THE GRAND PRISMATIC SPRING OF YELLOWSTONE
There are places in our world so staggeringly beautiful to have to see them to believe they exist. Yet those people walking along the foot bridge can’t see what you’re looking at. That has to be in the air, hovering from high above in a helicopter. We live in a world of such beauty it really does take your breath away. And best of all, the beauty of the Grand Prismatic Spring of Yellowstone is right here in America.
Here we are at Yellowstone in Wyoming, a wonderland by itself. Just to the south are the Grand Tetons. To the west is the Sawtooth Range and the Middle Fork of the Salmon River – one of the best whitewater runs on the planet. It goes endlessly on and on. America the Beautiful is not just a song – it’s glorious reality. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World 135, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT IS WHY THE LEFT HATES AMERICA
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on December 1, 2017. It rings true more than ever today. Your thoughts?]
TTP, December 1, 2017
Nothing exemplifies Donald Trump’s political genius better than his campaign and now presidential slogan MAGA – Make America Great Again.
Just compare it to his opponent’s pathetically stupid and empty, I’m With Her. A campaign about nothing but Her, focused entirely on Her, devoted completely and totally to the egomania of Her.
By contrast, Trump’s campaign was about America – the America that every normal voter knew used to be great until Obama opened the gates of the Left’s insane asylum creating a mayhem of cultural lunacy, the America that every normal voter wanted once more.
Trump’s question to the voters – “Do you want more lunacy with Her or do you want to make America great again instead?” turned out to be rhetorical.
But just what is it that made America great in the first place? And whatever that is, why does it drive Lefties insane?
THE TEMPLE OF ULU WATU
Built 1,000 years ago on the edge of a cliff hundreds of feet above the sea on the island of Bali, the sacred temple of Ulu Watu is one of the holiest places of worship for the Balinese people. They have retained their unique form of Balinese Hinduism for millennia that incorporates their original animism, ancestor worship, and reverence for Buddhist saints or Bodhisattva. This has resulted in a spiritual warmth and gentle friendliness matched by few other places on earth. It is little wonder so many who come here consider Bali to be a worldly paradise. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #108 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – YOUNGEST PERSON EVER AT THE NORTH POLE
April 22, 1990. This is my son Brandon, age six, happily atop a small pressure ridge of sea-ice at 90 North Latitude, the geographic North Pole. I started leading expeditions to 90N in 1978. This was my 12th, and the best weather there we’d ever had. A glorious day at the very top of our planet, and a glorious memory for both father and son.
If fortune favors you with the opportunity, have grand adventures with your children or grandchildren when they are young. They will treasure the memories so much they will someday tell their grandchildren about them. Life is short, carpe diem. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #104 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
NO IDEA WHY
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/14/23
This is dystopian science fiction, the poster of a B-grade we’re-all-gonna-die horror flick. I am totally sick and tired of all the fearmongering about this, and you should be too. This is not going to happen. There are three basic reasons why.
Read them and you’ll understand how DJT’s rant on Tuesday (7/11) is as unthoughtful as his claim he’ll end Russia’s war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”. Donald Trump Blasts More Ukraine Aid: ‘Joe Biden Should Not Be Dragging Us Further Toward World War III’ is Pro-Putin Breitbart's fearmonger headline – when it is Putin’s Russia using nuclear blackmail, not us or Ukraine nor anyone else.
He had the gall to condemn “Biden’s policy of endless war in Ukraine,” when it is Putin’s policy, to demand that Biden, not Putin “immediately end the bloodshed in Ukraine”. It grieves me deeply to condemn this because I admire him in so many ways – but once again as happened so very often during his presidency, he has surrounded himself with advisors who are as misinformed as he is. Which means he may well keep doing or saying foolish things as 47 that he did as 45.
And it shocks and saddens me so deeply that there are TTPers who insist on being on Putin’s side of evil rather than Ukraine’s side of freedom, who will continue to parrot Kremlin agitprop lies on the Forum. To them I must implore: please, please stop corroding your soul with evil, and please do not pollute the Forum with it any more. That’s where I stand, let’s agree to disagree, and leave it at that.
So – on to those three reasons why we’re not going to have WWIII. Plus a lot more in this HFR.
BALLOONS OVER BURMA
From the 900s to the 1200s, the Pagan Empire built over 10,000 Buddhist temples. 2,200 remain on the plains of Pagan today, one of the world’s most wondrous sights – especially if you see them from above in a hot air balloon. It is truly astounding how much there is to explore and experience in Burma. We’ll be there once more for it all next February. I hope you will be one of your fellow TTPers to join us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #33 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 07/13/23
Let’s start with a fun, informative, and infuriating compendium on recent judicial decisions at the Institute for Justice:
Volatile Behavior, Boorish Flirtation, Insufficient Collegiality
Formula for fake news; remember the pandemic propaganda? By the physician author of The War on Ivermectin:
How To Create A Fake News Cycle
Important! If you have a Google account, here is how you can reduce the amount of information that they are collecting on you:
Tech Explainer: How to Disable 3 of Google’s Main Ways of Tracking Your Every Move
Lot’s more! Come on in!
A FATHER EXPOSES WHAT ORDINARY PEDIATRICIANS ARE DOING TO CHILDREN
In every horror movie, there’s a crescendo of terror as the monsters (zombies, giant spiders, birds, aliens, or anything else) are suddenly everywhere. No matter where you turn, they are coming for you.
A father’s rant about a pediatrician who sought to inculcate his nine- and seven-year-old sons with gender madness has gone viral for that reason. It shows that the gender monsters are everywhere.
However, in every horror movie, this crescendo is also the point at which the brave people still standing turn and fight…and in a good movie, they win. Let’s hope that, as parents start to realize that there’s a war for their children, they fight and win. Elon is right:
WAGNER PMC EXEMPLIFIES HOW PUTIN HAS DESTROYED RUSSIAN STATE
[I have known Paul Goble since we worked together on Soviet issues when he was a chief analyst at the RAND Corporation in the 1980s. In the years since, he’s had an exceedingly distinguished career in academia, diplomacy, and scholarship, particularly in regard to Russia and the former Soviet space. He knows whereof he speaks. –JW]
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long promoted himself as the man who rebuilt the power of the Russian state after the chaos of the 1990s.
However, the Wagner Group mutiny highlights why that rings false—not only because it was an armed challenge to Putin’s authority but also because the relationship between the Kremlin leader and Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner “private military company” (PMC), is a model of how Putin has dealt with others in the Russian political elite across the board.
In case after case, the Russian president has destroyed the institutions of the Russian state and replaced them with others based on personal ties and private understandings, a situation that has led some observers to describe the Putin regime as a failed state.
This in turn amplifies worries about the coming post-Putin transition, where the absence of institutions linked together by law and transparent practice could easily lead to a war of all against all in which force alone will determine the outcome.