REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD
All across America, Viet Nam vets are smiling. At last, perhaps they can bury their demons. These angry vets are demanding that this man who sentenced them to being shunned as criminals, tell the world that he was wrong and that he is sorry for what he did to them. Kerry must admit that he lied about them. For many, it would still not be enough. Satisfaction and hopefully peace will come when Viet Nam Vets see and hear John F. Kerry give his concession speech the night of November 2, 2004 with the knowledge that it was their votes that helped defeat him.
THE MEANING OF LIFE
One of the great benefits of membership in To The Point is the exclusive columns of technology genius Dennis "The Wizard" Turner, psychologist Joel Wade, investment guru Leslie Chase, and Nasdaq mastermind Dagny D'Anconia. Many To The Pointers consider any of them alone to be easily worth TTP membership. They are exclusive to To The Point -- you can read them no where else. Dennis Turner’s “Dennis The Wizard” column focuses on how to live better and much more safely with your computer. This week we offer this bonus column (in addition to Dennis' regular colum) in full to the TTP Free List as a clear demonstration of the value of being a member of To The Point. ---JW Snappy title, right? Fortunately, discovering the meaning of Life is simple - if you know where to look. Life is a “characteristic state or mode of living.” And a “mode” is a “manner of performance.” And a “manner” is a “way of acting or living.” Or maybe Life is “the course of existence of an individual”. And a “course”…. I could go on all day like this - if fact, I actually did go on for several hours recently, with one of the best free programs I have ever come across. A friend sent me the reference. I took one look at the web site, downloaded and installed it. I’m taking a break from Bluetooth and security this week because this program is just too good to pass up. It’s called StarDict, the most amazing dictionary you will ever use, online, download, print or otherwise.
GRESHAM AND THE CURRENCY OF ISLAM
Sir Thomas Gresham, who lived from 1519 to 1579, was Queen Elizabeth’s financial advisor. He was so good at it that he paid off all of England’s European debts by playing the Antwerp stock market in Belgium and made himself the richest man in Britain. But his greatest contribution was reviving the debased English shilling by convincing Elizabeth of the truth of what history calls Gresham’s Law: that bad money, if allowed to exist, will wipe out the value of good money.
The ghastly series of events in the past weeks -- two commercial airliners blown out of the sky in Russia on August 24, two buses blown up by suicide bombers in Israel on August 31, the threat to behead two French hostages unless France rescinds its school ban on Moslem head scarves, the threat to behead two Italian women unless Italy retreats from Iraq, the genocide in Sudan, the hideous butchery of hundreds of Russian children in Beslan last week, the car bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta today - make it quite clear that Gresham’s Law now needs to be applied to Islam.
If Sir Thomas were alive today, he would explain that his law pertains to the validity not just of monetary institutions, but political, social, cultural, and economic institutions as well. All issue their own “currencies” - the measure of their moral worth and practical value. The moral worth and practical value of the currency of Islam has become so debased that it may be unredeemable.
THE WOLF IN THE HENHOUSE
Last month TTP gave you a heads up that Hillary, in order to run in 2008, will gut Kerry with an October Surprise. Last week all of Hillary’s players were put in place. She immediately leaked Slick’s advice to Kerry delivered by phone from his hospital so the Clinton-as-guru/Kerry-as-neophyte story dominated the news. She then conned Kerry into inserting a raft of Clintonistas deep into his campaign. Guys like Paul Begala, James Carville, and Joe Lockhart will just make a lot of noise, however. The real player is Hillary’s former chief of staff, Howard Wolfson. You see stories now about Kerry’s campaign divided into two camps, the Massachusetts crowd who used to run the campaign, led by Mary Beth Cahill (Ted Kennedy’s chief of staff) and the recent addition of John Sasso (Michael Dukakis’s campaign manager in 1988), and the Clintonistas. Many of the media stories focus on the resultant chaos and confusion - not realizing that this is by Hillary’s design.
MORE ON REFORMATTING YOUR HARD DISK
A few weeks ago I discussed many of the precautions a person must take to successfully reformat his or her hard disk and reinstall an operating system and applications. I suggested some procedures and aids. However, before I reformatted my own hard disk, I did a little thinking. Was I sure I could recover my Outlook address book, folders, and emails? What about my passwords? Was I certain that I could write them all down? Where exactly did Windows store them? And what about my Windows settings? The screen resolution, the screen saver, and many other tweaks? Same for Outlook, my other Office programs, and those of other applications. Would I have to reconfigure all of them when I reinstall? Or is there a way of finding and saving the configuration files and restoring them after a reformatting and reinstallation? Some of the answers are too geeky for this column. But many aren’t. I snooped around some support forums and asked some questions. I’ll summarize what I’ve learned. If you follow these additional instructions, you’re even more likely to be up and running within several hours.
AN IMPROBABLE MOLEHUNT
Must be something to do with the hurricanes and typhoons — or maybe it's the street demos in New York — but it took longer than usual for me to get in touch with my late friend, James Jesus Angleton. The ouija board kept giving me a "no service available" message, but finally I got through. There was a lot of static on the line.ML: Lots to talk about, huh?JJA: I'll say! I knew counterintelligence had been gutted, but I had no idea how bad it was.
KERRY LIED RALLY
My good friend and Navy SEAL Commander Capt. Larry Bailey has organized a rally for Vietnam Veterans, their families and friends to protest the presidential candidacy of a man who betrayed his fellow soldiers while he was still in uniform. The Kerry Lied Rally will be at the Washington Mall in Washington DC on Sunday, September 12. Please send this to any friend who might be able to attend. I hope to see you there! 
BUSH’S “KILLER AP”
The term “killer ap” is geek-speak for a computer application that blows the doors off any competition. By letting anyone or any company write software programs for Windows rather than keep Windows proprietary to Microsoft, Bill Gates made his product the killer ap that left Apple light years behind. Excel did the same thing for spreadsheet applications.So when Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, whispers in Karl Rove’s and George Bush’s ears this week at the convention, let’s hope they recognize a political killer ap when they hear one.
AESCHYLUS AND AMERICA
“Aeschylus and America” is an essay I wrote for a book edited by Rod Martin and released this week, Thank You, President Bush. It is available at Amazon and I encourage you to get a copy. This is a lengthy essay, which may be easily read by clicking on “printer-friendly format” in the top right corner and printing a hard copy. It is a summation of my thoughts on America’s recent history and the choice America faces this November. AESCHYLUS AND AMERICA Chapter Eight of Thank You, President Bush, Los Angeles: World Ahead Publishing, September 2004. Includes the following sections: Aeschylus and Homer Aeschylus and Neal Armstrong Getting Drunk Getting Sober The Evil Eye Terrorism As a Pathology of Envy Liberalism As a Fear of the Evil Eye The Masochism of Liberals The Pathology of Bush-Hatred Aeschylus and George Bush
HUBRIS AND STUPIDITY
This is a speech I am delivering to the Council For National Policy in New York on the eve of the Republican Convention.One surefire way to make yourself really stupid is to acquire an overload of what the Greeks called hubris, the overweening pride that leads to one’s doom. The ancient Greeks had observed time and again the causal connection between hubris and stupidity. If they were with us today, they would tell us that anyone possessed of this self-destructive synthesis needs psychiatric counseling instead of trying to be President of the United States.