Dr. Jack Wheeler
LOST ON THE CASPIAN
Baku, Azerbaijan. Have you ever tried to go to sleep during fireworks? It's not easy, but for such occasions I always bring earplugs while traveling (along with other necessities such as a flashlight, duck tape, and a Leatherman tool kit). I happened to arrive here late at night as the latest phony election was being celebrated. Fireworks in place of freedom. Yet however Azerbaijan is a lost backwater on the Caspian for Americans, it has amazing potential to screw things up or make things better not just for this whole part of the world but for us as well. We need to study the map to understand why:
HISTORY AND INSANITY
Historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) remarked that often, history seemed to be "just one damn thing after another." Anyone who has studied the history of cultures and nations over the last few thousand years can easily get overwhelmed by the constantly recurring episodes of mindless insanity. This is not metaphorical, nor hyperbolic. I mean bouts of literal insanity, where entire cultures and nations actually go nuts. It is not something rare. Often, it seems the norm. We Americans like to believe that our country is immune to such historical insanities, but we are not. Anyone old enough to have experienced the 1960s is well aware of this. America yet to recover from the cultural and political destruction of the Sixties Radicals. And so we come to the insanity of Barack Hussein Obama. Let's dispense with all the blather and get to the bottom of it: anyone with a 3-digit IQ (2 digits means mentally defective) and loves America who is even considering voting to place his country's national security and economy in this man's hands should be institutionalized. He or she is clinically crazy and a public health hazard. Again, this is no exaggeration. This man's candidacy is insane, no ifs or buts. So the only question right now is, is this a spasm of insanity from which a majority of American voters will recover in time, or not? If the former, then all his incredible inadequacies, all the incredible associations with hate-America racists and terrorists, all the incredible vote fraud by the Communists of ACORN, on and on and on and endlessly on, will finally register with voters who will sweep him into the dustbin of history. If the latter, then my greatest personal fear will come true.
1958: A KNIFE EDGE IN THE SKY
It was a rainy Saturday morning in March. I was 14 years old and bored out of my mind with nothing to do. Stuck indoors, I stared through the rain-splattered window of my room and sighed. My eyes wandered to the bookshelf nearby, and fell on a book that a friend of my father's had given me some time ago as a present. It had remained ignored and unopened, attracting dust rather than my attention, until now. The spine of the glossy book jacket proclaimed its title - The Complete Book of Marvels. What was that about? The author was Richard Halliburton. Who was he? I reached for the book, and my life was changed forever. Our home was in a prosaic suburb of Los Angeles - Glendale, California. Like most other kids, I knew very little about the world. America was an enormous island, with the rest of the world on the other side of huge oceans, far away. The inside of the book jacket told me that Halliburton had been a famous adventurer in the 1920s and ‘30s. The book was 20 years old, and was a compilation of his exploits and experiences. As I paged through the descriptions and black-and-white pictures of dozens of the world's most extraordinary places, I was transfixed. The world, it dawned on me, was a vast place of endless wonders and adventures. What mesmerized me in particular was Halliburton's account of climbing the Matterhorn. I stared at his picture of the Matterhorn, entitled "The Tiger of the Alps," for the longest time. Then, as if I were in a trance, I found myself getting up from the chair in my room and walking down the hall to my parents' room, where I found my Dad in his easy chair, reading an Erle Stanley Gardner detective novel. He looked up at me, waiting for me to say something. I laid the Halliburton book over the Gardner book on his lap, open to the double-spread picture of the Matterhorn. He looked down at the picture, then looked back up, still waiting. I didn't consciously say anything. I pointed at the picture and heard myself say, "Dad, I want to climb that mountain."
WILL RUSSIA BREAK APART?
Tbilisi, Georgia. It's a beautiful morning here in Georgia, and there's not a Russian soldier in sight. I could find them easily enough if I went looking for them over at the "border" with South Ossetia and Abkahzia, but here in the capital of Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia, they are nowhere to be seen. Georgians are surprisingly unafraid of Russia inflicting its traditional role of barbarian invader upon them. There are several reasons, one of which is the videos of Russian troops they've been seeing on Georgian television. Russian soldiers are so ill-equipped many are wearing cheap tennis shoes. They are so ill-fed they have to steal food from villagers, so hungry they eat fruit so unripe and meat so spoiled it makes them violently sick. There is a surreptitiously-taken video of Russian soldiers ransacking a Georgian military barracks, stealing used socks (many of them have no socks), even used (!) toothbrushes, and carting off toilet commodes to sell back in Russia. "It's really hard to take soldiers who have to steal used toothbrushes seriously," one Georgian friend told me. Thus the discussion here is less on what the impact of Russia's invasion will be on Georgia, and more on what the impact will be on Russia.
