Is this the world’s costliest tweet?

I can still remember lying in bed going through my Twitter feed and seeing this tweet pop up from my hero Elon Musk.

I was startled and said so to dear wife. As in "what on earth is Elon doing making announcements this serious on Twitter for goodness sake!"

The subsequent jump in Tesla share price savaged Tesla short-sellers, who'd been bugging him. That alone would make the Tweet very dodgy. 

Anyway, it turns out the SEC were not amused. They've just fined him and Tesla USD $20 million each. And Elon has to step down from Chairmanship. 

That led to a 10% 14%* drop in the share price wiping $5 (US$ 7) billion from its value. 

So, total it up and the tweet cost Tesla shareholders and Elon Musk $5.08 $7.08 billion or $565 $786 million for each of its nine words. 

If there's a tweet that's cost more money I'd like to know it.

*[UPDATE 1 October:  News that the drop in Tesla share price was actually 14% of its US$50 billion valuation]

“In China puzzle, Australia knows itself. The UK hasn’t a clue” | SCMP

Australia has always treated China seriously. I know from being part of the Australian government in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong) from the mid-seventies to the late nineties, that we put a lot of effort into understanding China. Our diplomats were known (are known, to this day) as being deeply trained in Chinese politics, language and culture. 

And those of us in the business, the business of Australia-China relations, never thought that China was aiming to become another Jeffersonian democracy. Sure the politicians may have harboured such fantasies, but not us. And that's there in our writings at the time: the ambassadorial dispatches, especially by our first ambassador to China, Stephen FitzGerald, with whom I served; in the embassadorial memos and "cables" (as they were then); in our talks and speeches and briefings. 

So, this article is talking about the politicians when it talks "original aims" as being China the democracy on the hill. We were never so deluded and that's in the record. 

And we must ask if it's such a bad thing that China is a hybrid and plans to remain so. Corruption, censorship, being horrid to Muslims in the west, don't have to be part of the model, even if Xi Jinping is making it so now. 

But the article is mainly about how Australia tracks its relations with China and public perceptions of them, whereas Britain is complacent towards China "verging in indifference". 

/Snip:

China under President Xi Jinping is clearly not on an easy path to becoming a multi-party democracy – at least not any time soon. At most, it wants "democracy with Chinese characteristics". And like the "socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics", that is going to be a hybrid, novel product – not the one any American or European who was keen on promoting engagement to see political reform happen in the 1980s might recognise as a successful fulfilment of their original aims.

********

"In China puzzle, Australia knows itself. The UK hasn't a clue"

“Why China’s richest flock to Australia, even if they’re not always welcome” | SCMP

Out of 10,000 high-net worth immigrants to Australia (10,000!) — those bringing in AUS$5 million or more — 9,000 are from China. 

As an Aussie Chinese friend says "that's good and bad". 

Yin yang. One divides into two. 一分为二.  Balance....

Go into a Chinatown anywhere in the world. Have a meal. Buy some goodies at the Chinese deli. You're welcome. You're at ease. Same at the Little Saigons or whatever they're called. In Sydney one in Cabramatta suburb is known as "Vietnamatta". Again, you are welcome. You're at ease. 

By contrast try going into the "Islamtowns" (what do we call them? "Shariaburbs"? "Muslimattas"?), in Tower Hamlets or Birmingham, or western Sydney. I've been. You are definitely not welcome. Not even as a clean-shaven man. Let alone an unveiled woman. That's a difference. Not all migration is equal. Not all cultures are equal. You don't need to go to racism. Different culture will do it. Different cultures will give you uncomfortable and unwelcoming environments. 

So, me, I don't mind at all the "Chinese invasion" of Oz. Though for sure there's valid concern about the upward pressure on house prices. Maybe something like we have here in Hong Kong could be instituted in Oz: namely restrictions on foreign property ownership. Higher sales taxes, duties, limits on numbers and so on. 

Here in Hong Kong that "foreign" includes Chinese from our motherland aka "the mainland". If we can do it, why not Oz?  And add into that a tax on unoccupied properties, one of the big and valid concerns being millionaires buying property and never living it. 

/Snip

Australia was the world's No 1 migration destination for millionaires last year, according to the 2018 Global Wealth Migration Review from AfrAsia Bank. More than 10,000 high-worth individuals migrated to Australia last year, mostly from China, India and the UK. And about 90 per cent of the visas Australia issued to high-worth investors – those who invest more than A$5 million (US$3.6 million) locally – were for Chinese nationals.

Read on, below: 

********

"Why China's richest flock to Australia, even if they're not always welcome"

Kavanaugh. Dateline London

So three Dateline Londoners promote the accuser's veto. Simply making a "credible" accusation — unsupported by ANY other evidence — is, or should be according to them, enough to ruin a man. And we should all cheer, another victory for #MeToo.

Pity the only sensible one on the panel - the man to the moderator's left - was not more forceful and a better advocate.

