Rock Me Gently

Few people take the time to really understand Earth's plate tectonics.  It's one of those subjects in school where everyone's eyes glaze over and they spend their time writing notes to the cute girl next to them, or (nowadays) sexting the girl in the next room.

At any rate, there are fewer subjects that have more immediate impact on our daily lives, and fewer still that anyone pays any attention to.

To visualize this, imagine a cauldron of seething hot molten iron.  On the top of the liquid iron are black islands of impurities called slag.  That's where we live...on the slag.  We are the impurities that float up to the top of the cauldron of molten iron.  If you look at a video of this, you'll notice that the little islands of slag move around and bump into each other.  That's analogous to the tectonic plates on which the slag floats.  Basically, it's a semi-cool skin that forms across the top of the molten material.

Because of the time and size scales involved, it's hard for humans to visualize what the Earth is doing.  Earth is a living, breathing organism, and we are parasites on its skin.  The Earth expands nad contracts as it respires.  It reacts to its environment.  It grows and changes on a daily basis, but we are so puny in comparison that we can only notice such things when a large scale change takes place.

Down the center of the Atlantic Ocean is a ridge where the plates are spreading.  Simply, liquid rock rises up through a crack and spreads the plates apart.  Among the more interesting features of this ridge is that it records the Earth's magnetic polar alignment over billions of years.  A fairly simple scanning process results in a series of magnetic stripes that show Earth's magnetic poles flip-flipping quite frequently over geologic time.  In other words, pole shift is nothing new, nor does it involve the planet rolling over.  Rather the liquid core of the planet is dynamic and as it shifts, the magnetic poles move around.  This process is little understood in terms of whether it is caused by inside or outside forces.  Nor is it much appreciated that the icing at the spin-axis poles is partially a result of the magnetic poles.  Thus, when the magnetic poles shift, ice ages come and go.

Another interesting bit of geologic lore is that at least one plate has completely disappeared.  It slid under the west coast of North America and bunched up the overlying land like kicking a rug.  The result is the Sierra Madre and Rocly mountains, not to mention a string of volcanoes like Mount St. Helen.  Baja and Southern California are also results of this process, and despite appearances, aren't actually part of the North American slag heap.

On a tectonic map, the item to really pay attention to at the moment is the Pacific Plate.  You should notice that it's just a big, roughly round disc that covers most of that hemispere of the Earth.  The reason this is interesting is that a quick scan of the rim of the bowl will locate places like Japan, the Aleutian Islands, the west coast of North America, Mexico and Chile, the Drake Passage, and the islands of Southeast Asia.  A scan of the headlines from the past two weeks should cause a light to go off.  This is the legendary 'Ring of Fire'.

This geologic bowl is surrounded with active volcanoes and is currently the site of hundreds of earthquakes ranging from hardly noticable to life-threatening.  Just the past few days have seen hundreds of quakes in Sumatera, Japan, Oregon, Mexicali, Mexico, Chile, and the Drake Passage.  There's also been a number of quakes down the mid-Atlantic Ridge.  Make no mistake, these are all intricately connected events.

Sumatera provides an interesting study, because in the last eight years, we have witnessed several massive quakes with very different outcomes, because they involved two completely different processes.

The 2004 quake, which reached over 9 on the magnitude scale and caused a massive tsunami affecting a significant part of the globe, was a thrust event.  Two plates bumping into each other snapped and one side popped up vertically causing a massive displacement of water.  Fukushima is another example of a thrust quake.

The quakes last week, in the same region, were strike-slip events, in which the two sides of the fault slide horizontally.  This is usually a weaker quake and rarely causes a tsunami, but these quakes are reported to be the strongest strike-slip quakes ever recorded, though only causing a 60cm tsunami (about a 2-foot wave).  A strike-slip quake normally doesn't cause a lot of damage, too, much as we saw with these two recent shakers.

So, with some background in place, let's put back for the proverbial Big Picture.  I have this little desktop app that gives a read-out of quakes around the world.  I have it set to display anything over 5.  It was relatively quiet for a long time, but in the last two weeks, it has gone nuts, but in a definite pattern.

Quakes are popping off at very specific and regular points around the Pacific: Honshu, Japan; Drake Passage; Ouxhaca, Mexico; Chile; and Aceh, Sumatera.  Almost every quake in the past two weeks has been in a circle surrounding the Pacific Ocean, lterally ON the Ring of Fire.  It would take quite a bit of number-crunching and research to determine what exactly is going on, and we can be sure that someone is doing it, but let's speculate on possible causes.

1) Earth is shrinking: since the globe spreads in the Atlantic and converges in the Pacific, the Earth could be contracting and causing the Pacific plate to receive massive amounts of pressure on all sides.  As the sides converge, the plate would shift and slide under or over other plates, causing a great number of thrust quakes, as well as large strike-slips, as it tries to relieve the stess.  Volcanoes would start popping off all around the region.

This scenario would likely result in a cooling of the Earth's core.  Other signs would be a weakening of the magnetic, as well as the mag poles starting to wander around.  This event would also likely cause the Pacific Ocean to become shallower, thus causing disasterous sea-level rises worldwide.

2) Earth is expanding: in this scenario, the Earth is expanding and causing a massive release of stress all around the Pacific Plate, as it suddenly has more room to move around and reposition itself.  This, too, would likely cause more vulcanism, as pressure was released on magma vents, allowing the swelling core to push more molten rock out the holes to relieve pressure.  This scenario would imply a feedback loop of release of pressure, allowing the core to expand more, creating more pressure, causing more release.

