THE TSUNAMI WE NEED
Of all the tsunami pictures I have seen, this one, a wall of water 20 feet high sweeping into Patong Bay, Thailand, best visualizes its horrendous destructive power. What we need now is one like this targeting Turtle Bay, Manhattan to sweep away the United Nations.
THE ROCK OF AMERICA
As I prepare to go out and celebrate New Year 2005 -- I plan to celebrate the majestic and history-making election of 2004. What makes this an epochal election is what it says about the American public. After Nov. 2, the world now knows that Americans intend to stand and fight. The American public had every excuse to cut and run. Had they elected Mr. Kerry, the world would have correctly judged it a repudiation of Mr. Bush's aggressive war strategy. But the American public stuck. And in so doing they have created a world-historic event. In the face of an insurgent, violent, radical Islam, a solid majority of the American public does not intend to yield an inch. In a storm-tossed sea, the American public is a rock. It is more than a rock. It is the rock on which civilization will make its stand. Americans are standing upright, their strong arms uplifted against the barbarians.
IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR
What a great year. I think, all up and all in, 2004 was a fabulous year for freedom and America. It started out with the Rose Revolution in Georgia, throwing out the Soviet apparatchiks to elect a free market pro-America government, and ended with the Orange Revolution doing the same thing in Ukraine. In between, liberated Afghanistan successfully held its first-ever democratic elections.We got to memorialize for history the greatest American of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan. We re-elected George Bush and inflicted an utterly demoralizing defeat on the George Soros-Michael Moore Democrats. Inflation and unemployment are low, stocks are higher, the economy is humming. We didn’t suffer a single terrorist attack on American soil, took the fight to the terrorists and are close to winning in Iraq. And on top of all of this, Yasser Arafat gave to the world the best possible gift he could give: he died. Frank Sinatra himself couldn’t ask more from a year like 2004.Right, very interesting, thanks Jack for yesterday’s news - what about 2005? That’s what you’re asking, yes?
TSUNAMI SILVER LINING
The coldest night of my life was spent in the Buddhist temple on top of this mountain: 7,360 foot-high Sri Pada in Ceylon. It’s named for the Sacred Footprint of Buddha, a depression in the rock of the summit around which the temple is built. Pilgrims come to watch the sunset and most have the foresight to bring a blanket. Having climbed up from the torrid jungle in only a t-shirt the afternoon before and lacking such foresight, I froze all the way to dawn.Ceylon - or the official name of Sri Lanka, if you prefer - is one of the most entrancing lands on our planet. That such a place of gentle beauty should be visited by such horror as we have seen this week is an undiluted tragedy. For the people of Ceylon and their Indian Ocean neighbors who suffered the monumental horror of a tidal wave coming out of nowhere and washing away their lives, there is no silver lining. Life has the capacity to be utterly tragic with nothing to balance or outweigh it.To argue otherwise would be to demean the suffering of the tsunami’s victims. Yet while there is no silver lining for them, there may be one for us. This numbing event may be humbling enough to teach the egomaniacs of the left that nature is a vastly greater destroyer and alterer of nature than the puny activities of man.The Left is possessed with a peculiarly pathological form of egomania: We human beings are so immensely powerful and so immensely evil that we can threaten the entire earth! It is this nut-case egomania that fuels the religion of environmentalism.
