Since I don’t normally write a Saturday column – having promised myself more ‘down time’ but, like swearing off eating red meat, a promise more easily made than kept, I found myself tossing and turning most of the night after one of the late night radio newscasts announced seven more banks had been closed by the FDIC. Whether they’ve found a rich uncle to fund their refi’s of banks isn’t the issue (you’re the rich ‘uncle’ – as in Sam – by the way) is not the point so much as the sheer number of branches that have been reorganized and absorbed since last July’s IndyMac debacle. This weeks listing:
| First DuPage Bank |
| Riverview Community Bank |
| Bank of Elmwood |
| Flagship National Bank |
| Hillcrest Bank Florida |
| American United Bank |
| Partners Bank |
There are all kinds of numbers that can be used here: The number of banks reorg’ed since January 1 this year is 106, the number in the last calendar year is 116, the number from (including) IndyMac is 128. The number of branches impacted is 3,752. A mere 21-branches were impacted this week.
Fear Monday
As we’ve been writing about for what? 6-9 months now? The linguistics turn that www.halfpasthuman.com has been tracking for October 25/26 is nearly in vie as processing continues.
Just so you understand how this stuff works in a very general sense the October ‘turn’ was spotted in the last several data runs and may be as much as 85% economic in nature. But now that we’re getting close, Cliff and Igor have been watching the data coming back from the forum scouring spiders which are sending in snips of interest to the servers, where in turn they are distilled and analyzed.
So, the latest from Cliff is:
“latest immediacy data shows it as occurring at
5:12 am 10-26-2009 (time zones are a bitch so let us just say east coast time) and will likely be wrong by about 6 hours as it may actually be ‘effective’ on the paris meridian (the old rose line).
a small visibility spike occurs at 7:02 am on the 26th
so damn early Monday morning….”
I plan to get up a little earlier than usual Monday to see how it looks ‘going by’. It’s always of interest not only to watch something in the ‘rickety time machine’ pop into reality, but more interesting to is do some propagation mapping.
What’s that? Oh, you know: You can get a sense of who is playing ‘follow the leader” and who the real leaders are when the Monday story hits (if/when it does at all – since we could be wrong).
Seeing as it arises out of ‘globalpop’, I am not really expecting it to be a USA-centered event. Maybe something in Asia (huge mega quake or financial lockup – something like that – or heaven forbid Israel takes out the Bushir reactor complex.)
Not only will Cliff & Igor get to see the change of language wash through the internet, but I will be able to see how the story pops and see how it goes from usually only one or two ‘first hand’ media to the rest of the MSM and then into the blogosphere. I figure if the timing’s right, it ought to be on the tongues of about half the world’s population by say Tuesday noon US time if we’ve got the timing clues right.
Middle East Nerves
A reader asks me to note what’s going on in the Middle East this weekend:
“George,
FEMA just happened to have an “Exercise” going on in New York on the morning of 9-11. The Air Force just happened to have an “Exercise” going on up North so that a resistance could not be mounted for the “hijackers” on 9-11. Now the US and Israel are mounting an “Exercise” in Israel (Started last Thursday). Looks more than a little ominous in terms of timing.
“The exercise will conclude with a live fire drill in which U.S. and Israeli forces attempt to shoot down 10 incoming warheads.” “The U.S. has brought its full arsenal of missile-defense systems to Israel for the exercise, including 24 Patriot missile launchers and a Navy destroyer armed with the advanced Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.”
A live drill, shooting 10 live warheads? What do you suppose that would cost? Why would “we” discharge 10 Patriot missiles for a training session?
I dunno, but I use real shells in my 12-gauge because the blanks don’t break the clay pigeons…but no worries: It’ll all be over in a flash, LOL.