This scenario might also imply wandering mag poles, as the core swells and pressure is relieved, it would tend to shift its spin axis, and thus the mag pole axis.

3) Steady-state Earth: this scenario states that the Earth is neither expanding nor contracting, but the continual spread of the Atlantic Ridge causes a continual increase of pressure on the Pacific Plate, which builds to massive release events on an occasional basis.

All three scenarios would explain a great number of observed phenomena right now.  Even wild weather events could be traced to large-scale vibrations, the release of tremendous amounts of electro-magnetic energy and a number of other energetic events resulting from mass Earth movements.

A shockwave would stir the atmosphere, causing warmer air to rise and colder air to fall, resulting in huge hail storms, increased tornadic activity, strange seasonal changes, and lower hurricane/typhoon activity.

The massive release of piezoelectric forces would be perceived as anything from strange sounds (horn blasts and random 'crack-booms') to wild electrical storms and plasma events (northern/southern lights).  Certainly, there's been plenty of reports of these types of events in recent times.  Of special note are active aurora when there's no corresponding solar storm.

Conclusions could run to any of the three scenarios.  It would take a lot more time and money than I have to research all the quakes, whether they are thrust or strike-slip, associated land movements, and timings.  I'm sure that research is in progress, but whether we little people are privy to it is questionable.  It depends on what outcome is expected, I suppose.

In the meantime, we are left to watch and speculate.  Since I live in Indonesia, I am paying special attention to these matters.  Just this afternoon, there was a 6.5 in the Banda Sea just west of us.  We felt it as a minor jiggle for about 30 seconds, with the Chinese lanterns swinging back and forth.  If you look at a fault map, Indonesia sits on top of an area that looks like a smashed egg shell, on the southeastern extent of the Pacific Plate.  We are in a war zone between the Pacific and Austral-Asian Plates.

The world is basically like one of those number puzzles with 15 tiles and 16 holes, and you have to move them around to get them in the right order.  The primary problem in all this is that when the tiles move, people get hurt.

We are at the mercy of forces far greater than we can control.  All our wailing and gnashing of teeth about saving the planet just went out the proverbial window.  That we assume our activities can have more than a miniscule effect on Earth, or that we can control and master the Earth, are little more than egotistical pipe dreams.

You'd think we had learned this long ago, when King Knutr had his throne placed on the beach and he commanded the tide to stop.  He had to swim out of that one.  No report as to whether the throne survived.  Indeed, folks who think humans have any say whatsoever over natural processes don't get a lot of interaction with Mother Nature.

Come to think of it, Knutr also proved that kings and rulers are pretty much useless, though we haven't learned that lesson, either.

So, as our collective roller coaster clicks and clacks to the top of the first drop, we either choose to ignore the impending plunge, or hold on for dear life.  I'm kind of in the middle.  One arm is waving furiously in the air, while the other is wrapped firmly around the crash bar.

Here we goooooooo...

Through Bot-Colored Glasses

Euro Riots

It's that time once again.  Clif and the gang at HalfPastHuman have released the latest Shape of Things to Come (SOTTC) report, and depending on your perspective, it's either hopeful or harrowing.

If you are a tourist in life, then the report will likely keep you awake nights worrying about things to come.  If you are a traveler, then you will find the adventure promised in the 51 pages something to anticipate as the birth pangs of a new order in the world.

And when I say new order, I am NOT referencing the NWO.  In fact, the NWO, as anyone who has followed my rantings here knows, is really the Old World Order, dating back thousands of years.

The bots are outlining a truly new order of things, in which the reptilian guard of yesteryear have finally pushed the last button and have reaped the harvest of what they have sown.

Within the pages of the SOTTC report, we learn that anyone holding a title of royalty or whose job description contains the word "pope" will not be happy with events forcast for the next two years.  The image we should form in our minds is of a lump of clay being squeezed in an iron fist.  The tighter the grip, the more of the clay squirts through every least opening.

As I posited in my article Dog Days of August, the PTB are running scared.  They are losing control of their Monster, a la Frankenstein.  The only response they can formulate in their pea-sized, inbred brains is MORE control...more cameras, more police, more brainwashing.  They can't conceive of any other way.  They are a hammer whose only view of the world is a box of nails.

The problem they don't seem to be able to wrap their puny minds around is that when the crowd knows the trick, the magic doesn't work, and nothing you do will get it back.  I think it's safe to say that they had envisioned the internet as yet another channel of control, but it backfired.  Now it is the very medium of their own undoing, which is why they must shut it down.

Mount Merapi, Java, Indonesia

The bots, however, say something different.  The PTB will attack the net and they will shut it down, but it will only be temporary.  The truth has an amazing facility for leaking from any outlet it can find.  Though the number of people that have truly awoken are a small percentage, great changes have ridden the backs of small numbers.  The (first) American Revolution was spawned by no more than 3% of the population, but they had the most powerful weapon know to us mortals...Truth.

Where the bots turn foreboding, though, is in the Terra entity.  Clif calls the coming Terra changes part of Expando-Planet.  The theory goes something like this: in an electrically active Universe, our planet has a plasma core, and when charged particles from the Sun and Universe enter the core, they convert to additional mass, thus swelling the core and expanding the crust (where we live).  During times of particularly active solar and cosmic bombardment, the core expands rapidly, with the result that we crustal denizens are subject to volcanoes, earthquakes, rips, splits, sinkholes, and any number of other fun and interesting things.

Living in a country with the greatest number of volcanoes on Earth, and sitting on a shattered piece of the crust, as Indonesia does, doesn't engender great solace, in this regard.  Just recently, Mt. Tambora started rumbling for the first time in 200 years.  It is known as the volcano that caused the worst volcanic disaster in modern times, and caused the Year Without Summer in 1816.  Considering the bots also advise aware folks to invest in firewood and heating oil this coming (long) winter, one has to wonder if there's a connection.

