Dr. Jack Wheeler
ADVENTURE 2007
Ever dream of going on a classic private-tented safari in Africa, to witness the world's greatest wildlife spectacle - the Great Migration of over a million animals across the Serengeti Plains - by day, and enjoy fine wines and gourmet food by a campfire at night with lions coughing in the distance? Ever dream of standing on the sea-ice of the frozen Arctic Ocean right at the North Pole, the very axis of the earth, while the entire planet revolves underneath you and the sun circles around you in constant daylight - and celebrating the moment with Dom Perignon champagne and beluga caviar? Ever dream of going to a place so remote and mysterious that few people have ever heard of it, a place that has been closed to outsiders for years and still needs a special permit to visit, a place tucked into a hidden corner of Asia with Tibetan monasteries, incredibly colorful primitive tribes who have never seen a Westerner, and white-water rafting through jungles full of tigers and cloudy leopards? Ever dream of standing on a glacier at the most scenic spot on planet earth surrounded by mountains over 26,000 feet high including K2 (28,250'), helicoptering to a tiny kingdom inhabited by the world's longest-lived people, driving by jeep track to villages peopled by descendants of the troops of Alexander the Great, then reaching the fabled Khyber Pass securely protected by Afridi tribesmen who have pledged their lives to you? Each one of these dreams can come true for you next year, 2007.
THE MONA LISA AS AN ANTI-TERRORIST WEAPON
This has totally nothing to do with Dan Brown's ridiculous nonsense he made up for The Da Vinci Code. It has everything to do with the most famous smile in the history of art. Oceans of ink have been wasted on the "mystery" of Mona Lisa's smile - when for anyone familiar with Renaissance culture it was no mystery at all. Leonardo painted her smile as expressing the essence of the Renaissance, and the painting became famous because it was recognized as such by the participants of that culture. What follows is an explanation of that mystery and essence - and how we can use it to scare and intimidate the hell out of Moslem Jihadis with the Mona Lisa.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: “I SHALL CUT OFF CORTEZ’S EARS!”
The Jade Steps Chapter Twenty-Seven: "I Shall Cut Off Cortez's Ears!" Over the next several weeks, the Spaniards marveled at how the Mesheeka accepted the loss of their gods. Perhaps, they surmised, it was because the Mesheeka had been taught by their priests that if the gods were not fed the blood of human hearts, the sun would not rise and the world would collapse into darkness and chaos. Day after day, week after week, there were no sacrifices and the sun kept rising. Maybe the priests were wrong. Maybe the new gods of the strangers were more powerful than the ones of old. Malinali heard these whispers, and did her best to encourage these thoughts among the Mesheeka. Then one afternoon, a worried Orteguilla came to see Malinali. "Doña Marina, I am afraid Montezuma is plotting something. He has been having meetings in secret with several of his nobles, which I am not allowed to hear. He keeps talking about how he must be free of his prison so he can perform the ceremonies of Tlacaxipeualiztli (tlah-kashee-pay-ooh-ah-leesh-tlee). What does this mean?" "It means the Aztec month of Tlacaxipeualiztli is about to begin. Sacrifices must be made to the god Xipe so plants will grow. Montezuma and the highest nobles must impersonate the gods in a sacred dance wearing a particular costume." She paused, sighed, and put her hand gently on the young boy's. "Thank you, Orteguilla, for coming to me and telling me of this. The costume Montezuma and the nobles wear for the dance is made of human skins, flayed from the bodies of captives. Tlacaxipeualiztli means The Flaying of Men."
FRYING PANS AND FIRES
We've all heard the expression "Out of the frying pan and into the fire," to go from bad to worse than bad. The question of the moment in America is: Will that be what voters do on November 7? Congress's summer recess ended this week, with Congressistas, Senatorials, and their staffers flooding back into town. The mood on Capitol Hill is not upbeat. The Pubbies know what a lousy job they've done, the Demmies terrified the voters will figure out they are a lousy alternative. That's why the electorate is in such a lousy mood: Let's see, frying pan or fire? An example of how demoralized conservative Republicans are in Congress was the shouting match that took place this morning during the GOP Caucus, a weekly meeting of all Republicans in Congress.
