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TEMPUS FUGIT

tempus-fugit

Mdina, Malta. In the medieval city of Mdina on the ancient Mediterranean island of Malta, I saw this carving on a old pillar – a hourglass with wings. What better symbolism could you have for the Roman caution in Latin: Tempus Fugit, Time Flies.

Time flies for everyone, with the irony that the older you get, the faster time flies. We only live once on this Earth. Do what you dream of here and now, for you’ll never have another chance, just the one you have now. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #308 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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SCANDERBEG

scanderbegIn the city of Lezhë overlooking the Adriatic Sea, there is a memorial to Albania’s national hero, Scanderbeg (1405-1468). Born Giorgi Kastrioti in this city of northern Albania, he earned the title of “Lord Alexander” – Scanderbeg in Albanian – for his military genius in leading his Christian army against the Moslem armies of the Ottoman Empire.

For 25 years (1443-1468), his 10,000 Christian Knights consistently inflicted defeat after defeat upon always much larger Moslem forces. His victory in the Battle of Albulena in 1457, where he destroyed an Ottoman army of 70,000, killing 15,000 and taking 15,000 prisoners, so astounded all of Christendom that Pope Calixtus III appointed him Captain-General of the Holy See, and gave him the title of Athleta Christi, Champion of Christ.

By the 1500s with Scanderbeg but a memory, the Ottomans conquered Albania and Islamized it for almost 400 years. With the rise of Albanian nationalism in the late 19th century, Scanderbeg’s memory was revived. Today he is revered by Albanians who only ostensibly remain Islamic yet idolize a Christian King who devoted his life to defeating their country’s Moslem oppressors. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #247 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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US MILITARY PERSUADES ENTIRE VENEZUELAN ARMY TO SURRENDER BY OFFERING THEM SOME FOOD

VENEZUELA — In a remarkable demonstration of martial superiority, the United States military just forced an unconditional surrender out of the entire Venezuelan army just by offering them some food.

According to U.S. General Roger Franklins, the Venezuelan troops had been on the 'Maduro Diet' for so long that they threw down their rifles almost immediately in exchange for a hot meal.

"Think of the most lopsided victories in history," Franklins explained. "Cannae, Operation Desert Storm, the battle of Pavia. This U.S. wins makes those look like kids playing with dart guns. I mean, those boys were starving — no sooner did our interpreters finish saying the words "topped with A-1 Sauce" than the entire army started kneeling on the ground with their hands in the air. Most beautiful battle I ever saw."

According to the Venezuelan troops, the sting of humiliation tastes much better than review marches under Maduro ever did.

"We might be losers in the eyes of our dictator, but at least we have food to eat," explained one corporal, hungrily eyeing his comrades' plates. "We were prepared for Americans with machine guns, but Americans with cheeseburgers? We had no chance."

~ Babylon Bee reporting

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PATAGONIA’S PERITIO MORENO GLACIER

perito-moreno-glacier

One of the most spectacular glaciers on earth, the Perito Moreno spills off the gigantic Southern Patagonia Ice Field constantly calving into Lago Argentino at the bottom of South America. It is almost 100 square miles of ice some 600 feet thick, and is an embarrassment to climate alarmists because it’s growing, not retreating. Every day, huge chunks of ice on the glacier’s front (which you see in the photo) break off or “calve” into the lake, equal to the glacier’s forward advance of two meters or over six feet a day.

Thunderous cracks and booms accompany the plunge of the calved sections with huge splashes of water. You never know when or where they’ll occur along the mile wide front, but when they do, everyone watching exclaims and applauds. We were lucky to have perfectly gorgeous weather. You can take a boat along the front, view it from several boardwalks for marvelous vantage points, or even hike on it with crampons with an ice-trekking guide. Being here is one of Patagonia’s most thrilling experiences.

(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #253 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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HALF-FULL REPORT 12/05/25

Elegance, Class and Patriotism are back at the Christmas White House.  Compare that to last year’s Jill Biden Woke Cutie Pie Boy Toy Christmas Clown Show. What a relief.

And that’s not all that back by a long shot.  Stock markets (DOW, S&P, NASDAQ) have been on a continuous rise since POTUS sat once again at the Resolute Desk, and now higher than ever. Core inflation is lowest since 2020, Black Friday spending broke records, home rents are falling, gas prices are under $3 nationally, lowest since 2021.

There’s more:

Bloomberg reports that Jobless Claims Fell To Three-Year Low Over Thanksgiving.

There’s a lot more too in this HFR, insightful, interesting, important to know, really funny, and entertaining too.

So let’s go!

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DEMOCRATS VOW TO STARVE AS MANY FOOD STAMP RECIPIENTS AS IT TAKES TO GET FREE HEALTHCARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Cory “Let ‘Em Starve” Booker
Cory “Let ‘Em Starve” Booker

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democrats have taken a bold stand by vowing to starve as many food stamp recipients as it takes to get free healthcare for illegal immigrants.

