Folks, I just can't adequately express what a wonderful time we had at the To The Point Summer Rendezvous last weekend in Colorado Springs.  The friendship, with everyone so obviously enjoying each other's company, was such a marvelous experience.  We ate well - the buffalo steak was fabulous - drank good wine, had endless scintillating conversations, hiked in the Garden of the Gods, and all of us can hardly wait to get together again. I owe a lot of thanks - to Miko Reyes, TTP General Manager, who put everything together while I was on the other side of the world.  To Joan Johnson, John Nehring, and Bill Gregory, without whose help Miko tells me he couldn't have succeeded. To Joel Wade, Jack Kelly, and Dagny D'Anconia, who so copiously shared their insights with us. And to all TTPers who attended, for the more I got to know them, the more interesting and fascinating they became.  Their skills, intelligence, values, patriotism, and just plain likeability were really overwhelming. Of all the myriad of questions during the weekend, the one most asked was:  When do we get to do this again - when and where's the next Rendezvous? It'll be mid-January, and as we've had two now in the West (Vegas and Colorado), it should be in the East.  But warm - forget winter in, say, Boston or DC.  Also historic, memorable, and fun.  So we're thinking Charleston, maybe Savannah.  Let me know what you think. So thanks to all for a great Rendezvous.  Don't miss the next one.  I can hardly wait for it myself.

Democratic leaders in California have pledged to spend millions of dollars to defeat an initiative proposed by a Republican lawyer to divide California's electoral votes by congressional district.  If Thomas Hiltachk can gather enough signatures, the Presidential Election Reform Act will be on the ballot next June. If it passes, it will take effect for the 2008 presidential election in California. [Who Thomas Hiltachk is will blow you away.  See note at end.  -JW] Democrats may have their work cut out for them.  A Field poll indicated 47 percent of voters in the Golden State favored it, with 35 percent opposed. Democratic angst is understandable.  With 55 electoral votes, California is by far the biggest electoral prize.  And it's a prize which has been safely in Democratic hands.  In the last four presidential elections, Democrats have won by landslides. But within California there are 20 congressional districts that reliably vote Republican -- an electoral bloc the size of Ohio.  If it were taken away from the Democrats and given to the GOP, its difficult to see how the Democrats can win the presidency in 2008. The Dem's act of hara-kiri, however, is in what they are proposing to counter the congressional district plan.  It is pure political insanity.

Three scandals involving politicians were made public in the past week.  The difference in coverage by the media explains a lot. You've heard about the arrest of Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho for allegedly soliciting homosexual sex in a restroom in the Minneapolis airport.  That's been all over the news since the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported it Monday. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that a lower middle class family in suburban San Francisco has contributed $45,000 to Hillary Clinton and $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, contributions they almost certainly couldn't afford on the $49,000 annual salary chief breadwinner William Paw earned as a postal worker.  On Wednesday, the Federal Elections Commission levied the third highest fine in its history -- $775,000 -- on the George Soros' funded group, ACT (Americans Coming Together) for flouting campaign finance laws in the 2004 election.  ACT claimed it was using money for non-partisan purposes when in fact it was spending millions to defeat President Bush, the FEC said. Sex scandals are, er, sexier than money scandals, which is one reason why you've heard more about the travails of Sen. Craig than you have about Mr. Paw or ACT.  There is another.  And it reveals the grave moral difference between Republican and Democrat voters.

The Chicoms intend to use the 2008 Beijing Olympics as did the Nazis in the 1936 Berlin Olympics - as a glorification of their rule and a demand that the world provide it with the prestige it so desperately craves.  That's their dream. Last May in Chinese Wishes, we discussed how the Chicoms' dearest dream may turn out to be a nightmare of protests and boycotts, a human rights debacle of Olympian proportions. It looks like Taiwan is going to make this nightmare a lot worse.  And the Chicoms won't be able to do a thing about it.

[Richard Rahn send us this from Mongolia, about which I wrote when I was there five years ago (August 2002) in Glaciers in the Gobi.  Yes, there really is a glacier in the Gobi Desert. -JW] Ulan Bator, Mongolia. This, one of Asia's poorest countries, has been an economic laggard relative to most of its Asian competitors. But now the economy has begun to grow rapidly. The question is, can this growth be sustained and perhaps even speeded up? Mongolia is landlocked in the center of Asia between two powerful neighbors, China and Russia. Though twice the size of France, it has less than three million people. Traditionally, the Mongols have been nomadic, tending their animal herds along the thousands of miles of Central Asian grasslands. Despite its handicaps, Mongolia has a few things going for it.  Consider:  by 2010, it is expected that 60 percent of Mongolians will have access to high-speed Internet.  Compare that to Russia, where little more than 1% do.

Last Saturday (8.18), a once enormously influential man in Washington died.  He was eulogized in every important newspaper from the New York Times to the Wall St. Journal to the Washington Times.  Let me tell you a completely unknown story about him. Before his presidency, Ronald Reagan lived for many years in California.  On a regular basis, he had his hair cut at his favorite barbershop in Beverly Hills.  After his election and before he moved to Washington, a friend of mine was assigned to his transition team.  Thus he accompanied Mr. Reagan to his barbershop appointment. My friend was startled to see an elderly man who just happened to be getting a haircut in the very next chair to which Mr. Reagan was seated.  The elderly man immediately began chatting up Mr. Reagan.  My friend was startled because the man was a Communist, the son of the founder of the Communist Party USA, one of America's richest and most powerful men who had made his fortune doing business with the Soviet Union since the days of Lenin. His name was Armand Hammer. My friend was seriously alarmed.  The president-elect's personal schedule and whereabouts was a highly-kept secret.  For someone in league with the Soviets to know it meant that someone - Armand Hammer - had a mole within Mr. Reagan's team on his payroll.  It took my friend years to find out the mole's identity.  It was the lionized man who died last Saturday.