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Byron, morning walk by "Third White Bay". Muddy boots …

"Who's going to pick our cotton?" | Islam's challenge to the West

 

Aussie politician: "Who's going to make your bed? Who's going to bathe you? Who's going to wipe your bum?". 

Slave supporters pre Civil War: "Who's going to pick our cotton?"

I don't get how they don't see the hypocrisy. The racism of that view. 

All the while destroying our own western values in Australia. The ABC, the Guardian, telling us that there are no "NO Go areas" in Australia. Certainly not Lakemba! And, at the end of the video, the Australian policeman telling her that she can't go there. That she can't walk the streets. Because she would be "causing a public order offence", even as it would be the Muslim attacking her. 

This is sick stuff. This is crazy stuff. 

Yes, Hanson should have said "Islam" and not "Muslims". That's an own goal. We can say, as I've often said, "I like the Chinese, but I don't like the Chinese Communist Party". Or "I like the Russians, but I don't like Soviete communisms". Or whatever. You get it. It's fine to not like the ideology. We don't have to hone in on the individuals, because that just gives a free kick to the apologists. 

All in all, we're facing an extremely serious threat from a warlike, expansionist ideology, in all countries of the West. Which are so far responding like pussies. 

Harris Sultan is a brave Aussie. Used to be a Muslim. Now an apostate. For which Islam would kill him. That's the ideology the "religion" that we are letting into -- encouraging into -- our countries. 

More fools us. 

"Writing Doom" | The dangers of Super Intelligent AI. A short movie

 

AI, especially Super Intelligent AI, has me worried. I know that Elon Musk was so worried about the threat that he started Open AI, which has since been hijacked by Sam Altman. The court case is ongoing. 

So, Elon started XAi. We don't hear so much about the dangers of Super Intelligent Ai from him. Though I'm pretty sure he's still engaged with them. 

Meantime... follow the logic of this wonderful short film above and see if you don't come out somewhat more worried about the dangers to humanity from Super Intelligent AI. 

Halal Horrors

 

🚨A halal slaughterhouse in Warwickshire was found to have done the following in 2025:

➡️Slammed sheep against concrete floors and walls
➡️Played wolf noises on loudspeaker
➡️Some sheep lived for up to 4 minutes after having their necks cut
➡️Doors were slammed into animals… pic.twitter.com/fbvpRmNE9o

— Wolf 🐺 (@WorldByWolf) February 19, 2026

This is reported in the U.K. paper The Independent, which is leftie paper, so if it's reporting on something wrong in the immigrant community, you have to know it's true. They're not given to that sort of reporting normally, cause, you know, everything about Immigration is Good!

Except, killing animals in the Islamic way, Halal, is not so nice. 

I've banged on about this, in my blog here over the years. 

My own little push back against it, is to send angry emails to companies that advertise their products as Halal. Tell them how horrid Halal slaughtering is, and tell them I'm never going to buy their products. 

Now, we have a move in the U.K. and in America, by Muslims, to ban dogs. Because, you know, the Perfect Man, Muhammad, didn't like them. Reckoned that if you had dogs in the house, Angels would not visit. And Muslim believe this. And Muslims are now pushing for the ban of dogs in coutries to which they've emigrated. 

You've been nice enough to let us into your country. Now, please, would you do things the way we want them done? 

Aussie Dr Sydney Watson posts: 

 

Why aren't democrats from across the country flocking to LA or NYC? | Adam Carolla

Good question, Adam Carolla!

Why aren't democrats from across the country flocking to Los Angeles or New York? 🤔 youtube.com

Why aren't committed Democrats moving the most Democrat states? The most Blue states? When Democrats move, the move from their own Democrat (Blue) states to Republican (Red) states. 

What's going on? Why? Wouldn't it make more sense for Democrats, if they think they're way of governing is the best, to move to the places in America that are the most like their nirvana? The most like they keep telling us that we should all live? 

But no. When Democrats move, lilke out of California or New York, they move to Red states. Like Texas or Florida. 

So this topic warrants my "I don't get it" Label. 

I  don't get why Dems leave their Blue states, move to Red states. And then vote Blue. 

Why?

I asked a leftie-progressive friend of mine the other night. Please explain. All he could say was, yes, he might move to, say, Texas, a Red State, but that "I just can't vote Republican". But... but... why? 

