Yearly Archives: 2023
WHAT GAMES DOES HUNTER PLAY?
What shameless act or felonious activity was not evidenced on Hunter Biden’s laptop? Racist attitudes toward Asians? Soliciting prostitution? Felonious use of drugs? Photographed nudity and perverse sex? Admissions to illicit foreign shakedowns?
Hunter all but accused his own father President Joe Biden of also being on the foreign take: “I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family… Unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary.”
Hunter’s alleged felonies range from bribery to tax evasion. That he has not yet been prosecuted for anything is scandalous. His exemption is attributable only to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s likely weaponized directives to federal prosecutors to downgrade or forget altogether felony charges against Hunter.
So given such wild behavior, why would not Hunter tone it down, stop the global grifting, cease the reckless behavior—and quit redirecting attention to the likely illegal acts of his father, the President?
NIKKI HALEY SQUISHING AROUND
As you may have guessed from the title of this post, I’m not a Nikki Haley fan. She’s a sort of conservative, which makes her way better than a Democrat, but she’s also a squish, which puts her low on my list. I also really dislike her playing the woman card to run. That’s such a Democrat thing to do. Now, my concern is that she’s attacking Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) because he’s holding the Pentagon’s feet to the fire over its illegal abortion policies.
The Hyde Amendment isn’t complicated: It says that federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortions unless the abortion will save the woman’s life or the pregnancy results from rape or incest.
In 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court held that abortion is not a constitutional right, returning the matter to the states. (To make abortion a federal right or ban it nationwide requires a constitutional amendment.) Several states have since banned or severely limited abortion. There are military bases in many of the states that have placed full or partial bans on abortion.
The Pentagon is currently a leftist institution, from the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on down. Obama started a purge of conservatives, and Biden has been finishing it.
THE WORLD’S BIGGEST MONEY
We’re on the island of Yap in Micronesia – some 500 miles southwest of Guam and 1,200 miles east of Manila in the Western Pacific. The Yapese have lived here for over 2,000 years, and have maintained their culture and traditions to this day.
Phenomenal navigators in their outrigger canoes, in ancient times they began sailing to Palau over 250 miles south to quarry large sections of limestone and return to stone-chisel them into circles with a hole in the middle (through which world put a long pole for carrying them.
Called Rai, they have been Yap’s currency for two millennia. The ones you see here are typical size but many are much larger, weighing as much as a car. Rai are the world’s biggest money – used not for day-to-day transactions but large ones like a bride’s dowry and wedding party, or a real estate deal.
The Yapese are a proud and peaceful people who live by their code of Respect and Responsibility. They are warm and welcoming to visitors. A 90-minute flight from Guam makes it easy to get here. Spending time with these special people will be life-memorable. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #216 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE FEARFUL LEFT’S IMPEACHMENT PLOT
Weaponizing impeachment is just one of many precedents that Leftists now would not wish to have applied to themselves
An impeachment inquiry looms and the shrieks of outrage are beginning.
The Left is now suddenly voicing warnings that those who recently undermined the system could be targeted by their own legacies.
So, for example, now we read why impeachment is suddenly a dangerous gambit.
True, the Founders did not envision impeaching a first-term president the moment he lost his House majority. Nor did they imagine impeaching a president twice. And they certainly did not anticipate trying an ex-president in the Senate as a private citizen.In modern times, the nation has not rushed to impeach a president without a special counsel investigation to determine whether the chief executive was guilty of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
But thanks to the Democrats, recent impeachments now have destroyed all those guardrails.
FREEDOM WINS IF RFK JR CAMPAIGNS FOR TRUMP IN 2024
The real end goal of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Vivek Ramaswamy campaigns is a leadership position in the Trump administration. How much criticism of Trump have we heard from these two Trump political opponents?
The key for Trump and for our country to win could be a powerful coalition with RFK Jr. and his millions of Democrat and Independent supporters. With that coalition, freedom will win and evil will lose.
Many of RFK Jr.’s positions make him more Trumpian than the average Republican politician. RFK Jr. is a DINO (Democrat in Name Only) but actually more appealing to Republicans than to Democrats according to recent polling.
An angry American electorate is desperately hungry for truth and radical counterrevolutionary reforms that only Trump, RFK Jr., and a like-minded administration and Congress can provide. The GOP and our country cannot afford to experience another close election loss.
SPITUK GOMPA
The Tibetan Monastery or “Gompa” of Spituk overlooks the Upper Indus as it flows out of Chinese Tibet and towards Baltistan in Pakistan. The Indus here is the geological dividing line between the ancient Karakorum mountains and the younger Himalayas (40+ million years old and growing: Mount Everest rises 2 inches every ten years).
