Published Monday - Friday about 8 AM Central Time ....some typos are fixed by 8:30 (in theory)

Friday, January 14, 2011        07:55 AM CST   
New Here?  Visit our FAQ              

This site is supported by subscriptions:  For additional content, please subscribe to Peoplenomics. .

Content mirrored at: http://www.independencejournal.com/,      Mobile & Kindle (.MOBI) version here

 

The Price is Wrong Report

We begin our daily wade through the viper pit of "news got'chas" with the long awaited Labor Department Consumer Price Report.  If the December increases are annualized, it pencils out to an annual goods inflation rate of around 6.1678%, plus or minus a floating point which I trust your pencils have, too...

"The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.5 percent in December on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 1.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The energy index increased in December. The gasoline index rose sharply and accounted for about 80 percent of the all items seasonally adjusted increase. The household energy index, which declined in November, increased as well. The food index increased slightly in December, with the fruits and vegetables index rising notably.

The index for all items less food and energy also rose in December. An increase in the shelter index accounted for about 60 percent of the rise, and the indexes for airline fares, medical care and apparel rose as well. These increases more than offset declines in the indexes for communication, recreation, and household furnishings and operations. "

The CPI report also has a kind of 2010 retrospective:

"The rate of increase in the CPI slowed in 2010 as the December to December increase fell from 2.7 percent in 2009 to 1.5 percent in 2010. A deceleration in the gasoline index accounted for much of the slowdown, as it increased 13.8 percent in 2010 after rising 53.5 percent in 2009. The index for household energy, which declined in 2009, rose 0.8 percent in 2010 as increases in the indexes for fuel oil and electricity more than offset a decline in the natural gas index. The energy index as a whole, which rose 18.2 percent in 2009, increased 7.7 percent in 2010."

Well peachy.  We could yammer all day about details and implicates of this, but our general outlook that energy, but more particularly food will be shooting up is revealed in the December "commodities less food and energy commodities" which actually showed a 4-10 th's of one percent loss for the year and was flat for the month.

 

Gasoline, in comparison was up 8.5% for the month and 13.8 percent for the year.  Keep an eye on the Fairbanks Daily Miner reports and comments on the leaks of the Alaska pipeline, too, by the way...

---

Futures weak but not dead from this.

 

A 2011 Outlook

Someone sent me this classic noting that when it starts showing up again, time to be read to "duck and cover" may be close at hand....

 

 
 

Speaking of which, there is a very provocative note off Reuters overnight which asks the BIG UGLY question that most of the MainStreamMedia seems unable to articulate.  Check it out:  "Could the U.S. Central bank go broke?"

 

Those Cards at Treasury

Buried in the story "Treasury Launches Pilot Program of Prepaid Debit and Payroll Cards for Fast, Safe and Convenient Tax Refunds" comes this leaking insight into how the full-on press to get people out of cash and checks and into something electronic more subject to control:

"Also this week, Treasury began a companion pilot to encourage tens of thousands of current and potential payroll card users to direct deposit their 2010 federal tax refund onto existing payroll cards. Nationwide, more than 1.7 million workers use payroll cards to receive and access their wages, often because they do not have bank accounts. "

Here's the question:  Say I know someone who doesn't have a bank account because they owe back child support (or any other step-on-beast's-tail infraction).  Are payroll cards any more garnishment proof than, oh, say, cash for example?

 

GlobalRev Notes

So Much for Vacation Plans

Word's out that the State Department is planning to put Tunsia on their travel safety warning list.

 

Gee, I was just recovering from their posting as 'not-so-hot' ideas, going to Niger where I was going to look into having some forgeries made, or Nepal where I was planning to contact my 'higher self'.

 

Can't go to Cuba for cigars, no North Korea for kimchee...and even my shopping trips to Saudi Arabia to buy well-head condensate seems to have become risky. Why, even trips to Mexico for dirt-weed and tequila have been risky.  What is the world coming to?

 

Hardly any point to a passport, anymore.  Except, of course, to fly domestically or to write a local check.

 

Rewriting Press Releases, Redux

A couple of days back I told you about rewriting press releases and how much fun it could be for the idle mind.  Well, here's another one.  The headline from the "Research and Innovative Technology Administration" (RITA which is in the DOT somewhere) sent out a press release yesterday proclaiming:

October 2010 Airline Traffic Data: System Traffic Up 5.6 Percent from October 2009

All of which - at least at first blush - would make it sound like "Gee, things really must be getting better..."  But wait!  Read into the press release and what do we find?

"For the first 10 months of 2010, the number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines increased 2.0 percent from the same period in 2009 to 603.6 million (Table 2). The number of passengers declined 4.5 percent from the first 10 months of 2008 to the first 10 months of 2010."

While the headline might sound really good, air cargo and international seems to be where the growth is...maybe it's the brining all the offshore jobjackers to America to learn Americanese, I just can't say.

 

Not to pick on the RITA folks, though, since they managed to include a 2008-2010 comparison which few seem brave enough to do.  You figure out why...

 

Truth in Advertising?

Say, I bet you didn't know there's a website called www.distraction.gov,  did you?    Deals with safe driving, but there sure is a second meaning sloshing around in their somewhere...

 

Plane Trouble for Google?

NY Post reports this morning that Google's recent tie-up with the airline industry may come under legal attack...as in antitrust lawsuit.

 

Ticketing Kids

Ah, the days of going to school...sneaking a smoke on the way home and occasional other mischief.  (Hand me my slingshot?) The Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn way of life has long been a cherished part of America...the 'boys will be boys' stuff.

 

Except not any more, at least not in Texas.

 

An eye-popping report from the Texas Apple Seed project ("sowing the seeds of justice") rips state education types a new behind exposing the "Texas's School-to-Prison Pipeline" in a recent 200+ page report.

 

Not like the nation's local schools are the only place where authoritarianism is on the rise, however. 

 

It's going global as shown in  a new report out from Freedom House which says, in part:

"Freedom House’s annual assessment of political rights and civil liberties around the world. This represents the longest continuous period of decline in the nearly 40-year history of the survey. The year featured drops in the number of Free countries and the number of electoral democracies, as well as an overall deterioration for freedom in the Middle East and North Africa region.

A total of 25 countries showed significant declines in 2010, more than double the 11 countries exhibiting noteworthy gains. The number of countries designated as Free fell from 89 to 87, and the number of electoral democracies dropped to 115, far below the 2005 figure of 123. In addition, authoritarian regimes like those in China, Egypt, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela continued to step up repressive measures with little significant resistance from the democratic world."

From a strategic standpoint, a look at their five year map (who's getting more free, who's not) the biggest problem I see is Mexico, which the comparison map lists as a 10+ point decline. 

 

Not that it really comes as any surprise, since the US-Mexico border is the locus of a low intensity conflict which has been raging for years, but with the higher body count of 2010, not reason to expect anything but more of the same in 2011.  And I doubt that bodes well for border states.

---

Oh, and New Jersey is looking at mandatory $10 bicycle registrations.  There's another big helping of 'restrictions on travel' meme, eh?

 

Rock-a-bond Baby

With Ivory Coast Eurobonds dropping on default speculation, I get the creative urge to write poetry.  However, being a first-class dullard, I usually start with some else's work...in this case, the children's rhyme "Rock-a-bye Baby"

Hush-a-by money

Market at top,

When the oil blows

The nation will rock.

When the gold breaks,

The markets will fall,

Down tumbles money,

Long bonds and all.

Age Related:  With a birthday coming next month, I've been thinking lately -when I get old enough - if I put money under my pillow, will the tooth fairy give me my teeth back? 

 

 

(more after this ad)

 

 

Coping:  Tears of Oz (& Brazil, and Elsewhere)

Might have been a 'dripping point' - sounds kinda strange to say this, but there's only just so much distance between "tipping" and dripping - and looking at the meteorological data, it looks like almost two months of rain, at extraordinary rates, has been falling both in Australia, Brazil, and I suppose we could mention Sri Lanka - where 325,000 - 400,000 people have been made homeless - and the Pacific Northwest, which is expected to be in serious flooding over the weekend.

 

The mechanics of this, from what I've been able to read, are pretty simple:  Weather in 2010 was either tied for the warmest on record, or the warmest since 1901. but most of the excessive heat came early in the year.  As the inevitable decline from record heat abates, and the atmosphere blows off some heat, the water supersaturated in the atmosphere is going to fall out as either rain or snow.

 

Thus when we look at what happened previously - back in 1901 - we can find events like floods devastating the eastern portion of the US.

 

Then there's the matter of the 1901 flooding in New Orleans.

 

Or,  the 1901 flooding in Pakistan.

 

Or, the flash floods in Idaho, or for that matter, flooding of Eastern Washington in 1901 which you'll find occasionally referenced.  In Ephrata, Washington, between Ellensburg and Spokane, flood instructions for city residents note that...

"The 1901 flood was caused by rain combined with snowmelt..."

So it's in our view almost highly probable that the coming couple of months are going to see a continuation of flood-related headlines from all over the place.

 

Not that things stopped in 1901.  The Wikipedia entry about floods in the early 1900's starts in 1904, and features some impressive events.

 

From an economic standpoint, the flood impacts are likely under-studied.  But, since we are much more "measurement-oriented"  (mistaking accuracy of measurement for accuracy of thought as we're inclined) we should be able to measure via soaring food costs the outcome of what may be a turn down from a periodic global climate maxima.