WHY WOULD ANY DECENT HUMAN BEING SUPPORT THE UNITED NATIONS?
[Tibor Machan and I have been friends for almost 40 years. I remember when he taught at Cal-State - and reminded him, when I read his column, that back then I had a bumper sticker on my car that simply said: CommUNism.] In 1972, I was not rehired at the Department of Philosophy of the California State University, Bakersfield, even though I fulfilled the requirement of finishing my dissertation and obtaining my PhD to be reappointed. I was mystified - I had a good publication record, my teaching went quite well as a beginner. So what was up? I had a friend in the office. She checked out the secret records they could still keep on people back then and learned that those records contained something totally irrelevant to my qualifications. I had written a letter to the editor of the local paper, The Bakersfield Californian, in which I argued that the United Nations is mostly a coercive international organization that lacks any moral or even political legitimacy.
WHY GOVERNMENT ALWAYS GETS BIGGER, NEVER SMALLER
Assume you are a mid-level bureaucrat in a government regulatory agency, and you know your pay and title depend on how many regulations you are responsible for administering, and the number of people who work for you. Do you think you would push for more or fewer regulations? Assume you are a corporate regulatory compliance officer, and again you know your pay depends in part upon the number of regulations you must comply with, and the number of people who work for you. Would you tend to favor a world with more or fewer regulations? Or, assume you are an elected politician, and a major scandal occurs because a financial manager has embezzled funds. Are you more likely to get coverage on the TV news if you say, "We already have laws against theft, and the authorities will take care of it," or if you say, "We need more regulations to stop greedy financiers"?
NUKE IRAN
Why isn't the world afraid of Jews With Nukes? It's terrified of the prospect of Mullahs With Nukes - but Israel already possess hundreds of nukes and no one freaks out about it. Least afraid are the Mullahs of Iran and their leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinutjob, who glories in threatening to wipe Israel "off the face of the earth" and arming its enemies like Hezbollah. The reason they are not afraid and the world is not worried about Jews With Nukes is what philosopher Ayn Rand called The Sanction of the Victim. She defined this as "the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of evil." In other words, Ahmadinutjob is using the moral decency of Israel as a weapon against it. He is betting his country's existence that Jews are too virtuous to do to him what he most desires to do to them. He expects them to be sacrificial victims doomed by their own virtues. It is now being argued in Israeli halls of power that his assumption should be a fatal mistake. Atlas may be about to shrug in Jerusalem.
DEMOCRACY IN LIBYA?
Muamar Qadaffi has run Libya as an Islamic dictatorship since 1969. The history of his oppression and sponsorship of terrorism is long. Ronald Reagan called him "The Mad Dog of the Middle East." It took George W. Bush to bring Qadaffi to heel. After Bush chased Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad and into a spider hole, Qadaffi called up Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and told him he didn't want to end up like Saddam. So Qadaffi came clean on his WMD program, the extent of which stunned the clueless CIA. He invited international inspectors to Libya, where they removed several tons of chemical weaponry, and dismantled an active nuclear weapons program. As a result, this past May 15, the State Department announced the US was restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya. Hotels in Tripoli and Benghazi are full of US oil execs and other businessfolk making deals. Yet Qadaffi remains a dictator and Libya the antithesis of a democracy. Until this week.
WHY LIBERALS ARE FASCISTS
Doesn't it seem odd that the kids who started the 60s anti-establishment protest riots on college campuses with the Free Speech Movement (Berkeley, 1964) are the college professors or politicians today who most vehemently suppress free speech among their students or constituents in the name of political correctness? How can this be? How can worshipping at the shrines of Diversity, Tolerance, and Multiculturalism result in trials and expulsions for students, or jail for citizens, who express ideas with which the worshippers are not in agreement? The answer is the intimate connection between Subjectivism and Fascism. And nowhere was this on display more than in California this week.
