Dr. Jack Wheeler
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/17/10
There comes a time upon reaching a certain age when the two most wonderful words you can hear are, "It's benign." That happened to me after a surgical procedure yesterday (I had a tumor wrapped round my vocal cord like a snake), and it prompts me to start this week's HFR with a request. The TTP Forum has long benefited from the wit and wisdom of "Mae" - Lynda Mae Calhoun. Like so many other TTPers, I always look forward to her Forum comments and insights on various articles. Mae lives in Vancouver, Washington (just across the Columbia River from Portland). Next week - just three days before Christmas on the 22nd at the Southwest Washington Medical Center - Mae faces major surgery the cause of which may be a malignancy. She's going to face this alone, save for a handful of nieces and nephews - and I'd like to ask you to let Mae know via the Forum that she is not alone, that her TTP Family is praying for her. Prayer is such a powerful healing force, especially at Christmas time. Let's be sure she knows: our prayers are with you, Mae! * * * * * The HFR was in no doubt about who should be dubbed the Hero of the Week - until last night, when another contender emerged.
PROOF THAT FEMINISM IS DEAD
Making the rounds on YouTube these days is a film of a group of manly looking women preparing for and conducting a "flash dance" in a Philadelphia food store. [Warning - the video is 5 minutes and 44 seconds of boring, obnoxious, and unattractive women - JW] The crew of ladies, dressed in tight black clothes and sequined accessories, arrives at The Fresh Grocer supermarket, breaks into a preplanned chant ordering shoppers not to buy Sabra and Tribe hummus, to oppose Israeli "apartheid" and support "Palestine." From their attire and attitude, it is fairly clear that the participants in the video would congratulate themselves on their commitment to the downtrodden, the wretched of the earth suffering under the jackboot of the powerful. They would likely all also describe themselves as feminists. But if being a human rights activist means attacking the only country in the Middle East that defends human rights, then that means that at the very basic level, the term "human rights activist" is at best an empty term. And if being a feminist means attacking the only country in the Middle East where women enjoy freedom and equal rights, then feminism too, has become at best, a meaningless term. Indeed, if these anti-Israel female protesters are feminists, then feminism is dead.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/10/10
Hard to believe Christmas Eve is two short weeks away. For those folks not yet checked off on your Christmas gift list, the HFR suggests a copy of The Jade Steps. Or a Gift Subscription to To The Point. You can gift a friend with a one-month, a three-month - or for a special friend an entire year - of the insights on the world that only TTP provides. The HFR can't think of better gifts than these, that will be more valued and appreciated by your friends. (I should add here that Dr. Joel Wade's Pocket Guide to Mastering Happiness makes a great low-cost stocking stuffer...) * * * * * Before we look at the dog's breakfast in Washington this week, let's have some fun at the Chicoms' expense. Ever heard of the Confucius Peace Prize? Neither did its recipient, who didn't bother to show up at the awards ceremony. The result was the Chicoms ended up this week being laughed at and compared to the Nazis at the same time. The world needs more of this.
THE CHINESE PIG
Bacon, ham, prosciutto, Cumberland sausage, baby back ribs, pork chops, suckling pig... it's amazing how many wonderful things to eat come from one animal. But we're not talking here about pigs that farmers raise and we love to consume. We could talk about another kind of pig - namely, the PIGS of Europe that are being devoured by their debt and profligacy: Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain. Or is it PIIGS now with Ireland? We could talk about the American Pig, even more bloated with public union moochers and subsidized corporate parasites than Europe, with state after state facing bankruptcy. Instead, though, we're going to talk about the Chinese Pig. Tout le monde seems fixated on the impending collapse of the Euro and the Dollar, but what about the impending collapse of the Yuan? Most fears are focused on Ireland or Spain or California going bankrupt. What if China goes belly up? The global impact would make Spain's seem penny-ante.
BAILOUTS AND PUBLIC PENSIONS
Do insolvent states actually believe other states should bail them out? I predicted they would back in June 2009. Sure enough, folks in Washington and in over-spending state capitols are now whispering the dreaded "b-word": bailouts - for individual states! American taxpayers should not be expected to bail out wasteful state governments. Fiscally liberal states spent years running away from the hard decisions that could have put their finances on a more solid footing. Now they expect taxpayers from other states to bail them out, which will allow them to postpone the tough decisions they should have made ages ago and continue spending like there's no tomorrow. Most Americans would say these states have made their bed and now they've got to lie in it. They accepted federal dollars and did not voice opposition to the unfunded federal mandates, and they even re-elected politicians who foisted debt-ridden programs on them that could never be sustained. Instead of coming to D.C. cap in hand asking for more "free" money, they should follow the example of their more prudent sister states and take the necessary steps to sort out their own finances. They must start by reforming their insolvent pension systems.