 

Meantime, the sun, which ought to be popping off with more sunspots as we move into Solar Cycle 24, apparently hasn't read the headlines and is thus lagging behind like a dull child held back in school.  Spaceweather.com this morning showed a single, solitary, sunspot.

 

Adding to all this is the plethora of volcanoes popping off, and as I mentioned to you yesterday, Mount Etna is now erupting.  And, as this MSNBC report figures it, more explosive eruptions are probably coming there.

 

Then there's the contagion of volcanism spreading across the south Pacific.  Our Indonesia bureau chief Bernard Grover, sent this latest just a few moments ago:

"Seems Mt. Denpo, near Lampung, South Sumatra (and not far from Anak Kerakatau), has a case of the rumbles. Folks there have been briefed by the BMPG (weather and geo service) to prepare for evac. Bother Denpo and Kerakatau are within a couple hundred klicks of Jakarta.

More fun for Australia. Cyclone Vince is heading for West Australia with winds gusting to 93mph and an extra dose of rain. The cyclone is expected to dump a fair amount on Bali, as well. The cyclone seems to have appeared out of nowhere, since I don't recall seeing much build-up on it, it just sort of appeared the other day.

Locally (Jakarta), I haven't noticed any microquakes lately. For a while there, they were quite frequent. It has been gloomy and rainy for the past two weeks, which is not unusual, since it's Wet Season, but the winds are notable, as they have been strong and virtually non-stop for about a week.

More as things shake up....

Which gets us back to the first-hand reports we're getting out of Australia where a reader was kind enough to contribute this on-the-ground view:

We have had continuous solid rain for a approximately 8 weeks and our grounds, river systems and dams were already full when a wall of water gushed thru Toowoomba in Qld Australia. There are many videos on youtube that will show cars being tossed about like coke cans. The next area to go under was my town of Esk and surrounding towns such as Tagoolawah. Then the towns of Lowood, Grantham, Coominya and helidon went under. George, the devastation is incredible. The loss of life, so terribly sad. Our town went under on Monday the 10th and we still as of the 14th are unable to get out of town in any directions. Milk and bread, fuel can not be had anywhere. We are just a small town and at this point, it appears we have lost 5 local business's. Our two main dam's filled to double there capacity. The Somerset Dam runs off into the Wivenhoe Dam, which supplies Brisbane and areas with water. The dam reached a capacity of 195% and at 200% they could not guarantee that the dam would even hold. As stories of loss of life, and home destructions started to come thru from the areas already flooded, our fear for the dam and the cities below it rose dramatically. The flood water then raged thru Ipswich and finally into Brisbane. Many many homes have been destroyed, business's gone, animals and crops dead and gone. The lockyer Valley supplies such a wide area with fruit and veg, and the damage will take a long time to recover. We also supply local milk, and meats. George, the shelves were emptied within 2 days, all across the cities and suburbs, into country towns, people panic shopped. We in our local area, from Toowoomba thru to Esk and toogoolawah, the Lockyer Valley areas, we had no time to panic shop, we had no warning. It just happened and now we are cut off. I can not stress the importance enough to people to have at least a few weeks of groceries in there cupboards. It gives you the ability to stay out of harms way. I am a part of the webbot forum and these are the tips I gave others.

My most sincerest advice to anyone.

1. Do not gather - have your stuff at the door ready to go and do not gather - ever.

2. Keep pantries full - you really never know when **** will happen.

3. Stay away from everything and anything that is happening - in other words - don't be a sightseer.

4. Do not do stupid acts that will cause your family to fear.

5. Having your food storage in drums is not enough. The drums must be sealed - seal them with silicone.

6. If you need to evacuate then food storage is of no importance unless you can take it with you without gathering. If your food is in sealed drums - it is a comfort to know that with time - you can come back.

7. 40ft shipping containers float.

8. Cars are coke bottles in raging water.

9. Kids have no concept of reality. and last but not least

10. Nothing matters - let it all go - its all only possessions and life is so goddam more important.

Beyond anything George, I have such great respect for my fellow Australian citizens. Strangers helping strangers, strangers are now friends. Everyone has pulled together to help each others, stories now surfacing are so inspiring.

Our government has not let us down, financial aid is being sent out to all who are effected. $1000 per adult and $400 per child. Grants are ready to go for business and homes needing repair, once assessment of damage has been done. Our premier Anna Bligh has been a face of information, help, and comfort throughout all of this.

The clean up for our country now begins - 75% of Queensland has been damaged thru floods - that is a huge area of land, cities and towns all now gone. 86 towns and cities destroyed.

So very very sad.

Not much people in America can do about this, except there is one thought which crosses my mind:  When I see goods made in flood-recovering countries, whether it's Australia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, or Pakistan, seems to me the "right human" thing to do would be to put purchasing preference on those areas to show at least a small measure of support.  Not sure if it helps, but it's a thought to roll around...

 

Finding the Leak

Bad, nasty computer crap.  Lost a fair number of emails over the past 24-hours as I've been wading through the aftermath of my credit card being ripped off.  This morning's mobile version of this daily report as a .MOBI file will be delayed for a bit, and if you sent an email my way between Wednesday night and yesterday afternoon, I'll try and recover things, but boy, I have to tell you, this digging out from malware is no fun.

 

I've been running MalwareBytes - which has done, by all accounts, a pretty good job.  But - when I ran a few other products, such as SuperAntiSpyware and STOPzila, I found even more. 38 more, to be precise. Including a couple of keyloggers which might explain my recent credit card nightmare.

 

Well, at least there's a thread to follow,,,

 

Near as I can figure it, this is just one more sign from Universe that I ought to be moving toward using open-source coded product...and at present rates, I'd have been money ahead ('cause time ain't cheap) to have kept a Commodre-64 and modem.   I may still go that way - which would be having a single machine dedicated to email, but even that brings its own set of problems; like how to move a reader comment into a web editor, for example.

 

So, if you've got a single product solution I'd sure like to hear about it.  Most of the main brands of anti mal, spy,and virus product seem to have into performance-clogging monsterware.

 

The good news is that cookies haven't been the source of the nightmare, and even so, the folks at Maxa Research should be ready with Maxa Cookie Manager 5.0 for release Monday.

 

In the meantime, my other serious computer  (i7, 6 GB/1.5 tb) has decided that it wants to take 18-hours to start Windows and so that ate up a bunch of time Thursday as well.

 

I friend of mine wrote me a note early this week proudly talking about the new Mac and exclaiming how virus free and hassle-free that was.

 

When I get these POS's back all playing right, I intend sending him a FY note.  Or stronger.

 

Around the Ranch

Things to ponder from the yonder:

• Since I've decided to get 'serious as a heart attack' about dieting, I'm thinking of going to a semi skinhead haircut.  Theory?  You bet:  In the winter I let the hair grow and the beard get longish - warmer was my thinking.  But, since people lose a tremendous amount of body heat through their heads, I figure the freer the air contact (e.g. hairless, or near to it) the more calories will be shed.  If you're a woman, does this somehow tie back to the Mia Farrow haircut?

• Local ham radio club is planning a simulated emergency test this weekend...just about guarantees rain, near as I can tell. 

• Peoplenomics' in-depth report this weekend:  "The Paranoia Business" - which has been interesting to research as time (and working computers) allows.

Then there's an email from a fellow researcher into the odds and ends of science who sends this:

"George... Excellent and interesting paper. The only thing not addressed is the role of biophotons in the equation... All cells are emitting coherent photons (biophotons) and the origin for these is probably DNA... Have attached a paper by Dr. Voeikov on water... From IIB Summer School in 2007. Excellent stuff on H2O!"

And you thought all I did around here was look for ways to tap into the magnetic B-field, huh?  Now if I just had computers that worked reliably...

----

The only thing wrong with the weekend, near as I can tell, is it weasels in the world "end" which just doesn't seem right.  Too much to do....

 

 

Send your comments to  george@ure.net  

 

Last week's report is always here.

 

---

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Standing By to Crash:  LifeFlation

We can begin this morning's discussions with either weather reports, or economic data, but the outcome is going to be the same, so it's possible to skip right to the conclusion and maybe work backwards from there. 

 

I assume you've had time to read Clif's note on the www.halfpasthuman.com site about the (still) increasing chance that there will be a massive break in the global economy sometime between now and when he gets his report out between the 25th and the end of the month?

 

Starting on the Economic side of things, we notice that a number of Big Ugly factors are starting to fall into place.

• The Baltic Dry cargo index was down 1.8% yesterday to a level of 1,453, which means a retest of the 2008-2009 lows.  If you look at the charts, you can see that the BDI peaked in the summer of 2008 and that was several months before the massive problems of October of 2008.  Here recently, the BDI has been in an accelerating decline since about the end of September.  Think of this as baseball:  "Strike one!"

• Press release out from RealtyTrac should scare the hell out of everyone who hasn't gotten a garden in yet:

  RealtyTrac® (www.realtytrac.com),  the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its Year-End 2010 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™, which shows a total of 3,825,637 foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on a record 2,871,891 U.S. properties in 2010, an increase of nearly 2 percent from 2009 and an increase of 23 percent from 2008. The report also shows that 2.23 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 45) received at least one foreclosure filing during the year, up from 2.21 percent in 2009, 1.84 percent in 2008, 1.03 percent in 2007 and 0.58 percent in 2006.