According to prominent Democrat leaders, starving a couple million kids is a small price to pay to ensure that blue states continue to provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants.

"If you're going to make an omelet, you've got to crack a few eggs. And if you're going to give free healthcare to illegal immigrants, you've got to let some children go hungry," said Senator Cory Booker. "Honestly, who cares? Kids can't vote. Plus, they're very resilient, they can dig around in some dumpsters, or forage for berries or whatever. Cry harder."

Booker's statement was echoed by other intellectual pillars of the Democrat Party.

"It's, like, not hard for kids to find food. There are stores literally filled with food," said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "Some food even grows in the ground, and the ground is everywhere, so technically, they can get food from anywhere. You just, like, dig the food out of the ground or whatever."

At publishing time, Democrats had vowed to personally go to grocery stores to filibuster poor people attempting to buy food.

~ Babylon Bee reporting

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THE SANDS OF THE TAKLA MAKAN

takla-makan
photo ©Jack Wheeler

[This Monday’s article was first published in TTP on October 30, 2008 on the eve of the presidential election on Nov 4. I wrote it while following the route of Marco Polo in hope that America would choose wisely.  It did not and suffered horrendous consequences thereby. America did choose wisely last November. Let’s pray it will keep being so – for we are up against a seriously deadly rival in Communist China. This is a story of my personal experience in extreme remote China, told because you may consider it revalatory.]

TTP, October 30. 2008

Charklik, Chinese Turkestan. Since I was a young boy with dreams of exploring the world, the essence of remote mystery was summed up by the innermost heart of Asia called Chinese Turkestan.

What that young boy fifty years ago most dreamed of doing was following the route of Marco Polo through Chinese Turkestan, to those lost and forgotten oases of the Southern Silk Road that hardly anyone in the world knew about much less had been to, with the magical names of Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, Charchan, and Charklik.

For all but the last few of those fifty years the Southern Silk Road was completely off-limits to foreigners, and the road itself a thousand mile-long four-wheel track of mud and sand.  Now it's open, the road is paved, and here I am, having traversed Polo's route from Kashgar to Charklik.

I was expecting an ultimate in the exotic and remote, for things to have changed little since Polo's day.  In some ways that's what I found.  But for others, I am in a state of shock.  What I have found here astounds me, and I thought I'd share it with you.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 10/24/25

My father would have called this AI parody “kidding on the square,” meaning a joke that tells the truth.

However, the Schumer Shutdown was visibly exposed ereyesterday (10/22) when Jeffries’ #2, Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass) admitted the truth. From Official White House Rapid Response:

The RNC will now release a tsunami of attacks ads on the Schumercrats using this “using suffering as leverage” clip.

We’ve only just begun. There’s so much to think about, laugh about, and cheer about in the HFR.  Jump on board!

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THE CIA ATTEMPTED COUP AGAINST TRUMP IS FAILING

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“This isn’t just about Maduro. This is the final nail in the coffin for the CIA-black-budget narco pipeline that’s been running since the 80s.”

- The Ghost of Ezra on “X”

You must wonder: what exactly has CIA Director John Ratcliffe been doing over in Langley, VA, lo these many months since things changed bigly in Swamptopia?

Does he wander the hallways of that giant black box howling ineffectually. . . sit barricaded in his office playing sudoku. . . or is he doing what needs to be done: methodically uncovering and disassembling the diabolical racketeering operation that the agency has become?

One thing for sure: you have heard next to squat coming out of his mouth all year. Mr. Ratcliffe is playing a close hand in a dangerous game and I think that he is for-real.

The CIA, you understand, is the beating heart of the Deep State (a.k.a. the Blob). The Democrat Party and the Never-Trump RINOs are its errand boys. And that is why a ten-year-long coup has been running to smash Trump and Trumpism.

Mr. Trump is now striking at the apparatus of the CIA’s extra-constitutional power and influence: the election interference machinery that queers politics at home and abroad, and the drug cartel that furnishes the money to run CIA’s many black ops, finances the NGOs behind lawfare and gay-communist street action, and probably underlies many a congressional fortune.

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PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY

Jackson age 12, 2005
Jackson at the Sphinx, age 12, 2005

[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on May 13, 2005. These days, we all could use a way to “pretend” to be happy, to transform the seeming mundane into an experience of magical gratitude. I hope you find it useful. Let me know if it does.]

TTP, May 13, 2005

Last week was the 13th birthday of my youngest son, Jackson. One evening a few days before, I was engrossed in writing on the computer when my wife reminded me it was Jackson’s bedtime. He was in bed reading, waiting for me to kiss him goodnight.

As I walked down the hall towards his room, my brain was filled with thoughts about the article I was working on. I was on autopilot and all I could think about was what I would write when I got back on the computer.

For some reason, I stopped and stood still. Somehow, an extraneous thought had popped into my consciousness from nowhere.

