Dr. Jack Wheeler
GLOBAL WARMING AND BLACK HOLES: THE PARANOIA CONNECTION
That the Farmer's Almanac is now predicting global cooling is a pretty good indication that the glo-warming hysteria is coming to an end. The "warming crisis" the media has incessantly tried to shove down people's throats is of little concern to voters. All polls show it is at or near the bottom of voter concerns, and it is rarely addressed by politicians seeking their votes. Which may help to explain the media's current attempt at paranoia-mongering: spreading fears that the entire earth may be swallowed up by a man-made black hole in Switzerland. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva is the largest and most complex machine ever built. Physicists hope to simulate the conditions of the "Big Bang" that created the universe. Such a simulation, the worry goes, could create a tiny black hole that could suck in nearby matter, growing with incredible speed and size until it sucked in and destroyed our entire planet. Here are two reasons why the paranoia is misplaced and will have to wander off to find another target.
PALIN AND THE PROMISE OF AMERICA’S FUTURE
Today, the seventh anniversary of the Islamofascist attack on America of September 11, 2001, we look back to commemorate the lives of our fellow Americans taken by Moslem terrorism on that horrible day. We need also to look back in deepest gratitude for President George Bush and all those in his administration whose Herculean efforts to prevent another such attack upon us have succeeded. It is an incredible accomplishment. Having done so, today is also a good time to look forward, to reflect upon the vastly different futures America faces, based upon what choice her voters make 54 days from now. I won't waste much time on the disaster that future would be for both America and the world should that choice be Barack Hussein Obama. Government spending and taxes would explode, the Dow would fall off a cliff, every dirtbag dictator in the world from Putin to Chavez would expand their power as America became indistinguishable from Euroweenia. I could go on adding to this list of calamities foreign and domestic, but we needn't bother, though, because this future is not going to happen. America's future lies with Sarah Palin and not a lightweight loser who will be lucky to carry California. So let's look at what the promise of that future might be.
SARAHCUDA VS. THE PIAPS: SMACKDOWN IN THE SENATE
Did you know that Slow Joe Biden is up for re-election? Yes, he's running simultaneously for Vice-President and the Senate. You'd think it would have to be one or the other. He's not campaigning much for his seat, as his Republican opponent is some right-wing small town attractive housewife no one every heard of. Does Christine O'Donnell remind you of anyone? Christine may become known as the Sarah Palin of Delaware soon, once the two join forces at a campaign rally in the Blue Hen state. As you read this, every Republican House and Senate candidate in the country is begging for Sarah to campaign for them. There's no way she has time to help out all but a small handful of House hopefuls, so she'll be concentrating on the Senate's. For very good reason. As Vice-President, constitutionally she'll be President of the Senate.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/05/08
To call this a half-full report this week would be ridiculous. Even an "overflowingly full report" wouldn't come close. Think of that famous picture of the Spindletop oil gusher, only it's a gusher of good news. That's more like it. The gusher starts with the world's most famous woman. Mark this week as when Omania fizzled out. O stands for Over. There's little to add about Sarah right now except to stand back in awe, and contemplate the blessings of Providence upon America. That, and order a case of Alaska IPA, a great beer brewed in Juneau within sight of Governor Palin's office... ... Onto Russia. While Euroweenia is proclaiming Czar Putin to be the world's most powerful man, smart folks here in DC are examining his many vulnerabilities. Russia needs to be broken apart like the Soviet Union... ... For three years - since September 2005! - you've known why man-made global warming is a myth. Solar Warming explained the mechanism of warming, of how the sun's magnetic activity (of which sun spots are a sign) effects cloud formation on earth. The bottom line is: no sun spots mean a cooler earth, lots of sun spots mean a warmer earth. This week, astronomers announced that for the first time in 100 years, an entire month has passed without a single sunspot. This is bad news for advocates of the glo-warming religion, and thus good news for advocates of freedom from fascist control over our lives. But it's also bad news for our planet.
PROTECTING AMERICA’S SWEETHEART
America - real America - is in love. I know I sure am, and I have a lot of company. Yes, it's platonic love. After all, she's married and faithful (and so am I!). Nonetheless, I, like so many millions of Americans, have fallen head over heels in love with Sarah Palin. She is America's Sweetheart. Say goodnight, Bar..., Ber..., Buh..., what's that guy's name again? That guy is so, like, over. So yesterday, like the tax-and-spend welfare state liberal-leftie cant he espouses. Obambi represents the past. Sarah represents the future. Which is why my deepest, most passionate desire regarding Sarah Palin is that President Bush order a doubling of the Secret Service detail to protect her. And then we provide some backup. The pathologically deranged smears of the hate-America moonbats this week have only served to increase enthusiasm and sympathy for her. The moonbats are in a state of panicked rage because they rightly see in her the capacity to destroy all the myths that give meaning to their angry little lives. Which means their vicious verbal attacks on her person are going to turn physical. There are going to be attempts on her life. I don't want to bum out the celebrating, the elation, the thrill over Sarah - but she has got to be protected.