  Foreclosure filings were reported on 257,747 U.S. properties in December, a decrease of nearly 2 percent from the previous month and down 26 percent from December 2009 — the biggest annual drop in foreclosure activity since RealtyTrac began publishing its foreclosure report in January 2005 and giving December the lowest monthly total since June 2008.

  December Default notices (NOD, LIS) decreased 4 percent from the previous month and were down 35 percent from December 2009; Scheduled foreclosure auctions (NTS, NFS) decreased 3 percent from the previous month and were down 20 percent from December 2009; and bank repossessions (REO) increased nearly 4 percent from the previous month — thanks in part to substantial month-over-month increases in some states such as Nevada (71 percent increase), Arizona (52 percent increase) and California (47 percent increase) — but were still down 24 percent from December 2009.

  Foreclosure filings were reported on 799,064 U.S. properties in the fourth quarter, a 14 percent decrease from the previous quarter and an 8 percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 2009. The fourth quarter total was the lowest quarterly total since Q4 2008.

  “Total properties receiving foreclosure filings would have easily exceeded 3 million in 2010 had it not been for the fourth quarter drop in foreclosure activity — triggered primarily by the continuing controversy surrounding foreclosure documentation and procedures that prompted many major lenders to temporarily halt some foreclosure proceedings,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Even so, 2010 foreclosure activity still hit a record high for our report, and many of the foreclosure proceedings that were stopped in late 2010 — which we estimate may be as high as a quarter million — will likely be re-started and add to the numbers in early 2011."

  I'll say it for you:  "Steeee - rike Two!"

• This morning's job's report....

  "In the week ending Jan. 8, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 445,000, an increase of 35,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 410,000. The 4-week moving average was 416,500, an increase of 5,500 from the previous week's revised average of 411,000.

   

  The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.1 percent for the week ending Jan. 1, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate of 3.3 percent.

   

  The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Jan. 1 was 3,879,000, a decrease of 248,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 4,127,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,056,500, a decrease of 72,000 from the preceding week's revised average of 4,128,500. "

Ump?   "Baaallll One!"

 

Ball?  You call that a BALL?  You gotta be kidding!  Financial umpires must be crooked.

• Although the Bank of England has not moved its rates, which are stuck and a crumby 1/2 of 1 percent, South Korea has raised its rates a quarter to 2.75%.   "Steeee - rike 2½!    "WTF!!!"

• Oil hit a high yesterday of $92.39, as the Alaska Pipeline is due to be shut down for 'bypass surgery' this weekend.   "Steee - rike 2⅔!"

• Then there's the USDA Crop forecast - perhaps better labeled today as the Crap Forecast which showed a surprising series of drop.  Since we get the whole thing in our email system (either like a good newsroom, or a wild-eyed commodity trader - hard differentiating sometimes), here are the parts that caught my attention:

  • Corn for grain production is estimated at 12.4 billion bushels, down 1 percent from the November 1 forecast and 5 percent below the record high production of 13.1 billion bushels set in 2009.

  • Soybean production in 2010 totaled 3.33 billion bushels, down 1 percent from the November 1 forecast and down 1 percent from 2009.

  • Wheat Production (All Wheat, Page 12, by state and total) was down from 2,499,164 in 2008 to 2,208,391 for 2010, a decline of 11.63%. What's worse than the numbers?  More foreign buyers are showing up - like China.

  Ump, if you would please?       "Steeeeeeeee - rike Four!"

Along about here you might be wondering, "How the hell can this be any kind of a baseball game with four strikes in it? - Doesn't George know anything about baseball, either?" 

 

En garde!   I ask in kind:  How can it be a "free market" with the government printing up money at will?    Touché, mon frer!  Remember what I said about financial umpires?

 

Way I figure is this: Whether we get Quantitative Easing 3 (or strike 5, 6, or whatever if you're counting baseball style) doesn't really matter.  The Main Idea is to keep us all in the ball game, even though some of us think it's pretty obvious that absent more interventionism, the "top's in" and all that remains is the stale beer and quickly failing confidence.  Game's over, but let's all wait for Strikes Five, Six, and beyond and just keep pretending, OK?

---

If you haven't dozed off yet (some call baseball like watching paint dry) I mentioned that we could also look at the coming LifeFlation - which is herein defined as:

LifeFlation:  "Things you need - like food - go through the roof.  things you don't need, like a fourth car, an airplane, a motor home, and so on, collapse."

...is to realize that even oil which looks like a fine play at this five-minutes could similarly collapse since un employed people with poor prospects don't do a lot of driving.

 

You 'll remember in yesterday's report I 'splained that although the floods in QLD/Brisbane (Australia) were getting all kinds of press coverage, the reason for that may be a matter of convenience since flooded Brazil doesn't have the same language (which means a smaller Anglo-speak reportorial cast to choose ratings from) while there's also a general lack of media & uplinks in that part of the world as well.  Confirmed, by the way by a Brazilian reader:

You are absolutely right. The lack of information regarding Brazil definitely has to do with the language and lack of coverage by international news agencies but as for (today) Jan 12th at 6:00 PM I can confirm 139 deaths only in the state of Rio de Janeiro including the cities of Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis alone acording to local news agencies. Not including dozens of deaths in the floodings that also occured in the state of Sao Paulo including the cities of Sao Paulo, Atibaia, and several other small towns in this particular state. It is terrible to say that but if you look from the human death number perspective our problem is rapidly approaching Australia´s problem. The rains keeps pouring on fullfiling the predictive language of "rivers in the atmosphere" (not sure about the exact wording but sure about something described of that nature and magnitude in earlier reports) and also (Mud Slides), (flash floodings), (deliver years of rain) in only hours or days, extreme weather caused problems for central (south) america, etc... We are experiencing record weather events also previously predicted in HPH reports.

Well, that was yesterday and this morning we see where the British press is reporting the death toll in Brazil's floods is up to 335 - and climbing.

 

Not to minimize the damage in Australia, by any means - here, check out this video...

 

 

I mention this why?  Remember the references to [stockyards] as part of the HPH SOTTC report?  Well, way I have it figured, the price of cattle for market is really going to soar.  Look at a can of corned beef in the store sometime and you'll likely see it comes from either South America or Australia. 

 

May not seem such a big deal, except that it likely means meat prices will rise, and since there's not a lot of growth in crop forecasts, not to harp too much on this, but think famine and you may have a sorry glimpse of the future for humans.

 

Soooo....  Watch the terms like "torrential rains" in South America and "Queensland facing reconstruction of 'post-war proportions'.  As will come out in the HPH forecast - likely to have a very high relevance north of the equator as well - and the timing will be surprising.

 

Speaking of which...here's something that will help you "get it" that when climate cools, rain falls from skies

 

The Laptop Toting Giant-Killer

You need to read up on who Piers Borbyn is, and if you have the stomach for it - because it will fly in the face of a ton of media hype to the contrary - you need to at least consider the big pile of hard science at "Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory" which is ever so popular...still....even as a mini Ice Age may be in the wings.

 

Oh, Didja see the video of Mt. Etna erupting now, too?

 

 

 

Let me see:  Does volcanic ash warm or cool things?

 

COOL!!!

 

LifeFlation's Other Terms

Not that LifeFlation is about to become vogue, but it's a nice short-hand way of expressing a complex thought.

 

I should explain that if you follow all of what gets written here, you may be guilty yourself of the same intellectual crime:  Howard Hill recently asked a friend to read the book we're writing (economics and beyond) and the feedback was that we both tend to engage in a tremendous amount of "intellectual shorthand".

 

So to help corral up the idea of LifeFlation (as though eating isn't affordable, but used video games are isn't clear enough) here's a story that will help from CNBC this week "Lessons from Holiday 2010:  There are Two Economies."

 

India, says the BBC, is going through an onion crisis which might do wonders for the local vampire population...

 

Meantime, Back at the Implosion...

I have to admit being a huge fan of Meredith Whitney:  Sharp as a tack and usually right.  But, then again, Bill Gross of PIMCO is no slouch, when it comes to soothsaying of bonds, either.

 

If I didn't have this here column to write, I'd go read everything on the net about Whitney going out on a limb and predicting municipal  bond defaults - since it'd be a very "Thirties Depressiony kinda thing" and due any old time, as I read things, versus Bill Gross view that Whitney is overblowing things.

 

As luck would have it, the NY Post has a good summary of the views here and is highly recommended.

 

Other Matches in the Theater

....which might start things rolling on the downside:

• S&P and Moody's warning about the US credit rating...and no, Whitney didn't put 'em up to it, although it sure builds her case.

• Producer prices were up more than expected this morning:

  "The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods rose 1.1 percent in December, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This advance followed increases of 0.8 percent in November and 0.4 percent in October and marks the sixth straight rise in finished goods prices. At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate goods moved up 1.0 percent, and the crude goods index increased 4.0 percent. On an unadjusted basis, prices for finished goods advanced 4.0 percent in 2010 after climbing 4.3 percent in 2009. "

• CPI comes out tomorrow morning about this time and we wouldn't be surprised to see it higher than expected which ought to be interesting.

Beer and ViseGrips at the read.  A reader sent me a note - which I misplaced- about purse-sized ViseGrips...gotta get a pair for Elaine...

 

Environmental Mess

May be in the wings as a tanker loaded with sulfuric acid has capsized on the Rhine in Germany.  I know, how does a tanker capsize on a river?  not like there's rogue waves on the Rhine, you know what I mean? Still, half a million gallons plus according to a quickie back of the envelope scribble...

