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WE SHOULD CARE ABOUT UKRAINE

Richard Rahn February 11, 2014

Why worry about Ukraine? To many, it seems far away and a country about which they know little. (Excepting TTPers, of course, who were updated on events there in the HFR of 01/24/14.)

News clips of the recent violent demonstrations in Kiev have occasionally appeared on the news shows, but most Americans have shown little interest. Yet Ukraine has the very real possibility of setting off the next financial crisis.

The first thing to grasp about Ukraine is its size. It is the largest country in Europe at 233ksm (thousand square miles), bugger than France (213ksm), not quite as big as Texas (268ksm). The second thing is its critically strategic location between Russia and Europe (see maps below).

The crisis scenario is as follows: Russia is Europe's major gas supplier. About half of that gas is sent through pipelines that cross Ukraine. Further, Ukraine is increasingly unstable for three reasons:

IT’S TIME TO CRUSH CLIMATE ALARMISTS

James Delingpole October 8, 2013

With the release of its Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has proved beyond reasonable doubt that it cannot be taken seriously. A sample of reasons why:

IPCC lead author Dr Richard Lindzen has accused it of having "sunk to a level of hilarious incoherence." *Paul Matthews has found a very silly graph; Steve McIntyre has exposed how the IPCC appears deliberately to have tried to obfuscate the unhelpful discrepancy between its models and the real world data; and this latest from Christopher Booker.

Now, of course, I fully appreciate how the climate alarmists are going to respond to these criticisms: same way they always do - with a barrage of lies, ad homs, cover-ups, rank-closings, blustering threats, straw men, and delusion-bubble conferences like the one they've just staged at the Royal Society in which one warmist pseudo-scientist after another mounts the podium to reassure his amen corner that everything's going just fine and that those evil denialists couldn't be more wrong.

There is more than enough solid evidence now to demonstrate to any neutral party that the doomsday prognostications the warmist establishment has been trying to frighten us with these last two decades are nonsense.

The man-made global warming scare story has not a shred of scientific credibility. It's over. And while I don't expect the alarmists to admit this any time soon, I do think the rest of us should stop indulging them in their poisonous fantasy. It's time to crush them instead.

THE SAINTS WHO LOST PARADISE

Dr. Jack Wheeler April 26, 2013

Jamestown, St. Helena, South Atlantic Ocean. If you have ever heard of this little 47 square mile island lost in a vast sea, 1,200 miles west of Africa and 1,800 miles east of Brazil, it’s because here is where the British exiled Napoleon after Waterloo, and here is where he died.

The 5½ years of Napoleon’s exile – October 15, 1815 to his death on May 5, 1821 – dominate the island’s 500-year history. For the last 354 years, since 1659, it has been a British possession. Yet such is the grip of Napoleon that the Brits ceded the home and property of where he lived in exile on St. Helena – called Longwood House – to the government of France.

It is French territory, as is his original burial place nearby. Moreover, there is a Consul appointed by the French government, who lives in a diplomat’s mansion on the island.

Personally, I have no regard for a megalomaniac responsible for the deaths of millions of people. The Brits should have treated him as a war criminal, executed him by firing squad aboard a ship far out to sea, and dumped his body in the ocean.

But no. Instead...

COMMENCEMENT 2009

Dr. Jack Wheeler May 21, 2009

[This commencement address was originally published four years ago. We rerun it annually at college graduation time. Feel quite free to send this to any recent college graduate you may know.]

Mr. Chancellor, Members of the Board of Regents, Members of the Faculty, Honored Graduates, Families and Friends:

It's funny that they call this ceremony a Commencement, for you've all reached the finish line: college, goodbye, we're outta here. Yet of course, "commencement" means a beginning, not an end.

But one is supposed to at least start - commence - a talk such as this by saying funny things. So I'll start by talking about Clark Gable movies. If you've heard of Clark Gable at all, you know he was the biggest movie star in Hollywood a long time ago. His most famous movie was Gone With The Wind.

He made a movie in 1955 called The Tall Men with Jane Russell as his girlfriend and Robert Ryan as the heavy. It's a pretty ordinary Western flick with outlaws and cowboys and Indians - and at the end, Ryan, the bad guy, and his henchmen get the drop on Gable, the good guy, and all seems lost. Suddenly, surprise, Gable outfoxes Ryan and triumphs. Gable makes his exit, and after he does, Ryan delivers a line that I want you to never forget.

MY SISTER AND THE FURRY BAROO

Dr. Jack Wheeler October 4, 2007

OK, this is a shameless plug. It has nothing whatever to do with geopolitics, history, science, or whatever else we at TTP normally focus on. My kid sister Judy has written a book - and it would just be wrong if I didn't tell you about it.

