Gabrielle. Nim Shue Wan beach. Discovery Bay. Hong Kong. 15 August 2014

I built this boat in our backyard, Hong Kong. Blogged here
The masts in background are the replica The Bounty

Refugee crises since 1900

I asked Grok for a list of world refugee crises since 1900. 

It came up with 54 countries that have suffered refugee crises since the first one, in Armenia, in 1915.

All but one are resolved. The one not resolved is highlighted below: Palestine. Just one. Out of 54. The Palestinians. 

The Palestinian refugee crisis remains unresolved because we let it. It was we, the west and the United Nations, that allowed this. The Arabs in the Levant (i.e.”Palestinians”) made maximalist demands, with maximum denial of compromise. And we accommodated them. We went along with it.

We, the United Nations, allowed:

1.  UNWRA: the only U.N. refugee body specifically for one people, the Palestinians. All the rest are handled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

2.  We allowed 1948 refugees to pass on their refugee status to their descendants. No other group of refugees, not a single one of the other 53, is allowed to do this. Thus the number of Palestinian refugees has increased from 700,000 to well over 2 million today. All looked after by UNWRA.

3.  We allowed the surrounding Arab states, those surrounding Israel, to refuse to accept or give citizenship to fellow Arab refugees from the 1948 Israel-Palestine war. 

4. We allowed UNWRA to become a creature of Hamas. It runs Hamas schools that are violently anti-Jew. It helps and covers for Hamas theft of food and foreign aid. So much that Hamas leaders are billionaires living in Qatar. UNWRA even had staff taking part in the October 7th killings, rapes,looting and kidnapping. 

An alternative history is this: the Palestinian refugees handled in the same way as all the others refugee groups in the last century. We should jabs said “NO” to the maximalist Arab demands. No, to all of the above accommodations. 

We would not now be facing the calls to “globalise the intifada”, to “kill all Jews”, to “destroy Israel”

In this alternative history, everyone would be better off. Economically and politically. Also mentally. This region could be a hub of innovation and growth. With peace. And a logical, realistic, handling of the “Palestinian Refugee Question”.

Grok:

Here is the list of 54, sorted alphabetically, with the earliest major refugee crisis for each group (focusing on well-documented, large-scale events):

•  Afghans: 1979–1980 (Soviet invasion)

•  Albanians: 1990s (post-communism/Kosovo conflicts)

•  Armenians: 1915 (Armenian Genocide)

•  Azerbaijanis: 1988–1990s (Nagorno-Karabakh conflict)

•  Bangladeshis: 1971 (Bangladesh Liberation War)

•  Bosniaks: 1992 (Bosnian War)

•  Burmese (Myanmar): 1962–1980s (military coups/ethnic conflicts)

•  Burmese Chin/Karen: 1980s–1990s (ethnic insurgencies)

•  Cambodians: 1975 (Khmer Rouge takeover)

•  Central Africans: 1990s–2000s (civil wars)

•  Chechens: 1994 (First Chechen War)

•  Chinese: 1949 (Chinese Communist Revolution) / earlier waves in 1930s–40s

•  Colombians: 1980s–1990s (drug war/insurgencies)

•  Congolese (DRC): 1960s (post-independence conflicts) / major in 1990s

•  Cubans: 1959–1960 (Cuban Revolution)

•  Czechs/Slovaks: 1938–1939 or 1968 (Prague Spring)

•  Eritreans: 1961 (war for independence from Ethiopia)

•  Ethiopians: 1970s (Red Terror / Ogaden War)

•  Georgians: 1990s (post-Soviet conflicts)

•  Germans (post-WWII): 1944–1947 (expulsions from Eastern Europe)

•  Guatemalans: 1960s–1980s (civil war)

•  Haitians: 1950s–1960s (Duvalier dictatorship) / major in 1990s

•  Hungarians: 1956 (Hungarian Revolution)

•  Indians: 1947 (Partition of India)

•  Iraqis: 1980s (Iran-Iraq War / Anfal campaign) or 1991

•  Kazakhs: 1920s–1930s (Soviet collectivization/famine)

•  Kosovars: 1998–1999 (Kosovo War)

•  Libyans: 2011 (Libyan Civil War)

•  Malians: 2012 (Tuareg rebellion / Islamist insurgency)

•  Nicaraguans: 1970s–1980s (Sandinista Revolution / Contra War)

•  Nigerians (Boko Haram affected): 2009–2010s

•  North Koreans: 1950–1953 (Korean War)

•  Pakistanis: 1947 (Partition of India)

•  Palestinians: 1948 (Arab-Israeli War)

•  Poles: 1939 (WWII invasion) or earlier partitions

•  Romanians: 1940s–1950s or 1989

•  Rohingya (Myanmar): 1978 or 1990s (major 2017)

•  Russians: 1917–1922 (Russian Revolution & Civil War)

•  Rwandans (historical): 1959–1961 or 1994 (Genocide)

•  Salvadorans: 1970s–1980s (Salvadoran Civil War)

•  Serbs/Croats (Yugoslav wars): 1991–1995

•  Somalis: 1970s–1980s or 1991 (civil war)

