Waitangi Bay, Chatham Island. If you want an ultimate of remote and rugged isolation constantly swept by storms and gale-force winds of the Roaring Forties, here is where you come.
And if you want to know how an unknown genocidal atrocity can teach us how to better deal with liberal guilt-mongering, well, here too is where you come. Believe it or not, it's in Polynesia.
If you're like me, we have to take a break from the current torrent of treason pouring out of this pestilential presidency or we're going to lose our minds.
So let's take that break and visit a magical unknown corner of the world behind the Himalayas so hidden away its people neither know nor care who infests the White House. Our journey will be with photos. If you want to go there with me for real - well, that can be arranged.
The real threats to us, and how to deal with them, that is. Lots of well-known former foreign policy/national security officials don't, or feel obliged to appear "realistic" (diplospeak for "don't do anything, keep talking").
Some former military officers do, although only up to a point.
Three duly respected policy professionals, Denis Ross (Obama's - and plenty of others' - Middle East guru for a few years early on), Eric Edelman (Bush's under secretary of defense and earlier ambassador to Turkey), and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations tell us it's Time to Take It to Iran (1/23).
But it turns out they really don't get what the "It" really means in their own title. We need to explain it to them.
This is a first. An opportunity for an extraordinary adventure has just arisen. Ordinarily, I'd tell you all about it. But I can't - that's what makes this a Mystery Adventure.
I can tell you the dates: November 7 to 19. That's leaving the US and return, door-to-door. I can tell you the cost: $6,650. That's everything except international airfare.
But I can't tell you where. Except to say that when you get back, it will blow your every friend's mind. "You went where!?" they'll all ask in jaw-dropping amazement.
I can't tell you the itinerary. Except to say that once you see the pictures, you will be astounded that these places exist.
I can tell you that we'll be safe and secure. I can tell you that there is now a window of opportunity during which the welcome mat has been laid down for us. This is why we must carpe diem, seize the day and opportunity, for who knows when it might arise again.
Thus far, I have only told a few friends about this who have traveled with me often before. They understand why I cannot make this public. Yet, being TTPers themselves, they have suggested that I tell all TTPers about it, however elliptically.
This is because I have three spaces left and I'm running out of time. There are no special requirements, as the Mystery Adventure is not physically rigorous, you only need normal good health. There is no camping -- we'll stay in the best hotels and dine in the best restaurants in the country. It is for men and women, couples and singles.
This is an adventure of thousands of years of culture and history, and as timely as current events get. It is one of breathtaking natural beauty and eye-opening wonder at how friendly and pro-American people on the street are. It is an experience you will never ever forget.
Here's the deal. I'll send you a Powerpoint PDF of the Mystery Adventure - it's a big 5.8MB file due to the photos - if you personally request it and provide your TTP bonafides. Like how long you've been a TTPer and why. Frankly, I have to be very sure of who I bring with me.
Let me know at jack@tothepointnews.com or Miko at miko@tothepointnews.com.
Please, though, don't make the request unless you're sure you can make the dates - November 7-19 - and the cost -- $6,650. Yet if you can handle both, better let me know right now. There's no time to spare.
An acquaintance the other day asked me what I do, and I told her that I'm a marriage counselor and a life coach. Then she asked an interesting question: "Is compromise the key to a happy marriage?"
At first I was tempted to say yes. Compromise is certainly one part of two different people sharing a life together. We can't do everything we want whenever we want it; we have to find ways of adapting to each other's needs and inclinations.
But thinking about it a little more closely, I instead said an emphatic, "No." Compromise is not really the key. Compromise is kind of like when one person wants a room painted yellow, the other wants it painted blue, and we compromise and get green. Compromise is sometimes win/win, sometimes not. There are certainly times when we compromise, but it isn't the driving force of a great relationship.
What, then, is the driving force of a great relationship?