The Bloomberg woman thinks Kavanaugh was "unbecoming". Wouldn't you be if you'd  been smeared and were innocent. Wouldn't you be angry? [*]

As for "unbecoming" — thy name is the Democrats on the committee. Especially Weinstein, Whitehouse (yuk!), Booker and Harris. 

As for the "two other accusations" the Ramirez one is so flimsy that even the NYT won't run it and the Swetnick one is simply absurd. What next? cabalistic satanic animal orgies? Les get a grip and treat these ludicrous accusations with the scorn and derision they deserve. 

The simple measure of an accusation: "Trust, but verify". 

Meantime the FBI investigation will do nothing that's not been done. Will not change any minds: the Democrats had made their minds up from the outset. 

And Kavanaugh will be confirmed. As, on the basis is current evidence, he should be. 

PF

Hong Kong

[*] She also quotes a survey showing 18% drop in female Republican support for K. But another poll — by HuffPo / YouGov— shows an *increase* of 12 points to a net 77. 

As China-U.S. feud enters uncharted territory, Beijing can only blame itself - The Washington Post

Trump addressed the United Nations in New York 25/10/18.
(Peter Foley/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

This from WaPo a left of centre paper. Owned by Jeff Bezos. 

It's agreed then. China deserves the approbrium. 

As China-U.S. feud enters uncharted territory, Beijing can only blame itself

John Pomfret

September 26 at 12:12 PM
If there was any doubt that relations between the United States and China are heading for uncharted waters, you only had to listen to President Trump's blistering criticism of Beijing on Tuesday. Speaking at the U.N.'s General Assembly, Trump blamed China for the loss of more than 3 million manufacturing jobs in the United States, the shuttering of 60,000 factories and a combined trade imbalance of $13 trillion. Touting his latest round of tariffs, which now include about half of all the products China ships to the United States, Trump vowed that "we will not allow our workers to victimized, our companies to be cheated and our wealth to be plundered and transferred."

“How Trump made being tough on China the new normal” | SCMP

I've spoken of the Overton Window before. And Trump, like him or hate him, has certainly shifted the Window. Not just the Window of discourse but of action as well. 

On China for example. I can well remember Bill Clinton's tough rhetoric on China in the campaign; followed up by nothing in office. Except to get China into the WTO, which they promptly set about cheating on. 

As Kristin McGuire says:

By taking action to rectify US-China economic relations, Trump may have raised the bar for future American presidential candidates. To be electable, candidates on the left and right may need to step onto the campaign trail with a plan for challenging China's harmful economic policies.

Moreover, once in office, future presidents might feel greater pressure to live up to their tough campaign rhetoric for fear of damaging their odds of re-election.

How Trump made being tough on China the new normal

China’s Worst Western Import. Spoiler: it’s Communism

Screenshots cause it's behind a paywall.  From the Wall Street Journal…

“China would be wise to avoid going MAD in the trade war” | SCMP

If China tries to disrupt US supply chains by stopping exports of key intermediate products, there are things the US can do:

The most crucial intermediate good the US can withhold is advanced semiconductors. In April, the US banned the sale of such chips to the Chinese telecoms giant ZTE as punishment for the company's violations of US export rules. ZTE's operations were effectively shut down and had Trump not granted a reprieve, ZTE would not have survived.

The US could also order Boeing and United Technologies to withhold aircraft parts and jet engines on which China's large commercial fleet depends, effectively grounding many Chinese jetliners. The US could also forbid Google from offering support to Android smartphone software in China. All of this would impose much higher costs on China than on the US.

Yet the media is covering this as if it's a good option for China — BBC at least and just now. 

This article is rather good in the danger of a MAD strategy for China. Time is on the side of the US. Not, to repeat, that tariffs should have been the way to take this in. Still something good might come out of it all. What we don't need is for China to get on its high horse, all hissy and wounded or overweening pride. It's time for its vaunted pragmatism to shine.
LATER: the comments are pretty much anti the article and vitriolically anti American. They slam Pei Mingxin as being a would-be Gordon Chang with his China-doom scenarios. I’ve seen elsewhere that there are lot of pro-Beijing flunkies on the SCMP sites smearing the US wheeever they can. Given what we know of the legions on the internet censoring anything anti-Beijing, paid censors, why wouldn’t they also be on the pages of Asia’s largest and most independent English language newspaper. 

********

The full article: 

China would be wise to avoid going MAD in the trade war
https://sc.mp/2PXDSVo

Sent from my iPhone

“What McDonald’s can teach Trump about China’s state-owned enterprises” | SCMP

This is a terrific article that shows how and why China did a much better job of weaning itself off socialism than did the Soviet Union. Basically by still keeping bits of socialism in the shape of its State Owned Enterprises which became shock absorbers of shock changes.  

Whereas the Soviet Union just dumped it all in one go and the result is today's corrupt kleptocracy. Oligarchopoly... Putinocracy. 

And why Trump needs to go easy on criticising the SOEs. They save us from chaos. And the last thing we need here in Hong Kong is a China in Chaos (乱). We've often thanked our lucky stars that Beijing has managed so well — albeit with substantial nasty bits, 'n all. Censorship, corruption, repression of Uighurs...  but it could be, could have been, massively worse. 