THE COUNTRY THAT DOESN’T EXIST
Want to come with me to the country that doesn't exist? Plan to pack your bags this coming February. Imagine a Moslem country that is a real democracy, pro-America, pro-free market, despises Islamist ideology and terrorism, and lies athwart one of the world's most critical chokepoints in global shipping and trade. The US State Department would leap at the chance to support such a country, right? You are probably cynically shaking your head no - but it's much worse than that. Our government refuses to recognize the country's existence. In fact, no government or international organization in the world does - yet is has been sovereign and independent since 1991. With no help or recognition from anyone, this country has managed to survive - and survive as a capitalist Moslem terrorist-free democracy - for nearly 20 years. This is a heroic achievement - and unknown to most everyone on the planet. We are talking about Somaliland - the Country That Doesn't Exist.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/03/10
We open this week's HFR with a Special News Bulletin from the Associated Press: In response to the "Cablegate" scandal - the release of a quarter-million classified State Department documents by WikiLeaks - the US Government announced today that henceforth all Top Secret government documents will be placed in an "ultimate" secure location. "This location is so secure that even people with the highest of clearances cannot gain access," said R.J. Finklestein, Director of the Federal Document Classification Agency (FDCA) in a press release today. All classified documents, Mr. Finklestein announced, will now be stored at the same location storing Barack Hussein Obama's Birth Certificate, College Transcripts, SSN applications, and off-shore campaign contributors list. "Using our Ultimate Secure Location, we are quite sure that WikiLeaks will never be able to access any more classified documents," noted the FDCA director, "nor will anyone else."
THANKS, JULIAN!
I can't believe how much fun this WikiLeaks hysteria is. All kinds of normally sane people absolutely going berserk-o, publicly demanding the perp involved, an Aussie named Julian Assange, be assassinated or tried for treason and executed. How to respond to such totally over the top lunacy except to say Whiskey Tango Foxtrotting Foxtrot? Maybe there will be items to emerge out of the quarter-million "secret" US diplomatic cables that will justify the anger - but so far, the stuff that's been released is great. We'll soon discuss why in detail, but first let's talk about the huge debt of gratitude Sarah Palin owes Julian Assange. All you Palinistas out there - and I'm one - should shout Hallelujah for the enormous act of public service Assange has performed. He has single-handedly obliterated - as in nuked - Hillary Clinton's chances for the White House. Everyone in Washington knows Zero is a one-termer. Sarah would clean his clock in 2012 - just as would any conservative GOP candidate. But the reality is that Sarah would lose to Hillary. HRC is a far more formidable Dem candidate than Zero. Should Zero pull a LBJ and not run, or should she challenge him in the primaries, she would win the nomination - and the presidency. Not any more, for that analysis is so yesterday. "The greatest foreign policy disaster in US history" has happened on Hillary's watch. Any chief executive would have to fire her, and Zero needs a scapegoat in any regard. Her political career is over - finita la musica, the Clinton's music is finished. Thanks, Julian.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/26/10
I was hoping for a short and sweet HFR this week, as it's truncated by Thanksgiving. No such luck. We have a lot of ground to cover, so let's get started. To my mind, the only reason to talk about a problem is as a prelude to searching for a serious solution to it. That's why I'm so tired of terrified complaints over North Korea. Here's a suggestion of how to get rid of the Norks... ...That's acting seriously regarding North Korea - and we're capable of it if we look at what's happened to the Al Qaeda-Taliban-Karzai government-Pakistan ISI cash cow of the Afghan poppy crop. What's happened is indicated by this perversely hilarious headline in Sunday's (11/21) London Guardian, the bastion of British media Marxism: Heroin Shortage in UK is Putting Lives at Risk.... ...And you might surprised to learn that the HFR Hero of the Week is a 77 year-old rancher in Mexico.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL 57 STATES
My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate - from the FBI's 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. And let's face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don't know what the term is in Austrian for that...
THANKSGIVING’S BLESSING OF CAPITALIST FREEDOM
On Thanksgiving Day, Americans gather with their family and friends to celebrate the blessings that Providence has bestowed on their beloved country. A deep appreciation of these blessings involves understanding that they were earned. It is to understand the awesome truth of how "God helps those who help themselves" applies to the Mayflower Pilgrims and their First Thanksgiving at America's birth. This is an appreciation and understanding of which those on the Left are incapable - for it would mean celebrating the capitalist freedom that made that original Thanksgiving possible. This no liberal, no Democrat, no leftie can do. Thus they must distort history instead. The distortion starts in Kindergarten, with the childish make-believe of your kid's school play portraying the noble Squanto teaching the helpless Pilgrims how to feed themselves. So let's drop the curtain on the distortion and watch the real thing. Here it is.
WHAT DO TSA GROPING AND DON’T-ASK-DON’T-TELL REPEAL HAVE IN COMMON?
