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Thursday, October 29, 2026

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L i k e U s ! ! !

BACK TO BASICS

“Life is a state of dynamic equilibrium (movement and change combined with balance), rather like walking a tightrope. Your continued life requires that your body manufacture tens of thousands of chemicals in the right amounts, at the right places, and at appropriate times. Accumulated damage at the cellular level (regardless of cause) will interfere with this balancing act. Finally a stress comes along (an infection, a mutation causing cancer, or simply exertion from shoveling snow) that you could have handled easily in your youth—but now it pushes you too far from your living dynamic equilibrium, and you fall off the tightrope of life into your grave.” –Durk Pearson

Durk was a fierce advocate for a person’s right to information that concerns him or her. His Life Extension books, and his later ones, were all written with the lay person in mind, not only scientists and doctors. He wanted us to understand our own bodies, how they work, and how to make them work better for longer. And a number of folks have expressed interest in that, so let’s take a good look inside.

Let me introduce you to some “key chemicals that participate in your living and aging.”

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WHY IS CARNEY CHOOSING CHINA OVER AMERICA?

We’re into five or six months now of the Canadian-American trade wars.

It’s kind of Orwellian in the sense that the dispute only involved about 2% of the half-trillion dollars of trade that goes back and forth across our northern border. And because Canada has been running up a $50 billion to $60 billion annual trade surplus, and that’s not the greatest contributor to our trillion-dollar—prior trillion-dollar—trade deficit, you would think that they would make a gesture, just say, “We’re going to lift the 250% tariff over a certain level on American dairy, cheese, etc., and maybe we’ll just go down from about $50 billion or $60 billion in surplus, just for appearances, optics, to maybe $20 billion.” And they could solve it.

Instead, Prime Minister Mark Carney has taken this trade dispute and used it for his political future, his political career. He basically was given somewhat of a vote of confidence in Quebec and Alberta.

That was the point. He got elected by drumming up this hatred of Donald Trump, and I’ll be candid, of the United States. But here’s what’s really strange. He’s now posed, as I said earlier, as a leader of the middle nations.

So get this: He has 75% of his trade with the United States, with almost no transportation cost, and over a small dispute over agricultural products that at most might cost Canada $10 billion or $20 billion of its huge trade surplus, he’s really destroying the entire American-Canadian relationship.

And here’s what he’s doing, and everybody thinks it’s because of Donald Trump’s crudity, his bombast, but this is more existential. He’s doing three things…

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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)

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TREASON INTERRUPTED

Erica Chenoweth is a political scientist  who theorizes that, with 3.5% of a given population, it is possible to mobilize them into a force that can overthrow an existing government or inflict transformative social change.

I think that has to be qualified at least to take in governments and cultures that don’t have a habit of killing the participants and ringleaders once they become known (the Soviet Union, China, and most recently Iran come to mind).

Regardless of the outcome of the mid-term elections in a few days, the Left knows that Trump, and we, are taking their myriad anti-American operations apart bolt by bolt, and they are determined to stop us.

It appears that Chenoweth’s ideas are a cornerstone for a broad-based resistance strategy that, while it has been going on now for some time, is about to take on a new life, focus, and urgency.

The evidence of this has been uncovered in recent days.

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NETANYAHU’S CAPITALIST REVOLUTION IN ISRAEL

Lost in the current debate over Israel and Hamas is the utter transformation of the former over the last two decades.

For years, Israel was a Socialist backwater. A welfare case, filled with smart, hard-working people whose economic system rendered them dependent on the charity of others.

But that was before Benjamin Netanyahu.

The MIT-educated Netanyahu, a longtime friend of Donald Trump’s father, Fred, believed strongly in the power of freedom and free markets to transform Israel’s future. He dreamed of the day when Israel might be the Hong Kong, Singapore, or Silicon Valley of the Middle East.

Beginning in the 2000s, he began to make it exactly that.

The Israel Test

My friend George Gilder — tech guru, father of Supply-Side Economics, and Ronald Reagan’s most-quoted living author — described this transformation in The Israel Test. In it, he posed a moral question that doubles as a growth model: When you encounter excellence — the engineer who invents, the founder who amasses a fortune by creating value — do you admire him or resent him?

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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)

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RITUALS OF PREPARATION

Change and growth is, first and foremost, an active, creative process. Charting a new course for ourselves, even if we’re only talking about a specific habit or two, involves envisioning what we would like different, how we would like it to be different, and what steps we need to take to get there.

Then, most importantly, it requires the commitment to take action, which involves creating the structures that will guide us through the steps and keep us on track; the scheduled appointments, the deadlines, the people who will keep us accountable.

Successful people actually use less willpower than less successful people, because they set up effective rituals, appointments, and accountability structures that build into their day what they would otherwise need willpower to achieve.

Twyla Tharp, the great dancer and choreographer, in her book The Creative Habit, talks about “rituals of preparation:” what creative people do that prepares them to work. This is hers:

I begin each day of my life with a ritual: I wake up at 5:30 am, put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

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GEN Z AND CONSERVATISM – WE NEED TO BACK THEIR PLAY

[TTP: There is so much “news” happening right now, but this article offers such a foundational hope – our youth, checking IN instead of checking OUT.]

In Alabama, the Yellowhammer State's Republican leadership recently launched The Project Future Generation initiative, to connect young people with the Republican Party through outreach, engagement, and direct involvement with local party activity. It is a robust effort to build the generation that will hopefully carry conservatism and Republicanism forward.

I'm glad someone has gotten the memo. There is too much denigration of Gen Z on both the Left and the Right, and part of that fuels the missteps and stupid takes on both sides in their faulty attempts to engage Gen Z in politics, not to mention life.