 

High Marks

Watched the Obama speech in Tucson last night.  I'd give him high marks on it.  Very Presidential.   "We can be better."

 

Amen.  Except you and me, of course.

 

Coping: Life, The Game

A reader sent in a note on Wednesday suggesting that I not put the comments about higher consciousness shifting, dimensional collisions up only for the Peoplenomics.com subscribers who pay for the bandwidth of this site.   I thought about it - and yes, there's probably enough for an ebook (with a little commentary) but my intent was to post everything this morning and let you do with what you will.

 

Then Life (the Game) intervened.

 

A server here 're-crashed', client work backed up, the big pipe to the internet went down, and on and on.  Basically, one of those Wednesdays which except for the pleasant parts, wasn't what you'd call an inspired use of time onEarth.

 

So this morning, I'm going to run through a highly condensed, such as can be done in 20-minutes, or less this morning.

 

Remember our premise on this?  Suppose that 2012 is not about some kind of a crustal shift that wipes out humankind, but rather the return of off-Earthers who come for a 'harvest of souls & consciousness - something which would be rare no matter how you play the numbers in Universe.  Each of the following bullet points is from a different reader...

• I deg to differ with your suggestion of Higher Consciousness devouring aliens. Evil interdimensional alien ghoulies feast on fear, panic, rage and other negative emotions, not on elevated states of consciousness. Aliens that fed on states of Higher Consciousness would be malnourished indeed on this world.

  And speaking of consciousness, 2012 and aliens; a Star Trek analogy. In the Star Trek series, the development of warp drive proves mankind fit enough for First Contact.

• Coming Movie: The Truth About the War in Heaven: Declaration of War Description - "Takes us to planet earth in the year 2010 to discover a spiritual war that began in Heaven."

• The difference between spiritual practice and religious practice is important. The spiritual practitioner is on a journey to discover what is Real and the meaning of Life. He is one who questions everything. While the religious practitioner takes what he is told by an “authority” based on faith. Through out the ages there have been spiritual teachers, ex. Jesus The Christ, Muhammad, The Buddha, Krishna, etc., that have taught how to realize Reality through spiritual practice. To make it extremely short Reality isn’t something one acquires like a worldly pursuit. It is something that is revealed to have always been after one has surrender all beliefs, concepts, habits, emotions and even the thought one is a separate individual. Reality is Bliss, Love and Peace. To embody Reality is to be Eternally content. One no longer seeks Happiness and Love for one is the very thing that was always sought.

  How do I know this is possible? I have done intensive practice myself. I have been focusing on spiritual Liberation in my life.

• "Wonder is we're headed for dimensional walls caving in come 2012? In which case the answer to the alien question has been pretty clearly defined for at least several thousand years of human history. " Have you watched "Fringe" (the sci-fi series on Fox)? If not, you should. It's been following this line of thinking for a couple of years now.

   

• George, you forgot the aptly named "To Serve Man", the alien cookbook, from Twilight Zone. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734684/

• You wrote: "The likelihood is that they eat consciousness. Perhaps this talk about "consciousness raising" is a last minute effort to raise up more for harvest - a kind of spiritual corn-fed feedlot operation."  George, If you've never read the Bob Monroe books, you might want to consider that what they do feed on is emotions. Emotions are like an elixir to "whomever", and supposedly cannot be synthesized. Every human produces emotions, some more some less, but what if our emotions were valuable energy to "someone else", and were able to be harvested. What if our only purpose here is to produce emotions for other entities? What if all the world's instability's were manufactured, just so that we would give an emotional response. Interesting concept to pursue.

And probably the most interesting note of the bunch camp from Chris Tyreman of www.thechronicleproject.org which offered this ponder:

So last night as I was out walking, once again I looked into the sky at the giant Aalaph in the sky. See how the research gets you crazy. Its not the first time I thought that Orion was a giant Aalaph, but it was the first time I checked into it. Some of this you already know, I'm just connecting it to the Supreme ones instead of some random Earth religion.

 

Yah, the pyramids. I find it funny in your newsletter you were yakking about the aliens coming. There not coming as you know, they are already here.

 

Some claim the pyramids were built by aliens to serve as beacons on earth. Others believe they are astronomical constructions, telling the story of the starry skies thousands of years ago and that the three pyramids align with Orion’s Belt.

 

The Great Pyramid measures 230m around its base and is 140m high. Its four sloping faces were originally dressed with casing stones that shone brilliantly in the sun. The joints between the stones were nearly invisible, so precisely cut that not even a sheet of paper could fit between them.

 

But the casing stones from all the pyramids were removed and used to build mosques after the Arab invasion of Egypt. There are actually nine pyramids on the Giza Plateau and a total of about 100 throughout Egypt, including those with stepped sides – which was the original pyramid design.

 

Aalaph means...to activate, or begin. Most of the shapes of the letters match up with their function, the shape showing their definition. Aalaph does not. What it does match, is Orion.

 

Is it the place of those that "activate" other planets, or the place of "to begin"

 

If the first God of Egypt, Ra was actually a supreme one, were the pyramids constructed to regard the homeworld? Even better, the home federation. Many of the pyramids match to the constellation of Orion.

 

Now I know people will claim that this shape is not an ancient Hebrew form, but I'm not convinced that what they think are older forms, are just other languages, because the shapes don't really match with the "modern". That of course is a later discussion.

When you take all the musings, stir 'em up and refry them, the notion distills from this:

"The likelihood is that they eat consciousness. Perhaps this talk about "consciousness raising" is a last minute effort to raise up more for harvest - a kind of spiritual corn-fed feedlot operation."

 To something more like this:

"The likelihood is that they eat emotion. Perhaps high social stress levels (and shortly, planetary crisis, such as famine) would - in feedlot fashion - put on a finishing load of emotions before harvest.  A kind of deglazing of the pan not with wine or a liquor, but with equivalent "emotional solvents".  Which might make this the period when humankind is being covered with the demi-glace of fear sauce down at the soul level. 

 

Oh, and those thousands of unexplained disappearances that happen every year?  Cooks have tasting spoons, non?  And who hasn't licked a beater when making brownie batter?

 Some thoughts on "disappearing people" can be found on discussion boards and interestingly, dimensional shift is one of the suspects.

 

Now remember the recent stories from readers who have experienced the time-slip/hyperchronism effects?  Related?  Let me know next time you're following a 56 Caddie down the road, get distracted for just a half-second (and not more) only to look up to see the Caddie has morphed into a late-model Camry.

 

I keep coming back to the notion that "being scared" [including and especially of death] is a kind of necessary training...as though this very life itself is like a computer-based-training (CBT) program (scarier than The Matrix but with benign intent) to temper our being into...into....what?

 

Time's up!  ...I said 20-minutes, not 45, which this has turned into on the writing & thinking side... Still, makes me feel like just a little marker in SimCity...and maybe that's what we all are - just game pieces of a self-indulgent Master Game....

 

---

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Dam Concerns: Prescient Points

Both in the mass consciousness and in the predictive linguistics from www.halfpasthuman.com, we have had plenty of warning time - "Heads up!" alerts that things in Australia were going to be bad this winter.  It's just how bad is only now coming into focus.

 

For example: Subscribers to our premium service, www.peoplenomics.com, will want to refer to Issue #445-A of March 6, 2010 for this seemingly prescient quote:

"Everyone once in a while a reader email, or a news tip, comes along which just screams for more follow-up because it fits with a lot of 'rumbles' being heard lately. That was the case this week when the following email arrived from Australia:

"hi George, keep it short, know you have tons to look at everyday? I just don't get it? my Husband is working on this huge project, in the first meetings the top management levels are informed the Government is building it for the 10,000 year flood and its not public knowledge. He looks around and hardly anyone bats an eyelid? The speaker looks my husband in the eye and sais yes , the last time Noah was involved? yes, That flood! 45 billion being spent on this one. His part is in Brisbane, Queensland ,yet many roads being rebuilt higher all over the state and many new motor way tunnels. The tunnels in Brisbane are what we believe will be the way to relay the big floods out to sea (too bad if your in it at the time is my guess) Examining the way they have built the new hospital, it appears that ships could dock there, no reason to be built that high. No photography is allowed and this is regulated strictly. Must be finished before 2012, but last few days they have suggested to speed up works and intend to work under floodlight around the clock. Now, thats just making me a bit more nervous. Maybe your right, 2012 has been moved forward? Feel free to ask for more info, he will send it over the weekend if so. I probably would have dismissed it as myth myself, but when you're on the payroll for the big event, well, it doesn't get more real than that? Are there Any projects over there reporting the same reason for big projects. Maybe they weren't meant to slip the truth into this meeting? Just reply simply: more info...and I will forward facts if your interested. The company is sworn to secrecy but he hasn't signed anything and sais he is willing to speak. Why should we be in the dark while they spend so much to safe guard the corporate structures? I really don't think we will get warnings on what they must already know is coming. yours..."