Certainly, the number of 6+ earthquakes has been steadily rising over the past decade.  Having already experienced a 7.2 here in 2009, I can tell you I am in no particular hurry to reprise the experience.  But, it does make for a nice segue into Fukushima...

Inspired by the bot output, consider this scenario:

ANNOUNCER: "That's right!  Our cucumbers are guaranteed to give off 12 microsieverts or less of gamma particles!  And if you order now, we'll throw in this handy pocket Geiger counter, absolutely free!  But, that's not all!  The next 100 callers will receive a full bushel of unradiated raw wheat and enough barley seed to produce three month's supply of healthy sprouts for a family of four.  Remember, our produce is certified to glow one-third less than any other food products on the market today.  In fact, if you can find kidney beans with less Cesium-137 than ours, we'll happily refund your money.  Call now!  Operators are standing by!"

Can't happen?  Impossible?  Believe me, we good folks of the world haven't heard half the story out of Fukushima, and that's just one of a dozen reactors with problems that have made even the slightest mention in the MSM (mind shinking media).

In yet another prophetic post, my last two columns (Of Secrets and Lies, Bugging Out and Other Hobbies) eerily leaped off the pages of the SOTTC report.

One major theme is the coming exposure of the Zionists.  It seems much of what I wrote in Of Secrets and Lies will become common knowledge over the next year or so.  Once again (as in WWII), the Zionists will try to deflect the ire of good folks onto the Jews, who have been the whipping dogs of the Zionists for centuries.  Unfortunately, it seems they will be successful, at least for a time.  However, we are entering a time when the old tricks don't work anymore, and this is one of the most egregious of them all.

The rise of great numbers of transnationals was also covered in SOTTC.  It seems that combinations of a Nazi resurrection, unfriendly winters and economic woes will cause a never-before-seen diaspora of people seeking more comfortable climes (in every sense of that term).  It's interesting that a number of countries have been reforming their immigration laws of late, to make them friendlier to transnationals.  I'll cover that in more detail in a later article.

The most worrisome tale woven by the bots is the economic 'perfect storm' approaching.

As in all Depressions, we are sailing head-long into deflation.  Deflations favor those with NO debt and lots of disposable cash, as prices fall making money more valuable.  The problem is that the forecast is for the complete collapse of fiat currencies, starting with the dollar.  "Great," you say, "I've got my gold!"  Well, about that...FDR's Executive Order confiscating gold and silver has never been rescinded, and similar actions on the part  of other governments is quite conceivable.

In a nutshell, if you're in debt (which most folks are), you're screwed.  If you're in cash (which some folks are), you're screwed.  If you've got gold and silver tucked away, you're screwed.  So what's a man to do to protect his family?

Food, water, tools, firewood, guns/ammo...basically anything that's useful for flat-out survival will be the new currency.  A little farm land and the means to protect it would be useful, but it does have the draw-back of locking you into one spot.

The biggest problem people are facing is what Clif calls the normalcy bias.  In other words, being incapable of thinking outside the box.  Coming events will favor those who can conceive of novel solutions to novel situations.  Most folks will be running their generators (if they have one) to keep the plasma TeeVee going, when abnormal responses are what will ensure survival.  Making your way to a tropical rain forest while everyone else is huddling in the cities...a back-pack rigged for deep wilderness while everyone else is trying to haul around their C-rations...that sort of thing.

And why rain forests?  Well, you'd be in a year-round growing season, with wild food for the picking, and you're surrounded by people who are used to having nothing and living off the land.  Beats even the most rural patch of farmland in North America.  It's one reason I live in Indonesia now.

Fukushima, Japan

Up to this point, I've just touched on a few of the bigger issues raised by the bots.  We're on roughly page 25 or 51, and I haven't mentioned half of what's in the front of SOTTC.  Universe favors the prepared mind.  I spend free hours thinking of scenarios and coming up with solutions that few if anyone else has thought of.  The hardest thing to overcome is the 'normalcy bias'.  You have to be prepared to shed everything in an instant and go against the crowd, which is why I try to get folks thinking about touring and traveling in so many of my articles.  Travelers are almost always ready for just about anything the Universe throws our way.

Something like having a knife, pair of scissors and magnifying glass anywhere you go at all times.  Even if I'm completely caught off guard, I can always skin a cat and start a fire.

The Shape of Things to Come report is available at HalfPastHuman.com, for $10 (downloadable PDF file). It's worth ten bux if for no other reason, it gets you to think about "what if".  Once you start doing that, you're well on your way to being a traveler.

Down On The Farm

Being a seventh generation Texan, it just wouldn't be right if I didn't have a farm, even living on the far side of the Universe from home.

A while back, I bought 7 hectare (~17 acres) up in the mountains.  Beautiful place on the side of a hill with a view of three volcanoes and a couple of distant cities.  The previous owner had quite a spread, and for whatever reason, decided to break it up into parcels of 3.5 hectare and sell it off.  He even cleared the land down to the money-trees (fruit and jati, or mahogany).

When I first went up there, the land was cleared down to the dirt with a couple hundred jati trees, some avacado trees, several durian, and a metric ton of bananas.  This past weekend, it was already overrun with chili peppers, corn and cassava bushes.

The volcanic soil here is amazing.  I tell folks that if a woman stands in one place too long, she'll get in the family way pretty darned quick.  I've seen this type of thing down in Cental America, as well.  You can clear a patch down to dirt, and in about three months, it's overrun again.

