years, but more likely might be...

• A complete and utter financial failure, which could bring to CDS the modern analog to the Herstatt effect which was a near miss with global financial meltdown in 1974, as all good econ students remember..

The hopful and optimistic sorts claim such an event could never happen again, but I'm not one for joining such clubs.  The reason is simple:  While it's true that continuous settlement has removed lock-up potential from foreign exchange transactions, there is no similar mechanism for credit default swaps (CDS) and did I mention those are up in the quadrillion-dollar range?

Sadly, if you pick up the Q3 - 2011 Office of the Comptroller of the Currency derivatives report, we see juicy reminders of how close the Global Financial Grim Reaper is with phrases like "Credit exposure from derivatives increased sharply in the third quarter."   Makes us a little nervous about what Q4 will be like when released shortly.

Clif (who is back online after being offline for a week due to the snowstorms up in the Pacific Northwest) is optimistic that it won't be the "war case", but since there are two specific numbers related to body counts in all this (30 million in round one and 1.29 billion by the end of round two) there seems to me to be a low probability that this would be caused by flu or financial failure, though the shutdown of international air travel might account for a demarcation line, as might initial and long-term food/famine impacts.

But back to the point of this little discussion:  I'm not sure how serious-minded people, not used to living in the world of "pre-news" would categorize anything around here.  

Data aside, there's a 70% (or greater) chance the predictions are all wrong and are just a computational/processing error. 

Still, it's a perplexing problem to ponder:  Do I plan to go to the group's convention which will occur at the end of the high risk window?  Thanks to having our own plane, we at least won't have to worry about making last-minute  travel arrangements.  And that gives us two reasons to be watching the weather closely in early to mid March.

Flares, Buoys, Weather

Remember our discussion about that buoy that was showing a seismic event, earlier this week?  Behold, the follow-up:

Greetings from Mendocino,

 

That buoy report made me write to you. It is the 4th item inthe "blame the sun" case. Tuesday morning, about 10am I look at the weather satellite on NOAA, and I see a jet black disc about halfway between Hawaii and so. Chile, about 500miles diameter, and in the middle of the huge equatorial high pressure zone. It appears to have started about the same time the M9 solar flare hit the earth. The black disc drifted westward, expanding until my bedtime at 10, when it was just below Hawaii, and about 1500 miles diameter.

 

Next morning there was a turbulent cloud over just the expanded anomaly. And at 8:04am, a 5.2 quake struck the very spot where the black disc had first appeared. The quake was very rare for the area. The buoy was between the quake and Chile. The heated water swell? Remember the black disc rode the current westward. What about all the other buoys? No movement recorded! Mainly, the link between the flare and the quake is strong. Thanks, again , for your labors. We are prepped up, although not prepared, I'm sure. Hope to hear from you after March, LOL.

(Say, that was a nervous laugh, there, pal...)   I do have to say that the Sun-Earth weather links, championed early by Jim McCanney, does seem to be valid more often than not.  But go read McCanney's Jan 23 note, since the flare was not that big as he call's 'em.

Friday at the WuJo

Say, here's a peach:  Seems down at the WuJo - that martial arts place where the woo-woo does battle with rational science, we are continuing to see an uptick in missing time and missing things, which are quite bothersome to a lot of people.  For example...

"George,

Since I sent my account of high strangeness a year or so back, these things have continued to evolve. Instead of polished stones appearing out the blue, we now get mystery novels, jewelry, and even a “Druid Oracle Card” deck in original packaging. A few months ago I came home to find a 6-card Tarot spread on my desk, from a deck that I don’t own. My wife and I have become so accustomed to this, we hardly react when something new arrives from the aether. Now that it’s winter, I do get a bit perturbed when locked windows open themselves, or our bedroom ceiling fan starts on its own, but otherwise not much to write about…until this.

Last night, we experienced an apparent time reset of about 4 hours. We generally retire around 9:30 and get up by 6:00. I like to get all the sleep I can, so going back to sleep after a bathroom break is never a problem. Last night I woke up (apparently) around 2:15 and noticed the furnace was running full tilt and the room felt warm. I checked the thermostat and noticed the temperature had climbed to 68, as it is programmed to do shortly before 6:00. I felt refreshed as if having had a full night of sleep.

Checked the clock in the kitchen and it said 6:15. Back to the bedroom, the wife asked what time was it and why was I getting up so early. Told her it was 6:15, whereupon she consulted her cell phone, which reported 2:18 AM. I laughed and said “Verizon must be having time server problems”, but then my phone said the same thing, as did the PC.

Back to the kitchen, the wall clock now said 2:20. OK, normally this would be explained as a case of a bleary-eyed sleeper misreading the clock. The problem comes in explaining the behavior of the thermostat. It’s programmed to turn down to 60 at night and then up to 68 around 5:30, so by 6:00 the temp reaches a comfortable level. The first time I got up and looked, the set point was 68 and the temperature had just caught up, as would be the case around 6:15.

After we concluded that it must really be 2:20 AM, the thermostat set point was checked again and found to be at 60, precisely where it should be at that time. Even if a spook had jacked up the temporary set point manually to 68 (not so implausible around here!), the thermostat would not return to 60 on its own, but would wait until the next scheduled program point to change.

The only explanation that fits is that our perceived time shifted backward from 6:20 to 2:20, so the thermostat would never have called for morning warm-up until it’s supposed to. We went back to bed and slept until 6:00, and I felt exceptionally rested this morning. (The heat came back on at the normal time). Something very strange is going on with reality! I enjoy reading the other WuJo reports – at least we know we’re not imagining this stuff...."

Oh, definitely not imagining stuff...  Next little quirk is this photo which a reader says she spied on Google Street Views...

While my first reaction was "Had to be one of those moving cams and taking multiple pictures...but wait!  How can that be?  The camera image seems to show from one location only..."  Did Google capture a doppelganger?

Speaking of which, a long-time reader with a credible background in remote viewing in a formal setting, sent this little update on "shadow people" which seem to be making a small uptick in reports....so is this related to a "thinning of the veil and 2012?  Beats me, but her comments about the shadow people are doggone interesting...

Hi, George:

I think it is probable that most of the "shadow people" incidents concern human astral travelers. It is possible for an experienced individual to change his or her appearance. I suspect that "hatman" owes something to "The Shadow," whose images in movies and comic books tended to include a wide-brimmed hat.

When I lived in Northern California I knew a number of ladies who reported nocturnal sex with aliens. It was entirely voluntary and the encounters were enjoyed. I looked to see who was really involved and observed that the visitor in a number of cases was a blond human body-builder; he knew how to control his appearance on the astral, and had discovered that women wanted to have sex with aliens. --No, I didn't blow the whistle on him. He was doing no harm.

Astral rapes do happen occasionally and they can leave marks. One friend went to see her doctor; he was outraged by her injuries and tried to persuade her to report her husband to police. When she told him it had happened during her sleep, and the perp was not her husband, he wouldn't believe her.

Can people be killed that way? Sure, if they don't have any self defense skills. In Houston years ago there was a puzzling epidemic of cases of attractive young women in apparent good health dying of unknown causes during the night. It went on at the rate of two or three per month for at least a year.

The solution is for people to develop some skills.  The Art and Practice of Astral Projection, by Ophiel, is a good place to start. Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defense.

Some of the shadow people encounters are anomalous and very creepy indeed.

I agree that wujo incidents are becoming larger and more frequent. Waves of change are agitating our little planet. If this is the precursor to a single future event, it is likely to be something that we will all wish had never happened.

For what it may be worth, I tried to see what will be going on in March of 2013. I expected to see the black hand of government strangling the internet. What I actually saw was different, and alarming. I saw a series of really enormous CMEs strike the Earth during about a two week period. If that happens, a few hardened military systems may survive but no other electronics will.

As of about 2005, the transformers used by large cities were manufactured in only a handful of plants in the entire world. The waiting time to receive one was about four years. Presumably the manufacture requires electricity, supplied by large transformers that are not shielded...

