Holiday Heaven

We celebrate “Return to the Motherland” Day

Happy Reunion Day! 回归节愉快！

 

Our Byron gets his Handover Day clip & trim from Prince 

Happy "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day"

The girls above, on our very own Discovery Bay beach, July 1, 1997, will now be in their early thirties! Wearing Hong Kong bauhinia flag and Union Jack shirts. Behind them, folks wearing China and British flag shirts. 

Credit: South China Morning Post.

From my post last year:

Happy "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day". A Hong Kong holiday. 

28 29 years ago that Hong Kong was handed over to the Chinese government, by the UK government. 

In Chinese it's 回归, Hui Gui, which is much simpler and much more descriptive. It means "the return of Hong Kong to our beloved motherland". 

28 29 years ago, last night, Jing and I sat in a Wanchai Bar, watching the proceedings. All the Chinese army waiting on the Shenzhen side, to cross over into Hong Kong on the stroke of midnight. 

It was a very wet, rainy night. Prince Charles was here for the handover, and famously described the Chinese bureaucrats at the ceremony as "appalling old wax works". It would be good if he was as honest today about Islam in Britain as he was then about those appallling Chinese apparatchiks. 

Jing was pregnant with John, who was born two weeks later. 

The Chinese largely kept out of Hong Kong politics, until forced to do so by the riots of 2019. But even then, I think it's fair to say, they handled that with a light hand, given what they could have done and many people, including people here in Hong Kong, were calling for them to do. 

One simple thing to note: unlike most post-colonial places, Beijing has not demanded the change of a single name of a single street or building in Hong Kong. It's still Victoria Harbour, Victoria Park, Queen Elizabeth street, Pottinger St, Des Voeux road, and so on. I'd guess there's been more renaming in Australia than here in Hong Kong. 

Western Civilisation’s Failure | Katharine Birbalsingh

Britain’s famous “strictest headmistress” Katharine Birbalsingh lays it out. No punches pulled.

She is indeed the Head of the Michaela School which she founded. And is now super famous for graduating kids who are bright, well balanced and academically accomplished. 

Conservative Black Voices mentioned on my blog

Adam B. Coleman
Allen West
Amala Ekpunobi
Briahna Joy Gray
Byron Donalds
Carol M. Swain
Chloe Valdary
Christian Watson 
Clarence Thomas 
Coleman Hughes
Condoleezza Rice 
David Webb
Delano Squires
Esther Krakue  
Glenn Loury
Greg Foreman (YT: "Black Conservative Perspective")
Ian Rowe 

Jacinta Nampijimpa Price
Jason Riley
John McWhorter
John Ogbu

Katharine Birbalsingh
Kemi Badenoch 
Larry Elder
Morgan Freeman 
Nathaniel Broughty (YT: "Nate the Lawyer")
Shelby Steele
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Thomas Sowell
Tim Scott
Walter Williams  

Warren Mundine
Wilfred Reilly 
Zuby

Huh? Why post this?? Dunno really. Was keeping a list anyway, now put here for reference. 

On the Left it’s assumed that People of Colour vote Democratic. Most do. But others have their own views. They are independent thinkers. Not driven by their peers to do “what’s expected”. Not afraid to “go off the plantation”. Heterodox, strong, brave, commonsensical voices. That’s the people above.  And that’s why I post it.

Freedom Redux

My post from 15 years ago. We’d been cruising our yacht, Xena, around Thailand, having just done the King’s Cup regatta, in December 2010. With friends from Oz, Barry and Theresa.

“So what brought you to Phuket”, I asked Pieter, the septuagenarian Dutchman we were chatting with at the Yacht Haven dockside.

He thinks a bit, rubs his chin and teeth, and says “Freedom”.

What sort of freedom did he have here in Thailand that he didn’t have in Holland?, I asked.

He pointed to his ochre-red shorts, sun-faded, and said that’s all he wore during the day.  As night fell he put on a shirt.  When he rode his motorbike, he was helmetless.  That sort of freedom, he said. To be oneself, and not mollycoddled by a Nanny-state bureaucracy, or stifled by peer pressure to dress this way or that.

We knew what he meant, having just been to the Similan Islands and climbed Sail Rock, which would give palpitations to the Occupational Health and Safety bureaucrats. Indeed, it would not be allowed without a “proper” path and fences around the precipitous drops. 

Instead, in free Thailand, there’s a rickety path, occasional wooden steps, ropes studded with rusting nails, and the top is a clear vertiginous rock, the edge of which I couldn’t even go near. But if I’d wanted to, I could’ve. It's your own responsibility; you look after yourself.

This brought to mind another Freedom connection… 

Spoiler: it’s the inverse connection between the percent of people in a country who follow Islam and that country’s Freedom Index. 

Hamas are the real Nazis

 Alexandra Marshall

The Left running around calling small government, capitalist, social conservatives 'Nazis' while praising Palestine ... the county whose leadership ACTUALLY sided with the real Nazis while conservatives were off fighting Hitler.

You seriously could not make this crap up.

We are living in psycho world run by the delusional spawn of angry communist professors.

