Dr. Jack Wheeler
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/13/09
With every passing day now, we're subjected to another episode in an amateurishly bad TV sitcom starring Obozo the Clown President. Try changing the channel and the sitcom morphs into that ghastly 1988 horror flick Killer Klowns From Outer Space. It's enough to give you coulrophobia. For it really does seem that space aliens looking and behaving like clowns have seized Washington and are engaged in destroying our country. While this is not literally true, what would be the difference if it were? *** Well, one difference would be a plain vanilla sex scandal submarining Obozo's Plan for a Fascist America - or at least the health plan part of it... *** And as long as we're in to juicy Washington gossip, here's the juiciest - or what will become so.
THE SOLUTION OF CHINA
Zihuatenejo, Mexico. My wife and I have managed a quickie escape from Zeroland to stay at a friend's home here. If this isn't paradise, it will certainly do until paradise comes along. My rationale for being here (as if I really needed one) is that my buddy who lives here has been a top advisor to more Global Fortune 100 companies for more years than perhaps anyone else on earth. Who better to talk to regarding the meltdown of the global economy? Name any major insider or player in global finance or global business, and the odds are high that my friend has known them well for a decade or two. He's been calling them up, asking them the same question I had for him: What the hell is going on? Their answer, which is the same as his answer? "Damned if I know." He tells me: "Jack, I know the heaviest hitters out there. And I'm hard put to think of any who weren't blind-sided by this. You could see damage coming, a recession, okay. But a multi-multi trillion dollar total global wipeout? No one I know saw it, nor can explain it, nor knows what's coming next. We're all flying blind, and going broke doing so." Naturally, I needed another Margarita after that. Then we started to think about real solutions.
THE STIMULUS IS A STEP TOWARDS A SOVIET AMERICA
[Senator Coburn, R-OK, recently gave this speech on the floor of the Senate] With this Stimulus Bill, we are going in exactly the wrong direction. We ought to be standing on the principles that made this country great. I want to make sure the American people know what is in this bill. I think once they know what is in this bill, they are going to reject it out of hand. We are at a seminal moment in our country. We will either start living within the confines of realism and responsibility or we will blow it and we will create the downfall of the greatest nation that ever lived. This bill is the start of that downfall. To abandon a market-oriented society and transfer it to a Soviet-style, government-centered, bureaucratic-run and mandated program, that is the thing that will put the stake in the heart of freedom in this country.
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/06/09
The HFR can only raise a truly half-full glass to the Daschle Disaster this week. Exposing the former Democrat Senate Majority Leader as a tax cheat and millionaire political fixer was good enough. What compounds the benefits is that Zero's attempt to take over and destroy health care in America has been seriously damaged. The number of appointees in Zero's White House who owe their political lives to Daschle is very large. He was the guy who could shepherd and coordinate the health care takeover, and now he's gone. This is a fantastic two-fer. It's countervailed by the Dems not approving another tax cheat - one more blatant and disgusting to taxpayers than Timmy Geithner. For if Daschle had not withdrawn and had been approved with Zero saying he "absolutely" supported his tax cheating and making millions from influence peddling - and with every comic from Jay Leno on down making fun of him - then the one thing America most needs would have been greatly accelerated. A tax revolt.
THE SUBMISSION OF OBAMA TO ISLAM
How appropriate that Barack Hussein Obama featured Aretha Franklin in his inaugural festivities since her signature song is "Respect." Literally from the moment she finished belting out "My Country Tis of Thee" on January 20, the new President has been conveying his "respect" the Moslem world. Unfortunately, the way he practices it seems to be spelled S.U.B.M.I.S.S.I.O.N. Several observers have noted in recent days that Mr. Obama's outreach to the Moslem world is not only defensive and apologetic. It explicitly embraces a narrative that is factually erroneous and deprecating to his own country. What is really worrying is that Mr. Obama's actions and rhetoric are almost certainly being perceived by his target audience as evidence not of respect but of subservience-- precisely what Islam (the word "islam" literally means "submission" in Arabic) requires of all of us, Moslems and non-Moslems, alike.