WHAT VOTERS NEED TO KNOW
Here is what American voters need to know. The following information has been completed on my own time and not on behalf of any group or organization. It is based upon my own research and uses contacts I have in all branches of the US government, conversations with think tank leaders, policy experts, election law attorneys, sources within the McCain campaign, and top political consultants. It's a frightening picture. What's even more terrifying is what Obama's America will be should voters ignore the facts below.
ALBANIA IN AMERICA
Tirana, Albania. I had a private dinner with an extraordinary man last night (10/09) - just the two of us with one of his key advisors. Albania is very fortunate to have Dr. Sali Berisha (he's a physician with a specialty in heart surgery) as its Prime Minister. He's a man of immense erudition and learning who is street wise in the ways of the world, having dealt with every major leader on the planet for years. The country he admires above all others is America. In this, he speaks for the great majority of Albanians. Albania is probably the most pro-American country on earth today. Yet it was a strange and scary experience to hear him relate the recent history of Albania - for at one point he seemed to be describing that of America's instead. What I really hoped he wasn't describing was the history of America's immediate future.
1955-1956: A BOY SCOUT’S FANTASY
On a Boy Scout camping trip in June, 1955, I sat in my tent which was pegged into the sands of Carpenteria Beach, California. As a lowly Second Class Scout, the biggest goal in my life at the time was to become a First Class Scout. How long would that take? I wondered, as I paged through the Boy Scout Handbook looking at the requirements. Then I made the mistake of looking at what it took to be a Star, then a Life Scout, and started imagining. Dazed with fantasies, I crawled out of the tent with the handbook. When some of the other Scouts saw me with this puzzled look, they asked, "What's with you, Wheeler?" Still in a daze, I put my mouth in gear before engaging my brain, and mumbled, "Do you know that if I made First Class by August, I could make Star by November and Life by February?" I wasn't ready for the torrent of derision. "You idiot, Wheeler!" "What a joke, Second Class!" "In your dreams, Bozo!" They walked away with sneers and laughs. I stood there in the sand in shock. Why had what I said made them so angry - really angry? I didn't know why they were so mad, but I didn't care - for now I was mad, so mad I made a decision right there to turn this fantasy into reality.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/03/08
Sofia, Bulgaria. Dr. Joel Wade couldn't write his column yesterday (10/02) because he was so nervous waiting for the Palin-Biden debate. He's feeling a lot better this morning. So are we all. You betcha. So let's lift a pint of Kamenitza beer in honor of Sarah Palin and the hope she has reignited the McCain-Palin ticket... ...Kamenitza is my selection out of a large number of excellent Bulgarian beers because of its advertising motto: Success in your hands (there's a picture of a hand holding a bottle), followed by the ad copy: Because you are successful, we present to you a Bulgarian beer with character. You would never, ever see such an ad in any country in Western Europe. In France or Germany, young people sneer at entrepreneurial capitalism as their purpose in life is to sponge off the state... ...Thus the garish irony of our election in November.
1989: SERIOUS PEACE
This first week of October in 2008, we launch a new feature in To The Point. It is entitled How We Won The Cold War: A Personal Account of the Greatest Adventure of Modern Times. "Winning Cold War" for short in the left side bar. This calls for an explanation, and a confession. The confession first. I have absolutely no excuse whatever for not completing The Jade Steps. After completing 33 chapters, I have only the concluding last chapter and the epilogue to go, and I haven't done it. So I hope that by starting another book, it will force and embarrass me enough to finish the historical novel. How We Won The Cold War, however, is no novel. It's the way things really happened. It's the book my literary agent (and avid TTP'er) Theron Raines has said what I must write, the book I owe to history. The situation is this. I have completed the first six chapters, which I'll be posting for the next successive six weeks. They are setting-the-scene chapters which give me time to get back from my travels and get back to work (yes, this means finishing The Jade Steps as well!). Hopefully, so many of you will bug me so much to keep posting the next chapter in the series that I will actually get the book written to completion. So here we go with an Introductory Note and Chapter One, 1989: Serious Peace. Wish me luck.
