It is obvious to anyone with open eyes that the Grey Lady of the New York Times is a liberal propaganda sheet rather than a real newspaper. The examples are legion of its pushing stories twisted to the left. But equally important are stories it refuses to report, that it doesn’t want its readers to know. On January 26-27, 2005 there was a tremendous snowstorm in the Sahara Desert. Much of the Sahara in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia were blanketed by an enormous snowfall, the worst in over half a century. Here are the NASA satellite photos.You would think a snowstorm in the Sahara would be news - but you never heard about it because such a story conflicts with the liberal secular religion of Global Warming.Here’s another example: The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline has been pumping oil from northern Iraq to Turkey’s oil terminal at such a rate now that Iraq is back to just about 100% of pre-war oil production. It’s one reason for oil prices dropping off the spike of nearly $60, and heading below $50. But such a story, folded into the larger story that security is improving in Iraq so that the country will be exporting well over 2 million bpd by fall, conflicts with the liberal media con that the world economy is failing and oil is rising because of President Bush (oh, yes - and now, according to Nancy Pelosi, also Tom DeLay!)Just two small examples why you can understand the world far better by subscribing to To The Point instead of the New York Times…

One of the very first “Liberation Links” we put up at the inception of To The Point was to John Linder’s FairTax. John is a Republican Congressman from Georgia who has authored a bill, HR 25 for the 109th Congress, that would in his words, “repeal all corporate and individual income taxes, payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes and gift taxes - and replace it with a revenue-neutral personal consumption tax.”If the FairTax were to become law, the IRS would cease to exist, and we would pay our taxes like we buy a gallon of gasoline. Yes, that gallon and just about everything else would cost 23% more in a national retail sales tax - but since business-to-business transactions are not taxed, nor would businesses be paying corporate taxes or the employers’ share of payroll taxes, consumer prices would drop by at least that 23% if not much more. The extent of the explosion of increased prosperity that would happen throughout America if the FairTax were to replace the IRS is difficult to exaggerate. Let’s put it this way: The FairTax would be the single greatest act of wealth creation in the history of man.We are now fast approaching a tipping point of acknowledgement that the federal tax code is irretrievably broken and has to be replaced. Linder’s FairTax is by far the best fix. Except there’s this one little problem - actually, it’s the 16th problem.

Microsoft has just released several important security updates, including a new version of its Malicious Software Removal Tool. In case you still don’t have your system set to automatic updates, go to the Windows Update Site. Before you do, make a backup of your system state. A while ago I explained how to do it. I’ll go over the steps here again. They’ve changed slightly after installing Service Pack 2. I also urge you to make a backup of your system state every time you install new software, except for small applications by reliable companies, like the Google Toolbar. You should also regularly backup your system state, as I have previously recommended, especially before cleaning your registry. Click Start in the bottom left corner, hover your mouse on All Programs, Navigate to Accessories -> System Tools, then click on Backup.

The most powerful Congressmen have, in addition to their regular offices in one of the House Office Buildings (Cannon, Longworth, or Rayburn) on the south side of Capitol Hill, a private office in the Capitol itself. It was in such an office earlier this week that I asked a member of the House leadership about the MSM (mainstream media)/Democrat vendetta against his colleague, Tom DeLay.“Hillary’s fingerprints are all over it,” came his response. “She has no intention of having to deal with an opposition party controlling the House as her husband did for six years and Ronald Reagan did for eight. She has a very clear plan for seizing control of the entire United States government, which includes orchestrating Democrat control of the House in 2006 so it is firmly in place when she is elected president in 2008.”It is, then, at Hillary’s direction that the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the entire Liberal Media apparatus are waging a relentless war upon House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

Two cheers for the Silberman-Robb Commission Report, which for the first time raises some of the basic issues about the rot that has long festered within the intelligence community. Yes, it’s too long, (much too long), and unfortunately the authors are forever telling us “we think, we recommend, we believe,” rather than just writing simple declarative English. But okay, that’s the way commissions work, and there is a lot here that makes it worth the heavy plowing to get through the 600 pages. Unfortunately, the entire argument — one of the great merits of the enterprise is that there is actually a sustained and coherent argument from beginning to end — rests on an unprovable assumption that is unnecessary and, alas, quite misleading.The report suffers from the community’s favorite conceit: that there is something called “tradecraft” that distinguishes an intelligence analyst or case officer from every other scholar or investigator. In the case of analysis, this is nonsense; it’s one of the little clouds that intelligence officers use to dismiss conflicting views and criticism. Yes, those who analyze satellite images need special skills, but so does a sociologist analyzing urban turmoil. And the “tradecraft” of the real spooks, the case officers and deep cover spies, has been perhaps the greatest community failure for at least a generation.