CAN ENOUGH WHISTLE BLOWERS BRING DOWN THE FBI?
Another slew of whistleblowers have come forward with misconduct claims against the FBI following the Bureau's raid on former President Donald Trump's Florida estate.
FBI field offices in Miami, Salt Lake City, Buffalo and Newark face accusations that their upper management coerced agents to sign false affidavits, inflated terrorism caseloads to improve their apparent performance, engaged in illicit sexual activities, or concealed those of others.
“The FBI is completely out of control and its culture and structure needs to change. Not only is the political bias completely out of control and disgustingly obvious, the FBI knows they will not be held accountable for their illegal behavior and misconduct,” said one Whistleblower in a letter to Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Tx) of the House Judiciary Committee.
THE KASBAH OF AÏT BENHADDOU
Aït Benhaddou is a thousand year-old kasbah or fortified village on the ancient trade route from the Sahara to Marrakech in Morocco. It’s constructed entirely of rammed earth, adobe, and wood.
Remember the famous scene in Gladiator where Maximus shouts “Are you not entertained?!” to the bloodthirsty crowd? It was filmed here, as were scenes in many other movies such as “The Jewel of the Nile,” and “The Mummy,” or the series ”The Game of Thrones.”
Yet this is no location set – people live here, scores of families, as they have for a millennium. You’re welcome to come here to see how they live for real – as here Hollywood is far, far away. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #181 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHAT CLIMATE CRISIS?
A new group called Climate Intelligence (Clintel for short) has been founded in the Netherlands with the express purpose of combatting the extremism of the climate change campaigners.
One of their early efforts is a statement, signed by over 1,000 scientists and policy experts from around the world, that argues “There Is No Climate Emergency.”
This link goes to the complete PDF. It contains the following statement, and the names and positions of, to date, 1,107 scientists from Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China & Hong Kong, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and USA.
From 40 countries, they agree on this statement:
RUSSIAS DEMOGRAPHIC COLLAPSE IS ACCELERATING
Most countries are slowly recovering from the disastrous demographic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Russia is not.
Instead, as new data shows, the Russian Federation has resumed its long-term demographic decline, a trend likely to intensify and profoundly affect not only the country’s self-image but also its prospects for economic recovery and fielding a large military.
The Kremlin is currently casting about for ways to limit or reverse this trend, but financial constraints—many of which arise from President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and ideological blinders affecting much of the Russian leadership—are preventing Moscow from making real progress, according to independent demographers.
Many Russians see three demographic trends in particular as incredibly threatening.
KUANG SI
In the jungles of Laos less than 20 miles from the Laotian Royal Capital of Luang Prabang, you will find the entrancing waterfalls of Kuang Si. Multi-layered cascades of emerald green pure water pour into a series of pools ideal for swimming. The warm sun filters through the dark green jungle canopy. The laughter of Laotian children combined with that of the rushing waters adds to a unique serenity. Here is a place that will wash away all your woes. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #185 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY COMMITTING TO LIFE WITHOUT CRISIS
The Leap of Faith – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
I’m used to hearing from people in crisis. As a psychotherapist and life coach, it’s part of my business. It may be a crisis in a marriage, a crisis at work, a financial crisis… There are many places for crises to wreak havoc in our lives.Some crises are unavoidable. We control only so much of what happens in our lives, and sometimes life throws hardship, tragedy, or deeply chaotic circumstances our way. I don’t make light of or gloss over the realities of life; but I do make it my business to help people to avoid unnecessary troubles, and there is one thing that we can do to prevent some of the more predictable crises of life:
Make and hold your positive commitments all the way, without reservation.
Commitment requires a leap of faith. Like Indy’s Leap of Faith to reach the Grail, we are ordering our future without any assurance of what that future will bring. It asks us to remove the safety harness, forgo the escape hatch, burn the ships that could take us back to our familiar life, and believe that we can handle the risks and the rewards of commitment.