And the media nods along because they'll print literally anything to bring about the Big State, endless gravy train ticket of Labor's socialist utopia. [Link]

She’s 100% correct. 

In WWII, the leader of the Muslims of the Middle East was the Grand Mufti  of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Huseini. I’ve read a book about him, called “Hitler’s Mufti”. He spent the war in Berlin, a guest of Adolf Hitler, broadcasting on radio wild Jew-hatred to his captive Middle East followers. He organised Muslims into S.S. Army units to help the Germans liquidate Jews in Eastern Europe. He told Hitler that he would “take care of the Jews in the Middle East” once Hitler had done the job in Europe.

Al Huseini was a hero to Muslims in the Middle East. Yasser Arafat was a distant relative and idolised him. By some measures he’s the foundational root of the venemous Jew hatred that only allows “No” as an answer, to never acccpet Jews as neighbours, to kill them even when they “hide behind every tree”.

Hamas are Al-Huseini spawn. Direct. 

It doesn’t matter, not to me, that the majority of people in the west seem to have been infected with Hamas’ Hatred of Jews. I mean, of course it matters. But it doesn’t mean that the majority is right. Just as all the millions of Brownshirts idolising Hitler didn’t mean they were right. Or that he was…

When I first mentioned Hamas 15 years ago in this blog, I noted their Nazi practices. They used the Roman Salute. They are supremacist. They hate Jews. HATE! Hitler woulda loved them! And today’s young western Hamas-nicks too.

Montage: World Cup fans loving America

Let’s wallow in this a bit more  

Why “They” hate Elon

 Brivael Le Pogam: 

They do not hate Elon Musk despite his achievements. They hate him because of what those achievements expose.

He is the living refutation of crony capitalism — the cozy, managed system where success flows not from building better things but from regulatory moats, lobbying access, subsidy capture, and the right friendships. That system wears the costume of "capitalism" while functioning as its opposite: a protection racket for incumbents, held together by red tape and quiet corruption, where the press, the regulators, and the entrenched giants all scratch one another's backs.

Shorter Brivael: they hate Musk because he exposes Crony Capitalism. Exposes its cushy, quiet, hidden, life. Exposes what amounts to a massive grift. 

By the way, China’s version of capitalism which Beijing calls “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is also a form of Crony Capitalism. At least, the private sector of it is. The State Owned sector remains the state-owned sector, with all that being run by government apparatchiks involves.

Who are the “They” in the title? Why, all those that hate on Elon, o.c.!

This is the essay I would have written if I’d been able to write as elegantly as Brivael Le Pogam.

Communist-Islamists win big in New York

This is not me being crazy. This is not me being deluded in calling them Communists and Islamists. They themselves make no secret of it.

Who? Who am I talking about? 

This has happened in the last few days, in the Democratic Primary for New York State elections. The Democratic Party candidates who won their primaries were all endorsed by Zohran Mamdani, Mayor of NYC and himself a self-declared Islamist and Communist. They have all offered their fealty to him, the new kingmaker of the Dems.

Each of them has said they hate America. Actually hate America. Yet representing people in New York State. Each has said that 911 was a good thing. Which they celebrated. They love and celebrate Hamas. They call for worldwide revolution. To “globalise the intifada”. Each glazes communism. Each is a member of the crypto-communist Democratic Socialists of America. 

They despise America and its flag. One has said she used the American flag as toilet paper. Using the Flag as toilet paper! Shouldn’t that be disqualifying?! 

But they’re winners of Democratic Primaries to be Representatives! In the Congress of New York State.

Sure, Free Speech and all. But these are Representatives. Who — to repeat and be extremely clear — have said they hate the country in which they live, they hate its flag and they support international terrorism. And yet are now one November election away from Representing the State of New York. 

We must ponder this. Where in earth are we? And where is New York? Where is America? 

Asmogold above is Zach Hoyt. He reckons this is a good thing because it makes clear where the Democratic Party is. Where that is, he reckons the majority of Americans is not going to like. So he thinks this is good for Republicans. Which is where he now stands. Or sits. 

Like me, Asmogold is an old time Democrat. Like from the era of Bill Clinton or even Barack Obama. For sure I could buy into Clinton”s agenda, or even first-term Obama’s, of Free Markets, closed borders, stopping illegal immigration, law and order, helping the working class while expecting them to work if able. Staying out of foreign entanglements. Trying to control the budget.

But that’s no longer the Democratic Party of today. It’s changed and changing behind recognition.

I don’t agree with a hell if a lot of Asmogold’s views. But I do with many. His analysis of how this all came about is interesting and I largely buy it.

I sure hope Asmogold is  right that the majority of Americans won’t buy this Communist- Islamist bullshit. And that these Communist-Islamist flunkies won’t win in November. If he’s wrong then America and the west is in real trouble. 

Communism is bad enough. Islam is worse. The combination is like Russian nerve poison. 

The Ruthless Podcast has the four fellas, all veterans of political campaigns, give us their take. Which is along similar lines as Asmogold, though less “ranty”. 

Europe shifts Right...

More Blue = more Right. More Red = more Left

The left just normalized so much insanity that basic self-preservation now gets called “far right extremism.” 