We’re in Indian Tibet here, a region called Ladakh where Tibetan culture flourishes freely. Wheeler Expeditions first explored Indian Tibet – including running the remote Zanskar River tributary of the Upper Indus, one the world’s most thrilling whitewater experiences – in 1992. We’ll explore it once more next year. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #128 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE RELIGION OF PEACE
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on September 11, 2003. It is still relevant today]
TTP, September 11, 2003
Earlier this week I had lunch with one of the most extraordinary human beings gracing our planet — His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
In the 102-year history of the Nobel Peace Prize, no one has deserved it more than Lhamo Dhondrub, the 14th Dalai Lama. As a man of true peace and compassion, he is unsurpassed. This is due both to his qualities as an individual and to the religion which enables him to optimize them.
From the President of the United States on down, we are subjected to claims that Islam is a “religion of peace.” To understand how absurd this claim is, just compare Islam to a real religion of peace: Buddhism.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/08/23
Don't Banana My Republic!
The Maui fire last month took many lives and destroyed considerable property. Since then, governments at multiple levels have demonstrated a stilted communication response that increasingly appears inauthentic and politically motivated.
Many children are missing and presumed burned to death. How many? Nobody seems to know. Electronic geofencing prevents private drones from looking at the scene; a tall, opaque fence has been erected around the site. Official government spokespersons do not appear competent or even in the loop.
Censorship has returned to social media with a vengeance as the government demands posts mentioning or discussing the fires be shut down. The immediate question is, why? Why do government agents believe aggressive, centralized narrative control is their best option? Perhaps because we are in election season? Perhaps another reason?
Public relations experts, ministers of propaganda, or whatever they shall be called, did not conceptualize the cause and progression of events effectively. They used poor graphics and messaging filled with blanks and gaps that shredded their credibility.
The official cause of the fire was downed electrical lines into fields of bone-dry grass. Videos of the fire's ignition exist.
But…Many know that directed energy weapons are being researched and that a Chinese satellite operating a LIDAR unit, a laser version of radar, overflew the site. Rumors have expanded to fill the gap without effective official messaging and in light of aggressive censorship.
The fire was a crisis, yet the mismanagement of official communication continues. This begs the question, when faced with crisis communication, why is the first impulse of government to hide, block, and censor? Are government communication teams so thoroughly woke that they cannot perform their jobs? No wonder faith in institutions is collapsing.
Much is being written about expanding the economic zone called the BRICS. Are we supposed to be afraid? And afraid of what exactly? A collection of global extraction-based economies has joined a geographic and political zone centered on China. Most are middle to low-income, low-productivity, low-innovation economies with a collectivist bent. Sure, they can engineer a famine or crisis to promote the debtor/creditor international perspective. At best, they are trying to build a cargo-cult version of the old USSR. In the end, economics are more powerful than political systems. It has been thus throughout all of history,
If the United States stops patrolling the trade routes between the BRICS, pirates and scoundrels will prey on the ships. Even with China as a central member, the BRICS do not have an effective blue-water navy.
We return to the second part of the discussion of Beautiful Trouble, the left's new playbook for revolution in light of modern social media and mobile phones. Today's conversation covers the conceptual framework behind leftist dogma. We will wrap up the conceptual framework next week before moving on to their tactics and logistics, training, and organization over the following weeks.
Troublemakers, as they call themselves, want to remove individuals' right to think and discuss important topics. What is most annoying is the government action in Maui is in synch with the philosophy behind Beautiful Trouble.
Please click over to this week's HFR and join the forum conversation. They want to silence your voice. Don't let them.
OF COURSE SHE CAN
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – SWIMMING THE HELLESPONT
July, 1973. The Hellespont is the famous strait separating Europe from Asia, where the Black Sea after flowing through the Bosphorus at Istanbul and a widening called Marmara empties into the Aegean Sea of the Mediterranean. One of the great stories of Greek Mythology is Leander swimming the Hellespont to tryst with Hero, the woman he loved but was forbidden to see.
Thus he swam at night, and she lit a torch for him to swim to. One night a storm blew out the torch and the strong currents swept Leander onto the rocks to drown. So I first swam the Hellespont at night in 1960 and almost drowned myself (LIFE Magazine, Dec. 12, 1960, pp 91-94).
This was the second time, swimming from Leander’s village site of Abydos on the Asia side to Sestos, Hero’s village site on Europe’s. Here I am having reached the Sestos shore.
