As most of you know, I have an expedition company called Wheeler Expeditions. The expeditions I run myself are mostly for private clients. I am very proud to say that my son, Brandon, has joined me in the business - and he has conceived and organized an amazing adventure which he calls The Gods and Heroes Triathlon.

Next June, Brandon will lead 16 young and young-at-heart adventurers to:

Swim the Hellespont like legendary Leander in Greek mythology (the Hellespont, now in Turkey, is the straits separating Europe from Asia and is where the Trojan War was fought)…

Climb Mount Olympus to the home of the Greek gods…

Run the original Marathon of 490 BC in the footsteps of Pheidippides.

You’ve got to admit that is seriously cool. Brandon has also included visits to Meteora, where Christian monks in the Middle Ages built monasteries atop giant rock spires, Delphi, the center of the Greek spiritual world, and of course Athens, to explore the Acropolis and party at the Plaka.

Brandon wants this to be a Fun Triathlon - not a competitive one. The object is to have as much fun as possible experiencing and recreating the most legendary athletic achievements in history.

Yes, you have to be in good shape. But this is a personal challenge, a personal adventure. The goal is to participate in history, not compete against it. It is not to compete against one’s fellow adventurers, but to share legendary experiences together that everyone will never forget for the rest of their lives.

If you (or anyone you know) would like to make these epic feats and legends of history a part of your (or their) life, the full itinerary is on the Wheeler Expeditions website.

Most everyone has seen the nature documentaries of Sir David Attenborough and is familiar with his name.

Publicizing his imminent new series about the evolution of animals, Sir David said in an interview last week that he thought a reduction in human population during this century is impossible and "we're lucky to be living when we are, because things are going to get worse." People will look back in another 100 years "at a world that was less crowded, full of natural wonders, and healthier."

His is a common view. He longs for people to enjoy the open spaces and abundant herds of game that he has been fortunate enough to see. To that end he thinks it vital that there should be fewer of us.

I would now passionately disagree with the two premises of his argument. It's actually quite likely, rather than impossible, that population will be falling by the end of this century and it is also quite likely that the people alive then will have lots more wilderness to explore and wildlife to admire than today.

The facts that show this and disprove Sir David are fascinating.

If there is one thing government bullies like Barack Hussein Obama and his accomplices in Congress do not understand is that, in Adam Smith's phrase, the "invisible hand" of self-interest is what makes the world work, not them.

A perfect example is their fascist power grab called FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.  The cost of compliance and associated risks of FATCA are so high for foreign financial institutions that it will result in the United States losing hundreds of billions in foreign investment and millions of attendant jobs.

For three decades, a thorn in the side of the big-government bullies like today's FATCA fascists has been a remarkable woman, former U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Faith Ryan Whittlesey.  You should know about her.

Since new CIA Director Porter Goss blocked the October Surprise agency left-wingers had prepared against Bush (discussed in “Porter At The Pass” last week), they desperately rigged another one, working with Mohammad ElBaradei at the UN.

What nobody is focusing on in Al Qaqaagate is that the CIA is behind it.

If any business were to submit a prospectus as patently false and deliberately dishonest as the ones used to advance the cause of the global warming industry, its directors would all be in prison by now.

One candidate for prison would be whoever tweets under the name @BarackObama. When he Tweeted: "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous" he was promulgating a demonstrable untruth.

No one has ever doubted that climate changes.

Pretty much everyone - probably more than 97 per cent, even - agrees that there is a degree of anthropogenic input, even it's just the barely measurable contribution of beef cattle farts or the heat produced by cities.

But the dangerous bit? No one has come even close to demonstrating it, there is no reliable evidence for it, and very few scientists - certainly far, far fewer than 97 per cent of them - would ever stake their reputations on such a tendentious claim.

So how do the eco-swine go on getting away with it? Jamie Whyte provides a fascinating, erudite and original answer in his new paper for the Institute of Economic Affairs: Quack Policy - Abusing Science in the Name of Paternalism. 

If you were unemployed, would you prefer a job or a handout? Most people would say a job because of the self-respect that comes with being productively employed. What is not widely recognized is both the emotional and physical damage long-term unemployment does to many people.

Over the past several decades, there have been many studies about the effects of long-term unemployment on individuals. If you do a Google search of such studies, you will find a remarkable consensus among the researchers -- even though some are funded by government, some by labor groups and some by employer groups.

In sum, all agree that death rates increase markedly for those who lose their jobs. The unemployed, not surprisingly, are much more prone to develop stress-induced conditions such as diabetes and depression. Not being able to find work is stressful, particularly for those with family responsibilities.

It is interesting that even though nearly all agree that involuntary unemployment is harmful to the individual and society, many policymakers are willing to accept it rather than focus on what can be done to prevent it.  President Obama certainly seems to be among them.