*******

What McDonald's can teach Trump about China's state-owned enterprises

“Trade war is a win-win for US (in Trump’s eyes at least)”

I was involved with China at government and business levels from 1976 to the mid naughties. One thing you very quickly learned is that the playing field is not level. China — by which I mean Chinese companies and the Chinese governments at central and provincial levels — has a top-to-bottom clear understanding of its interests, aims and agenda and pursues them ruthlessly. Whereas we Aussies had our hands tied by that dratted democracy thing; and the rule of law, darn it. 

Aussie companies might be able to get its government — from time to time — to help them pursue their interests, as do Chinese companies with Beijing.  

But the opposite is not true.  An Australian government that tries to get Aussie companies to bolster its political or diplomatic ends will find itself at the receiving end of a court case. 

Yet China does that all the time. It has political ends and companies have to line up behind them. Even if they are in breach of WTO rules that China undertook to abide by when in joined in 2002. 

No wonder that folks on both right and left are in favour of taking China on. Just that not all agree that tariffs are the way to go. 

This article argues, inter alia, that the main reason for Trump's moves is business. Not a geopolitical attempt to stop China's rise. 

China, apparently, believes it's the latter, the geopolitical, and if that's its belief, while it's not the case, it could lead to miscalculations. Beijing seems to be getting touchier and reverting to the paranoia that I knew seventies through nineties. Not good. But article good...

Snip/quote here on various cases of China's use of trade to pursue political ends. Just look at them! 

China's use of trade to retaliate in political disputes – an embargo on rare earth exports to Japan following the arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain in 2010; restrictions on salmonimports from Norway following the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo that year; restrictions on banana imports from the Philippines following the escalation of South China Sea tensions in 2012; a boycott of Lotte stores in China after the deployment of THAAD missile defence batteries in South Korea in 2017 – changes the calculus of the benefits of trade with the world's second-largest economy.

Read it all at SCMP 

Tucker takes on Democrat who wants Kavanaugh to withdraw | Fox News Video

I just watched this and I must say Tucker Carlson destroyed the democratic strategist, Christy Setzer. And correctly too, for she's trying to defend the indefensible: that a person can accuse another person of an attempted felony and not be willing to testify, let alone provide evidence. 

To the extent that there is any evidence it's not in favour of Kavanaugh's  accuser. Tucker Carlson missed saying that two people have now come forward to say they have no recollection of the party at which Kavanaugh is alleged to have tried to rape a 38-year younger Dr Ford. So that makes three saying "never happened". And one, the accuser, saying it did, but can't remember where or exactly when it happened or even how many young boys were alleged to have been involved. 

The whole thing is clearly, drearily political, 11th-hour nonsense. 

Why am I watching Fox? my leftish friends will ask. And the answer is: because I watch it for balance. For my daily news I watch, in order: BBC, CNBC, Fox, CNN. Rinse and repeat. 

it's all about finding out what the majority of the population is seeing, not just what half of the population thinks.  And I'm extremely clear on Fox's bias. Just as I'm clear in CNN's bias. It's obvious in both cases. And note that even with Fox in the mix it's still 3–1 Liberal vs Conservative. 

Of the four I'd say BBC is the most neutral, though even it has a tilt to the left. One thing I their favour is this: if you tackle them on an issue, as I do quite often via email to worldhaveyoursay@bbc.com, and if your point is fair, they will amend the story in the next cycle. Pretty impressive. From time to time they will when contact me by return and ask for clarification of some point. I classify that as responsibly responsive. 

If above link doesn’t work, try this. 

“Search results leave Google looking guilty as charged” | SCMP

My letter is published in today's South China Morning Post. 

They edited it a bit at the end which made the link to Google dealing with China somewhat nonsensical, but still...

Search results leave Google looking guilty as charged

(And the text is below the fold)

Yoga ball murder: the clue that put police on professor’s trail | SCMP

For a bit of "light" entertainment. Anyway for something completely different. 

The verdict was this morning's Post's lead story. Yet another weird murder in Hong Kong. (Remember the Kissel "milk shake murder"?).  

Imagine how this guy must be kicking himself... forgot to leave the yoga ball stopper in the boot do the car.... talk about down the plug hole. 

Yoga ball murder: the clue that put police on professor's trail

https://sc.mp/2xyeQo

Charles Martel, Where Are You to Fight Today’s Extremists? | Clarion Project

Charles Martel, where are you?

Does this seem paranoid? To say we ought to be worried about foreign funding of mosques teaching Wahhabism? Teaching that Muslims have to kill unbelievers, that is, to kill non-Muslims; because that will please Allah? Teaching they should not make friends, even, with non-Muslims? Let alone integrate?

Well it's not paranoid. It is a simple fact that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are funding fundamentalist mosques in the west.  Mosques that teach all these horrid ideas. And that these are, therefore, breeding grounds for Islamic supremacism. 

