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THE ANNA NICOLE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN


The only TV news I watch is Fox.  CBS has that blonde airhead, ABC/NBC have nonentities, and CNN is the English translation of Al Jazeera.  But lately I can't even watch Fox, for the only news it seems to cover is the ersatz drama about a bimbo with giant mariachis.

No doubt that giant mariachis are among the most wondrous creations in the known universe - but endless discussion of the deceased possessor of two of them is not news.  At least, not any longer.  Shouting, "Enough already!", I either click the off button on the remote, or go in search of a CSI rerun or John Wayne movie.

Pretty soon, of course, viewers will get bored with the Anna Nicole story and move on to some other silliness.  So let's do a thought experiment.  Suppose, just suppose, that Fox doesn't let up, keeps featuring the story, dissecting every detail, comes up with new revelations, month after month after month after month.

Now suppose all other news outlets do the same.  For months, stretching on into the interminable future.  Would you go (a) out of your mind, or (b) no longer pay attention to nor have any interest in the news altogether?

Welcome to the Anna Nicole Presidential Campaign - with no giant mariachis.

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THE SURRENDER REPORT’S SILVER LINING


At first I, too, thought the Iraq Surrender Commission Report was a total downer. But I'm more and more convinced that it was a great blessing.

Not that they intended it to work out this way, but the Wise Men (and the token Lady) have elevated Iran to its rightful place in our national squabble over The War:  dead center.

The Surrender Commission Report underlines the basic truth about The War, which is that we cannot possibly win it by fighting defensively in Iraq alone. So long as Iran and Syria have a free shot at us and our Iraqi allies, they can trump most any military tactics we adopt, at most any imaginable level of troops.

Until the publication of the report, this was the dirty secret buried under years of misleading rhetoric from our leaders; now it is front and center.

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SAYYING NO TO NOTEBOOK THIEVES


If you travel with your notebook, you’re always worried about thieves. Here’s how to stop computer kleptos with this bag of hardware and software tricks.

You may have all the data security tools you need – firewall, antivirus program, and antispyware protection. But what if a thief slips into your office or hotel room or breaks into the trunk of your car – and tries to walk away with your trusty computer?

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SWITZERLAND AND THE 6,000 YEAR-OLD GOLD BUBBLE


Five million Swiss voters will decide on Sunday (11/30) whether to force the Swiss National Bank to repatriate all its gold from vaults in Britain and Canada, boost its holdings of bullion to 20% of foreign reserves and then keep the metal forever.

The "Save Our Swiss Gold" referendum is a valiant attempt by Switzerland's army of gold bugs -- and the populist Swiss People's party (SVP) - to lead the world back to the halcyon days of the international Gold Standard. It is a primordial scream against a quantitative easing and money creation a l'outrance (at all costs) by the leading central banks.

Yet there is a snag. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is the biggest printer of them all in relative terms, far outstripping the Bank of Japan, let alone the US Federal Reserve or the Bank of England - mere amateurs at this game.  

At one stage it was mopping up half of the entire sovereign bond issuance of the eurozone each month, a scale of action that the European Central Bank's Mario Draghi can only dream of.

You have to smile when you hear Swiss gold enthusiasts complaining that these foreign bonds - bought with electronic fiat francs created out of thin air - are now losing value as the euro slides against the dollar. But then we all suffer from cognitive dissonance.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 07/25/14


We start with a news bulletin.  Yesterday (7/24), software developers at a company called Division Six in Oregon - some of whom are TTPers - announced the release of a smartphone app called the Covert Christian Bible.

It is a KJV (King James Version) Bible that is hidden in your smart phone, camouflaged to look like another harmless application such as a calculator app. Only a secret code known to the user reveals the Bible is there. 

The app's social networking features enable Christians to create their own study group or accept an invitation to join another that interests them anywhere in the world. For example: A person in Kansas can form a Bible study group with members in Toronto, Jerusalem, and London. A person in Dallas could join a Bible Study group started in China.

The World Net KJV is free.  Right now there's only a version for Android phones; an iPhone/iPad version will be out shortly.  And it's only in English at first, with the KJV in other languages to come (I'm bugging them for Arabic and Chinese in particular).

The HFR congratulates the software team of Division Six for their brilliant contribution to the protection of Christians under persecution around the world.