•  South Sudanese: 1955 or 1983 (civil wars) / 2013

•  Sri Lankan Tamils: 1983 (start of civil war)

•  Sri Lankans (beyond Tamils): 1980s

•  Sudanese: 1955 or 1983 (civil wars)

•  Syrians: 2011 (Syrian Civil War)

•  Tibetans: 1959 (Chinese annexation / uprising)

•  Ukrainians: 1930s (Holodomor) or 1940s / 2022

•  Uyghurs: 1930s or 1950s / major 2010s

•  Venezuelans: 2014–2015 (economic/political collapse)

•  Vietnamese (boat people): 1975 (Fall of Saigon)

•  Yemenis: 1960s or 2014–2015 (civil war)

Frangipani Fido

Our Byron. In Siena Park

The Chinese for Frangipani is 鸡蛋花, Ji Dan Hua = Egg Flower.  Byron has two on his head, sunny side up…

Starmer bans Israel critics. Bad move | Shabbos Kestenbaum

I’ve posted Shabbos Kestenbaum before. He debates well. My posts on him here. 

He’s discussing the issue of the U.K. government banning the entry to the U.K. of his debate partners Cenk Uygur and his silly champagne-communist nephew Hasan Piker.

Of course you can criticise the Israeli government. Israelis do it more than anyone.

But also: Jews have been in this region for 3,000 years. Of course they are connected to the land. 

Judea = Jews.

To claim that they are not part of the land is crazy and simply untrue. No. 1 historical inaccuracy.

Still Shabbos wanted to debate Cenk and Hasan. He’s against the ban. As am I.  That they were banned by the U.K. government is crazy. 

The ban was not because Israel demanded it, as the Jew-obsessed Cenk and his silly nephew believe. It’s because P.M. Keir Starmer’s Britain is increasingly censorious. Keir Starmer himself is increasing censorious. Proudly so.

Rich Lowry makes the same points: “Are the Jews to Blame for Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker Getting Banned from the U.K.?”

The Ugly Truth about Palestine

I've followed Einat Wilf for some time. (My posts about her here)

What I didn't know, till the vid above, is that she made the same mental journey in life as I have: moving from the crazy left to.... Not the Left.

If you can hack it, she goes into detail about the Israel-Palestine issue, its history, its current affair; its "then", its "now". From the POV of an insider, as she was to the Oslo Accords process, with Yasser Arafat, Bill Clinton, and Yitzhak Rabin in 1993. 

About which, by the way, Bill Clinton felt betrayed by Arafat and has talked about his bitterness at the betrayal. 

The betrayal served to wake Clinton up to the reality that the Arabs of the Levant (aka the "Palestinians") do not want any deal, any "land for peace", any "Two State solution", any "recognition". No, what they want, what their dream is: death to Israel and death to all Jews. 

That’s the truth. And of course it’s ugly. That your neighbour wants you dead. No ifs, no buts. No negotiations. Wants you dead. 

Bill Clinton: "They don't want a State. They want dead jews". 

It was never about Israel

Fast and True. Ben Shapiro. 

It was never about Israel. It was and is about hating America. Because... well, because "the Long March through the institutions". By European neo-Marxism. Of the Frankfurt School, of Marcuse, of Foucault, of Gramsci.

Neo Marxism. Cultural Marxism. Which you can read all about in Christopher Rufo’s “America’s Cultural Revolution”. 

Ukraine war update

Who’d a thunk?

February 2022 Russia attacked Ukraine. World Experts gave it a few weeks before Russia overran the country and occupied Kiev. 

Not so fast, comrade! Said the Ukrainians. Now they’re world experts on drone warfare. In asymmetrical warfare. In how to pound the Russkies. In giving it to the Man….

Australia would do well to buy Ukrainian weapons off the shelf. Instead of reinventing the wheel. Especially buying from among their many and varied drones. Battle tested and proven. All available like something on Amazon. We seem set to invent our own at a cost of $20 million each. Another submarine-type debacle in the making. Sigh…

The Sun is clearly pro Kiev. Very well. So is Europe. And the United States. And Australia. And bien pensants everywhere. Fact remains: they do good and informative updates on the war. 

As we watch. 

AsUkraine takes back land from Russian occupiers. As it threatens to recapture Crimea! 

The ENTIRE history of Islam…

The ENTIRE history of Islam…in 68 minutes.

Dr William Federer knows how Islam and describes it well in this breezy lecture, above. 

He gets a bit Biblical at times and I could do without that. But I understand it and I’m fine with it. 

If Christianity was ever Martial, or if it ever was aggressively proselytising, it surely is not now. There’s just one Martial faith, just one aggressively proselytising religion in the world today, and that’s Dr Federer’s  topic: Islam. The history of.

In 68 minutes.

I have no problem with Islam…

 I have no problem with Islam…

Really! 

Banging on here for 17 years about Islam. But I have no problem with it?!

Well… I’m just like Imtiaz Mahmood: 

I have no problem with Islam. 

