MOROCCO’S DADES GORGE
This astounding road is how you traverse the Dades Gorge on the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs in Morocco. Kasbahs are fortified villages of the Berbers, who have lived here since the end of the Ice Ages 12,000 years ago (related to the Lapps of the Scandinavian Arctic, both descending from Cro-Magnon hunters in Cantabria of northern Spain).
The road is rated as one of the most scenic drives in the world. It is in the High Atlas Mountains (once higher than the Himalayas and joined to the Appalachians in the northeast US before splitting apart to form the Atlantic Ocean 200 million years ago). Here you go from the sand dunes of the Sahara to the fabulous kasbahs of Skoura, Ouarzazate, and Ait Benhaddou. The drive is one of the many life-memorable experiences we have in our exploration of Moroccan Magic. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #110 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 04/06/23
Institutional Loss of Faith
___________________________________
Loss of faith in American – and global – institutions is accelerating. Whether the institutions are public or private, religious or secular, tangible or financial, the credibility gap is becoming a giant fissure.
People long for authenticity, the real deal, but are served up a diet of fake university outrage, indictments, and impeachments on counterfeit charges, fake science, and fake news.
Lately, we are being hammered with fake women. There was a day when it was more straightforward. Remember the advertising jingle for coconut/chocolate candy bars? “Almond Joy got nuts – Mounds don’t?” Once upon a time it only upset Miss Prissy, the fourth-grade English teacher. Singing that old ditty in the wrong place today will get a guy arrested.
Underlying all this is the realization that about half of the profit made in the United States from all sources is from finance. This means creating and servicing debt, and those that pull the biggest financial levers dominate the economy and American policy.
Marginal borrowers are being wiped out as interest rate increases force the repricing of underlying assets, yet the financial industry has no risk. They can always count on a bailout.
A rage is brewing, and each new insult and fake promise is like more gasoline on the fire. The government wants us to focus on fake eyelashes on fake women, but actual bankruptcies and business failures command attention.
These types of rages have happened before. In 1776, 1861, 1933, and now today. They bring change through violence as the ballot box is compromised.
TTPers will note the consistency of warnings of the growing rage and distrust of intuitions. With every car repossessed, every home foreclosed upon, and every vacation canceled, middle America is waking up to the calamity of being overleveraged. They thought they were following the path toward prosperity.
BRAGG’S COMPLETELY MORONIC NON-INDICTMENT INDICTMENT
Alvin Bragg turns NYC into a Banana Republic
[Dispensing with all the hysteria, Andy McCarthy cuts right to the bottom line so clearly that anyone can understand: this is literally no indictment at all. The absurdity of Trump’s persecution is bottomless—JW]
It’s always possible to be surprised. The indictment brought by Manhattan’s elected Democrat district attorney Alvin Bragg against Donald Trump is even worse than I’d imagined.
Bragg’s indictment fails to state a crime. Not once . . . but 34 times. On that ground alone, the case should be dismissed — before one ever gets to the facts that the statute of limitations has lapsed and that Bragg has no jurisdiction to enforce federal law. At his press conference, he blathered about federal campaign-finance law, but he knows he lacks jurisdiction to enforce federal law. He has no crime.
HOW TO PUT ALVIN BRAGG IN PRISON
Arrest Alvin Bragg T-shirt on sale here
On Monday night (4/03), it was leaked that Donald Trump will be charged with 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records. The details of the indictment were not supposed to be released, and Trump quickly called out District Attorney Alvin Bragg for illegally leaking the details of the indictment.
“Wow! District Attorney Bragg just illegally LEAKED the various points, and complete information, on the pathetic Indictment against me,” Trump wrote in a post shared on Truth Social. “I know the reporter and so, unfortunately, does he. This means that he MUST BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED. Now, if he wants to really clean up his reputation, he will do the honorable thing and, as District Attorney, INDICT HIMSELF.”
Bragg certainly won’t indict himself, but, as Tucker Carlson noted, leaking details from Trump’s sealed indictment is bigger than the crimes for which Trump has been indicted. The act of leaking grand jury testimony is considered a Class E felony under New York state law.
SLOVENIA’S VINTGAR GORGE
In a hidden corner of Europe, the Radovna River pours off the Julian Alps to carve out the Vintgar Gorge with crystal clear water. A mile-long walkway with towering limestone cliffs on either side is your access.
Nearby is the gorgeous Lake Bled, with Bled Castle suspended atop a shoreline cliff. The medieval village of Piran, built on a spit of land projecting into the Adriatic Sea and encircled by a white sand beach is a short drive away. Ljubljana is one of Europe’s most utterly charming capital cities.