THE BEAUTY OF 2010
Right now, it is dawning on folks all over the country that Zero really isn't ready for prime time, that they were conned by the leftstream media to elect an empty suit who has never managed as much as a corner store and is a clueless naïve fool who doesn't know what he's doing. When the public has maniacally high expectations, only to see them thwarted and dashed to the ground, heroes turn into zeros very, very fast. What happens to Zero when he is no longer worshipped but hated instead? For someone whose personality consists primarily of empty narcissism and hubris, it could be psychologically catastrophic. When that someone is the single most powerful human being on earth, it could be catastrophic for all of us. This disturbing question was asked by a perceptive TTPer on the Forum, who notes that: "The One having a functional, emotional and psychological breakdown under the calamitous pressure and problems of office in the next year is a very serious possibility." Underneath that famously calm and cool exterior lies a fragile ego, like that of all narcissists. As his failures and flounders mount, as his inability to deal with the monumental problems and threats voters expect him to solve becomes obvious no matter how much the media covers for him, his ego could disintegrate.
THE AMERICAN OPTION
The stimulus bill that is being championed by Mr. Obama, which was passed by Democrats in the House last Wednesday (1/28), is the worst piece of economic legislation Congress has considered in a hundred years. Not since the passage in 1909 of the 16th Amendment--which cleared the way for a federal income tax--has the United States seriously entertained a policy so comprehensively hostile to economic freedom, or so arrogantly indifferent to economic reality. This bill is not a stimulus, ladies and gentlemen; it is a mugging. It is a fraud. Conservatives who fear proponents of this bill want to inch our economy closer to European-style socialism are kidding themselves. The proponents of this bill want to strap a big rocket on the back of our economy and launch it all the way to Brussels! This massive spending bill is fatally flawed. It will not rescue our economy; it will strangle it. That is why this bill must be stopped dead in its tracks. It cannot be fixed in the Senate by adding a few tax cuts or taking away a little spending. It must be scrapped entirely.
ELECTORAL VICTORY IN IRAQ
I don't suppose this will get much coverage in the States as the news is so good. No, the news is unbelievable. Something didn't happen in Al Anbar Province, Iraq today, Saturday January 31. Once the most violent and most dangerous places on earth, no suicide vest bomber detonated killing dozens of voters. No suicide truck bomber drove into a polling place collapsing the building and killing and injuring over 100. No Marine was in a firefight engaging an Al Qaeda terrorist trying to disrupt democracy. What did happen was Anbar Sunnis came out in their tens of thousands to vote in the first free election of their lives.
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/30/09
The Age of Zero is only ten days old at this writing (1/30), and already this is a failed presidency. On the eve of Zero's Immaculation, his approval rating was 83%. Now Rasmussen reports it's 63%, a 20% drop in less than two weeks. The goofball mistakes are piling up, but here's the top three, a Stupidity Hat Trick. His first international interview is with a Moslem news outlet, earning him the label: "President al-Arabiya." He grovels and apologizes to the Moslem world for America being the target of their hatred, as only a liberal embarrassed to be an American can. In return, Mahmoud Ahmadinutjob spits in his face and demands that Zero beg for forgiveness for America's sins against Iran, the number one terrorist state on earth. Zero follows up this demonstration of brilliance by attacking Rush Limbaugh by name, petulantly demanding that Republicans not listen to him. Did Rush somehow bribe Zero to say this? Now, everybody is listening to Rush - who immediately takes maximum advantage of his Zero-provided megaphone and offers an extremely clever proposal:
THE BLANK SCREEN OF A DECEPTIVE DICTATOR
Barack Hussein Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he said of himself in "The Audacity of Hope," "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was crafted shrewdly to perpetuate such confusion. Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public. And it is working. Many of my fellow conservative commentators are embarrassingly eager to search Obama's words, groveling for hopeful signs that he is not a radical intent on changing the face and nature of our republic.
CAREFREE IN AN UNCAREFREE WORLD
It's not easy to summarize in a few hundred words all that was discussed over many hours at Carefree. What's far easier is to summarize what we all experienced: the straightforward joy of getting together with fellow TTPers. Here's a collection of photos, courtesy of Maureen Bowen, to give you an idea. Or see the Forum posts by attendees such as Spartan and Mitch Rapp. Thanks to Google Earth wizard Dan Barak, we could focus in on any country or geographical location in the world and discuss it - which we did for dozens of countries all over the planet. When it came to the main event, however, what we didn't discuss regarding the United States was how and why Zero and his "Stimulus" will be catastrophically bad. We all knew that the entire $800+ billion stimulus program will make the economy much worse, because its purpose is not improving the economy but increasing the political power of Democrats and their fascist allies on the Left. There was no point in discussing this. So we focused instead on: what do we do about it, how do we get out of its way, how do we keep our freedom and save our financial derrieres?