I take comfort in the knowledge that there is more than one possible future and we human beings have a choice about the future we experience. "

Still, just in case, I have kept my HT-37 and SX-122 tube type ham gear, and my grid-interactive solar system is teeming with transient protection.

Still, there is hope for science in all this commotion this week.  For example, the odd sleeping report (pufferfish) from yesterday elicited this from a science type:

"In my past life as a sleep research scientist I did a study of mental effects during sleep. I found that when people were in REM sleep and were awakened they always reported that had been dreaming. However, when in physiological deep slow wave sleep they often reported that they had been awake and thinking. These people were apparently awake psychologically but clearly asleep physiologically. This effect could be another explanation for “pufferfish’s” report. He likely would not be aware of his snoring. This is not to deny WuJo effects, as I see them all the time. I even teach a course about Intrusive Energies and related material...."

Last, but certainly not least there is that mysterious humming noise being heard around the world.  Last night on CoastToCoastAM with George Noory, Linda Moulton Howe was mentioning the sound had been heard in Tennessee by one ear-witness who happened to be a recording engineer and likened it to a chorus of horns...  Might want to keep an eye on her web site, www.earthfiles.com for more to come.

Say, that wouldn't be the "last trumpet" now, would it?  Curiously she dates the start of this from last March and with this March looming large in language, we can't wait to see what happens - if anything.

One thing's clear - lots of people are hearing strange things...like this report:

Hi George,

I've been watching the exchange over the last few weeks about the hum that some folks are hearing, and apparently in increasing numbers. I am not sure when I first became aware of this hum, probably around 1989. I was living about 17 miles outside of town at the time and I kept noticing this sound in my otherwise quiet house. I have been involved in sound reinforcement and mixing and or the broadcasting business for 42 years, since I was 14 years old, so I have always been acutely aware of sound. I spent days looking for the source of the sound but could not find it. I even went so far as to kill the power coming in at the main breaker. What fascinated me was that I could hear the sound in the house but not outside. I finally concluded that the sound must be coming from a glass recycling plant that was located off the highway about three miles from my house. The sound was very similar to the noise of an industrial vacuum system that sucks up material out of a hopper and transfers it to another area. Since I couldn't hear it outside I theorized that the walls of the house acted like a resonant cavity and amplified the sound indoors, which would explain why I couldn't hear it outside. I was happy with this explanation for the twelve years I lived there.

A couple of moves and a marriage later I had moved to town and then back out to the country. Not quite so far out this time, only about six miles out, but still well away from highway traffic and industry, or so I though, because I started hearing the sound again. There were industrial plants on the edge of town six miles away, but that was twice the distance I had been before plus there was a considerable amount of dirt between me and them in the form of a valley and subsequent hills. The resonant cavity wasn't sounding too good to support the idea of air transfer and then amplification. I noticed that the sound was slightly different than I remembered before. Still sounding mechanical in nature but more of a friction sound than a fan type sound. Again after a fairly exhaustive search of what could be causing the noise, hearing it inside and not outside, I formulated the theory that it could be oil or gas drilling going on. Living in Texas, it is not uncommon to be located near a drill site. I thought that perhaps the sound was being transmitted through the bedrock and then being transferred to the inside of the house through the slab. I was happy with this conclusion until I moved again.

New town, new wife, (seems to be a hazard of the broadcasting business) a very quiet community of just 3500 folks and no industry to speak of. I am hearing the sound again, but this time I live in a pier and beam house, no slab to commute the sound from the ground to the house. Again I can hear it in the house but not outside. It still sounds a bit like drilling noise, but there's no oil or gas production around here as we sit on a giant dome of granite. I thought to myself whales communicate with low frequency sounds that travel for hundreds of miles, and sound can travel better through solid or dense material. That had to be it I concluded, the large amount of granite so close to the surface was acting to allow a greater transfer of sound to the house which in turn was acting as a resonate cavity. I was happy with that until the sound morphed slightly again. This time my new wife could hear it too. She woke me up one night and said "what is that diesel truck doing out there with his engine just idling?" She made me get up and go look. No sound outside. Back in the bedroom I could now hear it too. I went back outside, no sound.

There were enough similarities between the sounds to be recognizable to me as the same, but now, rather than just being drilling noise, it did have the characteristics of a diesel engine idling. That's the sound we both heard off and on for the next couple of years. Sometimes we would both hear it, and sometimes only one of us would hear it. Over that time I notice the sound had begun to morph again, moving from a sound like that diesel truck to more of a sound of liquid or steam moving through pipes. I started looking for water leaks or a faucet left on, none that I could find. Went out to the meter and looked to see if the drip spinner was moving at all, dead still. By this time I have pitched the normal scientific explanations out the window and concluded it is something else. The reason that I am writing you today is that I hadn't really heard the sound in recent weeks and hadn't noticed that I hadn't heard it until the discussion came up on your site. Then this morning when I woke up I heard the sound again, and this time I made a more detailed mental analysis of the sound and its structure. I notice that while it still sounds something like liquid through pipes and not as mechanical as it had in previous years, there was a phasing to it. At first I thought it may be similar to the twist tones used in telephone dialing where the two frequencies beat together to form a third, but then I thought that wasn't it, it was more like what we used to do to produce phasing effects before the invention of the electronic boxes that do it for you these days. We would take identical recordings on two separate reel to reel machines start them simultaneously so that they were playing back perfectly in sync, and then place slight pressure on one and then the other to produce a phasing effect. That's what this sounded like. This is a phased sound of two very similar sound waves. The phasing causes an increase in amplitude (at least perceived increase) and then it drops out of phase again. This happens in somewhat of a random pattern, but not completely random. I guess I would describe it as more like a modulation on an FM carrier wave.

I laid there for about an hour listening to it this morning trying to discern the characteristics of this sound then got up to take a shower. When I got out of the shower and stepped back into the bedroom, the sound was gone. Perfect silence. This is very interesting indeed. I am looking forward to my continued analysis next time I hear it.

Thanks for your column, I enjoy reading it every day.

Oh - reminds me:  I was in the bathroom a week or two back and hearing a similar noise - and it was seeming to come from the wall behind the shower.  What I did was turn on the shower for a moment and the sound went away!

So, the next time you hear something strange in the night, get up and turn the shower on full blast.  What I think is (likely) going on, is that the sound-conduction capabilities of still water become better late at night when you have little, or no, activity on a water system.

Out here at our ranch in East Texas, the local water lines are often very still for a very long time - and they're routed very near the oil lease operated by my friend Oilman3.  As any good sonar man worth his salt & thermoclines knows, the sound conduction properties of water change in areas of turbulence and temperature gradients.  So what I suspect happens is sound conduction into pipes which then (at an extraordinarily low level) move the walls or conduct those waterborne sounds into a physical backplane (oftentimes greenboard sheetrock of the shower area).

But that seemed to kill the noise for me for a few hours, and by then it was morning and other people on the water system started use for the day.

Kinda cool, huh?  Doesn't explain the overhead hum Elaine heard, but science does come up with a winner now and then.

More tomorrow for www.peoplenomics.com subscribers and another harsh slap from the larger reality for everyone else Monday morning...unless that 7+ earthquake shows up this weekend, of course...

Write when you break even: george@ure.net

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HOAs as PTBs

Psst...looking for the Powers That Be?  They may be as close as your Homeowner's Association.  This morning, after our usual tromp through the headlines and review of what the charts may (or may not) be telling us about the market, and what the Fed has in store this afternoon when Ben Bernanke holds his press conference, we're going to study the operation of the PTB a bit...and we'll show that even when the PTB are accessible and local, they are still prone to runaway power tripping.  But first things first:  Is the Baltic Dry Index telling us a huge decline is imminent?

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 Safer Computing:  Swearing Off Cookies

It has been a while since I roared the praises of the Maxa Cookie Manager which you can download and install for a free test drive by clicking here.

