HALF-FULL REPORT 09/19/08

Maybe we should all be in Tibet this week.

That's where I was 21 years ago on Black Monday, October 19, 1987.  On that infamous day 21 years ago, the Dow dropped 22.6%:  from 2,247 to 1,739, or a loss of 508 points.  (An equivalent loss today would be a fall of 2,500 points, from 11,422 to 8,840.)

We were in one of the remotest spots on the planet – the Chang Thang plateau of northern Tibet – when we learned of the crash on our short wave radio tuned into the BBC.  One of the people with me, "Big John" Perrott, turned white at the news.  "I'm ruined!" he cried out.  His life savings had been wiped out.

There was absolutely nothing he could do to prevent further losses.  We were completely incommunicado with the outside world – no sat phones back them – so no way to reach his broker.

By the time we crossed the Chang Thang and got through the Himalayas to Kathmandu, Nepal two weeks later, the crisis had passed and Big John's portfolio had rebounded.  He couldn't believe how lucky he was to be with me on the Tibetan Plateau where he couldn't do anything foolish like panic.

So I really hope you haven't freaked out and sold off your portfolio as it fell into a precipice.  Big John can tell you it's not a good move.  (He's reading this as he's an avid TTP'er, so you can expect his comments on the TTP Forum.)

Now the markets are soaring again with Paulson's trillion-dollar bailout.  Better start buying gold.  Get set for dollar inflation to the moon.

***

So let's focus now on more positive developments.  One would be that Charlie Rangel is finally getting what's coming to him.  Even liberal newspapers like the Miami Herald are calling for him to resign, either from his chairmanship of House Way & Means or from Congress altogether. 

Another is Lost Harry Reid looking like a deer in the headlights and whimpering, "I don't know what to do" about the Wall Street Meltdown.  Okay, he actually said "no one" instead of "I" – but everybody knew what he was really saying.

I now cannot resist relaying the current joke about the Dems thought that this hick mayor from Wasilla, Alaska would be a "deer in the headlights" of national media investigation and destroyed.  Turns out that she's the one with the rifle.

A third is that no one is being fooled by the Pelosicrats' hoax over their offshore oil drilling bill.  It will die in the Senate, and Bush will veto any CR (continuing budget resolution that funds the government and has to be passed by Sept. 30) that includes a moratorium on offshore drilling.  Without the moratorium in the CR, it will expire October 1^st.

And fourth is the release this week of John Fund's book Stealing Elections.  This is an incredibly important book.  John exposes the plans of the ultimate "community organizer" ACORN to commit massive voter fraud in cities throughout the country – and details how Obama is an ACORN operative.  He was a "community organizer for ACORN and then their lawyer.

Obambi, John reveals, has 9,000 lawyers ready to challenge November 4 election results in thousands of precincts in hundreds of counties in dozens of states, all under the phony claim of "voter suppression" perpetrated by evil election-stealing Republicans.

Just to take one single county, Bernalillo County in New Mexico:  over 1,000 fraudulent voters registrations have been submitted by ACORN, and if they are not accepted, ACORN will scream "voter suppression!"

Incidentally, Obambi's call for his followers to "argue with your neighbors and get in their face" if they don't support him (9/17 in Elko NV) is a classic ACORN intimidation technique.  Read John's book.

***

Over three years ago (April 2005) in Bye Bye Bolivia, you learned that under Evo Morales, Bolivia would someday break apart.  Ever since, Evo's puppet master Hugo Chavez has desperately tried to prevent this.  Now, this week, the moment of dissolution seems to have arrived.

With the lowland provinces of the "Media Luna" in outright rebellion, Morales has been unable to trust his military enough to order it to crush the rebels.  The New York Times is reporting that Chavez is publicly ridiculing the Bolivian military and threatening to invade the country with Venezuelan soldiers.

One or another, Morales or the country itself as an intact nation will not be around for much longer.

***

Speaking of nations that may not be around brings up Pakistan.  It's so upset over the US sending real live soldiers based in Afghanistan across its border to kill Taliban terrorists trying to kill them that the whole country is having a temper tantrum over the violation of its sacred "sovereignty."

The reason for the tantrum is that the sovereignty they demand the US "respect" doesn't exist.

I've crossed from Pakistan into Afghanistan – on foot, on horseback, by truck, even in a raft across the Kabul River – and vice versa many times.  I have seen with my own eyes:  there is no border.  Pakistan has never exercised anything approaching sovereign authority over its border with Afghanistan.

That 1600-mile border was drawn by a British civil servant, Sir Mortimer Durand (1850-1924), in 1893 in his capacity as Foreign Secretary of British India.  The government of Afghanistan has never recognized the "Durand Line" as a legitimate border – since it divides the Pushtun people (who make up the majority of Afghans) in two.

Further, the Durand Line Agreement – which the Brits claimed Afghan King Abdur Rahman Khan signed, but only in English which he didn't speak or read – was valid for 100 years and expired in 1993.  No subsequent Afghan government has renewed the Durand Agreement.

Thus the Afghan-Pakistan border does not exist either legally or actual reality.

The Pakistan "government-within-a-government," the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency or ISI, is conducting a proxy war against the United States and the government of Afghanistan via the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists.  The US, NATO, and Afghan military forces have every right to take whatever measures are necessary to shut this war down in territory the Paks have no legal right to nor control.

Pakistan is rapidly becoming a failed state – so failed that there is an increasing chance it may break apart into its constituents:  Baluchistan, the Sindh, Punjab, and "Pushtunistan" which may merge with Afghanistan.  India and the US better have a well-thought out and well-practiced plan to seize control of Pak nukes if necessary.

What a week.  The HFR needs at least three fingers of Famous Grouse.