THE RIGALEIRA INITIATION WELL
Do an internet search for “25 Most Mysterious Places on Earth” or similar listing, and almost always the Regaleira Initiation Well in Sintra, Portugal will be there. Since the photo is almost always looking from the top down, I thought you might like to see one from the bottom up, which is just as dramatic.
The Regaleira is a spectacular Gothic mansion with acres of gorgeous gardens built by a 19th century Portuguese-Brazilian millionaire, Carvalho Monteiro (1848-1920). I love it that his exotic eccentric extravaganza, his Regaleira Palace, was built by private capitalist with his own money – not some feudal king with money extracted from the peasantry.
I took this picture in 2021 with fellow TTPers on our Portugal Exploration. Portugal really is a land of wonders, which I hope you’ll someday experience yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #167 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 08/31/23
Oversized Economic Failure Requires Oversized Distractions.
Sometimes, it is not just what they say but what they omit.
The government fears the public will grasp the reality of current corruption and institutional failure. The DOJ is either a partner in Biden's sins or is so afraid that the magnitude, once disclosed, will lead to the permanent erasure of the Democrat Party.
They are not behaving rationally.
The media holds presidential debates but questions a country song instead of the actual inflation issue. Most people missed that sleight of hand.
China is in deep trouble, and the West must figure out how to rebuild its supply lines in a world of rapidly accelerating interest rates.
Environmentalism is now fully exposed as some Keynesian monetary theory scam where the government throws money to its friends in hopes of keeping the game going. Who benefits? The finance industry, with their increasing claims on the labor of taxpayers.
The Trump impeachments are election interference through full-throated government power and the best distraction our betters can create. So far.
Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole, Wyoming speech put the world on notice that he intends to be hawkish with interest rates. Very Hawkish.
Come on over to Skyes' Links, and let's have a look:
THE MOTHER LEATHERBACK
The leatherneck sea turtle is the world’s largest turtle, weighing up to 1500 pounds. This female was about half that. They have an enormous range, all the way from the North Sea to South Africa in the Atlantic, spending their lives at sea eating jellyfish – except when a female comes ashore to her hatching beach and bury her clutch of eggs in the sand above high tide.
Dropping several dozen glistening white golfball-size eggs into a depression scooped out with her flippers, she covers them up with sand, and heads back to sea, never to see them again. More than two months later, the born hatchlings dig out of the sand and wiggle their way into the sea, where the lucky ones survive.
I was able to watch this mommy’s entire egg-birthing process at dawn on a remote beach in the West African country of Gabon. It was such a privilege to witness an act of elemental nature by such an extraordinary creature. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #127 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SAVE THE RULE OF LAW BY DESTROYING IT
The Corruptocrat who runs the Department of Injustice
Some truths are so staggering in their ramifications that Americans simply shrug and tune them out as if strangers in a strange land.
Is their current bewilderment because modernist America is unrecognizable —a nonexistent border, downtown homeless juxtaposed to hipster professional elites, DEI racial essentialism, cities reverting to precivilizational wastelands, millions exiting blue states to red, an FBI and DOJ gone rogue, the normalization of violent theft and assault, biologically born men sandbagging women’s sports and their locker room privacy?
We are reaching the point where the once unbelievable has become the banal, as a single generation has done its best to undo the work of a prior 12 generations. Consider the following:
WHY THE HOUSE HAS NO ALTERNATIVE TO AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY INTO PRESIDENT BIDEN
When Congress returns next month, it has little alternative but to launch a long-discussed impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. For House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the case for an inquiry came from a most unlikely source: Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The debacle in the Hunter Biden investigation has left most objective legal analysts in disbelief, with one CNN analyst calling it an “unholy mess.”
House Republicans had previously demanded that David Weiss and his team answer questions about the investigation and the plea bargain. And an appearance before a House committee was planned when Garland suddenly preempted that by doing what many of us have demanded for years: He appointed a special counsel. None other than David Weiss.