Are business people more corrupt than those in government? Hollywood loves to portray those in business as the baddies and those in government as the good guys. Exhibit A is the new movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, the largely true story of con man Jordan Belfort.
Belfort and his cronies formed a firm to sell stock in startup and small companies they knew little or nothing about. In order to sell the stock, they would make claims about the companies that they thought the potential buyers wanted to hear, whether the statements were true or not.
If a company had been called "Obamacare, Inc.," they probably would have said it will give you "better health insurance" at "lower cost" and "you will be able to keep your doctor."
Belfort and some of his cronies quite properly went to prison and had to pay large fines for fraud and misrepresentation. Don't the wolves of Washington -- such as Mr. Obama, others in the administration and members of the House and Senate who are guilty of equally false claims about Obamacare. -- deserve the same?
If you can't wait for May 6th, you're not alone. This will be TTP's 10th Rendezvous - Rendezvous X - and we plan to make it our best yet.
Miko has the full hour-by-hour schedule - from opening at 6pm Friday May 6 to closing at 12:30pm Sunday May 8 - below. Let me fill in the details. We have a program I think is a real mind-blow. Here we go.
[This is the Introductory Chapter of Alex Alexiev's masterful study on Radical Islam's Threat to the West and the Moslem World to be published later this year by The Hudson Institute. Subsequent chapters or chapter sections will be a weekly feature in TTP for the next several weeks.]
The Main Enemy: Islamism
Introduction
It is the starting premise of this study that the United States government's focus on what came to be known as the "war on terror" after 9/11 has been fundamentally wrong.
The main enemy is not "terror." Nor is it al-Qaeda, despite President Obama's assertion in January 2010 after the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt that "we are at war against al-Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred."
No, the main enemy is radical Islamist ideology or Islamism.
A change of emphasis would allow us to see clearly that defeating this enemy cannot be accomplished by counterterror strategies and kinetic means alone, but requires a sophisticated strategy to defeat the ideology of Islamism by delegitimizing it in the eyes of its current and potential supporters in the Moslem community.
The essential prerequisite to achieving this objective is to understand the nature of the threat presented by radical Islam, its ideological underpinnings, and its strengths and weaknesses. Here is an outline of what we'll be discussing in the coming weeks.
Our Victory Rendezvous in Washington Nov. 05-07 is shaping up to be an extravaganza. Here’s the latest. In addition to the TTP regulars – Jack Kelly, Dr. Joel Wade, Richard Rahn, Marco the Wizard, famed intel analyst Alex Alexiev, and yours truly – we have:
t is imperative to know how your personal identity, and that of your business or family, can be comprised and stolen without your knowledge. With the advantage of increased bandwidth in our broadband delivery, it enables the opportunity for faster, deeper theft of your personal files, bank accounts, private documents, business papers etc.
Remember, there are no secrets on the internet. If you keep personal data, SSN, bank accounts, tax returns in a digital form on your hard drive then they are potentially bait for theft. If 10,000 SSN'S are stolen and sold at $35 a pop, that's a cool $350K in theft.
Starting to see the picture? It's not some kid hacker with a new tool, it's organized criminals from around the globe stealing you blind. The theft has become so efficient that few protective applications will validate or find these intrusions.
This is particularly true regarding what are known as P2P, or peer-to-peer networks. You may be connected to one.
It was a rainy Saturday morning in March. I was 14 years old and bored out of my mind with nothing to do. Stuck indoors, I stared through the rain-splattered window of my room and sighed. My eyes wandered to the bookshelf nearby, and fell on a book that a friend of my father's had given me some time ago as a present.
It had remained ignored and unopened, attracting dust rather than my attention, until now. The spine of the glossy book jacket proclaimed its title - The Complete Book of Marvels. What was that about? The author was Richard Halliburton. Who was he?
I reached for the book, and my life was changed forever.
Our home was in a prosaic suburb of Los Angeles - Glendale, California. Like most other kids, I knew very little about the world. America was an enormous island, with the rest of the world on the other side of huge oceans, far away.
