[This Monday’s Archive was published in TTP on May 21, 2009. It describes the evolutionary way marriage made us human and why the Left hates it, just as much now as 26 years ago because it always has.]
You’ve all heard about the 47 million year old fossil named Ida, heralded as "the Missing Link" in the human evolutionary chain.
For paleontologists, it’s an exciting find – a fossil that old so intact and complete they can see what Ida ate (seeds and leaves). It certainly is an exceptional addition to the primate evolutionary tree. But the whole "missing link" hype is just a media circus to sell a book plus advertising for a television documentary.
Here’s why Ida not the Missing Link – and here’s the story of the real Missing Link that made us human.
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on October 11, 2012. The events of October 11, 12, and 13 are truly momentous in the annals of history as major triumphs of Western Civilization. Join TTP’s explanation and celebration of this triad of our culture’s heroic achievements. And to learn why there were no Indians in America when Columbus discovered it.]
TTP. October 11, 2012
The second week of October offers a triad of heroic anniversaries worth celebrating by any admirer of Western Civilization.
Today, October 11, we celebrate the 1,280th anniversary of the Battle of Tours in 732 AD, when Charles Martel (686-741), forever known as The Hammer, and his 30,000 Christian soldiers crushed an invading horde of 200,000 Moslem Jihadis in what is now central France.
As Gibbon noted, had the Moslems won that day, all of Europe would have been Islamized and Western Civilization would have been extinguished.
Saturday, October 13, is for celebrating the 87th birthday of the great Lady Champion of Liberty, the most heroic woman of the 20th century, Margaret Thatcher. The story of how she, with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, saved Western Civilization from Soviet Communism is told in Now There Is One (TTP, April 2005).
And we must also celebrate this October 13, for it was on this day 237 years ago, 1775 in Philadelphia, that the US Navy was founded.
Tomorrow, October 12, is for celebrating the 520th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America, for on this day in 1492, the Great Admiral landed on Guanahani (now known as San Salvador or Watlings) island in the Bahamas.
Unfortunately, Columbus Day is for most Americans just an excuse for a three-day weekend. What it should be is a commemoration and celebration of Western Civilization - which is why the Left hates Columbus and his holiday.
Is President of the Confederacy Jeff Davis the Model?
Who is the real, or fictional, inspiration for the new insurrectionary wing of the Democrat Party?
The fictitious Hollywood insurrectionist, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “James Mattoon Scott” (Burt Lancaster), who in the 1964 film Seven Days in May attempted to overthrow the presidency?
Who is the real, or fictional, inspiration for the new insurrectionary wing of the Democrat Party?
The fictitious Hollywood insurrectionist, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “James Mattoon Scott” (Burt Lancaster), who in the 1964 film Seven Days in May attempted to overthrow the presidency?
Or perhaps Jefferson Davis? He ultimately ordered the attack by South Carolina state forces against the federal garrison at Fort Sumter, which ignited the Civil War.
Or is the better inspiration the “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door?” Alabama Governor George Wallace likewise vowed to use his state’s law enforcement to nullify a federal law.
Yet the most recent and dangerous example of insurrectionary nullification is an inflammatory video issued by Democrat and veteran politicos: The Seditious Six.
.@POTUS addresses Israel's Knesset: "After two harrowing years in darkness and captivity, 20 courageous hostages are returning to the glorious embrace of their families... And after so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today, the skies are calm, the guns are silent,… pic.twitter.com/yLfmDIgzVJ
President Trump addresses Israel’s Knesset, October 13, 2025
What did Donald Trump do differently to obtain at least temporary calm in the Middle East compared to the failed efforts of past administrations, foreign powers, and the United Nations? Let us count ten different approaches.