Decades of open borders and failed assimilation delivered parallel societies, welfare strain, and crime spikes in city after city.

Green fanaticism delivered energy poverty and deindustrialization while virtue signaling.

Woke ideology delivered confused kids, erased women, and attacks on national identity.

And the result is voters across France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the UK and beyond are backing the parties the media smears as “far right.”

Those parties are simply saying what was common sense centrist a generation ago.

Secure borders. Citizens first. Affordable energy. Law and order. Protect children. Preserve your culture.

The Overton window got dragged so far left that reality, sanity, and common sense now look radical.

The Overton window got dragged so far left that reality, sanity, and common sense now look radical. H/t: @Rothmus

Meantime in Space:

Humanity's goal for the next century is... prevent WW3.*

Elon: "Okay, this is going to sound pretty crazy."

"I'd say the economy is 10 times the its current size in 10 years. Greater than. I feel like that's actually a fairly comfortable prediction."

"Obviously if there's like World War III or something. that that could put a kink in those plans or those expectations. In the absence of World War III, if current trends continue, I would say the the economy 10xes in 10 years and we have a base on the moon." H/t: @PeterDiamindis

Americans Can’t Get Enough World Cup Attention | Bridget Phetasy

My dear, my lovely, my love, the amazing Bridget Phetasy, flipping out on the Europeans' reactions to America during the World Cup. 

Super Fan Freddy the German, gets calls from Governors, talks to the International Space Station, tickets to Ella Langley concerts. Started the trip with 10k followers now has nearly a million. 

The Europe Soccer fans main American loves: Ranch Dressing. Smoked Brisket. Air conditioning. Endless coffee and sodas. Pick-up trucks. Ice (the water variety...). Buc'ees gas stations. The super friendliness of Americans. 

And there's this:

"America could simultaneously host another whole World Cup only using the stadiums they're not using for the current one".

Dog Days Afternoons

Byron in the park next to our house in Discovery Bay
Mountains in the back: the Tiger Head range

It's not rich vs poor, it's makers vs takers | David Friedberg

David Friedberg: It's not rich vs poor, it's makers vs takers.

@friedberg:

The great lie is that there are two sides to society, that is the rich and the poor.

And the great truth is that there are two sides that are the makers and the takers.

The lie is that the rich are unfairly rich and the poor are unfairly poor, and therefore, the poor must take from the rich.

But the truth is that it's the takers that tell you that lie, that the real truth is that artists, plumbers, electricians, woodworkers, computer scientists, people that build, people that make from all walks of life, all income levels, all wealth brackets, are the makers.

And the takers are what Sacks calls this intelligentsia, the analysts, the espousers, the armchair mechanics, the critics, the commentators, the politicians. They are the takers.

They are the people that watch the rest of society make stuff, build stuff, specifically doing things that create value for other people in society. That's what a maker is.

Who allocates capital better? Makers or Takers? Success-motivated individuals or power-obsessed governments? Case in point:

A socialist may object: “private companies also fail”. Indeed they do. And when they do, they forfeit their money. Theirs and their backers’ money. When governments fail, they waste your money. Our money. 

More of: “The World Loves America”…

The World Cup. Bringing people together.

Europe will live

I’m generally pessimistic about Europe. And the West. But optimistic about all sorts of other things.

Pessimistic about politics, culture and society in the west.

Optimistic about science and technology.

Brivael Le Pogam, French entrepreneur and essayist, suggests I should be a little more optimistic about Europe. I sure hope he’s right. Time alone will tell. But how much time?

/Snip:

This continent hasn’t had its last word. It won’t. As long as one man remains to love what he has received, to want to pass it on intact, to prefer a hard truth to a comfortable lie—Europe will live.

Link.

Disneyland, Kowloon,Hong Kong, Ferry

Capitalist United States vs Socialist Europe

 

The bigger the circle the bigger the company. The bigger the cluster, the bigger the economy. Green are high-tech, blue all others. 

This chart is from a few years ago, an MIT study. My guess is that the difference has widened.

US is like the place they “move fast and break things”. Then they fix them. 

Europe is like the place that doesn’t want to “break” things in the first place. So they regulate them.

ADDED:

Why Europe could never produce an Elon Musk. Nikos Sotirakopoulos. An ex-communist, turned Common-sensical. 

Elon Musk the great inventor, builder, capitalist | WSJ

Elon Musk officially entered the canon of the greatest inventors, builders and capitalists not only of our time but arguably of humankind. What a time to be alive. What an extraordinary era to build, writes @EliseStefanik

The Truth About Elon Musk's Wealth | All-in pod and Steven Mark Ryan

Follow-on from my post just now. 

Courtesy of Aussie YouTuber Steven Mark Ryan. 

Brings us a discussion by the All-in pod bros: Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, David Friedberg, Chamath.

With some clear explanations of how and why Elon became a trillionaire. As Sacks points out: he has not one single dollar more in cash today than he had last month. All that's happened is that the public has valued the stock he has in a company he created at more than it was when it was private.  

Why Europe could never produce an Elon Musk. Nikos Sotirakopoulos. An ex-communist, turned Common-sensical.