AMERICA’S VICTORY IN IRAQ, OBAMA’S SHAME AND DEFEAT
A hurricane smacks the Big Easy again. Back-to-back political conventions. A surprise VP pick. Russians behaving like Russians . . . All too easy to miss the biggest story out of Iraq this year: Yesterday, security responsibility for once-bloody Anbar Province officially passed from the US military to the Baghdad government. Fallujah. Ramadi. Al Qaeda's worst atrocities. Those opposed to the liberation of Iraq celebrated years of headlines from Anbar. Then it all changed: We won - and the headlines vanished. That's because a story of victory in Iraq is also a story of shameful defeat for Barack Hussein Obama.
SARAH! A SURPRISE TO THE WORLD BUT NOT TO TTP’ERS
What did that guy say standing in front of that phony cardboard Greek Temple a couple of nights ago in Denver? Nobody remembers, nobody cares. Because everybody is talking about somebody else, the most exciting political surprise of modern times. In fact, the only people on earth not surprised were readers of To The Point. On June 4, 2008, TTP's Jack Kelly - whom TTP'ers in the Forum have now dubbed "Nostradamus" - wrote Fire and Nice for McCain's VP. Her high school basketball teammates called her Sarah Barracuda. Her fellow beauty contestants for Miss Alaska named her Miss Congeniality. Fire & Nice. Nostradamus Kelly takes political acumen and prescience to a whole new level. Isn't it odd that a VP pick now being universally described by conservatives as "brilliant" and "inspired" came as such as surprise. Well, we at To The Point are happy to describe Jack Nostradamus Kelly as brilliant and inspired! So - the first question that comes to mind to ask Dems and Omaniacs is: Do you have any idea how large a full-grown bull moose is?
NOT IN DENVER
That's where I am this week - not in Denver. That's where I encourage you to be as well. When Hussein Nobama gives his ridiculous Greek Temple speech today, I will literally be underwater - scuba diving off a small island in the Caribbean called Saba (say-bah). It's a funky little place most have never heard of, a mountaintop in the sea, so steep it has no beaches and no rivers. Saba's population of 1200, many of whom are descended from pirates six and seven generations ago, make do with rainwater. They live in tiny homes clustered in tiny hamlets in high mountain valleys around the island. The people are wonderfully friendly and gracious, there's no crime of any kind, the food is great, the beer is cheap, and the diving incredible - one of the best in the world. What better place to completely ignore whatever craziness there is going on in the world, particularly the Democrat craziness in Denver?
OBAMAS FAVORITE MOSLEM
As the Democrat Convention's carefully-scripted coronation of perhaps the least qualified major party presidential candidate in recent American history builds up to its climax, few have noticed that the convention's most pregnant political message may have already been delivered before it officially started. It came in the form of a decision by Obama's campaign to feature the president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Ms. Ingrid Mattson, at an "Interfaith Gathering" of Leftist religious luminaries the day before the convention opened (8/24). In doing that, Obama and the Democrat leadership rather demonstratively bestowed their seal of approval on the largest and most important front organization of the American Muslim Brotherhood, a conspiratorial Islamist revolutionary movement dedicated, in their own words, to "a grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands." The implications of this political legitimization of a group dedicated to the destruction of our constitutional order are so profoundly disturbing that some background on what exactly ISNA and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) or Ikhwan Muslimi are is in order.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/22/08
We start with the revelation that there is a solid scientific reason for calling this the Half-Full Report. Psychological researchers have studied silver and bronze medal winners over the last several Olympics. It turns out that, on average, the bronze winners were happier than the silver. Those that won the silver were filled with regret that they didn't win the gold, while those that won the bronze were happy they got a medal at all rather than nothing for finishing fourth. The lead researcher, Dr. Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University, summed up the lesson learned: "The key to understanding happiness is not to think about it as a trait but as a talent. Happy people have a talent - they are able to argue that life is a glass half full." Happy people look at life as a glass half-full. Yes, that is exactly the purpose of the Half-Full Report! It's good to have science behind the reason. *** Wasn't it so much fun this week watching Obambi get the crap beat out of him by a woman and an old man? The HFR's description last April of him as a pussy sure is turning out to be spot on:
EVERNOTE
Have you heard of this little applet called Evernote? It is a great little utility that can store your places of interest, images and information on any platform or device. It also makes it accessible plus searchable at anytime from anywhere. For instance, you find yourself at an airport parking lot and you will be gone for several weeks. Just take your cell phone and snap an image of your parking spot with row etc. Perhaps you are at an unusual event and want to record information about the gathering - just record it and send it to Evernote. Business cards, wine labels, to do lists and many other possibilities are at your fingertips. The slickest thing about Evernote is that it searches text within images So if you have three dozen business cards imaged on the site, you can search through them for your targeted info. Did I mention that it's free?
