HALF-FULL REPORT 09/13/24
NY Post September 11, 2024
Was it that bad? In a number of ways, certainly. She lied incessantly and never once fact-checked by the ABC lefty moderators whose body language showed contempt for him – while his evidence-backed claims were repeatedly ersatz-fact checked.
Millions wondered how it was possible for her to be so word salad-free articulate and smilingly confident, while he never smiled, didn’t seem at ease, but was rattled and angry instead. Maybe she was high on Adderall or Modafinil or Cylert, some such psychostimulant.
Maybe she was wearing genuine pearl NOVA H1 Wireless Audio Earrings (see cover photo above) to listen to Obama telling her what to say next while Trump was speaking. The German manufacturer Icebach Sound publicly states:
“We do not know whether Mrs. Harris wore one of our products. The resemblance is striking and while our product was not specifically developed for the use at presidential debates, it is nonetheless suited for it.”
While the company website is now offering a “Special Edition for Presidential Debates.”
So now let’s look at what was actually said. You’ll be surprised – with more surprises to come in this HFR. Jump on in!
THE SNAKE WALLS OF KHIVA
The inner city of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Khiva has been unchanged for centuries. Surrounding 40ft-high snake walls that writhe around the city have protected it for centuries, enabling defenders to shoot, spear, and pour burning hot oil on attackers from three sides.
Khiva’s labyrinth of narrow lanes adorned with blue and aquamarine tile mosaics is a living museum for you to explore. On the Oxus or Amu Darya River in deepest Central Asia, Khiva was ancient when Alexander the Great seized it in 329 BC.
It survived the depredations of Arabs in the 8th century, Mongols in the 13th, Tamerlane in the 14th. The Khanate of Khiva continued to flourish on the Silk Road until conquered by the Russians in the 19th. Today in Uzbekistan, it remains as the best-preserved of the ancient oases of the Silk Road, yet unknown to the outside world.
It need not remain unknown to you, however. We were just here two years ago, and will be here again soon. Join us and make Khiva a part of your life.(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #226 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 09/12/24
This week we’ve had win after win from the courts on the 1st and 2nd Amendments. Even from the 9th Circuit! Elon Musk is stirring things up in all directions (and mostly winning, it seems to us). The more we learn about Harris’s agenda the worse she looks, but Her Royal Wokeness is losing more woke corporations by the week.
Really, most of the bad news this weeks concerns woke entities: woke corporations, the Secret Service and FBI, the economy, the power grid, AI, and Europe (especially Germany). Even Bernie slipped up and actually spoke the truth about Her Shape-shifting Highness.
It’s been a pretty good little ol’ week. We wrap this one up with some particularly good news and information.
Do you want to help kick the Left out of the White House but don’t know where to begin? We’ve got the answer for you! Come on in.
IT LOOKS LIKE TRUMP MAY HAVE HELPED HIMSELF IN THE DEBATE
THE WORLD’S BIGGEST MONEY
We’re on the island of Yap in Micronesia – some 500 miles southwest of Guam and 1,200 miles east of Manila in the Western Pacific. The Yapese have lived here for over 2,000 years, and have maintained their culture and traditions to this day.
Phenomenal navigators in their outrigger canoes, in ancient times they began sailing to Palau over 250 miles south to quarry large sections of limestone and return to stone-chisel them into circles with a hole in the middle (through which world put a long pole for carrying them.
Called Rai, they have been Yap’s currency for two millennia. The ones you see here are typical size but many are much larger, weighing as much as a car. Rai are the world’s biggest money – used not for day-to-day transactions but large ones like a bride’s dowry and wedding party, or a real estate deal.
The Yapese are a proud and peaceful people who live by their code of Respect and Responsibility. They are warm and welcoming to visitors. A 90-minute flight from Guam makes it easy to get here. Spending time with these special people will be life-memorable. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #216 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE BIDEN-HARRIS WORLD IS AFIRE
Somehow the United States ended up this summer with no engaged president and an absent vice president who avoids the missing president and is frantically repudiating everything she co-owned the last three years.
The world was already confused over how President Joe Biden was apparently declared by unnamed Democratic insiders and donors unfit and unable to continue as their presidential candidate—as if he were a dethroned Third-World usurper.
It further wondered how those who staged his removal had no problem allowing him, in his debilitated state, to continue as America’s commander-in-chief until January 20, 2025.
They demonstrated their priorities that focus on retaining power, not the welfare of the nation or the will of over 14 million Biden primary voters.