THE ISLAMIZATION OF EUROPE
[You may have seen news stories, such as on Fox News, about the Dutch member of parliament, Geert Wilders, being prosecuted in Dutch courts for "insulting Islam." Recently, Mr. Wilders delivered this speech in New York. After reading it, you may watch his 15-minute film Fitna. Geert Wilders is a hero of Western Civilization, and he may go to jail for it. ] I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe. The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome's ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see - and one that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Moslem mass-migration.
PROOF THAT THE TREASURY SECRETARY IS A TAX CHEAT
Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) is Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for writing federal tax legislation. Last September, he admitted he did not pay the required income taxes on some of his private income (Caribbean rental properties, etc.). Although Republicans demanded he resign his chairmanship, Speaker Nancy Pelosi firmly supported Rangel. Yesterday (1/27), Timothy Geithner was sworn in as Treasury Secretary, despite the fact did not pay $34,023 in self-employment taxes from 2001 to 2004 when he worked at the International Monetary Fund. Geithner said that his failure to pay self-employment tax was due to mistakes made by his individual tax return preparation software, which he identified in his testimony during his Senate confirmation hearing as Turbo Tax. This is a provable lie. And it gives the Republicans a golden opportunity: to introduce the "Rangel-Geithner Equal Treatment Under The Tax Law Bill."
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/23/09
What could be more appropriate, on the eve of the TTP Carefree Rendezvous, than to hoist a pint of Four Peaks Ale brewed here in Arizona to an inspiring woman Republican governor who drives liberals out of their minds because she is a pro-family, pro-life, pro-Christian, anti-tax, anti-government spending, anti-illegal immigration Reagan conservative. Nope, we're not talking about Sarah Palin - however much the HFR is happy to hoist a glass in admiration of her at any time. We're talking about... ... Right next to the HFR Saloon is the Schadenfreude Bar, which serves goblets of frothy glee over liberals' misfortunes. One patron was happy that Tim Geithner was going to be confirmed as Treasury Secretary. "It will be wonderful to have a guy that cheats on his taxes be in charge of the IRS," he said. "Now millions of us will say, ‘If he can, so can I'." ... Let's spice up the HFR this week, shall we? With a spice that can be a solution to terrorism. Oh, and a microbe that can be a solution to energy independence.
NOTO PATRIOTISM AND THE GSY REVOLUTION
It's Wednesday morning here in Washington D.C., January 21, 2009. Tell me, did something unusual happen here yesterday? I heard there was some kind of ruckus on the Mall near the Capitol, some kind of circus - but there weren't any elephants, and what's a circus without any elephants? There were a lot of jackasses instead, somebody said. Anyway, I was writing all day, working on my novel, The Jade Steps, and wasn't paying attention. Well, I did take a break and turn on the TV - to watch a Clark Gable-Ava Gardner classic, Mogambo. Evidently, I learned, some guy, nobody knows who he really is, with a goofy name and big goofy ears was giving a speech full of fluffy puffy cliché-ridden platitudes and nothing else. I enjoyed my movie. Yep, I was adhering to my motto: If you can't beat them - ignore them. Or tell them GSY. We'll get to that in a moment. For these are the only two ways to cope with the terrifyingly deranged glorification of Zero.
I HOPE HE FAILS
TTP salutes Rush Limbaugh for having the courage to state what all rational conservatives feel. I got a request here from a major American print publication. "Dear Rush: For the Obama [Immaculate] Inauguration we are asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency. We would love to include you. If you could send us 400 words on your hope for the Obama presidency, we need it by Monday night, that would be ideal." Now, we're caught in this trap again. The premise is, what is your "hope." My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, "Well, I hope he succeeds. We've got to give him a chance." Why? They didn't give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I'm not talking about search-and-destroy, but I've been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don't want them to succeed. So I'm thinking of replying to the guy, "Okay, I'll send you a response, but I don't need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails."
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/16/09
The HFR starts off this week by celebrating the first nomination of the year for the coveted Darwin Awards. As you may know, these awards are given to individuals of such inspiring idiocy they have contributed to the benefit of mankind by removing themselves from the gene pool. So it is that a Darwin Award is hereby bestowed upon the eight Somali pirates who a few days ago capsized their speedboat escaping with $3 million in ransom cash. Five of them drowned, three swam to shore, all the money was lost at sea save for $153,000 found on the body of one of the five who washed up on a beach. Now if all the Somali pirates could be removed from gene pool. There is a quick and easy way to do this. In the middle of the Indian Ocean not far from the Somali coast is an island called Diego Garcia. It belongs to the Brits, and leased by them to the US as a military base. We have B52s there.