THE O-MAN: THOSE 398 WORDS THAT WENT VIRAL
Last June, I wrote O=Zero, offering an O=Zero bumpersticker (there's also an O=Zero T-shirt). Somebody, I haven't the foggiest idea who, excerpted 398 words from the article and emailed all his (or her) friends, who proceeded to do the same with their friends. When this happens exponentially, and the email ends up in umpteen gazillion inboxes so that people tell you "this is the fourth time I've been sent this!", it is said to "go viral." An example of how viral is that a columnist for Townhall, Doug Giles wrote a column about it . He starts by saying:
A buddy of mine in Texas sent a friend of his, an Obama backer, a devastating article written by Dr. Jack Wheeler in which he spotlights in 398 words the fact that Barack, in reality, is much different from the fabricated Jesus image the Dim-o-crats would have us worship. Yes, in just a few keystrokes Wheeler deftly dismembered the notion spun by the scribes of Obama that he is the fresh breeze blowing in our land and reveals, instead, that Barack is a typical uberliberal slim shady politician who simply blows.The funny thing is, he continues on about Obambi but never quotes a single one of my "398 words"! So I thought that, just in case you've had your inbox turned off lately or are one of the rare folk who haven't been sent this, you'd like to see all 398.
JACK ABRAMOFF’S OCTOBER SURPRISE FOR JOHN MCCAIN
As Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, it was John McCain who launched the investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Those investigations provided the springboard for the incredible media frenzy of the "Abramoff lobbying scandals." The Washington Post, for example, ran over 50 above-the-fold front page headline stories on Abramoff to feed the frenzy. Jack Abramoff is in jail today because of John McCain. Now it's payback time. Abramoff will be setting off a bombshell timed to do maximum damage to his nemesis right before the election. And in so doing, he will be ripping the lid off and exposing the dirtiest secret of how Washington really works. The way it works is like this.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/15/08
Could there possibly be a glass half-full of anything worth drinking during this horrific week when the Cold War has been bloodily re-ignited? Yes, actually. So let's take our bottle of Polish Vyborova vodka out of the freezer for a chilled martini (just a spray of vermouth, please), and raise a toast to the latest Czar of Russia for being such an idiot to invade Georgia. For all the grudging praise of what a "genius" Czar Vlad is, let's ask: if you were him, if you were bent on reestablishing Russia as an imperial superpower so intimidating that all your neighbors and every leader of Euroweenia would lick your boots - who would you want as President of the United States, Obama or McCain? It's a rhetorical question, isn't it?
THE THREE WORD SOLUTION
Solution to what? Defeating Russian imperialism, defeating Saudi Wahhabism and Moslem terrorism, defeating Moslem crazies in Iran making nukes, defeating Luddite environmentalists, defeating Democrats determined to hamstring our economy and national security. How's that for starters? What would do all of this? Three words: crash oil prices. Crashing oil prices to, say, below $40 a barrel, should therefore be the number one priority of American national security. Yet any attempt to lower oil prices is blocked by Democrats in Congress and lawsuits by their environmentalist allies. Exhibit A as evidence is their hysterical refusal to allow oil and gas drilling in Alaska and offshore. Exhibit B is their hysterical refusal to allow the construction of new oil refineries - there hasn't been a new one built since 1976. So - is there something the President could do, is there an Executive Order he could issue, that could circumvent Congress and the enviro-lawyers to crash oil prices? Let's start answering with another question: Who is the single biggest purchaser of oil in the world?