If they're only going to muck things up again. And it's the reason people are leaving Blue places like LA and NYC. Well, he says, because he hopes that they might do better next time. I say: why not just go for the ones that have already shown they can do better? And to that, no real answer. Or one so confusing I couldn't understand it. We'd had quite a few wines by this stage. 

So, I still "don't get it".

In my case: I used to vote left my whole life, Labor in Australia. Followed the Dems in America. Then I noticed that the Reps seemed to be managing things better. So I shifted. That's it. If the Dems ever do do better, I could shift back. 

But why be so all "I've always voted left so I always will" about it? Doesn't make sense. 

Adam Carolla asks the logical question. 

Jiang, John, Jing

Outside was -22C. Inside toasty and the best hotpot we've had. 

Mr Jiang is our driver and guide. The place is the ski village of Yabuli in Harbin, NE China. 

The snow was good. The facilities not bad. The temperatures too cold for me. Though they did keep the snow in good condition. 

The Chinese Olympic ski team was practicing here. 

Sent from my iPad

Why don't people get married any more? Why the declining global birth rates?

Tell me, Grok: why do you think it is that people are getting married less these days? I have three children and several nephews and nieces. All in relationships. None of my kids or nieces is married. If I ask why not marry, they say "shut up, dad!" or similar. So... I don't know. Do you?

It's a common observation these days, and you're not alone in noticing it among your own family. 

In Australia (and similar trends appear in many Western countries), marriage rates have been declining for decades, with a particularly sharp drop among younger adults. Recent data from sources like the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS), and surveys like HILDA show that:

The crude marriage rate has fallen from around 7 per 1,000 people in the early 2000s to about 5–5.5 in recent years (even after a post-COVID rebound).

Among people in their 20s and early 30s, the proportion who are married has dropped dramatically — for example, only about 20% of women aged 25–29 were married in recent surveys, compared to over 35% two decades ago.

De facto (live-in partner) relationships have risen correspondingly, now common for many couples, especially those with kids.

Your children's and nieces/nephews' generation (likely millennials and Gen Z -- "Zoomers") often see little practical need for formal marriage, especially since Australian family law treats long-term de facto couples almost the same as married ones for property, superannuation, spousal maintenance, and children. 

The "shut up, dad!" response is pretty classic — it's a mix of independence, eye-rolling at "old-school" ideas, and perhaps not wanting to explain deeper reasons.

Here are the main factors driving this shift, based on research and reports:

Marriage has become optional and more "deliberate"
People now view it as a conscious choice rather than a default life step. Many couples "try before you buy" by living together first (83% of couples who do marry have cohabited beforehand, up hugely from decades ago). If the relationship works long-term without the certificate, why add the formality? Stigma around living together or having kids outside marriage has largely vanished.

Financial and economic pressures
Housing affordability, high cost of living, student debt, and career instability make big life commitments feel risky. Weddings themselves are expensive (even modest ones), and many young people delay or skip marriage until (or unless) they feel financially secure. Economic insecurity also contributes to fewer people forming partnerships at all, or keeping them informal.

Later life milestones
People spend longer in education, take time to build careers (especially women, with greater workforce participation), and travel or focus on personal growth. The median age for first marriage has risen steadily (now around 30+ for both men and women). By the time they're "ready," marriage might not feel urgent — especially if kids arrive via de facto relationships.

Changing attitudes and fear of divorce
Many in this age group grew up seeing high divorce rates among their parents' generation (boomers had the peak). That creates caution: "Why risk the legal/financial mess if de facto offers similar protections?" Marriage is sometimes seen as outdated, unnecessary for commitment, or even a potential trap if things go wrong. There's also more acceptance of diverse relationship styles — single life, serial monogamy, or long-term partnering without rings.

Cultural and social shifts
Less religious influence (fewer church weddings), dating apps changing how relationships form, and a broader cultural glamorisation of independence and self-fulfilment all play roles. For some, marriage feels like conforming to expectations they don't share.

In short, it's not that your kids and their generation don't value committed relationships — many are in them, having children, building lives together — they just don't see the legal/ceremonial step as adding much value in modern Australia. 