AMERICAN SILHOUETTE
Reflecting upon what lies ahead for America in 2009, I'm tempted to think of Al Jolson, and his famous quote, "You ain't seen nothin' yet." But I'd rather think of Madame Pompadour. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquess de Pompadour (1721-1764), was the royal mistress of King Louis XV of France (1710-1774). She ended up running Louis' government. So much so that when Frederick II of Prussia intemperately called the Empress of Russia (Czarina Elizaveta Petrovna), Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, and Madame Pompadour "the three first whores of Europe," she engineered a war: an alliance of France, Austria, and Russia against Prussia. The Seven Years' War bankrupted France. So Pompadour did what all governments do with a fiscal crisis: raise taxes, and punitively. In 1759, she had Etienne de Silhouette, known for his writings on England's financial system, appointed controller-general of finance. For eight months he ravaged France with such rapacious taxation that everyone from nobles to wealthy merchants to peasants bitterly complained that they reduced to mere shadows of their former selves. By the time Pompadour was forced to fire him, an inexpensive art form had caught on, a shadow of one's profile cut out from black paper. They were called silhouettes. France never recovered from her loss of empire and wealth, yet her rulers continued to lavish money upon themselves while the people were ground into further penury - until the latter exploded with the French Revolution and the former led to the guillotine. So now comes a question as we step into the unknown of 2009: will Barack Hussein Obama be the American Silhouette?
THE LIES OF HAMAS
Israel hasn't killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israel didn't kill them. Hamas did. It's time to smash the lies. The lies of Hamas. The UN lies. And the save-the-terrorists lies of the global media. There is no moral equivalence between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers. There is no gray area. There is no point in negotiations. Hamas is a Jew-killing machine. It exists to destroy Israel. What is there to negotiate? When Hamas can't kill Jews, it's perfectly willing to drive Palestinian civilians into the line of fire - old men, women and children. Hamas herds the innocent into "shelters," then draws Israeli fire on them. And the headline-greedy media cheer them on. Hamas isn't fighting for political goals. "Brokered agreements" are purely means to an end. And the envisioned end is the complete destruction of Israel in the name of a terrorist god.
PUTIN’S DISASTROUS GAS GAMBLE
To little notice in America, a drama is being played out in Eastern Europe that future historians may mark as the beginning of the end of Russia's neo-imperialist ambitions under Vladimir Putin. The economic house of cards he has built is collapsing as the tyrant himself heads for the dustbin of history. Turning off the natural gas spigot in the middle of a harsh winter to much of Eastern Europe that is completely dependent on it and has few alternative sources to heat its schools and hospitals is the kind of imperial hubris that often drives dictators past the tipping point and ultimately to their downfall. This, as Moscow's army of European lobbyists led by paid Gazprom lapdog and former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, sing the praises of ever greater European dependence on Russian energy. Yet, Europe's cowardice notwithstanding, it is difficult for anybody with even a basic knowledge of the facts not to see that this time Putin has miscalculated badly and is playing a losing hand from an increasingly untenable position.
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/09/09
The barkeep here at the HFR Saloon can't keep up with the drink orders this week. Half of them are drinks to celebrate the never-ending pratfalls of the Zero Circus. The other half are for glasses of beer to cry in, since the Circus' biggest pratfalls will be the ruination of America's economy and national security. Every celebrant, it seems, wants a different cocktail. One fellow has a Sidecar. "Do a lot of business in Albuquerque," he says. "Every business guy in town knows what a corrupt crook their governor Bill Richardson is - he's the Blagojevich of New Mexico. You telling me Zero's people didn't know this, that the FBI has a major investigation on him? I'm telling you, Zero is not ready for prime time. By the way, always make a sidecar with bourbon, not brandy." Nearby was someone with a Manhattan. "I'm from Chicago and we know Blago. He's much smarter than Richardson who's dumb as a stump. Look how Blago snookered that arrogant little worm who pretends he runs the Senate. Blago knew if he nominated a white guy it would be blocked, so he picked a black guy whose only qualification was that he was black, old Tombstone Burris. Harry Reid had to cave. Sure proves we're post-racial after November 4, huh?" He took a sip. "Be sure and have your Manhattans with rye, not Canadian, whiskey." At the end of the bar was a grandfatherly type who was into his second Long Island Ice Tea and feeling no pain. "Doncha just love Slick Willie's chief of staff running the CIA? If that isn't a hoot, what is? Until we get nailed by another 9/11, that is. That Feinstein broad got her panties in a twist because Zero didn't pick her boy Kappes."