The Hellespont is where the Trojan War was fought, where the Persians crossed to lose against the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis, where Alexander crossed to conquer the Persian Empire. Lord Byron swam the Hellespont in 1803 to make all the legends and history a part of his life. I was determined to do the same, twice to make sure. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #100 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE HANGING MONASTERY
The architectural wonder of the Hanging Monastery was built on a vertical cliff face by the Tuoba people of Inner Mongolia over 1,500 years ago (in the 490s). Devout Buddhists and brilliant engineers, they defied gravity by inserting huge wooden crossbeams deep into the cliff to suspend the monastery’s temples, shrines, and monks’ living quarters, connected with bridges, corridors, and boardwalks, out into space.
Liao Mongols in the 900s rebuilt and sustained it, and it has been carefully refurbished and restored in the centuries since. While it remains primarily Buddhist with statues and depictions of Sakyamuni (the historical Buddha of 5th century BC) and Maitreya (the future Buddha), the monks welcome reverence to Taoism and its founder Lao Tzu (4th century BC), as well as Confucius (551-479 BC). Thus you also see shrines and statues of them like nowhere else.
It is a unique and inspiring experience to be here. We’ll be here again in our next exploration of Inner Mongolia sometime soon. ((Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #116 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 09/07/23
Narrative Damage Control.
Can the Deep State Save its Political Ship?
The Federal Government relies on political narratives to assert control. Federal agencies are fundamentally narrative management organizations built up during a previous time when lies could be told with impunity. Federal agents with guns attempt to beat political beliefs into the populace when the lies fail. Love it or hate it, it is the system.
Things are getting tougher. First, the narrative-making process appears to have less competency, elegance, and professionalism. You know what is said about going woke leading to “going broke” in the private sector. The government sector is not immune, as social hires were found to be winging it all through COVID-19. They seem to be winging everything.
Federal Narrative Control agents have their hands full as the lunacy from the bureaucrats is getting more challenging to enforce. Government agencies have lost coordination among themselves.
Medical information is falsified, crime statistics are outright lies, Bidenomics is not working, and people act as if anarchy is the rule, whether in shopping malls or at the ballot box.
The ship is on fire, and the damage control crews don’t know how to put the flames out. Instead of authenticity, competent insiders are abandoning ship for the private sector.
The Fourth Turning grumbles on. Anarchy is spreading even while some courts earnestly try to restore faith in the law. A profound problem is that many courts promote anarchy, if not evil. President Trump has much to say about this.
Let’s have a look over at Skye’s Links.
THE ARIRANG MASS GAMES IN NORTH KOREA
The spectacle takes place in the fall at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang. I attended in 2010 and 2012. It has to be seen to be believed. You’re looking at 10,000 dancers, acrobats and performers on the stadium floor. The background screen of a rising sun and Korean letters is a “card stunt,” 30,000 students holding colored cards composing it.
The number “65” is for the 65th anniversary of the surrender of Imperial Japan in World War II (August 15, 1945 – I took this photo in 2010), their Liberation Day (our V-J Day). The snowy mountain depicted below the 65 is Mount Paekdu, where all North Koreans are taught their country’s founder Kim Il-sung defeated the Japanese and won the war (he was actually at a Soviet army camp near Khabarovsk, Siberia at the time).
They are never taught a word about the events a few days prior to their Liberation Day (i.e. Hiroshima and Nagasaki), nor to whom the Japanese surrendered. Hands down, NorkLand is the world’s most bizarre country. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #88 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WYOMING’S “POOP” RAMPAGE IS AN INSIGHT INTO TODAY’S HOMELESS
The headline at the Daily Mail was eye-catching: “Squatters take over Wyoming city: Vagrants leave millions of dollars worth of damage to motel and 500lbs of human feces in downtown area - as Casper fights off a homeless invasion.”
It was an image at odds with how we think of Wyoming; that is, a clean, naturally beautifully conservative state. But the homeless plague is everywhere, and the situation in Casper reminds us that most of today’s homeless are not just ordinary people down on their luck; they are dysfunctional drug addicts who are the inevitable result of 60 years of leftist drug policies.
The Daily Mail has the details behind the headline:
Squatters have taken over a Wyoming city after some left millions of dollars worth of damage to a motel and others left 500lbs of feces in the downtown area.
Casper, the second-largest city in the state, is home to 60,000 residents but now also has about 200 homeless people.
Some have seized various properties that are empty or abandoned, including an abandoned Econo Lodge motel that hasn’t operated since November.
