The Oasis for
Rational Conservatives

Thursday, February 12, 2026

Member Menu

The Amazon's Pantanal

Serengeti Birthing Safari

Wheeler Expeditions

Member Discussions

Article Archives

Archives

L i k e U s ! ! !

THE SOURCE OF BIAS

the-source-of-biasThere are biases in our thinking that can lead to big mistakes in our decision making, including expensive mistakes with our money and investments, poor choices at work, and huge misunderstandings between people.

In the past I’ve written about Daniel Kahneman’s description of fast and slow thinking as a way of understanding and minimizing the effects of these biases. Today I want to talk about why we have these biases in the first place.

Is it because we’re flawed? Is there something wrong with us? Are we just a bunch of numbskulls that don’t know how to use our brains?

No, that’s not it. There’s nothing wrong with us. Our biases are part of an effective and healthy brain, and normal human functioning.

It’s more accurate to say that our lives involve challenges that can sometimes overwhelm what we’re capable of. And yet we still function exceptionally well, most of the time.

Read more...

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: BRANDON AT THE TAJ

brandon-at-taj-mahalAugust 1993, Taj Mahal, Agra, India. I took my son Brandon here for his 10th birthday. Here is one supremely happy boy. One of the greatest gifts you can give your children or grandchildren is to take them on a great adventure, to explore the world with them. And it is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. It is a bonding experience that will last all of your life and theirs. Never pass up the opportunity, search for the opportunity instead. This is life-enrichment at its best. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #272 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Read more...

POPEYE’S VILLAGE

popeyes-villageEver see the 1980 movie Popeye starring Robin Williams? It takes place in the seaside town of Sweethaven – and you’re looking at it. The film set was built in a cove on the northern end of the island of Malta in the Mediterranean just for the movie.

It’s now been transformed into a Disney-type fun park for kids and families. Not what you expect to find in an island famous for ancient temples older than the pyramids, massive medieval fortresses that were scenes of battles that saved Western Civilization, magnificently ornate Renaissance cathedrals, gorgeous beaches and breathtaking scenery. But here it is, with shows, rides, and play houses filled with children laughing and exploring. One more reason to love Malta. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #147 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Read more...

THE TEMPLE OF ULU WATU

ulu-watu-templeBuilt 1,000 years ago on the edge of a cliff hundreds of feet above the sea on the island of Bali, the sacred temple of Ulu Watu is one of the holiest places of worship for the Balinese people. They have retained their unique form of Balinese Hinduism for millennia that incorporates their original animism, ancestor worship, and reverence for Buddhist saints or Bodhisattva. This has resulted in a spiritual warmth and gentle friendliness matched by few other places on earth. It is little wonder so many who come here consider Bali to be a worldly paradise. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #108 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Read more...

THE PILLARS OF HERCULES

pillars-of-herculesOn either side of the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar there are two small mountains known since great antiquity as the Pillars of Hercules. The pillar on the northern, European side is the famous Rock of Gibraltar. That on the southern, African side is Mount Abyla, Phoenician for “lofty mountain.”

The legend for the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans was that Hercules pushed the two pillars apart to join the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. We think today of Hercules as a comic-book bodybuilder, while the truth is opposite. The entire ancient Mediterranean world very seriously worshipped him. For the Phoenicians, he was Melqart, King of the Earth. For the Greeks, he was Heracles, Divine Protector of Mankind. He was the same for the Romans, who pronounced his name as Hercules.

The Phoenician trading port of Abyla has a history of 3,000 years, from Phoenician to Carthaginian to Roman to Byzantine to Christian Visigoths to Islamic Berbers to Portuguese – and since 1668 to Spain, which continues to govern it today as the Spanish Autonomous City of Ceuta on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.

Ceuta is a charming European city with beautiful beaches, open air cafés with great sangria, very relaxed and pleasant. It is here you find the statue of Hercules separating his Pillars commemorating the legend pictured above. Easy to get to with high-speed ferries from Algeciras near Gibraltar, Ceuta is definitely worth your while to experience. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #137 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Read more...

