NO APOLOGY, NO FUTURE
[This Monday’s Archive was written on April 28, 2005. It could not be more relevant today. Because more than ever, the world at large is recognizing that Putin is a narcissistic psychopath who cannot be reasoned with like a normal human being. Unfortunately, too many Russians have been infected with his psychopathy, such that the dissolution of the Soviet Union will now be the fate of Russia itself.]
TTP, April 28, 2005
Budapest, Hungary, October 1997. It was a gorgeous fall day, the sun sparkling off the Danube, the domed Royal Palace glinting on Buda Hill, smartly dressed shoppers strolling along the Vaci.
Just a few years ago this place had been a fear-ridden Russian colony. Now everyone on the street was chattering away on a cell phone. Back in the Soviet days, only the Nomenklatura – the Communist elite – could get a telephone, and even they were terrified of talking freely.
I was in Budapest speaking to a conference of international business leaders. Another speaker was a Moscow television news commentator well-known in Russia, Boris Notkin. He informed his audience about how humiliated Russians felt, losing their Empire and the Cold War, not winning many medals in the Olympics, and having their Mir space station go belly-up.
He warned of a dangerous anti-Americanism emerging among Russians, who resentfully blamed America for their problems.
A gray-haired gentleman with a Central European accent stood up and asked Boris a question:
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: SMUGGLERS PARADISE
Khasab, Musendam, Enclave of Oman, October 2006. The sharp tip of Arabia, known as the Musandam Point, sticks into the Persian Gulf, separating it from the Indian Ocean. The Strait of Hormuz is only 30 miles wide from Musandam Point to the coast of Iran, and through it passes a substantial fraction of the world's crude oil.
I came here to see the Persian smugglers. Go down to the wharves in Khasab and you will see them piled high with waterproof-wrapped bales of clothes, cases of soft drinks and juice, cartons of children's toys and electronic goods, an entire shopping mall of stuff, all ready to be crammed and tied down into 20 ft. long open speedboats with powerful outboard motors capable of outrunning Iranian Navy patrols.
There are dozens, scores, of waiting speedboats. The run from Khasab harbor to coves on the Iranian coast or the Iranian island of Qeshm takes about three hours. An average night will see dozens of speedboats racing across the Strait of Hormuz smuggling goods into Iran. The smugglers couldn’t have been more friendly to me. They hate the mullahs and are proud they are helping poor people in Iran. I had a great time with them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #169 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/22/24
Holy Week 2024
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Censorship is falling upon the world like a gloomy darkness, from coordinated Lawfare at the highest levels of government used to destroy political opposition to the electronic control of an individual's emotions. Unelected powers demand complete control of the political narrative and threaten arbitrary, extrajudicial power over life and death.
We have seen deep states come and go throughout history and watched them become tyrannical when the people resisted. Deep states do deep-state things.
Welcome to Holy Week 2024: This is the most important time of the year for Christians, starting with Palm Sunday on March 24, 2024, and proceeding through Easter on March 31. We look at the deep state then and the deep state today. While the banal nature of today's events cannot, in any way, stand as significant as those from two millennia ago, there are some commonalities behind the motivations of the bureaucratic state.
Let's have a look…
GET THE FLOCK OUT
Democrats always accuse their enemies of what they themselves are guilty of, right out of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals.” Democrats have been beating the “Trump is a danger to Democracy” drum because it is all they have in their war chest with Biden as their candidate. It is actually the Democrats that are the real threat to freedom of speech, the 2nd Amendment, and our constitutional republic as a whole.
SKYE’S LINKS 03/21/24
We all suffer from Political Overload at times, but we cannot afford to poke our heads in the sand hoping it will go away! Here are links to what’s happening at the border; Congressional votes on social media; malfeasance by the CIA, Boeing, and Hamas (I’m sure that will surprise you – sarcasm font); the usual DC insanity; plus the economy. The best news is that we’re all here together!