Lee Kwan Yu in Singapore knew the danger of fundamentalist Islam. He had about a fifth of his population as Muslims. He knew the danger if they became radicalised. And radicalised maps one-to-one to being more pious. And more pious maps to learning about fundamentalist Islam from such mosques.  Because pious Islam = murderous Islam. Because it pleases Allah for you, the Muslim, to kill non-Muslims ams apostates. 

What Lee Kwan Yu did was to ban the foreign funding of mosques. 

Simple. And it worked. 

Why on earth doesn't the West at least do that?  Just stop the funding of radical mosques. Stop the funding of places that teach Muslims it's their duty to Allah to kill non Muslims. 

The article below discusses these questions referring back to the Battle of Tours in 792, at which the hero Charles Martel defeated the advancing Muslim armies. Armies that wanted to rule Europe. And are attempting to do so again, this time by demographics and with no Martel in sight, because to try to stem Europe's islamisation would be islamophbia. 

https://clarionproject.org/charles-martel-where-are-you-to-fight-todays-extremists/

“MTR chaos, more than 600 roads blocked as typhoon recovery begins” | SCMP

Today's front page in the print edition of the South China Morning Post
(online link below)

We've just been out for a drive around Discovery Bay and it's a big mess everywhere, but with the cleanup crews hard at it already. In a day or two there won't be much sign of this Super Typhoon Mangkhut, the strongest in 37 years so they say (correction: the HK Observatory says it's the strongest since 1946, which also happens to be Joanna Lumley's date of birth, a fact I know because we've just watched her terrific three-part "Trans Siberian Adventure" which I'd class under random, but useful and actionable, info (cf next para)).[*]

By the way "Mangkhut" is a Thai word meaning mangosteen. Easier to remember in Chinese (if you speak Chinese...) = 山竹, pronounced "shān zhú" = lit. "mountain bamboo", but which is the Chinese for "mangosteen", which I did not know, but will not help much in life as I can't remember the last time I had a mangosteen or if indeed I've ever had one, so I'd file that under random, but useless info. 

Winds averaged almost 200 kph with gusts to 240 kph. That's 130 knots for sailing types. For only the second time we've been in Hong Kong the Observatory hoisted the number 10 signal. (Usually, for a typhoon it's a number 8 signal. At which point businesses are shut down).

Anyway a couple of my pics below and more of a report at the SCMP link:
 MTR chaos, more than 600 roads blocked as typhoon recovery begins.  

DB Plaza this morning

A look alike for our dear departed NIKKIE

Our backyard cleanup begins

Just outside our front door. The whole street littered with downed trees

[*] Joanna Lumley is a delightful, charming and insightful presenter.  I love her breathy, knowing, seductive voice. This I classify as random, opinionated info.  [but true..]

9/11 Made a European Upper-Middle-Class Radical a Conservative | National Review

This is a thoughtful article by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein. There is such a thing as good and evil. There is better and worse. Maybe not the dialectic of "good and bad", but better and worse, sure.  Some ideologies are better than others.

I was raised in a country [Sweden] where that neutrality — that indifference before right and wrong — is a badge of honor. I was taught that morality is weakness, faith is ignorance, and the concept of good and evil is cause for ridicule.
On September 11, 2001, I saw, for the first time, the difference between fear and freedom, and I vowed not to be neutral between them, ever again.

Obama doubles down on a failed strategy. Why?

Here is a quote from a WaPo article on Obama’s recent “coming out” speech for the November mid-terms: the first time — or at least one of the very few, I’m not sure which — that a past president takes part directly in politics.

Even Obama, who until now had pulled his punches and studiously avoided mentioning Trump by name, found himself addressing his successor directly and forcefully. He called Trump a “symptom” of a dark turn in the nation’s politics toward bigotry, fearmongering, corruption, dishonesty and an erosion of institutions. [my emphasis]

Now, to repeat my disclaimer: I’m not now and never was a Trump fan. I would have voted for Obama (the second time with some reservations) and Hillary (with great reservations, mainly on Benghazi).
But here’s the thing. I do know a number of people who did vote for Trump. And still support him. Not one of these is a bigot, or corrupt, or dishonest, etc. They are fine and sensible folks, internationalists, cosmopolitan. They knew of and know of Trump's failings but gave him their vote nonetheless to "shake things up"; which he's done, in spades (if that's not too mixed a metaphor).
And not all to the bad: think employment, economy, ISIS and Korea.
Obama's curses highlighted above are just Hillary’s infamous “basket of deplorables” contumely writ large. (I know Obama didn't direct these curses at Trump's supporters specifically.  But really... It's hard not to see them as Obama's views of Trump supporters.  Really, c'mon...).
Why would he do this? Double down on what was clearly a failed strategy?  A strategy that lost her the election? By demeaning and despising half the American population?
Barry: You need some of them to cross over if you’re ever going to win.
This doesn’t show any political acuteness at all….
I wonder what the “big dog”, Bill, thinks of this?
Hat/tip to my twin (in age), Ann Althouse.

Andrew Yang for President!

Andrew Yang in Hong Kong

Andrew Yang is here in Hong Kong right now and I've just seen him interviewed live by CNBC. 

