INTERNET EXPLORER 7 vs. NEW FIREFOX 2.0
Version 7 of Microsoft's dominant Web browser packs in interface changes, many new features, and plenty of under-the-hood updates. It's available now from here. Soon it will be automatically installed with a windows update. It also arrived just days before version 2 of the up-and-coming Mozilla browser, Firefox. Firefox 2 (which you download for free from this link) automatically updates your Firefox 1.51. So which new browser is your best bet? I'll try here to give a comprehensive comparison. Like Fox News, I'll report - then you decide.
SANTORUM 2008
Some of the Republicans likely to lose Tuesday -- like Rep. Don Sherwood in Pennsylvania's 10th district -- deserve to. But when the public gets in a "throw the bums out" mood, some who get thrown out aren't bums. On July 26, 1945, less than two months after Germany's surrender, a British electorate weary of the demands of greatness replaced Winston Churchill as prime minister with Clement Attlee, and Britain's swift decline as a world power began. The three GOP senators thought to be in the deepest kimchee are Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. The republic would miss Mr. DeWine only a little, and Mr. Chafee not at all. Rick Santorum is another story.
THE ARAB FAILURE IN IRAQ
We went to Iraq to overthrow a police state. Through a combination of stubbornness, naïveté and noble intentions, we've replaced it with another police state - more violent, more corrupt and less accountable. Our greatest setback in Iraq may be that country's undoing: It has proven impossible to develop an honest, nonpartisan police establishment anywhere in the country's Arab provinces. The police aren't feared by criminals, but by law-abiding citizens. The secret police are back, in the form of death squads. And the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki looks perfectly happy with the situation. An ugly truth is emerging. As dearly as we believe in democracy, Iraq's Arabs are proving that they're incapable of the political, social and moral maturity necessary to run an elected government.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: THE FATE OF MONTEZUMA
The Jade Steps Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Fate of Montezuma Cortez moved swiftly to commandeer the ships and supplies of Narvaez's fleet. Under the command of Francisco de Lugo, the ships were brought to Villa Rica, everything of use brought ashore, and the great quantities of wine, bacon, flour, cassava bread and other perishables carefully stored. He also moved quickly to merge the men and commands of Narvaez's men with his own. He detached Juan Velasquez de Leon and 120 men, 100 of whom were Narvaez men, to explore the coast to the north of Villa Rica and establish a colony near the river Panuco. He directed Diego de Ordaz to lead the same sort of contingent south for a colony near the river Coatzacoalco. He placed Rodrigo Rangel in charge of Villa Rica, made sure Narvaez and Salvatierra were securely imprisoned there, and ordered Gonzalo de Sandoval to make all preparations for the remainder of the command to return to Tenochtitlan. Then everything changed when Malinali brought one of Narvaez's officers, Botello Puerto de Plata, to Cortez. "Señor de Plata has disturbing news, my Captain," she told him. Cortez had been hearing about him. A hidalgo from Santander on the north coast of Castille, he had become a Latin scholar while studying in Rome, and had a reputation for being a prestidigitador, a magician who could predict the future. "Señor Cortez, I must warn you to leave here immediately," de Plata announced. "The officer you left in command at Tenochtitlan, Pedro de Alvarado, and all your men there are in grave danger. The Aztecs are making war upon them, they are attempting to climb into their quarters with ladders, and wish to kill them all. You must return there quickly."
KAFKA IN MANAGUA: Ollie North Is Helping A Communist Win In Nicaragua
Franz Kafka couldn't make this up. Ollie North is doing his best to see that his Sandinista foe, Daniel Ortega, responsible for the Communist tyranny in the 1980s that took so many lives of his (and my) Contra friends, will be elected president of Nicaragua this Sunday, November 5th. He's not doing it on purpose. Just like Democrats who are so filled with Bush-hatred they will support anything that hurts Bush even if it hurts America, Ollie is so filled with State Department-hatred that it is blinding him to what he is doing. I know it's hard to believe - and that Foggy Bottom has gotten something right for once adds to the Kafkaesque weirdness. The story begins in 1997....
WILL NOVEMBER 7 BE A CAPITULATION TO MASOCHISM?