It is a sad and potentially fatal fact that most Americans know virtually nothing about the U.S. military. That astounding reality is all the more incredible given that our survival ultimately depends on the men and women in uniform who defend this country. Such ignorance is, ironically, a testament to the success of what is known as the all-volunteer force. It is also a national defect, one that soon may be the undoing of a system based on the willingness of a few to protect the rest of us at great risk to themselves. President Obama is hoping to capitalize on our ignorance of these folks and the reality of their lives in uniform - notably, the phenomenon known as "forced intimacy" that is inherent in communal bunk rooms, showers, latrines, shipboard sleeping compartments and foxholes. It is this ignorance that allows him to insist that the U.S. Senate accede during the post-Thanksgiving lame-duck session to his demand for the repeal of a 1993 law - widely referred to as DADT or Don't Ask Don't Tell - prohibiting homosexuals from openly serving in the armed forces. Every American who finds himself or herself bridling at the invasion of privacy by TSA should think long and hard about forcing our all-too-often unsung and unrecognized heroes to submit to far worse.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/19/10
Well, hasn't this been a surprising week? Who knew, for example, that Chicago was run by Republicans and actually is in Alaska? The GOP establishment there, run by the Murkowski clan and its cronies, is as fully corrupt as any Big City Dem Machine in the Lower 48. The same GOP elite Sarah Palin made her bones fighting - and is thus the source of so many of the smears against her. Of course, Alaska's Libs and Dems despise Palin or any candidate she supports, such as Joe Miller. But many of them have more integrity than Alaska's elite Pubs. One of them is Shannyn Moore who writes about her state in the HuffPo. She points out that Alaskan ballot security is handled by a crooked outfit named Goldbelt Securities that openly supported Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign against Joe Miller. The amount of voter fraud regarding Lisa Murkowski's write-in ballots is so massive that a LibDem like Shannyn Moore is demanding "a full scale election audit and reconciliation of every vote cast and every ballot not cast" - which would result in Tea Party conservative Miller being a US Senator, not K Street RINO Murky Murkowski. While Murky declared victory Wednesday (11/17), Miller yesterday (11/18) requested a federal injunction to prevent the state's Department of Elections (run by Murkowski cronies) from certifying her. Let's wish Joe luck. Check out the latest at http://joemiller.us/.
ESCAPE FROM AMERICA
Folks - get ready for your brain to go on a roller coaster ride. Buckle up... The best rum punch in the Caribbean is made by Captain George Clarke, who owns the Sweetfield Manor B&B in the Barbados. Late last month (October), I was enjoying his libation while watching a truly glorious ocean sunset when we were joined by a couple who had just arrived from New York. They looked like they needed a drink. George poured them each a glass from his ever-full pitcher, sprinkled a little grated nutmeg on top, and said, "Welcome to the Barbados. What would you folks like to do on the island?" They cast a glance at each other. After a long sip and a long sigh, the lady answered, "Escape from America." In response to my, shall we say quizzical glance, she held up her glass and said, "After two or three of these, maybe I can explain." We enjoyed the sunset quietly. I took a picture of it that was so good George offered to exchange his secret rum punch recipe for it. There was a rustling in the trees above. "That's a troop of green monkeys," George explained. "They usually come through about now. Green monkeys escaped from Africa on a boat some three hundred years ago..." George let this comment hang in the twilight air, so I followed it up with, "For centuries, people have been escaping to America. You folks want to escape from it?" George poured them another rum punch. The lady wiped a tear from her eye. "Yes, from," she answered, "... we can't stand it anymore, we have to get out. What happened to me at the Newark airport coming here was the final straw."
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/12/10
Has it really been that long - twelve weeks since I last wrote the HFR (August 20)? I spent those weeks on my 17th trip around the world - to Central Asia, Chinese Turkestan, North Korea, Southeast Asia, Micronesia, the Caribbean, ending with celebrating 11/02 with TTPers at the Rendezvous. It's good to be back home. And it's good to be writing the HFR again. I can't wait to get started - but first I've got to thank Jack Kelly for so staunchly holding down the HFR fort in my absence. Thanks, Jack! And thanks to all of you who sent me a Happy Birthday message. I really appreciate it. I do have a great birthday - November 9th - as it's also Ronald Reagan World Freedom Day, the day the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, named in honor of the man who won the Cold War. Plus it's followed by the birthday of the United States Marines - the greatest fighting force on earth - established November 10, 1775. Semper Fi! Then the very next day, November 11th, is when all American patriots give thanks to our veterans for serving their country, shedding their blood and so many their lives, to protect our American birthright of freedom. These three days, coming at the end of going around the world seeing so many other countries and cultures, formed for me such an emphatic exclamation point to the preciousness of America, to its unmatched value to peace and prosperity in the world, and to the literally critical importance as never before of defending it from enemies within our own midst who wish to destroy it. Those enemies got knocked to the canvas last week on Nov. 2nd - but it wasn't a knockout. A luta continua, as the Renamo freedom fighters of Mozambique said. The struggle continues. It always will. So here we go with this week's HFR.
