ENHANCING AND EXTENDING YOUR LIFE WITH DURK PEARSON
A Special Announcement: To The Point is co-sponsoring, along with Life Enhancement Magazine, a Life Enhancement Symposium with Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw in Las Vegas, March 22-24. Shortly after Merv Griffin, the beloved talk show host, passed away in August 2007, I penned a tribute to him in To The Point, How Merv Griffin Enhanced and Extended the Lives of Millions. I told the story of how I introduced Merv to one of my dearest friends, Durk Pearson. He was a completely unknown scientist with an IQ so high MIT could not measure it. It was 1978, and Durk was dedicating his IQ to figuring out how to live healthily for a very, very long time. What's more, Durk could explain how to do so with incredible clarity. 35 years have passed since Durk's first appearance on Merv. The amount of anti-aging research, the number of years added and quality of life improved for so many millions of people stemming from it is incalculable. But as Durk and his partner in science Sandy Shaw say, there is so much more to come! The latest advancements in life extension science are astounding - but how do you learn about them? To enable TTPers and friends of To The Point learn about where Durk & Sandy's latest research is leading, my wife Rebel and I are co-sponsoring, along with my friend Will Block, publisher of Life Enhancement Magazine, a rare public appearance of Durk & Sandy at a Life Enhancement Symposium in Las Vegas next month. The length and quality of your life may indeed depend on what you learn at it.
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/01/13
In The Brexit and Texit this week, we learned an important word: hysteresis. Originally a concept in physics to quantify the effects of lag time, it's now used in economics: "If people are out of work for long enough, the damage to skills and human capital becomes a permanent loss. The underlying growth potential of the economy is damaged for years." Under Zero, hysteresis has become a political strategy. Damage America's economy, national security, and moral culture long enough and consistently enough to become permanent. Part of the strategy is convincing people that resistance to it is futile, even immoral. Thus the number of his fellow travelers and useful idiots increases. You could not get a clearer example than, on Tuesday (1/29), 94 out of 100 Senators voted to confirm a treasonous, characterless scumbag as Secretary of State. There are now only 3 Senators with any self-respect or decency: John Cornyn (TX), Ted Cruz (TX), and Jim Inhofe (OK) who voted No (Kerry along with 2 others abstained). And it could get worse. Yet for all of this, there were a number of bright spots this week. Here we go.
HOW POLITICAL AND PERSONAL SERENITY IS POSSIBLE
BOB KABOB AND SNUFFY JACK
Col. Robert K. Brown, Founder, Publisher and Editor of Soldier of Fortune Magazine, is writing his memoirs. It's about time, as Bob turned 80 a couple of months ago. Bob and I have been good friends since 1977, when we met as guests on the Merv Griffin Show and instantly hit it off. The most memorable adventure we had together was in Afghanistan with the Mujahidin fighting the Soviets. That was in 1988, and Bob asked me to recount it for his book. I thought I'd share it with you. Early on in the Reagan Presidency, I began working with my buddy from our Youth For Reagan days (Reagan's original campaign for California governor in 1966), Dana Rohrabacher and other friends in the White House, such as Constantine Menges on the National Security Council, on a strategy that became known as The Reagan Doctrine. (That wasn't our name for it - we just called it FTC... Foil the Commies, or something like that.) My role was to "go inside" captured guerrilla-held territory in those Soviet colonies where anti-Soviet insurgencies had emerged, such as the Contras in Nicaragua, UNITA in Angola, RENAMO in Mozambique, the EPLF/TPLF in Ethiopia, the KPNLF in Cambodia, the Hmong in Laos, and most of all, the various groups of Muj in Afghanistan. I did this all through the 80s, and Dana and I often talked of his going inside with me at some time. His chance came after he left the White House to run for Congress in his California home town district, and got elected. He celebrated by coming with me and Bob, who I'd been promising to take inside as well. We convened in mid-November, 1988, at Green's Hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan.
THE BREXIT AND THE TEXIT
Last year, Europe's fear was the Grexit - Greece's leaving the EU. Now, the fear du jour is the Brexit - Britain's departure. Yet British Prime Minister David Cameron's pledge for an 'in-or-out' referendum on UK membership in the European Union will be overtaken by internal events long before we reach 2017. The vote may never be necessary. The eurozone's North-South misalignment has not been resolved. The Club Med bloc is still sliding into deeper depression. The financial crisis - never more than a symptom - has graduated into a more intractable economic, social, and therefore political crisis. Take a moment to read Eurozone crisis: it ain't over yet by Professor Paulo Manasse from Bologna University, posted on VOX EU. Look at the German-Italian gap below. The two economies have diverged 14% of GDP since 2006 and the split is certain to keep growing this year, next year, and the year after that:
GET OVER IT! WE ARE NOT ALL CREATED EQUAL
The Marine Corps Times recently published a handful of articles in regard to opening Infantry Officer Course (IOC) to females and the possibility of integrating women into the infantry community. In mid-April the Commandant has directed the ‘integration' of the first wave of female officers into IOC this summer following completion of The Basic School (TBS). Before the Marine Corps moves forward with this concept, should we not ask the hard questions and gain opinions of combat-experienced Marines (male and female alike) as to the purpose, the impact, and the gains from such a move? As a combat-experienced Marine officer, and a female, I am here to tell you that we are not all created equal, and attempting to place females in the infantry will not improve the Marine Corps as the Nation's force-in-readiness or improve our national security. This issue is being pushed by several groups, one of which is a small committee of civilians appointed by the Secretary of Defense called the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service (DACOWITS). Surprise: none of the current committee members are on active duty or have any recent combat or relevant operational experience relating to the issue they are attempting to change. Here's what they and the DoD need to know: should the Marine Corps attempt to fully integrate women into the infantry, we as an institution are going to experience a colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for females.