If they were honest, liberal scientists who fanatically believe in the religion of anti-missile defense should band together and call themselves SFADA: Scientists For A Defenseless America. No matter what breakthroughs are achieved by the Pentagon in missile defense, you can depend on these guys to lie about them and claim they won't work. Last week, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency reached an extraordinary milestone: putting a "death-ray" high-energy laser aboard an airplane that can destroy at the speed of light an enemy nuclear missile aimed at the Unites States shortly after its launch. It was immediately denounced by liberal scientists being paid to lie for the left -- yet another example of liberal masochism that doesn't want America to be defended. The question of the moment is whether Americans will capitulate to such masochism next week.
CHINESE SIBERIA
If you're familiar with the Reconquista plan of the Mexican Aztlan movement (to reconquer the Southwest US "stolen" by America in the 19th century), this may sound like déjà vu all over again. Yet however bad you think our illegal immigrant problem is, it's pipsqueak compared to Russia's in Siberia. As a news story in mid-October (10/16) by Russia's only independent television station, Ren TV, reported from Vladivostok:
The emerging demographic situation developing here between Russia and China is simply catastrophic. The crisis is due to the creeping expansion of thousands of Chinese migrants. Chinese workers entering Siberia are replacing Russians who are not prepared to toil 12 hours a day for a pittance. Chinese students are taught that Siberia is their land, stolen from China in the 19th century. It is suspected by many Russians here that China is subsidizing the migration of its citizens. Demographers predict that by 2025 Chinese will be the Russian Far East's predominant ethnic group. Then, it is feared, they will gain the right to vote and demand union with China.
REVOLT IN THE AMAZON
Think you could be friends with these fellows? 
Sure you could. My son Jackson and I had no problem when we visited their village in the Amazon in 2002. They live in the deepest heart of the Amazon, along a tributary of the Xingu (ching-goo) River. They call themselves the Xicrin (chick-reen), a branch of the Kayapo tribe. They made newspaper headlines around the world this week. During our visit four years ago, the Xicrin asked for our help. In the middle of a pristine rain forest next to a beautiful river, they said they needed a well for drinking water. We were incredulous. They explained that their water was polluted with poison from a huge Brazilian mine on a river that drained into theirs. That's when I learned about CVRD.
FORWARD AWAY!
We are happy to announce a new feature for To The Point. A lot of you have expressed frustration that they could not easily forward a Members Only article to their friends. There is an email function, but to access an emailed article, you had to be a TTP member yourself. The only other way was to copy and paste an article into the text body of an email message. Our problem was that an emailed link to one article in To The Point would open up access to the entire site. We solved this with software providing a "one-time use" for just that article. Here's how it works. All TTP articles have two small icons in the top right corner, one for Print, one for Email. For any article you'd like to email to a friend or friends, just click on the icon and enter your friend(s) email address(es). Add your name, address, and whatever message subject you want. Push send. That's it. Your friend will get a link which will bring up the article on the To The Point webpage when he clicks it. Your friend has full access to that article - but only that article. He or she is in the site for just this "one-time use." Hopefully, they will benefit so much from the article they will be persuaded to subscribe themselves! But there's no sales pitch attached, just the article itself. So many of you have asked for this - wanting to share the wealth of To The Point - and now we can oblige. So feel free to forward away!
ARAB TRANSPARENCY
Indonesia, as per Will Indonesia Save Islam?, is not the only place in the Moslem world struggling against Jihadi Islamism. It turns out that there are hosts of folks in the Arab world who oppose the Jihadis, the Saudi Wahhabis, the Salafists who want a Dark Ages Islam. Now they have a voice. It's an independent Arabic website called Middle East Transparent. There are English and French versions (click on "English" in the top banner), but many of these articles are by Westerners. It is articles by Arabs written in Arabic that make this site so influential. "Metransparent" gets around 50,000 unique visitors a day, almost all from Moslems living in the Arab world. There's nothing else like it - for it gives voice to Arab writers still residing in countries with no intellectual freedom. These are not exiles safely pontificating from Paris coffee shops and London salons. These are men - and women - who have the courage to speak out under their own names from within Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, and every other Arab nation.