A SHAMELESS HACK APPOINTMENT
Would you ask your accountant to perform brain surgery on your child? That's the closest analogy I can find to the choice of Democrat Party hack Leon Panetta to head the CIA. Earth to President-elect Obama: Intelligence is serious. And infernally complicated. When we politicize it - as we have for 16 years - we get 9/11. Or, yes, Iraq. The extreme left, to which Panetta's nomination panders, howled that Bush and Cheney corrupted the intelligence system. Well, I worked in the intel world in the mid 1990s and saw how the Clinton team undermined the system's integrity (when Panetta was Clinton White House Chief of Staff). The director's job at the CIA isn't a party favor. This is potentially a matter of life and death for thousands of Americans. But the choice of Panetta tells us all that Barack Obama doesn't take intelligence seriously.
ARABIC PEACE
No word is more overused and has less meaning than "peace" regarding any discussion of Arabs and Israel. One primary reason why "peace in the Middle East" (if you Google that phrase you'll get 1.5 million hits) is so elusive is because there is no word in Arabic that means the same thing as the English word "peace," or its equivalent in other European languages. So as Israel is trying to put an end to Hamas terrorism and the world media whimpers for "peace in Gaza," we should get a clear understanding of the Arabic words - there are three of them - translated as "peace." It's an understanding that Hillary's husband lacked when brokering the Oslo Accords of 1993, that Hillary's predecessor at the State Department lacked in her endlessly pointless efforts, that Hillary's new boss will lack when he instructs her to negotiate an Arab-Israeli "peace treaty." None of the three Arabic words for "peace" mean what we mean - but one of them could come close if nailed down explicitly. They are salaam, hudna, and suhl.
Join the forum discussion on this postHALF-FULL REPORT 01/02/09
The HFR has recovered from its hangover bidding the annus horribilus of 2008 vale ad aeternam, goodbye forever, and welcomes you to what's coming for this brand new year of 2009! Or rather what might be coming - for as we learned near the start of last year in The 2008 Carpe Diem Filter, history is stochastic, a series of uniquely unrepeatable events. There is no such thing as the future, and you can't make predictions about something that doesn't exist. You certainly can about nature (like what time the sun will rise tomorrow), but not about what people will do, because they haven't decided yet - and in particular, the extent to which they decide to treat problems as opportunities (the carpe diem filter). Nonetheless, there are some things that look exceedingly likely. So here goes. Don't be surprised if 2009 is as weird a year as 2008. A president who worships at a God Damn America church is worshipped as the savior of America - but for how long? The media will focus on his every word and deed, and will shout hosannas of positive news regarding everything he touches. But sooner or later it will dawn on folks that he is no more competent a president than he is a golfer - or bowler.
THE HEROIC CRIMES OF ISRAEL
Dead Jews aren't news, but killing terrorists outrages global activists. On Saturday (12/27), Israel struck back powerfully against its tormentors. Now Israel's the villain. Again. How long will it be until the UN General Assembly passes a resolution creating an international Holocaust Appreciation Day? The UN seems always ready to denounce Israel's "crimes." What have those crimes been? Not "stealing Palestinian land," but making that land productive, while exposing the incompetence and sloth of Arab culture. Israel's crime isn't striking back at terror, but demonstrating, year after year, that a country in the Middle East can be governed without resort to terror. Israel's crime hasn't been denying Arab rights, but insisting on human rights for women and minorities. Israel's crime has been making democracy work where tyranny prevailed for 5,000 years. Israel's crime has been survival against overwhelming odds, while legions of Arab nationalists, Islamist extremists and Western leftists want every Jew dead. But Israel's greatest crime was to...
