HALF-FULL REPORT 02/25/22
Russian tank deserving what it got in Ukraine
Perhaps the Question of the Week should be: Who else among world leaders besides Zhou Xiden could be suffering from onset senile dementia or Alzheimers? Hint: one symptom is unhinged anger and aggression.
Vladimir Putin turns 70 this October – he’s at an age where this is clearly possible. It may be an explanation of why he’s lost his capacity for rational thinking, and has his Commie amygdala in charge of his brain instead. He’s gone Full Hitler, recognized by a multitude of world news headlines, summed up by:
“A mad, murderous dictator threatens to unleash a nuclear world war. No longer is this a mere movie plot. Today it is terrifyingly real. It is paramount, as in 1939, that the free peoples of the West defeat this hideous new evil, this Hitler for our times.”This meme has gone worldwide viral:
Okay, the madman must be defeated… but how, without triggering WWIII? Here are some ideas.
THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA
This is the black sand beach the US Marines stormed on February 19, 1945, beginning the legendary Battle of Iwo Jima. Overlooking the beach is Mount Suribachi, where four days later Joe Rosenthal took his iconic photo of six Marines planting the US flag on its summit.
You can come here once a year at a commemoration jointly held by the US and Japanese militaries. Guests of honor are the few Marine veterans of the battle still alive. To be here on these sands and on the summit of Suribachi, where the memorial lauds them – “On Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue” – with these heroic men is an indescribable privilege. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #23, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ARE HUNTER AND HIS DAD PROUD OF THEMSLVES FOR THE WAR THEY MADE POSSIBLE?
Ukrainian woman after Russian missile attack today (2/24)
It finally happened, and everyone should have seen it coming: Russian bombs are now raining down on Kiev — and Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Odessa, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Mariupol — making Ukraine a full-blown war zone with reports of civilian and military casualties piling up.
And we have Hunter and his Dad to largely thank for it. Hunter Biden's need to take baksheesh undercut U.S. security interests, left Ukraine a corruption-soaked mess unfit for NATO membership, and opened the gates wide for Russia to move in on Ukraine.
Biden family corruption was one of many reasons why Ukraine couldn't get into NATO and secure the Article 5 protections it needed to deter Russia. Now it's fighting alone and hoping it can defeat the Russian juggernaut, which is only just beginning.
A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA
A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA
Jack Wheeler
January 1985
[Note the date. Written in 1985 during the Cold War, when Russia formed the basis of the Soviet Union. First posted in TTP March 2004, it is reposted now to provide a historical context for the current Russian invasion of Ukraine.]
At various times in her history, America has been at war with and has had as deadly enemies: the French, the English, the Spanish, the Germans, the Italians, the Mexicans, and the Japanese. All are today our friends and allies. There is nothing in the nature of things that makes it impossible for this to someday be the case with the Russians as well.
Yet it is important to understand how the Russians are not like us — how their history enabled them to transform themselves into Soviets running an Evil Empire called the Soviet Union.
THE FOURTH PEARL OF SHING
There is a series of stepping-stone lakes in a hidden valley in Tajikistan known as The Seven Pearls of Shing. This is the fourth, taken at dawn’s early light with the lake a mirror reflecting the sky and surrounding mountains. Each Pearl are of different colors, each of uniquely mesmerizing allure. It is one of the many wonders – natural, cultural, historical – we’ll experience this again soon in our exploration of all Five Stans of Hidden Central Asia. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #52 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE GATHERING STORM IN NORTH AMERICA
Demonized Heroes
[This is VDH at his most powerfully eloquent, all the way to a crescendo of eloquence at the end.]
Canada is now governed by absurdism, and it is symptomatic of an ailing North American elite.
The truckers remind Western audiences that modern progressivism equates muscular labor and hourly wage compensation with a sort of Neanderthalism, rewarding those who type on keyboards while punishing those who physically deliver, fix, make, and repair things.
We can reduce the divide to the embarrassing optics of a pouty-face pajama-boy prime minister with a pompadour coiffure, issuing threats to non-threatening beefy and calloused workers. Each time Trudeau speaks to his nation, the visual message is that any of the truckers could do a better job than he in both setting and explaining policy, while he would become a helpless weeping child if placed behind the wheel of a big rig.
JOHN DURHAM’S MESSAGE TO AMERICA
[Note by Jack Wheeler: Keep in mind while reading this that the author is the former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). It’s a must-read.]
John Durham has been a special prosecutor for almost a year and a half — not a long time, but plenty of time for a drumbeat to begin that he was showing little progress against his orders to examine the origins of the debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative that convulsed a presidency.
His few indictments so far have been directed against peripheral players, feeding a fear among Donald Trump’s supporters that elites higher up the stack are going to get away with their chicanery.
Now, however, Durham has signaled to the American people that his investigation has legs, despite perceptions of plodding inertia. He has provided hope that accountability in D.C. — rare as a MAGA sticker on a Prius — actually might happen. Here’s how he did it.
IS CANADA BECOMING CUBA?
Canada is leaving the Western world.
In terms of all-encompassing government, suppression of dissent and the denial of fundamental human rights to many of its citizens, Canada is now more similar to Cuba than to any free country. Canada may eventually return to Western Civilization, but as of this writing, the majority of Canadians appear to have no interest in it doing so.
According to Maru Public Opinion (2/17), "two-thirds (66%) of Canadians support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bringing in the Emergencies Act ... A majority (56%) of Canadians do not support the truckers who are protesting in any way, shape, or form ... This is a majority view held in every province/region across the country."
It is shocking to learn a majority of Canadians are on Trudeau’s side in the cartoon above.
PUTIN IS PLAYING BIDEN LIKE A FIDDLE
Vlad Putin, the evil though very calculating chief oligarch of the shriveled nation of Russia (when stacked against its predecessor, the Soviet Union), is playing chess over the fate of Ukraine, while our figurehead president and his gaggle of administration mediocrities (here being charitable) and Pentagon toadies play checkers.
On Monday (2/21), Putin recognized Russian-dominated regions of Ukraine, followed by a minor incursion of "peacekeepers," traveling by bus, not tanks.
Putin doesn't need a full-scale invasion, I believe, because his approach is strategic. Meanwhile, we’re witnessing full diversion mode as American news outlets happily obsess on Ukraine. Putin is playing SlowJoe like a fiddle – here’s how.
THE POLYNESIA PARADISE YOU NEVER HEARD OF
Have you ever seen the ocean turn day-glo pink? It does here naturally during a sunset (this is not photoshopped). Between Samoa and Tonga in the South Pacific is a raised coral atoll, 100 square miles of old limestone between 60 and 200 feet high: the island of Niue (new-way), and it’s is uniquely fabulous.
With no silty river runoff, the water is incredibly clear – visibility can reach over 200 feet. There are a multitude of chasms through which you clamber to these out-of-a-movie tidal pools perfect for snorkeling surrounded by colorful reef fish. The limestone cliffs encircling the coast are riddled with caves with multi-colored stalactites and stalagmites.
You can snorkel or dive with spinner dolphins and humpback whales. The big game fishing is world class – within a few hundred yards off shore. The Niueans are unfailingly friendly and welcoming, the beautiful Matavai Resort is the best bargain in the Pacific, the food and beer is inexpensive, the weather is balmy. It’s a Polynesian paradise you never heard of. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #48 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)