There was also reference to winter flooding in the October 20, 2010 Shape Of Things To Come report (reproduced with 3exclusive permission here):

Terra The immediacy data as well as the first of the shorter term data sets analyzed for 2011 are describing a [rapid], and [visible (noticed/observed)] change in the [order of magnitude] of [sudden catastrophic climate change]. The Terra entity has several linguistic sets that appear, and grow as modelspace is progressed into January 2011. These new sets are commonly supported by aspect/attributes that are all bringing in very high [visibility] numbers. The [rapidity] descriptor as well as the [visibility] numbers are combining within the supporting sets of the [sudden catastrophic climate change] sub set. Within that sub set there are newly appearing sets for [visible (changes/alterations)] within [oceanic currents]. Note that [destructive climate change] is indicated to include [ripple-on (cascading) disasters] as [natural events] will [induce/cause disaster] in [human infrastructure]. The detail layers of this set are repetitiously filled with aspect/attribute sets for such links as [excessive rains] and [destroyed dams]. Or [excessive rains (flooding)] and [destroyed water systems (potable/waste)], or [excessive rains (flooding)], and [destroyed roads]. The idea comes across really easily. As an aside, the [excessive rains] sub set is going to be affecting all kinds of infrastructure globally over the Winter of 2010/2011 and well into Summer 2011 {ed note: the farthest out we can push the values now}. The infrastructure elements cited within the data include [roads/roadways], [canals/harbors/marinas], [ports], [stockyards], [resorts (both beach and mountain)], [conference centers], [churches], [cemeteries], [rail yards], [subway systems], [electrical systems], [communications systems], [internet delivery], and [satellite systems] among many others. This last, the [satellite systems] are going to be impacted both by [ground based flooding], but also, apparently, by [dense water vapor masses], which we shall presume will be in the upper atmosphere and causing reception issues. This is apparently one of the larger emotional pressures as it will also affect [telephony service].

Which gets us to the big story of the morning which may be found in any of the Australian news services:  A large portion of suburban Brisbane is expected to receive flood water today:  The story "A dam and a prayer" from the Sydney Morning Herald seems to fait particularly close with the predictive linguistics.

 

Oh,  and Clif's note, "Oy! Mate!  Look over there...!" has to be read  with occasional clicks over to the Australian online dam levels which a reader spied here...  And yes, be sure to note all the comments "Dam is spilling..."

 

[Linguistic note:  near as I can tell either Oy! or Oi! is acceptable, oi, mate?]

 

As if the language filling the expectations about farmlands and stockyards being flooded is not bad enough, there's now a Reuters report that there's a "Cyclone brewing off Australia's top iron ore region" and it's likely to turn into a Cat 3 cyclone over the next 48-hours, or so.

 

Not that Australia is alone in this misery:  "13-dead after heavy rains in Brazil" is getting less media play, but likely that's because of a language difference and less media infrastructure in that region.

 

Then, if you keep looking, you'll see there is some concern that flooding may come to Hawaii as well.

---

All of which leaves us with a very interesting ponder, as we review the "release language" which has been developing since Nov 6-8, 2010:  This the 'release' going to turn out to be a never-before-seen level of flooding and weather anomalies in that region?  The fact that the January 7 near-vertical drop in linguistic values turned out to be within 12-hours of the Arizona shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, seems to fill the near vertical release language for that particular day.

 

So with a new SOTTC report coming out around January 25th, we'll be closely reading what's ahead for the late winter through summer period.

 

Based on previous runs, we expect there will be much emphasis on media control/internet kinds of issues, but we shall wait for the next report from the rickety time machine...

 

Terra's Other Bites

Not that we have too many readers in New Caledonia, but down that way, there's a cyclone underway by the name of Vania.

 

Now, for good measure, let's toss in the earthquake data:

 

We've had a 4.5 and a 4.7 down in the Gulf of California area, where we're watching the Imperial Valley food production area closely.  What makes these two notable is that they are west of Ciudad Obregon, which is about 475 miles south/southeast of Mexicali raising the noodle  "If pressure is building up or earth is moving down there...."

 

Then there have been a couple of quakes down south of San Francisco...nothing big - yet - just a four-something and some smaller action.

 

Still, it's all worth watching because no telling which - if any - are prequel/precursor events.  As I'm fond of pointing out, those who have even an approximate handle on the future are much better prepared to deal with it when it shows up in what has lately been some none to kindly ways.

 

Coffee Safe!  (for now)

The impression, at least by some accounts like this one, is that coffee grown in Indonesia is not in immediate danger from a pending eruption of another volcano...

 

Still, our Indonesia Bureau Chief, Bernard Grocer reports...

Reports say that 'officials' are making plans to evac thousands, but word I have is that they've already issued a 'voluntary' bug-out call. I know a half-dozen folks from Lampung, two of whom have already gone home to help the family box up the family heirlooms. Two others are making plans to do the same. The region of Lampung is part of the Kopi Luwak producing region, made famous by Jack Nicholson in "The Bucket List," what I like to call 'cat-poop coffee.'

Anak Kerakatau has been belching out a steady stream of ash for the past three days. You may recall from previous notes that the sensor array there went dead a few weeks ago, so any action on the mountain makes the locals get all nervous-like.

Between the Land of Oz and Indo, there's a lt of food being destroyed by fire and water. So we cast a wary eye towards land and sea. Thankfully, I have my farm up in the mountains south of here. So far, Genung Gede and Genung Panggrango has been blissfully quiet.

More as it comes.

Econ Data

All the hand-wringing over Ma Nature isn't going to change much, but at least with economic news, we can change the playing field, although ever-so-slightly.

 

Not sure if you saw the monthly wholesale trade numbers out yesterday?

 

Amazingly the figures were up 1.9% from October levels and up a whopping 12.2 percent from their November 2009 levels. 

 

OK, why mention this?  Because it could be the leading edge of massive inflation in the pipeline:  You see the report is denominated in dollars and doesn't include enough unit cost data to really make sense of things.  So if units are about equal, then lots of inflation this way comes in whatever the turnover rate is.

 

Or...the other side, if units are up a corresponding 12.2 percent from year ago levels, then inflation would be nearly non-existent.

 

The same report notes that inventories were up 8.4 percent from year ago levels, so are companies stocking up on product prior to letting more people go, or is there really something of a recovery going?

 

My complaint with most of this data is that since it's all denominated in dollars and units is not included, it's hard to figure what's production and what's inflation and heaven knows, can't make things that easy, could we?

 

Housing Data

Next we tear into the latest home purchasing data from the Mortgage Bankers Association which shows mortgage applications are up slightly, but their price index is down 10.5% from year ago levels:

"The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending January 7, 2011. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 47.5 percent compared with the previous week, which included the New Year’s holiday. The Refinance Index increased 4.9 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 3.7 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 41.9 percent compared with the previous week and was 10.5 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 5.3 percent. The four week moving average is down 1.0 percent for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average is down 7.5 percent for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 72.1 percent of total applications from 71.0 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 4.9 percent from 5.0 percent of total applications in the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.78 percent from 4.82 percent, with points decreasing to 0.91 from 1.10 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans. This is the second straight decline for the 30-year fixed rate, which is now 15 basis points lower than the survey's seven-month high observed two weeks ago. The effective rate also decreased from last week. "

Just have to keep those "empire of rental homes to fund my retirement" plans in the desk drawer for a while longer, I suppose.

 

Next envelope, please?

 

Import-Export

Census also has out the international trade figures this morning where we all get to stand around burning pink slips as we watch what the finely tuned, orchestrated job-jacking of American manufacturing has wrought:

The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced today that total October exports of $158.7 billion and imports of $197.4 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $38.7 billion, down from $44.6 billion in September, revised. October exports were $4.9 billion more than September exports of $153.8 billion. October imports were $0.9 billion less than September imports of $198.4 billion.

 

In October, the goods deficit decreased $5.7 billion from September to $51.4 billion, and the services surplus increased $0.2 billion to $12.7 billion. Exports of goods increased $4.5 billion to $112.3 billion, and imports of goods decreased $1.2 billion to $163.7 billion. Exports of services increased $0.4 billion to $46.4 billion, and imports of services increased $0.2 billion to $33.7 billion.

 

The goods and services deficit increased $6.4 billion from October 2009 to October 2010. Exports were up $20.6 billion, or 14.9 percent, and imports were up $27.0 billion, or 15.9 percent.

 

 

Meantime, Back at the Blame Game

We see that state workers in Rhode Island soon won't be able to go on talk radio outlets if the governor there has his way...  And then there's an0other member of congress claiming that if violent political rhetoric didn't cause the Arizona shootings, it will cause the next one...

 

Real Clear Politics has a whole gallery of comments.  My suggestion? The political types are all yammering for attention.  Too late for solutions, which might well have started at the local law enforcement level with previous threats apparently having been made.

 

Next thing you know, someone's going to discover the (alleged) perp had an AM radio, an FM radio, may have watched TV and...as some friends in the news biz passed along, apparently posted to an online shared-article site.

 

So is there a reason now to ban keyboards?  Or, are people going to appear at various times in our history who act in illegal and crazy ways?

 

Fact is, if you take the number of shooting attempts against public officials, and consider there are 310+ million citizens, it's really a remarkably small percentage. 

 

Coping:  George's New Diet

If this morning's column seems a little short - or at least a bit less wordy than usual - you have Timothy Ferris to blame.

 

"Who and why?"

 

Tim Ferris has written a runaway best-seller in his time & life management book  The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.

 

What makes it good?  I'm generally guided - when it comes to ordering my reading list - to books that have good reviews on Amazon by other readers.  That way, I don't have to put a lot of time (or thought) into figuring out what to read first.

