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FLASHBACK FRIDAY – YOUNGEST PERSON EVER AT THE NORTH POLE

young-brandon-at-n-poleApril 22, 1990. This is my son Brandon, age six, happily atop a small pressure ridge of sea-ice at 90 North Latitude, the geographic North Pole. I started leading expeditions to 90N in 1978. This was my 12th, and the best weather there we’d ever had. A glorious day at the very top of our planet, and a glorious memory for both father and son.

If fortune favors you with the opportunity, have grand adventures with your children or grandchildren when they are young. They will treasure the memories so much they will someday tell their grandchildren about them. Life is short, carpe diem. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #104 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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HALF-FULL REPORT 07/14/23

ww3This is dystopian science fiction, the poster of a B-grade we’re-all-gonna-die horror flick.  I am totally sick and tired of all the fearmongering about this, and you should be too.  This is not going to happen.  There are three basic reasons why.

Read them and you’ll understand how DJT’s rant on Tuesday (7/11) is as unthoughtful as his claim he’ll end Russia’s war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”.  Donald Trump Blasts More Ukraine Aid: ‘Joe Biden Should Not Be Dragging Us Further Toward World War III’ is Pro-Putin Breitbart's fearmonger headline – when it is Putin’s Russia using nuclear blackmail, not us or Ukraine nor anyone else.

He had the gall to condemn “Biden’s policy of endless war in Ukraine,” when it is Putin’s policy, to demand that Biden, not Putin “immediately end the bloodshed in Ukraine”.  It grieves me deeply to condemn this because I admire him in so many ways – but once again as happened so very often during his presidency, he has surrounded himself with advisors who are as misinformed as he is.  Which means he may well keep doing or saying foolish things as 47 that he did as 45.

And it shocks and saddens me so deeply that there are TTPers who insist on being on Putin’s side of evil rather than Ukraine’s side of freedom, who will continue to parrot Kremlin agitprop lies on the Forum.  To them I must implore: please, please stop corroding your soul with evil, and please do not pollute the Forum with it any more.  That’s where I stand, let’s agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

So – on to those three reasons why we’re not going to have WWIII.  Plus a lot more in this HFR.

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BALLOONS OVER BURMA

burma-balloons

From the 900s to the 1200s, the Pagan Empire built over 10,000 Buddhist temples. 2,200 remain on the plains of Pagan today, one of the world’s most wondrous sights – especially if you see them from above in a hot air balloon. It is truly astounding how much there is to explore and experience in Burma. We’ll be there once more for it all next February. I hope you will be one of your fellow TTPers to join us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #33 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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SKYE’S LINKS 07/13/23

road-rager Let’s start with a fun, informative, and infuriating compendium on recent judicial decisions at the Institute for Justice:

Volatile Behavior, Boorish Flirtation, Insufficient Collegiality

u-are-fake-news

Formula for fake news; remember the pandemic propaganda? By the physician author of The War on Ivermectin:

How To Create A Fake News Cycle

Important!  If you have a Google account, here is how you can reduce the amount of information that they are collecting on you:

Tech Explainer: How to Disable 3 of Google’s Main Ways of Tracking Your Every Move

Lot’s more! Come on in!

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A FATHER EXPOSES WHAT ORDINARY PEDIATRICIANS ARE DOING TO CHILDREN

zombie-nightmareIn every horror movie, there’s a crescendo of terror as the monsters (zombies, giant spiders, birds, aliens, or anything else) are suddenly everywhere. No matter where you turn, they are coming for you.

A father’s rant about a pediatrician who sought to inculcate his nine- and seven-year-old sons with gender madness has gone viral for that reason. It shows that the gender monsters are everywhere.

However, in every horror movie, this crescendo is also the point at which the brave people still standing turn and fight…and in a good movie, they win. Let’s hope that, as parents start to realize that there’s a war for their children, they fight and win.  Elon is right:

musk-wants-parents-rights-fight

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WAGNER PMC EXEMPLIFIES HOW PUTIN HAS DESTROYED RUSSIAN STATE

back-to-socialsm[I have known Paul Goble since we worked together on Soviet issues when he was a chief analyst at the RAND Corporation in the 1980s.  In the years since, he’s had an exceedingly distinguished career in academia, diplomacy, and scholarship, particularly in regard to Russia and the former Soviet space. He knows whereof he speaks. –JW]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long promoted himself as the man who rebuilt the power of the Russian state after the chaos of the 1990s.

However, the Wagner Group mutiny highlights why that rings false—not only because it was an armed challenge to Putin’s authority but also because the relationship between the Kremlin leader and Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner “private military company” (PMC), is a model of how Putin has dealt with others in the Russian political elite across the board.

In case after case, the Russian president has destroyed the institutions of the Russian state and replaced them with others based on personal ties and private understandings, a situation that has led some observers to describe the Putin regime as a failed state.

This in turn amplifies worries about the coming post-Putin transition, where the absence of institutions linked together by law and transparent practice could easily lead to a war of all against all in which force alone will determine the outcome.

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THE DEATH OF PAN

grott-of-pan At the foot of Mount Hermon in northern Israel you find the Grotto of Pan, the Greek God of Nature, where pilgrims came from all over the ancient world to worship. Remnants of the huge Temple of Pan are here, together with the cave grotto where he lived when not at Olympus. The spring that gushes forth from the grotto is one of the sources of the Jordan River.

If Pan was ever disturbed, he would groan so loudly it would cause anyone who heard it to “panic” (panikos in Greek) – the origin of the term. Loudest of all was his last. The legend is that with the advent of Christianity replacing belief in the Olympian Gods, Pan died for lack of worshippers, emitting a death groan of agony from the mouth of the cave you see here so loud and terrifying it was heard throughout the Mediterranean. It’s a beautiful and peaceful place today. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #51 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND WESTERN SPIRITUAL SICKNESS

undocumented-nonsense[VDH here provides an eloquent must-read description of the connection between illegal immigration in the US/Western Europe and a spiritual sickness pervading them both.  For an explanation of the cause, the source, of this sickness, you’ll find it in the TTP Archive yesterday (7/10): The Root Cause of the Immigration Crisis.]

The usual suspects have weighed in on recent belated efforts to enforce U.S. immigration laws.

Our now bankrupt media, the corrupt government of Mexico, and the Diversity/Equity/Inclusion apparat have damned a series of laws recently passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Governor Ron DeSantis that enforce existing federal immigration laws.

Such critics seem oblivious to the current violence that is paralyzing Europe in general, and in particular France—as if such European chaos offers no lessons for the U.S. or any other salad-bowl, open-borders Western nation.

What is far more astounding are the actual illogical absurdities of illegal immigration as it is practiced in the West.

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BIDEN’S NEW NICKNAME

old-yeller

NY Post today (7/11)

The New York Times has twice in one week run pieces raking Biden over the coals for denying the existence of his young granddaughter in Arkansas, while there have been numerous reports from mainstream outlets airing anonymous West Wing grievances over aides' inability to find prime times to schedule public events for the president who just isn't up to the rigors of a full day.

It's a far cry from the earlier mainstream reports seeking to cover for Biden's frequent gaffes (he's just so passionate!) and repetitious use of false stories (he's just trying to relate!). Still, the media have continued to try explaining away his comments such as "God save the Queen!"

Showing how even the mainstream media — which Biden has always griped about even when they generally provided uncritical, fawning coverage — might be growing inclined to shove him out to the retirement pasture, a blunt evaluation of Biden and how he treats White House aides popped up in Axios about angry Joe "Old Yeller" Biden.

Turns out he’s the abusive jerk of a boss we always knew he is.

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