THE UNSUNG JEWISH NAVY
The Israeli navy rarely gets the spotlight, but it briefly drew attention in July when a Hezbollah anti-ship missile surprised a command vessel, killing four sailors. Then the coverage turned back to the war in the air and on the ground. Hearing only about what went wrong at sea, we missed a terrific, positive story. We've been missing it for years. The Israeli navy is the state's smallest military arm, with only 1,500 personnel on active duty and reservists rounding out crews. But the service has an enormous mission - which it's been executing quietly and superbly for decades. Which brings me to terrorists on jet skis...
APPRECIATING AMERICA
Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today, We just touched ground on an international runway Jet propelled back home, from overseas to the USA. Did I miss the skyscrapers, did I miss the long freeway? From the coast of California to the shores of Delaware Bay You can bet your life I did, ‘till I got back to the USA. Looking hard for a drive-in, searchin' for a corner café Where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day Yeah, and a juke-box jumpin' with records like in the USA. Well, I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA. Yes. I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA. Anything you want, we got right here in the USA. --Chuck Berry, "Back In The USA," 1962.Two months traveling around the world through 15 countries. Back home at last.
NO GOOD OPTIONS IN LEBANON
The U.N.-backed cease-fire has stopped the killing in Lebanon and Israel. Now a United Nations peacekeeping force, coupled with the fractured Lebanese army, faces the daunting task of disarming Hezbollah. A realistic appraisal of this "A-Team" of terrorist organizations has this cease-fire looking more like a Hezbollah tactical pause, not a lasting commitment to peace with Israel. In Israel last week, the speaker of its Knesset told me "we closed our eyes" to the growing threat of Hezbollah, which started building its military capabilities in southern Lebanon the day Israeli soldiers departed six years ago. The threat continues to grow and Israel is in deep crisis.
THREE STRIKES FOR LIBERALS ON TAX CUTS
Many in the Washington establishment were shocked Aug. 17, when the Congressional Budget Office reported a surge of "unanticipated tax receipts" that will sharply push down this year's deficit. Those who had been proclaiming the Bush tax rate cuts would result in a big reduction in tax revenues tried to hide their disappointment. It was tough being proved wrong again after having said the same thing when Ronald Reagan cut tax rates in the early 1980s. We have now had three major experiments with tax rate reduction in the last half-century, and each time both economic growth and tax revenues have surged, despite the fears and cries of the anti-tax-cut crowd. How much more evidence will they need to understand the difference between tax rates and tax revenues?
IF BUSH GIVES UP
We are all aware of the dangerous Middle East conditions the United States faces today after five and a half years of President Bush's leadership. So let's consider what the world might well look like if, in his remaining two and a half years, he were to follow the recommendations of his critics. First: America out of Iraq by the end of 2007. We warn the Iraqis to get off their duffs and prepare to be in charge by Dec. 31, 2007. We depart (leaving a couple of divisions in a desert base somewhere in Kuwait - per John Murtha's over the horizon strategy). The Iraqi military and police are still not able to manage. Full scale civil war breaks out. The Iranians enter to give help to the Shias. The Egyptians, Saudis and other Sunni states lend a hand to help the Iraqi Sunnis. The Kurds declare an independent Kurdistan. Kuwait demands our two divisions immediately leave, as it is arousing the hostility of its population. Qatar makes the same demand, for same reason, of our naval base. The United States complies.
BEYOND THE PALE
Ronald Reagan's origins are even more humble than Abraham Lincoln's log cabin. His great-grandfather, Michael O'Regan, was born in a hut of mud and slats in farmland called Doolis near the village of Ballyporeen, County Tipperary, in 1829. The O'Regans, like most of Ireland's rural poor, lived on potatoes. When a fungus (phytophtora infestans) infected the potato crop in 1845 causing a famine, teen-age Michael fled to London with other folks from Tipperary. Among them was a young lass, Catherine Mulcahy, whom he married in 1852 after Anglicizing his name to Reagan. They had a son, John, in 1854, and emigrated to America, settling in Fulton, Illinois by 1860. John's son, Jack, was born in Fulton in 1883. Jack's son, Ronald Wilson Reagan, was born in nearby Tampico in 1911. Seventy-three years later, in June 1984, Ronald Reagan came to Ballyporeen as President of the United States. In his speech to the townspeople in the village square, he said, "I can't think of a place on the planet I would rather claim as my roots more than Ballyporeen, County Tipperary." A friend of mine was there as a member of Reagan's staff. After the speech, the President commented to him, "I really am proud to be from here." With a wink, he explained: "You see, I'm from Beyond the Pale."