Casper Mayor Bruce Knell described the extent of destruction as akin to ‘third-world-country stuff’.
FIGHTING DEM MONSTERS WHO ARE USING RATIONALES ONCE USED AGAINST THEM
Democrats are adopting arguments and rationales once used against the left to silence or jail them. Pundits and politicians are becoming the very thing that they have long condemned in this age of rage. It is realization of Nietzsche’s monster theory.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” Those words from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche capture the fear that the struggle against the ideas and people we oppose will twist us into the very thing we hate.
For Democrats, that moment has come in an age of rage against former President Donald Trump in particular and conservatives in general. It’s an age when reason and restraint are strangers.
In various areas, Democrats have embraced repellent concepts in the effort to silence or even jail their opponents. What is most striking is that legal arguments now used by the left were once used against the left.
THE LEFT DID THIS TO OUR COUNTRY
In the last 20 years, the Left has boasted that it has gained control of most of America institutions of power and influence—the corporate boardroom, media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the administrative state, academia, foundations, social media, entertainment, professional sports, and Hollywood.
With such support, between 2009-17, Barack Obama was empowered to transform the Democratic Party from its middle-class roots and class concerns into the party of the bi-coastal rich and subsidized poor—obsessions with big money, race, a new intolerant green religion, and dividing the country into a binary of oppressors and oppressed.
The Obamas entered the presidency spouting the usual left-wing boilerplate (“spread the wealth,” “just downright mean country,” “get in their face,” “first time I’ve been proud of my country”) as upper-middle-class, former community activists, hurt that their genius and talents had not yet been sufficiently monetized.
GRAND ESCALANTE STAIRCASE
As you can see, this place is aptly named. It is simply phantasmagorical – nature on LSD. Then again, so much of southern Utah is too, for close by Escalante are the Vermillion Cliffs, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, Monument Valley and a lot more.
The entire area is Navaho country, so it is no surprise their native religion is based on peyote, a cactus containing the hallucinogen, mescaline, with the Navaho belief that nature surrounding them was designed by the Peyote Bird.
However, it is not necessary to take any hallucinogen to achieve a sense of ecstasy being here – just a deep appreciation of what a wondrous world – a breathtaking world – it is that we are all privileged to be alive in. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #180 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Z GENERATION: INTO THE HEART OF RUSSIAS FASCIST YOUTH
[No, this is not about America’s Gen Z, named after the Xers and Y Millennials. It is about Russia’s, named after the tactical insignia of Russian troops occupying Ukraine, which they support with a Nazi-genocidal fervor]
Red Square, Moscow
Alina is 19. She loves fashion, and watching pirated Hollywood movies with her mechanic boyfriend Sergei.
But since February 24, 2022, when President Vladimir Putin sent an invasion force into Ukraine, Alina's online life has become scarily violent. She is one of the Z Generation.
She shares and re-posts propaganda about Ukrainian neo-Nazis and child-killers, backed up with warnings of the threat to Russia from shadowy NATO organizations. The people of Ukraine, she believes, can be saved only by wiping out their culture, their government and their language.
Her homepage is plastered with apocalyptic images of a burning White House in 'Fasciston DC'. The Ukrainian flag is renamed 'the Devil's Swastika' and Putin is 'Russia's savior'.
How did Alina, and hundreds of thousands of young Russians like her, become so consumed with online violence and hate?
THE WORLD’S MOST UNIQUE BIRD
This is a Hoatzin. I took this picture in the Amazon jungles of Colombia, its native habitat. It has no genetic relationship to any other bird, and thus has its own family, the Opisthocomidae, and its own suborder, the Opisthocomi. Extensive DNA-sequencing demonstrates that “the hoatzin is the last surviving member of a bird line that branched off in its own direction 64 million years ago, shortly after the extinction event that killed the non-avian dinosaurs.”
The Hoatzin is the Dinosaur Bird, the only bird on earth directly descended from the dinosaurs. It makes weird noises – grunts, hisses, groans and croaks – no melodious birdsongs. It emits an awful smell due to its fermentation digestive system, and tastes just as awful so no one hunts it for food. Yet it is distinctively pretty in a hyper-funky way. Spend enough time exploring the Amazon, and you may be lucky to see one. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #186 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
AIKIDO AND THE GLOWARMER FLEA
The Galactosphere
[This week’s Archive was originally published on May 7, 2007. I had some fun with it at the start, but it ends with a fascinating theory by two professors of astrophysics. Since Warmism is a secular religion invulnerable to real facts and science, it has since been ignored, but it’s useful to bring it to attention now. Enjoy.]