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I received a very touching email this morning from a colleague of the late Timothy Hampton who died this week under mysterious circumstances in Vienna. Hampton worked for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization of the UN and his colleague reported he was NOT the kind of man to suicide – had a new baby and more. With his colleague’s kind permission:
“Since about a year I am following your urbansurvival blog on a daily basis. When I read over the note “Silenced? – British nuclear expert falls 120 ft to his death in Vienna” I had a really strange feeling, since I have a good friend matching the description in the short Telegraph article. There are not many Brits working in the relatively small CTBTO. I tried to find more info by searching through Austrian Newspapers, but apparently none of them had mentioned this ‘accident’. Since it was late night I didn’t call the person’s wife and just wrote an email to her. In the morning the reply came, confirming, that it indeed was him, who died.
So now it was clear – the man who fell from the UN building was Tim Hampton. I am really sorry about this since the just got a baby. I also know handful of suicide candidates (Austria is statistics-leader with Japan in this stuff) and some of those really ended up doing it. So, what I mean, is that I have a certain gut-feeling who is considering suicide and who not. There are some signs.
However, I went to the mountains with Tim and we travelled together. He was a silent person and had no easy Life before; though this sounds like a cliché again: I think he was not the suicide type.
Apart from his work of watching whether some shaking earth is an earthquake or an illegal nuclear test (what is a legal nuclear test), he was interested in many side applications during the last years, and involved in setting up a tsunami warning system. He too was responsible for the CTBTO computer network – kind of super-admin and strategy planner. Ugh – still can’t believe this!
As said before, he was a silent and introverted man. He initially studied bio-chemistry and had a good position in a bio-lab, before he quit his job and worked as a construction worker for several years in the UK. Just because he was not satisfied with what he was doing before. Later on, he switched again and started at CTBTO. Few people change their Lives so radically. He was one of the few out of the box fellows. I knew him as a person with lots of integrity and little fear.”
The real clincher that something more than meets the eye is going on here is this from the report in the Austrian Times: “UN staff told the Austrian Times that there had been a similar case recently in which an employee died when he fell from a comparable height.“
Is working for the UN CTBTO suddenly the most dangerous profession in the world? If yes (which seems a bit obvious) then the “Why?” question comes up. Seems to me that either a) someone is going to extreme lengths to make it look like Iran is hiding something more or b) Iran really is hiding something more.
In either case, a damn shame about the experts dying and it will no doubt drive further speculation as to what’s really going on in those hidden Iranian labs.
For the Truly Paranoid
A report over at Design World on Air Force bugbots.
Ticket? Si…
Seems that “Dallas police ticked 39 drivers in 3-years for not speaking English” – a charge which doesn’t appear in the city’s traffic laws. So how they came up with $204 fines is something of a mystery, but read the story since there’s more to it…
Not Just In Mice
The report that cell phone use is being linked to brain tumors doesn’t surprise us at all. I renounced the things about 12-years back when I figured out what the frequencies, field densities and possible impacts of ionizing radiation on one’s head could be. Number of colleagues thought “Ure’s crazy!
Well, not that they were totally wrong, but I was right about the potential to cause cellular level changes (yeah, poor pun, but it’s the weekend and our usual writer has the weekend off – Zeus the Cat…who’s resting up for Halloween).
And the point is? Not only can cell phones cause tumors in mice; they can also cause them in sheep. So you’ve herd?
Follow the Bouncing Budget
The latest out of Washington – Disneyland on the Potomac is closer – is that the Health Care bill will cost over $1-trillion for the decade. Of course, while that pales in comparison to the cost of crime, the wars, and so forth, it seems to be what the rabid whipper-uppers are focused on. Anything for ratings I suppose…screw putting things in context. A trillion dollar in 10-years won’t buy a nice dinner out – as anyone in Zimbabwe already knows. Bet?
War on Gangs
Big gang crackdown going on in the L.A. area…but one number struck me as, oh, a little out of place: Here’s the part: “Authorities said the operation involves about 1,100 law enforcement agents. They plan to serve warrants for 75 individuals.” That works out to (check my math – it’s early…) 14.66 LE’s per warrant? Swat teams for all? Or just that’s how California budgets got…oh, let’s not go there. We have real work to do.
