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HALF-FULL REPORT 08/09/13


OK - it's the middle of August, and it's time for a Fun HFR.  Are you old enough to remember The Coasters?

coasters.png

Growing up in the Fifties, we knew all their songs by heart, like Searchin', Poison Ivy, and Yakety-Yak.  And who could forget Charlie Brown?  Every high school had a class clown, and the Coasters' classic was about him.  

This week, their Golden Oldie became President Zero's theme song.  Watch and listen to The Coasters' performing it on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in March of 1959, to understand why... 

...All of a sudden, everybody's picking on our dunce of a president. On Monday (8/05), a George Mason University study showed that Zero is now the most popular butt of late-night show jokes, including Letterman, Leno, Fallon, and Kimmel.   On Tuesday (8/06), he gave a gaffe-tastic interview with Jay Leno, saying, e.g., Charleston SC and Jacksonville FL were ports on the Gulf of Mexico. 

Cartoonists are having a field day making fun of Zero's wimping out regarding the "threat" of Al Qaeda's "chatter."   And then there's Sama.
 
Sama Elmasry is a voluptuous and extremely popular Egyptian entertainer - and much more so this week with her latest video that's gone over-the-top viral in Egypt and across the Arab world.  You gotta prepare yourself for this as it'll blow you away.  This is the most extraordinary political video of modern times.

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UNCLE SAM IS A THIEF


There has been global outrage about the proposal from the Cyprus government to have a significant one-time tax on those who have deposits in Cypriot banks. It has been correctly called a theft of private capital. What many fail to realize is that from the beginning, governments have been engaged in this type of theft, including the U.S. government.

As the debt crisis deepens, governments are likely to increasingly engage in various forms of capital expropriation despite the fact that such activities are economically destructive and morally offensive. The U.S. government is now doing precisely what the Cypriot government is proposing, but only with a lighter and more subtle touch.

There are a number of actions governments take to expropriate capital without explicitly saying so.  For example, if you have a savings account, a CD or money market fund, there is a good chance that you are receiving less than 1 percent interest on the money, thanks to the Federal Reserve, while government-caused inflation is running at roughly 2 percent.

Thus, you are, in effect, suffering a 1 percent expropriation of your savings each year -- without Congress ever having voted for such expropriation. It gets worse.

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TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL ABBOTT’S LETTER TO HILLARY CLINTON


October 25, 2012

The Honorable
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Madam Secretary:

Yesterday you received a letter from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) asking that the U.S. Department of State take steps to ensure the OSCE's election observers are not "restrained in their activities" while in the State of Texas. It appears that OSCE is under the misimpression that the State Department can somehow help its representatives circumvent the Texas Election Code.

Texas law prohibits unauthorized persons from entering a polling place-or loitering within 100 feet of a polling place's entrance-on Election Day. OSCE monitors are expected to follow that law like everyone else.

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CELEBRATING COLUMBUS AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION


Today, October 12, is the 514th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landing on Guanahani (now known as San Salvador or Watlings) island in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492.

Unfortunately, Columbus Day is for most Americans just an excuse for a three-day weekend, which is why it fell on Monday, October 9.  What it should be is a commemoration and celebration of  Western Civilization - which is why the Left hates Columbus and his holiday.

Fortunately, North Korea's botched nuclear bomb explosion shooed the Columbus Day protestors off the newspaper pages and television screens. 

Thankfully ignored was the usual spectacle of American Indians using the holiday to denounce the White Man and his genocidal war-mongering culture-destroying earth-murdering imperialism, blah blah blah - with White Liberals joining in, masochistically condemning their own civilization.

But they will be at it again next year, so let us suggest to them now that they abandon every vestige of the civilization they hate as so evil - for else they are bottomless hypocrites.

Not just every material benefit - electricity, the wheel, and all post-Stone Age inventions. Every psychological vestige as well - starting with the very concept of American Indian or Native American or any other collective term.