A NEW YEAR’S REQUEST
To the Point received the following from a friend in the Pentagon:
CHRISTMAS VISITORS They came in single file, about 50 of them. Silent ambassadors, to tell us who they were. They moved at a slow pace, passing us for over 20 minutes. Some walked, while others pushed their wheelchairs as best they could. Some were helped along on crutches by their wives or sweethearts. They were escorted front and rear by US Marines in dress blue uniform. I have never seen prouder Marines. The Amputee Ward from Walter Reed Army Medical Center visited the Pentagon today. Some wore looks of resolution, pride, or dignity. Many had prosthetic devices where limbs used to be. All of them wore looks of surprise. We, the 26,000 employees of the Pentagon, lined both sides of the A ring (the inner ring of the Pentagon) to watch them pass and welcome them with thunderous applause. Half a mile they walked through a gauntlet of grateful fellow citizens two and three deep, who reached out to shake the hands of the remaining good arms or grasp the remaining fingers of hands that have given ultimate service. They walked through us to the main concourse, where they were met by the Army Band and color guard playing martial music for them and where the mall was filled with additional people who swelled the applause. Many of us just called out loudly, "Thank You!" because we didn't know what else could be said; thank you for your service to us. The applause never stopped.None of them spoke. They just cried. So did we.It was the closest I have been to Christmas in a long time.I have a request that I would like make to you - that you consider supporting these wounded soldiers at Walter Reed in a way that would mean so much to them.The number ONE request at Walter Reed hospital is phone cards. The government doesn't pay long distance phone charges and these wounded soldiers are rationing their calls home. The hospital administrators say they can use an “endless” supply of phone cards so that the wounded soldiers can call their friends and families. A phone card of any amount, even $5 is greatly appreciated. Wal-Mart has good prices on AT&T cards, Sams Club is even better, if you are a member. Just buy a phone card of any amount and send it to:Medical Family Assistance CenterWalter Reed Medical Center6900 Georgia Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20307-5001 Please consider letting everyone you know that they can do the same. It’s one way to give American soldiers who have been wounded in battle fighting to keep terrorism from our shores a happier New Year.
HOW TO BUY AN LCD
Deciding whether to plunk your money down on an LCD or a CRT is tough enough, but if you've decided to "go modern" and buy an LCD, you've got a lot of further choices to wade through. Not all LCDs are created equal, and deciding which LCD flavor to spend your money on means that you've got to bone up on some more monitor information.
IS IRAN JUST WEEKS AWAY FROM BEING A NUCLEAR POWER?
My friend Gary Metz - known as “Doctor Zin” - has a critically important website called RegimeChangeIran . It’s one of To The Point’s “Liberation Links” listed in the home page left side bar. Gary and I share the view that the greatest threat in the world right now is Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. It is of the most immediate necessity that Iran’s nuclear facilities be militarily destroyed. In this article, Gary explains why. The Bush White House, however, will do absolutely nothing that might upset the Iraq elections of January 30. The earliest Bush could authorize a strike (or give the Israelis the green light) would be in February. Cross your fingers that he does. -JW Last month in RegimeChange Iran, I warned that Iran must shut down all of its uranium enrichment centrifuges, including the twenty "experimental" centrifuges. Why? Because Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has demanded:"We must have two bombs ready to go in January or you are not Moslems."
THE “INSURGENCY” OF THE TERROR MASTERS
The notion that we are fighting an "insurgency" largely organized and staffed by former elements of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime is now fully enshrined as an integral piece of the conventional wisdom. Like earlier bits of the learned consensus — to which it is closely linked — it is factually wrong and strategically dangerous.That it is factually wrong is easily demonstrated, for the man invariably branded the most powerful leader of the terrorist assault against Iraq — Abu Musab al Zarqawi — is not a Baathist, and indeed is not even an Iraqi... The clear strategic conclusion remains what it should have been long before Coalition troops entered Saddam's evil domain: No matter how strongly we wish it to be otherwise, we are engaged in a regional war, of which Iraq is but a single battlefield. The war cannot be won in Iraq alone, because the enemy is based throughout the region and his bases and headquarters are located beyond our current reach. His power is directly proportional to our unwillingness to see the true nature of the war, and our decision to limit the scope of our campaign.
A LETTER FROM FALLUJAH
To The Point is honored to have received this letterDear Dr. Wheeler,I am an active duty Colonel in the United States Army, and have just returned from Fallujah, where the fight has been hot. I am also a brand new subscriber to To The Point!Thank you for saying what is in the hearts of our military on the ground in Iraq. Your readers need to know that SECDEF Rumsfeld is held in very high regard by the troops. Our Marines have high morale and all of them have personal body armor, contrary to liberal media lies and distortions.
THE LURE OF LCDS
At the end of last year, CRT monitors still outsold LCDs by a large margin. More than 60% of monitors sold in 2003 were CRTs. However, there’s no going back; LCD sales have been growing over the past two years, while CRT sales have been dropping. Within the next few years, CRTs will go the way of the eight-track and VCR. There’re still making CRTs, and that’s good news if you’re looking for a bargain; although prices of LCDs have been dropping, CRT manufacturers have lowered theirs proportionally, and the price ratio of CRT of LCD monitors - about half - remains where it was two years ago.