GEORGIA CAN BE PUTIN’S AFGHANISTAN
Time to stop the hand-wringing about Russia's re-igniting the Cold War by invading Georgia. Time to start thinking of what a golden opportunity this presents. First the reality. Russia, before, during, and after the Soviet Union was and remains a brutal imperialist dictatorship. The Soviet Union was simply the same old Czarist Russian imperialism with Marxism-Leninism as an ideological rationale. The fall of the USSR only meant the fall of the rationale. So Russia is back to where it has always been, with the Russian compulsion for brute force bullying as its way of dealing with the world. It is no accident, comrades, that Russians were the Soviets, and it is no surprise whatever that they are behaving like Soviets in Georgia today. Thus the fundamental reality of how to conduct foreign policy with Russia, however distasteful it may be to the squishes at the State Department chronically afflicted with terminal testicular atrophy: The only thing Russians in the Kremlin understand and respect is superior force and the willingness to use it against them. If you don't give them a punch in the mouth and a bloody nose the moment they start to bully you, they will keep bullying you until you start fighting back hard - or you capitulate and obey their orders. It's either-or, win-lose. Those are their rules. The golden opportunity Putin is giving us by invading Georgia is that it gives us the perfect excuse to play by his rules.
THE PHONY, BRUTAL, SLOPPY, AND INEPT INVASION OF GEORGIA
Russia is continuing its invasion of free, democratic Georgia with overwhelming military force. Given the raw power Russia has been willing to apply, there's no question as to which side will win. But one of the many untold stories of this fateful war is how poorly Russian forces are performing - despite careful planning and extensive preparations. Putin, currently in his "Wolfschanze" in Vladikavkaz, must be especially furious with his pride and joy, the Russian air force. The inept performance of the Russian air force may have been the most striking feature of the war thus far. Again, numbers alone guarantee a Russian win. The abysmal performance of Russian pilots has been on display for all the world to see - although, once again, the media don't understand what they're witnessing.
THE RUSSIAN RAPE OF GEORGIA
As I write this in the early morning hours of August 9, Russian tanks grind into a brave and isolated democratic state. Assuming that the world's attention would focus on Beijing, Moscow stage-managed an elaborate act of aggression against Georgia. But the world has changed since Soviet tanks rolled unchallenged into Afghanistan at Christmastime 29 years ago. Global communications now spotlight aggression instantly. Yesterday, millions around the world didn't watch the Olympic opening ceremonies (the Chinese must be furious at the Russians). Instead, they saw images of Soviet - sorry, I meant Russian - aircraft pounding Georgian territory as Russian armor rolled over the Caucasus Mountains. So let's discuss the background, what just happened, and what happens next.
HALF FULL REPORT 08/08/08
This week we'll be talking a lot about numbers. It's a mark of a primitive brain to be superstitious about particular ones, to believe that certain numbers are "lucky" or "unlucky." For all their vaunted rationality, most Chinese for example have a Stone Age superstition that the number 8 brings good fortune. So they quite purposefully are having their Olympics begin today, 08/08/08, precisely at 8:08pm Beijing time. People with primitive beliefs are vulnerable. If the Chicom Olympics don't live up to expectations, don't bring China the world's adoration and respect, then the Chicoms risk losing the "Mandate of Heaven" - the superstitious belief that fate favors them. Watch the Games unfold over the next two weeks with that context in mind. There's a lot more drama going on than just in the athletic contests. *** Now for fun with numbers. Magic numbers. The most magic number in America right now is 112.
THE EVIL EMPIRE OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Ronald Reagan first condemned the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando Florida on March 8, 1983. Publicly naming the explicit nature of Soviet imperialism provided the necessary focus for those of us working on a strategy to rid the world of it - a strategy the press called the Reagan Doctrine. Less than eight years after President Reagan spoke those immortal words, the Soviet Union was no more. Ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin is determined to resurrect this evil empire with oil billions, gangster capitalism, and Russian thuggery. But Russia is dying demographically and by 2015 half the Russian Army will be Moslem. By 2020 or maybe before, the eastern half of Russian Siberia will be Chinese Siberia (TTP, November 2006). Russia has no future beyond ephemerally high oil prices. Once they crash, so does Russia. So is there an heir to the title of Evil Empire in this new century? Yes. It is China. One principal reason is that the internal structure of the former Soviet Union and China are the same. One benefit of the Beijing Olympics is to make that blindingly clear.