The practical rights are largely covered without it, and the costs (financial, emotional, social) can feel high for something that's no longer seen as essential.If you're curious, a gentle, non-judgmental chat about their specific views (maybe over a beer rather than "why not marry?") might reveal more personal reasons — like "we're happy as is" or "the wedding industry is ridiculous." But yeah, the era when marriage was the automatic next step after a relationship has passed for many. It's a big social change, but families still thrive in de facto setups just fine.

ME: You don't see any connection between low marriage rates and plunging birth rates in nearly all thew world?

Yes, there is a clear and well-documented connection between declining marriage rates (or more broadly, declining rates of stable partnerships) and plunging birth rates across much of the world, including Australia. This link shows up consistently in demographic research, and it's often described as one of the strongest proximate (direct, immediate) causes of falling fertility in recent decades.

The Global Picture

Fertility rates (measured as total fertility rate, or TFR — average children per woman) have fallen dramatically worldwide since the mid-20th century, now below replacement level (2.1) in most developed countries and dropping fast in many developing ones too. Recent analyses (up to 2025 data) attribute a large portion of this decline to fewer people entering committed relationships that lead to children.

In many societies, married people have significantly higher fertility than unmarried or even cohabiting ones. Studies from the Institute for Family Studies and others show married couples are far more likely to have children (and more of them) than singles or cohabiters.

Declining marriage rates explain a substantial share of fertility drops — for example, one analysis found ~75% of the U.S. fertility decline since 2007 tied to shifts in who is married. Similar patterns appear in cross-country data, where drops in people being married or in stable couples track almost one-to-one with fewer births.

In places like East Asia (e.g., South Korea, where extramarital births are rare), falling marriage rates account for the majority (80%+) of birth rate declines over recent decades. In Western countries, where cohabitation is more common, the story includes both fewer partnerships overall and sometimes lower fertility even within cohabiting unions due to greater instability.

Other factors contribute (economic pressures, education/career priorities, housing costs, shifting norms around family), but relationship formation — especially marriage as a stable context for kids — is frequently the biggest single driver in decomposition studies.

In Australia SpecificallyAustralia mirrors this trend closely. The TFR has continued falling, hitting around 1.48 in 2024 and projected to drop further to ~1.42 in 2025–26 (well below replacement). Marriage rates have declined steadily, with fewer people marrying young or at all, while cohabitation has risen but not fully offset the drop in partnered people (especially at peak childbearing ages).

From 1991–2019 (and trends continuing), the falling proportion of partnered women (particularly married) contributed negatively to fertility, especially among younger ages. Births to married mothers dropped from ~77% to ~64%, with cohabiting births rising but not enough to compensate fully.

Increasing singlehood (neither married nor cohabiting) among women in childbearing years has directly pulled down overall fertility levels.

Even though Australian law treats long-term de facto partners similarly to married ones for many rights, cohabiting couples often have fewer children on average than married ones (due to less perceived stability or commitment), and many people delay or skip partnering altogether.

Your observation about your kids and nieces/nephews fits right in: they're in relationships (often de facto), having or planning kids, but skipping formal marriage. 

In aggregate, though, fewer people reach that stable partnered stage (or do so later), fewer have multiple kids, and overall births drop. It's not that committed relationships have vanished entirely — many still form families — but the shift away from marriage (and sometimes away from any long-term partnership) means fewer births than in past generations.

In short, yes — the connection is strong and causal in many analyses: fewer marriages/partnerships → fewer babies. It's a key part of why global birth rates are plunging, even as other explanations (like costs or individualism) play supporting roles. If policymakers want to boost fertility, addressing barriers to stable relationships often comes up as more impactful than just cash incentives for kids.

=======================

Me, adding: Fear of Climate Change. I've had this mentioned direct to me, several times. And seen it written about. The fear -- in my view unfounded -- has led many to think that it's "not fair" or "too dangerous" to bring new young life into the world. 

British schoolchildren forced to accept Islam | Ali Tabrizi

 

This is truly shocking. I think it's horrifying. Not a conspiracy theory, because it's happening out in the open. Nothing is secret here. 

That letter in the middle of the post -- from the Head of a Welsh school about how they're not going  to celebrate Easter becoz "inclusivity"-- basically means this: 

We WILL celebrate Muslim Ramadan because all the non-Muslim kids (still the majority in the school) will be forced to take part, on pain of being labelled "racist". But... 

