TO THE POINT CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
I'd sure like to make a suggestion for an ideal Christmas gift for someone you really care about: a membership in To The Point! Just click on that link and you can sign up a friend for a wonderfully memorable and enlightening month's membership for less than ten bucks - or for those you really care about, a full year. I'd also like to suggest you consider products made by your fellow TTPers. There's WineStar crystal wine glasses offered by Ed & Susan Sanders. They beat Reidel hands down. You won't believe how much better wine tastes with Ed & Susan's stemware. They make a great way to celebrate the Christmas-New Year's holidays, any other holiday, and life every day. Alex & Laurie Alexiev have 800 olive trees on four acres on their ranch near Paso Robles, California that produce the best-tasting, highest quality olive oil you've ever had. Their Allure Estates Liquid Gold Tuscan-style extra-virgin oil has now won numerous awards. You can gift yourself with a bottle, as well as your friends. Then there's my sister Judy (an avid TTPer!), with her marvelously illustrated children's book, Jessica The Furry Baroo, that's such a fun way to impart a love of nature and the critters in it to kids. Of course, there's Dr. Joel Wade's new book, Mastering Happiness. What a great gift for anyone you want to be happy!
THE ISLAMOFASCISTS’ TRILLION DOLLAR TROJAN HORSE
Suddenly, a new national debate is beginning about the national security, economic and other implications of Persian Gulf potentates using their petrodollars to buy up strategic American assets. Most recently, the Emir of Dubai's purchase at fire-sale prices of 4.9 percent of the largest U.S. bank, Citigroup, caused a level of unease not seen since he tried to buy his way into many U.S. port facilities. Almost completely unremarked thus far has been a parallel - and in many ways far more insidious - effort to penetrate, influence and dominate America's capital markets: so-called "Sharia finance." Some estimates suggest an amount nearing one trillion dollars is now being invested around the world under this rubric. If trends continue, all other things being equal, such funds may grow to many times that amount within a few years. As one Islamofascist puts it, Sharia investing is simply "financial jihad against the unbelievers."
HEALTH FASCISM
Paul Krugman, Princeton economist and columnist for The New York Times, has no problem with coercing people to do what they'd rather not do. So it's no surprise that he favors the universal health case system advocated by Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. He is worried, however, that under the more modestly coercive system advocated by Barack Hussein Obama, "healthy people could choose not to buy insurance-then sign up for it if they developed health problems later." Under Hussein Obama's system, argues Professor Krugman, "People who did the right thing and bought insurance when they were healthy would end up subsidizing those who didn't sign up for insurance until or unless they needed medical care." The old free rider problem, nothing very novel at all. Yet the problem arises only if there is coercion involved in the first place.
THE SWAG NIE
Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and probably won't be able to build a bomb before 2015 if it does restart it, a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has concluded. That's very good news...if it's true. But that's a BIG if. The NIE is a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Assed Guess), not a statement of proven fact. It's a SWAG from an Intelligence Community (IC) whose predictive record about the Middle East has been poor. It's a SWAG that's challenged by Israeli intelligence, whose predictive history is much better. And it's a SWAG that is diametrically opposed to the last SWAG the IC issued on Iran's nuclear program. An IC that had "high confidence" in a 2005 NIE that Iran was building a bomb and was resistant to international pressure now has "high confidence" that Iran stopped building it two years before that NIE was issued!
THE NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE
"Hey, Jack, when's your next expedition and where to?" That's the question, or variants of it, I'm asked most. For a while now, I've been frustrating a lot of folks who've been bugging me for an answer because I've been unable to give it. Now I can. I've been leading expeditions to remote places in the world for over a third of a century, and during all that time I had a dream of an ultimate way to experience the world, an ultimate set of adventures and expeditions. Now that dream is coming true. Suppose you wanted to traverse the entire length of the Nile River, all 4,000 miles from source (Jinja, Uganda where it exits Lake Victoria) to mouth (Alexandria, Egypt, where it enters the Mediterranean). Or visit the most exotic, the most untouched islands in the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean. How would you do it? You'd have to charter a boat, for a lot of money, and take a lot of time - week upon week, even a month or two. What if there were a way to do it in days? Quickly, comfortably, at substantially less cost than a boat charter yet seeing and experiencing more than from the surface of the water? The world would open up to you in a way impossible before. That's the dream. But how? The answer is...