A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR AIRPORT SECURITY
Here I am in Ireland and the last thing in the world I am looking forward to is flying through London Heathrow to get back home. British intel was tipped off by some good guys inserted by Parvez Musharaff into ISI (Pakistan intel) about a Moslem terrorist plot to blow up airliners flying out of Heathrow to America. So the security is a nightmare - for everyone, not just Moslems. Thus I was thrilled to hear about The Heroes of Malaga - British passengers on a Monarch Airlines flight from Malaga, Spain to Manchester, England on August 16 who refused to fly until two Moslems were taken off the plane. The liberal British media was horrified. The London Daily Mail ran a story entitled Asian students' shock at ejection from jet by passenger mutiny. It is forbidden, you see, to refer to Moslems as such in the British media. The accepted code word is "Asian" - as if they were Chinese or Japanese, anything but Moslem. The "Asians" complained bitterly they were "humiliated." So I have a modest proposal to end their humiliation, and increase airport security as well.
CUBA LIBRE?
It was the summer of 1992. Our youngest son, Jackson, had been born in May, and I was staying put, not traveling anywhere to remain at home to help take care of him. A friend of mine named Ray Kline called. Ray was a legendary intel guy in Washington, having been the Deputy Director of the CIA under John Kennedy, and later Director of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon). It was Ray Kline who, in the fall of 1962, drove down the George Washington Parkway from Langley CIA headquarters to the White House, entered the Oval Office, and placed the satellite photos of the Soviet missile emplacements in Cuba on Kennedy's desk to personally explain them to the President of the United States. That's how the Cuban Missile Crisis began. Ray was calling to tell me about a 30th anniversary conference of the veterans of the Crisis he had just come back from. The conference was in Havana, Cuba. "You went to Cuba, Ray?" I asked, amazed. "Jack, the Soviet Union has vanished off the map [December 1991] and a lot of Castro's people are nervous" he replied. "They are trying to convince him to make his peace with the US. They even asked me if I knew of a conservative organization that would send a delegation to Havana and talk to them." Ray paused for effect. "I suggested you and your Freedom Research Foundation." "You've got to be kidding, Ray," was all I could say. "Jack, Cuban intel knows all about how you instigated the Reagan Doctrine, which is why they no longer have their Soviet patron. Who better than you to go and see if they are for real?" I told him I would think about it. I decided to go and told my wife, Rebel, my reason: "I want to look Fidel Castro in the eye and tell him that someday the Cuban people will urinate on his grave." She decided to go with me - in order to prevent me from doing any such thing.
SMART FREEDOM, STUPID FREEDOM
One of the more spectacular drives in the world is traversing the Pyrenees mountains, which separates Spain and France, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Jackson and I started in Barcelona and ended in Bilbao, but we went up through Andorra and stayed mostly on the French side, taking La Route des Cols over a succession of high passes such as the Col de Tourmalet, the toughest challenge in the Tour de France bike race. Can you imagine pedaling a bicycle up this? 
But it sure was fun to drive. And hike to places like this amazing foot bridge flung across the Gorge d' Holcarte: 
It was also educational. For while Barcelona and Bilbao are both in Spain, the difference between them is stark. Barcelona is the capital of Spanish Catalonia, while Bilbao is the capital of Euskal Herria, the Land of the Basques. Both regions have struggled for freedom from the control of Madrid and the Spanish government. One has been smart in doing so, and the other really stupid.
DOWNSIZING THE ILLEGAL ALIEN POPULATION
Perhaps the most difficult problem of immigration policy is how to cope with the 11-20 million illegal aliens already within this country. This number includes not just unattached working age males, but also millions of spouses, children and aged relatives. Some of them have been here illegally for decades, either on false documentation or simply in the shadows beyond the reach of the law. Deporting illegals apprehended within the country is difficult. The courts have held that apprehended aliens have due process rights, and legal aid organizations are ready to provide assistance. Since apprehended illegals not wanted for a crime (other than illegal entry) cannot in practice be detained until the legal process plays out, they are commonly released on their own recognizance, quickly to disappear from view. What the debate so far lacks is a proposal that will expeditiously reduce the illegal alien population at modest expense to American taxpayers. For instance, why not require illegals who want to remain as guest workers to pay for other illegals to depart? Think in terms of the Civil War practice of draftees paying for a substitute.