Okay, it's been an intense week so let's go -- and you get only one guess as to who's the HFR Hero of the Week.

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OPERATION CHOKE FREEDOM


If you were a political leader who wanted to control the population, but wanted to do it without using brute force, how would you do it?

The answer: control how individuals and businesses spend their money by controlling their bank and other financial accounts. The Obama administration has set up a program to do just that, called "Operation Choke Point."

If the government can prevent you from spending your money on legal products and information services it does not like, it soon has control over much of your life. You might be thinking this could not happen in America, but it is.

Increasingly, businesses and individuals engaged in legal activities are having their banking relationships severed because people within the Obama administration and some politicians do not like the particular activity.

The Justice Dept.'s "Operation Choke Point" should be renamed Operation Choke Freedom, for that does seem to be its very purpose.

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ARONOFSKY’S NOAH DESERVES AN OSCAR FOR BEST COMEDY OF THE YEAR


I just saw Noah. The film is a remarkable display of special effects. It is also one of the funniest comedies I have seen in a very long time.

Aronofsky deserves a great deal of praise for turning a serious subject into a non-stop laugh fest of techno-electro music, orchestral scores, blasting special effects, and even rock monsters.

The ad campaign tried to ease Christians' nerves that all would be well, artistic license was taken, but the movie would be faithful to the story. If they hadn't tried to con Christians into the movie, I wouldn't have a problem. It was a pretty awesome sci-fi spectacle complete with Ent-like rock monsters, a super-powered Methuselah, Adam and Eve as glow in the dark space aliens, and Hermione Granger.

I am not kidding.

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CHINA IS A SERIOUS COUNTRY — AMERICA IS NOT


Shanghai. The loudest people on the planet are Chinese.  The most obnoxious sound you've ever heard is that of a Chinese man spitting - which they do often and everywhere.  The most evil mass murderer in human history is worshipped as a demi-god by countless Chinese.  His picture is on every denomination of Chinese currency.

The list of Chinese negatives is very long.  And they are all irrelevant.  They are all overridden by one single fact:  that China is a serious country and the Chinese are a serious people - while America and Americans are not.

There is almost no way to describe the massiveness and ubiquity of the construction going on in hundreds of cities.  Gigantic apartment complexes are springing up everywhere.  Bullet trains going 200mph with amazingly smooth rides over railroads that go everywhere.  Superhighways are the same.  There must be at least two or three dozen airlines that fly to hundreds of cities.  Three of them just placed an order for 68 A320s worth $6.75 billion - European Airbuses instead of Boeings as a slap in Zero's face.

This same massive, purposeful, determined energy is being channeled into China's military.  The Chinese will have a full-on blue water navy within a few years.  They are focused on aircraft carrier-sinking cruise missiles, communication satellite-destroying ballistic missiles, undersea cable-slicing deep water robots, and of course, incapacitating our entire computer-based economy and military via hacking.

The Chinese are different from us in many ways.  They operate under a different set of moral rules and proscriptions.  But one thing the Chinese are not is stupid.    Another thing they are not is apologetic and unconfident.

China today is a competitor of America's unlike any we have ever faced.  It is deadly - literally deadly - serious, and deadly smart.  Really smart.  China is becoming more serious, more confident, and more educated-smart by the day - while we are becoming the opposite of all three, by the day.

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THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS


I want to wish you the Merriest of Christmases this Saturday, but according to the song, the First Day of Christmas is the day after Christmas, December 26.

Ancient Christians celebrated "The Holidays," as our militant secularists insist on referring to them now, starting with the day after the birth of Jesus and ending on January 6th with the visit of the Magi in Matthew 2:11 known as the Epiphany. Start with 12/26 and end with 1/6 and you get: the Twelve Days of Christmas.

You may be really tired of hearing Christmas songs by now, including this one, yet you may still be wondering what the heck partridges in a pear tree and eight maids a-milking have to do with the birth of the founder of Christianity.

So I thought we might take a break from Serious Thoughts About World Events, and take a look at the song's origin, meaning, and current urban myth.  For it turns out that all of the song's twelve gifts are Christian symbols.