 

So  out of 1,083 customer reviews on Amazon, Ferris comes up with a 5-stars rating on this one.  And, more significant to my reading order, only 16 out of 1,083 reviews, less than 1.5% were single-stars.  Since Americans will gripe even about the proverbial "free lunch" and loved it...and even though some of it is what we've been doing in the East Texas outback since 2003, the book is full of all kinds of useful information.

 

But, that's not why the column gets shorter.

 

Nope...it's Ferris latest book: The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman which is available for Kindle for a couple of bucks less than the hardcover's $13.98 (how I got it and read it).

 

I won't tell you all the hints in the book about how to lose weight, get control of diseases (including my gout, by the way) - since that would take much more time than we have here.

 

But a word or two about why the columns are more to the point and perhaps less wordy:  Besides killing everything in the diet that comes from "white carbs like corn, potatoes, wheat, and so forth, Ferris pulled together research that says (among lots of eye-openers) that eating within 30 minutes (max. 1-hour) of getting up, is what needs to be done to effectively lose weight.

 

So this morning, I had a couple of scrambled eggs, and some rancyh-tyle canned beans (drains of excess sauce) for breakfast.  Takes about 10-minutes to do the whole routine:  Open can, nuke beans to warm, scramble two eggs, toss and eat with my usual two (measured) cups of coffee.

 

This routine is expected to continue into the foreseeable future, since my old eating habits - when IJ got around to it, and then too much - have to go away.

 

Sections on putting on muscle, the discovery that it only takes a few very short  (think 3-minutes is short?) to toss in some exercise to accomplish metabolism change - is cool?  Unlimited binge days are , too, provided theyt conform to a few pretty simple rules.

 

I won't publish the Excel sheet of the weight tracking for a few months, since I am new to this, but any diet that leaves in a couple of glasses of red wine can't be that bad...so off I go on it...

 

And that means pausing on the way to the office and eating some vegetable matter and protein first.

 

Won't bore you with any further references until sometime in February when I'll try to remember to post an update.

 

Survival Planning

A couple of items to mention here.  One is my friend SurvivalWoman has been doing a series of week-by-week small steps to build toward survival storage for the average family.  One of the articles in that series to give you a sense of things is "More prepping tips for the average Joe & Jane".

 

Next is an email from Grant up at Emergency Essentials:

"George,

We have our Traditional 1200 Year Supply on sale this month for only $799.99. Individual pricing on this supply is around $1000, so it’s about a 20% savings. This is a great deal, and someone can get a year supply of food for under $800. Thought maybe you could mention this one of these days if you can fit it in. Here’s a link..

Reason I mention this one?  because this is the package which we ordered and have had on hand for a couple of years.  It's a good cross-section of foods, and when supplemented with local game out here in the wilds plus whatever seasonal foods we can pick off nature and from the garden, we figure it's workable, at least for the first year.

 

Then, toss in the rocket stove, a SunOven, and a good water filter......

 

Emerging from Mass Consciousness...

I mentioned the concept yesterday of a "collision between dimensions" which might be down under a lot of what passes for 'religion' in (more or less) modern times.  And I have gotten a lot of email about it - so much in fact that tomorrow's coping section may turn into a small e-book so you can send it around to your friends.  There is just overwhelming response to the core concept.

 

Here's a typical reply:

"Hi

"What IF 2012 is not the end of a calendar cycle in the normal sense of things. What IF instead the recent fish kills, birds smacking into things in mid-flight and all the rest is just a symptom of a couple of different realities smacking into one another prior to a breach?"

So strange that you should be thinking this too. I keep dreaming of such a merger (nightmares actually)!

So have lots of other folks - so wake up early tomorrow; I rarely put more than a couple of hours of work into these morning reports (morning mental calisthenics is their main purpose) but today I've sliced off some time for a serious report...normally the kind of thing that goes on our www.peoplenomics.com web site with the premium content...

 

Fair Point

A Kiwi reader, catches us, so he thinks, in a mental tank trap:

"Kia ora George

quote from your comments:" Our recent whining, harping, cajoling, and nagging about getting your own food supplies online through gardening is hereby continued."

Floods wash gardens away, thus not much comfort there.

No, no, no!  You missed my point:  As all this ag production from Queensland comes to a screeching halt, non Oz users of those exports are going to start raising prices.  And, while it's true that floods do wash away gardens, a greenhouse on the side of a hill that's not washed away can still produce.

 

And as soon as the waters recede, people with cans of seeds (right column) ready to pop in the ground, could be back in veggies inside 90-days, seasons permitting.

 

And outside the immediate flood area, having a few stored goods is called either prudent planning, or worst case: famine prevention.

 

---

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Down Under, Deep Under

Australia Broadcasting puts the death toll from flooding in Queensland to 10 and a good chance of it going higher as floods described as "Biblical" in proportion are leveling land, homes, and whatever gets in their way.

 

A reader located on high ground in the area sent this:

"The most disturbing thing so far was the “inland tsunami” which has leveled a major regional town 2000’ above sea level. Unprecedented and unpredicted, a wall of water on top of the mountain hit the town and caused widespread devastation and deaths and then has continued rolling on down the mountain to the townships below. Wall of water – no warning. Yep, this has to be bad and this particular phenomenon has never been seen before. Cars were thrown around like toys.

This area is also a major service centre for beef, grain and the growing resource industries. It is now totally cut off and supplies are expected to run short. This is just like a regional town on a flood plain further north which has been cut off for 3 days and residents are queuing for hours trying to get bread and milk which is boated across the water.

If you’re looking for a tipping point, this one has to be a huge one for this state and lots of the east coast. I wonder if we should be looking for multiple tipping points all in about the same time frame. Maybe that’s what is indicated."

It's not going to show up at the local grocery stores in the next few minutes, but a long term problem of food shortages is coming into focus.  The Sydney Morning Herald reports "Food prices set to spike in wake of floods" and that means the potential for global repercussions.

 

A Bloomberg/BusinessWeek story headlines this as the worst flooding in Australia since 1893.

 

Our recent whining, harping, cajoling, and nagging about getting your own food supplies online through gardening is hereby continued.

 

States to the Wall

We've been reading a number of reports over the past several days about the massive state income tax increase plans being hatches in Illinois.  Nothing particularly nefarious about it; juast kinda like physics:  Action (in this case spending) causes an equal and opposition reaction (in this case debt).

 

Still, with esteemed publications like the NY Times noticing that "In Illinois, a Giant Deficit Leads to Talk of a Giant Tax Increase" is likely a good summary.  There are probably close to a dozen states which stand to see their public employee pensions go red/out of money by 2020. 

 

Ah, remember the 'good old days' when dates like 2020 seemed oh, so very far away?  In the ever-increasing speed of current affairs, that's almost like next week and soon enough, ought to be figured into market pricing not only of state but also county and municipal bonds.

 

Federal Risk Exposure Climbing

There was a piece in Capitol Weekly the other day worth mentioning as long as we're on the topic of government debt:  "Government-backed mortgages soar in Golden State" reveals that only 1.3% of homes in California were backed by the government in 2004 and now that exposure is 23.6 perc3ent of home loans.

 

Same comments about markets and repricing risk *(as in previous story) apply here. 

 

Near as I can tell, although there's a lot of deflationary movement in place, including the calling consumer debt picture, the government in the end will have no alternative but to inflate which means - in so many words - watering down the purchasing power of dollars further. 

 

Oh, and when that happens, shorting bonds in the face of soaring interest rates will be where fortunes might be made. Or simply buying the 'yellow dog"...

 

So You Wanna Buy Gold?

Not often something like this comes up for sale - and rare as hen's teeth at that: a 100-ounce gold nugget is coming up for sale on March 15th.  Best guess is that it will go for about twice whatever spot is at that time./

 

My guess would be somewhere in the vicinity of $3,000 per ounce, which would make it a $300,000 nugget...

 

Silver Withdrawals

Jesse's Cafe American noticed that with the recent commodities expiration, we might just see a real pop in silver since so much is being consumed in physical deliveries. 

 

Already, as of press time, silver had popped up to the $29.50 level and seems to be heading north of $30 again, possibly within days.

 

Don't Pay to Gamble Dept.

Of course, there are those who claim that investment in precious metals is akin to gambling, and since there was a gold confiscation in the last Depression, no reason this one couldn't go down the same path. 

 

Still, gambling is gambling, even if the odds seem more favorable in one game than another.  And we have to give a nod to New Jersey where gambling is reported down 9.6 percent in the past year.

 

Virginia Dollars?

Here's an interesting bill prefiled for the coming session of the Virginia state House under the title: "Establishing a joint subcommittee to study whether the Commonwealth should adopt a currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System in the event of a major  breakdown of the Federal Reserve System."

 

After you get through a couple of pages of "whereas's"  you come down to a state studying whether it should be ready with its own currency!

"RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That a joint subcommittee be  appointed to study whether the Commonwealth should adopt a currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System in the event of a major breakdown of the Federal  Reserve System."

Of course, they are not likely to go much of anywhere with this, but as we know, occasionally, where there is smoke, there's fire.

 

Arizona Blame Game

A good survey article in the Christian Science Monitor wonders "Nihilism or Sarah Palin:  What Motivated Arizona shooting suspect?"

 

The answer is likely to be one we've mentioned before, but which doesn't get much direct discussion:  Young people today are increasingly asking "Why" questions about life. 