ADIOS, MIRIAM!
For the past year, there has been a pest on the To The Point User Forums named Miriam Brownlee. She enjoys driving To The Point members around the bend with her Buchananite anti-Bush anti-Israel conspiracy theories. I have tolerated her until last week when she lost it and called TTP contributor Jack Kelly a Nazi for revealing the staged Hezbollah photos of the phony Qana "massacre." I am happy to report that Miriam's annual subscription expires this Saturday, August 12 and will not be renewed. Due to the complete inappropriateness of her comments last week, she will not be allowed to post to the User Forum this week. So Miriam will have to find some other site to pester. TTP Members can now enjoy the User Forums without having to be subjected to her any longer. Adios, Miriam!
BEACONS OF SOVEREIGNTY
In 1974, I took a year off from my doctoral studies and teaching philosophy at the University of Southern California at the suggestion of the Chairman of the USC School of Philosophy, John Hospers. John had been the 1972 Presidential Candidate of the Libertarian Party and was involved in the New Country Project. Financed by wealthy libertarians such as Mike Oliver from Nevada, this was an effort to locate some viable piece of real estate in the world that could be transformed into an actual sovereign nation founded on libertarian principles of minimal government. Such a country was to have total free trade with no customs or tariffs on any imported goods; no corporate, income, or sales taxes; and a government restricted to a police force, a small professional military, and courts. Government expenses were to be paid from contract fees - for the courts to recognize any sort of contractual relationship, the parties would pay a fee for the contract to be legally binding. John Hospers and Mike Oliver sent me out into the world to locate where such a new country could be established. I spent a year going to some very weird places.
ABOLISH THE FED?
Miami. The skyline appears to have more cranes than buildings, as if the city were just one vast construction site, and that has been the good news. The bad news here in Miami, as well as most major U.S. cities, is that the real estate boom of the last few years is coming to an end. The villain in this drama is the U.S. Federal Reserve (the Fed), which fueled the boom and now is destroying it. The Fed, by its own admission, has been failing to keep inflation within its own targets. Yet, the Fed's main responsibility is to provide the U.S. with a sound currency; one that neither loses value (inflation), nor gains value (deflation). The Fed has a long history of reacting too late, then overreacting, to the inflation or deflation it causes. One reason the Fed keeps failing is its overreliance on lagging indicators of inflation, such as the well-known consumer price index (CPI).
CASTRO’S CUBA IS NO MORE
On Monday, July 31, less than two weeks before his 80th birthday, Fidel Castro temporarily relinquished power to his brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, the official successor as head of state, the armed forces, and the Communist Party. Whether or not Fidel, who seized power on January 1, 1959 and has not relinquished it for a single day until now, recovers from this particular infirmity - officially described as an "intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding" - it is clear that his rule is at an end. Less clear is what will happen to his regime.
THE RESILIENCE OF MAN
This is the medieval walled city of Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean across from Italy. The English playwright George Bernard Shaw declared on a visit here in 1929, "If you want to see heaven on earth, come to Dubrovnik." Over a million visitors a year from all over the world agree with Shaw, marveling at its huge fortress walls, swimming in the sparkling clear Adriatic, choosing which hidden restaurant in a myriad of tiny alleys to enjoy marvelous food and wine, and partying all night at the Troubador Jazz Café owned by my friend Marko Breskovic. Only the smallest fraction of them pay any attention to this sign affixed to the stones at the city's entrance:
HOW TO SAVE AMERICA FROM BECOMING ARGENTINA
If you knew the U.S. government was going bankrupt primarily because of spending on Social Security and Medicare, and the only solutions were the following, which one would you pick? (1) Doubling individual and corporate income tax rates. (2) Immediately cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits by two-thirds. (3) Immediately cutting all federal discretionary spending (including defense) by 143 percent. (4) Reforming Social Security and Medicare by moving from the current defined benefit plans to a program of individual investment accounts, like the current 401(k) and Medical Savings Account (MSA) plans. Many leading economists of the political right and left have concluded the U.S. government will not be able to pay its creditors, including its current and future retirees, the full value of promised benefits, unless current policies are radically changed. So we must choose.