TTP, May 9, 2007
We're going for a wild ride here, starting on a log floating down a river, then go on a fling through the galaxy. On the way, we'll examine the extinction of the dinosaurs. We'll end up applying aikido to astrophysics as a way to de-subsidize the glowarmers.
Glowarmers – those who believe in the religion of Man-Made ("Anthropogenic") Global warming – argue that:
- The earth's climate is getting dangerously warmer due to "greenhouse gases" that hold heat in the atmosphere so it can't escape into frigid space…
- The greenhouse gas primarily responsible for this "greenhouse effect" causing global warming is carbon dioxide…
- Human energy production and consumption (e.g., coal-fired power plants, internal combustion engines) is the primary emitter of the additional carbon dioxide causing the global warming…
- Thus the solution to global warming is the drastic reduction of human carbon dioxide emissions.
So lunatic enormous that the glowarmers' egos are like the ultimate joke example of egomania, the flea with a hard-on.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/01/23
Unconstrained Information Warfare
Around the globe, there is an emergence of unconstrained information warfare. This differs from the type of information warfare the pros prefer to fight. Constrained vs. unconstrained information is at the heart of military strategies and the Democrat's move to silence Trump.
Trump won in 2016 using unconstrained information, which cast terror into the heart of the political world. The counter, the information warriors thought, was to constrain Biden to the basement and garble almost everything he says.
And why not? The political class learned information warfare from the same contractors that provided tools to the military. As insiders predicted, the Dems secured the White House in 2020 and maintained their iron grip over the vote count.
Both sides' attempts to constrain information shaped the recent wars in Syria and Armenia. ISIS ran websites for the West but shut the internet down locally.
Everything changed with Ukraine as Russia attempted to constrain the information space at home but pushed well-financed propaganda abroad. Ukraine entered the war with a blast of unconstrained, uncoordinated, very loud information. This brought them the initiative but distorted and undercut the traditional psyop tools and forces.
Enter the world of unconstrained information, where the goal is for Team A to grab the wide-open space while Team B must deal with messaging constraints.
The effects are powerful and very much behind the urgent need felt by the Dems to muzzle Trump. Eight recent African coups were fueled by information warfare, and the State Department was caught flatfooted.
One presidential candidate uses unconstrained information tactics to the detriment of his Republican challengers. The experienced hands continue to respond as if competing in a constrained environment. Big mistake!
So where is this coming from? The Dems launched a major political campaign strategy revision called Beautiful Trouble, taken directly from military psyop programs. It includes books, seminars, board games, and study aids. Pretty much everything on the table is in the book.
This HFR is the first four-part series on the Democrat's information warfare strategy.
Please join us, your insights on the forum are very important.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY JACKSON AT NAMCHE BARWA
In the summer of 2001, I led an overland expedition of 2,500 kilometers across Eastern Tibet, traversing by foot the “Great River Trenches of Asia,” over the 15,000’ Si-la pass between the Salween and Mekong Rivers, thence to the Upper Yangtze by 4WD following it to near its source, onto Lhasa, capital of Tibet.
Enroute we stopped at incredibly remote and rarely seen Namche Barwa (7,782m/25,531ft), the eastern terminus of the Himalayas, which run in a 1,600 mile-long arc from here in Tibet through Nepal, Northwest India, to end at the western terminus of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan.
At nine years old, Jackson handled this like a trooper. What a rewarding thrill it is to have a great adventure with your children. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #277 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE CHAMELEON ELEPHANT
THE RIGALEIRA INITIATION WELL
Do an internet search for “25 Most Mysterious Places on Earth” or similar listing, and almost always the Regaleira Initiation Well in Sintra, Portugal will be there. Since the photo is almost always looking from the top down, I thought you might like to see one from the bottom up, which is just as dramatic.
The Regaleira is a spectacular Gothic mansion with acres of gorgeous gardens built by a 19th century Portuguese-Brazilian millionaire, Carvalho Monteiro (1848-1920). I love it that his exotic eccentric extravaganza, his Regaleira Palace, was built by private capitalist with his own money – not some feudal king with money extracted from the peasantry.
I took this picture in 2021 with fellow TTPers on our Portugal Exploration. Portugal really is a land of wonders, which I hope you’ll someday experience yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #167 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 08/31/23
Oversized Economic Failure Requires Oversized Distractions.
Sometimes, it is not just what they say but what they omit.