 

In many cases, they are coming from broken homes, from historically high divorce rates, they see parents who have thrown in the towel on the American Dream, they can't manage to save enough to build their own futures by buying a home, and in general, they seem to have a developing awareness that if the economic decline we're in not only forces them to move back with parents, and preempts their own upward movement in the workforce, what's to be cheerful about?

 

There are already over a thousand items returned for the Google News search "arizona blame".

 

A point which seems to be missed by those who would blame either the Internet, hard money supporters, or right-wing talk radio types:  American has had a sad number of attacks on public officials going back to the Brady case, or Kennedy, or Lincoln, for that matter. 

 

To jump on the net or sound money movement ignores historical precedence. But since we're in denial about a Second Depression, the soaring military might of China, and the collapse of the purchasing power of the US Dollar, the sinkholes of the Middle East, etc...we seem to have little difficulty moving into denial on whatever else comes along...

 

Profits of War

Say, you happen to notice the headline in the Belfast Telegraph "US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed"?

 

Remember a couple of years back, we broke the story of ammunition shortages noticed by sportsmen in the US?  Well, these statistics seem to put that story in perspective...

 

Terra' Shakes

Notice there were a couple of earthquakes out in the Channel Islands/Santa Barbara Channel overnight?  Map here.  (the blue boxes off LA)

 

Puerto Rico/ Dominican Republic area still shimmying, too.

 

How Long Will This Hold?

"Portugal Prime Minister says no aid needed, budget gap below goal"

 

10

 

9

 

8

 

...

 

Coping:  Don't Welcome Aliens...

No, it wasn't watching "War of the Worlds" again last night that bring us to the question of "How to treat aliens from space" this morning.  It was, instead, the story over at the Mother Nature Network quoting a "Study: If we're not alone, we should fear the aliens."

 

Honestly, I hadn't thought too much about this - and likely neither had you - since there is so much other 'crap' fighting for top of mind awareness.

 

With tax season just around the corner (whenever the computers get updated) and with the economy stuck in the functional equivalent of quicksand, and the outlook for ending any US military involvements near zero, asking about how to treat aliens may be considered down the food chain, just a bit.

 

Now, however, since the study is getting traction around the net, I'm beginning to pay attention.  The Christian Science Monitor'as coverage of the story carries the subhead: "British scientist Simon Conway Morris believes there are only two possibilities for alien life; either we're alone or aliens exist, and they are out to get us.'

 

Reading through the story about the study, and recalling all the sci-fi movies on topic (Contact, Close Encounters, Independence Day, and War Between the Worlds) one can come very close to the study results by just cross-tabbing the kind of viewpoints expressed in the movie.

 

In other words, having no particular knowledge, there's a lot of hypothecation.  All of which isn't especially interesting until I crank in the George Factor.  Which is what?

 

It occurs to me that although we have spent umpteen gazillions on research and the space program with NASA and the various military outfits, our outlook on space is rather, oh, backwards.

 

Since quantum physics is working on folding, bending, and mutilating space-time as a much easier way to travel, we have yet to see the definitive  movie in what seems to be an underplayed aspect of science fiction, namely the middle ground between consciousness, unconsciousness, dream states, hallucinations, and quantum multiple dimensions.

 

Since I've hung around predictive linguistics as a kind of "jr. time monk in training" for what will be a decade in May of this year, one of the things which has become apparent is that not only is time a little slippery, but so is everything else, much to the consternation of monkey mind.

 

There seems to be something to the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, though, as proposed by Hugh Everett, which pulls things together.

 

If there are points where "world's diverge", then it's possible, too, that other worlds with other dimensions exist as well.

 

A good starting point, if you want to conceptualize this stuff is to get PD Ouspensky's classic Tertium Organum or the Third Canon of Thought and a Key to the Enigmas of the World.  The first time I experienced an 'outside of four dimensions' moment was with this book and although very cool, hard to go through life in that mode of thinking, it takes so much work.

 

Still, there may be a lot more to the notions contained in various religions that doesn't get cranked into the equation.  Are the gargoyles and the reptilian types depicted by various religions fictional, or is there some level of human consciousness that can transcend the boundaries between the "normal" (societal bounded) modes of thought and some other 'layer' of 'reality'?

 

We like to do a lot of externalizing of the alien/extraterrestrial problem, but it seems to me that the battles are already being fought and that a greater than zero possibility is that religions may be just the public side of an existing interdimensional conflict.  Sure, there may be "orders in the back room" who are doing all kinds of rituals, routines, sacrifices, and  exorcisms, but maybe in someone's dusty library in ancient tongues there are descriptions of a break between dimensions that lead to "wars in heaven" and on earth.

 

I keep coming back to a thought that haunts me:  What IF 2012 is not the end of a calendar cycle in the normal sense of things.  What IF instead the recent fish kills, birds smacking into things in mid-=flight and all the rest is just a symptom of a couple of different realities smacking into one another prior to a breach?

 

Another fish kill being reported in Chicago this morning.

 

Wonder is we're headed for dimensional walls caving in come 2012?  In which case the answer to the alien question has been pretty clearly defined for at least several thousand years of human history. 

 

They're out there and the only thing wrong we may have gotten is that they don't necessarily eat flesh (or they would have been here long ago, eating all kinds of protein). 

 

The likelihood is that they eat consciousness.  Perhaps this talk about "consciousness raising" is a last minute effort to raise up more for harvest - a kind of spiritual corn-fed feedlot operation.

 

And that's a pretty ugly concept this early in the day, but not yet well-described in mass consciousness.  Except in veiled ways in different religions, of course....

 

Another HPH SOTTC

Yes, the servers were quietly turned on just ahead of the New Year and yes, another www.halfpasthuman.com Shape of Things to Come report is due out around January 25, or so.

 

A few readers are 'getting it' that the combined impacts of the terra events, economic events, and the Arizona case around January 7/8 constituted a major drop zone in release language. 

"There was a very significant event on 1/7/11. Bigger than the AZ shooting. It was the MA SJC ruling against Bank of America and Wells Fargo in the Ibenaz case. It will affect millions of mortgages where mortgage note have been lost, buyers of foreclosed homes that are unable to obtain legal title, and near total of the ability to sell foreclosed houses in the future. It will shake the financial markets."

In time...building tension rolls back into place around January 18th, or so.

---

A reader in the flooded part of Australia figures the last SOTTC report was all too accurate sending this:

"I'm in the state of Queensland, which is basically the top right corner of Australia. The state capital is Brisbane, on the coast in the lower right corner of the state. I'm in Toowoomba, about 90 miles west, inland, from Brisbane. Toowoomba is on top of a range, around 1500' ASL. It has no river, and is the last place on earth I ever expected to see a flood.

But yesterday we had an unprecedentedly heavy downpour for a couple of hours, and our couple of tiny creeks, which I normally literally step over, became 'inland tsunamis', sweeping away cars, people & houses, with death toll about 9 & rising. Locals who've lived here all their lives said they'd never seen anything like it. (Fortunately, I'm still unaffected.) (Bot snippets: " Along with the [flooding] that will impact [unusual places] {ed note: areas not known to flood, ever}" "Other parts of the planet are also not to be immune from [rains beyond understanding], or [excessive rain loads]")

The water then went down the Toowoomba range & devastated towns like Withcott, Grantham & Forrest Hill on its way towards Brisbane.

With this added flow, and the continuing rain, Brisbane is now facing its worst flood for 118 years in the next two days. (Bot snippet: "Further that this [storming] will include [excessive rains] that produce [prodigious flooding]. Once again, it would seem, we are about to get some [1000 (one thousand) year floods]").

Three quarters of the state have been declared a disaster area. (Thats an area roughly equivalent to several European countries or several US states.) Overall, its being called Queensland's worst disaster ever, with infrastructure damage in the multi-billions & rising. (Bot snippet: " Note that [destructive climate change] .... will [induce/cause disaster] in [human infrastructure]. The detail layers of this set are repetitiously filled with aspect/attribute sets for such links as [excessive rains] and [destroyed dams]")

The "[destroyed dams]" is more topical than I would've thought. I discovered the water authority here is having to carefully manage Brisbane's main dam, Wivenhoe, right now. It holds 7 Sydney harbourfulls & yesterday was receiving 2 more harbourfulls a day inflow, and was up to 200% of capacity. If it flows over the top of the wall it risks destroying itself (and washing Brisbane right off the map), so they have the dilemma of having to release enough thru the sluice gates to protect the dam, but what they are releasing is only adding to the worst flood for 118 years now rising in Brisbane.

In only a couple of years we have gone from long term farmer-suiciding draught, to this flooding. (Bot snippet: "The immediacy data as well as the first of the shorter term data sets analyzed for 2011 are describing a [rapid], and [visible (noticed/observed)] change in the [order of magnitude] of [sudden catastrophic climate change].")

So, yes, we are awaiting the next report with some trepidation.   About like we look at the long range weather forecasts here lately...

 

Around the Ranch

Not too common to have snow down this far south (south of 32º if that makes a difference).  Not only did we have about 1-inch of snowfall on Sunday-Monday, but now there's a cold weather advisory out that a "Canadian airmass have moved into North Texas" and with it will come colder temperatures.

 

Makes me wonder what we're paying all this money for border security for, I mean, how is this getting across the border and where is our money for bord3er security really going?  Why, if we can't stop an airmass, what can we stop?  It's like our borders are so damn porous!

