SKYE’S LINKS 10/08/20
Who targeted the President?
October surprise? 32 Republicans and 0 Democrats infected at the latest count. The second picture is provocative:
Asking The Question That Nobody Dares To Ask Publicly: Who targeted the President?
The real story on Trump's tax payments:
Carney: NYT Is Wrong — Donald Trump Paid Millions in Taxes in 2017
Trust in fake news:
Nolte: Number of Americans with Zero Confidence in Media Hits New High
Los Angeles' content-based speech restrictions are a First and fourteenth Amendment no-no. Doesn’t it just fry the LA City Council liberals’ bacon to have to pay the NRA?
Judge Orders LA to Pay NRA over $100,000 After 1st Amendment Ruling
There’s lots more!
THE TOMB OF TAMERLANE
This is the interior of “Gur Emir,” the tomb of Tamerlane (1336-1405) in Samarkand, the great Silk Road city now in Uzbekistan. Tamerlane was the last of the nomadic conquerors of Eurasia, a Turkic-Mongol whose conquests extended from New Delhi to eastern Turkey.
Gur Emir is only one of a multitude of extraordinary sights in legendary Samarkand that make being here a life-memorable experience. We’ll be here during our exploration of Central Asia next May. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #59 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
25 QUESTIONS KAMALA HARRIS NEEDS TO BE ASKED IN THE DEBATE TONIGHT
Kamala Harris declares Black Lives Matter are “the heroes of our time”
The Democrat vice presidential nominee should be asked the following 25 questions. This list is by no means exhaustive.
TRUMP & ATLAS – TIME TO FACE DOWN CORONAVIRUS FEAR
POTUS with Dr. Scott Atlas
The uproar over the President’s COVID-19 diagnosis made one thing abundantly and terrifyingly clear: The media’s China Virus hysteria is here to stay— certainly through the election, and far beyond after Trump wins.
The paranoia is so baked in now, you wonder how the public will come to its senses. Well, it appears that Trump’s new COVID advisors are having an impact.
In August, the President appointed Dr. Scott Atlas, a critic of lockdowns and our one-size-fits-all remedy to cure the virus. Atlas, 65, is a much-needed antidote to the attention-hungry, flip-flopping Anthony Fauci, who refuses to exit the media’s adoring spotlight or entertain any opposing viewpoint.
THE UNIQUE BEAUTIFICATION OF KAYAN WOMEN
The Kayan tribal people live in a remote roadless valley in the Shan Hills of Burma. Kayan women practice their tradition of beauty starting at age five. The young girls have a few brass coils placed around their necks, adding to them progressively as they grow until in older adulthood they are wearing as many as two dozen – becoming what the world knows them as Giraffe women. (The Shan people call them "Padaung" meaning "long-necked," but they call themselves Kayan.)
We are not here to gawk. We are here to make friends, treat them respectfully, and learn about their traditions. It is an intensely memorable experience to meet these ladies. We’ll be here again in early March next year. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #58 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
PRESIDENT TRUMP BECOMES CAPTAIN AMERICA
What did former President Obama call this? A “teachable moment.” But it’s not the lesson Democrats hoped for.
I’ve studied Donald Trump my entire adult life. Growing up as a kid in New York, and being 15 years younger than Trump, he served as my hero, mentor and role model since my college days at Columbia University. Donald Trump has three traits above all others:
THE LOATHSOME GHOULS OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS
Well, there is Antifa, the violent arm of BLM, the Muslim Brotherhood, et al., but for what is supposed to be an assemblage of professional, objective journalists, this White House press corps is about as mature as a clique of mean girls in any middle school.
They are as politically deluded as Baghdad Bob, pathetically self-important, ridiculously overly impressed with their own positions of power and influence, and as malicious as Shakespeare's Iago. When they do not get their way, they act out like toddlers in the throes of a tantrum.
While their glee at the news that Trump had contracted COVID was shameful, their hysteria over his brief ride in The Beast to wave to supporters outside the hospital, their abject fury at his being released from Walter Reed today, was beyond redemption. These ghouls are seriously mentally ill. They wanted him to die, and he didn't.
WODAABE MEN MUST LOOK BEAUTIFUL TO ATTRACT THE LADIES
The Wodaabe are cattle-herding nomads in Niger, West Africa. Their Gerewol festival features Yaake dances by the men to impress marriageable ladies with how ideally handsome they are. Those ideals include being tall and athletic, having white eyes and white teeth, decorating themselves colorfully, and having a winning smile.
The Wodaabe are a fun-loving, friendly, and hospitable people. You’ll meet them on our Trans-Sahara Expedition when we’re next able to operate one. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #57 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
NO FEAR OF THE EVIL EYE: Aristotle, Einstein, and Mussolini
Eighth installment: Chapter Eight of Part I: Envy. Forum comments welcome!
ARISTOTLE, EINSTEIN, AND MUSSOLINI
Ever play the Ultimate Dinner Party parlor game – where you get to imagine inviting people from history to converse over dinner and explain why them? At such a party, one conversation I’d most like to hear would be between Aristotle and Einstein. (And no, Mussolini would not be invited – we discuss him after dinnertime.)
Einstein would first have to bring Aristotle up to speed with what science had learned since the 4th century BC. In particular, he would blow Aristotle’s mind about inertia.
Once Aristotle grasped Newton’s First Law explaining motion – that something will stay put unless pushed, but once pushed will keep moving until and unless something else stops it – it would alter his entire concept of the structure of the universe.
DRACULA’S CASTLE
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” described Count Dracula’s home as a castle located high above a gorge perched on a rock in Transylvania’s Carpathian Mountains. And here you are, Bran Castle, built in the late 1300s near the town of Brasov in Romania, and traditionally associated with Vlad Dracula (1428-1477).
His father, Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Dragon), as the ruler of Wallachia (southern Romania), led Christian knights fighting Ottoman Turks called the Order of the Dragon, or “Dracul” in Romanian. His son succeeded him as Dracula – “son of the dragon” – waging war upon the Moslem Ottomans so brutally he became known as “Vlad the Impaler” for impaling his enemies. They began spreading rumors of his being literally bloodthirsty, drinking his enemies’ blood.
Over the centuries since, Vlad Dracula has been celebrated by Romanians as their national hero in his liberation struggle from the Ottomans. But was Bran Castle his home? He had many homes, and was here many times during his campaigns. Visiting Dracula’s Castle is always a highlight of our explorations of Eastern Europe. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #56 photo ©Jack Wheeler)