The inside of the book jacket told me that Halliburton had been a famous adventurer in the 1920s and ‘30s. The book was 20 years old, and was a compilation of his exploits and experiences. As I paged through the descriptions and black-and-white pictures of dozens of the world's most extraordinary places, I was transfixed. The world, it dawned on me, was a vast place of endless wonders and adventures.
What mesmerized me in particular was Halliburton's account of climbing the Matterhorn. I stared at his picture of the Matterhorn, entitled "The Tiger of the Alps," for the longest time. Then, as if I were in a trance, I found myself getting up from the chair in my room and walking down the hall to my parents' room, where I found my Dad in his easy chair, reading an Erle Stanley Gardner detective novel.
He looked up at me, waiting for me to say something. I laid the Halliburton book over the Gardner book on his lap, open to the double-spread picture of the Matterhorn. He looked down at the picture, then looked back up, still waiting. I didn't consciously say anything. I pointed at the picture and heard myself say, "Dad, I want to climb that mountain."
The Jade Steps
Chapter Thirty-One: The Spanish Phoenix
By nightfall, the expedition reached the town of Xaltepec on the far side of the valley. It was deserted, and everyone had to forage for food. Malinali tried to clean the bloody gashes on Cortez's head and the deep wound in his left hand, but Cortez shook his head. "To a man, all of us are wounded, exhausted, and hungry," he told her. "Organize help for them, tend to them... then you may have all night to tend to me."
When Malinali returned, she found Cortez fast asleep. At dawn the next morning, she tried to clean and bandage him as best she could, but he was anxious to get underway. "Our only hope of safety lies in those mountains of Tlaxcala," he said, as he gazed at them looming above Xaltepec. Slowly, slowly, the expedition trudged up into the mountains to the Tlaxcalan frontier fortress town of Hueyotlipan (way-oat-lee-pahn).
There to greet them were King Xicotencatl, Chief Maxixcatzin, and Commander Chichimecatecle.
"Malinche! Malinche!" they cried out when they saw Cortez. Chief Maxixcatzin threw his arms around him. "How grieved we are at your misfortunes, and the number of our own people who have been killed with yours," he told Cortez through Malinali. "We warned you not to trust the Mesheeka, but you went to their city and did not believe us. Now all we can do is help with your wounds and give you rest and food. Here you are home."
There were a lot of responses to and questions about Arabia in America. After discussing them, we'll discuss how "global warming" is just a scam to de-industrialize America and has nothing to do with cutting world-wide CO2 greenhouse gas emissions.
John Boland made a very informed and cogent case for the safety and practicality of nuclear power. Ryan M. asked about the role of natural gas, in light of The Natural Gas Solution from last May. Bill Gregory mentions the trillion barrels of oil in Colorado and Wyoming that can be extracted from oil shale with new in situ technology.
While I am all in favor of more nuclear power plants, they produce electricity and not gasoline to run our cars. I focused on coal not for power plants but on coal-to-oil liquefaction plants to replace the 11 million barrels of foreign oil we import every day.
The grotesque phoniness of the Left on global warming is most clearly demonstrated regarding coal. Pelosi Galore is forming a new House Committee on Global Warming, while Barbara Boxer is submitting a bill to ban all coal power plants in the country. It's all hate-and-blame America all the time.
Got a Web site? How about a blog? A Myspace page?
If you do, you could be raking in the bucks - if you play your cards right, that is. All you have to do is figure out how to draw thousands of people to either click on your site and/or link to it. That's the dream, at least.
Once upon a time, the dream was to write a script that would be bought by a Hollywood TV or movie producer, or maybe writing the Great American novel. But with YouTube and its ilk everybody's a producer - and who has time to read books anymore?
Today, making big money from a Web site or blog is the latest quick-rich fantasy. Is it attainable? Let's see.