 

Sayings

Two thoughts offered by a reader:

1. Violence seems to precede earthquakes; it could be that unstable people become unhinged by the vibrations of the precursor motions in the earth. If so, somewhere there will be a big quake after the Arizona tragedy!

2. The SUN is GOLD; the MOON is SILVER. These are two precious metals and two precious objects that directly affect life on earth.

We have our own "home spun" versions of these which are much simpler:

1.  People are crazy.

 

2.  If it burns, it may not be real "money"

---

Monday, January 10, 2011

Terrible Weekend

We're about as 'sure as sure can be' that the portion of the predictive linguistic data from www.halfpasthuman.com which referred to a  near-vertical drop in release language January 7th was the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, AZ this weekend.

 

The suspect in the shooting, 22-year old Jared Loughner, is expected to appear in court today to face a laundry list of charges including murder.   Death toll, at latest count is six dead and 14-wounded, with Congresswoman Giffords last reported in stable, but critical, condition.

---

The thing we'll be watching in the wake of theses events is for a) more moves to end gun right as representative Carolyn McCarthy of New York is planning to introduce legislation which would ban high capacity ammunition clips just as the one allegedly used to feed the suspect's Glock pistol.

 

Then there's the matter of whether this will expand the already loosely used term "domestic terrorist" since although reports have failed to establish any link between the suspect and any organized 'group,' this is likely to be used in political circles as a a lever to decrease political dissent.

 

The timing of the store out Friday that president "Obama objects to plans to bar domestic trials of terrorist suspects" is interesting.

 

And, as I explained (in more detail) for our Peoplenomics.com subscribers over the weekend, this will likely feed into efforts to promote a federal internet ID system, which although it's touted as "voluntary" for now, might be viewed as having a chilling effect on dissent.  The suspect in the shooting apparently left some writings in advance of his crime on his Facebook account.

---

In terms of predictive linguistics, which had anticipated a major release event for January 7 (off one day), the next major 'swing' in the flow of events' should become visible around January 18th when the tide of events is due to change and move into 'building tensions' language.  A possibility of another data run is being discussed, but no further word.

 

The World, Shaken

As the political landscape of the US was shaken this weekend, so too - and much more literally - was the whole world this weekend with a high incidence of 5.0 and larger earthquakes around the globe.  A few highlights:

• Japan had a 5.7 this morning.

• A 4.7 in southern Xinjiang, China

• A 5.9 offshore from Maule, Chile

• A 6.6 and number of 5-somethings in Vanuatu

In addition to these, there's been an almost continuous flow of 2-3 magnitude quakes down in the northern Baja area, south of Mexicali (and the Imperial Valley which sits mostly under sea level).  With all the quake activity out there, we keep a weather-eye on things since El Centro is the largest American city below sea level and has a population of about 50-thosuand in the area.

 

Finance: The Week Ahead

Any thought that the economic storms are now past can be pretty well laid to rest with out out that Portugal could be the next of the PIIGS group to saunter up for a little high-level bailing out. 

 

In Asia overnight we had something of a mini-crash in the Jakarta stock market which was down about 4.2%.  While we haven't heard from our Indonesian bureau chief yet, what's apparently going on is that the Bank of Indonesia's rosy forecasts about core inflation being held in check at  5% isn't playing well with investors who can see things much worse than that, despite the happy talk.

 

Thanks to the whole global financial structure being intertwined, troubles in one place quickly turn into troubles for most.  Stocks were down almost 2.4% on the Sensex although there were small gains in Japan and Taiwan.

 

In Europe, average declines were about one-half of one percent, with Brussels being down about 1½ percent.

---

A further reason for softness in Europe might be uncertainty over how the US markets will digest the tragedy in Tucson this weekend, plus there's something of a 'wait and see' attitude as we're in the "bit numbers" part of the month.

 

Today is kinda lame, but wholesale inventory levels tomorrow will be interesting along with the Mortgage Bankers Purchase Index.  Shortly after that, the Fed will release industrial production and capacity utilization, which all together is likely to set the next few weeks of trading tone from there.

 

Wednesday we'll 'kick it up a notch' with the import/export price report, crude inventories and the monthly fiction-writer's gathering, a/k/a the Treasury budget.

 

PPI and the weekly unemployment ticks are on Thursday, but the Biggie is Friday when we see the Consumer Price Index report.  Also the Fed comes out with factory utilization and production numbers.  Although, for the life of me, with so many US jobs hijacked overseas to least labor cost havens, I have lost track of what's left to measure.

 

Futures were slightly down at latest check.

 

Resource Play?

20 police have died in fighting in South Sudan overnight.  While former president Jimmy Carter is telling CNN that the south of the country shouldn't carry any debts if it succeeds from the north (per the head of the country).

 

So, are these just local folks who have a beef with the central government?  Ha!  Not bloody likely. 

 

As so much else in this troubled world, there's an economic angle to it in that the southern part of Sudan may have large oil deposits which (guh) probably explains why all the violence there, you think?

 

 

Coping: A Curious Timing Note

Last Thursday and Friday, much space on the internet was being devoted to the mysterious deaths of fish, marine life, and birds which had been falling down, drowning, or dying what seemed like almost everywhere.

 

While there's a bit of carry-over to this occurring now, in stories like Sunday's piece in The Examiner under the headline "Bird deaths in U.S., Sweden, Britain, Thailand, Brazil, and beyond..." there's a distinct lack of follow-on coverage.

 

We're still seeing the odd local-angle follow up, such as the WLS radio piece about how pole shift hasn't impacted Chicago runways.  (yet?)

 

Tampa is set to reopen to traffic on their north-south runway on Thusday.  Might seem like a simple exercise is spray-painting the new compass headings onto the pavement, but there's a lot more to it than that:  For one, the taxi-signs have to be changed, the instrument flight approach plates have to be redone and communicated.  Then, the airport terminal information system (ATIS) may include a message about runway renumbering, just so every pilot landing will know the difference between old headings and new.

 

Even more interesting is a note from a reader who went looking for something approaching a real-time report on where the magnetic north pole is on a daily basis:

"Near as I can tell after the last magnetic pole jump NASA has discontinued their service in providing it's condition and location."

So, in the spirit of cooperative public research, if you have found a near real-time source for north-pole drift, please send it along.

---

Despite the events in Arizona this weekend, which will no doubt cause a lot of media focus, there's still the matter of some mysteries concerning the bird, fish, and marine life die-off and the seemingly accelerating pole drift.

 

Tripping Over B Fields

If you're working on zero point energy and some of the other wild stories about this and that, consider the following email from a ham radio friend...which should pump some new ideas into your research projects:

"I think you may find this more than a little Bit interesting. As I had said earlier I was doing some investigation centered around the gentleman that constructed the Coral Castle in Florida, ( Mr. Edward Leedskalnin). I was able to get an eye full just through the efforts of others that have in the past documented there investigations and went so far as to post them on youtube and other site facilities as well. Well the thing that really caught my eye was, what everyone is referring to as a generator, while it may look conventional it's anything but. The fact is that device sends "B" field waves into the ground through a large iron mass that is directly connected to the magnetic flywheel. When I started my investigation I didn't know "B" field waves even existed but it just made good sense. The "B" field is at the center of each magnet between the North and South poles and is considerably stronger. It is very difficult to detect because it permeates all matter. If you like the math it's out their in scientific journals, that's where I found out that I was on the right track with the "B" field. Their almost on the same page.

What I found exciting is that he constructed a device that accumulated the "B" field energy and transmitted it into the earth through a large iron mass that was a old crank case from a tractor. If you look at his construction style you would see a real inventive mind using old car parts for all kinds of other purposes. If you look at the construction of this generator you will find that he was collecting energy from the center of the wheel not the outer perimeter. He is clearly pulling from the center of the magnets not the outer North and South poles as would be required if it were conventional. But there are other clues as well that come to us from 1600 BC...

The subject of B fields is mighty interesting since they have some very special properties, including producing torque on a magnet nearby.

---

"Yeah, yeah, yeah....so who gives a sh*t about magnets and magnetics in all this George - and what does it have to do with the big stories in the news?"

---

I guess I just find it interesting how magnetics, poles, and odd magnetic energy is getting so much into the background of events here lately...

 

For example: Mark Kelly, husband of the shot Congresswoman, was scheduled to make a very interesting delivery to the International Space Station in a couple of months.  From Wikipedia:

"Pending mission[edit]

STS-134  Mark Kelly will command space shuttle Endeavour on the final space shuttle mission: STS-134. Kelly and his crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station. AMS is a 15,000 lb cosmic particle detector that will be installed on the outside of ISS. Its experiments will help researchers study the formation of the universe and search for evidence of dark matter and antimatter.

Due to delays caused by external tank issues on STS-133, Mark will now miss his brother, Scott Kelly, at the ISS. In anticipation of the potential rendezvous in space of the Kelly brothers, NASA conducted an extensive interview with Scott and Mark in September 2010. This interview is available on the NASA website.

The launch date is scheduled for April 1, 2011. "

No, it's probably nothing at all, but it just struck me as an interesting coincidence how magnetics was showing up in the runway change and speculation about the bird and marine life stories last week, and here we see an underlying role for magnetics in the tragedy in Tucson.

 

Coincidental? Of course!  But noticed, nevertheless.

 

Especially interesting if you've seen the www.ready.gov commercial "World Upside Down" where a gamily experiences the sudden loss of gravity...