Question Everything

Look for another fake virus warning in your email today.

When the US military trains its finest in the arts of 'escape and evasion' there's a concept which is ground into everyone's head on how to react if captured.  "Admits nothing, deny everything, and make counter accusations."  Seems to also work well in the corporate world, from what I've seen, as a self-promotion strategy.

Key is the idea of causing one's enemy to question what they had thought to be real...hence, the importance of denying everything and instilling doubt.

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As we go through daily life, it's easy to suspend skepticism because being a continuous skeptic is a hell of a lot of work.  I see evidence of people being sloppy with their mental acuity all the time and it hit me again this morning as I went through the email only to received an urgent/dire warning about a supposed new virus making the sounds.  The email claimed that:

Please send it to everybody you know who has access to the Internet. You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail with a Power Point Presentation " Life is Beautiful" If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and Delete it immediately.

If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: "It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful." Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC!

What made this virus scam so interesting was that it also included a claim to legitimacy designed to overcome skepticism:

"THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES!"

Well, of course, it hasn't been and with 15 seconds of searching you can find the Snopes.com page which says nope, this Life Virus thing is a hoax, not true, and better: it's been around since 2002.

Besides prompting me to hit the "Reply All" button and sending back the question "Is the word gullible in the dictionary?" along with the above link, this provides and abject lesson in how easily soft-thinking can creep into people's lives.  The little "This has been confirmed by..." line in the email is likely what pushed the sender of the email into sending my way.

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As a long-time news reporter, it's been pretty well bred into my DNA that everything should be questioned, lest we succumb to a sort of waking stupor where clarity of thought drifts into a soft focus, and from there, the herd mentality takes over. Group-think reigns.

When that happens, we all too quickly forget that yes, Bill Clinton lied in office ("depends what you mean by" what?) and the current crop of 'leaders' has done as bad or worse arguably, with regard to their real Middle East Wars agenda.  In our waking-stupor state, we've become susceptible to suggestions which usually only serve the purposes of others. 

I just got several flyers in the mail this week urging me to run out and buy a new High Def TV so I could watch "The Big Game."  Like I should care about some sporting event next weekend.  My interest in the Super Bowl is limited to the time-expansion study of how the final two-minutes of a football game can be stretched into 20-minutes of NIST time.  And you thought time was a fixed unit?  Clearly, Einstein never applied his formulas to network sports programming.  He'd have given up - time is not what it seems.

Markets

Speaking of running out of time: Although the Dow closed down 171 - points on Friday, the good news is that the Dow actually gained a tiny bit this week: About 108 points worth.  Not enough to stem the layoff planning on the Street, but any port in a storm...

If you were really optimistic, you'd bet on a modest (if not semi-meteoric) rise of the markets into mid-summer.   After all, the economic stimulus plan is bound to make it through CONgress and over to the Decider's place in short order.  About in time to put a set of paddles on the chest of the dying service economy.

We'll just sit in our grains and softs commodity call options and see if the time machine works as well here as it has in our longer term silver and gold plays.  At the risk of sounding annoying, silver is up way more than a double since we mentioned the linguistics of in in April of 2005, a return of 2.36 times but it has dragged out to three years come April. 

Thanks to Ben & the Printers, I'm expecting to see silver over $50 and gold well over $2,000 long before April and maybe as early as my birthday in late February.

How Cool Is That?

Very damn cold in China.  Some much for global what?

Intrusive Government Department

A New Mexico lawmaker wants his state to tax TV's & video games as a way to fight childhood obesity.

But wait!  If they did a tax on video games, wouldn't that mean taxing our day trading platforms?  That's a video game, after all...

Purple Haze, Redux

A marijuana dispensing vending machine comes to L.A. reports CBS.  Hmmm...wonder if they'll put it next to a pop machine so folks can build bongs on the run...

Interoffice Mail

Ah, feedback from our Houston Bureau about yesterday's story:

"Seems whooping cough is back - big time in some places. Like Houston, just down the road a short piece from us... I've taken the precaution of isolating our Houston Bureau and issuing 86-proof breakfast shots. This is nothing to sneeze at..."

From the Houston Bureau Chief:  "I've been quarantined and ordered to get drunk...What a great boss! I feel like I work for Hunter S. Thompson!"

"Work?"  Who authorized the use of that word around here?

And Just for Fun

New Bush Administration Coins video.

