THE NATURAL INFINITY POOL OF SOCOTRA
National Geographic calls the remote island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen in the Indian Ocean “the most alien-looking place on our planet,” because of its incredibly weird and bizarre plant life like the Dragon’s Blood Tree.
Yet it is safely far away from anarchic Yemen, peaceful and serene in its isolation. And it contains places of mesmerizing beauty – like this natural infinity pool on a cliff edge high above the ocean in full view. Socotra is spectacularly exotic, like nowhere else in our world. It is truly life-memorable to experience it. Wheeler Expeditions was there in the Spring of 2014 – and we’ll be there again soon. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #129 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
CURSE YOU, RED BARON – UNDERSTANDING MODERN AIR COMBAT
Following my article on the India versus Pakistan long range air battle, I decided to make a deeper dive into the subject of air superiority to give TTP readers some better context for what that article discussed, and also to discuss air combat more broadly.
Between old movies and a lack of public information, one might assume that air warfare now might be similar to that of World War Two.
America’s sixth-generation fighter, the F-47, is rumored to be costing up to $300 million dollars for a single aircraft.
That’s on par with a small warship in cost. We have already planned sales of it to allies to make it cheaper, i.e. production of more of these planes lowers costs (?)
Now of all times, Americans need a working knowledge of this subject.
What is all this stuff?
How does it work?
Why does it matter?
Is air combat like those movies?
Why is it so expensive?
And will Snoopy ever beat the Red Baron?
First, let’s talk about “airspace.”
THE GRAND DECEPTION OF ISLAM AS A RELIGION OF PEACE
A database search of 12 million books published in the 300 years before 9/11 reveals only one instance of the phrase “Islam is a religion of peace.”
It appears in fiction and is spoken by Ayatollah Mahmoud Haji Daryaei, an Iranian leader in Tom Clancy’s thriller titled Executive Orders.
But the dangerous notion that Islam is peaceful has been so frequently reiterated by world leaders, clerics, and the liberal media-academia complex that it has taken on the status of COWDUNG—a facetious near-acronym for ‘conventional wisdom of the dominant group.’
Denying 1,400 years of history, these apologists would have us believe that extremist Islam is a perversion.
Their sanitized version presents Islam’s prime motif of violent jihad—or religious war against infidels—as an individual’s “inner struggle” for spiritual growth.
To expose these falsehoods—which have circled the globe before the truth even got out of bed—conservative authors Tommy Robinson and Peter McLoughlin wrote Mohammed’s Koran: Why Muslims Kill for Islam.
In light of Robinson’s early release from a British prison a few days ago, an overview of this important book seems fitting.
The key to understanding what the Koran signifies to Muslims is naskh….
THE ISLAND OF SARK
There are five Channel Islands in the English Channel. Best known are Guernsey and Jersey. Least visited is Alderney, along with tiny Herm. Most fascinating is Sark, Europe’s only remaining feudal fiefdom. No motor vehicles are allowed, excepting a few farmers’ small tractors. The governor and chief constable is called the Seneschal. He rides to his office on his bicycle.
It’s an ancient office with a tradition of many centuries. When I was there in 2010, it was held by Reginald Guille, a very friendly fellow as all Sarkese are. We rode our bikes around the island, even along La Coupée, the connecting path along the razor sharp high isthmus connecting two parts of the island – it’s pictured above.
There are gorgeous pocket beaches here, and beautiful natural swimming pools. Flower gardens are everywhere, the island could not be safer, cleaner, calmer, and more exquisitely charming. A few days here will do wonders for you. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #131 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
TRUMP AND GOP TAKE AIM AT THE “JUDICIAL COUP”
As one anonymous and unelected judge after another rules against the Trump agenda, Republicans must decide whether they want to abide by the will of the American people.
If Tren de Aragua gang members aren’t “alien enemies” of the United States, aren’t able to be deported by the American president under the ancient Alien Enemies Act, then language itself has lost its meaning. But that’s the world we’re living in.
In a way, it shouldn’t surprise us. The Left, after all, has been at war with the language — and at war with reality — for decades.
Indeed, they insist that men can become pregnant, that women can only be described by biologists, that pedophiles are merely minor-attracted persons, and that last year’s version of Joe Biden was the best Biden ever.
Nor should the current judicial war against Donald Trump surprise any of us. All throughout his first term, Trump and his agenda were sabotaged from within by entrenched deep-state leftists and by old-guard establishment Republicans.
