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A QUICKIE FIX


Folks, I'm sorry but this week has been taken up with legal matters over my late brother's estate.  However, I found an easy solution to the auto restart problem we discussed last week.  It eliminates not only the nagging but disables the automatic reboot altogether.

The solution involves adding a registration key to your windows registry.  I know most of you don't dare play with your registry and I advise against it.  However a knowledgeable programmer has written a problem that does it automatically.  I tried it on all three of my computers.  It worked without any problem.

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Chapter Sixteen: XICOTENCATL – YOUNG AND OLD


Chapter Sixteen: Xicotencatl – Young and Old


Malinali was stunned that Cortez was speaking this way to the Tlaxcalan elders. She knew how close the Spaniards were to giving up, how they feared another attack. But… but… the Tlaxcalans did not know this. They must have believed what she told the prisoners she had set free! Yet how did Cortez learn of this? She had not told him what she had done. It must be that Cortez was a genio with people as Bernal said.

For Cortez’s words had the desired effect on the Tlaxcalan chiefs. They bowed deeply, swore that Young Xicotencatl would come, said that all Tlaxcala will rejoice when the Malinche and his men will be at their capital, and left looking relieved and satisfied.

Even more relieved and satisfied were the Spaniards. With turkeys, maize cakes, cherries and other food in abundance, plus the promise of no more attacks, the camp was full of laughter – and no grumbling, not even from de Grado. Cortez was pleased, and made sure everyone saw he was – but he also made sure the patrols and scouts continued, day and night, to search for danger. He had no trust in this Young Xicotencatl.


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HALF-FULL REPORT 01/30/15


Are you ready for Vegas?  Yes - the TTP Vegas Rendezvous is official!  It's at the Platinum Boutique Hotel & Spa, just off the Strip and its most famous intersection of Caesar's, Bellagio, Paris, and the Flamingo.

The dates are Friday April 24th to Sunday April 26.  We haven't been able to hold a Rendezvous since 2011 as I've been traveling so much.  And with so many requests - "Come on, Jack, when's another Rendezvous??" - it was clear we better have one this spring. 

So give Miko a call at 202-656-3008 or email him at miko@tothepointnews.com to sign up now.  I'll see you in Vegas!...

Well, here's a first.  Never before has the HFR found cause to praise Mrs. Zero, but we're happy to so this week....

Dissolve the intelligence agency that has all the dirt on you, in order to deflect attention away from you for the murder of the investigator exposing you?  Good luck, murderess.  Argentina's Curse of Cristina may with any luck soon be over...

Speaking of murderers.  Yesterday (1/30), Texas proceeded with the execution of Robert Ladd after the Supreme Court rejected ACLU arguments that his IQ was too low at 67. Here's why IQ is irrelevant...

Our HFR Health & Fitness feature this week focuses on news stories like this on CBS on Tuesday (1/27): Common Allergy Meds May Increase Odds of Dementia.  Here's how to avoid that and start thinking sharp and clear at any age...

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PREDICTIONS ON WEALTH OR WEATHER ARE JUST A ROLL OF THE DICE


How many hurricanes do you think will hit the East Coast of the United States in 2015? Will the Arctic ice sheet disappear next year? How fast will the U.S. economy grow? What will the level of the Dow Jones stock index be at the end of 2015? Which team will win the World Series?

Go back and look at past predictions made by the experts, and then look at what really happened.

Climate alarmists 15 or so years ago were forecasting catastrophic events by this time. Al Gore and his alarmist crowd told us that by now we would be having more and stronger tornadoes and hurricanes.

And indeed, many tornado and hurricane records have been broken -- not because there were more, but because there have been fewer. Florida has now gone a record nine straight seasons without a significant hurricane.

Government economists have no better track record at predicting what will happen to the US economy next year than climate alarmists.  Maybe worse and here's why.

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HOW BITCOIN TECHNOLOGY COULD CREATE A FAR FREER WORLD


Amid the current maelstrom of war, disease and politics, you might have not been paying much attention to bitcoin, the electronic form of money favored by radical libertarians and drug dealers. Yet it is possible that when the history of these days comes to be written, bitcoin's story will loom large.

Unnoticed except by the tech-obsessed, the technology behind bitcoin may be slowly giving birth to a brave new world, with eventual implications well beyond money.

So argues Bitcoin: The Future of Money?, a new book by Dominic Frisby, a columnist for MoneyWeek magazine published in Britain.

