BIDENOMICS CAUSED SHRINKFLATION
President Joe Biden is failing, flailing, and falling. He's clearly cognitively disabled, as even the special counsel noted when refusing to charge him with crimes over mishandling classified documents. The southern border is a wide-open and deadly mess. And though the economy never went into full recession, it sure doesn't feel like it's growing. Bidenomics means wages haven't kept up with 18% cumulative inflation since Biden took office.
Biden needs a reset and fast. What better time to blame-shift than leading up to his March 7 State of the Union Address?
PANTELLERIA’S MIRROR OF VENUS
Between Sicily and Tunisia in the Mediterranean lies a secret hideaway of Europe’s rich and famous – the small Italian island of Pantelleria. Peaceful and quiet, the opposite of glitzy places like Ibiza, wealthy elite retreat here in luxurious yet very understated villas to get away from it all. It helps that the shoreline is all volcanic rock cliffs, which dissuades hordes of African “migrants” attempted to claim “asylum” in the EU welfare state by landing here.
The most beautiful spot on Pantelleria is this volcano crater lake known as “The Mirror of Venus” – of such magic color that, the legend goes, the goddess Venus would admire herself in its reflection. Come here for a tranquil escape of your own. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #164 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE GOLDEN FLEECE OF FREEDOM
[This Archive was originally published on May 12, 2005. It's been nearly 19 years, but Putin and his cronies still think the same way. Understanding how their definition of peace differs from ours is crucial to understanding their propaganda.]
TTP, April 28, 2005
When you were a kid, do you remember reading the great epic of Greek mythology called Jason and the Argonauts? Sent on a mission he is not expected to survive by the man who has usurped his throne, Jason assembles a crew of heroes, including Hercules, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, and sails in the great ship Argo across the Euxine Sea to the distant land of Colchis to capture the legendary Golden Fleece.
It's a marvelous adventure story which the ancient Greeks believed was not myth but true. And sure enough - it turns out that Colchis was a real place and there really was a Golden Fleece. At the east end of the Black Sea (the Greeks called it the Euxine), there is a range of huge mountains called the Caucasus. The mountain streams that poured down the Caucasus and into the Euxine carried so many particles of gold that the folks who lived there - the Colchians - would peg sheep skins in the streams to trap the gold particles in the wool.
Colchis is one of the most ancient lands in the world. It's where the original Caucasians came from. Today it is called Georgia. This week, George Bush sailed in Air Force One to modern Colchis to be wildly welcomed by hundreds of thousands of Georgian Argonauts thanking him for rescuing the Georgian Golden Fleece from its former conqueror, Russia.
The people of Georgia recognize George Bush as the savior and protector of freedom that he is. Why can't the Russians? Churchill said Russia was an enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a puzzle. Why can't they live in peace with their neighbors instead of always wanting a piece of their neighbors? Part of the answer must lie in there being no word for 'peace' in the Russian language.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: AFGHAN MUJAHADDIN?
When my son Brandon was a cadet at Virginia Military Academy, his professor teaching Modern Military History gave a lecture on the 1980s War in Afghanistan fought by Afghan Mujahaddin against the Soviet Red Army occupation of their country. One of the pictures he showed was the one above of “three typical Mujahaddin fighters.”
Brandon raised his hand. “Yes, Cadet Wheeler,” the professor called on him. “Actually, Professor,” Brandon said, “only the man in the center with the white beard is one. The man on the right is United States Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, while the man on the left is my father.”
The professor was stunned while the rest of the class stifled laughter. “Are you quite sure of that, Cadet Wheeler?” stammered the professor. “Oh, yes sir,” Brandon replied. “I recognize my own father. That photo is framed in my father’s study. It was taken in November 1988. The Afghan Commander’s name is Moli Shakur. I have known Congressman Rohrabacher all my life.”