OUR KIND OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
The current Attorney General for the State of Florida is Bill McCollum. After being a Congressman representing Florida's 5th District for 20 years, he ran for Senate in 2004 only to be screwed by Karl Rove, who wanted Bush's buddy Mel Martinez. Thus we have the pro-illegal alien Martinez in the Senate - but at least Florida lucked out to have McCollum bounce back to be elected its AG last year. How lucky can be seen by a letter McCollum wrote this week (12/03) in his official capacity to the president of the University of Florida. American universities are today dominated by professors and administrators who viciously attack any attempt at giving their students a pro-America education. Finally, here is one state attorney general who has the guts to legally prosecute such viciousness. America needs more Bill McCollums. Here is his letter:
SARASOTA RENDEZVOUS!
Get ready for a To The Point Winter Rendezvous on the sugar-sand white beaches of Sarasota. The dates are Friday February 8 to Sunday February 10. A lot of TTPers are putting a lot of effort into making this work, so that it will the most successful and the most fun Rendezvous so far. Sarasota is Florida's unknown gem. The Ringling Brothers made the place and for years it was the winter headquarters of their famous circus. It's on Florida's west coast 56 miles or an hour's drive south of Tampa (so getting there with direct flights or from Tampa International is easy). It's famous for its white "sugar-sand" beaches, gorgeous sunsets, and many cultural activities, but hasn't got the crowds of snowbirds many other places in Florida have. We'll be updating you with schedules and costs, but we wanted you to know now: Beach Party Rendezvous, 2/8-10, 2008. We are going to have a great time. See you in Sarasota!
SURPRISE! DEMOCRATS STRIVE TO MAKE SUBPRIME MESS WORSE
The global financial problem, stemming from the U.S. subprime mortgage mess, is a direct result of the irresponsibility and incompetence of the U.S. Congress That Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been engaging in Ponzi scheme with taxpayer-subsidized money is obvious to anyone - even Congressmen - due to a series of major accounting and financial corruption scandals in recent years. Politicians have used the board positions in these organizations to reward political cronies (e.g., the fired and indicted head of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines, was Bill Clinton's Office of Management and Budget director). Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been very major contributors to congressional campaigns. But rather than clean up the mess they created by getting back to market basics, Democrats in Congress decided last week to make the mess much worse.
WHAT IF THEY WENT HOME?
Recently, Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News, wrote a column titled, Mexican Visitor's Lament. She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while she was visiting Denver. Hernandez said, "They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes....what happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?" That's a good question --- it deserves an answer. Over 80% of Americans want secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million vacated America? For starters here in California where I practice law, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons.
PRO-COMMUNIST CONSERVATIVES?
This Tuesday, November 27, a weird full-page ad appeared in The Washington Times directly targeting conservatives. Its headline in big bold print: U.S.-Russia: Toward a political, economic and military alliance. It was paid for by an outfit called america-russia.net. It's not clear if these folks are on the KGB payroll, but they might as well be. They seem to be the same group of Blame America First Conservatives I wrote about back in July of '05: the folks at American Conservative and antiwar.com infected with the disease of Anti-Semitism, who hate Israel more than they love America, who root for America's defeat in Iraq. Now they're rooting for the KGB Billionaire Mafia that runs Russia. Last February, you learned that Putin is The World's Richest and Most Dangerous Gangster, the most corrupt ruler in world history, having accumulated a personal fortune of over 20 billion dollars - and control over thousands of nukes. You also learned that Bush and Cheney were contemplating exposing Putin's billionaire corruption. There's been a lot of debate in the White House about this, but it looks like the first salvo has finally been fired.