Vice President Kamala Harris, until Biden’s forced abdication, was judged by these same backroom fixers as too incompetent to ever be commander-in-chief and thus for three years a good reason why Biden apparently was not forced out earlier.
Now nominal Vice President Harris is on the campaign trail nonstop, while Biden has taken the most vacation time off and worked the shortest workweek in presidential memory.
The world again wonders who is in charge, what they believe, who is a friend, and who is an enemy.
SPITUK GOMPA
The Tibetan Monastery or “Gompa” of Spituk overlooks the Upper Indus as it flows out of Chinese Tibet and towards Baltistan in Pakistan. The Indus here is the geological dividing line between the ancient Karakorum mountains and the younger Himalayas (40+ million years old and growing: Mount Everest rises 2 inches every ten years).
We’re in Indian Tibet here, a region called Ladakh where Tibetan culture flourishes freely. Wheeler Expeditions first explored Indian Tibet – including running the remote Zanskar River tributary of the Upper Indus, one the world’s most thrilling whitewater experiences – in 1992. We’ll explore it once more next summer. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #128 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
DON’T TALK TO TERRORISTS
Greetings, y'all. The title of this week’s missive comes from a song by Rick Springfield, “Don’t Talk to Strangers.”
I find it unconscionable that we somehow believe that we should enter into negotiations and talks with Islamic jihadists, also known as terrorists.
This past Labor Day weekend again evidenced why that is a futile pursuit.
Six hostages who were taken during the heinous raid into Israel last year on October 7th were found dead in a tunnel system under the city of Rafah.
Their names are HerschGoldberg-Polin (23), Carmel Gat (40), Alexander Lobanov (32), Almog Sarusi (27), Eden Yerushalmi (24) and Ori Danino (25).
Two of them were young women, and one of them was an American citizen.
These barbaric animals, Hamas, forced them to make propaganda videos before they were executed — shot in the head at close distance — which they are now releasing.
So, why do we talk to individuals who have as their charter the elimination, eradication, and extermination of an entire group of people because they are Jewish?
What was also quite disconcerting was Joe Biden’s warning to Israel not to enter Rafah. What did he and the Biden administration know?
Ceasefire? I am waiting for someone to explain why.
CHINESE SPY CASE SHEDS LIGHT ON STATE-LEVEL SECURITY WOES
The arrest of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s former aide Linda Sun this week has shown the vulnerability of state governments in navigating Chinese interference attempts while Beijing is actively targeting them, top intelligence experts say.
Sun worked at the New York State (NYS) government for more than ten years during Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Hochul’s tenures, including as Hochul’s deputy chief of staff.
She was arrested and charged on Sept. 3 with violating and conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, visa fraud, alien smuggling, and money laundering conspiracy. Her husband Chris Hu was also arrested and charged with separate offenses.
Sun, a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated from China when she was five, was accused of doing the bidding of four Chinese Consulate officials and two Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents.
This included blocking communications between the NYS government and representatives of Taiwan, screening the governors’ messages to keep out references of Taiwan’s official name and human rights atrocities against the Uyghur people, smuggling a Chinese consulate official into a private NYS government conference call, and providing unauthorized invitation letters for Chinese provincial delegates to fraudulently obtain U.S. visas—for monetary and other benefits worth millions of dollars, mostly via her husband’s business.
The case has exposed a glaring security problem, according to two intelligence experts who both held a number of senior national security roles in government.
THE HANGING MONASTERY
The architectural wonder of the Hanging Monastery was built on a vertical cliff face by the Tuoba people of Inner Mongolia over 1,500 years ago (in the 490s). Devout Buddhists and brilliant engineers, they defied gravity by inserting huge wooden crossbeams deep into the cliff to suspend the monastery’s temples, shrines, and monks’ living quarters, connected with bridges, corridors, and boardwalks, out into space.
Liao Mongols in the 900s rebuilt and sustained it, and it has been carefully refurbished and restored in the centuries since. While it remains primarily Buddhist with statues and depictions of Sakyamuni (the historical Buddha of 5th century BC) and Maitreya (the future Buddha), the monks welcome reverence to Taoism and its founder Lao Tzu (4th century BC), as well as Confucius (551-479 BC). Thus you also see shrines and statues of them like nowhere else.
It is a unique and inspiring experience to be here. We’ll be here again in our next exploration of Inner Mongolia next year. ((Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #116 photo ©Jack Wheeler)