Job-Jacking: Franklin Virginia
Reader writes:
“George,
In case you didn’t catch it, International paper mill is closing three different plants, including the one near Franklin, Va (my neck of the woods). More job loss and paper production reduction. The depressing part about this for Franklin is that it is basically halfway between Emporia and Norfolk. This paper mill WAS this town and when it goes, Franklin goes…”
To be sure, the news about IP shutting down three mills is NOT good news at all. What interesting is the number of mills that are being shut down around the country.
Know what I think is going on? Look at the column % of IP Capacity. Since IP is operating plants in places like Latin America, Asia, North Africa and Russia, to me this has the odor of ‘outsourcing’ all over it. (You thought it was just the sulfite processing smell, huh?).
Way I read it is this: 38% of IP’s capacity is being outsourced from the USA.
I’m not an isolationist, but moves like this sure get me to leaning that way. Anyone beside me pondering a reaction like a ban on log exports (and how about software) to countries where once American jobs land? The Suffolk News-herald reports:
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Oh, if you’ve got any money left and are looking for a place to retire, do some gardening and such, come late this winter or next spring, might be some real estate deals to be had around Franklin, I expect.
Freeh Move
The headline that says “Ex-FBI director Freeh granted Italian citizenship” has me head-scratching. Don’t know if this is one of those dual-citizenship things…but sure feels like a dot to be connected to something doesn’t it?
Note to Readers
Sorry if this morning’s column lacks my usual wit & cheer; but there’s a time to be flip and a time to be just damn serious. You probably know which one this is. Dead scientist, nuclear jitters, edgy economy and a linguistic turn. Pardon the serious journalist hat. I’ll try to be in better humor next week. Promise.
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Send your comments to george@ure.net
The UrbanSurvival Mall:
Peoplenomics This Week
“Channeling” The Future
No woo-woo to this: A surprising amount about ‘the future’ can be inferred about a specific point in time by merely projecting present events. This week, we’ll use a few simple tools that TV assignment editors use and see what we can infer about a particular date in the future – October 26th, in our case because that’s when the predictive linguistics ‘go hottest’ – and then see if we can block out a reasonable set of expectations about how the local evening news ought to look on that day…
“Live on $10,000″ Updated
With another round of layoffs due to start later this month…a round which will start to axe many of the middle managers who have managed to avoid the HR grenades…might I suggest a preemptive tactical move? Voluntarily dropping your lifestyle back a bit, since we’re all being marched down that road by either circumstances or some out-of-control-PTB types who write checks to Washington lobby and to anti-reformers in California! A good starting point, at least if you’
ve still got $10-bucks is my 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… Click here for the index and details.
MyGroPonics
My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics. It’s an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few ‘dollar stores’ and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space – like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight). Sound interesting? It’s just $10 bucks here…
No, when you tell your browser to ‘empty your cookies’ of web sites you’ve visited, it probably won’t get them all. Why? Because there is a whole class of ‘browser-independent’ cookies that will gobble up space on your hard drive, but more important is they will sneak out information about you without you being aware of it. Ever week I get emails like this one:
“Thanks again for the Maxa Tools recommendation, I never knew how much additional garbage gets attached every time I browse. “
Test drive it free by downloading it. To upgrade to full functionality will be $35 bucks. Is your privacy worth it?
Once you try it out, click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster. I’ve taken 1,000 37,970 41,837 cookies off my machine now. It’s just amazing. (I might ask their CTO to add one more digit to the “Total deleted till now” window…)
Attn: Mac Drivers: MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world….so far. Given Jens and the other engineers time…
Feeling Thorny?
Want to be a thorn in the side of the Old World Order? Simply click here and send a link to this site to everyone on your distro list…Nothing more dangerous than sharp, clear-thinking upstarts who ask a lot of questions, eh? Unless you believe WTC-7 fell over on its own, of course….
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Last week’s report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!)