LIVE FREE OR DIE
That's the state motto of New Hampshire - right on NH license plates. Most consider it a rephrase of Virginian Patrick Henry's immortal "Give me liberty or give me death." That's the personal message. Yet it's also a message to America: if America ceases to be free, ceases to extol and value the individual liberty of its citizens, America as a nation will die. The voters of New Hampshire absorbed this message with a vengeance last week. Before then, the NH bicameral legislature - called the General Court - had a Dem majority of 225 out of 400 in the state House and 14 out of 24 in the state Senate. Get ready for the new numbers: on Nov 2nd, the Republicans went from 175 to 297 in the House and from 10 to 19 in the Senate. Both are veto-proof super-majorities, which will come in handy when they repeal the homosexual "marriage" law Dems passed last year. Dem Gov John Lynch's veto will mean nothing. A lot of America followed NH's lead last week. The GOP gained 675 state legislature seats nationwide, the most since 1928. It will now control Congressional redistricting for the 2012 election in 13 states with 165 districts - while the Dems will have four states with 40 districts. This on top of: Governors - before 11/02, 26 Dem 24 GOP; now 19 Dem 29 GOP (via cheating by Quinn in IL; MN undecided) Senate - before 11/02, 59 Dem, 41 GOP; now 53 Dem, 47 GOP (via cheating by Murray in WA, Bennett in CO, and Reid in NV) House - before 11/02, 238 Dem , 178 GOP; now 189 Dem, 240 GOP (via Dem cheating in all close races; 6 still undecided) Let's not focus on Dem cheating. That's what Dems do, thanks to their ends-justify-the-means Marxist morality. Let's focus on the extraordinary conservative triumph over the cheating. A great majority of Americans chose last week to live free and not die. We really had something to celebrate at the TTP Victory Rendezvous this past weekend.
UNLEASHING AMERICA
I'm sure you're pretty happy today. Not quite as happy as you would be if Little Harry Reid had lost - but realize that he'll be Senate Majority Leader for only two more years. Every two years roughly one-third of the Senate's 100 seats are up, but the party balance shifts. This year it was even, 18 Rep and Dem seats up each. In 2012, it will be 10 Rep and 25 Dem seats up for grabs. The odds for a GOP Senate majority will be high. (Note that those 25 Dems include Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders who call themselves "independent," and just-elected Joe Manchin and Kirsten Gillibrand. Since the latter two are filling out Robert Byrd's and Hillary Clinton's terms, they have to run again two years' hence.) So - taking the Senate was a bridge too far this year. Let's instead be overjoyed at the awesome massiveness of the GOP/Tea Party victory yesterday and the concomitant obliteration of the Zero-Pelosi Agenda for the Ruination of America. And you're asking: Yes, Jack, I'm happy and drank way too much Famous Grouse in celebration, but - what happens now? Good question. Here we go.
DEMOCRAT KOOL-AID
Georgetown, Guyana. You may think you've never heard of this place but you have. The former British Guiana (one of the three Guianas - the other two being former Dutch Guiana, now Surinam, and French Guiana, all on the northeast shoulder of South America) - is these days visited by folks into eco-tourism. This place has one of the most untouched rainforests on earth with an astonishing variety of bird and wildlife. But Guyana doesn't ring a bell with you because of harpy eagles and howler monkeys. How about Jim Jones and Jonestown? Yes, that Guyana, where, on November 18, 1978, over 900 Americans committed mass suicide on orders of their cult leader. It remains one of the most bizarre events of modern times - from which the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" originates, meaning blind unthinking acceptance of a suicidally idiotic set of beliefs. Yet almost no one knows just what, exactly, were the beliefs of the "Peoples Temple" cult created by Jim Jones. Some sort of weird religion, right? Nope. Jim Jones calling his Peoples Temple a "church" was a tax-avoidance scam as it was purely secular. He admitted in a taped interview, "I'm an atheist." He was not a religious leader. He was a Stalin-admiring far left San Francisco Democrat.
WILL AMERICA BE A SERIOUS COUNTRY AGAIN?
Soufriere, St. Lucia. Thirsty? How about a cool one? Will this place do? 
I'm here on business (along with Chile, the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia has the freest economy and lowest taxes in the Western Hemisphere), but who could resist taking a break at this place? Looking out onto a view like this would certainly, I thought, give my brain a break from anxiety over November 2nd. No such luck. Not even this place will shut my brain up, nor quell the disquiet. I've been going around the world for two months now - and it's caused me to think more than ever about America and her place among the nations of the world. The one question that keeps reverberating in my head is: Will America be a serious country again?