To upgrade from the demo to full working is still less than $50 and one heck of a bargain at that, if I do say so.

I am a high-reliability computing kind of guy - and near as I have it figured, the road to a hassle-free computing experience is (like flying an airplane) a matter of going through a proper checklist before popping onto the web:

• You need an active cookie manager - because sites you visit can put small bits of code on your computer and some of these are designed for Flash, have no expiration, and can really bugger-up the computing experience.  This part gets handled by Maxa Labs' product which on my system says 184,380 cookies have been removed, 73,881 "web bugs" which can track movement from site to site and such, and I have only 10-active cookies.

• Second thing you need is a good antivirus program - and I happen to really like Avira's Antivir pro.

• Then you need to deal with Malware  so for this Malware bytes is updated and run daily.

• And last, though certainly not least is the firewall and the one in Win 7 works fine.

Like anything in computers, updates are critical so before work every morning, the computer does its update ritual - Check of Maxa (5.3.02 is current) Avira, and Malware bytes. 

Toss in a good bit of common sense (example:  Don't open email purporting to be from UPS, IRS, the US Post Office, or anything else that even has a hint of fishy odor to it) and first thing you know, the internet's actually a useful tool.

"Live on $10,000" A Year

Having a hard time making ends meet?  (Like who isn't, right?)  A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book "How to Live on $10,000 a Year...or less!"

It's an automatic download.  It's written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left.  A bonus section called "How to Build Anything" should instill confidence if you've never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too.....  Click here for the index and details.

Do Tell

Please pass along word of this site to your friends by simply clicking here to send 'em a short email.  - Thanks!

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Last week's report is always here.

Thursday January 26, 2012

Gold Wakes Up

From an intraday low around $1,655 yesterday to to a whopping $1,728.20 (so far) this morning, yeah, I'd day gold is doing something.  Since this is so "in your face" we begin today with the observation that gold and silver must be waking up and possibly in a meaningful way, what given the events over at the Fed on Wednesday.  A 4.4% gain in the yellow dog ain't a bad performance in under 48 hours...don't even dream about the annualized rate implied, lol.

As expected, the Fed was all over itself trying to sound accommodative and even saying no rates hikes until 2014.  The aware observer might remember it was super-low rates which touched off the gold-yen carry trade, and we have to be wondering if the dollar might not be setting up to be the same kind of critter.  A review of this 2007 MoneyWeek article is possibly in order, just substitute the word USA in place of Japan for test-fitting purposes.

The key thing behind the Fed's commitment to low rates is their outlook for future real GDP, unemployment, and inflation which center around this:

Actually, this is a very useful outlook, since we can now start to make some long-term assumptions and be in synch with the Fed.  For one thing, jobs are likely to be very difficult.  For another, inflation will extremely low, at 2% a year, but I have little faith in that, since statistical inflation never comes near my checkbook's harsh reality.

The most significant item - and it's a subtle one, so bear with me on this - is that the Fed seems to be experiencing "mission creep."  Originally, the goal, if'n I recall it right, was to provide the country with stable money.  That blew up in the 1930's and as of yesterday, the Fed was listing three goals:

The FOMC is firmly committed to fulfilling its statutory mandate from the Congress of promoting maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. The Committee seeks to explain its monetary policy decisions to the public as clearly as possible. Such clarity facilitates well-informed decision-making by households and businesses, reduces economic and financial uncertainty, increases the effectiveness of monetary policy, and enhances transparency and accountability, which are essential in a democratic society.

Which leaves us to wonder what use Congress is, since the Fed is increasingly seeing itself as economic puppet master.  If the promotion of "maximum employment" is 6.7-7.6% four years out, seems to me we could adjourn and disband congress and just cookie cutter this years budget for the next two, and saving us all a whole lot of grief.

Just enact the bankster's assumption table and no need for government.  Bankers rule anyway...

The market, which had been poised to roll over may now, as a result of this well-timed Fed action, may break out to the upside, yet I'm not adding to my short positions. 

As I pointed out to Peoplenomics readers, the Baltic Dry Index has collapsed to 2009 levels and when taken with flat US West Coast Port data, makes a pretty convincing case the break will be to the downside, driving in part by falling earnings.

Carry trade in the metals and off we go - following the curve off the peak that Japan fell over in 1989 never to recover.  The Nikkei at 40,000 sounds dreamy when here we are - 23 years later - and they are still under the 9,000 level.

Gosh, here I was expecting another quantitative easing, but only hints of that.  Why, it must be an election year...

Stalling For Time

Word this morning that Iran's president is tweeting that Iran is ready for renewed nuclear talks with the West are pretty obviously a case of stalling for time.  March comes sooner than later.

Republicorp Cannibalism

Fire up the popcorn and pick up extra beer (or soda pop) this is going to be fun.  Not only is there a report from the National Review Online that newt G'rinch has unkind things to say about former president Ronald Reagan, but we just know that's going to raise the hackles of a right-wing radio bloviator who has been promoting the deification of Reagan for years.

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Not that right-wing bloviators are interested in a reality check (since these can be painful to defenders of  the paradigm - yesterday's way of doing things) but for those that are, Bill Moyers recent interview with former Reagan OMB Director David Stockman details quite clearly "How big money bought our democracy, corrupted both parties, and set us up for another financial crisis...".  This is a 9-minute revelation of how sh*t really works...

Put it all on eBay where we can see the bidders! 

---

Politico reports this morning "Gingrich admits ABC claim was false" and a New York Sun article today refers to William Jefferson Gingrich.

But wait!  Let me be realistic:  Sending one more idiot to Washington...who'd notice?

Happy Trails Department

If president Obama was expecting a smooth ride on his travels out west?  Nope, seems the governor of Arizona and the president exchanged some words at the airport.  Wonder if she mentioned the lack of a closed border?

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The administrative law judge hearing in Georgia today if my calendar is correct for next steps in this version of the birth cert. challenge.  Some discussion of the footwork here.

Buoy 32401

A reader wonders why this particular buoy off Chile was in tsunami mode this morning.  A check of a Chile seismograph shows a large, slow movement, here.  Quake in slow motion or maybe big magma movement?  Our quake watch continues.

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Nice solar flare sequence can be seen here at the moment.  Gotta wonder about connections.

Soylent Green Arriving

How about this one for a curdle the cornflakes headline?  "State Bill Outlaws Use of Fetuses in Food Industry."  Think I'm getting queasy....

Just Eat It

A new study written up in the UK seems to say that eating fried foods isn't bad for you, as long as the frying is done with olive and sunflower oils.  Canola and other stuff?  Nicht zo gut!

Like We Didn't Know, Dept.

CBS reports on an Ap report that the Japanese government hid "worst case" possibilities at Fukushima.  Like we didn't know?  Like they still aren't?

Coping: With Time Slips and Dream Times

Oh, this one is a dandy report of  WuJo-like happenings:

Hi GU- Thanx 4 your news-I can't afford subscribing but I do visit 4 days a week and send your link to pertinent others-and good luck with your wallstreet gambling ventures.

Strange time anomalies abound here in our house the last 2 weeks in particular, the prior I won't go into in detail about but the most recent happening last night and occurring as such:

At approx. 1:15 a.m. pacific time tues. 1/24 while awake and supine alongside my spouse in our bed (my dear spouse believing me to be asleep and believing me engaged in my mild snoring routine-which she likens to a pufferfish-I say believing because she obviously was hearing the puffering noises) I begin hearing her ratcheting up our/her instructions to awaken me from my sleep by exclaiming "...pufferfish......Pufferfish......PUFFERfish.....PUFFERFISH!...." (you get the picture.)

Anyway, this always awakens me, then I apologize, and then turn on my side to resume sleeping (my puffering only happens if I'm asleep lying on my back.) Problem this time is, I'm NOT asleep but rather wide awake and listening to her do our/her mutually agreed upon protocol, and thinking to myself "this is fascinating...she is herself wide awake, and hearing me puffering while asleep, only that I'm not asleep, at least in this universe, so I will just continue observing this and wait to see what happens...this is exciting!" So I continue listening while mildly smiling as she goes into another round of the protocol.