THE ONLY GOOD PIRATE IS A DEAD PIRATE
Somali pirates got a shock last week: The ship they seized carried dozens of Russian-built tanks, along with a wealth of heavy weapons and ammo. It was more than they'd bargained for. As I write, the Ukrainian ship MV Faina sits at anchor off a notorious pirate port, its crew held captive by 30 or more Somalis. US Navy warships circle the vessel. Our helicopters buzz its deck. We don't want that weaponry falling into terrorist hands. The Somalis lack the facilities to unload 40-ton tanks, but the smaller weapons aboard would delight the local al Qaeda franchise. But we don't know what to do next. Which is ridiculous.
TIME TO RELEARN THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PROSPERITY AND FREEDOM
There is nothing new under the sun. The United States has endured major financial panics in 1837, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1929, 1933 and now in 2008. Most of these economic events had ideological and political consequences - as well as the inevitable economic play-outs. And, if history is any guide, contrary to the hope of some and the fear of others, this is not the end of capitalism as we have known it. But it is true that usually, major economic events have had political as well as economic consequences. For instance, the panic of 1893, which in some ways is similar to the current panic, was caused by overbuilding and sloppy financing of the railroads. The 1880s had enjoyed dramatic economic expansion, which lead to dangerous speculation. Once the railroad bubble burst there was a run on the banks, a contraction of credit, and European investors demanded gold for payments which forced the reduction in the value of the dollar.
HOW TO KILL PUTIN’S RUSSIA
Varna, Black Sea Coast, Bulgaria. I'm sitting on the veranda of my luxury suite at the five-star Flamingo Grand Hotel with a spectacular view of the Black Sea, and enjoying a glass of spectacularly good Bulgarian red wine. It seems odd that this place of such peace, beauty, and enjoyment is where to kill Putin's Russia - but it is, exactly right here. With Vladimir Putin using his oil billions and traditional Russian thuggery - murdering opponents, invading neighbors - to reignite the Cold War and reestablish the Soviet Russian Empire, it's time to think of ways to put an end to it. If we got rid of the Soviet Union, it should be child's play to get rid of Putin's Russia. And it is. Putin's Russia has a mortal vulnerability. Exploit that vulnerability, and he, together with his entire imperialist enterprise is done for. That vulnerability is not oil. It is...
SOUTHWEST WINTER RENDEZVOUS!
Any denizen of the TTP User Forum will instantly recognize "Cephren," the all-time champion poster. And any participant in previous TTP Rendezvous, such as last month's in Boston, knows Cephren is Chris Baldi, a hail-and-hearty fellow you'd have to try very hard to dislike. At Boston, everyone agreed that the Winter Rendezvous had to be someplace where there isn't winter, someplace warm, and that it should be out West. Last February it was in the East, in Sarasota. We had a wonderful time in Sarasota, and Chris promises us all an equally good time where he lives. Thus we hereby announce the Southwest Winter Rendezvous in Phoenix, Arizona, January 23-25.
HOW WE GOT INTO THIS MESS IN 7 STEPS
1. The Community Re-Investment Act of 1977 threw out the idea of a sound financial system in favor of affordable housing for the less well off. Folks who could not afford to borrow to buy a home were now the legislated target market for lenders; banks were legally forced to lend money to bad credits. Out went traditional and rational lending criteria like 20% down. Now, folks who could not afford it could buy a home for 0% down. So the banks fulfilled their, now lawful, obligation for making the initial loan but then, as soon as possible, sold the damn things off for a packaging fee. 2. The fundamentally corrupt regulatory process whereby the quasi government controlled wholesale lenders of Fannie and Freddie, and the large private mortgage packagers such as Countrywide, could and did buy any kind of legislation they wanted. The Chairman of the Senate banking committee, Chris Dodd (D-CT), is and has been the largest recipient of Fannie and Freddie political contributions. In addition, Senator Dodd got two sweetheart Mortgages from Countrywide. The recent heads of Fannie and Freddie were political appointees, mainly by Democrats: Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and Jim Johnson - all Obama advisors.
TO THE BACK OF BEYOND
Once I finish writing this, I'm off to conduct the VIP trip discussed in Good News From Bulgaria. Next I'll be in Albania for a meeting with Prime Minister Berisha, followed by speaking at a conference in Tbilisi, Georgia along with TTP's Richard Rahn. After that, I head into the back of beyond. The phrase became popular in the 19th century referring to mysterious lands that were unknown and remote. I can't be more specific, as I don't want to telegraph my presence there in advance. You'll be getting a report from me whenever I get a secure Internet connection, which I hope will be often. There will be a few times in the coming weeks when I'll have to be incommunicado. I'll be back just after the election, and the scary question is: will America by then have become a country that is back of beyond?