For the reality is that there were no Indians in America when Columbus discovered it.

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HOW TO SPOT AN ILLEGAL ALIEN A MILE AWAY

There's a cheap and easy way for anyone protecting the US-Mexico border from the alien invasion - such as the Minutemen - to spot an illegal a mile away.  So if you know any Minutemen, feel free to forward this to them.

For here's how they can make their own Illegal Alien Detector.

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BENEDICT TO THE RESCUE


In a week where California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed a hyper-leftwing pro-abortion lesbian “married” to her “partner” as his chief of staff, and South Africa’s Constitutional Court ordered Parliament to legalize homosexual “marriage,” the moral sanity exhibited by the Catholic Church was a welcome relief.

On Wednesday, November 29, the Vatican issued an Instruction entitled, Concerning the Criteria of Vocational Discernment Regarding Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of their Admission to Seminaries and Holy Orders, which now has the authority of canon law.

Pope Benedict is taking a moral stand, standing firmly against the shrieking gales of limp-wristed liberalism. He is determined not only to rid his church of pederastic perverts, but is determined that his church is the moral rock of St. Peter that it is supposed to be.

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Drifting, Dangerously

If the terrorists are as cabalistic as it seems (the eerie fact that the terror attack in Madrid on March 11 arrived exactly 911 days after 9/11 has been noted, and should be underlined), then one possible target date is 6/11 — six being an inverted nine — which comes a couple of days before the Italian vote for the European parliament. Probably a good day to visit Baghdad -- or anywhere but Italy.

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Need Help With Windows?

[To The Point is exceedingly happy to announce a new feature: a column on computers, science, and technology by Dennis Turner. As my friend for almost 40 years, Dennis is almost impossibly smart with a stratospheric IQ and a deep understanding of the welter of technology that can so easily baffle and infuriate the rest of us.

I suggested to him that he write a TTP column with advice we could really use to make life with computers, science, and hi-tech easier. Here’s his first. Among his many talents, Dennis is a world-class professional computer programmer. If you or your company has any serious and difficult-to-solve programming needs, you can contact him at dennist@zahav.net.il. As you can tell by the “il” country code, Dennis resides in Israel. -JW]

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THE BRICS HIT THE WALL


Half the world economy is one accident away from a deflation trap. The emerging market bloc makes up half the world economy, far higher than in any previous crisis. Roughly $4 trillion of foreign funds swept into emerging markets after the Lehman crisis, much of it by then "momentum money" late to the party.

One country after another is now having to tighten into weakness. Neil Shearing from Capital Economics says Brazil, India and Russia are all suffering from the 1970s curse of "stagflation," unable to stimulate their economies to revive growth.

Mr. Shearing said the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are in worse shape than many of the other emerging market states, but the strains are spreading.

While every story is different, the common theme for the BRICS is that they have exhausted their catch-up growth models, let credit booms get out of hand and failed to push through reforms while the going was good. Productivity rates have plummeted almost everywhere.  That most certainly includes China.

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WHICH COUNTRY WILL TRIGGER THE COMING GLOBAL TAILSPIN?


Which country will serve as the trigger for the next financial crisis? Given the continuing rise in debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratios in many countries, it is apparent that a new financial crisis will occur. Most of the speculation has been about when, rather than where. The most likely candidates are heavily indebted countries with a large growth deficit.

The growth deficit is the difference between expected GDP growth and the expected government spending deficit as a percentage of GDP.  The way to eliminate the growth deficit is by either increasing economic growth or reducing government spending.

Almost all economists understand that economic growth can be increased by (1) reducing taxes on labor and capital, (2) eliminating counterproductive regulations, and (3) putting an end to monetary uncertainty.

But what government understands this?  Massive deficit spending has not worked as advertised, for a number of years in the countries listed in the accompanying table. All of them are at risk of even more financial shocks and stresses, and none of them seems politically able to make the degree of necessary change to solve the mess.