We will NOT celebrate Christian Easter, because all the Muslim kids in the school (still the minority in the school) will refuse to take part on pain of the teachers being labelled "racist". 

So... "inclusivity". Which is: include one. Not the other. Inclusio unum non est inclusio alterium... (or something). 

Scary but likely true: a Muslim guest teacher tells young kids at a school in Wales: "You will all be Muslim by Grade 6". The British State is assisting. Dozens, hundreds, of NGO's are assisting. 

Keir Starmer the traitor, is also assisting. Anyone -- like Sir Jack Ratcliffe -- suggesting that the UK is being colonised -- which is happening before our eyes -- is labelled, by Sturmer, as "racist and unacceptable" and threatened with jail. Yes, it is unacceptable, Keir, that the UK is being colonised. But... To Keir the "unacceptable" part is noticing it, and saying something about it. 

The author of the channel above, Ali Tabrizi, is a Christian refugee from Iran. I'm not on board with his whole "Jesus the saviour" stuff, as I'm a lifelong atheist. But it's not him or his Christianity that I fear. I fear Islam. Because it is just so damn... Supremacist. Sharia law is being pushed. Demanded. Which is how to install the tenets of Islam: hatred of LGBT, oppression of women, subjugation of non-Muslimis, punishment of apostasy, bans on blasphemy. 

The supremacism is happening so openly, so widely, so regularly, across the whole of Europe and even in my own home country of Australia, that one cannot with any honesty deny it. 

The question now is not whether or not we deny it. It's whether we'll do anything about it. My fear is we won't. In which case Islam will indeed rule the world. Not tomorrow, but very likely the day after. Within the life of my kids. 

Just look at Britain. And it's worse in France. Oh dear... 

Bread, Butter, Breakfast, Binoculars, Book, Bifocals, Birds, Balcony

Muslim massacres of Jews up to establishment of the state of Israel | The Perfect Man

Click above to enlarge 

I’m posting the list above for the record. The search was “Muslim attacks on, or massacres of, Jews AD 600 to 1948”.  Note: “This list is not exhaustive…”.

Exhaustive or not, it clearly disproves the delusion that Muslim Arab states and Muslim residents of the region that became Israel, were incensed by the announcement of the State of Israel in 1948: “If only Israel would go away, all would be well.”

No. Muslims have been killing Jews FOREVER. Not just since the creation of Israel.

These are attacks on Jews since world's worst man, Muhammad became a man, c. AD 600. The man who Muslims insist on calling "The Perfect Man". A Perfect Man who took part in — who instigated and led — the first two of the massacres listed above, the genocide of the Banu Qurayza tribe of Jews and the subsequent “…extermination of Arabian Jewish tribes”. 

The Perfect Man who personally, proudly, beheaded over 600 male Jews in 622. 

ADDED: The Sirah, Islam’s official and authoritative biography of Muhammad, proudly notes The Perfect Man’s “compassion”. How so ? Because he ordered that only men of the Jewish tribes be killed. If in doubt, boys were made to drop their pants. If they had any pubic hair, they were deemed a man and promptly beheaded. Often by Muhammad himself. Jewish women and children were kept as slaves. That’s what counts as compassion in Islam. Up to today! Muslims are proud of this! Proud of their Perfect Man.

All of these massacres, including those personally carried out by Muhammad, “Mr Perfect”, are recorded in detail in the Sirah of Muhammad, the official Muslim biography of the "Perfect Man", by Ibn Ishaq. 

I’ve read the Sirah. It's in my library. This book is a celebratory, blood-drenched recitation of the horrors that Muhammad committed in this own lifetime. And of the atrocities, the tortures, the murders, the massacres, that he and his followers committed. In his life Muhammad personally started of took part in, 27 major battles. He was a warmonger. A swordsman. A murderer. A rapist. A Perfect Man.

Viewed Proudly up to today.

And yet somehow, we are asked to accept — as a depressing number of westerners appear to — that this is a "Religion of Peace". (Spellcheck even autocompleted "Peace" for me after I’d typed  in “Religion”; that’s how deep the brainwashing is).

Note the second of the massacres listed above: "Extermination of Arabian Jewish Tribes". Extermination! 