UPDATE ON THE TTP VICTORY RENDEZVOUS FROM JACK WHEELER
Our Victory Rendezvous in Washington Nov. 05-07 is shaping up to be an extravaganza. Here’s the latest. In addition to the TTP regulars – Jack Kelly, Dr. Joel Wade, Richard Rahn, Marco the Wizard, famed intel analyst Alex Alexiev, and yours truly – we have:
- Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington (you’ve seen him on Fox News)
- Ariel Cohen, the Heritage Foundation’s expert on Russia and global energy policy (Ariel will tell us what’s it like to have a personal conversation with Vladimir Putin on a balcony of a dascha on the Black Sea)
- Robert Agostinelli, the billionaire investor of a major global private equity fund (there is no one who knows more about where the global economy is headed than Robert)
- A special guest whose name we cannot announce, but whom we guarantee you’ll be excited to meet. No one knows more about corruption in Washington than him.
PARADISE LOST
Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands, Pacific Ocean. What is your vision of a coral atoll paradise? A lagoon of crystal clear turquoise water, a beach of pure white sand edged by coconut palms, their fronds rustling in the gentle trade winds? Friendly, welcoming islanders skillfully sailing their outrigger canoes beyond the reef to capture a bounty of fish which they happily share with you? An underwater aquarium that's a snorkler's or scubadiver's dream? A thatch hut, a hammock, a perfectly made mai tai or piña colada with which to enjoy a perfect sunset in the glistening ocean? There are such places on this planet. If you are searching for one of them, don't come here to Majuro. This place was a paradise once just as described above. Now it is a dump. Literally. This is one of Majuro's more pristine beaches: 
This atoll - this country, the sovereign independent United Nations member nation of the Republic of the Marshall Islands of which Majuro is the capital - is Paradise Lost. It is the vision, the goal, the template that Democrats have for America. The future they strive for and dream they have for our country is the Paradise Lost of Majuro Atoll.
RUNWAY ABLE
Tinian Island, Pacific Ocean. It's a small island, less than 40 square miles, a flat green dot in the vastness of Pacific blue. Fly over it and you notice a slash across its north end of uninhabited bush, a long thin line that looks like an overgrown dirt runway. If you didn't know what it was, you wouldn't give it a second glance out your airplane window. 
On the ground, you see the runway isn't dirt but tarmac and crushed limestone, abandoned with weeds sticking out of it. Yet this is arguably the most historical airstrip on earth. This is where World War II was won. This is Runway Able. There may be no better place on the planet to reflect on what is at stake on November 2nd than here.
STANDING UP TO CHINA
Singapore. Let's first talk about money, the Chicoms and ours. We have heroes of humanity pictured, like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Benjamin Franklin. On every denomination of theirs, they picture the greatest mass murderer (as listed in Guinness) in human history. 
Mao was a monster like Stalin and Hitler who laughed his way through the deaths of tens of millions from his man-made famines, being tortured to death in his Laogai - the Chinese Gulag in which millions languish to this day - or shot like this peasant woman for being "counter-revolutionary": 
Stare hard at this picture. This happened to countless Chinese. This is the image that should come to all of our minds whenever we hear any story or news item about Red China. For it's still Red, and always will be until it removes the most evil human being who ever lived off its money - and apologizes to the world for his existence. Which is why China's truculent demand that Japan apologize for seizing a Chinese fishing boat and arresting its captain for poaching in Japanese waters, after the boat rammed a Japanese Navy patrol vessel is so ludicrous - yet no laughing matter to all of China's neighbors.
PELOSI IN PYONGYANG
Beijing, China. A friend of mine and yours just got here after spending a year in North Korea. Well, actually it was less than two weeks, but it felt like a year. He's been to well over 200 countries and separate political jurisdictions all over the globe, and he says NorkLand is far - far - away the weirdest place on the planet. One of the conditions of his going there, however, is that he had to sign an agreement that he couldn't write anything about what he saw. So I interviewed him, as he isn't prohibited from talking about what he saw. What follows is his report as told to me, including a raft of pictures he took. His conclusion: North Korea is an environmentalist's paradise, the Dream of the Left. It is Nancy Pelosi's fondest fantasy. It is where she and her fellow Fascicrats should move to after they are thrown out of power on November 2nd. North Korea is where they belong.
Join the forum discussion on this postTHE CHINESE CONUNDRUM
Urumchi, Xinjiang, China. Radical fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam is starting to spread through Xinjiang like an infectious disease. Why the Chicoms are allowing it is a mystery - for they are continually shouting wolf over "Moslem terrorism" in Xinjiang as an excuse to oppress the local people, called Uighurs. But there is no such thing. Uighurs are not terrorists because Uighurs have been Sufis for centuries. (See Islam's Anti-Osama for a discussion of Sufism or the Sufi website Naqshbandi.org.) Sufism is the peaceful form of Sunni Islam (just as Ismailism is the peaceful form of Shia Islam as we discussed last week in The Pamir Knot). It promotes a mystical, personal relationship to Allah, rather than performing robotic ceremonies (like praying five times a day with exactly the same words and motions every day, no changes ever) and following rigid rules as do mainstream Sunnis. Instead of robot rituals, Sufis engage in joyous musical dancing, couples whirling themselves into trances. Which is why Wahhabis hate Sufis as much as they hate us Christian infidels. The interesting thing about the Saudi attempt to Wahhabize the Uighurs is that the only recruits are young Uighur guys in the cities and towns. Not the women, and not much of anyone in the villages, which is where most Uighurs live. So far, the only women the young Wahhabi guys have been able to persuade to wear the veil are their mothers. Try and tell young Uighur women she's got to hide her face in public and she'll laugh in your face. What would you expect from a culture that has as its most revered Moslem shrine The Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine?