"pufferfish...Pufferfish...PUFFERfish..." etc. Me, laying there enjoying this, thinking..."WTF? O.K., let it keep unfolding, maybe something else will happen...like gold bullion materializing beside the bed with hundreds of little pufferfish falling from the ceiling onto t the lusterous bars...do we have a little aquarium we can put the little fishies in..?!"

"PUFFERFISH!....PUFFERFISH!!..."

Me, finally, after realizing the gold bullion wasn't in the cards for this round of TimeGames: "Swettie, are you O.K...? I'm wide awake, what are you hearing?"

"You were asleep and started into your puffering"

Me:"Sweetie, I've been awake the past 5 minutes, listening to you do our protocol, and realizing this must just be another strange time anomaly like what's been happening the past 2 weeks, so I decided to just go with it and see what happened."

Anyway, after several exchanges of that nature accompanied by mutual laughter, we good naturedly agreed that I would go downstairs to sleep and prevent the time bandits from any further mischief!

The previous 2 weeks anomalies?: A light she saw turn off by itself outside in the pump house accompanied moments later by a door slamming (I actually was enroute to the pump house to check on pipes when this happened, light was on and remained on throughout morning; and I didn't even end up entering the pump house) Other lights and ceiling fans turning off; bedside lampshades making noises for no reason; missing shoes; etc, etc.

No history of spooks in the house, house checked in the last week by a professional douser, no drugs or alcohol involved-it's clearly another episode of TimeGames.

Chalk it up to the WuJo!

Sincerely yours- (no names,...I'm a respected member of society!)

Fair enough.  This isn't the only night/sleeping oddity reported this week.  Here's one from a reader up near Dallas:

"The quick story: My fiancé and I woke up on Sunday morning at our usual, lazy hour of 10 in the morning. Hey, its Sunday. She gets up to go to the bathroom and start the coffee, while I lay in bed lazily browsing the web on my phone. From the adjacent living room, I hear 3 distinct, stacatto laughs which sound exactly like my fiancé. It sounded like she was laughing at something she was viewing on the television. I didn't hear her turn on the tv (it has a very recognizable little tune it plays whenever the tv is turned on or off) so I asked her what she was laughing at.

She comes out of the bathroom, which is also adjacent to the living room, and says, what? I asked her again what she was laughing at. She said she didn't laugh at anything, she was doing regular morning grooming in the bathroom. I said I heard her laughing at the tv in the living room. She said she was in the bathroom the whole time, silent. She has a very recognizable laugh, and it definitely sounded like her. Very interesting. Dimensional bleed over, witness to a future or past even? This episode was truly unique.

We have had a number of experiences of things being knocked over, objects being placed in random locations, water being spilled. Most of these easily written off as the rambunctious (and bored) spirits of family/friends who have left this plane who decide to mess with us for fun. (I have had experiences like this in the past, and know what is occurring based on that). We all have spirits hanging around us at all times. Most of us can't sense them, but some have the ability to see/hear/smell even touch them. It's all just vibratory rate and being able to tune and adjust the frequency to match. It is my feeling that a lot of the activity people report like misplaced objects, is probably due to spirits familiar to the person reporting the issue. The spirits can be bored, mischievous, or in some cases, helpful. By misplacing ones keys, or other necessary items, one can be delayed, possibly missing some kind of calamity or misfortune, like an auto accident, etc. Then there are other events, like the mysterious laughing, or the scene of that one reader's daughter and her boyfriend mysteriously dissolving right in front of his eyes. Hmmmm, much gnawing on universe to be had. As a preeminent sage of our time, Ted "Theodore" Logan once said, "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K."

Be well, my friend. All the best to Elaine, Panama, and Zeus.

Ain't just around the Circle K these days, and are you sure that circle ain't a pentagram that's been careless left unclosed?

And here's one from an RN:

Been reading for a while and a subscriber for a year or so. I’ve been really interested in the WuJo moments, especially after some things I’ve seen with patients working in critical care.

 

I’ve had a few things I’ve kind of written off as age, etc, till Friday.

 

I was taking my son hunting and we had to drive a good piece down some two lane country roads. We had turned off the interstate and gotten behind a couple cars that were turning in the direction we were going. I noticed their tag prefix was 34 which is the one for the county to which we were headed. I remember thinking to myself “I wonder if they are headed to Demopolis as well”. I noted the car in front of me was a Black Honda Accord.

 

The reason I noted that was my aunt, whom we were going to visit and go hunting with her son-in-law, drove one for years. I noted also the things hanging from the cars rear view mirror. We followed the Honda for 30 mile or more.

 

A storm front was coming through and it started to rain. We came upon a lone white care and the Honda passed it and then I did right after. When I pulled in behind the Honda the tag was a vanity tag from the Univ of Alabama and read “4U777”. I looked at the rearview mirror and the same things were hanging there.

 

Also there was a car dealership decal under the Honda name that hadn’t been there before.

 

I asked my son “Was that license plate like that earlier?”. He didn’t recall since he was doing homework and not paying attention to it.

 

Of all license plates, I would definitely have noticed that one earlier. Maybe its hormonal.

 

Please don’t use my name, people I work with think I’m crazy enough as it is. I don’t need free room and board on our psych unit for a retirement package.

Just another non-normal day here at the WuJo's Adjustment Bureau Central.

That Sound Around

We continue to pick up reports of that humming noise being reported around the world...more like a pressure than hum...

Just a note: We live in country about 25 miles SE of the SE edge of the last suburb to Kansas City, Mo. Last week my wife and one of our neighbors heard strange sounds coming from somewhere; it seemed like somewhere from the sky. Today she was shopping for groceries in the SE suburb (i.e.) Lee's Summit, Mo.; when she and everyone else in the parking lot heard strange sounds coming from the sky, but as usual no one could tell what or where it was from.

Please don't send me a note speculating on this being a precursor to a major Midwest (New Madrid-style) quake.  I'm not an idiot....or, maybe I am but very damn busy one...

Web Bots and 5OH Notes

Since Clif is still without internet services, and since Igor is moving, looks like there won't be any updates to the 5th order house website until March - and since there's a bunch of kah-kah on the way about then, we're not sure when (if?) the fifth order house project will resume.

And speaking of which, how about this outfit:  www.sevenly.org.   Donates 30% of their profits to charity. 

Weathering the Weather

Had one of our local hams on the repeater here in East Texas report a tornado touchdown in the Elkhart area (south of Palestine) yesterday as part of that system which had tornado warnings up this morning in parts of Alabama and Florida.

Curiously, there was damage alright, but somehow the word "tornado" didn't get mentioned in the local reports...just a reference to a couple of dytorage buildings blown down?  Hmmm...

Anyway, round these parts, the idea of a repeat of last year's devastating drought haven't been laid to rest:  We've got 3.25" of rain this year, against 2.45 normally, but 4.04 inches as a lead in to last year's drought...so we shall see.

Tuesday March 24, 2012

Reader Note:  This morning's report is a posted early - and a bit short, to, come to think of it.  Taking G2 to the airport...been a fun visit, but he's anxious to get back to the big city, for heaven knows what reason...oh wait, I was 31 once...scratch that dumb remark.

The Great Dichotomy

We begin this "day-before-Fed-day" with a report circulating on the net that there "will be" an attack on a US ship on Thursday when president Obama has been subpoenaed to appear before an administration law judge in Georgia. I doubt it... The flip side, of course, is that if you look at US Navy website, you'll see that only four US aircraft carriers are out, and only three of them are in the 5th Fleet's operating area.

The lousy performance of the US stock market Monday may have been a tip: If there was to be something bad out from the US Fed which meets today and tomorrow, we would normally expect to see a "buy the rumor, sell the news" kind of market.  We shall see.  Conversely, if the Fed was going to do something really bad, there would be a serious beat down of the averages to give those "strong handed boyz" some opportunity to slam big dough into their accounts.