DRACULA’S CASTLE
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” described Count Dracula’s home as a castle located high above a gorge perched on a rock in Transylvania’s Carpathian Mountains. And here you are, Bran Castle, built in the late 1300s near the town of Brasov in Romania, and traditionally associated with Vlad Dracula (1428-1477).
His father, Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Dragon), as the ruler of Wallachia (southern Romania), led Christian knights fighting Ottoman Turks called the Order of the Dragon, or “Dracul” in Romanian. His son succeeded him as Dracula – “son of the dragon” – waging war upon the Moslem Ottomans so brutally he became known as “Vlad the Impaler” for impaling his enemies. They began spreading rumors of his being literally bloodthirsty, drinking his enemies’ blood.
Over the centuries since, Vlad Dracula has been celebrated by Romanians as their national hero in his liberation struggle from the Ottomans. But was Bran Castle his home? He had many homes, and was here many times during his campaigns. Visiting Dracula’s Castle is always a highlight of our explorations of Eastern Europe. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #56 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – CLIMBING THE GREAT PYRAMID
Fifty years ago – August 1971 – I was able to climb the Great Pyramid of Cheops all the way to the top. 450 feet high, 4,000 years old, the only one of the original Seven Wonders of the World to still exist, it was my first time in Egypt and I had to give it a go.
Of course, this is illegal. So I waited near sunset and all the tourists had gone, walked around to the northwest corner hidden from most views where there was one lonely guard. I gave him 20 Egyptian pounds which made him very happy, and up I went. Each block at the bottom is about five feet tall and gets smaller as you climb, with over 200 stone layers or “courses” base to apex. The top is flat, about 10-foot square – the limestone casing reaching a point gone long ago.
I was a philosophy doctoral student back then, so I sat down, took out from my daypack Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and read my idol’s wisdom in the light of the setting sun. It was a sunset I’ll never forget, too mesmerized by the moment to take a picture. The photo is of me taken recently where I began my climb of decades ago. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #126 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ABBOTT AND COSTELLO ON UNEMPLOYMENT
COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America
ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It's 5.6%.
COSTELLO: That many people are out of work? ABBOTT: No, that's 23%.
COSTELLO: You just said 5.6%. ABBOTT: 5.6% Unemployed.
COSTELLO: Right 5.6% out of work. ABBOTT: No, that's 23%.
COSTELLO: Okay, so it's 23% unemployed. ABBOTT: No, that's 5.6%.
COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 5.6% or 23%? ABBOTT: 5.6% are unemployed. 23% are out of work.
COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed. ABBOTT: No, Biden said you can't count the "Out of Work" as the unemployed.
You have to look for work to be unemployed.
COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!! ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.
COSTELLO: What point? ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.
COSTELLO: To whom? ABBOTT: The unemployed.
COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work. ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.
COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment roles that would count as less unemployment? ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!
COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work? ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That's how it gets to 5.6%. Otherwise it would be 23%.
COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number? ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.
COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job? ABBOTT: Correct.
COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job? ABBOTT: Bingo.
COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work. ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like a Democrat.
COSTELLO: I don't even know what the hell I just said! ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like Biden.
HEY ABBBBOTT!!!
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/19/22
As they say, “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” Okay, the good news.
The DemFascist “Inflation Explosion Act” passed late last Friday (8/12). On Tuesday (8/16), Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) published an “Open Letter to American Job Seekers” warning them: “Don’t Work for Biden’s IRS Army.”
“These new positions at the IRS will not offer you the long-term job stability you may expect from a position with the federal government. Put another way: this will be a short-term gig. Republicans will take over the House and Senate in January, and I can promise you that we will immediately do everything in our power to defund this insane and unwarranted expansion of government into the lives of the American people.”
You can bet your bippy that’s exactly what they’ll do because they, along with a very large majority of voters, are in a state of rage over this. This is good news you can count on.
The bad news?