THE PAMIR KNOT
Kashgar, Chinese Turkestan. About 55 million years ago, the giant subcontinent of India, which had been drifting north for tens of millions of years after breaking off from the supercontinent of Gondwanaland, began crashing into the Eurasian land mass at a speed of 8 inches a year. It hit not flat-on but at an angle, with the huge projecting tip of the northwest corner of India slamming into Asia first. As it bulldozed underneath Asia ( a process called subduction), an Asian inland ocean called the Sea of Tethys (named after a Greek sea goddess) was tilted up and drained off, becoming the Tibetan Plateau. The edge of Asia buckled like crinkled paper, creating the world's greatest mountain ranges, including the Himalayas. Mount Everest, now at 29,028 feet, was once the bottom of the Tethys Sea, and because India continues to drive under Asia at over a tenth of an inch a year, it will reach over 30,000 feet in a few hundred thousand years. The Himalayas were but one mountain range buckled up by the India-Asia collision. From that projecting tip of the collision, enormous mountain ranges radiated out: the Tien Shan to the north, the Hindu Kush to the south, the Kun Lun to the northeast, and the Karakorum-Himalaya to the east. The center of this radiation is a tortured jumble of gigantic mountains over 20,000 feet high amidst a plateau of over 14,000 feet known since ancient times as "The Roof of the World." The welter of mountain ranges comprising this jumble has been called since the days of Marco Polo (1254-1324) "The Pamir Knot." Polo crossed it in 1272. I finished crossing it yesterday (9/02).
MOONLIGHT ON THE BOSPHORUS
Istanbul. There was a full moon last night that turned the Bosphorus - the strait that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean upon which Istanbul resides - into a sheet of moonlight. It is a memorable sight, and I had time for a glimpse of it on my way to Central Asia. So I only have a moment to provide a glimpse of what is happening here in Turkey. For the history of what is now called Turkey, see Asia Minor (Part One) and Asia Minor (Part Two) from May 2007. Turkey is now run by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Recip Tayyip Erdogan (air-do-wan). This is a very dangerous man. He is a radical Islamist clothed in "Islamic moderation." He is purging the Turkish military of officers devoted to the secularism of modern Turkey's founder, Kemal Attaturk, and replacing them with Islamists. His goal is to recreate the Ottoman Caliphate, where the ruler of Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) was recognized as the Caliph or ruler of all Moslems.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/20/10
We begin this week with a letter of profound gratitude.
Dear TTP Family, My Marines and I cannot thank you enough for the dozens of care packages you have sent us here in Afghanistan. At least 50 have come in so far and more arrive almost every day. They have been an immense morale boost, and we are able to use, eat, and drink everything. Everything you sent is so appreciated. Just as appreciated are your prayers and spiritual support. We are a long ways from home, and to know that people back home are praying for us every day means so much to us all. Be assured that the Marines are proud and strong. We have the best training in the world and it is paying off here. We are fighting every day, getting grenades thrown at us, RPGs shot at us, and engaging in intense firefights. Despite all of this, the Taliban are running scared. Simultaneously, we are able to protect the local population who hate and fear the Taliban. We are engaging and employing villagers here who often live just a couple of hundred meters away from Taliban positions. Know that every day, the US Marines are making progress on moving forward a culture that has neither running water nor electricity, that hasn't progressed in 2,000 years. I wish I could be with you at the TTP Rendezvous this November in Washington. But I will still be here with my Marines. Thank you all so very much once again. Ethos anthropos daemon 1st Lt. Brandon H. Wheeler United States Marine Corps AfghanistanUPDATE 8/21/10 A message from Brandon's wife, Catherine:
PAKISTAN IS UNDERWATER
Thirty-five million Americans as homeless refugees: That would be a disaster proportionate to the horrific -- and worsening -- situation in Pakistan. This time, that forlorn country isn't threatened by Islamist terror, but by Mother Nature. Two weeks of flooding, with more rain on the way, have made refugees of 20 million Pakistanis. Try to grasp that number. Twenty million people, overwhelmingly poor, have lost their homes, their slight "wealth" and their livelihoods. Thousands have died. International aid groups estimate that 3.5 million children are at mortal risk from diseases -- cholera, typhoid, dysentery and common diarrhea -- spread by polluted water and poor sanitation. The deluge has inundated about 100,000 square miles -- leaving thousands of hamlets, villages and towns underwater or swept away entirely. This makes Hurricane Katrina look like a thunderstorm.