This guy is really sensible, speaks eloquently, knowledgeably and coherently. Has started successful companies; written books. Cynics will say that puts him out of the running... ("he's overqualified!").

One of his key policies: Universal Basic Income of US$1,000 per month paid for with a value-added tax. As a transition to a "capitalism of the future". Which he then talks about. Again, coherently and sensibly. 

Seriously folks, he's good and must be worth watching. Way more so than the ditzy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

He's the embodiment of the American dream.  Parents emigrated to the United States, from Taiwan.  Did well.  Son sent to the best Universities.  Son campaigns for presidency. Wonderful!

Read the peerless Howard Jacobson's speech about Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism | The Jewish Chronicle

What a brilliant opening at the 6 September Intelligence Squared debate on the Motion: "Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be Prime Minister". In full, as reported in The Jewish Chronicle

********

Something tells me you're expecting me to call Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite. There's been a bit about it in the press, and I... well, you know...

But I'm not going to call him anything. He says he isn't an antisemite, Hamas says he isn't an antisemite, the white supremacist David Duke says he isn't an antisemite, and that's good enough for me.

 Am I being ironical? Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm incapable of irony. 
[Note: the reference is to Corbyn's claim that British Jews don't understand irony].

“Not all anti-migrant protesters in Germany are neo-Nazis” | SCMP

A child plays in front of police near a demonstration by a group protesting
undocumented migrants, after a Syrian and Iraqi were arrested for homicide

This letter in today's South China Morning Post makes a point I've been making for a while. 

That folks who are concerned by unvetted, undocumented, economic immigrants are ordinary citizens reasonably concerned about the effect of such laissez-faire policies on the well being of their body politic. They are not right-wing or even Alt-right, let alone Nazis. They are middle of the road folks. Not crazy knuckle-dragging conservatives. 

Mockery of these concerns is what gave us Brexit, it's what gave us Trump and it's what gave us the populists in Hungary and Poland. 

When will this arrogant disdainful dismissal end?  From what I've seen on CNN and the New York Times, it looks like never. Doubling down on identity politics and the stupidity of Trump "deplorables" is the order of the day. Witness Obama's speech yesterday wading back into the mid-terms. Classic demonising of Republicans. These are half the country, Barry!

Which means rocky shoals ahead. 

And now I've just re-read the headline to this letter and see that it gives a wrong slant by saying "not all..." because the thrust of the letter and, I believe, the truth of the matter, is that the vast majority of the anti-migrant protesters are every-day decent folks, middle of the road. Not that "not all are Nazis". 

Also, they say they are not "anti-migrant". They are anti the unvetted and undocumented migrants because how do you know who you are getting especially since ISIS boasted they were smuggling sympathisers in with the undocumentees. 

                      

Not all anti-migrant protesters in Germany are neo-Nazis

“‘One country, two systems’ a winner for horse racing in Hong Kong” | SCMP

This is indeed exciting stuff. A new horse training facility run by Hong Kong's Jockey Club but across the border in Guangdong. Very secure, it's called a "cross between Andorra and Alcatraz". 

Jockey club turnover last year HK$234 billion (US$30 billion) on 88 races. That's US$340 million per race which pretty much dwarfs the betting turnover in my native Oz. 

David ends up with this rather lovely observation from the inimitable little Deng: 

I sense that Deng Xiaoping would be pleased. Before the handover, he promised: "Horses will still run, stocks will still sizzle, dancers will still dance." I don't see much sizzling in the stock market of late, nor much dancing, but his successors have made sure the horses will still run – and in style.

******

'One country, two systems' a winner for horse racing in Hong Kong
https://sc.mp/2QdJVpB

Sent from my iPhone

"No, London has not fallen to Islam" | TheNewArab

Tower Hamlets UK. The Muslim population is now 12.5%, over the
6% population where no country totally free, as I showed 7 years ago

What is it that irks me about this article, "No London has not fallen to Islam" by Sadek Hamid?  Its straw man attacks? London has not "fallen to Islam" (the straw man), but there's a process happening before our eyes, and it's the Islamisation of the UK.  Is it its rampant victimhood?  Muslims are "demonised" or seen as 'the enemy within" (no they're not, as hate crime figures show: Jews are much more attacked than Muslims, both in total number and in proportion). Is it Its claims that all who criticise Islam are of the Alt-right?  Quillette for example is most assuredly not an alt-right site, as Hamid claims: it's very much of the Left, just not of the regressive Left that the likes of Hamid count on to support their supremacist agenda. But to Hamid it's critical of the ideology of Islam, and therefore Alt-right.  That's the new catch-all slur, added to "racism".

I dunno, but it's of a piece with narratives that any critique of Islam must somehow be based on racism, bigotry and islamophobia.