THE SHAME OF JEWISH DEMOCRATS
American Jews have good reason to be ashamed and angry today. As Iran moves into the final stages of its nuclear weapons development program - nuclear weapons which it will use to destroy the State of Israel, endanger Jews around the world and cow the United States of America - Democrat American Jewish leaders decided that putting Sen. Barack Hussein Obama in the White House is more important than protecting the lives of the Jewish people in Israel and around the world. On Monday (9/22), the New York Sun published the speech that Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would have delivered at that day's rally outside UN headquarters in New York against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and against Iran's plan to destroy Israel. She would have delivered it, if she hadn't been disinvited. It was a remarkable speech, prepared by a remarkable woman. But it was not heard. Here's why.
WHY LEFTWING FEMINISTS HATE SARAH
[Phyllis Schafly has been a good friend of mine for many years. We once sailed down the Danube River into Communist Hungary as it was breaking free of the Soviet Union. At 84 years old, she shows here how to nail liberal faux-feminists to the wall. -JW] Feminist anger against Sarah has exposed the fact that feminism is not about women's success and achievement. If it were, feminists would have been bragging for years about self-made women who are truly remarkable achievers, such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, or Sen. Elizabeth Dole, or even Margaret Thatcher. Feminists never boast about these women because feminism's basic doctrine is victimology. Feminism preaches that women can never succeed because they are the sorry victims of an oppressive patriarchy. No matter how smart or accomplished a woman may be, she's told that success and happiness are beyond her grasp because institutional sexism and discrimination hold her down.
MOOSE SHOOTIN’ MAMA
Country singer Pat Garrett has the hit song of the year. It is can't-sit-down, gotta-get-up-and-boogie, real deal rock and roll. And while you're jumping and dancing for joy, tears will also be streaming down your face from the beauty and truth of the lyrics. For it is a tribute to America's Sweetheart, the woman who is destroying the Left's stranglehold on our culture, who will give us our country back so that America can be America again: Sarah Palin. Liberals can eat their hearts out while we dance our hearts out to Moose Shootin' Mama. Be sure and crank up the volume. {youtube}xZcdTI53mLA{/youtube}
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/19/08
Maybe we should all be in Tibet this week. That's where I was 21 years ago on Black Monday, October 19, 1987. On that infamous day 21 years ago, the Dow dropped 22.6%: from 2,247 to 1,739, or a loss of 508 points. (An equivalent loss today would be a fall of 2,500 points, from 11,422 to 8,840.) We were in one of the remotest spots on the planet - the Chang Thang plateau of northern Tibet - when we learned of the crash on our short wave radio tuned into the BBC. We were so lucky to be there... ... let's focus now on more positive developments. One would be that Charlie Rangel is finally getting what's coming to him. Even liberal newspapers like the Miami Herald are calling for him to resign, either from his chairmanship of House Way & Means or from Congress altogether. Another is the release this week of John Fund's book Stealing Elections. This is an incredibly important book. John exposes the plans of the ultimate "community organizer" ACORN to commit massive voter fraud in cities throughout the country - and details how Obama is an ACORN operative... ...Then there is Boliva breaking apart and Pakistan about to.
MCCAIN REMINDS US WHY WE DIDN’T LIKE HIM BEFORE PALIN
Talk about blowing a golden opportunity. Whenever there is danger - like the Wall Street Meltdown this week - there is always opportunity. The Meltdown handed it to McCain on a diamond-studded platter, on which Obambi and the Democrats lay so stunningly vulnerable. Instead, he goes off on an anti-capitalist rant, demonizing the "greed" of Wall Street instead of the Democrat crooks in Congress who are the architects of the crisis. He calls for more fascist regulation, when it was the regulatory power the Dem crooks had that caused the crisis. And to top it off, he scapegoats Chris Cox, Bush's SEC Chairman, the most honest and decent guy in Washington, instead of the Democrat crooks! McCain is reminding us of why conservatives weren't gung-ho enthusiastic over his candidacy. We'd almost forgotten in the wake of Palinmania. We're now remembering his sneering remark during the primary debates that his life has always been motivated by "patriotism," while that of Mitt Romney was motivated by - he spat out the word as if it were a filthy four-letter insult - "profit." McCain should have listened more to his friend and cell-mate in the Hanoi Hilton, Jim Warner. Jim once asked him, "John, would you go to a supermarket to buy a pair of shoes?"