IT’S TIME TO STAND UP TO THE FASCIST BULLIES OF THE LEFT
Who are the most unpleasant people on the internet? Obviously with so much competition, it is, to paraphrase Dr Johnson, like arguing the toss between lice and fleas. Disability rights activists would be a strong contender. Thanks to them, money which could go to the genuinely needy is instead being hijacked by scroungers and fakes. Yet this doesn't just apply to disability rights, of course. It applies to almost everything in the political domain. Pick any issue - the environment, education, healthcare, the economy - and time and again you'll find the agenda has been successfully hijacked by a handful of zealots who are not remotely representative of the broader public interest. Why? Because politicians will do almost anything for a quiet life and find it much easier to buy off noisy troublemakers by capitulating to their demands, however unreasonable, than to take a principled stand. Also, of course, it's much, much easier for a lobby group to make a powerful, emotive case for more government spending on its favorite deserving cause than it is for the government to explain why it can't afford it. I don't know about you lot, but I've had just about enough of this apathy, ignorance, purblind denialism and culpable dishonesty.
IN PRAISE OF THINK TANKS
A "think tank" is an organization where scholars and specialists seek to find solutions to problems and then promote their findings. Some think tanks deal with many public policy issues, and others concentrate on one or a few, such as medical care, defense, foreign policy or economic policy. Both the number and size of think tanks has grown exponentially in the past several decades. One reason is the growth of governments, which has created a need for organizations to feed government policymakers with ideas and information -- and, more importantly, to fulfill the need for independent research to critique the many bad ideas emanating from policymakers, politicians and the media. For instance, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Peter Wallison, a former general counsel of the U.S. Treasury, has just written a book explaining, with all the supporting evidence, how a politically inspired, false narrative about the financial crisis led to the destructive Dodd-Frank Act and what corrective action is needed. It's: Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative About the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act.
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/25/13
Ia orana! That's Hello! in Tahitian (ee-ah-rana). Captain James Cook (1728-1779) made his first voyage to Tahiti in April 1769. Whenever introduced to a chief, he would doff his hat, sweep it before him with a slight bow, and greet him by saying, "Your Honor." Tahitians have been greeting each other by saying how they pronounced "your honor" ever since. Most all of us dream at one time or another of living in a Polynesian paradise of perfect balmy weather, palm trees wafting in the breeze over soft sandy beaches, turquoise lagoons laden with fish, dramatic mountains covered with fruit-laden tropical forests - something like this, maybe... 
I took this on a motu or sand islet on the reef surrounding the island of Raivavae in the Austral Islands of French Polynesia. This is remote or real Polynesia, not the tourist version. No hotels, no restaurants, no air conditioning, no swimming pools (infinity or otherwise), no Internet, intermittent electricity, and what few modern conveniences exist from a cold Hinano beer to a liter of gas are exceedingly expensive. Which is why there are so few tourists in this "unspoiled" idyllic island, and almost no one comes here to retire. The islanders who live here are wonderfully friendly, Raivavae is breathtakingly beautiful, you'll never forget a visit here - but it won't take long before you want to get back to America. The current on-going tragedy, of course, is that the America we'd want to get back to seems no longer to exist. Reading every morning's news these days is like reading - and living in - a horror story. When will it end? Will we ever get our country back from the fascist thugs in Washington who have stolen it? Two events this week suggest we may.
HILLARY ANSWERS ON BENGHAZI?
"We have four dead Americans!" Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouted at Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. "Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?" Ms. Clinton had a point, of sorts, about "at this point." More than four months have elapsed since 9/11/2012, when Chris Stevens, our ambassador to Libya; Foreign Service Office Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed during a seven hour assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and its annex. Wednesday (1/23) was the first time the secretary of state appeared before Congress to answer questions about what happened. The State Department knew "in near real time" there had been no protest; knew within hours an al-Qaida affiliate claimed credit. So why for more than a week afterward did she and other senior officials claim a video ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad was responsible, Sen. Johnson was asking when Ms. Clinton interrupted him. Other lawmakers wanted to know why the consulate was guarded by unarmed Libyan security guards rather than by U.S. Marines, as is customary for diplomatic installations. Why were Ambassador Stevens' pleas for more security ignored? Ms. Clinton responded...