In this second term, though, with Trump having remade the Republican Party and having cleaned up the executive branch, the attacks are coming from without — from the third and supposedly coequal branch of government that Thomas Jefferson once presciently warned could become despotic: the judicial branch.
Since his inauguration, Trump has been busy trying to unscrew the mess bequeathed him by four years of the Autopen Presidency, but he’s been opposed at nearly every turn — from mass-deporting illegal aliens to ending birthright citizenship to trimming down our grotesquely bloated federal government to imposing tariffs on predatory trading partners — by lower-court judges and, in some cases, by the very Supreme Court justices that he nominated for the bench.
REAWAKENING THE NUCLEAR GIANT
For openers, kudos to President Donald Trump for his leadership on addressing this heretofore missing piece of the energy puzzle.
Incomprehensibly, the preceding administration embarked on a quixotic mission to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, while simultaneously ignoring our single safe, abundant, and non-polluting means of generating electricity.
Somehow, in the midst of ongoing firestorms on immigration, trade, taxes, and two wars, Trump still manages to attend to other important matters that have been lost in the shuffle.
Some call it chaos, but we should be happy to have a president with the stamina to keep so many balls in the air.
Will Trump’s blitz of actions get nuclear power back on track?
The only way to answer that question is to understand how we got so far off track so quickly and so completely.
Why did we suddenly stop building nuclear plants?
It’s a complicated picture with numerous parts and pieces. But in my opinion, it all boils down to one root cause: the realization by prospective investors that nuclear power’s opponents, with sufficient legal and political support, can render a new, multibillion-dollar facility unusable.
If that seems implausible, consider the fate of the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, the poster child for anti-nuclear activism.
THE AVATAR MOUNTAINS
The gigantic forest-covered stone pillars of Zhangjiajie in a remote region of Hunan are so famous for being a featured location in the Avatar movie they’ve been renamed the Avatar Mountains. You can take a cable car through them to view them from above. Hard to get to and certainly worth it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #269 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
COMMENCEMENT 2025
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published in 2005. We rerun it annually at college graduation time. Feel quite free to send this to any recent college graduate you may know.]
Mr. Chancellor, Members of the Board of Regents, Members of the Faculty, Honored Graduates, Families and Friends:
It's funny that they call this ceremony a Commencement, for you've all reached the finish line: college, goodbye, we're outta here. Yet of course, "commencement" means a beginning, not an end.
But one is supposed to at least start - commence - a talk such as this by saying funny things. So I'll start by talking about Clark Gable movies. If you've heard of Clark Gable at all, you know he was the biggest movie star in Hollywood a long time ago. His most famous movie was Gone With The Wind.
He made a movie in 1955 called The Tall Men with Jane Russell as his girlfriend and Robert Ryan as the heavy. It's a pretty ordinary Western flick with outlaws and cowboys and Indians - and at the end, Ryan, the bad guy, and his henchmen get the drop on Gable, the good guy, and all seems lost. Suddenly, surprise, Gable outfoxes Ryan and triumphs. Gable makes his exit, and after he does, Ryan delivers a line that I want you to never forget.
Serendipity is funny, a very funny thing, finding something where you least expect it. Out of the blue, out of a movie awash with pedestrian dialogue, comes a line so profound it detonates inside your brain. Ryan turns to his men and says:
IT’S (D)IFFERENT
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – RETRACING HANNIBAL OVER THE ALPS WITH ELEPHANTS
September 1979 – my Hannibal Expedition took two elephants over the same pass Hannibal used in 218 BC across the Alps to attack Rome. There is only one pass that fits the contemporary descriptions of both Greek historian Polybius and Roman historian Livy: The Col du Clapier on what is now the French-Italian border.
Unrecognized as Hannibal’s Pass in 1979, it is still a roadless trail today crossed only on foot or mountain bike. But since our expedition, there are now signs proclaiming it La Route d’Hannibal, and even a life-size statue of an elephant at the French village of Bramans where the track over the pass begins.
The photo you see is us climbing high above Bramans (I’m the one in front with the red backpack). It took us five days to carefully guide our elephants (from an Italian circus) over Clapier and down to the Italian village of Susa. First time in 2,197 years and never repeated 41 years since.
Hannibal’s crossing the Alps with elephants is one of the most epic events of world history. To retrace it yourself with elephants is to make that famous history a part of your life in the most uniquely powerful way. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #15 photo ©Jack Wheeler)