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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)

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MEMORY LANE TO 1983

Instead of an Archive this Monday, how about a trip down Memory Lane to 1983, and an interview I gave on what was to be come known as The Reagan Doctrine – President Reagan’s strategy to rid the world of the Soviet.

Here you see how I conceived and implemented it at the start. The interview takes 58 minutes so you may want to take a break or two during it.  Do yourself a favor and fast forward past the first 45 seconds so you won’t damage your eardrums with the loud intro music.

I can’t believe how young I looked 43 years ago!  Time take its toll on all of us. Comments are very welcome – let me know your thoughts.

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THE DONGBA SPIRIT OF NATURE

shv-statueOriginally nomads from the Tibetan Plateau, the Nashi people settled in the fertile Himalayan foothills of Yunnan over 2,000 years ago. From the ancient Tibetan religion of Bön, they developed a unique religion of nature-worship called Dongba. The progenitors of humanity and nature were two half-brothers, two mothers with the same father. Nature is controlled by a human-snake chimera called Shv – a statue of whom you see here.

The Nashi are a peaceful gentle people whose ideal is living in accordance with nature. They dress very colorfully, women have equal respect with men, they write with the world’s only still-functioning pictographic script, and are proud of preserving their culture for millennia. It is an enchanting experience to be among them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #163 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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HALF-FULL REPORT 10/23/26

NY Post Sunday October 18

What the heck is going on here?  “Mr. President, can’t you see he’s Putin you on?” is a very good question the Post asks in its Sunday cover story: GOP And Dem Lawmakers Accuse Trump Of ‘Surrender’ To Putin After Prez Waived Sanctions.  It’s a lot worse than waiving sanctions. Immediately afterwards, Putin sends ballistic missiles to blow up kindergartens in Kiev. No complaint whatever from POTUS.

That said, let’s go to good news.  It starts overmorrow, Sunday 10/25.  That’s Election Day in Brazil in the runoff between Freedom and Prosperity, i.e., Flavio Bolsonaro, and Corruption and Impoverishment, i.e., Lula.  The gigantic Bolsonaro rally last night you see below was in Recife in Lula’s now-former electoral heartland of the Northeast.

Of course, Lula’s minions will do their best to steal the election, but at this point is safe to say it’s now too big to rig. This means a flourishing pro-American pro-Christian pro-Western Civilization for Brazil and the entire continent of South America.  The optimism generated from Flavio’s victory will be instantly infectious, especially among Latinos, here with our midterms only 9 days away (10/25-Nov 3).

So let’s go – we’ll start with soon-to-be former Congresswoman Ilhan Nur Said Elmi (D-Somalia).

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MANICHEAN MOMENTS

[This Monday’s Archive was first in TTP as a Glimpse on March 9, 2022, two weeks after Putin invaded Ukraine. The situation remains black and white, there is no gray area, good vs. evil, Ukraine vs. Russia, Zelensky vs. Putin. Zelensky is the most heroic leader of any country in the world today, Putin is the most monstrously evil.  Let us hope that Trump stops taking the side of evil as per his deal for Putin’s diesel and his Truth Social post yesterday (10.18), and soon comes to his senses to embrace decency and freedom once again. And yes, I still believe Ukraine will triumph in the end.]

 

TTP, March 9, 2022

Most often, there are valid perspectives on either side of a dispute, not a simple divide between good and evil with no gray areas in between.  That was not the case in Afghanistan in the 1980s.  The Mujahaddin you see here were fighting a morally just war against immoral atrocity.   The war waged by the Afghan Mujahaddin to liberate their country from Soviet Russian conquest was a Manichean Moment.

 

There is another Manichean Moment taking place right now in Ukraine.  Once again, Russia is attempting to subjugate an innocent country with bombs and immoral atrocity.  This is good vs. evil once more.  There is no gray area.  Those on the side of Ukraine and Zelensky fighting for freedom are on the side of moral decency.  Those on the side of Russia and Putin are not. They are on the side of irredeemable evil.

That’s why, when I see photos of Ukrainian freedom fighters atop Russian tanks they captured, it reminds me of those I took of Afghan freedom fighters atop Russian tanks they captured.  The Mujahaddin defeated Russia a third of a century ago.  The Ukrainians will defeat Russia now.  Good will triumph over evil once more. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #191 Afghanistan photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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THE DEMOCRAT BRIEF AND THE TRUMP COUNTERSTRATEGY

Since Jimmy Carter, the Democrat Party’s foreign and domestic brief has converged on one operating premise: American decline is inevitable, and the Party’s claim to power is that it will manage that decline more gracefully than its rivals.

Each Democrat administration from Carter through Biden has added policies that, taken together, shrank American hard power, ceded industrial ground to China, loosened control of the border, and turned federal institutions inward against domestic opponents while exacerbating political and cultural divisions among Americans.

The Trump administration’s second-term program, a hemispheric “Fortress America” strategy, is best understood as a deliberate reversal of that brief.

Let us examine the premise.

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THE DEMOCRATS’ ENSLAVEMENT

There is a strange spectacle unfolding in American politics. The Democratic establishment calculatingly spends its dwindling energies bowing to its growing and increasingly radical left wing that has openly declared its intention to replace it.

The Democratic Socialists of America, the streamers, the campus activists, and the insurgent candidates who style themselves as the party’s conscience have never hidden their goal. They do not want a seat at the table. They want the whole tent, and they have said so.

Yet the establishment responds not with resistance but with flattery, cheerfully murmurating about how big that tent is. That now proverbial tent has become a cage, and the Democrats are in it.

To understand why, we have to understand the historically peculiar power of the radical left. In raw numbers, it remains a minority within the party, but numbers have never been its weapon.

Its weapon is intensity.

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