HALF-FULL REPORT 12/28/18
Until funding for food stamps runs out in about three weeks or so, and Dem voters start sending death threats en masse to Upchuck Schumer saying they’re going to die without them so better him to die instead.
You thought 2018 was crazy? 2019 will be an Al Jolson year because you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. So we bid a non-fond adieu to a frying pan year as we step into the fire of the next.
The Fascist Dems and Media will continue their War on Trump not just unabated but on steroids. The real question is, can POTUS hold his base? How many Trumpers will fight to the knife for him, how many will just give up and retreat, how many will go over to the Dark Side?
On that, America’s fate depends.
If we want to save our country from the Dem Fascisti, we must give Trump what he needs most: tough love, not blind support. So welcome to the Tough Love HFR at the end of 2018.
WHAT TO READ 2018
As 2012 came to an end, TTP issued the first What to Read, a list of the books I read that year. That was followed a year later with What to Read 2013, then What to Read 2014, followed by What to Read 2015, and What to Read 2016.
Alas, it was my bad that I skipped last year, 2017. So I thought it best to renew the tradition now.
As before, I’m keeping the list not to all the books I read this year, but to just those I thought would be of real interest to TTPers. There are several I think it quite important for you to consider. I’m sure you’ll find at least one or two fascinating either for yourself or someone you care for. Or a regressive libtard you want to educate and/or infuriate.
What follows is not advice for you. Your interests are specifically yours, and none of these books may ring your bell. But they all rang mine to various degrees.
Each of the links below are to the Amazon listing, containing multiple comments, reviews, and quotes. You can get an idea from these if that particular book is for you. The easiest way for me is to download the Kindle edition on my iPad – also the quickest and most inexpensive. But if you prefer a real book in your hands, you can get that too.
There are of course constant companions ensconced in my library that I pick up and consult often – such as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (the link is to the Kindle edition, at $4.27). Also on Kindle now are a number of masterworks by Ludwig von Mises.
Von Mises is the greatest genius of economics who ever lived. If you need an intro, start with his compact classic, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality. His magnum opus is the incomparable Human Action. It is staggeringly brilliant. As one reviewer correctly observes:
“Human Action is the most important book on political economy you will ever own. It was (and remains) the most comprehensive, systematic, forthright, and powerful defense of the economics of liberty ever written.”So here we go. And, please let us know on the Forum what books rang your bell this year!
DEFEATING THE LEFT THROUGH ENTROPY
Regarding my TTP article last week (12/20), The Left Vs. Thermodynamics, Julius Wroblewski on the Forum reminded me that “Many of the 9/11 Islamo-kamikazes and Aum Shinriyo gassers were STEM boys, after all.”
Great point. Julius.
STEM alone is not the central point. As Julius noted, a STEM education can be a fine thing but is not the solution by itself.
From my personal experience, there are problems with STEM programs as presently taught. I have been one of the State of Ohio finalist judges for the State Science Fair since 1991. I was a regional judge before that. These many years of judging reveal some trends.
First, the understanding of the Scientific Method has eroded in the public schools The second trend is an erosion of an understanding of thermodynamics itself and specifically the concept of entropy. And that enables us to defeat the left with it.
To be a leftist, fascist, communist, Islamic terrorist, etc. is to have a worldview that excludes universal thermodynamic laws. Their designs always fail given enough time. Always.
THE PARTRIDGE IN THE PEAR TREE
I hope you had the Merriest of Christmases yesterday, Tuesday December 25, but according to the song, the First Day of Christmas is the day after Christmas, December 26. That’s today.
Ancient Christians celebrated Christmas starting with the day after the birth of Jesus and ending on January 6th with the visit of the Magi in Matthew 2:11 known as the Epiphany.
Start with 12/26 and end with 1/06 and you get: the Twelve Days of Christmas.
No doubt you’re really tired of hearing Christmas songs by now, including this one, yet you may still be wondering what the heck partridges in a pear tree and eight maids a-milking have to do with the birth of the founder of Christianity.
So, as we do annually here at TTP as we recover from all the festivities, here’s the explanation of the song’s origin, meaning, and myth.