Frisby makes the case that it is just possible that bitcoin and its rivals - known as altcoins - and the "blockchain" technology that lies behind them have the potential to spark a radical decentralization of society itself. They could change the way governments finance themselves, make banks redundant and transform the ways companies are run.

If he is right, then the founder of bitcoin will take his place alongside the great inventors. So who is he?

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THE DOUBLE DEATH KNELL OF WARMISM AND DEMOCRAT FASCISM


The Left died last Sunday (9/21).  It was a spectacular demise, with 400,000 weirdly costumed moonbats clogging up the streets of downtown Manhattan engaged in a "People's Climate March."

What we witnessed was the socio-political equivalent of what biologists call "death fluorescence."  They've actually photographed a death wave of bright blue fluorescence propagating through an organism as it dies.

Reason TV essentially recorded the same phenomenon in New York on Sunday:

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You can just see the blue wave enveloping the bearded idiot at the end who says the solution to climate change is for everyone to just "turn off" every energy device they have.  What's turned off is his brain - and that of his 400K fellow marchers.

Yet this event was far more than a mass collection of hippie losers and fruitcakes without a cause, or Climate Commies coming out to claim intellectual leadership for Warmism.  What we're seeing is the last gasp of the Left.

So here's why the death knell of Warmism may be the death knell of Democrat Fascism itself.

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THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS IS TOMORROW


I want to wish you the Merriest of Christmases today, Wednesday December 25, but according to the song, the First Day of Christmas is the day after Christmas, December 26.

Ancient Christians celebrated "The Holidays," as our militant secularists insist on referring to them now, starting with the day after the birth of Jesus and ending on January 6th with the visit of the Magi in Matthew 2:11 known as the Epiphany. Start with 12/26 and end with 1/6 and you get: the Twelve Days of Christmas.

You may be really tired of hearing Christmas songs by now, including this one, yet you may still be wondering what the heck partridges in a pear tree and eight maids a-milking have to do with the birth of the founder of Christianity.

So I thought we might take a break from Serious Thoughts About World Events, and take a look at the song's origin, meaning, and myth.

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WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A TEAM


[Note from Jack Wheeler:  TTP would like to congratulate Joel and his team, the Santa Barbara Masters (Joel's the goalie) for winning the Silver Medal in the National Water Polo Masters Championships (50 and over, Joel's an old guy) held in Riverside CA last Sunday, June 9!]

Brand New Mastering Happiness Audio Course! See below!

I've played water polo for most of my life, and still do. I've had the privilege of playing on some excellent teams, and I've also played on some, well... not so excellent teams.

I've also been involved with some psychology groups who thought they knew how to be part of a team, or to build teams. I was always surprised at the lack of understanding among them. Today I want to talk about some of the things I've found over the years that make for an excellent team - and a not so excellent team, whether it's for work, play, family or marriage.

This is by no means exhaustive. There is so much that goes into team building that it would be more than I could put into an article. But I want to focus mostly on doing away with one great big flawed cliché: "There is no I in team."

That's baloney.

joel_061413.png

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DO YOU THINK YOU’LL BE DIFFERENT IN TEN YEARS?


When you think of what you'll be like ten years from now, if you're like most people, you probably imagine that you'll be just like you are now. Yet when you look back ten years, aren't you different than you were then?

Of course you are different today than you were ten years ago - unless you've removed yourself from any experience of living. Life is a continual anti-entropy endeavor. If we don't expend energy to create order, the natural tendency of things to move toward disorder takes over.

If you don't mow the lawn, the lawn becomes a growth of weeds; if you don't use your body in some kind of physical activity, your body begins to break down; if you don't use your mind to learn and think about new things, your mind will become less active and effective.

You will be different than you are now in ten years. That's a fact of life. The question is, how will you be different; and will you be different mostly as a result of events, or through conscious choice?

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THE TO THE POINT BUSINESS NETWORK


We are pleased to announce a new special feature of To The Point available to all TTP members:  The To The Point Business Network.

There is already the TTP Social Network where TTPers can share their opinions and plan social activities with each other.
  But what about sharing business expertise and opportunities with each other?

There is so much business experience, knowledge, and creativity possessed by TTPers.
  So we have decided to synergize it.  These are troubling economic times.  But synergized TTPers can help each other overcome them - and even flourish during them.

Whatever your business talents and abilities are, whatever your economic situation, you'll find fellow TTPers willing to share their thoughts and ideas with you, willing to help - just as you can help them.
 

The link to the To The Point Business Network is in the left side bar of the TTP home page, just below the Main Menu categories.
 