THE VOODOO MARKET OF TOGO

akodessawa-fetish-marketThe Akodessawa Fetish Market in Lomé, Togo has to be seen to be believed. Here on display is a vast array of animal parts -- heads, skulls, bones, horns, skins et al – for sale to the adherents of Togo’s official religion of Voodoo. They are used to communicate with and pray to the huge variety of spirits and deities they believe in.

What you see here is a very small fraction of the market – there are thousands of animal parts here from entire elephant skulls to small mummified rodents. Behind the displays are stalls where voodoo priests cater to devotees for healing potions or being an interlocutor to the spirits. This is not sticking pins in dolls of enemies. The people of Togo and neighboring Benin believe deeply in their religion. Togo in West Africa is the size of New Jersey and has over 130 fetish markets in the country, with the largest here. This is an experience you never forget.

(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #273 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Read more...

HOW 9 POLITICIANS ARE CELEBRATING THIS 4TH OF JULY

It's birthday time once again for the greatest nation on earth: America. Everybody likes to celebrate 'Murica a little differently - here are how nine famous politicians are planning to mark the 4th of July this year:

  1. Chuck Schumer: Murdering 26 people with undercooked beef. Tradition is tradition.
  2. AOC: Weeping outside of Alligator Alcatraz: Heroic.
  3. Ron DeSantis: Turning loose highly trained alligators armed with lasers to hunt down anyone who comes near Alligator Alcatraz: Uh-oh.
  4. JD Vance: Killing off a rival world leader: U-S-A! U-S-A!
  5. Joe Biden: Hanging Christmas decorations: Aw, Joe.
  6. Thomas Massie: Going to some super-secret meeting Trump invited him to in a CIA detention cell: Have fun, Tom.
  7. JB Pritzker: Hot dog eating contest: Followed by a burger eating contest, lamb shank eating contest, entire baby pig eating contest, pie eating contest, and tub of Crisco eating contest.
  8. Zohran Mamdani: Dumping Jews into the harbor: A true patriot.
  9. President Trump: Carving his own face into Mount Rushmore while riding a bald eagle: Glorious!
 

Our great and wise leaders are doing it right this Independence Day.

~ Babylon Bee reporting

Read more...

HALF-FULL REPORT 06/27/25

Good grief – how much winning can we take in a week?  Somehow we’ll handle it, comforted by knowing that all of America’s enemies foreign and domestic are in a deep dark hole of depression.

From last Saturday night’s (6/21) epic obliteration of Mullah Iran’s nuke dreams…

 

…to SCOTUS 6-3 scuttling Demtard universal injunction dreams by Trump-hating judges this morning (6/27)…

 

…President Badass is having quite a week – but Team Trump is stepping up to the plate as well.  Enjoy this quartet sample:

And we’re only just getting started for this HFR.

Read more...

TRUMP’S GENIUS HEAD FAKE

In Friday’s HFR, I had been totally suckered by POTUS’ head fake that morning (6/20): Trump To Decide ‘Within Next Two Weeks’ Whether To Join Iran Strikes — White House. Along with just about everyone else including every government leader on the planet save for Bibi, I thought this was yet another feckless Trump delay – never dreaming that the B-2 war plan was already underway at the time of the “Two Weeks” announcement.

Perhaps most astonishing was it caught everyone in the media by surprise.  Trump’s B-2 attack took enormous execution by a large number of people – yet it was never leaked to WaPo, AP. or the NY Times.  Their editors’ lifeblood is the spider web of contacts throughout any administration – especially inside the Pentagon or Foggy Bottom which are riddled with folks infected with TDS eager to leak and ruin a Trump triumph.

Keeping the secrecy lid on airtight is seriously impressive operational security on the part of POTUS.  Must be achingly depressing to the media.

What happened on Saturday night June 21 was historical.  The world is now living in the Age of Trump.  There is only one superpower on earth now and that’s America.  No other country could come remotely close to what our B2s did that night.  Or have the will to do it.

All of a sudden, Russia and China seem irrelevant.

Read more...

PRESIDENT BADASS

president-badassThe word “badass” was bandied about a lot after the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump last year.  Famously, the bloodied Republican candidate raised his fist in defiance.