Getting to the place is quite an adventure in itself.  Once you get to the end of the line, then keep going about another 8 miles and you'll be there.  You have to walk the last kilometer or so, because the road stops at the neighbor's horse barn.

As usual, everyone in Jakarta bails out into the country on the weekends, so the road up the mountains was at a dead stand-still starting just before the foothills.  We didn't want to wait, so we paid an ojek $5 to lead us up the hill on the back-roads.  Great investment!  Not only did we blow past all the traffic, but got a rather scenic tour of small villages, as well.

When we rejoined the main road, it was just in time to see two tour buses run into each other.  They had jumped into the opposing lane to try and run around the last bit of jam, but the one in front locked up to avoid killing a motorcyclist, and the second one smacked square into the first right next to us.  Rather exciting.  Keep in mind this is a tiny two-lane blacktop that puts the word "switch-back" to shame.  Everyone runs that road like they are Mario Andretti, passing on blind turns and cutting across hair-pins.  It's truly frightening, so I concentrate on the scenery and pray like it's the Second Coming.  So far...so good.

After about an hour or so, we came to a medium-size village on the main drag.  At that point, we turned off and started down a road that makes driving on the Moon look like a picnic in Kansas.  We drove through half a dozen smaller villages full of rice fields, strawberry patches and flowers.  It reminded me a bit of the back roads in Holland, only not as flat and a lot more gritty.

After a while, we came to a turn-off that lead up the mountain.  If the road we turned off was the Moon, then this one made the Moon look smooth.  The pavement ended after an hour or so, and it actually got smoother at that point.

We passed tiny villages, a lumber mill, and scenery that makes me gasp every time I see it.  Driving within inches of the mountain's edge, you can look down into a vast valley covered in dense jungle.  Occasionally, you see some monkeys, if you look sharp.  Up the hill in the opposite direction, there are mahogany trees six feet in diameter and nearly 200 feet tall, and an undergrowth of smaller trees covered in orchids.

Finally, the road just ends.

The neighbor has a beautiful spread with orchards, a horse barn, a couple of houses, and a bunch of ducks.  we parked here and talked with the caretaker for a bit while we waited for the motorcycles to show up.  When they got there, we mounted up for the last leg of the journey.

The footpath was slick as a weasel.  It had just rained an hour before we got there.  We managed to get up the hill and level off on the path to the farm.  Finally, none the worse for wear, we rounded the bend and came onto our land.

After the engines cut off, you realize just how far you are from anything.  It's so quiet, you can hear your blood cells bumping into each other.  Just some birdsong and the hum of hornets the size of sparrows, and a light breeze in the leaves.

I stood for a minute, sucking in the clean, cool air.  You can't find a spot anywhere in Jakarta like this.  And with the recent rain, the earthy smell and flower scents were overwhelming.

The caretaker had planted corn, so there were rows upon rows of it down the side of the hill.  The jati trees stood tall and straight as arrows, with their strange puffs of leaves way up at the top.  They were nearing 20 cm in diameter, and would be ready for harvest early next year.  There are about 150 of them.  There's also five golden jati trees.  They're protected and you have to have a government permit to cut them commercially, but you can cut and use them on your own land.

I picked up a good walking stick and started off down the hill.  At the first banana tree, I stopped and picked a hand of pisang ambon which are little suckers just bigger than my thumb, and really sweet.  They were warm from the sun and perfectly ripe.

A little further and I checked the durian.  Wasn't ready yet.  Maybe another two months.  Curious fruit, too.  It can get to the size of a rugby ball, covered in a very thick, hard shell covered with large, mean spines.  It smells like a pair of old gym socks full of rotten onions, and it's delicious.

When it's ripe, the husk splits open, giving you a fighting chance to get at the goodies inside.  If you don't end up in the hospital, then what you find is about four or five flesh, pale-yellow, worm-like things inside.  Each one has a singe, large brown seed in it.  You peel the worms out and start snacking!  It has the consistency of a thick custard and a similar flavor, though it's completely unique, like nothing I've ever eaten before.  If it's overripe, it has a slightly bitter taste and will get you drunk.  In fact, it's unseemly for unmarried couples to be seen eating it together in public.

Next stop was the avocado trees.  The fruit was still small and green, and hard as rocks.  By September, they'll be the size of softballs and rather good, though the flavor is not the same as the black Hass variety back home.  Still, they make pretty good guacamole.  From the looks of things, I'll be making guacamole for the entire neighborhood, come the time.

At the bottom of the hill is a river with ice-cold, clear water.  It has plenty of lele, which are small catfish.  Very popular around these parts.  There are a couple of other varieties of fish, but I haven't learned the names of them yet.

Later, I plunked down in the shade with my bananas and ate my fill.  For good measure, I added a mango and part of a papaya, as well.  I just relaxed and let the wind caress me with its chilly tendrils.  Through the trees, I could see the outlines of the mountains in the distance, and the large valley stretching out into the haze.  I drank in the smell of sweet Earth and listened to the birds I couldn't find, and whose songs I have never heard before.

I dreamed of the house I will build at the top of the hill.  The top will be level with the footpath, and the house will sink three stories into the ground, with the entire downhill side being nothing but glass.  From the top, I will have an elevated walkway that will run out to a landing in the tree tops.  At the base will be a fish pond and swimming hole.  The view will face the rising Sun and offer a commanding perch over the surrounding jungle.  There will be chickens and goats, and a horse, of course.