THE TROUBLE WITH TEXTBOOKS
I recently read a book that deserves the widest possible readership: The Trouble with Textbooks - Distorting History and Religion, by Gary A. Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra. I never have met or talked with either of these gentlemen, but I can't say enough good things about this book. For all who believe that there is a fairly objective rendition of history that we are obliged to teach our children, this book reveals how shockingly far from that objective American education - particularly in schools' textbooks - has fallen. The grievance group that has become particularly adept at influencing textbook publishing is the organized Moslem lobby. Shabbir Mansouri, the founder of the Council on Islamic Education, the chief Islamic group for vetting textbooks in the United States, refers to his work as a "bloodless revolution ... inside American junior high and high school classrooms." Mr. Mansouri is, regrettably, right.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/26/08
The best news this week is that with this issue of the HFR, we get to raise a tin cup of moonshine and say adios to 2008. Come what may in 2009, it is such an incredible relief to get this sucker over with. It is, of course, not good news that during Christmas, millions of Americans have been stranded in airports and train stations due to massive winter storms all across the country. Yet being stranded gives one time to think - and hopefully one thought that will occur to them is that global warming is laughably ridiculous... ... By the way, out of every 100,000 molecules of air, how many do you suppose are molecules of CO2, the evil gas environuts say causes global warming? 39. How many are man-made molecules of CO2? 1. That's one-onehundrendthousandth. Man-made greenhouse gas emissions are irrelevant to the world's weather... ... So now Blago is going to subpoena Zero's chief of staff. Watching this scandal unfold is almost as much fun as seeing Princess Caroline Kennedy's assumed royal prerogative of being anointed US Senator from New York crashing and burning... ...But now let's focus on what is truly good and uplifting news this week. For the first time ever, Christmas was celebrated as an official holiday in Iraq. And let's close this last HFR of 2008 with this heartwarming thought. Christmas yesterday was celebrated by more people in more places on all seven continents (even scientists in Antarctica) - by far - than any other celebration of any kind, religious or otherwise, in the world.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/18/08
There hasn't been an HFR since November 4 since it's too depressing to raise a glass that's completely dry and empty. Lately, however, so much fun stuff has been filling the HFR full liter stein that it's like the Munich Oktoberfest in December. Let's start with the biggest silver lining of November 4: we didn't end up with President Pain-in-the-ass McCain. Once again, he reminded us this week of what an insufferable jerk he is. The only reason he got the nomination is because the Stupid Party allows Democrats to vote in its primaries. It's such a relief we never have to pay any attention to him ever again. Jindal-Palin 2012! Next we move to Blagogate, which is serving to bring into clear focus that corruption is the Democrat Party's middle name - and that for the next four years we'll have a Chicago White House, the operations of which will be run by Blago buddy Rahm Emmanuel... ... Now on to the substantial benefits of the US/global recession. ... We'll close this edition of the HFR by raising a glass of sacramental wine to a great American patriot and founder of the modern conservative political movement, Paul Weyrich.
THE BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT YOU CAN GIVE A FRIEND
Obviously - it's a gift subscription to To The Point! It certainly has the best value-to-cost ratio of any alternative. And you don't have to go to a store, search aimlessly for something cool, gift-wrap it, or undergo any other hassle. Just a minute to fill out the info form at TTP Gift Subscriptions and you're done. You can of course go the whole nine yards and pop for a full year at $95. That would have to be for a really good friend! Or you could opt for the most economical route, a single month for $9.99. There's a really attractive third choice, that we've just made available in time for Christmas: three months for $24.99. You know the value of To The Point for yourself. Why not provide it to a friend for Christmas - enabling him or her to take refuge in the Oasis for Rational Conservatives as the craziness of 2009 unfolds? There's no better Christmas present you could give a friend than To The Point. Clicking on TTP Gift Subscriptions is all it takes. It's a wonderful way to wish someone Merry Christmas!
DRIVING IN CHINA
When you hear the word "China," if you're like most people the picture most likely to appear in your mind's eye is vast uncountable hordes of people. I've got a different picture, having bounced along so many thousands of kilometers of bad Chinese roads: no people at all.
China is almost half a million square miles bigger than the continental US (the contiguous 48 states without Alaska/Hawaii) - and it is amazing how much of it is desert or high mountain plateaus where hardly anybody lives. And I mean no one, as in empty. I'd estimate that more than half, upwards of two-thirds of China is virtually uninhabited.
That means cramming 1.3 billion people into an area less than one-third of the continental US. People who have made a deal with their Chicom leaders: you get to keep political control and we get to prosper in a growing economy. The deal breaks down if the economy falters - and it is faltering fast.
The engine of China's economy - her exports that we buy - is in steep decline, foreign direct investment is down 36% for 2008, scores of millions of peasants who had found work in cities are now unemployed and headed back to their bleak villages.
China is in trouble - and when dictatorships get in trouble, history shows the option they most often choose to try and save themselves is war. Will China - or will it opt for the alternative that geopolitics is now providing, to take America's place as protector and peacemaker?
THE BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR YOURSELF
One of my fond childhood memories is that whenever we had guests over for dinner, my father would always offer his favorite toast, the famous Spanish one: Salud, amor, y pesetas - y el tiempo para gozarlas. (May you have) Health, love, and wealth - and the time in which to enjoy them. It is appropriate that the most important of this triumvirate comes first - health. When we are young, it is easy to take natural good health and vitality for granted - and it becomes progressively less easy as we get old. Which it is why it is wise to start preserving one's health when young (just as it is wise then to start saving money). I'm 65 now and as you know, 12 days ago (12/05) underwent serious abdominal surgery. My doctors are amazed at how rapidly I am recuperating. One reason for this is that I have taken nutritional supplements in "life extension" amounts for over 30 years. Another is that I am taking specific nutritional formulas to promote healing and recovery. Almost exclusively, they are formulas designed by famed life extension scientists Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw - dear friends for 40 years - and produced by our mutual friend Will Block's company Life Enhancement. I think that such nutrition is the best Christmas present you could give to yourself.