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THE OPPORTUNITY BIDEN GAVE TO ROMNEY FOR TONIGHT’S DEBATE


Joe "The Smirker" Biden's off-the-wall non-stop rudeness to Paul Ryan in their debate last week was repulsive to all Americans who value plain decency and courtesy.

His boss, Mr. Obama, by contrast announced that he "could not be prouder" of his vice-president, deeming his debate performance and his treatment of Mr. Ryan as "terrific."

This presents Mitt Romney with a marvelous opportunity, in the second presidential debate tonight (10/16), to ask his opponent if he really is proud of his El Segundo interrupting Mr. Ryan 85 times and laughing about the prospect of Iran nuking Israel.

Mr. Romney has an even greater opportunity, however, to ask his opponent if he agrees with Mr. Biden's incredible lies and distortions during his "terrific" debate.

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AIRHEAD AMERICA


It's hard to fathom why John Roberts would murder the Constitution today, but his mental contortions don't matter.  The reality is that America no longer has a Constitution, thanks to his vote and that of the four other loony-left libs on the No Longer Supreme Court.

Without a Constitution providing a coherent rule of law, America is now a thoroughly lawless nation.  There are many consequences to this, and among them is that no one is obligated to obey the law because the law no longer exists.  What exists now in place of law are threats - hundreds of thousands of threats issued by federal bureaucrats who call them "regulations," and enforced by gun-toting federal goons.

The threats of a federal agent are not morally different now than those of a mugger in an alley.  When either one sticks a gun in your face and yells, "Your money or your life!", it is a purely pragmatic decision to give the thief your wallet - but you are under no moral obligation whatsoever to do so.

What happened today in the No Longer Supreme Court's 5-4 upholding of ZeroCare is an ultimate expression of Airhead America. 

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ADVENTURE 2007


Ever dream of going on a classic private-tented safari in Africa, to witness the world's greatest wildlife spectacle - the Great Migration of over a million animals across the Serengeti Plains - by day, and enjoy fine wines and gourmet food by a campfire at night with lions coughing in the distance?

Ever dream of standing on the sea-ice of the frozen Arctic Ocean right at the North Pole, the very axis of the earth, while the entire planet revolves underneath you and the sun circles around you in constant daylight - and celebrating the moment with Dom Perignon champagne and beluga caviar?

Ever dream of going to a place so remote and mysterious that few people have ever heard of it, a place that has been closed to outsiders for years and still needs a special permit to visit, a place tucked into a hidden corner of Asia with Tibetan monasteries, incredibly colorful primitive tribes who have never seen a Westerner, and white-water rafting through jungles full of tigers and cloudy leopards?

Ever dream of standing on a glacier at the most scenic spot on planet earth surrounded by mountains over 26,000 feet high including K2 (28,250'), helicoptering to a tiny kingdom inhabited by the world's longest-lived people, driving by jeep track to villages peopled by descendants of the troops of Alexander the Great, then reaching the fabled Khyber Pass securely protected by Afridi tribesmen who have pledged their lives to you?

Each one of these dreams can come true for you next year, 2007.

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THE 10TH CENTURY AND THE 20TH

When I was an undergraduate at UCLA, my favorite professor was Dr. H. L. Kostanick.  He taught political geography.  He never used a lectern or notes.  Always dressed impeccably in a coat, tie, and sweater vest, he would stand before us, hands in his pockets, and explain the world to us.

Every lecture, no matter about what part of the world, was fascinating.  But most memorable of all was his lecture on the Middle East.  "Ladies and gentlemen, the most critical thing to understand about conflict in the Middle East," he told us, "is that it is not a conflict between Arab and Jew.  It is a conflict between the 10th century and the 20th."

Dr. Kostanick (who was not Jewish - his family was from Macedonia in northern Greece) delivered that lecture in 1965.  It was the first thing I thought of when I saw Dr. Wafa Sultan on Al-Jazeera TV.

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