The government fears the public will grasp the reality of current corruption and institutional failure. The DOJ is either a partner in Biden's sins or is so afraid that the magnitude, once disclosed, will lead to the permanent erasure of the Democrat Party.
They are not behaving rationally.
The media holds presidential debates but questions a country song instead of the actual inflation issue. Most people missed that sleight of hand.
China is in deep trouble, and the West must figure out how to rebuild its supply lines in a world of rapidly accelerating interest rates.
Environmentalism is now fully exposed as some Keynesian monetary theory scam where the government throws money to its friends in hopes of keeping the game going. Who benefits? The finance industry, with their increasing claims on the labor of taxpayers.
The Trump impeachments are election interference through full-throated government power and the best distraction our betters can create. So far.
Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole, Wyoming speech put the world on notice that he intends to be hawkish with interest rates. Very Hawkish.
Come on over to Skyes' Links, and let's have a look:
THE MOTHER LEATHERBACK
The leatherneck sea turtle is the world’s largest turtle, weighing up to 1500 pounds. This female was about half that. They have an enormous range, all the way from the North Sea to South Africa in the Atlantic, spending their lives at sea eating jellyfish – except when a female comes ashore to her hatching beach and bury her clutch of eggs in the sand above high tide.
Dropping several dozen glistening white golfball-size eggs into a depression scooped out with her flippers, she covers them up with sand, and heads back to sea, never to see them again. More than two months later, the born hatchlings dig out of the sand and wiggle their way into the sea, where the lucky ones survive.
I was able to watch this mommy’s entire egg-birthing process at dawn on a remote beach in the West African country of Gabon. It was such a privilege to witness an act of elemental nature by such an extraordinary creature. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #127 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SAVE THE RULE OF LAW BY DESTROYING IT
The Corruptocrat who runs the Department of Injustice
Some truths are so staggering in their ramifications that Americans simply shrug and tune them out as if strangers in a strange land.
Is their current bewilderment because modernist America is unrecognizable —a nonexistent border, downtown homeless juxtaposed to hipster professional elites, DEI racial essentialism, cities reverting to precivilizational wastelands, millions exiting blue states to red, an FBI and DOJ gone rogue, the normalization of violent theft and assault, biologically born men sandbagging women’s sports and their locker room privacy?
We are reaching the point where the once unbelievable has become the banal, as a single generation has done its best to undo the work of a prior 12 generations. Consider the following:
WHY THE HOUSE HAS NO ALTERNATIVE TO AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY INTO PRESIDENT BIDEN
When Congress returns next month, it has little alternative but to launch a long-discussed impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. For House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the case for an inquiry came from a most unlikely source: Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The debacle in the Hunter Biden investigation has left most objective legal analysts in disbelief, with one CNN analyst calling it an “unholy mess.”
House Republicans had previously demanded that David Weiss and his team answer questions about the investigation and the plea bargain. And an appearance before a House committee was planned when Garland suddenly preempted that by doing what many of us have demanded for years: He appointed a special counsel. None other than David Weiss.
Plus, Garland refused to expressly extend the special counsel’s mandate to include influence-peddling allegations involving President Biden. The House has now no choice but to impeach him.
THE BORU HARP
The Boru Harp, attributed to the one and only High King of the entire island of Ireland, Brian Boru (941-1014), is the only musical instrument that is the national symbol of a country - the Republic of Ireland. It is also on the label of Guinness beer. Beautifully and exquisitely made, the Boru Harp is on display in the famous Long Room of the Trinity College Library in Dublin. You’ll experience a sense of awe when you see it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #219 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE BIDEN CLAN’S CON IS COMING TO AN END
Despite years of Biden family and media disinformation, we are finally learning that Joe Biden really did fire Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for looking into state corruption involving the oil company Burisma and Hunter Biden—and ultimately Joe Biden himself.
As Vice President, Biden, in his own words, bragged that he had threatened to cancel the deliverance of American foreign aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was dismissed.
An impeached Trump also was accused of using the power of government to go after his likely 2020 presidential rival by suggesting that Joe Biden and his family were corrupt, and should be investigated by Ukrainian officials for fraud and bribery.
Despite Joe Biden’s denials, Trump was right: there was plenty of evidence to link Ukrainian unwarranted payoffs going into Biden family coffers.
So what is the Congress to do now—un-impeach and exonerate an innocent impeached Donald Trump, and instead impeach a guilty Biden for essentially the same allegations?
WHO CARES ABOUT A GLIB NARCISSIST WHEN A MUGSHOT WON THE DEBATE?
