THE KURDISH MAP
One of my favorite lecture topics is "The Map of the Future." In a talk I've given to business groups in a number of countries and all over the US, I put a big map of the world up and start describing the map's illusions. I point to Russia, the largest country in the world at 17 million square kilometers (msk, 6.5 million square miles or msms); Canada, the second largest at 10msk, 3.8msm; and Greenland, the world's largest island at 2.2msk, 0.85msm - all totaling 29.2 million square kilometers or 11.3 million square miles. Spread out across the top of the map, they look like they take up half the world. Africa, squat and compact athwart the Equator, looks dwarfed in comparison. Yet in reality, you could fit all of Russia, Canada, and Greenland combined into Africa with room to spare - for Africa exceeds 30 million square kilometers or 11.7 million square miles. The flat world map is a lie. Gigantic Greenland is actually the same size as Saudi Arabia. If you wanted to go directly in a straight line from Gibraltar to the Bering Straits, you wouldn't go across Russia, you'd go across the North Pole. "Now let's talk about another set of lies and illusions on this map," I continue. "These lines drawn all over, which governments of countries call their ‘borders,' and claim they actually exist. They are desperate to keep the illusion that they exercise ‘sovereignty' within their ‘borders' and will do anything to preserve the illusion." The Kurds, at 40 million the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country, are in the geopolitical business of exposing such illusions. To see how, let's take a look at two maps, one from the past, another from a proposed future.
THE SHAMEFUL SCUM OF THE SCANDAL OF HADITHA
A lie can get half way around the world before the truth can lace up its combat boots. This is especially true when the lie is propagated by a major news magazine and a senior member of Congress. On March 19, 2006, Time Magazine published an article written by Time reporter Tim McGirk which in effect accused a squad of Marines of having murdered civilians in Haditha, Iraq, and their superiors of covering it up. "It's much worse than reported in Time Magazine," said Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa, at a press conference May 17, 2006. "There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood." On December 21, 2006, four enlisted Marines were charged with multiple counts of murder. Later, four officers in their chain of command were charged with having covered up the murders. The news coverage of the indictments was enormous. This Tuesday (6/17), a military judge dismissed charges against LtCol. Jeffrey Chessani. He was the seventh of the eight Marines either to have the charges against him dismissed, or be found not guilty. Yet Tim McGirk and Jack Murtha are not the only shameful scum responsible for the scandalous treatment of the Haditha Marines - we must include the Navy prosecutors as well.
FEDERAL PROSECUTORS AS INTERNATIONAL THUGS
Imagine a fellow who lives in a dry county in Mississippi (where alcohol is not sold or served) goes to New York and has a drink at a bar where he knows the bartender. Shortly thereafter, the bartender visits his friend in that dry county in Mississippi. The local sheriff arrests both the bartender and his friend for an act committed in New York. Most people, quite properly so, would argue the Mississippi sheriff has no business arresting people for a legal act committed in New York, even though it would have been illegal if committed in Mississippi. Unfortunately, some prosecutors in the U.S. federal government are now acting like the rogue Mississippi sheriff described above when it comes to gambling, securities and tax laws in foreign countries.
THREE SIGN POSTS TO A MCCAIN VICTORY
Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. has the lead for the time being. But three sign posts point the way to a McCain landslide in November -- in the unlikely event the Arizona senator has the wit to heed them. What figures to be by far the most important issue this fall is the skyrocketing price of energy and its deleterious effect on the broader economy and national security. National security is the one issue Sen. McCain knows something about, and Sen. Obama knows nothing. However, the fact that we're winning the war on terror makes most Americans less interested in it, and more focused on economic concerns. Voter anxiety about Sen. Obama's fitness to be commander in chief is a strong subsidiary issue. But this election will be won or lost at the gas pump.
‘ANY AMERICAN WHO HATES GEORGE BUSH IS CRAZY’
You're looking at the oldest continuously occupied city in the world. For 7,000 years, people have been living in what is now called the Citadel - the same people who live there now: the Kurds. The Citadel is the center of Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. I am writing this from a hotel room - with wireless Internet! - overlooking this most ancient of cities. The sense of history here is enormous. A couple of dozen miles northeast of here is a wide flat plain called Gaugemela, where in 331 BC, the 40,000 Greek soldiers of Alexander the Great met the 100,000 Persians of Darius III. Utilizing a battle strategy so masterful it is studied by all students of warfare, Alexander destroyed the Persian army, killing 50,000 at a loss of 4,000. Darius fled and was killed by his own generals, who surrendered the entire Persian Empire to Alexander. The Kurds celebrated their liberation from Persian tyranny, and thanked their god, Yazdan, and his prophet, Zoroaster, for Alexander. Today, they thank Yazdan for George W. Bush.