IGNORE DEM DOOM AND GLOOM – IT’S A MAGA MERRY CHRISTMAS!
The President and First Lady with our troops in Iraq on Christmas night
Merry Christmas, America! As we gather with families and enjoy this holiday season, let us pause to consider: things could be much, much worse. Some perspective is in order.
The Christmas holiday this year delivers a welcome and much-needed time out. Our country is anxious on many fronts. Our nation’s leaders in Congress appear unable and unwilling to lead, and financial markets have turned volatile and fearful, giving up the gains of the past year as traders prepare for a slowdown.
Meanwhile, Democrats – especially their media propagandists and those planning to run for president in 2020 -- are desperate to topple President Trump.
So, where’s the good news? How about this? Notwithstanding the gloom factory that is the liberal media, the country remains upbeat. They know it’s a MAGA Merry Christmas. Our troops in Iraq sure know it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM TOTHEPOINT
Have a wonderful Christmas filled with joyful memories,
laughter and good cheer with your loved ones!
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Beauty And The Beast
On Wednesday (12/19), while the First Lady was celebrating Christmas in the White House with her husband, looking every inch the most glamorous and elegant woman on earth, her predecessor wrapped herself in a yellow satin curtain she looted off the curtain rods in the East Wing, and her legs in “horrifyingly gauche $4000 Balenciaga thigh-high boots” to be on a book promotion event with a has-been actress.
Aren’t you glad we have our President and First Lady in the White House now instead of the embarrassment that preceded them? Here’s their Official White House Christmas photo.
Merry Christmas, America!
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/21/18
Shut it off, shut it off, buddy gonna shut you down!
The Beach Boys’ 1963 rocker Shutdown is the POTUS theme song today – and the music is as cool as ever. (Proof: here they are performing at a concert in Japan in 2012 – 49years later with teenagers screaming as before. Shutdown starts at 1:50.)
‘Tis the week before Christmas and Santa has a mixed bag for us, nice presents along with lumps of coal. Let’s see what he’s got.
THE LEFT VS. THERMODYNAMICS
[Note by JW: Here is more proof that so much of the unique value of To The Point lies in the brilliance of TTPer contributions to the Forum. Duane Purvin’s comments on Victor Davis Hanson’s The Evil of the Global Elite (12/18) are an example, while Mike Ryan’s are simply breathtaking. Again, the best Christmas Present you can give a friend or loved one is a Gift Subscription to TTP!]
Duane Purvin said:
“Even the Constitution is being re interpreted, the New Testament, Gender, conversion of concepts of individual liberty/freedom into identity politics and Reality as recognized by an educated, sentient man as now created and fed to humankind in the trough of social media, propaganda, omission and lies.”The problem is a product of the humanities departments at the elite universities as Hanson pointed out. The sciences and applied science departments are much less of a problem.
Why? The intersection of Rationalism and Empirical science is known as thermodynamics.
Nothing like it exists within the programs favored by the Left. Show me a conservative university department, and I will bet a box of donuts that thermo is part of the curriculum in one form or another. Either to be taught as physical laws or as spiritual or philosophical virtues.
CAN THE RUSSIAN NAVY STILL FLOAT?
The Admiral Kuznetsov in the PD-50 floating dry dock in Murmansk in 2010
It's bad enough that Russia’s only aircraft carrier was damaged in a mishap involving the country’s largest floating repair dock -- the only one big enough to maintain the flagship of the Russian Navy.
What's worse is that the decades-old dock is now sitting on the bottom of Kola Bay, not far from the major Arctic Circle city of Murmansk.
But even that may not be the extent of the bad news.
The dock, even if it is raised to the surface, may be beyond repair, meaning Russia’s only aircraft carrier, several of its largest naval ships, and at least one ballistic-missile submarine may not be able to be serviced for months, if not years.
That’s a not-insignificant setback for Kremlin efforts to upgrade the country’s fleet, experts say, an effort that parallels a larger ongoing modernization of Russia's armed forces. Indeed, Putin’s plans for Russia’s Navy are sinking.