FLASHBACK FRIDAY: THE TURFAN OASIS
The Turfan Oasis in East Turkestan is far older than the Silk Road. Sitting in the Turfan Depression, second lowest on earth at over 500 feet below sea level) with a climate perfect for agriculture (like grapes for wine!), it was first settled by the Caucasian Tocharians some 4,000 years ago.
Over time it was absorbed into various empires ruling the Tarim Basin encircling the empty Takla Makan desert – proto-Mongols, the Tang Dynasty, the expanded Tibetan Empire at its height in the700s AD, Buddhist Uyghurs, and Genghiz’s Mongols. By the 1400s, the people of Turfan were mostly Buddhist or Nestorian Christian. By the end of the 15th century, they were ruled by the Moslem Moghuls who converted them to Islam.
Turfan was a key trading oasis on the Northern Silk Road which Marco Polo’s father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo traversed in 1266 to meet Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan. (Marco’s route with them in 1271 took the less-traveled Southern Silk Road underneath or south of the Takla Makan). I traversed both Silk Roads in 2008. Here I am at the Emin Minaret in Turfan. It’s a fabulous place to explore. Maybe some day again? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #239 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KATIE HOBBS PROJECTED TO WIN ARIZONA GOVERNORS RACE WITH 108% OF PRECINCTS REPORTING
Katie Hobbs, advocate of the Josef Dzhugashvilli Voting System
Babylon Bee News Bulletin -- PHOENIX, AZ — In a stunning outcome to a highly scrutinized race, Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Secretary of State who counts the votes, has emerged victorious after 108% of the state's voting precincts reported in. Though mathematicians were puzzled by the plausibility — and, indeed, possibility — of the results, Democrats were quick to hail Hobbs's win as a victory for democracy itself.
"We knew things looked really bad for weeks leading up to election night, what with abysmal approval ratings for our party, Americans feeling negatively about the overall direction of the country, and Ms. Hobbs being afraid to debate her opponent or even appear in public," said Hobbs's campaign spokesperson Hailey Barber-Berger-Jorgensen. "But we felt very confident that once we got our vote tallies from all 108% of precincts, including those in other states and overseas, we would come out victorious."
Republicans were quick to point out that it's not actually possible to have more votes than voters. Democrats roundly condemned them for denying an election that was 8% more democratic than the last election.
At publishing time, Arizona election officials had notified all voting precincts that their tallies would not be needed and it was time to install even more drop-boxes for the 2024 election.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/18/22
Just as the motto on the New York Times masthead – “All the news that’s fit to print” – is mendacious, so is WaPo’s. That’s why the sardonic meme above best describes the 2022 midterms farce.
Democracy in America really did die in darkness as election results have trickled in since Nov 8. How this happened is simple – the 2022 Midterms were The Voldemort Elections.
J.K. Rowling’s character of Voldemort, as Harry Potter’s arch-nemesis, strikes such fear within the wizard world that his name cannot be spoken, only referred to as He Who Cannot Be Named.
It is the same phenomenon the GOP world, in fear of being cursed as Election Deniers – an absolutely brilliant locution tainting all those who claim the 2020 presidency was rigged and stolen from Trump as on a despicable moral level as Holocaust Deniers. So brilliant that it worked like a black magic charm in 2022.
There’s only one thing to do about it.
LUANGWA LAGOON SUNSET
It’s hard to find a better example of the glory of nature than here – a lagoon off the Luangwa River in Africa’s Zambia. It’s also hard to believe I took this picture just a few days ago – and now I’m back home, and Africa so far away.
It was so fulfilling, so rewarding for me, over the past weeks, to provide a life-memorable experience of real Africa to eight TTPers – they’ll never forget it ever. I plan to be here again soon – perhaps you’ll be with me. There’s a primordial magic in Africa that grips your soul like nowhere else. The wisdom of those most familiar with the world is: “If you can visit only two continents in your life, go to Africa – twice.” (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #145 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 11/17/22
George Gascon – from Havana to LA
And just when you thought that the 'Crats' election shenanigans couldn't become more blatant. “Soros DA” George Gascon is an America-hating Castro Communist from Havana who got the LA County Clerk to invalidate enough recall petition signatures (27%!) last August to prevent his recall. Election-rigging is hard-wired into Los Angeles.
