FLASHBACK FRIDAY: ASTRIDE WHERE AFRICA IS SPLITTING APART
It looks like a crack in a road, but this is in the Afar Triangle of Djibouti, where a triple junction of tectonic plates is tearing Africa in pieces. Plates spreading apart is called a Rift. I’m standing over where three gigantic rifts – the Red Sea that has split Arabia and northern Africa in two, the Gulf of Aden that will split off Somalia from the rest of Africa, and the Great Rift Valley of East Africa currently ripping Africa itself asunder – originate. Here the once intact Africa Plate began to tear in three directions.
Ironically, here is where humanity did the same. Genetic scientists have determined that some 60,000 years ago a small band of Africans (less than 200) rafted from what is now Djibouti to what is now Yemen in Arabia – and that incredibly, every human on earth today except for those who stayed, is descended from them. That means, e.g., all Europeans, Chinese and Asians, Australian Aborigines, North and South Native Americans, descended from those 200 people long ago.
Two amazing facts from this tiny country. There’s a third – it’s the best place in the world to swim with whale sharks, an unforgettable experience. All in Djibouti! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #238 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
AT LEAST THERE’S THE REDSHINE STATE
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/11/22
This is the current election results graphic as of 9am EST this morning (11/11) on RealClearPolitics. It’s been frozen for some 36 hours now, never changes. That can mean only one thing – blue cities and counties in purple states are desperately trying to create enough cheat-by-mail ballots to win. Here’s how it works…
But that the midterms were close enough to cheat means they were an IQ test that America failed at. In other words:
Oh, and this just in from the Babylon Bee: Trump Bid To Be DeSantis’s VP Pick Off To Rocky Start.
THE DUNES OF SOSSUSVLEI
The gigantic sand dunes of Sossusvlei in Namibia are among the world’s tallest – and oldest at some five million years old. Many consider them the world’s most beautiful, with ancient sand filled of iron oxide turning them bright ochre. The one you see here is named Dune 45.
You can climb the dunes, float high above them in a hot air balloon, or just revel in their beauty. Sossusvlei is only one of the many wonders of Namibia. We’ll have another exploration of Namibia in another year or two. You should mark Namibia down on your bucket list. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #237 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 11/10/22
For crying out loud, can’t we operate a robust, transparent election system?
Paper ballots in blue states are an issue again, as well as mysterious shutdowns of voting machines in contentious districts. Some devices suffered denial of service attacks from their internet connections, while others had sudden software instability.
There might be some justice for service members forced to take the jab or face dishonorable discharge. Good, they deserve it, and it was an epic mistake in order to maintain the allusion of American military readiness, a psyop.
The Federal Reserve will have its revenge, too, as they now hint that the Covid response was in the hands of the national security state and not the health care people all along. The Fed was forced to print money or endure secret treason charges. Now we face years of inflation caused by the deep staters acting beyond their expertise.
Twitter faces pressure to maintain official narratives and censorship or else. Musk does not appear sure how to respond, or maybe he has an undisclosed plan. In any event, the national security arms of many governments are laying claim to Twitter and the greater internet. The truth of who is running things is emerging.
Elections have consequences, and we failed to correct 2020; there is a long slog ahead. There are signs of a new Enlightenment emerging as the historic Enlightenment fades away. To the incredible frustration of Klaus Schwab, Freedom will find a way.
Come on over to Skye’s links. We are eager to hear from you.
TUESDAY TAKEAWAYS
What, if anything, did the midterms tell us about the country -- other than underwhelming Republicans could still take the House and Senate albeit barely?
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, American elections radically changed to mail-in and early voting. They did so in a wild variety of state-by-state ways. Add ranked voting and a required majority margin to the mess and the result is that once cherished Election Day balloting becomes increasingly irrelevant.
Election Night also no longer exists. Returns are not counted for days. It is intolerable for a modern democracy to wait and wait for all sorts of different ballots both cast and counted under radically different and sometimes dubious conditions.
The Democrats -- with overwhelming media and money advantages -- have mastered these arts of massive and unprecedented early, mail-in, and absentee voting. Old-fashioned Republicans count on riling up their voters to show up on Election Day. But it is far easier to finesse and control the mail-in ballots than to "get out the vote."
A FATHER IN CHAD
This is the most anti-Marxist picture I have ever taken. I am a White American. He is a Black African in N’Djamena, Chad. And those differences mean nothing compared to our both being fathers.
Look into his soul through his eyes. Look at the tranquility and peaceful joy his soul feels in being the father of his two beautiful children. It is the same with me.
The Left’s purpose is to divide us into tribal differences of hate – white vs. “people of color,” rich vs. poor, employers vs. workers, exploiters vs. exploited, victimizers vs. victims, the anti-white racist hate of Critical Race Theory. Always, always, they focus exclusively on differences, to separate people apart, to hate other different than them. All in the ancient “divide and conquer” scheme to control people’s lives.
Yet the differences between us are so unimportant compared to what we all have in common, our basic humanity. The bond that I have with this man from Chad is so much greater than anything that separates us. Focusing on what we all have in common with our fellow human beings is the way to rid the world of the anti-human hate of the Marxist Left. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #157, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHY THE RED WAVE NEVER REACHED THE SHORE
If you stand on the beach watching these gigantic waves rise above you, with surfers taking off into the wave’s tube or wiping out, you are sure the wave is going crash right down on you and sweep you off to sea.
But no, that inner reef smothers the wave and without warning the wave is suddenly gone to gently foam over your feet in the sand.
I saw that many times when I lived in Hawaii years ago, and immediately thought of it when I saw the news this morning.
Except, at Banzai, the waves don’t cheat.
A RED RIPPLE POSTMORTEM
Vote Counting by Thomas Nast (1871)
Well, that was disheartening, dispiriting, and demoralizing.
We went into the party with a president with some of the lowest approval ratings in history and Americans (at least according to the polls) focused like lasers on issues that could be chalked up to Democrat policy failures — namely, inflation and crime.
And yet Republicans are hanging on by a thread, and, as of this writing, it's still possible that Democrats will retain their majority in the House and gain a full majority in the Senate. If that happens, the American experiment is over, and the Marxist experiment truly begins.
So how did we get here?
HOW THE DEMOCRATS LOST THEIR WAY
Life in Normalville
Normalville PA. Yes, there really is a town named Normalville, in Pennsylvania about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh with a zip code of 15469. It was founded in 1843.
If there were a way to illustrate the beginning, middle, and end of this election cycle in four powerful moments, I’d start here with the faces of the men and women working on the construction of the Keystone pipeline, and the owners of the small businesses who supported them, that I witnessed days after President Joe Biden terminated their livelihoods.
These are people who work with their hands in the harshest of weather conditions digging trenches, cleaning feeder pipes, laying concrete, ensuring the proper fittings on the connecting pipes, and loading and unloading heavy materials by hand. That's not including the faces of the people who run the motels, diners, machine shops, and barber shops and the mechanics who make sure they are fed, housed, cleaned, and able to get home when the job is done.
What Joe Biden and the Democrat Party did to the people of Normalville will break your heart. Do you think Biden and the Dems care?