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UNPLUGGING THE AUTOPEN PRESIDENCY

Could POTUS’ autopen executive order debench Biden’s 237 leftist federal judges including Justice Ketanji?  It may be legally required.  And that’s only one of a multitude of consequences in Biden’s autopen illegality.

Revelations about President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline have exposed an “autopen presidency” run by unelected aides. Exclusive footage from the Oversight Project shows former Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients and others admitting they propped up a president increasingly unable to perform his duties.

Thousands of documents—including executive orders, pardons, commutations, and judicial commissions—were signed by machine rather than by Biden himself.

On November 28, President Donald Trump declared all documents bearing Biden’s autopen signature “terminated and of no further force or effect.” He estimated that up to 92% of Biden’s official actions relied on the device, accused aides of running a “shadow government,” and warned of perjury charges if Biden denies the facts.

The Constitution (Article II, Section 3) and federal statutes (e.g., 1 Stat. 281 [1792]; 28 U.S.C. § 172; 5 U.S.C. § 2902) require the President to personally sign commissions, which must then bear the Great Seal.

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TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM IS NOT ABOUT VANITY, IT’S ABOUT AMERICAN GRANDEUR

The Democrats, or socialists, or whatever they are these days, are hopping mad over President Donald Trump’s construction of a ballroom in the East Wing of the White House, and while it may be their silliest freakout of the entire Trump era, it is also quite telling.

The ladies on ABC's "The View" were apoplectic when they saw images of demolition, a fairly ordinary way to begin renovations, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They echoed one-time resident Hillary Clinton’s complaint that Trump doesn’t own the White House, even taking to song about it.

What makes this argument so absurd, is that Trump is not building this ballroom for his personal use or glory. It’s not a vanity project. It is a long-considered addition to an executive home that lacked the capacity to hold large indoor events.

Trump, as has always been his wont, is looking to create grandeur, and that seems to be something to which leftists reflexively object.  The ballroom he is constructing will  survive as a symbol of American power long after we are all gone. It will be, in a sense, our generation’s contribution to the people’s home.

Trump wants this venue, this symbol of America, to be grand and classically inspired, a timeless marble monument to a United States that emerged from the 20th century as the world’s only super power.

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THE US NAVY SINKS THE PIRATES

target_drugboatsOn September 2, 2025, U.S. forces wiped a cartel pirate crew off the map in the Caribbean.

The target was a classic modern pirate craft—a swift, unmarked go-fast boat running low in the water, built for speed, smuggling, and violence. It was moving along one of the main narcotics corridors toward the United States when the operation commenced.

By the end of the strike, the boat was gone and all eleven cartel pirates on board were dead. It was the moment the new maritime campaign made its message unmistakable: If drug pirates tried to run the Caribbean, the United States would answer with finality.

The predictable wailing from the coastal elites and their favorite “human-rights” NGOs started before the smoke cleared. “War crime!” they shrieked. “Extrajudicial killing!” Spare us.

These were not innocent mariners. These were modern pirates—stateless, lawless, armed predators operating exactly the way Blackbeard’s crews did three hundred years ago, except instead of dealing in gold doubloons, they steal American lives with fentanyl and cocaine.

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THE ‘NO KINGS’ JOKE FLOP

The Saturday protests were a joke. Why did so many of them dissipate after an hour? Why all the animal costumes? Why did MSNBC have to use years-old pictures of alleged crowds? What do they have to do with “no kings”?

Perhaps the most mysterious, creepy aspect of the whole movement is their willingness to call for violence and the murder of those whom they hate so vehemently. These are demented people. They have been hopelessly inculcated with the anti-American, anti-Trump propaganda that the Marxist left is so good at propagating.

Our old hippies and the college students who have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by their Marxist professors are sitting ducks for George Soros and his ilk. These are the useful idiots, as Lenin called such people, who can be successfully relied upon to mindlessly further his ends.

That pretty much sums up who all those aging, blinkered “no kings” marchers were. Apparently, none of them know that the successful American Revolution rid the new nation of kings for all time.

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HAMAS IS COMING TO AMERICA

Mosab Hassan Yousef has seen how terrorist movements build from the inside, as he grew up the son of one of Hamas’s co-founders. Now he’s warning that jihadis are putting the same destructive game plan that turned Gaza into an Islamic terrorist cesspool into action in the United States.

In a thought-provoking and bone-chilling X post on Nov. 26, Yousef spoke out to warn Americans that Muslim jihadis are as determined to take over America as they are to take over Israel. As Hamas’s backer, the Iranian regime, always said, America is the “Great Satan.”

Jihad is not just about the guns and missiles. It is also about the educational initiatives, mosques, propaganda campaigns, and political efforts.

Yousef’s warning is particularly timely as an Afghan immigrant just gunned down two National Guardsmen in D.C., and radical pro-Hamas Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral election. An Oct. 7 jihadi was also recently found living in Louisiana.

Yousef began:

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