Trump curtailed a considerable amount of Iranian oil income and its dispersal. He stopped, for the near future, the Iranian effort to build a bomb. Trump also allowed Israel to destroy Tehran’s air defenses, humiliate it militarily, and eliminate many of its top military officers and nuclear physicists. Thus, Israel’s half-century-long worries about Iranian nukes were addressed. At the same time, its stature as a military power soared to an all-time high—even if it became more isolated politically. Israel became more confident but also more sensitive to past, current, and future American military and political support—or pressure.
Trump allowed Netanyahu to destroy Hamas, cripple Hezbollah, and retaliate at will against the Houthis. That liberation led to general dejection among Israel’s enemies and a resurgence in Netanyahu’s own political fortunes. And that rise of Israel and the collapse of the Iranian terrorist network—the “ring of fire”— explain the greater chances for a ceasefire and possibly a peace. Trump allowed no daylight between Israel and the U.S., which, under the Biden administration, may have sent the wrong signals to Hamas prior to October 7.
Another Thanksgiving is upon us and, with it, another round of performative art from the left in the form of howls and shrieks about “stolen land” and “celebrating genocide.”
Being conservatives, most of us simply don’t have the time to repeatedly engage in unproductive debate with these leftists, seeing as we have jobs to perform, kids to raise, spouses to love, and homes to maintain, the responsibilities of which consume hours too precious to waste trying to reason with a brick wall with no ears and a loud mouth.
However, since being graciously hired by PJ Media, I’ve amassed a loyal following of readers whose numbers are approaching double digits, and hence I feel driven by ego and greed to keep that rolling snowball amassing weight.
So for the umpteenth time to the cheap seats on the left: Conquered land is not stolen land.
And even if it were, there isn’t an inch of inhabited land on this planet that wasn’t “stolen” from someone else at one time or another.
Having just commemorated two years since Oct. 7, 2023, we’re now approaching another grim anniversary—Feb. 24, four years since Russia invaded Ukraine.
President Trump deserves credit for recognizing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was vulnerable after having overreached by bombing Qatar. The president leveraged Bibi’s weakness to force a cease-fire.
Russia is in a similarly vulnerable position after the failure of its third offensive against Ukraine, yet Mr. Trump has failed to exploit this weakness. This raises the question: When is Mr. Trump to take advantage of Vladimir Putin’s helplessness?
We’d been talking about my “Jobs Americans won’t do” article, which kind of kicked the anthill, and everything stayed within the usual lanes: illegal immigration, wages, hiring incentives, hollowed-out towns. Then, at the very end, he asked the only question that really matters:
“So how do we fix it?”
Not describe it or rant about it. Fix it.
My answer, essentially, was, "It's complicated." There isn’t a bumper-sticker answer.
And there certainly isn’t a partisan one. The problem goes much deeper than illegal immigration, though illegal immigration made it far worse.
The truth is brutal: We didn’t just lose workers. We lost a generation of training.
Kids stopped working. Old pros retired with no apprentices. And the entire ladder of skill transfer, the thing that turns kids into competent working adults, collapsed.
Even if every illegal worker disappeared tomorrow, the skills wouldn’t magically reappear. You can’t fill a gap with people who were never trained to climb into it.
The Supreme Court is considering whether to gut a key provision in the Voting Rights Act. Democrats are nervous because, if the Court strikes it down, coupled with Republican governors redrawing maps ahead of the 2026 midterms, they could be wiped out in the South.
Of course, the Times tries to lessen the impact, adding that the full effect of the upcoming ruling, should it go against liberals, might not be fully felt until after 2026, but it’s still going to be a sledgehammer to the face. The provision centers on whether race should be considered when drawing legislative districts.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told US senators Saturday (11/22) that the sweeping peace plan to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine was not America’s — but merely a “leaked” Russian “wish list.”
Rubio told a bipartisan delegation at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada Saturday that the 28-point blueprint supposedly crafted to end the war is actually a Russian proposal, not a US initiative, according to South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds.
“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Rounds said, Politico reported. “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received, and as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it — and we did not release it. It was leaked.”