Not that muslims must do anything to fit in, mind you.  Oh no, "integration is a myth". it must be abandoned, in favour of "acceptance", by the host society, of course.  So Hamid tells us. Accept, that is, things like the increasing number of Sharia courts — 100 plus in the UK alone at the latest count. Accept "modesty" clothing, burkas and all (despite the fact they're banned in a number of Muslim countries for security reasons). Accept the closure of pubs and wine bars (alcohol-free zones). Accept the wiping out of pork on menus at schools and hospitals (sharia law zones). Accept that there really are "no-go" zones. Zones where unveiled women enter at their peril.  Zones where Ambulances are attacked because they represent the authorities. And Tower Hamlets (I've been) is most assuredly Pak-Arabia in England. (and not in a good way: to repeat, if it were Hindus, dressed equally differently as are Muslim women, there would not be anything like the concerns, because the concerns are about the ideology, not the dress per se).

And if we observe that all of that is "islamisation" then shame on us.

Hamid quotes one Otto English about Andy Ngo's piece: "It's like going to Lancaster county in Pennsylvania and assuming that The Amish are taking over". Well, no, because the Amish have no doctrine of take-over. The Islamic doctrine very much does. The Amish have stayed put in Lancaster for 200 years. Islam is spreading to every corner of Europe and the UK.

Hamid is playing the card that says: "nothing to see here".  And if you do, you're an islamophobe.

This will resonate with many. And render society mute and helpless against a very muscular ideology which very much wants to Islamise the west. That's not fantasist conspiracist paranoia.  That's baked into the ideology of Islam and blow to the likes of Hamid for trying to pull the wool over people's eyes.

By the way; I went to study and work in China in the seventies. A very different China from today. One of the things I did, almost without thinking, was to try to fit in. I learnt the language, I wore Chinese clothes, their "Mao suits" and cotton cloth shoes, I ate their food, I lived where they did.  There's nothing wrong with trying to fit in. There's a great deal wrong with deciding that, as a matter of course, as a matter of ideology, you're not going to fit in.  Because, well, because Islam.

Link here.

Germany’s AfD is NOT “far-right”

Odd, isn't it?.  Antifa (above) in America and Europe are lily-white and dress
in scary black, balaclavas, and they beat up people.  But these are the good guys...

LETTER TO BBC:

You always preface mention of Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party with the the words "far-right".  Why?

In what way is Germany's AfD "far-right" when its policies are those of the Left, according to this New York Times article? Higher wages, safer pensions and extended unemployment benefits, all are on the AfD platform. 

These are Leftist policies. Not Rightist, let alone "far-right". 

The only point of difference from the Left is on immigration. On which AfD is concerned that 80% (EU figures) are economic migrants, effectively jumping the queue. Breaking the law, in other words. Moreover, AfD are understandably worried that these latest immigrant streams are from cultures hostile to the West's liberal values. 

For that one difference they're labelled "far-right"?

That seems rather wrong. Not Right.

Read More...at the New York Times 

Zionism = Israel

Such a clear statement on the meaning of Zionism and why anti-Zionism is effectively calling for the death of Israel.  As I say, or should, to my Israel-hating friends “if that’s what you think, then say so!”
Allister Heath. Exposing the anti-Zionism of the Hard Left.
/Snip:

In fact, in the early 20th century, many Jews were opposed to Zionism, despite the pogroms and ambient anti-Semitism; the Holocaust proved these anti-Zionists catastrophically wrong but it was, at the time, perfectly legitimate to debate such issues.

But once Israel was created in 1948, following a vote by the UN General Assembly, anti-Zionism became either obsolete or an entirely different, malign proposition. The original debate is over: Israel now exists. Being a Zionist today thus means advocating the survival of Israel, a prosperous country of 8.5 million that has just turned 70. Being an anti-Zionist must therefore entail reversing this, seeking to undermine Israel to such an extent that it ceases, for all intents and purposes, to exist in any recognisable form, with all of the calamitous implications that this implies for its Jewish citizens, given the hostility of most of its Arab neighbours.

To be clear, those who rail endlessly against "the Zionists" aren't merely demanding a two-state solution (a goal that most Israelis and all Western democracies rightly support), better treatment for Palestinians or even lobbying for a Left-wing party to win the Israeli elections: all of that would be compatible with Zionism. No, what today's anti-Zionists are committed to is far more radical and extreme, which is why Left-wing Israeli politicians have fallen out with the Corbynites.

The hard-Left wants to dismantle the only truly democratic nation state in the region and, one way or the other, force the Jewish people, once again, into minority status, subsuming them into some greater, antagonistic regional autocracy. There would no longer be Jewish self-government, a majority Jewish state: the Zionist interlude would be over.

Imagine the implications of such a "one-state" solution and what would happen to Israel's 6.5 million Jews under any realistic version of such a scenario: that is why anti-Zionism is such a shocking ideology, and why anybody in Labour who subscribes to it should be ashamed of themselves. Anti-Zionism of the sort propounded by the hard Left is racism of the worst kind: obsessed with delegitimising the world's only Jewish country (and no other), in the full knowledge that its existence is what protects its people from persecution, misery and even death. How is that not anti-Semitic?
Sent from my iPad

Standing at the Twilight of Democracy – Tablet Magazine

Wow. A very powerful piece by the French intellectual, and left-of-centre philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy. 

