One year ago today: May 27, 2013, silver history.
Five years ago today: May 27, 2009, updated.
Australia. What’s it got that we ain’t got? For one, there are beer commercials. Thirty-second beer commercials. And here are a few of my favorites: (I could not get these videos to uncouple, so the back-arrow may not bring you back here.)
Foster’s
Tooey’s
XXXX. It’s how Australia spells “beer”.
I’m old and I know what I like, and I like grapefruit with brown sugar. I can tear a grapefruit open with my bare hands and devour the pulp in forty seconds. But I cannot scoop or cut a slice without getting juice in my left eye. I think I half-blinded myself this morning. I think I may have a conspiracy theory.
What if the people to grow grapefruits genetically modify them to do that on purpose? What if they are mean-spirited because their heads are sort of shaped like grapefruits so they breed only the kind that squirt you in the left eye? No matter how careful you are. There, that’s my idea of a conspiracy. I was going to switch to porridge, but those people get your goat by making the rim of the bowl so hot it burns your thumb taking it out of the microwave. I’ll bet them jokers are working together.
What’s happening with silver? Nothing, except maybe the price going down to $19 and floating around there. But that has not stopped speculation which centers around inflation and Chinese demand, two factors which are completely unpredictable. A lot of countries where gold is traditionally hoarded like India and France have taken measures to prevent and discourage precious metal ownership. Historically, nothing has ever predicted the rise or fall, but at any given time, half the people will be right. Only invest in silver as I would, for sheer speculation, that is, a gamble.
It’s too bad I can’t invest in the Mars programs, that’s the only remaining growth industry in the land. I was about to invest in private space ventures in 2004, the year SpaceShipOne got just above the atmosphere. Yes, that was ten years ago already. But I would buy shares in NASA, the one outfit that is totally dependent on government funding. In 2008, it cost them $420 million to “detect” water on Mars. And another $79 million to do the same on the Moon a year later.
When I say detect, I mean they looked for indirect evidence, like a landslide on Mars or vapor bits on the Moon. They seem to avoid the tests that would actually find water. A direct test I would accept could be a spectrograph, or a hydrolysis that separates the two gases. After that it is simple: Hydrogen is the only gas that burns with a blue flame and oxygen will reignite a glowing splinter. Grade six, I believe.
Speaking of water, I thought of a trip along the Rio Grande American side. I noticed a dirth of maps and GPS road data, but that satellite maps show roadways along the entire length from Colorado to the Gulf. My proposal would be to follow, as close as possible, the route of the river upstream from the Gulf just to see what there is to see. I was very close to taking a trip to the river last November, but that oil plug repair in San Antonio and my decision to see Memphis by train forestalled that idea. There are improved roads along most of the Texas side, though they get sparse further west. After El Paso, it is like a river drive all the rest of the way to Colorado. Is it dangerous? Not in the day, and the entire trip would be less than four days until New Mexico, when it is just another road after that.
In my second year of university, I stayed in a dorm. I’d stay in one again if I had the money. You study, chase women, and the food is included. The rooms were shared two people each, I still have no idea what masochist came up with that one. Anyway, I had a room to myself, which was rare. The chairs were comfortable, that is for sure. And many a time, somebody I half-knew would come knocking just to come in and sit down. I had no stereo or TV, just peace and quiet. I had the spare chair facing the window, which looked at some distant hills and on a clear day a few mountains.
I’d explain I had to study, and most of my study was reading, not note-taking. And I’d let them stay as long as they wanted. Twice I woke up to find some lady I barely recognized asleep on the spare bed. I do believe that university drives some people crazy. It is quite an episode to put up with. Neatest was these two Egyptian guys down the hall would come into my room and argue with each other for an hour and leave. I learned a lot of Arabic swear words that way. Sometimes they would bring an electric frying pan and fry liver in lemon juice and curse the Jews. That was my residence room. To this day, I still eat liver once a month. We rarely ate that on the farm.
And, a look at statistics from a year ago that have NOT changed.
76% of workers still think their jobs are permanent.
I never thought that, ever, not even as a joke
53% have less than a 3-day food supply.
I’ve got ten times that hidden around my midsection
46% have less than $800 stashed away (27% have nothing at all).
why, those of us with $801 must be laughing
15% are on food stamps.
food stamps a.k.a. the Canadian-style vote auction
I don’t think such figures tell the story. The drop in real wages in the past 15 years shows people must still living at a surplus of some kind—the only expenses they could be cutting are at home. The boomers are spending less every month, which alone spells disaster but not just now. I don’t fit in any of those categories, but that doesn’t mean I’m any better off. While I don’t believe the authorities are going to outright starve 300 million people, which would be stupid, nor can they afford to feed them. While it is true the government could be hideous if they want, it is also true that Americans are the first nation in history where the populace could defend itself.
The population most likely to do so? The State of Texas. The federal government owns nothing in Texas (even the military bases are on leased land). They have their own power grid, and I believe if they secede, the first order of business will be deporting the illegals by the trainload. Texas would be the fourth richest nation in the world. Maybe the USA was built by immigrants, but technically speaking, so was every other country. Got news for those who subscribe to that stale catchphrase, the building part is over. We are now on the decline and cannot afford handouts.
Anything in the paper today? Yes, some thick-headed broad wrote to Dear Abby asking if she should tell her new boyfriend that she is HIV positive. Hey, you stupid twit, why not wait until he’s on his deathbed and claim you got it from a toilet seat? After all, if he doesn’t forgive you, well then he didn’t really, really love you and he deserves to die. Imagine that, questioning whether you have an obligation to tell somebody when you have an unspeakable disease. Last I heard it was still illegal to intentionally spread disease in the U.S. of A.
And another shooting, this time in California. There’s one thing all these cases have in common. Their old man never beat the living shit out of them often enough, that’s what. Not popular in high school? Women won’t date you? Aw, stop, you’re breaking my heart. Besides, I heard enough of that crap from my brothers. And how about that lady saying her kid isn’t autistic, he “just learns differently:. Let me guess, and when he gets in trouble, he’s bipolar. There’s a pattern here but I just can’t quite put my finger on it.
ADDENDUM
Once more, the world and every expert in it is wrong. It is not easy to set up a remote connection but I was up past midnight last and got most of it done. (In the end, I was up until 5:45AM.) It is indeed a four step process and there is no wizard or shortcut, you have to knuckle down and learn the individual steps. This is where all known instructors fail. They gloss over the vary part that must be described in baby-talk. I’ve got all the steps down, but it still does not work, indicating even the procedure list I amalgamated from a dozen sources is not complete. Anyway, you must learn and memorize the term host, and then the major steps are:
Set up an account on the host (the unit that will receive the log-ons).
Configure the firewall to allow another computer to access the host.
Give your computer an internal IP address using TCP/IP version 4
Forward your IP address from your router to your host computer
Find the host computer’s external IP address
From another computer in the world, log on using the external IP address
Enter any security credentials required by the host computer.
For the record, when I asked a person at Nova who alleged they knew how to set up a remote connection, he said it was easy. Just set up a VPN, that’s all there is to it, he said. That, folks, is the kind of BS non-answer this world does not need. Above are at least seven steps, none of which he mentioned despite knowing that was the question. I spelled it out, "Can any body tell me in baby-talk how to enable remote access."
And I’m naturally curious why, when a capability is built into an operating system, the system people make it so difficult to enable. Hmmmmm, like they don't want you using it. Never tell that to a guy like me.