DESTROYER OF THE GULAG BUT NO LOVER OF FREEDOM
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who died Sunday (8/03) of heart failure at age 89, was a titan in Russian literature and politics of the 20th century. He survived the Stalinist purges, World War II, eight years in the gulag, a successful battle with cancer, and communist denunciation. After spending 18 years exiled in America, he made a triumphant return to his homeland in 1994. Mr. Solzhenitsyn's life was full of contradictions. Together with another giant, Russian Nobel Prize winning physicist Andrei Sakharov and fellow dissidents, he contributed greatly to the exposure of totalitarian socialism's moral bankruptcy. However, he was a harsh critic of liberal democracy, and of America, despite the fact that it gave him shelter and protection during his difficult years of exile. A Harvard commencement speech in which he accused Americans of hedonism and cowardice became a scandal. While his family became U.S. citizens, he refused to do so. Russia today probably approaches Mr. Solzhenitsyn's ideal.
WHAT HAPPENED TO JUSTICE IN AMERICA?
What happened to justice in America? It certainly wasn't served on July 28 when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the unjust convictions of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. During the appellate court's hearing on December 3, 2007, the judges exhibited a disapproving posture towards the government's case. My communications director, Tara Setmayer, witnessed one of the appellate judges say first hand, "it does seem the government overreacted" in this prosecution. The judges questioned why the prosecutors "stacked" the charges and got the government's attorney to admit their drug-smuggling star witness "told some lies.". Yet the judges, after almost eight months of deliberation, issued a 46 page ruling in complete contrast to what happened in court. What could have possibly happened between the December 3rd hearing and now?
RUSSIAN MADNESS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
In March 2009, Russia will deploy modern S-300 long-range anti-aircraft missiles in Iran. By June 2009, they will become fully operational, as Iranian teams finish training with Russian instructors, according to U.S. and Russian sources. Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Senate, visited Washington last week. He said Iran is likely to produce a nuclear bomb "soon." Given the blood-curdling rhetoric of its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it is feared that Iran may use it against Israel. The deployment of the anti-aircraft shield next spring effectively limits the window in which Israel or the United States can conduct an effective aerial campaign aimed at destroying, delaying or crippling the Iranian nuclear program.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/01/08
This week it became abundantly clear what a certain megalomaniacal naïve neophyte narcissist presidential aspirant should most appropriately be named. Predecessor names have been Obambi, The Obamarama, Obamessiah, The One, and The Child - the latter due to the rumor that when in Israel last month, he made a secret visit to Bethlehem to see where he thinks he was born. They are all obsolete now, because as of this week, he shall henceforth be called: Egobama. A proverb of the ancient Greeks applies to Egobama: He whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive crazy. For the Greeks, it was a particular kind of craziness that caused self-destruction: hubris. Not rational earned pride but lunatic self-importance, egomania. *** The HFR breathes a sigh of relief that at last the invertebrate incompetent crook running Israel, Ehud Olmert, is stepping down. Getting this despised man out of power has been like trying to pry an abalone off a rock (any diver knows how hard that is). And tragically, he'll still be around for many more months - the mortally critical months from November to January in particular. Those are the months - specifically from November 5 to January 19 - between the US election and inauguration. That's when Bush will have a fully free hand to conduct a US strike, or assist an Israeli strike, on Iran. *** Should the HFR raise a glass to coincidences? Like the coincidence between the Half-Full Report 07/16/08 revealing the CIA-ISI-Taliban-opium nexus and the CIA leaking to the New York Times two weeks later (7/30) a story about the Pakistan ISI links to the Afghan Taliban? Isn't it funny how all of a sudden, right after but never before - for years never before - the To The Point revelation, there's a flurry of big time media stories denouncing the ISI-Taliban connection? How about this headline in the Washington Post today (8/01): U.S. Officials: Pakistani Agents Helped Plan Kabul Bombing. Even funnier is how CIA Deputy Director Stephen Kappes is doing the CYA Dance after the TTP revelation, leaking these stories. What's not funny is that it's all smoke and mirrors.
THE CHINESE MIRACLE ON CAPITOL HILL
A miracle took place on Capitol Hill yesterday, July 31, 2008. Democrats and Republicans in the House united on a vote of 419-1 to explicitly and in itemized detail condemn the Chicom government of China. The single lone Congressman to vote No was Ron Paul (R-TX) - demonstrating once again that his total incapacity to defend America against its foreign enemies is why his presidential campaign failed. House Resolution 1370 is the most pro-American statement of Congress in modern times. For it is China that is and will be the greatest national security threat to America for the foreseeable future. Far more than Islamic crazies running around chanting allahallahallah, and believing that blowing themselves up will somehow force the world back into the 7th century. To The Point is thus pleased to provide the full text of H. Res. 1370. It is an astounding compendium of Chicom perfidy.