LA's 'Soros DA' Gets Charges Dropped Against Election Software CEO
This FBI whistleblower has a lot to say:
The FBI's Transformation, From National Police To Domestic Spy Agency
WHAT WOULD HE THINK OF US?
This Xikrin-Kayapo tribesman and his people live in the deepest heart of the Brazilian Amazon on tributaries of the Xingu River. You wonder what he would think of us as panic, fear, and madness engulfs our civilization. Having spent time in his village not long ago, I’m confident he would simply shake his head in bewilderment and say, “Please just let us live our lives in our forest, that’s all we want.”
True indigenous tribes who keep to their traditional way of life are so rare now in the Amazon or anywhere else where they once flourished. Each one is a precious living cultural heritage of humanity. It is such a privilege when they share their way of life with you. They deserve to have their wish granted, as my tribesman friend would express it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #4 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
DONALD TRUMP’S ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH FOR 2024 STRIKES THE RIGHT TONE
Well, it is official. President Donald Trump is making another run at the White House in 2024. In front of a crowd at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Trump gave a speech in which he excoriated the ineptitude of the Biden administration while striking a hopeful message for the future.
There can be no doubt that Trump’s speech has already caused immense triggering on the left. Indeed, The Washington Post published an article titled “Trump, who as president fomented an insurrection, says he is running again” during the former president’s speech.
WaPo is sooooooooo mad right now. pic.twitter.com/ymsq7WjLtC
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) November 16, 2022
During his speech, Trump reminded the audience of the prosperity America enjoyed under his presidency. He said:WILL TRUMP RIDE OFF INTO THE SUNSET OR PLAY THE TRAGIC HERO?
After the midterms, the Republican Party and half of the conservative movement are now furious with Donald Trump. Their writs are many — even though the party establishment shares much of the blame.
Indeed, in near hysterical fashion, Trump became stigmatized and scapegoated as the culprit for nearly every Republican race lost. Yet many of his endorsed candidates won. And some who lost did so quite independently of anything Trump said or did.
An unspoken paradox arose among many that Trump’s vital MAGA agenda might be better continued and advanced by those others than its creator — even as Trump insisted that there can no more be a MAGA party without him than there could be sunshine without the sun.
One explanation of the Trump dilemma is that like all classical tragic heroes and western gunslingers, Trump solved problems through means unpalatable to those in need of solutions beyond their own refinement. It is the lot of such tragic figures to grate and wear out their welcome with their beneficiaries — but only after their service is increasingly deemed no longer needed.
In this moment of wishing the wounded Shane would ride off into the Tetons and leave the more civilized alone, we should remember Trump’s four historical accomplishments that will only grow in light of Biden’s subsequent disastrous four years.
WE’RE GETTING PLAYED WHEN IT COMES TO WHO’S THE REAL 2022 WINNER
Following the dismal midterm showing, there’s a lot of blame to go around.
While I can and will sum up the issue, I want to focus more narrowly on the way in which the entire Republican machine is turning from Trump, who is now anathema, to Ron DeSantis, who is the new god.
Considering that we still have a long time before the primaries and then the 2024 election, this kind of decision-making is premature and dangerous—and that’s why we’re being forced into it.
Here's a short list of leading blame topics:
GUILTY CONSCIENCES? DEMOCRATS SUDDENLY PUT ON A REPUBLICAN SKIN SUIT
Less than a week after Democrats "won" most of the midterm election, something pretty weird is going on in various Democrat power centers, in a curiously counterintuitive pattern of acts and weather balloons.
In three instances below, we see Democrats starting to act like Republicans, adopting the Republican line, which is strange stuff, given that they insist they "won" the election in what they claimed was a voter mandate for their current style of governance -- despite poll after poll confirming Joe Biden's unpopularity and voters convinced that America is on the wrong track.
Elsewhere Democrat after Democrat is suddenly moderating their stance, adapting the Republican agenda on enforcing the open border, doing something about crime, and firing up oil production. What’s going on?