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GERMANY STRANGLES GREECE

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras faced a furious backlash from own Syriza party last night (7/13) after yielding to draconian demands from Europe’s creditor powers, and agreeing to let foreign supervisors to take control of his country.

The terms imposed after marathon talks through the night on Sunday (7/12) are far harsher than those rejected by Greek voters in a landslide referendum a week ago, and risks shattering democratic consent in Greece. It has left Europe bitterly divided along North-South lines of cleavage, severely testing the political cohesion of monetary union.

“Greece has been devastated and humiliated. Europe has showed itself Pharisaical, incapable of leadership and solidarity,” said Romano Prodi, the former Italian prime minister.

An independent fund will take control of €50 billion of Greek state assets, collateral to prevent Syriza reneging on the deal at a later date. Three-quarters of this will be sued to recapitalize the Greek banks and repay debt.

International inspectors will have the power to veto legislation. The Radical-Left Syriza government will be forced to repeal a raft of laws passed since it took power in January, stripping away the last fig leaf of sovereignty. It is unconditional surrender to Germany. Greece may now explode.

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WHAT SHOULD MONEY BE?

What is money? The coin and currency that you have in your pocket? The balances you have in your checking, money market or savings account? How about the value of your stocks and bonds?

The government (mainly the Federal Reserve) provides numbers about the money supply -- M1, M2, M3 and M0, which only goes to show that there is no simple definition on which all agree.

The economist-technologist-philosopher George Gilder, who has written many bestselling and provocative books, including "Wealth and Poverty," "Microcosm," "Telecosm," "Sexual Suicide" and "Knowledge and Power," has now produced a remarkable essay titled, "The 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money."

In sum, Mr. Gilder argues that money is information, and that at some point a bitcoin-like non-government money will emerge on the Internet whose price will merge with that of gold, becoming bitgold.

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THE ANTIDEPRESSANT IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR

About 20 years ago, my mom gave my then-new bride and me what has over the years become one of our most use-worn cookbooks: The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook. Being someone at the time who enjoyed eating whatever I wanted, a cookbook with the word “diet” in it would not normally grab my attention.

But fortunately my wife is smarter than me, and I love olive oil, garlic, tasty spices and fish, so these were and are recipes that have never felt like diet food. Throw in a little red wine, and you’ve got a regular celebration.

The idea is that by eating food that features a variety of multicolored, nutrient-rich vegetables, low in saturated fats, with an emphasis on more omega-3 fatty acids (found in deepwater ocean fish like salmon), our hearts and the rest of our bodies can be much healthier over time.

But this story is becoming much more interesting. It looks like the food we eat may have a lot to do with our psychological and emotional health as well.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 07/10/15

Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive insane. It was a proverb in Ancient Greece, so old no one knew who first said it. In Antigone, Sophocles (496-406 BC) has his Chorus put it this way: Evil seems good to a man whose mind a god leads to destruction.

Sure seems like they were talking about America today. The same with historian Will Durant. In his Epilogue to Caesar and Christ (Volume III of his monumental The Story of Civilization) entitled “Why Rome Fell,” he points with shuddering accuracy to what’s happening to our country:

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.

You can be quite confident that both Sophocles and Will Durant would wearily respond with “What did I tell you?” if they were told of this headline yesterday (7/09):

Oregon Allowing 15 Year-Olds To Get State-Subsidized Sex-Change Operations

This is not only insanity, it is criminal insanity. Note than on top of criminal child abuse being paid for by taxpayers, it can be performed without parental notification.

All members of the Oregon state government who permit this – specifically those on the Health Evidence Review Commission (HERC) who voted for it – and all doctors who perform such criminal surgery, need to be in prison.

How is it possible that America got itself in such a morass of lunacy? Another observation of Will Durant applies: “It may be true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”

America elected an evil madman to lead it in order to appease guilt-mongering anti-white racists. He proceeded to drive the entire country insane enough to reelect him, and is now determined to drive it so fully insane it will destroy itself from within.

Further, he has discovered the key of how to do so. Perversely, he learned it from Will Durant. For it was Durant who explained, “The family is the nucleus of civilization.” Destroy the family and you destroy a civilization, in this case America’s. The Madman in the White House has learned this lesson well.

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EURIPIDES IN EUROPE

Like a tragedy from Euripides, the long struggle between Greece and Europe's creditor powers is reaching a cataclysmic end that nobody planned, nobody seems able to escape, and that threatens to shatter the greater European order in the process.

