Coping: The national Stupid Pill

As a long-time news-chaser, and having watched politics closely for almost 40-years now, I think we’re almost to “turn it off” day…a mythical date, well in advance of the election where people ought to just shut down all inputs and make their decision. None of this down to the wire crap.

The reason is that during the last minute heat of a campaign we get some really ugly behaviors – like that unveiled threat to “riot” if one fellow doesn’t win. That’s strong-arming that would do the Mafia proud.

But it’s not just on one side. People become almost deliberately aware of the wrong issues. It’s like we’ve taken a national ‘stupid pill’ in about mid October.

The effect is immediate: People forget long-running questions unanswered from the last election. Worse: So-called news stories from almost a year ago start to make the rounds again.

One of them – which showed up on the Before It’s News site Monday headlines that “14 US Governors Prepare State Militia Defenses, To Be Ready Against Obama’s Rogue Federal Forces!”

A careful note of the date shows Monday October 15th on this story. Down at the bottom of the page, we are enticed to “continue at The Blade Report.”

Since I’m a curious sort, I do this and notice a little oddity about the URL which reads in part: 2011/12/14 and the date shown on the upper left of the article reads “Dec 15.” 2011??

Just to double-check, I went down to the bottom of the replies and found one from April of this year.

So what, exactly, is the deal with it showing up now? Honest mistake? I’d be surprised. Partisan politics? That tops my suspect list.

But this is only one of many going around right now. Another, making the rounds by email deals with a purported “Robin Williams The Peace Plan” which while rabidly “patriotic” suffers one defect: It’s not true. Robin Williams never said what’s attributed to him.

A local tradesman, who had mentioned the Robin Williams “The Plan” email to me wasn’t in the least perturbed when I pointed out that Snopes (and others) had looked into this one and had found it patently untrue.

“Gotta be really circumspect about what you allow into your head during the fall each year,” I cautioned him. But then came his stunning reply:

“Hey…at least we thought good things about Robin Williams for a while, am I right?”

People don’t like to discover that they’ve been led astray and they are so worried about political correctness that they will go to extreme lengths to continue their delusions. That’s an especially dangerous thing while making up your mind on how you plan to vote.

In a smaller society, where what a man did matters (back before the art of perception management became a doctoral-level and high paying pursuit) the noise floor was considerably lower and attention spans were longer.

But as the frequency of SMS (short message system) texts have become so overwhelming, no one has the time to pause however briefly to ask a critically important question of each story put before us: “Is this bullshit or real?”

Since we are fed BS on a regular basis, our ability to sort it out from everything else has gone into serious decline. So much so that it constitutes swallowing a National Stupid Pill.

Fortunately, the way denial works, we are at least able to say “At least it’s better than being treated like mushrooms” (…fed horse crap and being kept in the dark).

So when election day comes, we’ll deserve what we get.

When we eventually get the results, that is. As our consulting astrologer(ette) points out, the stars are lined up like 2000 and the lawyers are already making plans to challenge on multiple fronts.

Still, we should know by December and that’s OK. Might take that long for the effects of the National Stupid Pill to wear off.

Real Estate Licenses in Decline?

Reader Chuck noticed something interesting which may be part of a national trend:

“This is just one of those, “JOBS” things pertaining to housing sales etc. I do a website for a company in MO that teaches and does continuing ed for realtors. Her note to me a few minutes ago: “Numbers are in–After the renewals have all been processed, MO # of licensees in the state is down more than 10,000. My prediction was right. We now have less than 33,000 real estate licensees in MO–that’s down from 43,904 in April.” I wonder how that projects out to 50 states? ”

Good question…

Eerily Calm

Reader HR down in Florida has been wondering where all the noise has gone:

“It’s bee awfully quiet here for the last few weeks or more. I live a few blocks from the ocean in a beach community in North Florida and things are unnervingly quiet.

There are no birds, no doves, no crickets, no anything making noises. I have seen maybe one glass lizard in my yard (common here in Florida and I use absolutely no chemicals in my yard for anything) where there used to be several and a few snakes from time to time.

There are no flocks of birds in the sky, and I hear no chipmunks (though I do see one from time to time), where as last year they used to make quite the ruckus in the 100+ year old pecan tree in my neighbors yard. I do see some lizards still (species unknown) but they too seem to be less in number.

I have numerous beach shells I put on the railing of my porch just for the lizards (they use these as temporary shelters) and just a few months ago I’d see maybe 6 or 7 on my railing when I’d come home from work and now I’m only seeing one, maybe two.

It’s true the Mayport naval base is just up the street and I don’t know if the proximity of the base has anything to do with it. It’s quite strange to hear almost no wildlife where last year I remember thinking I wish nature would quiet down a bit so I can enjoy some peace and quiet.

Has anyone else reported this in my area? Do you have any idea why nature has gotten so quiet lately? Is this a natural phenomenon do you think or is there something more to it? I’d really like to know what’s going on.”

So would we…

Imitation the Most Sincere Form of….

Got a kick out of the BBC story last week about a fellow who came up with the idea of dropping all the world’s data into a black box which would then be able to tell the future.

Guy apparently doesn’t get out much…and is only….uh…..lemme see, carry the one….15 years behind Clif’s work. D’oh!

Write when you break even…

George Ure (email comments to george@ure.net)

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Turkey’s Tetrazzini and Middle East Stew

I deliberately didn’t put some of the contents of this week’s report out on the public side of my writing (UrbanSurvival) for reasons than will become apparent in a moment. But, before we deglaze the pan, so to speak, a run through some of the morning’s headlines is in order and our weekly look at the charts to see what my trading indicator is saying about the period immediately ahead.

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Safer Computing: Getting Your Cookies Off

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 $30 (During their Spring Sale) and one heck of a bargain at that, if I do say so.

“Live on $10,000″ A Year

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