Muslims, Islamists, are trying to do this until today. To exterminate every last Jew from the Holy Land. Which is Holy only because the Jews were there and because Christians followed a revolutionary Jew. 

Arab Muslims occupy 99.7% of the lands in the Middle East. They cannot abide that 0.3% of the lands are occupied by Jews, the original and indigenous occupants.

They — Hamas, the PA, residents of Gaza, Muslim settlers of Judea and Samaria, surrounding Muslim states — do not want a "Two State Solution". They want every Jew cleansed from the Middle East. And then from the world. 

….

Goodness! I do seem to have gone on a bit of a rave!  When all I’d wanted to do was to post a list of Muslim massacres of Jews over the centuries.

(By the way, try the other way around —  ask AI the number of Jewish attacks or massacres of Muslims — and it’s slim pickings).

No, Janan Ganesh, I DON'T mourn the passing of the "liberal world order"

No, Janan, I don't mourn the passing of the "liberal world order." It might still have some zombie strength left—who knows? But if it does fade away, good riddance.

An old and dear friend of mine, a bit of a leftie, sent me Janan Ganesh's Financial Times piece* out of the blue. 
Ganesh urges liberals to grieve the end of this post-1945 system—the most successful international order in history, he says: unprecedented prosperity, relative peace, progress for the West. 
No country benefited more than the US. Don't apologize or resign yourself, he argues; mourn it openly, toast what it achieved, and don't let populists own the narrative. Elegiac, defiant, even haunted by a Top Gun line.
Sounds lovely in summary. But it wasn't all rosy.
I'm a traitor to my class. Yes, I am! The elite class—upper-middle, in charge of "things." I got there by job and circumstance, not choice. Fine. But now I'm a traitor because we Elites have abandoned the working and middle classes in the West. They've suffered—and it's our fault. Because of this "liberal world order" that exploded global wealth since WWII, while quietly gutting them.
I once loved it. Loved it. Post-war it ovresaw:

• Non-punitive treatment of war losers. 
• The Marshall Plan rebuilding Europe. 
• The UN, mostly funded by America. 
• GATT — the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade— which birthed the WTO. 
• The Korean War keeping South Korea safe for democratic capitalism against the North.

Mistakes? Plenty. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. But overall, it kept the world humming along.
Who gained most? Elites. Like me. Like my friend. Like most of our circle. Supporting Trump now—his focus on middle America, the working class—is apostasy from the tribe. But if Republicans won't stand for the working and middle classes, who will? The Democrats ditched them long ago for inner-city elites. We. Inner city elites. 

Since 2000—especially China's 2001 WTO entry as a "developing" country—the gains turned K-shaped: elites and big-state mercantilists soaring up; Western industrial heartlands and workers sliding down. 
Globalization lifted global GDP but hollowed out factories, fueling the resentment populists exploit. Deregulation boomed—then crashed in '08, shattering trust. Inequality exploded at home even as absolute poverty fell globally.
The UN? Thoroughly corrupted. "I am the United Nations". 
[My Dad was an Australian representative to the U.N. in the early sixties. He was pretty critical of the U.N. even then; it's got a lot worse since]
This breakdown wasn't Trump's doing. Peter Zeihan (no Trump fan) makes it clear: the rot started earlier. End of the Cold War. China's lawless mercantilism. ["The Global World Order is Collapsing"]
Trump is responding—America First, tariffs as leverage, allies paying their defense share, force used for actual peace, not nation-building fantasies.
The old order enriched rivals like China, traded sovereignty for cheap imports, and left ordinary people behind. Its passing isn't tragedy. It's correction.
I don't mourn it. I welcome what's next: nations that put their own people first.
=====================

ADDED: In the 1970s I was an Australian diplomat. I worked with American colleagues on the latest round of the GATT. We loved this new World Order we were creating. Of course we were paid to love it! But we did. At least I did, and as I recall, we all did. The mantra, by the way, was "Free Trade Good; Tariffs Bad". Which I believed right up till recently. [But that's a whole n'other issue].
*Ganesh's FT article is behind a paywall. If you have FT access, the URL is https://www.ft.com/content/3dd3f37b-a783-4f12-a837-764e9f429b01

Otherwise, copy the link in italics above and paste into the bottom box at Archive.