So join and sign up now, and start making 2010 a business success story for you and your family.  Many thanks to TTP general manager Miko, and Marco "The Wizard" Gilligan, for making this possible!

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THE MIND OF JIHAD


Laurent Murawiec's The Mind of Jihad is, at last, a book on radical Islam that does it all.

Unlike many engaged in the heated debate over the nature of our enemies, Murawiec does not believe that ancient texts tell us all we need to know. He insists that all ideas change over time, even those believed to have been dictated by God's angel.

He has therefore immersed himself not only in the sacred texts of Islam but also in the richly variegated speeches, writings, and actions of its most extremist practitioners: the jihadis waging war against us.

He candidly admits that it was not easy, that many of his initial ideas turned out to be wrong, and that his current understanding of "the mind of jihad" surprises him. This understanding holds that the current doctrine is far more than the resuscitation of medieval commandments, and in fact has a lot to do with modern European and Soviet totalitarianism.

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UPDATING YOUR SECURITY


If you run Windows OS software on your computer I kindly ask you to read the article linked below for your personal protection. My "Wizard" predecessor Dennis Turner and I have mentioned some of the items listed below, however this is a pretty complete documentation on how to be safe in a dangerous world.

How to Secure Your Windows Computer and Protect Your Privacy

Last week, Microsoft released Service Pack 1 (SP1) for its Macintosh 2008 Office suite. It has a variety of fixes and changes that have promised to improve performance and security to the suite of apps that closely parallels the Office Suite for Windows users. You can read about it here ... Description of Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 1 (12.1.0)

And download it here... Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 1 (12.1.0)

If you work in an organization, you may be surprised to find out that the most important factor in attaining organizational security is you. Do you know what your local IT policies or where your IT policies can be found? 

You can find out, and learn how to be part of the solution rather than any problem by reading:  Attaining Organizational Security.

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DID NEW HAMPSHIRE SAVE OBAMA’S LIFE?


If you Google "Obama" and "assassination" you will get 384,000 hits.

All over the world, the media is speculating on the possibility.  Typical is the January 8 (the day of the New Hampshire primary) headline in one of Australia's major newspapers, The Australian: Obama Must Be Wary of the Assassin's Gun.

The "news angle" of thousands of such stories is the same.  The first line of The Australian story is:  "Barrack Obama is crazy brave.  His victory in Iowa puts him in the crosshairs of many a gun-toting racist for whom the thought of a black president is an abomination."

It's the drumbeat theme echoing around the globe:  evil racist-fascist right-wing war-mongering child-eating nazi conservatives will always destroy America's hopes of being a peaceful humanitarian nation.

After all, it was just such a fascist-nazi right-winger that murdered JFK and killed Camelot, right?  What's that?  Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist?  Oh...

Please ignore that impossibly embarrassing fact.  Especially since it brings up the real question that no liberal dares to think, much less ask:

Will Hillary find an Oswald of her own to take out Obama?

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HOW TO GET WINDOWS TO STOP NAGGING YOU


We're going to talk today about getting rid of an annoyance with Windows Updates.
Every user should have it turned to Automatic.  But whether it is automatic or not, almost all the time after the update, your computer must be rebooted for the updates to take effect.

The annoyance is that if you click no to the message box that asks you if you want to reboot now, the message box pops up every several minutes and asks the same fool question. 

Worse, if you leave the room for several minutes when the message box pops up, it'll reboot automatically - losing whatever websites you were on or data you hadn't saved.

This was really annoying me, and probably many of you.  After Jack sent me an email asking me how to prevent it, I finally decided to find out how to get rid of it.

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Chapter Nine: MALINALI’S PRAYER

Chapter Nine: Malinali’s Prayer

When Malinali finished her story, Cortez spoke to her directly. She had learned enough Spanish to mostly understand him.

“Doña Marina, you know now that I am a man, and not this Mesheeka god, yes?”

She nodded.

“Yet the Mesheeka king does not think I am a man just like him - he believes instead that I could actually be one of his gods?”

She nodded again.

Cortez crossed himself. He looked at Aguilar. “These Mesheeka are stranger and more evil than I thought possible, Jeronimo. Their religion is the worship of Satan himself, the gods they worship are devils - except for one god, this Quetzacoatl, who preaches good not evil. And it is him they are afraid of, it is him they have somehow confused with me. What is it they are afraid of?”

Aguilar shrugged. Cortez’s dark eyes shifted to Malinali.

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