DUMB AND DUMBER: MCCAIN AND OBAMA ON OUR OIL
Sen. John McCain plans to visit Colombia and Canada this summer, presumably to contrast his views on free trade with those of Sen. Barack Hussein Obama. He may also visit Iraq, in part to remind people Sen. Obama hasn't been there in more than two years. Sen. McCain should add one more stop on his summer travel itinerary. He should visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area about the size of South Carolina in Alaska's far north. Oil companies want to drill in a portion of ANWR roughly the size of Dulles airport, where the U.S. Geological Survey thinks there may be 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil, an amount equivalent to 37 percent of the current U.S. proved reserves of 21.7 billion barrels. But Sen. McCain says he'd no sooner drill in ANWR than in the Grand Canyon. And Sen. Obama is even dumber than that.
HALF-FULL REPORT 06/12/08
The Chicoms' prospects for their Genocide Olympics keep rolling downhill. The latest headline indicator: Will The Olympics Not Be Televised? Incredibly, the Chicoms are putting so many restrictions hampering television coverage that IOC officials fear the Beijing Games may not be broadcast to the world at all. The whole thing is increasingly likely to be one giant MCF - Mongolian Cluster Foul-up... ...An even bigger MCF may have caused China's Sichuan earthquake last month. It's become known that the earthquake zone was where China had its secret nuclear weapons research facilities. What's much less well-known is that a nuclear explosion occurred at one of these secret underground facilities, either triggering or triggered by the earthquake... ... The HFR now raises its glass of rice wine to toast cumbay! to all those poor demented souls in Seoul suffering from Mad Korean Disease... Yet Mad Obambi Disease is far more dangerous to America than fear of mad cows is to Korea. To see just how dangerous it would be to our national security, watch this 52-second anti-military rant Obambi goes on... ... Which is why the HFR hoists a mug of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer to Tony Rezko in hopes he lives a long life - or at least long enough for him to turn state's evidence and rat on Obambi.
SUMMER 2008
In a few hours from now (6/12 noon), I'm off to Iraqi Kurdistan, then Jordan and Israel. In July, I'll be retracing Cortez's route from Vera Cruz to Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) launching his conquest of Mexico in 1519. In August, there's our To The Point Revolutionary Rendezvous in Boston. So this is to let you all know we're switching to our summer schedule for To The Point starting next week. There will be pretty much the same number of articles per week, but we'll be posting them as they come in - rather than compiling them in the TTP Weekly Report on Friday afternoon. Because other TTP authors also will be traveling a lot as well. Right now, for example, Joel Wade is in the wilds of the Australian Outback with his family. Thus instead of a Weekly Report, we'll be sending you a TTP Article Alert whenever a new article is up. Now let's talk about the Revolutionary Rendezvous. The place: Boston. The dates: August 22-24. The schedule:
THE VAPID MESSIAH
Sen. Barack Hussein Obama celebrated clinching the Democratic nomination with a speech from the convention center in St. Paul. Future generations, he told his adoring audience, will look back upon that night and say: "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal..." Canute the Great (995-1035), the Viking king of England, Denmark and Norway, is reputed to have waded into the ocean and ordered the waves to recede. Canute, who was actually a pretty modest guy for a king, didn't really expect the water to obey. He staged the scene to teach a lesson about the limits of a king's powers to sycophantic courtiers. But Sen. Obama apparently wasn't kidding. It'd be hard enough for a President Obama to bring peace to the Middle East and carbon free energy independence to the United States without regulating sea levels too.
IPHONES AND WIKIS
Apple announced Monday June 9th at the World Wide Developer Conference that the new iPhone would be released for sale on July11th, 2008. While the original iPhone release was slick and had a great touch interface, it missed the business niche market. The new device should fill those missing elements nicely. Here is why. The new phone has GPS, which is a big plus for the business traveler. It also will provide metadata to an image captured with its built-in camera to provide your exact location where the image was taken. Lets talk 3G. The iPhone with 2.0 software will cruise nicely on 3G networks which the rest of the world has been doing for a while. AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive carrier in the US has bumped up their networks to 3G levels in all major markets. The effect of this is downloading files, watching UTube videos, and email attachments will now be quicker.