Rounds, however, said the Trump administration wants to “utilize it as a starting point,” adding that the plan “looked more like it was written in Russian to begin with,” the Associated Press reported.
Barack Obama really should follow the lead of old-time presidents and, instead of seeking the limelight, opt for a rocking chair on his front porch. In that way, he could spare himself the embarrassment of saying really stupid things.
During a podcast with Marc Maron, Obama made a comment about using the National Guard that was meant to attack Trump, but merely made Obama look ignorant and partisan.
Before even getting to the substance of what Obama said, what’s notable about the interview is how Obama looks. He’s wound up as tightly as an angry suburban leftist woman explaining to her psychiatrist why her husband was completely wrong in the recent fight they had. His legs are crossed, his arms are crossed, and his shoulders are hunched over. He looks lost in the comfy white armchair in which he sits.
Looking at this effete, defensive little man, it’s almost incomprehensible that he was the leader of the free world for eight years.
Fifty four years ago – August 1971 – I was able to climb the Great Pyramid of Cheops all the way to the top. 450 feet high, 4,000 years old, the only one of the original Seven Wonders of the World to still exist, it was my first time in Egypt and I had to give it a go.
Of course, this is illegal. So I waited near sunset and all the tourists had gone, walked around to the northwest corner hidden from most views where there was one lonely guard. I gave him 20 Egyptian pounds which made him very happy, and up I went. Each block at the bottom is about five feet tall and gets smaller as you climb, with over 200 stone layers or “courses” base to apex. The top is flat, about 10-foot square – the limestone casing reaching a point gone long ago.
Advances in technology have often been sudden and unexpected. Their speed and acceleration are exemplified by the fact that in one lifetime, people born before airplanes were invented saw, on television, men landing on the moon with 1960s technology. Unpredicted was the invention and wide use of desktop computers, which not even the writers of science fiction had foreseen.
I have a memory of watching a television show as a child, hearing my parents remark that I had no idea of what life had been like before there were any televisions to watch. I do remember a time before microwave ovens and pocket transistor radios.
As I was playing with my grandchildren, watching them use gadgets that did not exist when I was their age, it occurred to me that they had been born into an era where technology was influencing their lives, their attitudes, and their expectations in ways that we might scarcely imagine.
The Eiffel Tower is especially impressive at night. Taking the elevators to the first, second, and finally the third platform on top with the girders lit up against the black of night makes you gape at the herculean engineering achievement of Gustav Eiffel.
It’s overwhelming that it took only 26 months to build – from the start on January 28, 1887 to the celebration of its completion on March 31, 1889.
The Eiffel was built for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 1789 French Revolution, and of the century of scientific progress and the Industrial Revolution since. It may seem bizarre that it was bitterly opposed by hundreds of Paris’ artistic and intellectual elite, who publicly condemned it as “a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack… stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.”
Too bad for them, for The Eiffel was quickly embraced by Parisians as a beloved symbol of their city, while it has gone on to be one of the world’s most epically famous monuments.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is 86 years old and in ill health. Western intelligence believes he had prostate cancer in 2014 and, most recently, a severe bowel obstruction in 2022. In public, he has appeared to be weak and tired at times. Health rumors were flying after Khamenei didn't appear in public in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. attacks on Iran in June.
It doesn't take much to get tongues wagging in Iran about the mental and physical state of their Supreme Leader.
Regardless of when he dies, sooner or later, the shape of a post-Khamenei Iran is of intense interest to the U.S. and the world.
The last two years have seen the breaking of Ayatollah Khamenei's power and the weakening of the regime he leads. The events that have transpired during the Gaza War will have an enormous bearing on what Iran will look like after Khamenei dies.
This is my wife Rebel relaxing with a native of Antarctica while on a visit to the Palmer Science Station there. Getting up close and personal with Antarctic wildlife is so easy as they have no fear of us at all, be they seals, elephant seals, or penguins.