CONCORDIA
This is K2, the highest mountain in the world next to Everest, at 28,250 feet. It is so inaccessibly remote in the Karakorum mountains behind the Himalayas on the border between Pakistan and China, that very few human beings have ever seen it. Last week I was privileged to take a small group of Americans to the base of K2 by helicopter. It was the first helicopter expedition ever to K2, which otherwise takes 10 days of very high-altitude trekking to reach. An enormous glacier flows from the south face of K2 called the Godwen-Austen glacier, which meets another huge glacier flowing from a mountain called Baltoro Tengri. The confluence of these glaciers is known to mountaineers as "Concordia." It is the consensus of the world's professional mountaineering community that at Concordia is the single spot of greatest scenery on planet earth. But Concordia could stand for so much more.
THE LUNACY OF A BRITISH LEGACY
The border between Pakistan and India is one thousand eight hundred miles long, running from the Karakorum-Himalaya mountains next to China all the way to the Indian Ocean. Along its entire length, there is one land crossing for foreigners, between Lahore, Pakistan and Amritsar, India, called Wagha. To make the crossing, you take a taxi to the Pak side of Wagha, where porters are waiting to carry your bags. After going through passport and customs control, you walk a thousand yards over bare ground to the Indian side, where your Pak porters turn over your bags to a swarm of Indian porters who fight amongst themselves to carry them. When the porters start grabbing your bags from each other, you have to physically intervene to keep your bags from being torn apart. It is over 100 degrees in the shade.
THE ROAD TO AGRA
If I ask you to think of India, the image that most likely appears in your mind's eye would be the Taj Mahal. Arguably the most famous building in the world and considered by many to be the most beautiful structure mankind has ever created, it was completed in 1648 by the ruler of India, Shah Jehan, to immortally entomb his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal. There is a painful problem with this image, however, for the great majority of folks in India: the Taj Mahal isn't an Indian building. It's Moslem, and thus for Indians a symbol of Islamic imperialism. The Moslem invasion of India had begun with Mahmud of Ghazni (now in present-day Afghanistan) in 1001. Historian Will Durant observed:
The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.The Taj Mahal is in Agra, about 120 miles south of New Delhi - and it was on the road to Agra that I reflected on the extraordinary complexity of Indian history.
SIAMESE YELLOW
Bangkok. Western tradition associates royalty with the color purple. Not in Siam, or as it's called today, Thailand. The royal color here is yellow - and the whole country right now is wearing yellow, yellow shirts, hats, sashes, or ribbons, in celebration of their beloved King Bhumibol's 60th anniversary of his reign. The King's picture is everywhere, and not because of a personality cult. He is genuinely revered as the embodiment and father-figure of the Thai nation. And at the same time, the streets of Bangkok are clogged with protestors in yellow shirts waving yellow banners, demanding their democratically elected government be overthrown. The Siamese are an interesting people.
KILL TERRORISTS, DON’T CAPURE THEM
THE British military defines experience as the ability to recognize a mistake the second time you make it. By that standard, we should be very experienced in dealing with captured terrorists, since we've made the same mistake again and again. Violent Islamist extremists must be killed on the battlefield. Only in the rarest cases should they be taken prisoner. Few have serious intelligence value. And, once captured, there's no way to dispose of them. Killing terrorists during a conflict isn't barbaric or immoral - or even illegal. We've imposed rules upon ourselves that have no historical or judicial precedent. We haven't been stymied by others, but by ourselves.