EVIDENCE THE CLINTONS ARE SCREWING OBAMA
To The Point has long maintained that the Clintons will do what they can to make sure Obambi loses in November - for only then does Hillary have a chance for the White House in 2012. Now there's more evidence. In a private meeting earlier this month (9/10) in his Harlem office, Clinton met at his request with the publishers of a major online news site. I cannot be more explicit at the request of my source. After claiming Obama will win because his campaign has registered two million new Democrat voters, Clinton casually mentioned: "You know, one thing that nobody has really checked out yet is Obama's long-standing and deep relationship with Louis Farrakhan. It's going to really hurt him badly once it's fully disclosed." Hint: research and reveal Obama's connection with the most rabidly anti-Semitic black racist in America.
THE LEFT’S HATRED OF RELIGION EXPOSED
Nothing in recent memory has driven home the divide between our self-appointed aristocracy and "commoners" as sharply as the intelligentsia's rush to mock Gov. Sarah Palin's religious faith. While the attacks and insults are backfiring on the mortified elites, the double standard applied to "Sarah America" is a disgrace that can't be excused as "just politics." Certainly, much of the left-wing fury over Palin stems from the Democrat Party's assumption that it "owned" the exclusive right to nominate women to the executive branch (despite the crushing of Hillary Clinton's candidacy). How dare the Republicans advance a woman? How dare they change this year's election script? But the root of the left's dread of this happily married mother of five seems to be that she actually believes in God. Washington fears faith - even nominal believers inside the Beltway have been shaped by secular educations and secular caste values. Humans fear what they can't understand, and our comfortable ruling class just can't comprehend the power and the glory, the beauty and the ecstasy, the awe and commitment experienced by those who believe in a divine power. To paraphrase the late Leona Helmsley, "Faith is for the little people."
GLOBAL WARMING AND BLACK HOLES: THE PARANOIA CONNECTION
That the Farmer's Almanac is now predicting global cooling is a pretty good indication that the glo-warming hysteria is coming to an end. The "warming crisis" the media has incessantly tried to shove down people's throats is of little concern to voters. All polls show it is at or near the bottom of voter concerns, and it is rarely addressed by politicians seeking their votes. Which may help to explain the media's current attempt at paranoia-mongering: spreading fears that the entire earth may be swallowed up by a man-made black hole in Switzerland. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva is the largest and most complex machine ever built. Physicists hope to simulate the conditions of the "Big Bang" that created the universe. Such a simulation, the worry goes, could create a tiny black hole that could suck in nearby matter, growing with incredible speed and size until it sucked in and destroyed our entire planet. Here are two reasons why the paranoia is misplaced and will have to wander off to find another target.
PALIN AND THE PROMISE OF AMERICA’S FUTURE
Today, the seventh anniversary of the Islamofascist attack on America of September 11, 2001, we look back to commemorate the lives of our fellow Americans taken by Moslem terrorism on that horrible day. We need also to look back in deepest gratitude for President George Bush and all those in his administration whose Herculean efforts to prevent another such attack upon us have succeeded. It is an incredible accomplishment. Having done so, today is also a good time to look forward, to reflect upon the vastly different futures America faces, based upon what choice her voters make 54 days from now. I won't waste much time on the disaster that future would be for both America and the world should that choice be Barack Hussein Obama. Government spending and taxes would explode, the Dow would fall off a cliff, every dirtbag dictator in the world from Putin to Chavez would expand their power as America became indistinguishable from Euroweenia. I could go on adding to this list of calamities foreign and domestic, but we needn't bother, though, because this future is not going to happen. America's future lies with Sarah Palin and not a lightweight loser who will be lucky to carry California. So let's look at what the promise of that future might be.