SUING HENRY PAULSON
The insurance giant AIG has lately become the poster child for corporate risk-taking, mismanagement and greed. Its unimaginably large losses, rooted in insurance it extended to financial companies engaged in subprime mortgage-backed transactions, have destroyed both AIG's corporate reputation and balance sheet. Indeed, but for the fact that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - who during his days running Goldman Sachs had extensive ties to AIG - deemed the insurance firm "too large to fail," the company would surely have gone under by now. One result of Mr. Paulson's nationalization of AIG is that all of us taxpayers are now owners of a company that promotes Moslem Shariah law - the brutally repressive, totalitarian theo-political-legal program of authoritarian Islam. It turns out that AIG has a subsidiary specializing in takaful¸ insurance products that are "Shariah-compliant." Fortunately, an important legal initiative has just been launched aimed at blocking Secretary Paulson and the Federal Reserve Board from engaging in this sort of unconstitutional behavior via Shariah-Compliant Finance (SCF) and other commercial transactions.
BIBI AND OBAMA
The "international community" is eagerly anticipating the incoming Obama administration's policy toward Israel. It is widely assumed that as soon as he comes into office, Mr. Obama will move quickly to place massive pressure on the next Israeli government to withdraw from Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the interests of advancing a “peace process” with the Palestinians and the Syrians. Obama's team, like its supporters in the international foreign policy establishment, is dismayed by the Israeli opinion polls that show that Likud, led by Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, is favored to win February 10's general elections by a wide margin. In the coming contest between Bibi and Obama, it is important to recall that one of Netanyahu's most difficult challenges during his tenure as prime minister from 1996 to 1999 was handling his relations with the hostile Clinton administration. From the moment Netanyahu was elected until the moment he left office, the Clinton administration's Israel policy was devoted entirely to bringing down his government. It is likely that the Obama White House will duplicate these efforts against a Likud government.
ATLAS IN AMERICA
Insanity has its consequences. Every day now, another consequence of America's insanity - and I mean that literally - of November 4 becomes apparent. It's funny to see the MSM frantically trying to disconnect Zero from Blago, as the dim bulb in the brains of those who voted for him starts to shine a glimmer of light on his corruption. Insanity and stupidity usually go together (the evil genius is a Hollywood myth, rare in reality). And when Atlas shrugs, it makes a lot of stupid people go nuts. That's what's happening in Greece this week. After all the unending ever-increasing assaults on entrepreneurial capitalism by Washington for decades, November 4 has turned out to be the last straw. Electing Zero is what it took for Atlas to shrug in America, with one result the huge increase in unemployment since the election. Massive job losses are only the start of bad news in 2009. Zero hasn't a clue of how to create wealth. Like all liberals, he only thinks of how to steal it ("redistribution" is just a liberal euphemism for "theft") from those who have created it and give it to those who have not for personal political gain. But what happens when the creators of wealth stop creating, so the thieves no longer can continue stealing and the moochers can no longer live off stolen wealth? That was the question asked and answered by Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. There is now the very real possibility that America is going to live through the answer in the coming Zero years - and that what is happening to Greece this week is going to come to our shores starting next year.
IT WON’T BE A NICE WORLD FOR MR. O
Warnings about the foreign challenges the Obama administration will face early on focus on the usual suspects - al Qaeda, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia and, not least, the global solvency crisis. While each of these issues demands serious attention, the crises abroad that shocked, consumed or defined a succession of presidencies came "out of the blue." Focused on ending our Indochina war, Richard Nixon was blindsided by an oil-price shock (thanks to our eternal buddies, the Saudis). Jimmy Carter literally woke up to find the Soviets in Afghanistan - and our embassy staff held hostage in Iran, a collapsed ally. Ronald Reagan faced the Beirut Marine-barracks bombing. Somalia panicked Bill Clinton; Rwanda embarrassed him - and the rise of al Qaeda paralyzed him. W got 9/11. For Mr. Obama, too, the first international crisis could be something that not one of us foresees (although, as always, events will seem obvious in hindsight). But there are also a number of potential crises hiding in broad daylight - and ignored.
