A REAL WHODUNNIT
Join the forum discussion on this postEASY STEPS TO UPDATE YOUR PAYMENT INFORMATION
UPDATE YOUR CREDIT CARD INFO FOR TOTHEPOINT
If your credit card has recently been changed by your bank:
This notice serves as a request for you to update your credit card payment information in our site so that we may SUCCESSFULLY charge your membership in our new TTP Payment system when renewal time is due.
**THIS WILL ENSURE UNINTERRUPTED SERVICE FOR YOUR ACCOUNT**
All you have to do is log into the website, which brings you to the Membership Details Page:
- Then, click on the Update Payment Info link (shown in image above)
- Enter your Credit Card Info and
HALF-FULL REPORT 9/11/15: 14 Years Later, They’re Winning
"I wish none of this had happened."
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, the Fellowship of the Ring
Fourteen years ago, the world changed. What we didn't fully realize was the nature of the change that was coming. But come it has. Come it will. From Iran and Europe to Bergdahl and Bernie, Trump trolling to economic engineering, Culture wars, Catholicism, and Whiskey Firenados - I bring you the Half-Full Report. Tragedies, thoughts, hopes, and triumphs await...
THE LAST SHANGRI-LA
Lo Manthang, Kingdom of Lo, Mustang, Nepal. “Shangri-La” is, of course imaginary, the fictional invention of an “earthly paradise” by author James Hilton in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon.
Shangri-La in the minds of millions epitomizes the spiritual serenity and wisdom of the exotic Orient. That’s why the Tibetan Kingdom of Lo with its 600 year-old medieval walled capital city of Lo Manthang in an almost inaccessibly remote region of Nepal called Mustang, on the border with Chinese-occupied Tibet, is so often described as the real, or the last, Shangri-La.
But is it such an earthly paradise that you would want to live here? No. Besides living so utterly isolated from the rest of the world with very few “mod-cons” (modern conveniences of daily life), you’d also be living in that four-letter word that Zero is so full of.
The Lo-pa live with their animals. You might be able to handle sheep pellets, albeit they are in uncountable numbers. The cattle cowpies splattered along every alley in Lo Manthang is another matter. Any walk you take in the ancient walled city is a hopscotch.
Thus the Kingdom of Lo is not Shangri-La. Is there another? One place left on our planet, the Last Shangri-La?
WAS SLAVERY AMERICA’S ORIGINAL SIN?
I’m glad I live in a time of automobiles, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, the Internet and especially (given my present circumstances) great medical advances.
But if I had to live in an earlier period, I’d want to be a soldier in the Union Army (preferably in the 24th Wisconsin, with Sherman from Atlanta to the sea). I can think of no greater cause than to fight to eradicate America’s original sin.
Slavery isn’t America’s original sin because it was unique, or uniquely horrible here. If prostitution is “the world’s oldest profession,” slave trading is second. Since the dawn of recorded history, slavery has been practiced ...
WHAT IF IRAN REJECTS THE DEAL?
Congress is back, and we will now have round one of the fight over the Iran deal. The White House having organized enough votes to block an override of the anticipated presidential veto, there are now multiple schemes to kill the deal anyway. Maybe some of the Democrats who have promised to vote with Obama will change their minds in the face of mounting public opposition. Maybe the Corker-Cardin law contains the seeds of its own distruction, and, surprise, surprise, can actually be used to force the Senate to treat the deal as a treaty rather than an executive agreement. I will confess that I can’t keep up with all the fine print, and anyway the central issue – Iran policy – is not going to be debated, at least for now.
The central issue is the war waged against us by Tehran and its allies, and whether we are going to continue to pay the Iranians billions of dollars to kill Americans and others. You would be amazed at the number of famous legislatures and their top staffers who do not know that we are presently giving Iran $700 million a month, as you would be amazed at the tiny handful of so-called leaders who publicly asked, “why would any president want to pay Iran hundreds of billions of dollars to kill Americans?”
It’s a question than answers itself, or so you would think.
EUROPE’S CAMP OF THE SAINTS CRISIS: A 3-WAY STRATEGIC FULCRUM
This article has been given a major update. It includes an overview of recent events to give readers a sense of the ground truth, and looks more deeply into the strategic fulcrum around Islam. Note esp. the time conjunction with al-Qaeda's 20 Year Plan.
The biggest immigration issue on the globe has very little to do with America. Its resolution will change the world.
European debates about immigration - or more accurately, the demographic replacement of local populations to benefit political elites - have been suppressed for a long time. As European economies falter, and huge waves of new refugees pile up on its shores, the elites are losing their ability to control the debate. Anti-immigration parties are rising, some countries are flat-out insisting on Christian refugees only, and the EU's erasure of internal border controls is under fire. Glenn "Instapundit Reynolds" ddid a great job laying out recent developments. That's your shot. "Germany's Muslim Demographic Revolution" from The Gatestone Institute is your chaser. What these briefings don't fully explain is why Americans need to pay attention.
This "Camp of the Saints" refugee wave is a strategic fulcrum - in 3 different ways...
THE SYRIA CRISIS IS NOT A TEMPORARY PHENOMENON
The flood of refugees into Europe from the Middle East and Africa has only just begun as states disintegrate in a maelstrom of religious war, the United Nations has warned.
"We cannot comfort ourselves that this is a temporary phenomenon," said Peter Sutherland, the UN's special envoy for migrants and refugees.
Quite apart from Syria, much of the Sahel across sub-Saharan Africa is hanging by a thread, and ISIS is expanding into every country of the Maghreb.
Here's the EU migrant crisis explained in a 90 second video ...
PROMISES, LIES & THE WAYS OF WASHINGTON
Would you vote for someone who you believe knowingly lies to you? The problem for the American people is that candidates from both parties lie on a regular basis, and so it is all too rare that a voter has a choice between someone who will honor his or her promises and someone who will not.
A substantial majority of the American people believe that Hillary Clinton is not a truth-teller — for very good reasons. The fables about Benghazi, her private email server, and the conflicts of interest with the Clinton Foundation are so transparent that only those who live in an alternative universe find her statements the least bit believable. Mrs. Clinton is only unusual among the Washington political class in that her fibs are so blatant and obvious.
More typical are the less-obvious broken promises of many Republicans.
TEMPTATION AND SELF-MASTERY
Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, called it akrasia – a weakness of will, acting in a way contrary to our consciously held moral values. It’s the quality that most distinguishes criminals from the rest of us; and the quality that most distinguishes less successful people from those who are more successful.
The ability to resist our short-term impulses and desires and to focus instead on our long-term values and goals is the most important capacity for living well.
In the late 1960s, Walter Mischel, a professor at Stanford University, conducted one of the most important experiments in psychology. It’s now called The Marshmallow Test, but marshmallows were only one of a variety of treats used to tempt young limbic systems to indulge in their immediate desires.