What's more, normally, when you see stories about, like the CNBC piece Monday alleging that "Stock are cheaper than they've been in two decades" it depends who you ask.

While some of the current numbers might suggest opportunity if you look through granny-glasses, a forward-looking analysis finds there's plenty of reason to be pessimistic about earning growth.

• There's a crapalanche of real estate foreclosures in the pipeline.,

• We're only one minute from a mushroom festival in the Middle East and the Doomsday Clock looks pretty ominous:  It reads five minutes to midnight.

• Europe could still collapse

• And with Debt Celling roulette going on, who knows how that ends...

Still, late this week looks like a fine time to have a distraction at the ready - false flag attack, or whatever, since the last thing the financial industry wants is accountability.

While no one's "in the box" for MF Global that I've heard of, expect the regulatory people to go after small broker/dealers now that the big horses are out of the barn.

So it's steely-eyed realists on one side and the happy-talkers on the other.  Polarization increases, emotions harvested...

All Eyes On Gold

The report over at www.debka.com ought to raise a few eyebrows in Washington, at least those not on the corporate dole:  "India to pay gold instead ofg dollars for Iranian Oil...Oil and Gold Markets Stunned...'

How stunned may be inferred from the charts above...top of page.

Now which financial columnist very publicly started buying gold in 2001-2003 and silver in July 2005 under $7?  Hmmm...

Sometimes in investing the long, slow game holds the winning hand.  As of this year, the US dollar buys 4.25% of what it did in 1913 before the Fed got to printing.  Not saying this is bad, mind you, but it would have been a little less class warfare-like to have mentioned it, maybe?

Why gold isn't up $100 (or more) on this development is beyond me...but an increasing list of things here lately seem to be...

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Screw the reactor issue...when Iran starts a move toward oil-for-gold it challenges one of the PTB cornerstones:  The Petrodollar.  Start the timer from here and check the rad meter batteries one more time.

They might as well have just spray painted a huge bull's-eye on Tehran and Bushir...  And you do notice the Abe Lincoln is set to transit the Strait of Hormuz in March which is....well, let's not go there.

Death of the Euro Fallout

President of Germany is on the (political) ropes. Seems the PTB/ Fleet St. division has played the NWO tries global governance of Europe better than anyone else:  They kept far enough from tghe EU disaster that they can still buddy-up to China and feign shock and surprise as the Confederated Bankrupt States of the EU  (ConBSeU) craters...good show!

Grope-Resistant Paul

So,  Senator Rand Paul goes through the TSA checkpoint and after going through the scanner gets barked at to stay put and then thing deteriorate and he was led away from the boarding area.

Pressed about it, the White House is (look surprised here) backing TSA's man handling, but Rand's dad and Presidential hopeful Ron Paul says it's a fine example of what's wrong with America:

"The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe."

Uh-huh...

Gun Law Adventures

You read about the legit (on leave) Nacy SEAL who got busted in NYC for having a gun?  Yes, thousands upon thousands to train up this guy to be out at the sharp pointy end of our spear and....goes to NYC packing a 9mm and ends up in jail.

The case is worth tracking because it may (not saying does but MAY involve PTSD...or not.

Other SEALs (and a former governor whose name comes to mind) might take note of NYC's guns-get-you-jailed laws.

Coping:  Noticing Colors

In our every-so-often tromp down to the martial arts platform where hard science meets hot anomalies, we have a reader who sends this...

I have, and believe me when I say the flat screen works fine, noticed NOTHING but blue and orange color schemes in well over 50% of the commercials I’ve seen on the television over the past month or two. At first I thought I was imagining things but no, it’s everywhere. Not selective perception, it’s everything from insurance companies to restaurant ads to credit cards to telephone companies. You name it, it’s orange and blue. Commented to my wife the other night and then proceeded to drive her nuts by pointing out, for the next hour, every commercial that had that color combination prominently featured. Her final comment was, “alright, already, I get it, I get it!”

Am I nuts or ????

Yes.

Notice colors is something that occasionally happens to someone when they have some kind of drug response; like vaping some  of Vancouver Island's finest after sample Mexican dirt week.  Or, there's an international conspiracy of web designers to make what was once a stylish web into a visual trainwreck.  Looking around the web, I'd say the web designer theory is the better of the two.

Next?

" I wrote the below text several months ago... The Hum changed frequency 3 weeks ago and got louder, oddly that is when a lo of reports were popping up. I do not here the waining sound what I hear is much lower constant with highs and lows some times though it is much louder in intensity but it does remind me of the sounds recorded across the world just less loud, lower in frequency. It doesn't matter we are all standing at locker doors just waiting to see what is really on the other side. nevertheless I feel compelled to email you even though every fiber in my being tells me not that you are not probably going to look at this but I hope you do look at the Website Exposing the Accursed Hum History..."

You mean this one?  Link and learn.

Oh, and a reader in Beijing tells us:

Yes we are hearing them in Beijing. Loud high pitched with nothing to identify as the source.

In Canada...

What took everyone so long? We were hearing humming (actually more like low throbbing or deeply pulsating) noises here in Canada a few years ago. In Toronto around 2002, in Vancouver around 2006. Never did figure it out. Only seemed to hear it indoors, as if the house or building that I was in was acting like a guitar case to amplify the throb. If I went outside it was difficult to hear the hum, although it was sometimes possible and was much quieter than indoors. Also, in Vancouver, the hum would go away fairly quickly after a couple of hours, as if a large ship or truck was leaving. Thanks for keeping us posted.

So it truly is a global happening...oh, and try this...

Hi George,

It's interesting that strange humming noises are being talked about online now. I've heard a low-level hum for a couple of years at least. Hear it mostly when it's very quiet, and when I'm lying in bed on the second floor of my house. And it's not on all the time, but it is on just about every day. Occasionally I'll walk around the house at night and hear it here and there, too. Three walls in the bedroom are outside walls, so there's a decent possibility that the hum is coming from outside. Used to think there was a tractor trailer parked one or two streets away with its engine on - it's that kind of noise. But there are no trucks parked nearby - I live in a residential neighborhood. Used to distress me a lot, and it usually wakes me up, but I've come to accept its presence. I still think it's human caused, though - possibly a factory across town, or hopefully not - a factory operation in someone's house. Sometimes I imagine it could be from an underground drill that conspiracy theorists talk about - I live about twenty miles from DIA in Denver. It's a weird, far-out thought for me that it could be alien in origin.

Of course there are aliens under DIA along with all kinds of federal facilities - just Google it and hit the youtube videos....

And while we're on point, remember years ago, Art Bell had a hole in the outback of the Northwest which sounded like screaming from hell?  Well, something akin to this in the Republic of Dagestan and a video of it.

But Wait!  Our next report from the WuJo this morning is a great one!

Time...The thing about Time is that we are all moving FORWARD in Time,Right? Not in the World of the WoJo It was in the first week of January, between the 4th and the 5th, I've been trying to put it out of my mind...but here goes. I was walking down the hallway into the living room and straight ahead there is an analog clock ( 7 day, Wind Up, Classroom Style) and the time is a little after 11:45, let's call it11:47pm Central Standard Time and as I look at the time, I think to myself, that I'm tired, and I'll just go to bed now. rather than my normal bedtime which is between 2:00am and 3:00am. So I go into my normal routine, which we refer to as “Wind up the Cat and put out the Clock”, part of which is to put my computer on “Stand By” I checked to see how close the time on the Computer Task bar (Digital) is to Two Analog Clocks that are on my left (battery powered, one is a 12hr clock, set for local time, the other is a 24 hr clock set for GMT) I did that because my computer has been both gaining AND loosing time relative to Internet Time (I WAS trading Binary Forex Options, hence my concern with GMT and Internet Time) The time is 11:54

Next, I go into my Mother's Bedroom to check on her (She's 96,our joke is “Check on NaNa, see if she is still breathing”...Really , She is in better health than I am at 59) She's asleep, but as I turn to walk out of the room, I glance at the clock on the wall (analog, identical to the 12hr clock by my Computer) the time is 11:56

Next is a trip to the Bathroom (this IS important, later on, trust me) go into My Bedroom, take off My Wristwatch (Time,11:59) and get in bed...As I lay there, my neck starts to hurt, I open My eyes and the alarm clock (digital) and the time is 12:02, adjust the pillows lay there, knowing that if I just relax,I will fall asleep, open my eyes, the time is 12:07, I toss and turn, ask myself, am I going to have to get up and take some pain meds? I look at the alarm clock one last time,it's 12:12, turn over on my other side and fall asleep.