Judy teaches natural history at the Heard Museum near Dallas. What that means is that her calling is teaching children to love nature and the critters you find in it. Now she's written a book to impart that love for children everywhere.

Entitled Jessica The Furry Baroo, it's about a dog, Jessica, and her encounters in the woods with various wild things like skunks and snakes. It's an entertaining and fun way for a young child to understand and appreciate them.

The book is beautifully illustrated, has a story kids will really like, so if you know a young person under 12 you might consider it for them. It's also a fun book to read aloud to a child too young to read themselves.

So - congratulations to Judy, my sister the author!

THE AFRICAN CHRISTIAN CRUSADE

Dr. Jack Wheeler November 22, 2006

Three years ago (November 2003) in The Chinese Christian Crusades, I told you about the program of Chinese Christians to evangelize the world's Moslems.

The program is called Back to Jerusalem -- referring to the lands between China and Jerusalem (Central Asia and the Middle East) which are overwhelmingly Moslem. Getting back to Jerusalem and the birthplace of Christianity means Chinese missionaries in these lands preaching the Gospel and saving Moslem souls for Christ.

Now the largest Christian movement in Africa has decided to do the same.

From the other direction: across the Moslem lands of North Africa and into Saudi Arabia itself. The Saudis are about to find themselves inside an African-Chinese Christian sandwich.

SOMEONE SHOULD TELL THE U.S. GOVERNMENT: IRAN IS AT WAR WITH US

Michael Ledeen March 30, 2006

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is dying of cancer. But he is convinced that his legacy will be glorious. He believes that thousands of his Revolutionary Guards intelligence officers effectively control southern Iraq, and that the rest of the country is at his mercy, since we present no challenge to them - even along the Iraq/Iran border, where they operate with impunity.

They calmly plan their next major assault without having to worry about American retribution. The mullahs have thousands of intelligence officers all over Iraq, as well as a hard core of Hezbollah terrorists - including the infamous Imad Mughniyah, arguably the region's most dangerous killer - and they control the major actors, from Zarqawi to Sadr to the Badr Brigades.

Khamenei and his top cronies believe they have effectively won. They think the U.S. is politically paralyzed, thanks to the relentless attacks of President Bush's Democrat opponents and the five-year long internal debate about Iran policy.

CLEANING UP THE REGISTRY

ttpn January 5, 2005

In an early column I discussed the Windows registry. It holds thousands, sometimes more than ten thousand settings. Some of these settings are for Windows itself, and others are for applications. As time passes, the registry becomes clogged with useless or erroneous entries. These can be left over from incomplete installations, incomplete uninstall routines. Many other problems arise. A user may move an application file without realizing that dozens of registry entries point to the old location. Application errors can leave traces in the registry. Malicious intruders as well, as I’ve discussed on several occasions.

When the registry goes bad your problems can vary from annoying to disastrous. The most common ailment is that the computer slows down. Another common problem is that clicking on shortcuts doesn’t start the program. Further down the scale, some programs won’t run at all. More disastrously still, Windows functions only work intermittently or not at all.

In the past I recommended Norton System Works. Its one step cleanup is good at setting some minor problems in the registry right. I suggested a utility called JV-16 for a thorough cleanup of the registry. JV-16 is no longer in business.

It’s time to choose a new registry cleaner.

THE BREAKUP OF BRITAIN?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard September 9, 2014

Powerful investors across the world have woken up to the possibility that Scotland may vote to break up the United Kingdom next week (9/18), with some already preparing defensive action that risks a potentially dangerous flight from sterling and Britain's bond market.

Japan's biggest bank, Nomura, has advised clients to slash financial exposure to the UK and brace for a possible collapse of the pound after polls showed the independence campaign running neck and neck, warning that the separation of England and Scotland after more than 300 years would be a "cataclysmic shock."

Stephen Jen, head of SLJ Macro Partners and a Chinese-speaker from Taiwan, said Asian investors are flabbergasted by the sight of an ancient and successful union tearing itself apart for no obvious reason. "It is totally bizarre. They simply don't understand it, and nor do I. Until a week and half ago everybody thought there was a zero probability of Scotland voting Yes," he said.

"We have always assumed the United Kingdom would stay united, but now everything we thought about the UK has suddenly been tested, and will have to be repriced."

Simon Derrick, from Bank of New York Mellon, said the UK is leveraged to global financial cycle and has become a magnet for the "carry trade", sucking in funds from Japan, the Middle East and other regions searching for yield.

Mr. Derrick said a 15% plunge in sterling is "quite conservative" given the dangers of a messy divorce. "We think the high $1.40s against the dollar is entirely feasible. People always underestimate how far sterling can fall when the tide turns," he said.

IS THE WORLD HEADED DOWNHILL?

Richard Rahn February 4, 2014

There are many signs that the world may be headed for a new economic slump, or worse. Which countries are best positioned to weather such a downturn and which are not?