The cadets all applauded in appreciation. To this day, this remains one of Brandon’s fondest college memories. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #145 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
USEFUL IDIOT
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/23/24
Two Years in Ukraine
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World War II and the Cold War it created are finally ending on Ukraine's battlefields. The war went kinetic two years ago yesterday when Russia invaded Ukraine. However, the Ukraine War first went kinetic in 2014 with the invasion of Putin's little green men, leading to the loss of Crimea. The inter-invasion period was filled with a massive propaganda campaign claiming that Ukraine was really part of Russia and that the locals loved Stalin so dang much that they wanted to be repressed again.
Putin's propaganda effort was mostly domestic as he worked to expand his power by creating a new Russian historical narrative intended to fill the gap left by the USSR. He relit the passion for Orthodoxy as a state religion. He reinstated blasphemy laws as he positioned the narrative of Russia as a moral crusader.
The Russian propaganda was merely reactionary to the rotting social trends in the West. When a drugged-up transvestite shot up an American school, Putin responded by publicly arresting and imprisoning deviant Russians. The timing and coordination between Western deviant events and Putin's reactions made everyone wonder how Putin seemed to be able to predict each Western LGBT+ crisis event. It was as if the Western news media was staffed full of Russian apologists and profiteers.
Yes, one wonders….
THE LESSON OF RABAUL
The small black mountain in front of you is a volcano called Tavurvur on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. In 1994, Tavurvur erupted, covering New Britain’s beautiful capital Rabaul in ash. The entire area is volcanic, including the hot springs where I’m standing to take this picture. Tavurvur is very much alive and smoking today – starkly beautiful and dangerous.
History can be like this – beautiful and peaceful, then without warning it explodes in violent destruction. The lesson then is how to overcome, rebuild, and avert its repetition.
It’s an obvious lesson to learn right now, with the destruction of our economy by the Chinese Communists unleashing their virus, and the current attempted theft of the presidency and our entire electoral system by the Democrats. We must overcome these twin evils, and we must make extremely sure that we never allow such travesties to threaten our country ever again.
You can climb to the rocky rim of Tavurvur to stare down into its smoking caldera. There’s fabulous scuba-diving along the coral reefs offshore of Rabaul, and upon sunken Japanese battleships from World War II. It’s a worthwhile experience to come here as you learn the Lesson of Rabaul. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #97 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 02/22/24
The latest in 'Crat lawfare:
Trump Must Pay Half a Billion Dollars Before He Can Appeal New York Decision
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78% of likely 'Crat voters are fascists who want Trump's name removed from the ballot. That does not suggest a peaceful future if Trump is able to beat cheat-by-mail. Then again, it almost guarantees a non-peaceful future if Trump doesn’t beat cheat-by-mail…
Nolte: 78% of Fascist Democrats Want Trump Removed from Ballot
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How barbarically evil is this? Almost unimaginably so – and on February 22, the day Putin invaded Ukraine two years ago today:
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Lots more, welcome aboard!
MAGIC MOUNTAINS
In a remote valley between the northern escarpment of the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, you find these magic painted mountains of red sandstone created by Himalayan uplift and millions of years of erosion. It’s at the sunrise light of early dawn that the colors are most apparent before they get sunwashed in the bright of day. It takes quite a hike in pre-dawn darkness to get to the right viewpoints at the right time, but certainly worth it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #261 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
MIGRANT CRIME WAVE – CAN IT WAKE THE WOKE?
America's migrant crime wave is past the point of no return. Liberal mayors and a Democrat president dismantled the border... and now are wringing their hands over the nightmare they’ve created.
The results are in - the psychotic 'sanctuary cities' experiment has utterly failed.
And there's no clearer proof than the Rotten Apple – where a once proud, party-boy mayor has been reduced to a sniveling spectator to his own city's decline.
'I can't deport. I can't stop people from coming in,' Eric Adams told Fox Nation on Wednesday, referring to suicidal sanctuary city laws that prevent New York State authorities from cooperating with federal law enforcement.