THE DESTROYER OF AMERICA
A rally in Berlin in front of a quarter-million glistening-eyed, bosom-clenching, swooning Germans is a historically awkward spot for a leader to proclaim his worldwide goals for tomorrow. But that's where Barack Hussein Obama chose to declare: "The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between natives and immigrants cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down. We know that these walls have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a union of promise and prosperity." That last sentence would suggest that Obama is not terribly keen about nation-states - ours in particular. That is why, presumably, he says that we must tear down the walls between the countries "with the most" -- that would be the United States -- and those with the least. That is why he calls for tearing down walls between "natives and (illegal?) immigrants."
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/25/08
Yes, it's the Breck Boy, making headlines in Tuesday's (7/22) National Enquirer: Sen John Edwards Caught with Mistress and Love Child. And get a load of the mistress' picture. Isn't she a looker? Can you imagine waking up next to that? Last October, the Enquirer ran a story about Edwards cheating on his wife, whose cancer he was milking for the sympathy vote during his presidential campaign. But the Enquirer never revealed her name, so her identity came as a big surprise to the public when it was revealed now. A surprise to the public - but not to you. For the day after that first NE story, on October 11, 2007 you learned her identity in The Breck Boy Is Cleared From The Presidential Field. She's a New Age Bimbo named Lisa Druck, who now goes by the name of Rielle Hunter. But as a TTP'er, you already knew that - a long time ago. The HFR raises its goblet of glee that the Breck Boy has been cleared from the vice-presidential field. *** Now let's have a beer on the beach - Huntington Beach in Orange County, California, where the Republican Party will triumph or die in November.
GOOD NEWS FROM BULGARIA
I fell in love with Bulgaria when I was first there as the Soviet empire was collapsing in early 1990. There's thousands of years of history - Bronze Age tribes, the Ancient Greeks, the Romans, medieval Christian kingdoms, hidden monasteries protecting Christianity from centuries of Moslem oppression by the Ottoman Turks, finally gaining independence in 1908 only to lose it to the Soviet Union during World War II, and now free at last. And all through this, Bulgarians forged and kept a Christian culture and heritage. Hundreds of thousands of people come from all over the world to visit the extraordinary monasteries such as Rila the Bulgarians built to preserve their culture from Moslem imperialism. Even more visitors - millions in the height of the summer - come to vacation on the gorgeous beaches of Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. In the winter, skiers flock to ski resorts high in the Balkans. It's a country of such profusion of flowers everywhere there's an entire valley called the Valley of Roses. You couldn't ask for a more hospitable warm-hearted people - or ask for a better way to be shown hospitality, for Bulgarians really know how to make good wine and are more than happy to share a glass with you at every opportunity. And speaking of opportunity... There are more opportunities to make a lot of money in Bulgaria than almost anywhere else in the world. Especially because a major obstacle of those opportunities was removed this week.
TALL, SLENDER, INCOMPREHENSIBLE, AND SIMPLISTIC
Watching Obama glide through his foreign trip so far, nervous Republicans and other patriots have to hope that American voters will not view Obama through the eyes of a Hollywood casting director. That's because one could not cast a man who visually can portray a worldly statesman better. We all must envy his ability to effortlessly drape his tall, imperially slender form in gilded Louis XV chairs in foreign palaces. Mixing just the right combination of worldly bonhomie and serious mien, his presentation (conveniently presented to the world with video but no audio) make, by comparison, Henry Kissinger, FDR and Winston Churchill all look like clumsy provincial oafs. The visual is everything in his campaign, for when he does submit himself to the occasional press interview, his actual words read in print must make his handlers as nervous as his visual images make Republicans nervous. His discussion of his Iraq policy is almost incomprehensible, and his understanding of the world stunningly simplistic.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE CARBON EMISSIONS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING
I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects. The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet. But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming.
THE REAL OBAMA IN AFGHANISTAN
[Last Saturday, July 19, Barack Hussein Obama paid a brief visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on his way to Kabul. US Marine Battle Captain Jeffrey S. Porter wrote a brief eyewitness account in an email to his family and friends, which To The Point is able to publish here.] Hello everyone, As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram, Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to 'The War Zone'. I wanted to share with you what happened. He got off the plane and got into a bullet proof vehicle, got to the area to meet with the Major General (2 Star) who is the commander here at Bagram. As the Soldiers were lined up to shake his hand he blew them off and didn't say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General.