There are certain thing that I can depend upon, among these are Death, Taxes and that 1 ½ to 2hrs after I go to bed I will be awakened by my Bladder (ah, the wonders of diuretics) and WAS awakened....Sat up on the side of the bed, opened my eyes, looked at the alarm clock....and time was...11:37 ….Eleven Thirty Seven!!! WTF... THAT'S TEN MINUTES BEFORE I DECIDED TO GO TO BED

OK, I'll be merciful and just cut to the end , checked the clocks,( half expecting to an alternate ME wandering in the house) and NO it WAS before 11:47 Did I somehow misread 7 clocks ...Not bloody likely! And how much time DID change? The difference 11:37 and 12:12 as on the Clocks....or My 1 1/2hr to 2hr Biological Clock (Bladder)

Don't know how to account for it...but there you have it:  Hums - which some are calling the Trumpets at the end of the world (I suspect a PTB tunnel boring operation, but whatever...) and the other just....er.....remember that Carlos Castaneda stuff on interdimensional critters and changing assemblage points?

Pie...must have pie...

Something Has Our Number

Remember last week our discussion of how people were spying the number "314" all over the place and how people seem to be having increasing instances of seeing things disappear only to reappear elsewhere?  Well here's your basic "bright-eyed & bushy-tailed" reader (though we can't be positive about the tail part) who drops this onto the desk overnight...

Hey George!

Life imitates art ? Two new tv programs on FOX:

21 Mar - "Alcatraz" - Closed 21 Mar 1963 - ALL inmates and guards disappear and now, one by one, begin to reappear!!

3-18 - "Touch" - Number patterns reveal impending calamity ala Nicolas Cage in "Knowing"! First episode brings us a school bus numbered 318 on 3/18 at 3:18!!

I know, I know, it's not 314 but close enough to make one wonder!!

And the number of that network is what, again?  I mean if you're a follower of the numerology of Pythagoras...

Reader's Writes

Taking It to the Streets report...

Monday Jan. 23. This morning I saw a public transit bus drive by with a believe a Macdonald's ad on it's side like you normally see except the language was some Asian or middle eastern language.The problem is I was no where near a Asian or middle eastern neighborhood and the closest thing to a foreign language for this bus route would be Spanish and the area that I was in was definetely English speaking. So why are foreign language ads and entertainment showing up in English speaking America all of a sudden.

We've gone from melting pot to every tail is wagging the dog, maybe?

Worthy Reads

From the Burning Platform:  "Paycheck, Perception, Propaganda, and Power."

Tomorrow's report for Peoplenomics reader only.  Subscription info here.

Monday January 23, 2012

The Bitter Harvest at Davos

Ain't it rich?  (I love lousy word plays on Monday).  I mean after putting on a decades-long press for global corporate domination, the folks at helm of some of the world's largest pools of money are meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland to try and bean out how to reform outdated capitalism.  Gotta love it.

Why, it's like winning the whole enchilada and discovering it tastes bad.  Couldn't happen to a finer bunch of greedsters.  What they can't seem to figure out is that we're living through another example of how the "people that got us into the mess" will not be the ones able to get us out of it.

Wonder why?  Over the past 40-years *(possibly longer) the constitutional republic once the United States has been purchased by a cash-driven bunch of "legal" revolutionaries who have overthrown America to extort and control us regular humans. 

The relationship between government and business has never been tighter.  In excess of $3-billion is reported by lobbyists alone. No, the Washington bagmen (and bagwomen just to keep it accurate) didn't find Jesus in 2011 with $2.47 billion rolled in to buy legislative "outcomes."  It's just not all the reports are in an compiled yet. Get a grip.

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When viewed from the standpoint of someone not interested in preserving empires there's an obvious course to the future which would shrink the size of government, reduce public debt, and dissipate corporate influence dramatically:  Encourage corporations to grow but use excess profits to address social agendas. 

The idea is that if companies simply push their profits into "good works" on behalf of humans, there would be three effects: 

• It reduces the load on government since corporate donations would go directly to those groups which do the best job of delivering social services.  Corporations tend to be more hard-nosed that government when it comes to managing suppliers - no $25,000 toilet seats in the Fortune 500 companies.

• At the same time corporations are increasing their social donations, they could reduce their corporate income tax liabilities to zero.

• As a bonus, once the word's out that a company has gone "fifth order" real humans can get back to being real champions of great products and those companies behaving in an ethical/green manner benefits everyone.

Now, the simple fact of Davos is most of the people there are not wanting to rock the boat - steady hand on the tiller, blah blah blah.  They realize that government is a huge employer and that because of this, they need to suck up to government.

Dumb? Maybe not.  Every major corporation has mounds of government paperwork to do.  In fact, a "joke" email making its way around the net here lately asserts this:

"......And we wonder what is wrong with society today.

This should help you understand. It's lawyers and politicians.

Lord’s prayer:………………………........……………….66 words.

10 Commandments: …………………….........…………. 179 words.

Gettysburg address: ………………………….………….. 286 words.

Declaration of Independence : …….....………….......... .1,300 words.

US Constitution with 27 Amendments : …....…............... 7,818 words.

US Government regulations on the sale of cabbage:....... 26,911 words."

Unfortunately, many of the vested interests (like Washington lobbying outfits which masquerade as law firms) have a specific disinterest in reducing the scope and intrusiveness of government.  I know...I've been in industries where the "DC law firm" was used to head off (or negotiate away) major corporate infractions.  Yes, this is how that world works...

But reality intrudes now with nagging questions: With so much money being made by the death industries, for example, is there any incentive for the US to keep out of the what...197 countries or whatever it is where we are operating military bases?  No way!  Big money in war.  Big money in embassy-building, weapons contracts, and keeping all those young people off the streets since our frigging manufacturing base is now in China and India!  We've been seriously bent over and now after the hot passion of profit, the Davos crowd is trying to figure out what to do with their sex..I mean consumer slaves.

There is hope:  Some trail blazing companies out there which have broken through the ruling paradigm and are taking the higher road.  One fine example being "Newman's Own" which admits to "shameless exploitation in the pursuit of the common good."   And which has put a third of a billion dollars toward those ends that would have otherwise been squandered on people who already enjoy a historical extreme of concentrated wealth.

If the Davos dudes taste a bitter harvest?  Gee, too effing bad.  The choice is to either give back or Occupy and the Spring movements, aided and abetted by thinking consumers who learn to vote with their wallets are going to take back.

Trouble Over Oiled Waters

EU says it will go ahead with aggressive sanctions on Iran.  And there's a report that Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz.

Crap.  Now besides checking my smoke and CO2 detectors this week, I will have to check the radiation meters, too.  Damn....

QE Coming!  The Big Weak Ahead

Fed decision on Wednesday.  Look for accommodative talk to get some feel-good going in time for the elections this fall. In fact it may be more than just talk.  The fact that Ben Bernanke is planning a press conference after the rate decision tells the aware observer they might actually do something.  QE -whatever?  I've sort of lost count...sorry.  Not that it matters...be nice if they'd print me a few million, though...I'd like to be able to afford to sleep in.

Trust you saw the Greek debt talks blow up over the weekend?

 A couple of routine Treasury auctions today, Richmond Fed and store sales tomorrow.  Pass me a NoDoz, would'ja?