WHY GOD IS PUNISHING PAKISTAN
Please take a moment to read this short dispatch from last Sunday's (8/15) New York Post, Taliban's Chilling Hunt & Slaughter. Next, consider the Biblical scale of Pakistan's flood crisis: 60,000 square miles flooded, tens of thousands of villages submerged and destroyed, 20 million people homeless and starving. Now let's connect the two by asking if God is punishing Pakistan for being one of the world's great sources of terrorism, corruption, and evil. On August 5th just as the floods were starting, eight medical charity workers - six Americans, one German, and one British lady - were slaughtered for "the perceived sin of preaching Christianity." The New York Post story linked above notes that the killers were "an organized group" engaged in a "targeted killing," and that some of them were "trained in Pakistan." Here are further details the story doesn't report.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/13/10
Of all the headlines in all the news publications on the planet this week, there's one that struck me as the strangest. In today's (8/13) British newspaper The Independent, the headline blares out at you: Why Is The World Unmoved By The Plight Of Pakistan? Just to make totally sure you get the guilt-trip, right at the top of the article is a close-up picture of an old woman's tear-filled eye. The story is strange for two reasons. First, "The World" in the headline clearly means "The West." Why are we the world? Did all the oil-rich Moslem countries like Saudi Arabia (which spends billions on turning Pakistani boys into terrorists in their Wahhabi medressahs or Moslem indoctrination schools) just fall off the edge of the earth? Here's the second reason. Instead of this guilt-trip headline, why isn't there a headline in any major news publication asking: Why Is Obama Unmoved By The Plight Of The Unemployed? Far - far - more heartbreaking for Americans than Paks up to their butts in mud is the sight of their fellow Americans hungry, broke, and desperate for a job they can't find. Yet Zero doesn't care - he really actually couldn't care less. He'd rather be playing golf. He has no intention whatever of increasing employment other than put more people on government handouts (or government jobs which is the same thing). Most folks intuit this to be true but don't understand the actual mechanism engineered to make it true.
BLOW IT UP
It is important to drive this message into the thick dhimmitized skulls of New York City's spineless political weasels: The Ground Zero Mosque will not be built - this will literally not stand. Whatever measures necessary to prevent its existence will be taken. Period. While the Dhimmi Pols fulminate over this statement, and engage in the only behavior they know: call names - racist! bigot! - like a 5th grader as they are incapable of logical argument, we can get to work answering questions, starting with: How can the project be blown up as in economically sabotaged so it never gets built and has to be blown up physically? When you think about it, there are lots of ways to blow this thing up, as in ruin it, so that it never gets built at all. The Ground Zero Mosque is, in fact, a perfect opportunity to force the issue of Liberal/Democrat Moslem appeasement, to force the issue of whether Islam really is a religion or a totalitarian political ideology disguised as, pretending to be, a religion.
IF HITLER WAS GOD
The scene: It is November, 1943. We're in Camp Shelby, just outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where 5,300 German prisoners of war are interned. The Geneva Conventions are being strictly adhered to, with food (prepared by German cooks), clothing, and medical care equal to their captors. The German POWs have formed soccer and volleyball teams, with descriptions and results of the tournaments between them reported in the camp newspaper, The Mississippi Post. A Nazi church has been erected in the camp, where Nazi worshippers attend services held by Nazi chaplains. In their sermons, the chaplains instruct that: "Nazism is the true religion, the Aryan Soul the only true God, our understanding of Whom has been brought to us by His Holiness, Adolph Hitler. Our Führer, Adolph Hitler is the true Holy Ghost. He is the human form of the Aryan Soul instantiated here on earth. We believe on this earth solely in Adolph Hitler and his sacred teachings." The Nazi Bible, Mein Kampf, is treated with careful reverence by the American camp guards. "The Holy Mein Kampf must never be placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas," state the detailed rules issued by the Pentagon. "Only Nazi chaplains may handle the Holy Nazi Book, or by guards only after putting on clean white gloves in full view of the POWs." "The Holy Mein Kampf," states the Pentagon's directive, "should be treated like a ‘fragile piece of delicate art.'"