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/16/08
So many of you have said they miss the Half-Full Report during our summer schedule that I figure I better change the schedule rather than give the HFR a summer hiatus. So here we go, although with so many goodies to choose from, where do we begin? Let's start by trying to decide who gets this week's prize for being The World's Most Wonderful Hypocrite - Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh or the Editors of the New Yorker Magazine. Is there a single person possessing a three-digit IQ on the entire planet who actually believes New Yorker editor David Remnick's claim that his cover cartoon of Obambi as a Moslem imam, Mrs. Obambi as a Black Panther, and them fist-bumping in America-hating admiration of Osama bin Laden is a satire? ...Nonetheless, When it comes to sheer straightforward look-you-in-the-eye hypocrisy, India's leaders leave the guys at the New Yorker in the dust. In lyrical words full of glowarming pieties, they've just announced India will be increasing its CO2 emissions by twenty times in the coming years. ...There's even happier glowarming news. The world's most fascist scientist, the founding guru of global warming and Algore's mentor, James Hansen, may be about to get what he deserves. And now it's time for us to retire to a quiet table off in a corner of the barroom where we can talk and not be overheard. This will be between just you, me, and bottle of Famous Grouse.
WHAT IF, MR. BERNANKE?
What if Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and the other Fed board members actually believe that the Consumer Price Index means the same thing as it did in the 1970s? The Bureau of Labor Statistics (an agency of the Labor Dept.) calculates the CPI, not the Federal Reserve. If the Fed Governors are unaware of the changes since then in how it is calculated, it would explain why they aren't in a panic over the current real consumer inflation rate. It would explain why they really seem to be certain that we are not in a recession. It would also mean that unless they wake up from their time warp, the dollar and our economy are truly doomed.
WEST OF THE DEAD SEA
You're lazily swimming in the Mediterranean Sea just off a beautiful beach. The beach goes on for miles, lined with resort hotels, and it's crowded with people. Young fit men playing volleyball, beautiful bikini-clad young women sunbathing, families relaxing under umbrellas, children making sand castles, multitudes of folks peacefully enjoying themselves in the sun, the sand, and the gentle sea. You swear you're at one of Spain's great beaches, like Valencia, Marbella, or Barcelona. But you've noticed that a small light plane has flown along the shoreline several times. Your son asks, "Dad, why does that plane keep flying by?" "It's an IDF spotter plane," you tell him. "Watching for a boatload full of Arab terrorists who might land to machine gun to death as many Jews on this beach as they can. Stuff like that can happen here anyplace, anytime. That's life in Israel." Nope, we're not in Valencia. We're in Tel Aviv.
THE DEMAGOGUE AND THE PIGEON
Way back last month in June, Barack "middle name not permitted to be mentioned" Obama campaigned on the theme of "Change We Can Believe In." Now, several days later, in July, his theme should be "Change We Can't Keep Up With." Abortion, gun control, capital punishment, FISA laws, the status of Jerusalem, faith-based federal programs, public financing of his campaign, welfare, NAFTA and free trade, and his commitment to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Trinity United Church have all fallen to reconsideration, re-phrasing, changed rhetorical modulation and other semantic miracles. His Iraq position is currently in the process of glissading from "anti" to "pro" - so we will have to wait a while before saying he has actually changed it. Which brings us as it always does in such circumstances to America's greatest fraud-sniffer, H.L. Mencken. He defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."
UPDATES FOR A HAPPY FOURTH
637 million IE Browsers at risk Researchers claim there are 637 million Internet Explorer users at risk, because they are less likely to update their browser for security updates, than Firefox, Safari and Opera users. If this is you, please protect yourself and update now. Independence Day Happy July 4th to all Americans, we have so much to be proud of! People know your Bill of Rights You live in the land of the free, please know your rights! Syllabus of SCOTUS in District of Columbia ET AL. V. HELLER No. 07-290. Argued March 18, 2008-Decides June 26, 2008. America The Beautiful Katharine Lee Bates first wrote this song in 1913. We've all sung the first stanza many times - but there are seven more. For all the stanzas and a history about her, click on the link above.