Most people have only heard of Slovenia as the birthplace of First Lady Melania Trump, but those who have been here understand it is one of the most entrancing countries on the European continent – pristine beauty, spotless environment, friendly and hospitable people, safe and very well-run. Whenever your next visit to Europe may be, try to include a few days or week or so here. You’ll never run out of fascinating things to do. A stroll through the Vintgar Gorge is an example out of so many. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #19 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE WORLD’S MOST INTERESTING ISLAND
People from Europe have been living here for 8,000 years. They taught themselves how to build the world’s oldest free-standing structures, carving out gigantic stone blocks with antler horn 1,000 years before Egyptians built the pyramids.
The ancient Greeks thought the island so enchanting that Homer’s Odyssey sang of Odysseus (Ulysses) being under the spell of the nymph Calypso here for 7 years.
Medieval fortresses and walled cities, spectacular baroque architecture, stunning scenery with hidden sea coves in crystal clear cobalt blue water, and of course, the gigantic megalithic temples built so many thousands of years ago – for here is where Western Civilization began. And here, a few centuries ago, is where Western Civilization was saved from extinction.
Come here and you’ll be enchanted too.
PUTIN’S SHAKESPEAREAN DEMONS
Geopolitics will take you only so far in explaining foreign affairs. The more important element is Shakespearean. Ukraine is a perfect example.
Ukraine is engulfed by Russia on the north and east, its history and language entwined with its neighbor’s. But the greater part of the story concerns the personality of Vladimir Putin. The geopolitical argument that Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was expanding completely disregards the Russian leader’s Shakespearean demons.
Mr. Putin’s decision to invade represented not the collective thinking of the Russian elite but his own thoughts. Given Mr. Putin’s paranoia, isolation and delusions of grandeur, the question arises: Would Europe today be at peace with Mr. Putin’s Russia had NATO not expanded east after the Cold War and had there been a Western guarantee of recognizing Russian interests in Ukraine? Certainly not.
BEST OF THE FORUM
Last Monday (3/27), Joel Wade wrote his temporarily last Keeping Your Sanity column for us, as he focuses on completing his next book, Mastering The Emotional Side of Money. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Joel for his words of wisdom for the recent years now, as coping with them has not been easy and he has helping so many of us do so.
Thanks so much, Joel! And keep us posted on your book’s progress – hopefully you can post excerpts on TTP?
Meanwhile, to take Joel’s place, I thought what could be better than to share what your fellow TTPers are giving us on the Forum? You know I’ve always thought the Forum was one of the most valuable parts of TTP given TTPers’ extraordinary knowledge and insight.
So here are two examples of the Best of the Forum – not the best to imply others are less so, but certainly examples of what your fellow TTPers can contribute to the TTP membership. Here are Mark Deuce and Mellie responding on the HFR 03/24/23 Forum. Thanks to you both! Blue skies… Jack
THE EYELASH AT DAWN
The first of The Seven Pearls of Shing is called Mijnon or The Eyelash. It’s at 5,300 ft in the Fann Mountains of Western Tajikistan. At dawn, the air is still and crystal clear as is the water. The surface of the lake becomes a mesmerizing mirror with the early light reflecting the vertical cliffs above while penetrating to the translucent lake bed below. It is an epic example of the boundless beauty of our world.
Yet Tajikistan is only one of the “Stans” of Central Asia, an ultimate of the world’s mysterious, remote, and wondrous places. There are four others: Kazakhstan, Kyrghistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. A number of your fellow TTPers have been there with me and can tell you what a fabulously life-memorable adventure it is to explore all five.
We’ll be there again this September: The Heart of Central Asia: September 2-21, 2023. Be with us with your loved one, your children, or grandchildren and you’ll all have an experience to treasure for all of your lives. Click on the link to see for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #263 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/31/23
It is All Fake, and Gay
Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day.
Globalists showed signs of panic this week as they rushed to regain narrative control. Another absolute scumbag shot up yet another school, this time in Nashville. The garbage, whose name should be erased from history, left an anti-Christian manifesto. As globalists insist, transitioning is not the path to joy. Instead, it is the path to rage and profound misery for everyone involved.
Who might have predicted that pumping hormones into the mentally ill and then cramming propaganda into their skulls might lead to problems?
Well, problems there are, and they will be with us for decades as it is the policy of the United States to promote homosexuality and transgenderism as a substitute for free trade. It is not working, will never work, and cannot be made to work. Just as LBJ’s policies remain a millstone around America’s neck, so will Obama’s policy of promoting an intersectional coalition of minority groups rotating about a gay pride axis e with us for decades.
Sure, we are experiencing misdirections. The Trump indictment is an attempt to salvage the transexual cultural meme. The banking crisis is growing as the Fed appears to abandon the dollar to inflation to save Biden in 2024.
But these are chump changes for the actual cover-up. Let’s see what those behind the curtain are desperate to hide from the masses.
Bolsonaro returned to Brazil, which reminds the world that the thread weaves through Brasilia as the second republic after the United States to fall to election fraud this decade. In Brazil, however, the world has learned the identity of the Pale Horse—the bringer of death to constitutional governments of free men.