Plus, Garland refused to expressly extend the special counsel’s mandate to include influence-peddling allegations involving President Biden. The House has now no choice but to impeach him.
THE BORU HARP
The Boru Harp, attributed to the one and only High King of the entire island of Ireland, Brian Boru (941-1014), is the only musical instrument that is the national symbol of a country - the Republic of Ireland. It is also on the label of Guinness beer. Beautifully and exquisitely made, the Boru Harp is on display in the famous Long Room of the Trinity College Library in Dublin. You’ll experience a sense of awe when you see it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #219 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE BIDEN CLAN’S CON IS COMING TO AN END
Despite years of Biden family and media disinformation, we are finally learning that Joe Biden really did fire Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for looking into state corruption involving the oil company Burisma and Hunter Biden—and ultimately Joe Biden himself.
As Vice President, Biden, in his own words, bragged that he had threatened to cancel the deliverance of American foreign aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was dismissed.
An impeached Trump also was accused of using the power of government to go after his likely 2020 presidential rival by suggesting that Joe Biden and his family were corrupt, and should be investigated by Ukrainian officials for fraud and bribery.
Despite Joe Biden’s denials, Trump was right: there was plenty of evidence to link Ukrainian unwarranted payoffs going into Biden family coffers.
So what is the Congress to do now—un-impeach and exonerate an innocent impeached Donald Trump, and instead impeach a guilty Biden for essentially the same allegations?
WHO CARES ABOUT A GLIB NARCISSIST WHEN A MUGSHOT WON THE DEBATE?
This can't be the mugshot his many enemies hoped for. Instead of looking cowed, concerned, deflated and defeated, Donald Trump looks strong, defiant, unbowed.
Not for the first time, attempts to denigrate Trump have backfired badly. It has already almost erased from memory the fact that the night before the mugshot was taken, the first televised debate in the Republican primary race for the 2024 presidential election was broadcast from Milwaukee in the swing state of Wisconsin.
During the debate, Trump was 'the elephant not in the room', as Fox News put it, because his presence was never far from the proceedings. Few dared to criticize him for fear of aggravating the Republican base, which still adores him - even more so after that mugshot.
One, Vivek Ramaswamy, said that if he became President he would pardon Trump for any convictions 'on day one'. He is the glib, arrogant millennial of the Republican field, whose gobby overconfidence blinds him to the fact that often, especially on foreign policy, he has no idea what he's talking about.
SKARA BRAE
North of Scotland are the Orkney Islands. On a windswept bluff above the North Atlantic, archaeologists have unearthed an intact Neolithic village of farmers and cattle herders that’s 5,000 years old (3200 BC) – centuries older than the Pyramids of Egypt. Their homes had beds, chairs, cupboards, flush toilets, running water, cozy, warm, and comfortable.
What you see here is just one section of the village. What I found particularly interesting was this sign at the entrance to the site.
These villagers enjoyed a warmer climate than today, more fertile land. Skara Brae is a 5,000 year-old refutation of the Global Warming Hoax. If you ever get to Scotland, be sure the Orkneys are on your itinerary. Skara Brae is only one of the places you’ll find fascinating. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #210 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY
Jackson age 12, 2005
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on May 13, 2005. These days, we all could use a way to “pretend” to be happy, to transform the seeming mundane into an experience of magical gratitude. I hope you find it useful. Let me know if it does.]
TTP, May 13, 2005
Last week was the 13th birthday of my youngest son, Jackson. One evening a few days before, I was engrossed in writing on the computer when my wife reminded me it was Jackson’s bedtime. He was in bed reading, waiting for me to kiss him goodnight.
As I walked down the hall towards his room, my brain was filled with thoughts about the article I was working on. I was on autopilot and all I could think about was what I would write when I got back on the computer.
For some reason, I stopped and stood still. Somehow, an extraneous thought had popped into my consciousness from nowhere.