In a different context, the same pungent word applies to his 2 a.m. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Trump the TV star has a knack for the theatrical and grand gesture. That obviously matters in domestic politics, but in international affairs, too, where projecting strength and command are just as important.

Bombing Fordow and the other sites was also quite focused, but the operation came as a strategic thunderclap.

One way to put it is that the “shock and awe” bombing campaign before the second Iraq war was much less awesome than advertised, and a prelude to a grinding, drawn-out conflict. Trump’s operations tend, in contrast, to be all shock and awe, and for real.

The Trump method is to simplify everything and apply blunt-force solutions, undergirded by a very human psychology of dominance.  That’s what makes him a presidential badass.

Read more...

MULLAH IRAN SURRENDERS TO DONALD TRUMP

Mullah Iran has long cultivated the image of a nation unwilling to bend to foreign pressure. From Ayatollah Khomeini’s rejection of the West in 1979 to today’s battles over nuclear sovereignty, the Islamic Republic has projected an unyielding front.

Even now, it promptly violated a ceasefire with Israel. Yet, behind this posture, events of the past 72 hours tell a starkly different story.

On June 23rd, Iran fired a volley of missiles toward Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar—America’s largest military installation in the Middle East. All failed to reach their target. The U.S. had been warned of the attack in advance. And shortly afterward, a mutual ceasefire was declared.

Far from being a show of strength, this final strike marked something else: the quiet but unmistakable surrender of Iran’s regime to mounting military and economic pressure. I.e., to President Donald Trump.

Read more...

ISRAEL GOES ALL IN FOR REGIME CHANGE IN IRAN

It’s official without being official.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put Israel all in to try to help facilitate regime change in Iran.

He is not saying it 100% explicitly, and the IDF is very carefully avoiding saying it, but on Monday (6/23), for the first time, the IDF attacks on Iran seemed to be overwhelmingly against the regime’s internal political power versus its nuclear or external military power.

Israel is now doing almost everything it can to remove the obstacles preventing the Iranian people to rise up and remove the mullahs from power.  Here’s how.

Read more...

TRUMP BOMBED IRAN – HERE’S HOW 12 MEDIA OUTLETS COVERED THE STORY

[It’s Wednesday – let’s have some fun….]

Okay, Trump bombed Iran. The Babylon Bee has assembled headlines from various media outlets here in one place so you can pick a little bit of the truth out of each to learn the whole story.

Here's how different media outlets are covering the historic news:

Read more...

IF ILLEGALS ARE ILLEGAL WHY ARE THEIR BABIES CITIZENS?

On his first day in office of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order ending anchor babies, the practice of treating kids born to illegals on U.S. soil as full-fledged citizens.

Three federal district court judges promptly issued (you’ll never guess) nationwide injunctions blocking Trump’s order. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on those injunctions any day now.

That is clearly the assumption of smug liberals sneering that Trump’s executive order is “blatantly unconstitutional,” as one injunction-happy judge put it. Their sublime confidence in the permanence of a made-up constitutional right is awe-inspiring.

In fact, the whole “birthright citizenship” scam is based on a wildly expansive interpretation of post-Civil War amendments that were designed to help blacks and former slaves.

Birthright citizenship, let alone the anchor baby con, has nothing to do with the original Constitution. And as Trump keeps saying, the post-Civil War amendments, such as the 14th, are all about slavery.

Read more...

MOUTHWASH FOR YOUR BRAIN

Amyloid plaques form among neurons in the brain
Amyloid plaques form among neurons in the brain

Last month (5/01), I told you about Water and Your Brain in a Live Long & Prosper column.  This month, we’re going to talk about… mouthwash for your braln.

And for the same reason – to prevent what you see in the photo above:  orange blobs of amyloid plaques in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s.

As we learned last month – “one of the most common causes of senile dementia and Alzheimer’s is chronic dehydration” – it turns out that another common cause of AD is gingivitis.

According to research conducted by University of California Psychiatry Professor Stephen Dominy — Porphyromonas gingivalis in Alzheimer’s disease brains – it works like this.

Read more...