This can't be the mugshot his many enemies hoped for. Instead of looking cowed, concerned, deflated and defeated, Donald Trump looks strong, defiant, unbowed.
Not for the first time, attempts to denigrate Trump have backfired badly. It has already almost erased from memory the fact that the night before the mugshot was taken, the first televised debate in the Republican primary race for the 2024 presidential election was broadcast from Milwaukee in the swing state of Wisconsin.
During the debate, Trump was 'the elephant not in the room', as Fox News put it, because his presence was never far from the proceedings. Few dared to criticize him for fear of aggravating the Republican base, which still adores him - even more so after that mugshot.
One, Vivek Ramaswamy, said that if he became President he would pardon Trump for any convictions 'on day one'. He is the glib, arrogant millennial of the Republican field, whose gobby overconfidence blinds him to the fact that often, especially on foreign policy, he has no idea what he's talking about.
SKARA BRAE
North of Scotland are the Orkney Islands. On a windswept bluff above the North Atlantic, archaeologists have unearthed an intact Neolithic village of farmers and cattle herders that’s 5,000 years old (3200 BC) – centuries older than the Pyramids of Egypt. Their homes had beds, chairs, cupboards, flush toilets, running water, cozy, warm, and comfortable.
What you see here is just one section of the village. What I found particularly interesting was this sign at the entrance to the site.
These villagers enjoyed a warmer climate than today, more fertile land. Skara Brae is a 5,000 year-old refutation of the Global Warming Hoax. If you ever get to Scotland, be sure the Orkneys are on your itinerary. Skara Brae is only one of the places you’ll find fascinating. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #210 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY
Jackson age 12, 2005
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on May 13, 2005. These days, we all could use a way to “pretend” to be happy, to transform the seeming mundane into an experience of magical gratitude. I hope you find it useful. Let me know if it does.]
TTP, May 13, 2005
Last week was the 13th birthday of my youngest son, Jackson. One evening a few days before, I was engrossed in writing on the computer when my wife reminded me it was Jackson’s bedtime. He was in bed reading, waiting for me to kiss him goodnight.
As I walked down the hall towards his room, my brain was filled with thoughts about the article I was working on. I was on autopilot and all I could think about was what I would write when I got back on the computer.
For some reason, I stopped and stood still. Somehow, an extraneous thought had popped into my consciousness from nowhere.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/25/23
We can’t afford to get depressed about this disgusting week, with this dirtbag free in the White House and the man he stole it from arrested in the corrupt county at the core of the theft. That the dirtbag isn’t under arrest instead of his innocent victim shows that justice is dying in America.
Yet there is a very big difference – explained Miracle Max in The Princess Bride – between mostly dead and all dead. Be pessimistic when something’s all-dead. Be optimistic even when something’s mostly-dead and what you’re interested in is not problems in themselves but solutions to them.
On Wednesday (8/23), Greg Jarrett at Fox explained the Three Reasons Why Joe And Hunter Biden Got Away With Their Great Sell-Out Of America – they’re very skilled at corruption, at hiding the cash, and getting both the media and deep state to protect them. Got it. Now what?
Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about, and a lot more. So settle in a comfy chair to relax and enjoy a really good HFR. You’ll see why I tried to have it be special.
BREAKING: TRUMP INDICTED AGAIN FOR LOOKING TOO STUNNINGLY HANDSOME IN MUGSHOT
ATLANTA, GA — Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by Fulton County for looking too stunning and handsome in his mugshot photo.
"No man is allowed to look that attractive and fierce," said District Attorney Fani Willis. "President Trump must be held accountable for his overpowering sexiness and raw animal magnetism."
According to sources at the Fulton County DA Office, President Trump will be charged with a range of crimes, including having too perfect of a bone structure. "Thousands of women became pregnant the moment the photo was released," said Ms. Willis. "It's an outrage. No man, no matter how beautifully made, is above the law."
Mr. Trump's photo has already spread around the globe at a record pace, with heterosexual women everywhere suddenly becoming fans of the former President. "He finally earned the women's vote," said Republican strategist Dan Cooper. "The fundraising off of this will be incredible. I hear Mike Lindell already has pillowcases with the mugshot ready to go. Someone named Marjorie already ordered ten thousand of them."
At publishing time, Mr. Trump had been indicted yet again for being too debonaire when talking to the jail staff.