LION ON A CAT
Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, Tanzania. Ngorongoro is one of the world’s great natural wonders, created over two million years ago when the cone of a gigantic volcano collapsed in on itself. The crater floor is over 100 square miles, teeming with African wildlife that includes the densest population of lions in the world. You’re only allowed to drive on certain dirt roads to see them, but lions sometime have different ideas. Here’s a lioness we found sunning herself on the hood of a Caterpillar road-grader, completely unconcerned by our presence. We spend a few days exploring Ngorongoro to cap off our safaris in isolated roadless areas of the Serengeti. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #286, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HOW COVID WRECKED SCIENCE AND STOMPED LIBERTY
We remember four years ago like it was yesterday. We remember how the COVID curtain came down, how the lockdowns were ordered, how the masking and the mandates were enforced, how our speech was curtailed, how our liberties were usurped. We remember how the lab-leaked China virus took control of our lives. And we wonder: Did we really learn our lessons?
Oh, sure, there's a general consensus that lockdowns are a bad idea and that vaccine mandates are unethical. But when the next pandemic comes around, will science once again give way to hysteria? Will Liberty take a backseat to tyranny?
One of the most important columns we've ever written, sadly, wasn't among our most well-read pieces. It was published on October 8, 2020, and it covered Donald Trump's brief battle with COVID. We remember the message he tweeted as he left Walter Reed Medical Center: "Don't be afraid of Covid. Don't let it dominate your life." He was onto something.
THAT PESKY FIRST AMENDMENT
In 2001, Barack Obama said something interesting about the Constitution. It was, he said, “a charter of negative liberties” setting out what the government cannot do. That’s a very peculiar formulation because, rather than seeing the Constitution from the people’s viewpoint as a leash on tyranny, he saw it from the government’s viewpoint as an irritating restraint on its power. Today, when the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a pivotal free speech case arising from the government’s pressure on social media during COVID, Ketanji Brown Jackson made the same point, only more explicitly. These people really hate that you have the right to talk back.
WHAT A REAL CANNIBAL LOOKS LIKE
On the remote north side of the island of Malekula in Vanuatu, there lives a cannibal tribe called the Big Nambas. The men wear a penis gourd wrapped in pandamus fibers, and eat “man long pig,” cooked human enemies. You have to trek over mountains of thick jungle to reach them. When I was able to years ago, there were a few men who continued the practice. This gentleman is one of them. I was in no danger as they were very kind and gracious to me.
That wasn’t the case a century ago when the first explorers, Martin & Osa Johnson, reached them. Their 1918 film, “Cannibals of the South Seas,” made the Johnsons famous, and you can see it on YouTube. Today they are far more benign. It is an extraordinary experience to meet a culture of fearsome reputation and realize they are people like you and me. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #103 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
TRUMP THREATENS NUCLEAR WAR, STATING ‘THIS GUAC IS THE B*MB!’
U.S. — After former President Trump declared his freshly-made guacamole "the bomb", media outlets across the nation announced that Trump had threatened to drop a nuclear bomb if he were to lose the election.
"This is a clear call to civil war," cried MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough as video played of Trump eating chips. "You heard the words 'the bomb' from his very own lips. Is there nothing this madman won't do?"
Several media outlets reported that Trump's threat of nuclear war came immediately on the heels of Trump vowing to demolish democracy when he claimed he was "about to demolish" some tortilla chips. "We are sickened to hear such vile threats from former President Trump," said Scarborough. "Watch as Trump openly says he's about to 'slice and dice' tomatoes. Slice and dice? Trump is literally saying he plans to cut every one of his opponents into tiny pieces with a knife. Horrific!"
According to sources, the comments came after Trump served up his world-famous guacamole during fajita night at Mar-a-Lago. The guacamole, a family recipe for generations, was made tableside by Trump himself and described as "absolute dynamite" in addition to many other violent and obviously pro-insurrection phrases.
At publishing time, MSNBC had reported that Trump also planned to burn Democrats alive after revealing that Trump described the fajitas as "sizzling." - Babylon Bee reporting