THE MYSTERY OF ANGKOR
You couldn't imagine a more peaceful place than Cambodia in 1961. Sure, the Vietnamese to the east had split into a Communist North and Free South after the French defeat at Dienbienphu - but that was a problem of despised Cham (the ancient name for ‘Nam). A flight on Royal Air Cambodia from Phnom Penh (the capital) to Siem Reap (near the ruins of Angkor) provided an unforgettable example of just how laid back the place was. It was a DC-3, and the stewardess served us a small cup of orange juice, then strapped herself in the jump seat near the exit door and fell fast asleep. The plane landed, taxied to the tiny terminal, the ground crew opened the door, and we all walked past her to deplane - she was still out cold in Z-land. Must have been a long night in Phnom Penh. I stayed in this small hotel, Auberge de Temples, run by a French lady, right across from Angkor Wat. There were a handful a visitors and I was the only American. As I explored the magnificent ruined cities and temple complexes of Angkor Thom, Ta Prom, Ta Keo, Angkor Wat and others, they were like deserted lost cities that I had all to myself. Wow, is it different today.
SPEAKING ENGLISH AND GETTING RICH
Does the language you speak or use help influence how wealthy you are? When trying to determine why some countries are wealthier than others, economists rarely, if at all, consider language. However, if you look at the list of wealthiest countries on a per capita income basis, you will notice all but three of the top 20 are English-speaking, or use some other Germanic language. Is there something about the English language itself that helps make one wealthier, and is there something about the Arabic language itself that inhibits economic development?
CLIMBING FUJIYAMA
It was an interesting way to spend the 4th of July. And instructive. I climbed Fujiyama - Fuji-san, as the Japanese reverently call it - once before when I was 17. That was in 1961, and I still have the climbing stick I used with the year burned into the wood. It's funny that I have no recollection of the climb being hard. It requires starting from 7,900 feet at 4 in the morning, and trudging steeply up through volcanic scree to reach the rim at 12,200 feet some five hours later. No problem when I was 17. I guess 45 years does make a difference after all. Actually, the big difference is in coming back down. Going up it's your lungs that take a beating, going down it's your legs - and I'll take the former any time. My lungs still work OK, but the endless, endless steep pitch down, down, down, hour after hour made it achingly clear I don't have teen-age legs any more. But my 14 year-old son Jackson does - and standing on top of Fuji with him made all the effort easily worthwhile. For the rest of his life, Jackson will remember the 4th of July in 2006. Fujiyama, one of the world's most famous mountains, is now a part of his life. Hopefully, it will inspire him to learn more about the country of which Fujiyama is the symbol: Japan.
IRAQ’S WMD’S: THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION
Senator Rick Santorum's announcement last week of over 500 weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq went largely ignored by the mainstream media. The National Ground Intelligence Center's newly-declassified report proves conclusively that Saddam Hussein lied -- and George Bush and Bill Clinton told the truth -- about Iraq's WMDs. This doesn't square, of course, with the media's mantra that "Bush lied, kids died", so they gave it short shrift. But 500 hidden sarin, nerve and VX weapons is no small thing: it's one of the world's major chemical weapons arsenals. Its presence completely vindicates George Bush and Tony Blair. Though unreported, it's obviously major news. Yet there's an even bigger story. And you probably haven't heard it either.
FREEDOM’S BIRTHDAY
[This was originally in To The Point for July 4, 2004. It needed only a slight updating for 2006. We at To The Point wish all of you an exceedingly happy Fourth of July.] July 4th is Freedom's Birthday. My suggestion is, amidst the fireworks and barbeques and flag-waving fun - all of which are great - that you take the time to feel good about America. Put aside your worries and concerns, your frustrations and fears about what's wrong with America. For one day, forget the negative - put it all in a zip-lock bag, hide it in the back of the freezer, and pretend it doesn't exist. One reason is that, for all your worries about America's culture and morality, you and all your fellow conservatives can feel good about your country. Liberals can't. One of the defining characteristics of leftie-liberals is an inability to feel truly proud of their country - proud to the bone. You cannot be a liberal without feeling apologetic and embarrassed over being an American. You cannot be a conservative without lacking any such embarrassment or compulsion to apologize at all. Being an American is simply the coolest thing on earth.