CZAR VLAD IS GETTING SCORCHED
Red-headed spy Anna Fermanova is no longer the hottest thing in Russia. Now it's the 500 out-of-control wildfires devouring thousands of square miles of the countryside. This conflagration makes California's annual blazes look like Boy Scout campfires. The fires have consumed entire villages and ravaged the critical wheat harvest; now they threaten a key nuclear-weapons-research facility. A huge naval logistics base burned -- along with 200 helicopters and planes. But the reputation of Russia's new czar, Prime Minister Vladimir "Czar Vlad" Putin, may have been scorched worst of all. The disastrous forest and peat-bog infernos encircling Moscow have exposed the Potemkin-village nature of Putin's vaunted efficiency. All the czar's men can't even put out a brush fire.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/06/10
Relax. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, then another, think of a beautiful sunset and the smell of an ocean breeze. If it's not too early - the sun is over the yard-arm somewhere - pour yourself three fingers of your favorite adult libation. It's going to be okay. True enough, parts of the world around you went even more nuts this week. A left-wing looney with contempt for the Constitution became a Supreme Court Justice. A left-wing limp-wrist judge with contempt for the very basis of what makes us human and for millions of his state's voters forces his homosexuality upon us all. Yet there's also good news, good judicial news. While Judge "Swish" Walker was emasculating Prop 8, the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 209 - 6 to 1! - this week (8/02) which bans "affirmative action," i.e., preferential treatment of women and minorities in public school admissions, government hiring and contracting. The Left took a real hit on this one. Yet that wasn't the only one, for on that same day (8/02) the Left suffered a double-whammy when US District Judge Henry Hudson refused to dismiss the State of Virginia's suit against ObamaCare on the grounds of unconstitutionality. This, potentially, is a much bigger deal than banning affirmative action. Here's why...
REVOLUTIONARY CONSTITUTIONALISM
Required reading for most any course in the Philosophy of Science is Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn distinguished between "normal science," which is essentially puzzle-solving - trying to answer unsolved issues arising within a framework or "paradigm" of accepted scientific principles - and "revolutionary science," which is when the unsolved issues can no longer be answered within the paradigm and must be replaced by a new paradigm. The classic historic example is Ptolemaic astronomy, which tried to explain the motions of the planets within the geocentric paradigm - that the sun revolved around the earth. This "normal science" finally became so unbearably complicated that it broke down, to be replaced by the heliocentric "Copernican Revolution" - that the earth revolved around the sun (which Sir Francis Bacon accepted but called "a rape of the senses"). So let's talk about The Structure of Political Revolutions.
BUSH WON THE WAR IN IRAQ, IS OBAMA LOSING THE PEACE ON PURPOSE?
One president gave his premature "Mission Accomplished" speech about Iraq on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Now another has given his own version as part of a Chicago-ward-politics sales pitch to disabled veterans. The difference is that the first guy was sincere. President Obama's pork-barrel speech to the Disabled Veterans of America yesterday (if you want to help our vets, Mr. President, shut up and do it) would have drawn a blush from those Soviet propagandists who cropped purged Politburo members from Stalin-era photographs. Ignoring his own opposition to the liberation of Iraq, supporting our troops and the surge, Obama spoke as if all's well in Baghdad -- thanks to him. We won that war, but we still can lose the peace. Obama shunned the fact that, almost half a year after its last national election, Iraq doesn't have a new government. Determined to abandon "Bush's war," Obama's been AWOL in Baghdad. Does he want to lose Iraq and throw away the sacrifice of all those Americans who died to win there?
THE TRAGIC TREASON OF WIKILEAKS
If we needed yet another example of Washington's self-absorption, we sure got it with the WikiLeaks dump of classified data on AfPak. Government officials promptly freaked about the political consequences. The rush to insist that "there's nothing new here" and that the leaks "really don't change anything" was dishonest even by DC standards. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies! The victims of this tragic event aren't punch-drunk White House staffers or members of Congress up for re-election. They're not the wed-to-Pakistan wonks at State or even the Pentagon's hide-the-bad-news generals. The forgotten victims are our troops on the ground. And the Afghans who've risked everything to help them. And what troubles Washington? The administration, which blithely assured voters it knew how to fix Afghanistan, is worried about eroding poll numbers. Congressional Democrats tied to the president's AfPak policies to prove their toughness on national security are panicked about voter backlash. The troops come last to them.
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/30/10
Growing up as a teenage California surfer in the late 50s/early 60s, my favorite music was Surf Rock. The record we all loved the most then is the one that keeps reverberating in my head now with little more than 90 days to go until November 2nd. In 1962, five kids from Glendora High School (Jim Fuller, Bob Berryhill, Ron Wilson, Jim Pash, and Pat Connolly) called themselves The Surfaris, and talked the owner of a small recording studio in Cucamonga, Dale Smallin, into recording a song of theirs called Surfer Joe. Needing something for the throw-away "B-side" of the 45 record, Ron Wilson started blasting away on the drums while Jim Fuller went wild with surf guitar riffs. Dale Smallin decided for a gag to start it off with his crazy Witch Laugh cackle. They named it after what happens to a surfer when a giant wave crashes on his head. Here it is now, the greatest surf music ever played - and it should be the theme song for what's going to happen to Democrats this fall:
THE SPEECH EVERY AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL SHOULD GIVE
To the students and faculty of our high school as we begin a new academic year this September of 2010: I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people. I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against your country. First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships. The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity -- your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American.