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras called Sunday’s (7/05) referendum with the expectation - and intention - of losing it. To his party’s consternation, it won, igniting the great Greek revolt of 2015, the moment when the people finally issued a primal scream, daubed their war paint, and formed the hoplite phalanx.

Events are now spinning out of control. The banks remain shut. The ECB has maintained its liquidity freeze, and through its inaction is asphyxiating the banking system.

Factories are shutting down across the country as stocks of raw materials run out and containers full of vitally-needed imports clog up Greek ports. Companies cannot pay their suppliers because external transfers are blocked. Private scrip currencies are starting to appear as firms retreat to semi-barter outside the banking system.

Yet if Greece is in turmoil, so is Europe. Don’t be surprised if Europe starts begging America once again to save it from a disaster of its own making.

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THE NO DEAL DEAL

I don’t want to be the sole bearer of bad news for Ben Rhodes, Obama’s guru on Iran, but here it is:  the Iranians at Vienna won’t sign anything, per their instructions from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Full credit for this diplomatic accomplishment goes to President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, Guru Rhodes and the rest of the administration strategists. 

Their constant offer of more–more money, more gold, more limits on annoying inspections, more cooperation in the air and on the ground with Iranian forces, etcetera etcetera–solidified Khamenei’s conviction that there is no reason for him to approve a hated deal with the devil. 

Keep reminding yourself that Khamenei has two fixed principles:  no “new relationship” with the Great Satan, and relentless pursuit of the atomic bomb.

Obama/Kerry/Rhodes won’t take “no” for a definitive answer, so we’re probably going to see a new form of creative appeasement.  Short version:  It will be a “no deal deal.”

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CHINA AND WILE E. COYOTE

While all Western eyes remain firmly focused on Greece, a potentially much more significant financial crisis is developing on the other side of world.

In some quarters, it’s already being called China’s 1929 – the year of the most infamous stock market crash in history and the start of the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression.

In the past three weeks, the Chinese stock market has lost $3 trillion, while Beijing’s interventions to stem the panic have been unsuccessful.

Yet the pantomime of the Greek debt talks, together with the tragi-comedy of will they/won’t they leave the euro, has relegated the story to little more than a footnote - even though 1,400 companies, some 40%, have now suspended trading on China’s two main indices.

The parallels with 1929 are, on the face of it, uncanny. As are those with Wile E. Coyote.

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WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FAILED STATES NOW?

The greatest threat to global security is the rapidly increasing number of failed states.

Even though there is no agreed-upon definition of a failed state, it is generally understood that when a government can no longer provide basic security to its people due to a rise in violence or extreme poverty, or loses control over part of its territory to domestic or foreign terrorist groups, the state has failed.

A major reason to be concerned about the increasing number of failed states is that they are natural breeding grounds for local or international terrorists.

And given the increasing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and nuclear, the more failed states, the higher the probability of the bad actors being able to develop or acquire very lethal weapons. All of this leads to an increased probability of terrorists hitting targets in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

There’s a baker’s dozen of failed states around the world now, with more to come. Let’s look at them.

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BLACK OWNED BAKERY SUED BY HOMOSEXUAL CONFEDERATES

Lawrence Williams, the African-American owner of Tasty Treats Bakery™ near Marietta, Georgia, has found himself in legal trouble for refusing to bake a cake for two homosexual customers.

"It's not only against my religious convictions," said Williams, "but I can't bring myself to bake a Ku Klux Klan-themed cake festooned with Confederate flags. I told them firmly, but respectfully, that I couldn't serve them, but that they should be able to find another bakery in the area that would."

However, that answer wasn't good enough for homosexual Confederate Civil War reenactors Chester McElroy and Delmont Elkins. "I can't tell you how hurt we was," lamented Chester. "All we wanted was a cake to celebrate General Forrest's birthday comin' up next week, and he done turned us down flat."

"It was gonna be a real beauty of a cake, too," added Delmont. "We was lookin' forward to celebratin' the birthday of the founder of the KKK with a white cone-shaped cake an' tiny Confederate flags all over it, but now that ain't happenin'. Chester here even got the wood at Home Deppo fer the cross burnin'." Chester nodded while restraining tears.

When asked why not find another bakery or even make their own cake, Delmont answered ...

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HALF-FULL REPORT 07/03/15

Sandpoint, Idaho.  It is excruciatingly ironic to be writing this Fourth of July HFR in a place that epitomizes Norman Rockwell America while our country is being engulfed in anti-American fascist insanity.

Voted by Rand McNally as the Most Beautiful Small Town in America, Sandpoint is a perfect place to celebrate the Fourth.  For beyond its beauty and charm, it is peaceful, friendly, and patriotic.  People here are deeply proud to be Americans, and they'll express it with joyful enthusiasm tomorrow.