Terra Monday

After I put up the note on Sunday about how I was on an earthquake watch because of the large solar wind hit the Earth took this weekend (and the big bounce out of the magnetometers at HAARP which is -regardless of what HAARP is doing - is one of the best magnetometer strings available on the net...) what should come along but another Presto notice this morning...

"PROTON EVENT IN PROGRESS. NOAA AR 1402 produced a M8.3 flare on Jan. 23, peaking at 03:59 UT. A proton event, linked to this flare, is currently in progress, with >50 Mev proton flux around 40 pfu and still rising. A halo CME has been observed with the LASCO coronagraph on board SOHO. STEREO coronagraphic observations show a very widespread and fast CME. This event is potentially geoeffective. More information about the possible arrival time at Earth will be given in the coming hours."

Which boils down to: Possibly more energy arriving from the Sun shortly, a day or three perhaps, which means risk of quakes could be elevated.

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No "biggies" yet, and with the exception of a 4.7 out on the Big Island of Hawaii, not too much going on...

Tornados, Floods to come/Don't Write to Clif

Seems spring-like weather is here early with a number of tornado watches up for the Southeast.  Might want to bookmark the National Weather Service's convective warning page here for future use.

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The Pacific Northwest is getting a brief respite today before heavy rains will come in and present the Pacific Northwest with flood issues for the next several days in the wake of the heavy snow and icefall of last week.  Clif could be without internet services for another week...possibly more, so don't send email to him until he comes back up.

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Gaye at www.backdoorsurvival.com has more on the flood potential on her site this morning; this being another one of those "prepper" things to figure out in advance..

You might want to bookmark this page where you can watch the red dots pop up which, when you hover over them will give you the current river levels and the horizontal line (usually yellow) indicates flood stage.  Useful tool if you live in Washingout or Oregon.

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Our planned audio update on www.fifthorderhouse.com will be pushed back (day-for-day) until the servers comes back up with internet connectivity fully restored and then time to run catch-up processing.  The spiders which go out looking at current language are on whatever internet robots do...beers maybe?

Flu Watch

A couple of people were quite critical of a report we posted a while back, with the kind help of our consulting microbiologist in which we laid out a scenario which would suggest a problem for this March could be bird flu.  And sure enough, we find out now that China has reported a second bird flu death and there were deaths by bird flu in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Not to make too big a deal about this, but there has also been a child diagnosed with H5N1 in Indonesia now...that's on top of the two cases in Egypt.

Don't look now, but that's confirmed bird flu in five countries now...and all this is wryly timed since just this past week, scientists have agreed to limit research on H5N1 variants.  We note, however, that any such agreements are never binding on secret (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) military research labs.

The War With Mexico

I'm sure you saw the reports back at the end of 2011 that there would be a record

number of guns sold in the country - somewhere in the 10-14 million arena.  But what you didn't hear about back then was reports that ranchers in Texas are buying AK-47's for patrolling their own property against the continued invasion.

Don't tell anyone this, but I've heard there's also a new version of old cowboy songs making the rounds...goes like this...

Coping: With N.P.D.

Got up right on schedule this morning and had a delightful breakfast: A chicken sandwich on a croissant follow by PIE.  

Yessir, in keeping with the spirit of this being National Pie Day, Elaine was in the kitchen most of Sunday making us treats, including the tart cheery pie which I continued munching on this morning.

In addition to the pie, she also rustled up a batch of the world's best French fries.  Now, I know that the "research" people all think that the best fries are those made with a fresh russet potato, but not around here.  Thing is that the Yukon Gold variety when properly cooked in hot oil, are about the closest thing to candy this side of corn syrup.

No, we don't eat them all the time, after all, fried foods are bad for you.  But, every now and then (2-3 months? Maybe longer...) we'll break down and do something like home made fries...about as thick as your little finger, and cooked fast so as to be shading toward brown from golden, and with low-sodium salt (the kind with potassium) and a fresh bottle of ketsup/catsup/catchup or however you spell it.

So, since we are talking about pies, does anyone have a recipe that's not too complicated for Jamaican "patties" they'd care to share?  Every once in a while back in my Cayman Airways days, we would serve "patties" on flights to Montego Bay.  This was back when airlines actually served good food.

If you even need a reason to head down to the Caribbean, locally-made "patties" and a cold beer is about the best food there is.  Next to this morning's breakfast, my burgundy beef stew, home-made Chinese from scratch....oh oh...back to the dieting mindset.

The Last Trumpet or Blue Beam?

I told you a while back about my wife Elaine's encounter with a very bizarre "humming" noise she heard out here at the ranch...couple of weeks back, yeah?

So fast forward to this morning.  Go check out this bit of the Jeff Rense show which gets into (drum roll please?) strange humming noises now popping up worldwide!

Not just in Jeff's circle of friends.  Got this note from a reader who reports:

"I forgot to mention, that she personally heard and felt a low hum herself, when she was in London on Friday and Saturday...."

OK, now it gets stranger:  Despite having not internet, Clif has a pretty good string of humint (human intelligence) sources...and one of his is an outdoorsy kind of fellow who was hiking in the Lake Louise region of Canada a while back and he not only heard the hum, but played it for Clif.

Now here's the interesting part.  The hum he played he said sounded nothing like the hum he had heard... which is why C and I were talking about it.

As I explained to Clif, the reason is likely the sample rate of the digital recorder this outdoorsy guy was using to make the recording.  The hum might indeed have been a 100-hertz range hum, but when played back it sounds completely different that was the user had reported.

Near as I can tell, the effect is likely due to interaction between the hum frequency and the sample rate of the digital recorder.  Just like a superheterodyne radio receiver uses a local oscillator to "beat" (or mix) with one radio frequency (like the FM band) in order to get it move down to a convenient intermediate frequency (like the 10.7 MHz intermediate frequency common to FM radios) so it shows up somewhere else in the audio spectrum.

A lot of the people reporting the sound call it a "pressure" sometimes verging on painful. 

What is it?  No telling, exactly.  One possibility the religious types mention on the net is that it could be the "Last Trumpets" sounding.  Others are wondering if it's the testing of a scalar weapon, or we might be seeing some prep/testing for something like Project Blue Beam.  Whatever it is, it does qualify as interesting and worth tracking for a while to see where it leads.

New Seed Offering

Rhone over at AIG Services (no relation to that AIG...) has a nifty new seed offering out:  A pound of organic alfalfa seeds plus a four ounce supplement of your choice of radish, broccoli, mung beans, sweet peas, adzuki beans, green lentils or mixed with a 10% off special for UrbanSurvival and Peoplenomics readers here.

Prepping and Medical Supplies

Good read at the www.strategic-living.net website where my son does a short briefing on what kind of medical emergencies to plan for. 

Reader's Writes

This from a reader who caught my disappointment that G'rinch won SC:

 “Still, can't help but lower our estimate of the statewide IQ of South Carolinians as a consequence” …..  

 

And you think you band of in-breeds in Texas are any smarter?  Without a doubt, Texas is the dumbest most degenerate state of the 48 that  I have been to.  Just check the Obesity levels of Texas.  They are the highest in the nation.  And as we all know obesity walks hand in hand with IQ.  And boy does your Governor ever impress with his “brainpower”.   I’m from SC and we are a dumb ass bunch, but no worse than Texas.  I’ve spent plenty of time there and know the trash well.  I’d put SC as dumb ass state number 45 and Texas as dead f’n last.  Nothing personal, just observation from someone who travels to every state and knows the differing demographics well.

Let me have some more pie and get back to you?  Want a Bud with that?

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Well, that's it for this morning.  Drop by tomorrow for Tuesday at the WuJo...

Sunday January 22, 2012

Special Sunday Update

Going on Quake Watch

Sorry to intrude on your weekend, but we have a policy around here of noticing things that may be of interest.  This morning's update is brought about by the arrival of two interesting data points.