Excoriating Jeremy “Jezza” Corbyn. Yet I have friends who would vote for this Jezza. This anti-Semite. This Jew hater. This Islam apologist. This jihad junkie. They would do so because they see him as "progressive", which is to say, proto-Marxist. Anti American. Because America is responsible for all the ills, all the nastiness, all the colonial-imperialist horridness in the world. 

Don chu know.

/Snip 

Winston Churchill once warned Europe that, by choosing the dishonor of Hitlerism in a bid to avoid war, they would, in the end, reap both Hitlerism and war.

It now behooves Europeans to say to their British partners that by cutting corners, playing with fire, lying to voters and allies, avoiding history, and shrinking from their own greatness, they, too, risk winding up with both—this time both Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn.

About the catastrophe that Brexit portends, nearly everything has been said, and now all that remains is for the United Kingdom either to lurch toward the abyss or, as Jean-Paul Sartre said, to "take back its move." 

But I am not sure things are quite so clear about the dishonor that would attend Jeremy Corbyn coming to power in the country of Disraeli and Churchill, about the looming disaster of general elections in which he might, if the polls are right, cash in on the wear and tear suffered by his Conservative opponent, Theresa May, and on what may appear, in contrast, to be his "ideological consistency."

https://www.
.com/scroll/270118/standing-at-the-twilight-of-democracy

Internet archive https://web.archive.org/web/20180905224051/https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/270118/standing-at-the-twilight-of-democracy

The Catholic church keeps buggering around

Francis, aka Bergoglio, leading them astray. 

It goes on, and on, and on, the cover up, the child buggery....
And the pope, this nice liberal pope, this Francis that the Left loves and covers up for says, just yesterday: "we have to have silence".
No! No! And No again! Not silence!  Not silence...
How about handing over the child molesters to the police? How about they be punished?  How about that, dear Francis? And be buggered that that's buggering Catholic priests, bishops, arch-bishops, Cardinals... They've done enough buggering. It's about time these Men of God were buggered themselves.
Under the fold, I've placed the whole sordid story, courtesy of The Spectator....

“Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything”. Nike and Kaepernick, Round III

“Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything”. 

That's the new Nike Kaepernick campaign. Isn't it fatuous?

You mean "something" as in anything?
You mean "everything" as in nothing? 

Surely it matters what the "something" is. Colin Kaepernick believes there's a tidal wave of police killing black men. In this belief he's wrong. But it's not wrong to highlight homicides of young black men, their leading cause of death. For which the leading cause is other young black men. That would surely be worth a knee swivel. 

But then Colin also believes in the wonders of Cuban communism. 

Should we sacrifice "everything" for that?

Meantime, Colin, well, he's sacrificed nothing. In his last playing season he was 32nd out of 32 quarterbacks. In other words, he was the worst quarterback in the League. That's why he wasn't picked up by any team. Not because he was taking a knee. But because he'd had a great rookie year then fizzled for five. That happens. 

Then he took a kneel. 

And now he has a multi-million dollar contract with Nike. With a fatuous slogan. 

So, again, what precisely has our Colin sacrificed? = nothing nada zip. He's made a buncha. 

And what, precisely, has Nike sacrificed? Again = niente rien meiyou. 

They also plan to make a buncha from the Black Dollar. 

I could forgive Nike and Colin their gross hypocrisy if they do pivot to focus on the real problem in the young black male community. Together they could really make a difference. Instead of this sick-making virtue signalling. (To be fair to Colin, in his case it may be ignorance rather than duplicity. I've yet to hear him say a sensible word in support of his knee jerk anti-copness. He did wear some police-pig socks to a training camp. As a "statement". So there's that). 

Colin's piggy cop socks

Imagine actual programs in actual cities supported by Nike and Colin to address the actual issues of actual black boys' homicides. Now that could make a real difference; instead of wearing piggie socks. 

I'll sign off with a cheap shot. The Left loves to hurl Hitler and nasty nazi tropes at Trump and his minions. How about this: the fatuous Nike slogan fits full well with the world's favourite bogey man. Adolf certainly believed in "something". Vide Mein Kampf. And he certainly "sacrificed everything". 

So it's a silly, maybe even dangerous slogan, as well as fatuous. 

Sent from my iPhone

“John McCain was a war hero, flawed like his country” | SCMP

Well, I found the online version of my letter the South China Morning Post published today.
John McCain was a war hero, flawed like his country

They edited it lightly, to remove a couple of my rhetorical flourishes including a couple of sharpish references to their chief news editor Yonden Lhatoo, the focus of my ire. I'd called him a bigot (a favourite curse of the Left) and impugned his morality in criticising McCain's breakdown under torture when the worst he, Lhatoo, had faced in his life was some snarky letters to the editor. 

They removed those. 

But good on them for printing something sharply critical of a senior member of their staff. 

Published with the above headline and photo. 