Since there's no grid there, everything will be solar-powered, and water will come from a well down by the river.  I'll put up a four-foot stone wall around the living area, but the rest will be a controlled kind of wild.  The chickens will eat the bugs and the goats will clear the undergrowth, and both will be on the menu, as well as good home-made goat cheese.

I mapped it all out in my head, while my wife took photos so I could design the place.

As the sun set and the air cooled quickly, we saddled up the motorcycles again.  Back down the horse barn.  There we sat with the caretaker, who loaded us up with all kinds of strange and interesting fruit.  I also bought five macadamia saplings from him for $2 (all together).  We ate and joked and hung out until dark, then it was back down the mountain and back to the crazy rat race that is Jakarta.  At the tea plantation, the air warmed up again, and soon the fog of bus exhaust and the roar of motorcycles were assaulting us again.

Won't be long, though, and I'll have my house on the farm, and later, my retirement home.  With any luck, I'll be buried there, too.

You can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy.

Malam Minggu

Just flew in from Singapore, and boy are my arms tired!

It's Malam Minggu (Saturday night) in the Big Durien (hey, if New York can be the Big Apple, then Jakarta is the Big Durien) and I spent the whole day in S'pore meeting with some associates. I like to think of S'pore as the model Benign Fascist State. If you stay within the boundaries, life is pretty smooth and efficient, but if you step even one centemeter over The Line, watch out!

One advantage of going out is that I can hit the Duty Free, even though Indonesia's limits are a bit draconian. I can only bring in one liter of alcohol (liquor or wine, beer doesn't count) and 200 grams of tobacco, which means one carton of smokes, 50 cigars or 200 grams of cut leaf. Of course, I couldn't buy cigs any cheaper than Indonesia, even in North Carolina, so forget that. But I did manage a few Cubanos (eat your heart out Americans) and a liter of fine Scotch Whiskey. Altogether, my imports can't exceed US$250.

Now I haven't had a good bottle of Scotch Whiskey since I got here three years ago. When I got home, the wife couldn't sleep, even though she had a rough day at the rat races. So, I fixed her a traditional Irish lullabye: a good dram of whiskey, some sugar, some milk, and a couple of rocks. She's out like a light now. Indonesians are cheap dates. Takes about one shot of high octane to knock 'em out.

I'm going straight with two diamonds. It's good sippin' stuff, so I'm nursing it along with my cigar on the front porch.

The plane was about half full, which is unusual, but it's post-New Year and not yet Imlec (Chinese New Year), so things are quiet.

The Indonesian government recently released its people. For the longest time, there was a $100 tax by sea and a $250 tax if by air for a citizen to leave the country, if they didn't have an NPWP, which is the Indo version of the Social Security number. As of January 1st, the tax was repealed. Combined with a metric ton of cheap air fares, there's about to be a bunch of Indos flooding the global tourism offices.

The wife went down to renew her passport the other day and the mob was, well, a mob. This has basically taken the reigns off the Indo middle class. After all, the tax raised the price of a trip to S'pore 200% for the average Indo, who didn't have an NPWP.

Now, you might ask why good little citizens don't have tax numbers. Well, most Indo don't have a Social Security number. Most don't earn enough to pay tax, anyway. The few who do, earn enough to pay for all the rest. Such is an oligarchy.

The tax was designed to rip off foreigners who were exporting Indo maids, which is a global pasttime, even if you don't know about it. US tax laws prevent Americans from enjoying the luxuries that most of the rest of the world takes for granted. Kasihan deh loe.

The tax was penalizing the middle class, though, who don't have NPWP either. Recent developments, over the past ten years, have created a very properous middle class here in Indonesia, and they want to go out and see so world, too.

Anyway, the wife and I are taking advantage of the cheap airfares and her new-found freedom, to plan a trip to Hong Kong in April. We want to visit Kowloon Island and Macau Island. The package deal, with hotel, is $200/person, airfare and 4/3 in a four-star hotel. Could be worse.

I can get more of less the same deal to Phuket, Bangkok, Singapore, Ho Chi Min, Kuala Lumpur, and Taipei. For Bali, it's even cheaper, as in rediculous.

For you folks playing at home, you may want to check out AirAsiago.com, and see if you can't combine a package to get a cheap Asian vacation to exotic locations.

Damn! Just dipped my cigar in whiskey and a cool breeze kicked up. The neighborhood kids are in the park with their guitars wooing their pacar.

The house cat, Jeruk/Orange, slung a litter of milk-suckers Monday night. Give of them to be exact. Three greys, named Kerakatau, Merapi and Bromo (local volcanoes), a calico names Campur (mix), and another orange that I call JJ (Jeruk Juga, or orange also).

God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world.

Or is it?

Just to the south of me, in Queensland, they are having the test by fire, only with water. Brazil is under water. A good part of the States stand to me inundated when the thaw comes. Europe too. The economy is tanking. The world is flying apart at the seams. For some of us, it's the calm before the storm. For others, the storm hath arrived. For yet even others, the storm hath passed. What remains is the question of the hour.

My colleague Clif High, at HalfPastHuman.com has posted a recent article that we Asian dwellers would do well to read.

The cigar and whiskey are working their magic. The mind is open and the tongue is loose.

And so, the words and whiskey begin to flow. Who knows what will pop out next. A word of shameless promotion: if you need a writer with award-winning skills in multiple formats, drop a line to luap.jkt@gmail.com. Whether it's articles, scripts, copy, tech manuals, or really anything written, I promise to spell check before sending along. Word-smithing ain't just a job, it's a living!

And so, with that, I bid adieu. I'm going to finish my straight-two-diamonds and a fine cigar. And I'll leave you with this thought:

Cowboys are FROM Texas, but they ain't necessarily IN Texas.