LAST STRAWS
Women know all about last straws. It will thus take a woman to explain to the puzzled men of the New York Times, the Hamas Palestinians, and the Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq why the events of this past week were last straws. "Men are essentially clueless," most any gal will be happy to tell you. "We keep giving them hints that things are bugging us, they keep right on ignoring the hints, until one day when we finally can't take it any more, we snap - and they are hurt and bewildered." So it is that Editor-in-Chief Bill Keller and his fellow traitors at the New York Times are playing the besieged victim in the face of the torrent of outrage over their treasonous exposure of Bush's tracking of terrorist financing. Just as are the terrorists of Hamas, the poor little victims of Zionist oppression who can't understand why this one last provocation, kidnapping an Israeli soldier, could prompt the threat of all-out war against them. As for Al Qaeda in Iraq, they have had a collective senior moment, a memory lapse that could prove fatal. Here's the story they forgot:
A SUMMER EXPERIMENT
Since we launched To The Point at the end of March, 2003, we have issued the TTP Weekly Report every single week for the last three+ years. I'm really proud of that and have every intention of continuing this record. It's going to be challenging to do so this summer, so here we go with an experiment. I haven't been stuck in DC for these past three years straight, but wherever I wandered off to in the world during that time, it's been for a short while, like a couple of weeks or so here and there. This summer is different, for I'll be out of the country for all of July and August. Sometimes I'll be in places where there will be an Internet connection, and sometimes not. Wherever I'm in the former, you'll hear from me - but there may be a gap or two when I'm in the latter. The TTP staff will make sure that the Weekly Report gets out in time, and with our brilliant regulars like Joel Wade, Michael Ledeen, Jack Kelly, Neal Asbury, Dagny D'Anconia, and Dennis Turner. As for me, I'll be providing at least a "sitrep" (situation report) on each country I'm in. As of now, that will be: Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Israel, Croatia, Montenegro, Austria, Switzerland, France, and Spain. Plus a surprise or two.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY IN MEXICO
Last month we discussed in Bad News for Hugo how the ugliest man in Mexico right now is Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. By getting voters to think that Lopez Obrador would be a Mexican Chavez if elected president this Sunday (July 2), Felipe Calderon has a chance of beating him. It's a given in most every conservative mind that an Obrador victory would be a disaster for the US, and a Calderon one vastly preferable. That's because Obrador is an anti-American Marxist and Calderon is a pro-American free market advocate. It seems a no-brainer to root for Calderon. I, too, will be rooting for Felipe this Sunday. Regrettably, the odds favor Obrador. We can hope he loses, but if he wins, we'd better start thinking fast how to turn the danger of his victory into an opportunity. Let's start now.
THE WEASELS HAVE WON
It was back in October 2004, in Porter At The Pass, that we first discussed the true nature of the CIA:
Most folks think the CIA is a right-wing outfit. It is not. The CIA has been dominated by incompetent left-wing hyper-liberals for years.These CIA lefties - known as "Rogue Weasels" by their more competent counterparts - were conducting a covert war against the Bush Administration by leaking damaging classified information to leftwing journalists in the press. When George Bush finally got rid of George Tenet and installed Porter Goss as CIA Director, the weasels began a covert war against their own agency - as discussed in The Rogue Weasels Club last December. That's because Porter was trying to root them out. One of the chief weasels Porter was able to dump was Deputy Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, who had been a principal conduit of classified information leaked to Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and Walter Pincus. How the weasels struck back and got their revenge on Porter was explained in Porter and Casey last month. Now this week, we have final confirmation of the weasels' triumph.
MOONBAT RIGHT
We call To The Point "The Oasis for Rational Conservatives." We've gotten a flood of emails this week asking if articles on certain websites claiming that George Bush has "a secret plan to abolish American sovereignty" are being pushed by Irrational Conservatives. The answer is yes. We all focus so much on the moonbats of the left - barking mad hairshirts like Algore, Moveon.org folks driven treasonously insane by Bush Derangement Syndrome - that it's important to recognize there are moonbats of the right. For some weird reason which has to do with psychology rather than reality, a small but loud subset of conservatives easily falls prey to conspiracy theories about cabals of powerful people meeting in secret to take over the world: the Bilderbergers, the Trilaterialists, the Council on Foreign Relations, or some such. The world headquarters of this subset of conservatives is on a grassy knoll in downtown Dallas.