SARAHCUDA VS. THE PIAPS: SMACKDOWN IN THE SENATE
Did you know that Slow Joe Biden is up for re-election? Yes, he's running simultaneously for Vice-President and the Senate. You'd think it would have to be one or the other. He's not campaigning much for his seat, as his Republican opponent is some right-wing small town attractive housewife no one every heard of. Does Christine O'Donnell remind you of anyone? Christine may become known as the Sarah Palin of Delaware soon, once the two join forces at a campaign rally in the Blue Hen state. As you read this, every Republican House and Senate candidate in the country is begging for Sarah to campaign for them. There's no way she has time to help out all but a small handful of House hopefuls, so she'll be concentrating on the Senate's. For very good reason. As Vice-President, constitutionally she'll be President of the Senate.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/05/08
To call this a half-full report this week would be ridiculous. Even an "overflowingly full report" wouldn't come close. Think of that famous picture of the Spindletop oil gusher, only it's a gusher of good news. That's more like it. The gusher starts with the world's most famous woman. Mark this week as when Omania fizzled out. O stands for Over. There's little to add about Sarah right now except to stand back in awe, and contemplate the blessings of Providence upon America. That, and order a case of Alaska IPA, a great beer brewed in Juneau within sight of Governor Palin's office... ... Onto Russia. While Euroweenia is proclaiming Czar Putin to be the world's most powerful man, smart folks here in DC are examining his many vulnerabilities. Russia needs to be broken apart like the Soviet Union... ... For three years - since September 2005! - you've known why man-made global warming is a myth. Solar Warming explained the mechanism of warming, of how the sun's magnetic activity (of which sun spots are a sign) effects cloud formation on earth. The bottom line is: no sun spots mean a cooler earth, lots of sun spots mean a warmer earth. This week, astronomers announced that for the first time in 100 years, an entire month has passed without a single sunspot. This is bad news for advocates of the glo-warming religion, and thus good news for advocates of freedom from fascist control over our lives. But it's also bad news for our planet.
PROTECTING AMERICA’S SWEETHEART
America - real America - is in love. I know I sure am, and I have a lot of company. Yes, it's platonic love. After all, she's married and faithful (and so am I!). Nonetheless, I, like so many millions of Americans, have fallen head over heels in love with Sarah Palin. She is America's Sweetheart. Say goodnight, Bar..., Ber..., Buh..., what's that guy's name again? That guy is so, like, over. So yesterday, like the tax-and-spend welfare state liberal-leftie cant he espouses. Obambi represents the past. Sarah represents the future. Which is why my deepest, most passionate desire regarding Sarah Palin is that President Bush order a doubling of the Secret Service detail to protect her. And then we provide some backup. The pathologically deranged smears of the hate-America moonbats this week have only served to increase enthusiasm and sympathy for her. The moonbats are in a state of panicked rage because they rightly see in her the capacity to destroy all the myths that give meaning to their angry little lives. Which means their vicious verbal attacks on her person are going to turn physical. There are going to be attempts on her life. I don't want to bum out the celebrating, the elation, the thrill over Sarah - but she has got to be protected.
AMERICA’S VICTORY IN IRAQ, OBAMA’S SHAME AND DEFEAT
A hurricane smacks the Big Easy again. Back-to-back political conventions. A surprise VP pick. Russians behaving like Russians . . . All too easy to miss the biggest story out of Iraq this year: Yesterday, security responsibility for once-bloody Anbar Province officially passed from the US military to the Baghdad government. Fallujah. Ramadi. Al Qaeda's worst atrocities. Those opposed to the liberation of Iraq celebrated years of headlines from Anbar. Then it all changed: We won - and the headlines vanished. That's because a story of victory in Iraq is also a story of shameful defeat for Barack Hussein Obama.
SARAH! A SURPRISE TO THE WORLD BUT NOT TO TTP’ERS
What did that guy say standing in front of that phony cardboard Greek Temple a couple of nights ago in Denver? Nobody remembers, nobody cares. Because everybody is talking about somebody else, the most exciting political surprise of modern times. In fact, the only people on earth not surprised were readers of To The Point. On June 4, 2008, TTP's Jack Kelly - whom TTP'ers in the Forum have now dubbed "Nostradamus" - wrote Fire and Nice for McCain's VP. Her high school basketball teammates called her Sarah Barracuda. Her fellow beauty contestants for Miss Alaska named her Miss Congeniality. Fire & Nice. Nostradamus Kelly takes political acumen and prescience to a whole new level. Isn't it odd that a VP pick now being universally described by conservatives as "brilliant" and "inspired" came as such as surprise. Well, we at To The Point are happy to describe Jack Nostradamus Kelly as brilliant and inspired! So - the first question that comes to mind to ask Dems and Omaniacs is: Do you have any idea how large a full-grown bull moose is?