Countries that have been fiscally responsible in the recent past are for the most part in better fiscal shape than those that have not, because they have a larger safety cushion.

In the table below, I have ranked countries (the major economies, plus two good examples -- Chile and Switzerland) on three fiscal variables. The first one is the net of their growth rate and deficit for 2013 (i.e., growth rate minus deficit). For most of the major countries, their deficits were greater than their rate of economic growth, giving them a net negative number.

The other variables I listed are government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), and government gross debt as a percentage of GDP. Lower levels of government spending are associated with higher rates of economic growth and vice versa.

So, which countries may make it, and which ones may not?

HOORAY FOR THE SHUTDOWN! IT’S ATLAS SHRUGGED IN REVERSE

James Delingpole October 3, 2013

Bad news, everyone: the panda cam at Washington zoo has fallen victim to the US government shutdown.

Where before, US taxpayers (everyone else too: thanks US taxpayers!) were free any time of day or night to watch the pandas do exciting things like pacing around, sleeping and chewing bamboo on special government-funded spy cameras, now all they see is a black screen and an error message.

Sad, isn't it?

But I don't mean sad as in "Oh no you can't see the pandas." I mean sad that Western civilization has reached such a pitch of decadence that we consider it normal, acceptable even, for the government to confiscate our earnings through the tax system and squander it on fripperies like panda-viewing web cams.

Thus one of the most delicious ironies of this latest shutdown is that it's a curious inversion of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

FREEDOM PARADISE FOUND

Dr. Jack Wheeler April 18, 2013

Edinburgh-of-the-Seven-Seas, Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic Ocean. Welcome to the most isolated community on the planet, on the world's remotest inhabited island.

Named after the Portuguese captain who discovered it in 1506, Tristão da Cunha, it is 1,736 miles from Africa, and 2,466 miles from South America. The nearest inhabited land is the island of St. Helena 1,343 miles to the north, itself so remote that the Brits exiled Napoleon there.

It's not simply that Tristan is far away from anywhere else, it's amazingly difficult to get here. We are the first passenger ship to land here since March of 2012.

Why bother? Why brave often incredibly rough and dangerous seas for days or even weeks to come here on the off-chance that you can go ashore? Just to be able to tell your friends back home you set foot on the world's remotest inhabited island?

Maybe for some. For me, it was the opportunity to meet perhaps the most extraordinarily unique people on earth. I came hoping to find a freedom paradise (more accurately, a conservative-libertarian paradise) - and I found it. But before you start packing your bags, be advised: there is, of course, a catch.

THE WATERMELON WHITE HOUSE

Dr. Jack Wheeler March 4, 2009

Mayor Dean Grose of Los Alamitos, a small community in Orange County, California, resigned Monday (3/02) for emailing this cartoon to some friends, with the caption, "No Easter egg hunt this year."

He resigned because the media screamed the tired old bogeyman of "Racism! Racism!" and he was so stupid he fell for the ridiculous accusation. Mayor Grose promptly begged for forgiveness like a good little white boy, saying he hadn't a clue about watermelons and racism. He probably didn't.

Yet the cartoon above is completely accurate. We do have a Watermelon White House in Washington now. But this hasn't anything to do with silly antiquated racial stereotypes. It has to do with what a watermelon is today in terms of political and social activism.

DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION?

Dr. Jack Wheeler October 18, 2007

A fellow I know, Dave Marlett, answered yes to this question and has come up with a real way to do so. A real way any individual American can.

It happened when he wanted to get his house painted last spring. He couldn't find, out of all the house painting businesses that he called, one that could guarantee it didn't employ illegal alien workers.

There have to be companies who follow the law and refuse to hire illegals, he told himself. But how would he or anyone find them? What if there was a way to find them, a sort of clearinghouse enabling customers all over the country to locate companies that have pledged to hire only legal workers?

That's how Dave conceived of ProAmericaCompanies. http://rebelholiday.biz/ rebel holiday

RANGEL TO THE RESCUE

Dr. Jack Wheeler November 20, 2006

Are the Democrats determined to give the House back to the Republicans in 2008? It sure seems that way with Nancy "The Shrew" Pelosi's petty vindictiveness on such national display that already there's Democrat talk of replacing her as Speaker.

And now right on the heels of her Jack Murtha/Steny Hoyer, Jane Harman/Alcee Hastings debacles comes Charlie Rangel riding to the Republicans' rescue by advocating a return to the military draft.

The extreme hate-America left-wing Democrat from Harlem will be Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in the 110^th Congress, a position of extraordinary influence and power. His is one of the key public faces of the new Dem Majority.

And he has handed the GOP Minority a diamond-studded opportunity to explain to every young voter in America the Democrat threat to their personal liberty.

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