“Why Hong Kong must take action against the likes of Andy Chan” | SCMP

Just for the record, I found the online version of ex Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chung-ying's letter to the South China Morning Post in which he mentions me, only to say that we ought not to ignore the separatist Andy Chan, as I had suggested:
Why Hong Kong must take action against the likes of Andy Chan

Since then the government have done their assiduous best to highlight Chan, continued to attack him at every opportunity, only increasing his profile —  which ought to be invisible — and inflaming Beijing's paranoia. Not good. 

I was actually looking for an online version of my letter they published today: the one critical of their chief news editor Yonden Lhatoo's claims of US and McCain as "evil minds bent on destruction". Can't find that one, as the Post seems to have a policy of putting online only half the letters they print offline. 

Jesus and Mo: Freedom to kill apostates

obey

The Jesus and Mo cartoon is safe to like and safe to laugh at!  Its creator, "author", is an equal opportunity satirist of religion and beloved of non-regressive folks on the Left. Moderate Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz has worn the cartoon on his T-shirt.  So go ahead and subscribe to it.
Above: the irony that Islami is free in free countries to pursue its agenda of anti-freedom. Of slavery to allah and muhammad. That's the freedom of religion. 

Who Is Linda Sarsour's Mentor? | Clarion Project

I've known of and commented on Linda Sarsour for some years. She's a poisonous Islamist. But that doesn't stop the Left and the likes of Bernie Sanders from idolising her. 

Here's a damning connection. Her mentor's son is part of the crazy New Mexico Jihadist cult that wants to kill all we infidels. 

Way to go, Linda!

“Trump stance could be bad news for us all”, September 4.

Google does skew left in its searches.  At least my searches show

LETTER TO SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST:

I refer to your Leader "Trump stance could be bad news for us all", September 4.

You say that "Trump is blaming the messenger", when he says Google search results are left-biassed.

Well, none of us knows the algorithms that determine Google page ranks. That's their commercial secret. 

So all we can go on is search results.  On which I find Google guilty as charged.

Disclosure: I'm not and never was a Trump supporter. But it seems to me he is absolutely right about the left-bias in Google searches. 

For example, here are the top results for news on John McCain's funeral, in order:

1. The New Yorker
2. The Guardian
3. Vox 
4. The New York Times
5. BBC
6. Business Insider 
7. Refinery29
8. Elle
9. Epoch Times
10. Time magazine

Every single one of these is left of centre. Every. Single.One.

Where is FOX news?  Like it or hate it, Fox is the most watched cable news and its online site has huge traffic. 

How could it not be above something like "Epoch Times" or "Refinery29" neither of which I'd heard of?

Fox is not below them. It's not even on the page all the others are. Zero, zip. 

Google's code used to be "Don't be Evil". Maybe it thinks Fox is evil. 

Wait until Google gets into bed with the Chinese censors as they're about to do. Then they will know Evil. 

Google's new motto is "Do the right thing".  How about they try that: balanced search results would be a start.

[Disclosure: I own Alphabet stock, parent of Google]

Yours, etc,
Pf

Colin Kaepernick, Round II.... Colin the Communist

Kneeling in obeisance to Castro, a mass murderer.  Good one, Colin!

I've already had a go at Nike, in my previous post of about the New Nike kNeeler, Colin KaeperNike.
There's more:

If you ever wondered what it would take to get the woke Social Justice Warrior crowd to loudly support a multinational corporation with nearly $35 billion in revenue in 2017; that pays its assembly line workers about 2.5 percent of production costs; that faces accusations that its factories bar independent inspections of working conditions; whose workers frequently faint from heat and exhaustion, and suffer wage theft, forced overtime, restrictions on their use of toilets, exposure to toxic solvents, and padlocked exit doors . . . well, apparently Colin Kaepernick is all that it takes.

What about Colin to Communist? There he is, above, with a T-shirt commemorating a meeting between a couple of lovely lads: Malcolm X and Fidel Castro.
Castro was horrible.  Horrible, horrible, horrible.  For Cuba, for Cubans, for the world.  Here's one write up of just how horrible:

Fidel Castro represented the worst of the worst of Latin America’s centralizing tradition. In the region’s history, nobody had so much control over so many aspects of people’s lives for so long a period as he did. He achieved it through sheer intolerance and cruelty. From the beginning of the revolution, he did not hesitate to imprison and execute his closest allies, “friends” and even children when it served his purposes.

How could he fool so many for so long?  Well, the likes of Colin are either Fools or Knaves, and I think Colin is the former.  He was and remains bamboozled, because:

... he [Castro] was a master of deceit and a cunning manipulator of public opinion; in person, he was a “snake charmer” in the words of Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. As Yale Professor Carlos Eire notes, “His lies were beautiful and so appealing.”

Even The Guardian faults Castro, though Zoe Willliams reverts to the "it wasn't true socialism" meme.  Castro was "an insult to the left", don't you know.  And the worst that Zoe can find to say of Castro is that he was "authoritarian", a "dictator".  Well, sure. A dictator who killed millions, jailed millions and impoverished still more millions.  And had a baleful influence on millions in other parts of the world that decided to follow his benighted ideas, from Angola to Zimbabwe. That's his legacy.
So shame on Colin for having his heaving hirsute visage on his T-shirt.
Just Don't Do It!