Teaser: coming soon-review of "The Cosmic War," by Joseph P. Farrell, and an interview with webbot cowboys. Jack in, tune out and let the bits byte.

And while you're planning your home garden, don't forget the medicinal herbs.

Quick, Be Afraid!

Big Ba-Da-Boom
No Look, No Fly
Indonesia Becoming US Enemy

Remember the tsunami that flattened the Mentawai islands in west Indonesia? Ya, neither does anyone else. They are far away, don't pose and on-going problem and didn't bring in a lot of tourist and aid money.

But, Merapi? Wow! We can milk this baby for a while. Great drama. Fantastic video. Big aid bux. And right next to a heavy tourist draw, Jogjakarta.

Is it just me who's this cynical, or does anyone else see the bullshit game going on at the upper levels? I mean, look at the third link above. The US is concerned about Indonesian tourism because there are so many terror training camps and ongoing attacks here?

Give me a freakin' break, would'ja?

The average American is in more danger from the troglodytes that work for the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) than just about anything they would encounter on a normal day in Indonesia.

Oh sure, there was Bali a few years ago, and the JW Mariot last July, but there was Oklahoma City and 911 in the good ol' United Slaves of America. As a result, I'm still free in Indonesia and Americans are incarcerated.

The real terror training camps are in North America, where agents of the evil TSA, FBI, CIA, and other alphabet agencies are recruited and trained to terrorize American citizens.

You see, here's how it works. From inside Gulag America, it seems normal enough. Just don't notice all the cameras pointed at you and agents groping you. But from out here, you can see the bars and the guard towers. The media must continually hype threats in order to keep the inmates from questioning the prison.

Even Obama bringing 34 war ships, 6 aircraft and hundreds of troglodytes is all part of the illusion. The sham that the world is so dangerous that the prez can't go out without a huge retinue just fosters the whole "keep us safe, Onkel" mentality. Whose Onkel? Ah, go read up on the Khmer Rouge after the fall of Saigon. Then just add the name Sam to it.

"Oh sure, they fondled my wife, felt up my daughter and squeezed my gonads, but I feel so safe," old Joe Sixpack says.

The question is, how much dignity, privacy and real safety will people sacrifice before Fulsom prison erupts in riots?

They don't want Americans coming to Indonesia, because they will find out that even in the face of occasional terror threats, people can still be free and can take person responsibility for where they go and what they do.

Because, no matter what the cause, no one is ever safe. You can have those vile creatures in yellow shirts play with your genitals and the engine could fall off the plane, the volcano could erupt, a major earthquake could strike, or a tsunami could interrupt your dinner plans. Compared to those things, terrorism is a minor hassle, but all the fondling and luggage searching and nail-file confiscating won't stop a single one of them. You can get hit by a bus, sandwiched in a car accident or cut off your finger making a grilled cheese for lunch, and all the friggin' cameras won't stop it from happening. On a daily basis, those are far more likely to happen than for you to become a victim of state-sponsored terror.

In fact, in order to be a victim of state-sponsored terror, all you have to do is go to any American airport. Simple.

If I were the rest of the world, I would be issuing travel warnings for America. "Beware, tourist WILL lose their freedom, WILL be surveilled, WILL have their wives and children irradiated and groped by scum."

A lot of people ask me when I plan on going home. Frankly, my home is gone. The America I grew up in died somewhere around Nixon and was buried by Reagan. The America I knew is dead and gone. The America where women and children could be out at night and front doors didn't have to be locked and on weekends I could go plinking with my rifle are just distant memories.

People have forgotten the meaning of the symbols at the top of flagpoles. One of them is a round ball, signifying a cannon ball, and meaning a military induction center. Now, go look at the flagpoles in from of every school and post office in America. Cool, huh? (FYI, the eagle means sovereign authority and the spearhead means subordinate authority-see state and federal flags at your local courtroom).

How is it a blind man can see more than so many folks with their eyes wide shut?

I feel safer here, hell even in the deepest jungles of Borneo or Sumatra, than I do walking in the average American neighborhood. Here, in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world, a young woman can walk alone, children play outside even after sundown, and neighbors watch out for each other. If someone in my neighborhood here in Jakarta acted like the average TSA scum at the airport, there'd be a lynch mob at his door, and I'd be among them.

So, next time you have to go to the airport, opt out of the nude scanners and then threaten to file assault charges on anyone who touches you. They can wave their little wands around, if it makes them feel more powerful, but so much as brush the dust off my shoulder and we got a fight, buddy.

Unless, of course, you like being in prison and the possession of some bankster. Up to you. But they will go as far as you let them. It's all choice, you see.

In that fantastic film, The Shawshank Redemption, the character Brooks couldn't hack freedom. It scared him to be outside the box. Ultimately, he killed himself rather than face true freedom. As the other characters remarked, he had become institutionalized.

Are you institutionalized?

Life in the Land of Lava

I'm getting close-up reports from the scene of a volcanic eruption:

Here's a text message with a first-hand account of the situation in Jogjakarta:

"Ya my representative at Jogjais closes coz hot air n make skin burn many2 kambing dead n the tree ar burning. People try for run away can not coz the tool frm BMG ar not function so many people dont get information. im very sad."

To translate from English-nesian, the employees closed the store because there is a hot wind that is burning people's skin. A whole lot of goats are dead. People want to evacuate, but the warning and information system from the geological service is not functioning, and many people are not getting the necessary information on evacuation routes and efforts. In other words, the situation in Jogja is becoming more and more grave. The volcano is about 45 miles outside the city of Jogjakarta (about 600 miles southeast of Jakarta), so if residents are getting burned by super hot winds in Jogja, then you have to think things are pretty dire.