FREEDOM’S BIRTHDAY 2008
[This was originally in To The Point for July 4, 2004. This is the version for 2008. We at To The Point wish all of you an exceedingly happy Fourth of July.] July 4th is Freedom's Birthday. My suggestion is, amidst the fireworks and barbeques and flag-waving fun - all of which are great - that you take the time to feel good about America. Put aside your worries and concerns, your frustrations and fears about what's wrong with America. For one day, forget the negative - put it all in a zip-lock bag, hide it in the back of the freezer, and pretend it doesn't exist. You travel around the world and you see the remnants of history's great civilizations. You walk through the preserved wreckage of Rome's Imperial Forum or the Acropolis of Ancient Athens and you wonder -- what was it really like to be here when these civilizations were at their peak? You can do that today in Washington DC -- or your hometown. We Americans are privileged to live in one of history's supreme moments. We Americans are participants in one of history's greatest civilizations in its prime. Someday in some future epoch, history will have moved on, and there will be distant centuries between that time and the American Era. People will then look upon America as we do upon ancient Egypt or Greece, and will do so with same wonder and awe. I suggest you look upon America with that wonder and awe now.
EAST OF THE DEAD SEA
The 2,000 year-old Rose Red City of Petra was the religious center of an ancient desert people named Nabataeans. They didn't build huge temples such as this - they carved them out of cliffs of rose-red sandstone in their hidden mountain sanctuary east of the Dead Sea. Their capital was the ancient city of Ammon, known to the Greeks and Romans as Philadelphia, after the Hellenic ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309-246 BC). Nabataea flourished until it was conquered by the Roman Emperor Trajan (53-117 AD). The Nabataeans converted to Christianity and lived as peaceful farmers until they were overrun by Arab invaders in the 7th century who forced them to submit to Islam. They vanished, and so did any memory of Petra until it was discovered by a Swiss explorer, Johann Burckhardt, in 1812. Ammon, pronounced Amman (ah-man vs. ah-mone) by the Arabs, had been reduced to rubble by a series of earthquakes during the Middle Ages, and remained a small village with some Roman ruins for centuries. The entire area east of the Dead Sea was a forgotten desert wasteland, incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in the early 1500s and ignored by the Sultans in Istanbul. And then the history that continues to shake our world today began...
A PESHMERGA’S QUESTION
This is Mir Mokhsen, a Peshmerga or Kurdish freedom fighter who has fought in hundreds of battles for Kurdish freedom for half a century. He has faced Saddam Hussein's tanks, Russian-made helicopter gunships, chemical weapons and poison gas, the unspeakable brutality of Saddam's soldiers countless times - and survived. He has never given up. Never. This revered warrior has a question for you: As an American, the freedom he has risked his life so much for has been given to you - so what are you doing to preserve it? Mir Mokhsen has heard that there will be a gathering of Americans dedicated to preserving their freedom in Boston at the end of August. He wishes he could attend, but he belongs in the mountains of his beloved Kurdistan. You, on the other hand, belong in Boston, where the American Revolution began. The To The Point Revolutionary Rendezvous is August 22-24. Don't disappoint Mir Mokhsen. Don't disappoint yourself. Be there and join your fellow TTP'ers for a revolutionary good time. To participate, click on the Rendezvous box in the TTP left side bar, and call TTP General Manager Miko de los Reyes at 703-992-4529 or [email protected]. Please call or email Miko right away. No procrastinating. That means now! After all, you wouldn't want Mir Mokhsen to think you're not a freedom fighter, would you?
THE KURDISH MAP
One of my favorite lecture topics is "The Map of the Future." In a talk I've given to business groups in a number of countries and all over the US, I put a big map of the world up and start describing the map's illusions. I point to Russia, the largest country in the world at 17 million square kilometers (msk, 6.5 million square miles or msms); Canada, the second largest at 10msk, 3.8msm; and Greenland, the world's largest island at 2.2msk, 0.85msm - all totaling 29.2 million square kilometers or 11.3 million square miles. Spread out across the top of the map, they look like they take up half the world. Africa, squat and compact athwart the Equator, looks dwarfed in comparison. Yet in reality, you could fit all of Russia, Canada, and Greenland combined into Africa with room to spare - for Africa exceeds 30 million square kilometers or 11.7 million square miles. The flat world map is a lie. Gigantic Greenland is actually the same size as Saudi Arabia. If you wanted to go directly in a straight line from Gibraltar to the Bering Straits, you wouldn't go across Russia, you'd go across the North Pole. "Now let's talk about another set of lies and illusions on this map," I continue. "These lines drawn all over, which governments of countries call their ‘borders,' and claim they actually exist. They are desperate to keep the illusion that they exercise ‘sovereignty' within their ‘borders' and will do anything to preserve the illusion." The Kurds, at 40 million the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country, are in the geopolitical business of exposing such illusions. To see how, let's take a look at two maps, one from the past, another from a proposed future.