Notice, however, I said Sandpoint is a perfect place to celebrate America's creation, not the.  For there are an uncountable number of similar places in our vast country - peaceful, friendly, patriotic, proud to be American.  Norman Rockwell's America still exists, no matter how much the Fascist Left wishes to exterminate it.

Their extermination efforts went into overdrive this week, with John Roberts being blackmailed yet again to uphold Obamacare, followed by what is is unquestionably the most perverted - morally and legally - decision in SCOTUS history at least since Roe v. Wade, if not ever.

Here are specific solutions on how to take the offensive, to refuse to obey in every way we can, and most importantly framing our refusal as opposition to fascism, as an issue of freedom vs. fascism.

Here's our mantra for the fight:  Just say No to the Gaystapo!

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THE GREEK BOTTOM LINE


What's going on regarding Greece?  Here's one bottom line: 

The people who run the EU and the Eurozone have suffered a reputational catastrophe.  The EU/Eurozone has shown itself unable to manage its basic moral responsibilities

Oxi Day (pronounced oh-hee, the Day of No) has totemic significance in Greece. It commemorates the defiant Greek "No!" to Mussolini's ultimatum in October 1940, and the heroic acceptance of war against a vastly bigger military machine.  Churchill's praise was:  "Greeks don't fight like heroes - heroes fight like Greeks."

It is the same word - Oxi, No! - that will top the ballot sheet when Greeks vote in a snap referendum this Sunday (7/05) on creditor demands, and prime minister Alexis Tsipras is not shy in evoking the same spirit of wartime resistance.

Ambulances in parts of northern Greece have run out of fuel. The Greek Chamber of Commerce warns of "serious shortages" of basic goods and pharmaceutical supplies within days. The radical-Left Syriza government is skating on very thin ice.

If Europe's creditor powers have succeeded in bringing Greece to its knees, they have paid a fearful price themselves. As Pyrrhus of Epirus said after the battle of Asculum in 279 BC: "Another such victory, and we will be utterly ruined."

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THE LEFT EXISTS TO DESTROY YOU


Republicans are still trying to figure out a truce on gay marriage. They retreated to civil unions, then accepted a full defeat on gay marriage and then acted baffled when Christian bakery owners were dragged into court for refusing to participate in gay weddings.

The left does not care about gay rights. If you doubt that, consider how many of the left's favorite Muslim countries have gay rights. The left has recently divided its campaign passions between gay marriage and defending Iran. Iran denies the existence of gays and hangs them where it finds them.

To understand the left, you need to remember that it does not care about 99 percent of the things it claims to care about.

Name a leftist cause and then find a Communist country that actually practiced it. Labor unions? Outlawed. Environmentalism? Chernobyl. The left fights all sorts of social and political battles not because it believes in them, but to radicalize, disrupt and take power.

The left does not care about social justice. It cares about power.  That is why no truce is possible with the left. Not on social issues. Not on any issues. The bottom line is that the left exists to destroy you.

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MORE GREEK TRAGEDIES TO COME?


Greece and too many other countries have been trying to defy gravity by living the good life on borrowed money. In 2001, the Greeks entered the eurozone, which gave them access to low-rate loans under the pretense that Greece was richer than it was.

The seeds of the destruction that resulted in the closure of the banks this week were planted the day the Greeks adopted the euro. None of this should have been a surprise to anyone. The only thing for certain is that the Greeks will now suffer another major drop in their real incomes.

The open question is will the Europeans, the Americans, the Japanese and others who also have been living on borrowed money, growing at unsustainable rates, learn the lessons from the latest Greek tragedy, or will they too march off the cliff?

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THE BEST MENTAL EXERCISE IS PHYSICAL


Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
- Thomas Jefferson

It's no secret that exercise is good for our physical health.  As a friend of mine puts it: "In short, physical activity is the best, easiest and cheapest way to decrease your mortality risk and increase your life span. It is also the most powerful anti-aging tactic we've got."

But exercise is vital for our mental health as well; and sitting a lot and not exercising is tremendously harmful for our emotional and psychological life.

I've written about the upsurge in depression over the past several decades. The most popular treatment for depression nowadays is medication. It's quick to administer, it's easy to do - just take a pill.

Exercise isn't as easy as medication; it takes work, self-discipline and perseverance. But exercise is as much as 2½ times as effective as medication for overcoming depression.

Once we develop the habit of exercise, we can easily overcome the inertia and the discomfort; then the benefits we gain against the depression continue, and the side effects are all positive.  Here's how to do it.

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