With the wind chill, it was around 50‑60 degrees below zero. I sat on my heels in the back of the Twin‑Otter and looked out the open door of the plane to the sea of white below. We were 8,000 feet above the ice and making our jump run. Some tiny black specks appeared on the ice in the distance. "Left five degrees!" I called out through my face mask, and Rocky nudged the Otter toward the specks.

"All right, man, how do you feel?' I asked myself. "Are you nervous?" I took a deep breath and relaxed, just letting whatever emotions were there come up. I had expected the reply to be, " What, are you kidding?!? I'm terrified!!" But no, to my surprise, I felt incredibly calm and peaceful.

Memories of the past four years raced through me like a flash flood. All the ecstasy and magic ‑‑ then all the pain and grief and mourning. A year ago, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to live or not. Learning how to sky‑dive when you don't know if you want to live is a good way to find out.

When the U.S. economy catches cold, the rest of the world gets pneumonia. That's because much of the wealth of the rest of the world depends on selling stuff to us, and/or on investing in our economy. The cold we've caught from the subprime mortgage crisis is pretty serious. As of Oct. 22, our stock market was down 40 percent for the year. But, as the erudite cynic who writes for the Asia Times under the pen name "Spengler" notes, it's a lot worse almost everywhere else. The financial crisis will push already troubled -- and nuclear armed -- Pakistan further towards radical Islam.  Turkey, heretofore the most peaceful, democratic and pro-Western of Islamic countries, also will drift towards the dark side. By far the most dangerous wild card is...

Have you ever wondered why billionaires like George Soros financially support politicians who say they will "increase taxes on the rich"?

The answer quite simply is that the tax increases are most often put on people trying to become rich, not those already rich. Hence, the rich, big government advocates can gain far more by "buying" the politicians. The "bought" politicians then provide them with confidential information about administrative decisions, which these donors then use to place big bets in the market, making themselves much richer. If you have deep financial pockets and inside information, you can make huge amounts of money when markets drop.

Mr. Soros, the Democrats' financial angel, is often referred to as the "man who broke the bank of England" in the 1992 Sterling crisis. During that episode, he made $1 billion in one day at the expense of British taxpayers. The relevant question is, did Mr. Soros bet a couple of billion dollars on mere guesses of what the German, French and British officials would do, or did he have inside information?

Among the first fruits of an Obama presidency will be an international crisis, his running mate said in Seattle last weekend. "Mark my words.  It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy," Sen. Joe Biden said at a fund-raiser. "Watch, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy." Sen. Obama's response to the crisis may not seem adequate, Sen. Biden said.

The news media can do investigative reporting when the spirit so moves.  Consider the proctological exam journalists gave Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the Plumber," within a day of Sen. John McCain having referred to him in the final presidential debate. We now know that Joe, 34, does not have a plumber's license and does not belong to the plumbers' union. He's divorced, earned just $40,000 in 2006, and had a tax lien against him. Joe says he doesn't need a license to do residential work in the two-person firm (A.W. Newell Corp.) for whom he works, because Al Newell has a license.  That's kopasetic within the city of Toledo, but Joe would need a license of his own to do work elsewhere in Lucas County, county officals say.  Only about a third of all plumbers in the U.S. belong to the plumbers' union, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Absolutely none of this information is relevant to the question Joe asked when Barack Obama approached him on a rope line in the Toledo suburb of Holland Oct. 12, or to the impolitic answer Sen. Obama gave to it.

On a late September day in 1995, I was washing the family station wagon in the driveway of our home in McLean, Virginia, when my wife called out, "Dana's on the phone for you." Rebel brought me the phone and I heard a familiar voice.  "Hey, Wheeler, there are some Russians coming by my office around four this afternoon - the Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg and his entourage.  You need to be there." I looked at my watch.  "Dana, it's two o'clock already.  You sure?" "Well, I don't know anyone who's been to Russia more than you whose opinion I can really trust.  I'd really like you to be here." How could I turn that down? I'd known Dana Rohrabacher since we were in Youth For Reagan during Ronald Reagan's first campaign for governor of California in 1966.  Now, almost 30 years later, Dana was a Member of Congress, and on the powerful International Relations Committee. So I finished up with the car, put on the Washington costume of dark suit and tie, and motored down the George Washington Parkway to DC and Dana's office in the House Rayburn Building.  The meeting went well.  This was the time of Good Feelings between Boris Yeltsin's Russia and America, and there was a camaraderie between us all. So much so that Dana suggested at the meeting's close, since he had no more meetings scheduled, why don't we all have a beer together at the Irish Times pub on the other side of Capitol Hill? Beer?  The Russians thought that was a great idea.

In last week's column, I wrote that Sen. Obama had written a dust jacket blurb for ex-Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers' memoir, "Fugitive Days."  This is not true.  Sen. Obama's praise was for an earlier book by Mr. Ayers, "A Kind and Just Parent," published in 1997. I'm putting this correction at the beginning of this column rather than at the end as is customary because I am mortified by my mistake, and I don't want it to become a part of Internet lore.

There is enough misinformation out there already. On Oct. 11, veteran civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis compared John McCain and Sarah Palin to segregationist George Wallace.