NOT IN DENVER
That's where I am this week - not in Denver. That's where I encourage you to be as well. When Hussein Nobama gives his ridiculous Greek Temple speech today, I will literally be underwater - scuba diving off a small island in the Caribbean called Saba (say-bah). It's a funky little place most have never heard of, a mountaintop in the sea, so steep it has no beaches and no rivers. Saba's population of 1200, many of whom are descended from pirates six and seven generations ago, make do with rainwater. They live in tiny homes clustered in tiny hamlets in high mountain valleys around the island. The people are wonderfully friendly and gracious, there's no crime of any kind, the food is great, the beer is cheap, and the diving incredible - one of the best in the world. What better place to completely ignore whatever craziness there is going on in the world, particularly the Democrat craziness in Denver?
OBAMAS FAVORITE MOSLEM
As the Democrat Convention's carefully-scripted coronation of perhaps the least qualified major party presidential candidate in recent American history builds up to its climax, few have noticed that the convention's most pregnant political message may have already been delivered before it officially started. It came in the form of a decision by Obama's campaign to feature the president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Ms. Ingrid Mattson, at an "Interfaith Gathering" of Leftist religious luminaries the day before the convention opened (8/24). In doing that, Obama and the Democrat leadership rather demonstratively bestowed their seal of approval on the largest and most important front organization of the American Muslim Brotherhood, a conspiratorial Islamist revolutionary movement dedicated, in their own words, to "a grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands." The implications of this political legitimization of a group dedicated to the destruction of our constitutional order are so profoundly disturbing that some background on what exactly ISNA and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) or Ikhwan Muslimi are is in order.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/22/08
We start with the revelation that there is a solid scientific reason for calling this the Half-Full Report. Psychological researchers have studied silver and bronze medal winners over the last several Olympics. It turns out that, on average, the bronze winners were happier than the silver. Those that won the silver were filled with regret that they didn't win the gold, while those that won the bronze were happy they got a medal at all rather than nothing for finishing fourth. The lead researcher, Dr. Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University, summed up the lesson learned: "The key to understanding happiness is not to think about it as a trait but as a talent. Happy people have a talent - they are able to argue that life is a glass half full." Happy people look at life as a glass half-full. Yes, that is exactly the purpose of the Half-Full Report! It's good to have science behind the reason. *** Wasn't it so much fun this week watching Obambi get the crap beat out of him by a woman and an old man? The HFR's description last April of him as a pussy sure is turning out to be spot on:
EVERNOTE
Have you heard of this little applet called Evernote? It is a great little utility that can store your places of interest, images and information on any platform or device. It also makes it accessible plus searchable at anytime from anywhere. For instance, you find yourself at an airport parking lot and you will be gone for several weeks. Just take your cell phone and snap an image of your parking spot with row etc. Perhaps you are at an unusual event and want to record information about the gathering - just record it and send it to Evernote. Business cards, wine labels, to do lists and many other possibilities are at your fingertips. The slickest thing about Evernote is that it searches text within images So if you have three dozen business cards imaged on the site, you can search through them for your targeted info. Did I mention that it's free?
THE O-MAN: THOSE 398 WORDS THAT WENT VIRAL
Last June, I wrote O=Zero, offering an O=Zero bumpersticker (there's also an O=Zero T-shirt). Somebody, I haven't the foggiest idea who, excerpted 398 words from the article and emailed all his (or her) friends, who proceeded to do the same with their friends. When this happens exponentially, and the email ends up in umpteen gazillion inboxes so that people tell you "this is the fourth time I've been sent this!", it is said to "go viral." An example of how viral is that a columnist for Townhall, Doug Giles wrote a column about it . He starts by saying:
A buddy of mine in Texas sent a friend of his, an Obama backer, a devastating article written by Dr. Jack Wheeler in which he spotlights in 398 words the fact that Barack, in reality, is much different from the fabricated Jesus image the Dim-o-crats would have us worship. Yes, in just a few keystrokes Wheeler deftly dismembered the notion spun by the scribes of Obama that he is the fresh breeze blowing in our land and reveals, instead, that Barack is a typical uberliberal slim shady politician who simply blows.The funny thing is, he continues on about Obambi but never quotes a single one of my "398 words"! So I thought that, just in case you've had your inbox turned off lately or are one of the rare folk who haven't been sent this, you'd like to see all 398.