ZEROCARE
As the TTP Weekly Report was being delivered to your inbox last Friday afternoon (12/05), thanks to our fine TTP staff, I was undergoing abdominal surgery at Akta Medika, a small private hospital in Sevlievo, Bulgaria. I'm writing this from a hospital bed there right now. Abdominal surgery is a serious matter, especially when it's done to repair the errors of a previous surgery ten years ago. So I didn't come here just because it's 1/20th of the cost in the US. I came because it's better. That's not a putdown of American physicians - but it sure is of American medicine, so completely hamstrung by government rules and regulations, the nonsense of "third-party providers," and protections of medical monopolies like the AMA: the antithesis of free market medicine. Yet if you think it's bad now, wait until you see what Zerocare does to it. This is not the place to discuss the specifics of how the government makes medical care in the US ridiculously expensive, complicated, and obsolete. It is, rather, to discuss the opportunities for you to avoid - and even profit from - the mess that Zero will make so much worse with his and Teddy Chappaquiddick Kennedy's "Universal Health Care" health fascism. And to explain the "flanking movement" Republicans can make to provide an alternative to Zerocare health fascism, saving Medicare hundreds of billions of dollars in so doing.
THE ZERO WHITE HOUSE AS A TARGET-RICH ENVIRONMENT
Are we having fun yet? We might as well try, amidst the multiple looming disasters awaiting our economy and our country - not to mention a lot of other countries as well - with the Zero White House running Washington. One way to do so is to look at Zero's new home as a target-rich environment. Here's target number one. "Zero," of course, is an alternate name for the individual we called NMP - Not My President - shortly after November 4. Now it's turning out that vast multitudes don't look upon him as their president either, due to this crazy controversy over his birth certificate. Crazy because producing a verifiably genuine birth certificate should be the simplest thing in the world to do, instantly squashing the controversy. Yet Zero won't produce it, allowing the issue to metastasize to the point of full page ads in the Chicago Tribune.
MUMBAI AND THE SILIGURI GAP
Before we get started, let's first dispense with this stupid name of "Mumbai." The place is Bombay and that's what we'll call it. The city was created and named by the British East India Company in 1668, after the Hindi name for the area, Bambai. It was just typical politically correctness to rename it in a local dialect (Marathi). As Bombay was created by the Brits, so was all of India as a unified nation, as they stitched together hundreds of small kingdoms and petty statelets ruled by Hindu rajahs and Moslem sultans. It was not stitched well. Thus the question to ask in the wake of the Bombay terrorism just committed by Moslem proto-hominids is: will it precipitate India's unraveling? One place to look for the answer is far away from Bombay, called the Siliguri Gap.
THE NO INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES
One item of thankful good news as we're buffeted by the Dow Jones' death-spiral, reports of the domestic automakers' incipient demise, and ever-more-assertive testing by various adversaries of the not-yet-inaugurated "young president": Thomas Fingar is leaving the building on Beech Street NW in Washington DC. Tom Fingar's is not, of course, exactly a household name. Nor is the building he will depart a publicly recognized fixture in Washington's official real estate. Still, when the history of the Iranian nuclear threat - and all that flows from it - is written, his dismal tenure as Deputy Director for Analysis in the Office of National Intelligence will figure prominently. After all, at a critical moment in the Bush administration, as evidence mounted in late 2007 of the true and ominous nuclear weapons ambitions of an Iranian regime that professed an interest only in peaceful nuclear energy, Fingar was instrumental in producing one of history's most politicized and misleading National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs). Under Fingar, NIE really should stand for No Intelligence Estimate. Including the one he issued just before his departure, "Global Trends 2025."
THE LAST THANKSGIVING
Can Democrats Celebrate Thanksgiving? was a good question to ask four years ago, November 2004, after George Bush had defeated John Kerry. It's still a good question to ask on this Thanksgiving in 2008. Certainly they are thankful that their man won this time - but are they thankful for America? Can they really stop their incessant whining and guilt-mongering about what happened to the Indians, about slavery and poverty and racism, finally now? Has America at last redeemed itself in their eyes by electing their Messiah? The purpose of Thanksgiving is to be thankful for being American. This is the day to celebrate the goodness of our country - the moral goodness, the moral decency of American institutions, American history, and the character of the American people. It's easy for conservatives to do this - it comes natural to us. It's the opposite for liberals, who relish and revel in guilt-mongering. For their sake, for all of our sakes, let's hope they can be truly thankful for America, because it may be their and our last opportunity to do so. This could be our Last Thanksgiving.