~ Babylon Bee reporting.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – WITH THE KHAMPAS IN TIBET
October 1987, on an overland expedition across the entire Chang Tang Tibetan Plateau. Here is where you find the warrior nomads of Tibet, the Khampas. Renowned and feared for fierceness, they couldn’t have been friendlier to me when I gave them each what they treasured most in the world – a photo of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, far more valuable to them than gold.
Before, they were suspicious and angry at a stranger intruding upon them. Instantly with gifting the photos, they were joyous and smiling. They had no idea who I was, all they knew was that I was their friend, insisting I sit down and have a cup of yak-butter tea with them. It was the most memorable cup of tea in my life. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #55 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HOLY TOLEDO!
Toledo, Spain. As you drive up the hill upon which this ancient city sits, at the city’s entrance you are greeted by this statue. It is of King Alfonso VI of León and Castile (1040-1109) holding his sword as the Christian cross symbolizing his liberating Toledo from Moslem rule.
The sword has been the symbol of Toledo for over two millennia. In 193 BC, Romans founded the city as Toletum, where their blacksmiths developed a process of making swords of layered steel with different carbon contents, known to history as “Toledo steel,” the finest in the world for millennia until the hi-tech methods of today.
With Fall of Rome, Christian Visigoths ruled Spain from their capital here at Toledo – known as “Holy Toledo,” the center of a flourishing Christian civilization for 300 years until it was overrun by Moslems spreading Islam from Africa in the early 700s.
It was Alfonso VI who liberated Toledo from the Moslems in 1085. It was his great-grandson, Alfonso VIII (1155-1214) who led 30,000 knights in a surprise attack on 200,000 Moslems at the Plains of Tolosa in 1212 to destroy Moslem rule in Spain.
Today, Toledo is a small town of some 50,000, charming, historic, and peaceful. It’s one of the special places we’ll visit exploring Holy Spain this coming March. Hope you’ll be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #170 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 08/24/23
Before we begin, let me first thank all my fellow TTPers who posted such nice birthday wishes for me on the Forum. What you expressed means a lot to me – what a wonderful 80th birthday present, for which I am so very appreciative and grateful. “Live long and prosper” to us all!
Good news! Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley explains how The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has handed down a major victory for free speech against the District of Columbia woketard judge. Even better, it’s a Pro-Life free speech victory and loss for Only Black Lives Matter racism!
“When disaster strikes, always blame it on Climate Change” is the Dem mantra now. Yes, the mantra helped cause the deadly Maui wildfires - but not in the way that the MSM and Xiden minions are claiming:
WSJ: Hawaiian Electric Focused on Climate Change, Neglected Wildfire Risk
The above was tragic, but the lethal role that DEI played in the Maui fires was literally insane:
Woke Hawaiian Official Stalled Release Of 'Revered Water' Until It Was Too Late To Save Maui
CHRISTIANITY IN KERALA
In 52 AD, St. Thomas the Apostle, one of Jesus’ 12 Disciples, sailed down the Red Sea and across the Arabian Sea to the Malabar Coast of Southwest India to preach the Gospel of Christ. He found a receptive audience among the peaceful fisherfolk in the villages along the coast – so receptive he established a series of churches that still exist today. Some remain small and humble, others like the one above rebuilt with soaring glass and stone.
There are many Christian denominations in the Indian state of Kerala, which has the entire Malabar Coast, from the original St. Thomas Syrian Christians to Catholic, Pentecostal, Charismatic and others. Of Kerala’s 34 million people, at least 20% are Christian. Kerala is a place of relaxing beauty and peaceful serenity. The best way to explore it is via a luxurious houseboat along the many canals or “backwaters” dotted with fishing villages and churches. You’ll be warmly welcomed. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #155, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHAT RONALD REAGAN WOULD TELL THE GOP DEBATE PARTICIPANTS
Everyone seems to have advice for the GOP candidates, so, what the heck, I’ll get in on the action too. Better yet, I’ll shamelessly plagiarize Ronald Reagan—with whom I collaborated on two winning presidential campaigns.
It so happens that the first Republican primary debate is on Aug. 23, the 39th anniversary of Reagan’s re-election acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Dallas.
The current cast of White House contenders are engaged in unconstructive outrage rather than offering a clarifying pathway to reclaiming our government. On that sultry night in Texas, Reagan charted the latter course. The president presented a crucial distinction:
The Democrat Party was marked by “pessimism, fear and limits,” whereas the Republican Party offered “hope, confidence and growth.”
Reagan’s words ring true today. He said the left “sees people only as members of groups,” always offering them grandiose—and unfulfilled—promises. Republicans serve “all the people of America as individuals” and “offer proven, workable answers.”