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PELOSI’S PRIMROSE PATH


The streets are frozen solid here in Washington, its dangerous to even walk to the Metro much less drive around, and I am having so much fun.  It's a tossup over what's more hilarious, the global warming freaks in Congress having to cancel a hearing about how we're all going to fry because of snow blizzards and freezing rain, or the talking news heads endlessly blathering about Anna Nicole.

Most fun of all though is how GW is leading Pelosi Galore right down Primrose Lane - right this way, Nancy.

First he gets her to waste enormous amounts of time in full public view trying to get an impossibly stupid "non-binding" resolution devoid of meaning that has outraged her radical left hate-America base - because they want her to spend her time on defunding the war.

Now that she's making an empty fool of herself to normal voters and infuriating her most fervent supporters at the same time, Bush gets her into a frothing tizzy over Iran.  "The President has no authority to go into Iran," she hyperventilates, thinking that GW is about to land the Marines at Bandar Abbas, seize the Iranian oil fields, bomb the nuke facilities into radioactive rubble, and plunge the world into genocidal chaos.

The lady is being played like a Stradivarius, and she doesn't even know it.  She's oblivious!  This is a thing of sheer beauty.  It can snow and freeze all it wants.  I'm enjoying the view.

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MACHIAVELLI IN TEARS


The liberal media got itself in such a tizzy this week over the "leaked" memo of National Security Advisor Steve Hadley to President Bush that disparaged Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.

It hasn't dawned on our genius reporters that the memo was written to be leaked. I can't believe that the president's national-security adviser would write something so long, so rambling, and so mediocre to George W. Bush. I mean, I'd die of embarrassment before I let any such thing go into the Oval Office with my name on it.

You can see it's a group effort, because with one exception - the sensible suggestion that, at long last, we expand the program that embeds U.S. military personnel in Iraqi military and police units - there's hardly a serious thought in the whole document.

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WIRELESS PIRATES


While setting up a wireless network is easier today than ever, it’s not the type of thing a computer novice is likely to try on his or her own as it requires at least some degree of technical awareness.

One could assume that people who have set up their own wireless networks would be among the users of anti-virus and other security programs. They are almost certainly among those who avoid opening e-mail attachments, who check downloads for viruses, and set up firewalls to keep out unwanted intruders.

But most people’s concerns over security stops at the entrance to their hard drive, it seems.


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HALF-FULL REPORT 07/18/14


"Murder In The Air" was the cover of Newsweek when the Kremlin shot down Korean Air 007 on Sept. 1, 1983.  To this day, the Kremlin has never apologized for what Reagan termed "the savagery of their crime against humanity."  

Sound familiar?  This morning we learned that there are recordings of pro-Russian separatists talking with a Russian GRU (military intel) colonel about their shooting down the Malaysian airliner yesterday (7/17), and that they have recovered the airliner's black box and sent it to Moscow.  Putin Huilo promptly blamed Ukraine for the atrocity - while refusing to deny his mercenaries in Ukraine did it.  Indeed, he denies any of his total sponsorship of the "rebellion" in eastern Ukraine.

The fallout of  the MH17 shootdown is that Russia economically and Putin Huilo politically are both seriously screwed...

... But when, we ask, will Zero be screwed?  On Monday, the liberal paper of  Capitol Hill, The Hill, helpfully answered in a story headlined:  Obama The Pariah.  Yet to realize just how much a pariah Zero has become, there's the feel-good story of the week, that of Peggy Joseph...

... The HFR gives three cheers for three countries this week.  First is, believe it or not, for France!

... The puzzle of the week:  How can such a teeny-tiny fraction of folks in the US be so fascistically powerful?  ...And here's the best news of the week:

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HOW THE GOP CAN REPLACE THE OBAMA MALAISE


What is the Republican Party's vision for America? You may have a hard time answering other than "not President Obama and his policies."

Most Republicans plan to run their fall campaigns focusing on the Obama scandals -- admittedly a target-rich area -- with scandals involving Obamacare, Benghazi, the Internal Revenue Service and Veterans Affairs. All of this is not a vision of the future, though.

It is hard to build a consensus -- but smart, strong-minded individuals in the past have been able to articulate a vision that attracted not only the public but other politicians. Ronald Reagan accomplished this, and he was fortunate to have a visionary economic evangelist by his side who helped shape much of the Reagan program and became its principal salesman.

The GOP needs this man's vision and passion to end the Malaise of Obama.

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