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Coping: Food for Thought

Cheap eats ideas:

You asked for ideas on cheap meals. I like to look to other cultures that have traditions of "peasant food" that is cheap if you have the time to make it. I find it instructive to learn to think about food in a way that is different from our North American model. It basically involves learning to cook with ingredients that are cheap and available. It also involves using meat in interesting ways that still create great meals but use smaller quantities, such as mixing meat with rice or beans and wrapping it in cabbage or corn tortillas to make it go further. Some examples of dishes: Eastern Europeans: Cabbage rolls, pirogues, borscht East India: Curried rice and bean dishes, dal Mexico: Enchiladas or burritos, black bean soup Traditional America: Dishes to use leftovers such as Shepherd's pie, chicken pot pie, big pots of soup, casseroles, baked beans I still have a lot to learn about traditional cooking. Luckily there are excellent web sites for recipes.

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Why even eat store-bought noodles, when they're about as nutritious as library paste?

Cheap Noodles Worth Eating

4 eggs 1 teaspoon salt ~4 cups flour*

Beat eggs well with salt. Knead in as much flour as it takes to get a stiff dough. Knead well (good exercise!) Roll out on floured board until dough is as thin (or as thick; I like thick & chewy) as you like. Dust surface with flour and leave to dry partially. Roll up like a scroll. With a sharp knife, cut slices as wide as you like your noodles. Call in the kindergarteners and have them unroll the slices onto a screen or rack (I used to love this task when I was 5). Let dry completely. A gas oven with a pilot light works very nicely; if you put them in an electric stove on 200 deg. or so, you still might want to check that they don't toast.

*plain white flour will give you a more delicate flavor, and smoother noodles. Half-whole-wheat will give you much more nutrition, more robust taste, and grainier noodles. Toss in wheat germ, chia seeds, sesame seeds....

The thicker they are, the more boiling (in your yummy broth) they'll need. Mom used to feed a family of 5, with leftovers for Dad's & my lunch next day -- she stewed a chuck roast all day, and tossed these in at the end.

Cheap nutrition, exercise, and keeping kids occupied -- what's not to like?

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Okay, George. Here’s what we ate back in ’87 when we had about $7 per week to buy food (yeah, it went a bit farther, even then).

For the week, buy:

20 pounds of grade 2 potatoes, misshapen types (then, $2; now, $6?) 10 pound bag of cheapest white flour (then, 89 cents; now $3) 1 gallon cheapest solid shortening (then, 98 cents; now about $3) 5 pounds onions (then, $2; now probably $6) 1 pint sour cream (then 79 cents; now about $1.50) About 6 dozen eggs (then, free – we had free range hens; now about $14)

Scrub the potatoes. In a large bowl grate the potatoes. Peel and coarsely chop the onions and add to bowl. Add about 2-3 dozen lightly beaten eggs. Mix all together well. Now add enough flour to hold this together somewhat – maybe a pound or two. Add pepper to taste.

Now, heat a bunch of that cheap shortening in a heavy frying pan. Drop the potato mixture by handfuls into the oil and flatten slightly with a spatula. Fry until golden brown, turning so both sides are done. Put on clean newspaper to cool and degrease a little. Salt to taste and try to stop eating them! You can also top with the sour cream, catsup, mustard, BBQ sauce, apple sauce, or whatever you’ve got on hand that tastes good to you. Peanut butter works, too.

Fry up the whole batch, and you’ll have enough to fill up on, and enough to cover most other meals for the week. Store refrigerated. Now, you’ve still got about 8 pounds of flour and 3-4 dozen eggs left.

Make six one pound loaves of bread: water (add sour cream for flavor), flour, a little melted shortening, couple tablespoons of salt. Mix well. If you have some yeast, throw in a couple tablespoons. If you have no yeast, make up a small batch of starter in advance – use a cup of flour and cup of water, leave lightly covered for a day or two until it starts to bubble and smell tangy – and add that to the mix. Let rise, beat down and rise again, then bake. Now, you’ve got a lot of fresh bread.

Fry eggs for egg sandwiches. Or hard-boil and make egg ‘n onion salad (eggs, onions, sourcream), and have with toast. Or scramble and serve open face over a slice of bread, topped with fried onions. If the bread dries out, cube it and fry in the shortening for "snack croutons".

Anyway, you get the idea. Yes, I know, it’s not “healthy” in the conventional sense. But, I can assure you, when you have to choose between “starving” or “eating whatever is available”, you’ll choose the latter. And like it.

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Morning,

I have two recipes that I make on a fairly regular basis. We have two teenagers and they get full from these. On some of these measurements I am guessing as I was taught to cook by my granma. We didn't measure stuff out so much as you knew how much to put in. Back in those days there were no store bought veggies either. It was all canned from our garden which is what I am going back to. But here are the recipes.