First is the arrival of a big blast from the Sun which resulted in an international "Presto Alert" as follows:

Issued: 2012 Jan 22 0756 UTC

:Product: documentation at http://www.sidc.be/products/presto

#--------------------------------------------------------------------#

# FAST WARNING 'PRESTO' MESSAGE  from the SIDC (RWC-Belgium)         #

#--------------------------------------------------------------------#

An interplanetary shock wave was detected by ACE at 05:15 UT today. The solar wind speed increased from 330 to 400 km/s. The interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) in the post-shock flow reached 33 nT. However, its north-south component was mostly positive and no geomagnetic storm resulted. Currently the IMF magnitude is still high (around 25 nT), so a minor to moderate geomagnetic storm remains possible. The shock was most probably driven by the complex ICME resulting from interacting CMEs observed on the Sun on January 18 and 19. The ICME itself is expected to have only a glancing blow at the Earth. The SEP flux peaked at the shock arrival, but did not reach the event threshold.

That, in and of itself would not be worth noticing, except that we also happened to get a glance at the latest magnetometer readings off the HAARP site (www.haarp.alaska.edu) which show some major excursions down what looks like the 650-NT kind of range.

I mention this because just prior to the Japan quake in March 2011 we saw a similar large excursion before (and during) the quake period.

So, as a result, I'm half expecting a large quake (thinking 6.5 or larger) in the next few days to a week since there is some thought that goes to the idea that energies arriving from the Sun are somehow "condensed" by the Earth's large mass and that as arriving energies condense, they form new matter and that, in turn, it's speculated could lead to planetary expansion which would cost movement of the Earth's crust which in street terms is what earthquakes are all about.

Love to be wrong on this, but there's some reason to expect a large quake shortly as the burst of energy does what it will...

Don't Write to HPH

I just got off the phone after talking to Clif at www.halfpasthuman.com whose site is still up, but his home servers are offline.  Not that he's part of the 200,000+ who may be without power in the Seattle/Oympia Washington area for up to another week (or longer) but his internet connectivity is a goner and until that comes back, he's dreading the email pile up which is no doubt underway on the off-site servers.

Point:  If you were going to write to him, he's effectively off line for the next week and I'll post a note when it comes back up....and he's cleared the logjam of stacked up messages.

S.C. Flukes IQ Test

There has been a lot of talk on the  net this morning about the Newt Gingrich win in South Carolina, but it's no surprise around here, the PTB needs someone who's an operator...and Newt's string of ethic charges from his past ought to be a fine hint as to skill level.  Still, can't help but lower our estimate of the statewide IQ of South Carolinians as a consequence.

As we've said many times previously, might as well just put the election on eBay.

Coping: With Solar Misconceptions

Since it's the weekend and my visiting son is sleeping late, staying up late playing with (in no particular order) TV, ham radio, computers and so forth, I've been able to catch up on some reader emails, like this one from a fellow who thought I was off-base in placing my faith in solar backup power:

George,

If the grid goes down....so does solar. The utilities don't want your solar system to back into their grid network, and you will never have enough battery backup to juice the entire home. When the grid goes down, you lose solar power. Which makes solar.........practically useless in any emergencies. Solar is ok when the grid is on line; you save on electricity bills. You can't power the entire home off-grid, so therefore it makes it worthless.

Better check with your solar experts. I just push the broom around here.

As I said, has some time on my hands this morning so I sent him a long explanation which you may wish to consider if you've heard bad things about solar...

Hi [reader name redacted] – here's a shockingly long answer to explain how you’re wrong – but not really….

 

From the beginning:  Actually, I AM the solar expert.  (example here, notice the second name on patent…) and solar is A GREAT option but maybe I wasn’t clear enough….

 

Now the details:  If a person is using a simple grid-tie system  (like the Sunny Boy grid-tie products) then you would be correct. Grid goes down, they're offline.

 

The reason is that these are frequency & phase matching inverters which do not have a battery charger function.

 

What we use here at the ranch is a grid-tie inverter charger which is a whole different kettle of fish as explained here.

 

The system configuration you are referring to is the one that requires the presence of the grid.  Ours (designed and installed by care to guess who?lol) does NOT require the grid and works as follows:

 

With the grid present, Sun present:  Solar power is used first to charge a large battery bank (800 amp hours # 24v  worth or 19.2 kilowatt-hours) and then, once full, the inverter ties to the grid and sells power.

 

With no grid present, (and after a fraction of a second to automatically disconnect from the lost grid – this disconnect spelled out in NEC (national electrical code 1701,1705…or somewhere in there, been a while since I needed the actual cite), my system (which has a pair of Outback 2425  GTFX’s, each running one side of the 220 for high powered ham radio use, lol) then keeps the battery bank topped off while supplying any loads present.

 

When the sun goes away, the solar energy (optimized by a pair of Flex-60 (Outback) MMPT charge controllers) is gone, so then the system reverts to running off the stored energy in the battery bank.

 

If/when the grid comes back, my system does not go back onto the grid until it has seen  5  full minutes and no dropped cycles, and then it automatically reverts to battery charging first, and then selling excess power not used by my server farm and ham gear here. 

 

If the sun’s out, grid down, solar is the charge source, or if the grid comes back on at night, the source is the grid for charging, but the system has limits for charging so that my required loads, a couple of key computers and a satellite link into the net, are always on…and (this gets ridiculously redundant here), those systems float on a decent-sized UPS (uninterruptible power supply) in my equipment rack in the office… pants, suspenders, extra belt, second set of suspenders approach.

 

The distinction – and the reason I went into so much detail here – is that your  point is well taken.  I shouldn’t use the “simple” words grid-tied since although my system is tied, under certain conditions, it’s technically a grid-interactive system, which means (to amplify) I don’t care whether there’s a grid or not.

 

Clif's system is completely separate from the grid.  So he's got 15 kW of generator while we have 10 kW.

 

This technology, interestingly enough was developed by Heart Interface, which made inverter/chargers for marine and RV use back “in the day” and from there, Heart along with competitor Trace along with ProSine  if I’ve got it right got swallowed into a big roll-up called www.xantex.com.  Killer grid-interactive gear along with Outback Power Systems.

 

Grid-interactive is more expensive than simple grid-tie.

 

By the way, since grid-interactive systems use batteries for energy storage, you may be interested in some really good insights into the operation/care/maintenance of batteries, so go check out the owners manual for the battery state of charge monitor we built in the 1995-1997 era.  We sold it as the E-Meter but it was also sold as the Heart Interface Link 10  as well as other private-branded versions of the product.

 

In particular, the battery basics (page 8 of the manual).  Page 22 has a dandy discussion of determining when a battery is full, but what set this apart as a ground-breaking product when introduced was the way we characterized the “shrinking battery effect” (Peukert’s exponent, see manual page 23 (25 in most pdf’s).  Leading edge stuff at the time and the team was damn proud of it. 

 

Management buffs will find this interesting: I wrote the manual in an early version of Corel and we actually completed the manual before the product was finished which made software discussions very cool...since the marketing document (the completed manual) explained how the product worked.  Mere tweaks from development to release...cool and ahead of its time...

 

Hope this helps?  Long explanation, but I will try to remember to use the term grid-interactive rather than “tied” so the distinction is more clear to people.  It is to me…but I guess I should write down what I’m thinking in my head once in a while…

 

As for juicing the whole home…it will, as long as we only run HVAC in my office and if we need to cool the whole house?  Remember that cache of several hundred gallons of diesel and the 10 kW genset and transfer switch? 

 

We have enough solar to run a welder and some other important loads, should we need them – our instantaneous peak power production is up to 8 kw and 3.6 kw continuous without drawing down the batteries too far – I may add one more rack of panels, too…which would put us at 5.4 kw of panels from the present 3.6 kW..  One a/c unit, a couple of servers and freezers, well pump,  and ham gear and satellite systems all EMP protected….that’s what the system was designed for and it really does that just fine…no grid required and a computer that makes all those decisions of when it's there...or not.

 

G

Monday is National Pie Day!    Get pied this weekend...