I got a later message saying that the ash cloud had reached Bandung, which if the volcano were in New Orleans, the ash has reached Beaumont and presumably will get to Jakarta at some point.

I'm working on direct word from Anak Kerakatoa, which is a more direct threat to us here in Jakarta. I have felt some small tremors, but nothing major so far; just little tickle vibrations in my gut and ripples in the water glass.

----

The reports from HalfPastHuman have pointed to a major toss-up around the Ring of Fire for some time. There are warnings out for over 20 volcanoes in Indonesia. Three volcanoes have erupted in Sumatra and Java in the past month and a half. The number of quakes around the Pacific Rim have been numerous and sever (Chile) over the past year of so.

Basically, it's pretty darned exciting here. The electo-magnetic effects of the volcanoes are causing severe weather as well. There have been wild storms in the area, including deadly flash floods in the past two days here in Indonesia. In Jakarta yesterday, there was a wild thunderstorm that included heavy winds that sounded, for intents and purposes, like tornadoes.

I, and a good number of other folks that I know, are taking precautions, such as buying extra water, non-perishable foods and face masks. Short of flying boulders and lava lakes, I'm pretty much ready for what may come.

Something's happening here, Mr. Jones. Just trying to figure out what it is...

Quakes, Cones and Curls: In the Ring of Fire

21 Poppers In A Party Pack

One thing you can never say about life in Indonesia, is that it is routine. Just when you start to enjoy quiet routine, up crops an earthquake, tidal wave or volcano just to keep you on your toes.

If you are watching the world media, you probably think Indonesia is ablaze with corpses littering the streets. Hardly the case. The reason for the hype is twofold, I suspect. One is government greed and the other is the use of natural or man-made events to maintain a climate of fear.

The first one is quite obvious. Indonesian government, like all governments, is a corrupt cesspool of graft and greed. The difference here being that it is thinly veiled and even admitted in casual conversation. No one operates under the illusion that government does anything but take for personal gain. This is in contrast to someplace like America, where the corruption is far deeper and subversive, but there is a carefully crafted veneer of honesty and 'transparency,' which is obviously beginning to dissolve.

In Indonesia, it is an open secret that police take bribes, politicians and bureaucrats freely suggest and accept large cash 'incentives' for anything from drivers' licenses to national regulatory policy.

It is into this environment that a large earthquake, tsunami and volcano are thrown, and well, what's a politician to do? Hype it to the rafters and then wait for the avalanche of aid cash to fill their pockets. The Jakarta Post carries a front-page headline today (Monday), "Foreign aid welcome for reconstruction." Curiously, I can't find a link to the story online, but my first reaction is, "Of course it is!"

By contrast, the Man on the Street (MOS) has taken little notice. In the wake of Mount Merapi's first eruption, that killed on the order of 100 people, it was barely a topic of discussion here in Jakarta. In some cases, there was even a somewhat gleeful attitude exhibited by one person in Jogjakarrta (about 12 kilometers downwind of Merapi), as she described the excitement there. By the third and fourth explosions, and with heavy ash falling on Jogjakarta, the tone finally turned towards concern, but still the MOS here hardly raised an eyebrow. At least so far.

One thing that DID trigger some amount of panic was a report on Saturday afternoon, on MetroTV and TVOne, that a warning had been issued for Kerakatau, about 60 kilometers west of Jakarta. That got some people's attention and set off some mild stocking up activities, such as buying canned good and extra water. However, as far as I can tell, those reports have been unsubstantiated by any 'official' release.

Even less noticed by the MOS in Jakarta was the quake and tsunami in the Mentawi islands. These are remote islands on the western frontier that, if pressed, some Indonesians might know exist. By comparison, a tidal wave in the Aleutian islands of Alaska that kills a handful of polar bears would generate more interest in the average New Yorker. Furthermore, the death counts have obviously been exaggerated, as recent reports note that more than 100 folks have been found alive in the affected area. As with all media and government information, though, one should never let a few facts stand in the way of a sensational story, especially when a potential tsunami of aid money is involved.

The Merapi situation is really a man-made disaster. The mountain is the most active 'natural' volcano in Indonesia, with regular eruptions as recently as the 1990s. A notable exception is the 'mud volcano' in north Java caused four years ago by oil drilling. The cause of death at Merapi is two-fold: government hype and plain old hard-headedness.

For years, the Indonesian government geology office has been breathlessly issuing warnings of imminent eruption at Merapi, causing hundreds if not thousands to flee, only to witness a harmless puff of steam as a result. Consequently, when the 'offical' warning went out last weekend, most folks on the mountain did what most Indonesians do with government here: ignored it. It was a combination of the 'boy who cried wolf' syndrome and prevailing culture. One notable exception was the man charged with guarding and communicating with the mountain spirits. Like the captain of a ship, he went down with the first blast.

Additionally, the minute the boom stopped echoing, hundreds of folks ran back up the mountain to check crops and animals, only to get hit with a second, third, fourth, and now fifth blast. The image is almost comical, were it not deadly. Local TV, being somewhat less circumspect about the images they broadcast, were replete with video of ash- and mud-covered bodies being stacked like cord wood. Hardly a deterrent to the affected farmers.

The situation is analogous to the imaged from New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. There, a large group of people chose to live on a river delta, below sea-level, in a hurricane infested area that has been flooded repeatedly throughout recorded history. Then, when events unfold as one would rationally expect, they stood with hat in hand at the money trough to be made whole for their own folly.