Poor Man's Stew 1 pound of hamburger 1 onion, chopped 2 cans mixed vegetables 1 can peas 1 can green beans 1 can corn 1 can of diced tomatoes 2 teaspoons barley 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons pepper 1 teaspoon oregano 2 teaspoons basil Option Can of mushrooms

Brown the hamburger. Throw everything into a pot and cook on medium heat for 30 minutes. This usually feeds us two meals plus packing in for lunches. We buy our canned goods from Aldi so we are looking at .39 a can. A can of mushrooms is usually .49 Oregano and basil can easily be grown in a window box though currently I have bought from Sam's Club. This meal costs us just under $5 as we buy the grass fed beef. We buy from a friend who specializes in this so we buy half a beef at a time. Big chunk of change at one throw but over the several months it feeds us, the grocery bill is a lot less.

Mac n Cheese w/Hamburger 2 boxes of Mac n Cheese (Off brand is fine) 1 pound of hamburger 1 onion sliced Pepper to taste Brown hamberger and onion. Make mac n cheese as directed. Add the hamburger and onion to the made mac n cheese. It is a quick meal that fills the kids. The biggest cost to this one is the hamburger. Before beef became pricey, this was a $2 meal.

One another note. Last month you asked about things people do to relax and be productive. When I emailed crochet, I had not even thought about the expensive yarns as I rarely buy those and then only on the clearance shelf. Around this area we have freecycle list. I had a lady give me all of her scrap yarn that she no longer had time for. I have several patterns for patchwork afghans. It looks like I may be able to make 10 afghans off of what she gave me. Most of the scrap yarns are amounts that people throw away. These afghans will go to those who need them as the heating bills are definitely up around here as everywhere.

One more note on prices. We buy 5 poulds of extra sharp cheddar cheese at Sam's Club. In the past (within the last six months) it was $8.84 a block. I went to Sam's two weeks ago and the same block is now $14.84. We are seeing more empty shelves now especially in the same town grocery store we shop at. But again I know this is going on all over.

Thanks again for putting up the info on your site. I also subscribe to Peoplenomics which is very good.

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Surprisingly good!

Spicy Hominy burritos:

One can of hominy, one can of black beans, one can of cilantro/lime Rotel (strain off juice). Heat in sauce pan. Fill tortillas. Add a little shredded cheddar (if it's in the budget).

Cost (sans cheese)- less than $3. Makes about 6 burritos.

Send snip & save ideas (noi more recipes!  (Enough!)  to george@ure.net

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Around the Ranch:  Smoke Day

Around 8:30 last night I finally finished up the rebuilding of the SB-221 linear amp.  This morning, after this update is posted, I will engage in one of the most delightful moments of ham radio - right up there working working some exotic location halfway around the world.  I'll be doing the "let the smoke out" test.

The idea is that if you've done a good job of putting a piece of equipment together, it will work as it should.  On the other hand, and especially when playing around with a reasonably powerful piece of equipment (*with the same 'talk power' as a 5 KW AM broadcast station), any little goof here, or there, and you not only can get smoke, but even a chance of fire if you're not careful.  Which is why I gravitate toward flameproof resistors in high voltage power supplies, and such.

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Regardless of how that goes, there's only two hours in the schedule for play until nightfall.  There's more paneling to go in at the goat barn, plus I promised myself I'd put in at least one of the solar-powered lights today.

As soon as that's done, I'll be firing up the tractor and stretching out some portion of the 1,000 feet of goat fence needed to finish off a second large pasture.  And, if I get that done, I'll hang the gate for that field.  Not to whine, but just to finish the perimeter off is 6,200 feet of fencing - and you can about double that by the time the cross fencing gets done.  Ever put in a mile of fencing, let alone 3?

Peoplenomics this weekend takes on low-cost reform of higher education - which should be interesting; focusing on "If information gets cheaper, why is education getting more expensive?"  There are alternatives, and we'll get into those...

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E and I have been kicking around the idea of a large greenhouse, this being a snaky/buggy part of Texas and all: One idea is to take the current 30' X 50' garden (*surrounded by the chicken moat) and enclose that with PVC and 6-mil sheeting, burying the sides under 6" of dirt to keep out whatevers.  The other option is to put in a new pole building (darn cheap to build) and make something a little less grandiose, say 16 by 24. Ponderings on that continue.

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As always, there's never enough time, but like the old farmerly saying goes, plenty of time for that when we get planted six feet under. Today's adventure boils down to which will I smell more of: electronic component smoke, or Kubota diesel smoke?