JACK ABRAMOFF’S OCTOBER SURPRISE FOR JOHN MCCAIN
As Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, it was John McCain who launched the investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Those investigations provided the springboard for the incredible media frenzy of the "Abramoff lobbying scandals." The Washington Post, for example, ran over 50 above-the-fold front page headline stories on Abramoff to feed the frenzy. Jack Abramoff is in jail today because of John McCain. Now it's payback time. Abramoff will be setting off a bombshell timed to do maximum damage to his nemesis right before the election. And in so doing, he will be ripping the lid off and exposing the dirtiest secret of how Washington really works. The way it works is like this.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/15/08
Could there possibly be a glass half-full of anything worth drinking during this horrific week when the Cold War has been bloodily re-ignited? Yes, actually. So let's take our bottle of Polish Vyborova vodka out of the freezer for a chilled martini (just a spray of vermouth, please), and raise a toast to the latest Czar of Russia for being such an idiot to invade Georgia. For all the grudging praise of what a "genius" Czar Vlad is, let's ask: if you were him, if you were bent on reestablishing Russia as an imperial superpower so intimidating that all your neighbors and every leader of Euroweenia would lick your boots - who would you want as President of the United States, Obama or McCain? It's a rhetorical question, isn't it?
THE THREE WORD SOLUTION
Solution to what? Defeating Russian imperialism, defeating Saudi Wahhabism and Moslem terrorism, defeating Moslem crazies in Iran making nukes, defeating Luddite environmentalists, defeating Democrats determined to hamstring our economy and national security. How's that for starters? What would do all of this? Three words: crash oil prices. Crashing oil prices to, say, below $40 a barrel, should therefore be the number one priority of American national security. Yet any attempt to lower oil prices is blocked by Democrats in Congress and lawsuits by their environmentalist allies. Exhibit A as evidence is their hysterical refusal to allow oil and gas drilling in Alaska and offshore. Exhibit B is their hysterical refusal to allow the construction of new oil refineries - there hasn't been a new one built since 1976. So - is there something the President could do, is there an Executive Order he could issue, that could circumvent Congress and the enviro-lawyers to crash oil prices? Let's start answering with another question: Who is the single biggest purchaser of oil in the world?
GEORGIA CAN BE PUTIN’S AFGHANISTAN
Time to stop the hand-wringing about Russia's re-igniting the Cold War by invading Georgia. Time to start thinking of what a golden opportunity this presents. First the reality. Russia, before, during, and after the Soviet Union was and remains a brutal imperialist dictatorship. The Soviet Union was simply the same old Czarist Russian imperialism with Marxism-Leninism as an ideological rationale. The fall of the USSR only meant the fall of the rationale. So Russia is back to where it has always been, with the Russian compulsion for brute force bullying as its way of dealing with the world. It is no accident, comrades, that Russians were the Soviets, and it is no surprise whatever that they are behaving like Soviets in Georgia today. Thus the fundamental reality of how to conduct foreign policy with Russia, however distasteful it may be to the squishes at the State Department chronically afflicted with terminal testicular atrophy: The only thing Russians in the Kremlin understand and respect is superior force and the willingness to use it against them. If you don't give them a punch in the mouth and a bloody nose the moment they start to bully you, they will keep bullying you until you start fighting back hard - or you capitulate and obey their orders. It's either-or, win-lose. Those are their rules. The golden opportunity Putin is giving us by invading Georgia is that it gives us the perfect excuse to play by his rules.
THE PHONY, BRUTAL, SLOPPY, AND INEPT INVASION OF GEORGIA
Russia is continuing its invasion of free, democratic Georgia with overwhelming military force. Given the raw power Russia has been willing to apply, there's no question as to which side will win. But one of the many untold stories of this fateful war is how poorly Russian forces are performing - despite careful planning and extensive preparations. Putin, currently in his "Wolfschanze" in Vladikavkaz, must be especially furious with his pride and joy, the Russian air force. The inept performance of the Russian air force may have been the most striking feature of the war thus far. Again, numbers alone guarantee a Russian win. The abysmal performance of Russian pilots has been on display for all the world to see - although, once again, the media don't understand what they're witnessing.
THE RUSSIAN RAPE OF GEORGIA
As I write this in the early morning hours of August 9, Russian tanks grind into a brave and isolated democratic state. Assuming that the world's attention would focus on Beijing, Moscow stage-managed an elaborate act of aggression against Georgia. But the world has changed since Soviet tanks rolled unchallenged into Afghanistan at Christmastime 29 years ago. Global communications now spotlight aggression instantly. Yesterday, millions around the world didn't watch the Olympic opening ceremonies (the Chinese must be furious at the Russians). Instead, they saw images of Soviet - sorry, I meant Russian - aircraft pounding Georgian territory as Russian armor rolled over the Caucasus Mountains. So let's discuss the background, what just happened, and what happens next.