When I moved here, I was fully cognizant of the fact that my choice put me inside a ring of (admittedly dormant) volcanoes in one of the most earthquake-active zones on Earth, in a city frequently hit by flooding. I have taken the necessary steps to prepare and to investigate areas of the city least prone to flooding, thus reducing the greatest number of variables possible. However, if I lose everything to a major shake, you will not find me with my snout in the public trough. I freely chose this location, fully aware of the risks.

Similarly, if you live below sea-level in a storm area, you will get hit. If you live on an island in an earthquake zone, tsunamis are a real threat. If you farm the slopes of active volcanoes, prepare for pyroclastic blasts and ash clouds. Why is that such a difficult concept?

Finally, governments throughout history have used fear as a means of control. The more fearful a population is, the more likely they are to turn to Uncle Gummint to coddle and protect them, even though the security is completely illusional, and in most cases the fear is generated by the self-same organizations to stampede the cattle to the velvet corrals. Hyping natural disasters, 'terrorist' bombs and asteroid impacts serves the greater purpose of destabilizing people so that they surrender their rational and normal instinct to protect themselves, in favor of surrendering their lives to a control structure, which fosters victimhood and illusory safety in excchange for fealty.

In conclusion, I think it's safe to say that the global headlines of death and destruction serve a more nefarious purpose of generating liquid assets and irrational fear, than is warranted by the extant situation. Furthermore, the people in the affected areas have, at some level, made conscious choices to live with the risks, just as I have. Disasters, such as tidal waves and volcanoes, touch a primal nerve in most people, and so make for good copy that sells papers and draws viewers. In relation to how folks are reacting locally, the 72-point banner headlines worldwide are nothing short of sensationalism and hyperbole. I am convinced that there is a cadre of paper-pushers salivating at the prospects of bags of aid money.

In short, people who live in glass houses should not be surprised to get cut once in a while. To expect anything less is to deny reality.

And so life goes on...

The Far Out Side

t\Here at the Far Side, we like to think of ourselves as "we," even though we are but a lone nut sitting at a laptop somewhere in the jungles of Borneo, sending our observations of the Universe out to anyone who can sit still long enough to read them.

There we were, paddling up the Sebuku River, looking for the legendary Mount Pentyieanga, home of the elusive Pamingir people. Sightings are extremely rare and most never return, because one is required to duck down and cover one's eyes when passing through the villages lest one see one of the women bathing in the river. If this happens, one must marry her immediately. After that, you may leave the village, but your Family Jewels must stay until you return. Needless to say, most chose not to leave.

We were still wearing our tiger mask (worn on the back of the head because tigers won't attack your face side) from the Sumatra safari. From a distance, this was mistaken for us taking a look, and well, the rest is history. Fortunately, we were able to tell the local chief which beautiful young lady we had seen bathing (even though she was 4 kilometers away at the time, but hey...).

As it turns out, we are pretty good at basket weaving, so we have cornered the market on burial bags in this region of the jungle. We tried our hand at poison darts for a while, but after the paralysis wore off, we chose a somewhat safer line of work. We had a brief stint as a fire walker, but we couldn't succeed in getting the fire to take even a single step. We get the occasional fish or two for our stirring renditions of Beatles favorites (known locally as De Bitels). Our wife is so happy with our success that she gave birth to yet another budding film and TV star (inside joke...you have to be Indoensian).

So we were out with the gang hunting endangered species the other day, when we ran into our seventh brother-in-law from our third wife (we spend a lot of time at the river, you see). He told us that an Indonesian had been elected president of the USA. We were shocked, of course. We just couldn't imagine anyone eating kerupuk in the Oval Office while singing karaoke. We just hope he keeps his hands off the maids.

So we know what you're thinking...how does some lone nut get internet in the darkest parts of Borneo? We're still trying to figure that one out, as well. After all, we're still using last year's shell phones, for cryin' out loud! We're in talks with several Middle East courntres to buy all their Blackberries after they ban them. Then we just have to figure out how to charge the little buggers.

After the last volcanic eruption, we lost most of our coffee crop, so we started chewing cocoa leaves, which we found gives a much better bang for the buck. It came in handy when we woke up one morning, face to face with a Kymoto dragon. We must have downed about a kilo of leaf by the time we passed Jesse Owens.

Speaking of volcanoes, the village was preparing for the annual throw-the-virgin-in-the-lava-pit festival, known locally as Orang Terkutuk. Our first wife volunteered. We pointed out one problem with the idea and she just growled at us. We were kind of happy to see her go after that. It was a very nice fastival this year. Good music and dancing, and the flames reached almost 30 meters high. We have a theory about that, but we have a rule about mentioning Satan's name around our house.

Last Saturday night, we screened Michael Jackson's (no the OTHER one) remake of King Kong. We had forgotten that it was set in Borneo. The entire village had a great laugh, because those native costumes when out after Fay Wray. We keep a necklace of crocodile teeth by the door, but only because it was a wedding gift from my fourth father-in-law.

Well, we think that's enough for tonight. We just finished a huge place of fried wolf bat and can hardly move. We've got wives 2, 3 and 4 working the whole massage thing, so looks like we'll call it a day here. We just wanted to get a note out to anyone who wants to come visit (PLEASE!!!), we'll keep the candle burning for you. We highly recommend an air drop, since they can't tell if you saw the bathing hole when you're 10,000 feet up. Be sure to call ahead so we can neutralize the deathtraps that surround the village.

Oh, and if you can't make it here (SOON!), be sure and check out our Amazon book selection. Some good stuff in there that will help you avoid our predicament.

Sampai jumpa!

That means, "Help us!" in the local dialect.