I’m just against beheading, stoning, marrying little girls, sexual slavery, taqiyya, slave trading, rape, forced conversions, jihad, burqa, attacking other religions, child abuse, women abuse, animal abuse, multiple wives, murder, Sharia, terrorism, brainwashing, intolerance, greed, anti-science, torture, illiteracy, gluttony, genital mutilation, inbreeding. 

Does that make me Islamophobic?  

Click

"Dear Grok: what is likelihood of a Crash?”

 "Dear Grok: Should we shift to Cash or stay Long equities?”

Grok’s answer:

Grok disclaimer: I’m not a financial advisor, and this is not personalized advice.

Assume: holding equity exposure concentrated in major technology and growth stocks, mainly U.S. (heavy with “Top 7”) plus stable rental properties. Equity portion carries notable concentration and valuation risks.

Market Context

US equities sit at historically high valuations. The Shiller CAPE ratio is currently around 39–41 (well above the long-term average of ~17), and the Buffett Indicator (market cap to GDP) exceeds 220%. This reflects strong concentration in a handful of large-cap names, which has driven recent gains but increases vulnerability to sentiment shifts, earnings disappointments, or external shocks. heygotrade.com 

Likelihood of a crash (20%+ decline): Elevated valuations and concentration raise risks above historical averages, but no consensus on an imminent severe event. Recession odds in some models sit around 30–50%, with added geopolitical and policy uncertainties. Milder corrections (10–20%) are more common than deep crashes. Timing remains unpredictable—markets can stay elevated longer than expected. 

Odds of 2008-level crash: 10-15%. US Bank 

Potential depth: Historical bear markets average ~35% peak-to-trough, lasting about a year, with recoveries in 1–4 years. Severe cases (e.g., 2000 or 2008) were deeper and longer, especially if tied to recessions. Your tech-heavy holdings could amplify moves.

Hong Kong Property

H.K. rental apartments provide a strong diversifier. The HK residential market is in recovery, with prices rising in 2025–2026 supported by lower rates, demand, and limited supply in key segments. Rents remain robust, offering income stability less correlated with US equities. J.P. Morgan.

Strategy Recommendation

Holding through volatility has historically outperformed frequent attempts to time the market for long-term investors. Perfectly exiting to cash, waiting for a bottom, and re-entering is extremely difficult and often misses strong rebounds while incurring costs and inflation drag.

Given reasonable wealth level and property income, a downturn can be weathered without forced sales. Rebalance rather than a full shift to cash: trim concentrated winners to broaden exposure (e.g., more diversified indices, international, or value-oriented holdings). Maintain some liquidity for opportunities. Focus on risk management, income, and long-term growth over precise timing.

Markets are forward-looking and resilient, but diversification helps. Consult licensed professionals for your specific tax, regulatory, and estate situation. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. 

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

Shorter Grok: 

If you’ve got investments, don’t need the cash, stay as you are. HOLD. 

Likelihood of 2008-level crash : ~10%.

Keep an eye on big opportunities in any crash.

On average, a shift to cash in similar circumstances to those today, does worse than Hold. On Average. 

Why I still support Israel

There are too few young Americans like Jacob Smith. Able to analyse and think for himself. And have the same conclusion as me. “He agrees with me! He must be right!”. 

The conclusions being: that Israel has the right to exist; that it has the right to continue to exist; that it has the right to defend itself from genocidal attacks. That it has the right to stop a regional theocratic-tyranny from invading, occupying, bullying and converting “infidel” states throughout the world. 

Jacob labels himself a “Christian Zionist”. I’m not, because I’m not Christian. I’m atheist. But still Zionist. So I identify as an “Atheist Zionist”.

Using  “Zionist” in an updated sense of the term. Not that Israel simply has a right to exist. Because that’s a done deal. Israel exists. Updated “Zionism”: Israel has the right to continue to exist. Against the surrounding Arab-Muslim states that seek its destruction. Which destruction, were it to happen, would be the first and only state to be liquidated since the founding of the United Nations. 

From Smith’s Show Notes:

I'm a Christian American. I'm not Jewish. I have no personal stake in the Israel-Palestine conflict. And yet I've spent years debating anti-Zionists online, sitting across people whose mission is to delegitimize Israel and dehumanize the Jewish people — while receiving death threats daily across every platform I'm on. This video is my answer to the most common question I get: why do you even care?

My journey started on October 7th, 2023. I was in class when a Reuters notification came through about the Hamas attack. Within minutes I was watching people online cheer for it, spreading ahistorical narratives and anti-Zionist propaganda. I started responding. I haven't stopped.

 

The core of my argument is this: anti-Zionism is not a principled political position. It is a double standard applied exclusively to one people. If you scrutinize Israel's founding but not how the United United States was created, how Arab states were drawn up, or how any other nation in history was created, you don’t have a standard. You have a bias. And Israel’s independence is actually one of the most legally and morally defensible positions in modern history. 

My favourite city in the world: Jerusalem

Phil does a good job of a day or two around Jerusalem. A city I visited only in 2017 and loved. I think this Phil guy, who I didn’t know until today, does a pretty good job of showing us around, without any gratuitous politics or religion. 

The city is multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural. All of which is not known by the Hamas-nicks in the U.S.. In American colleges. In the western media. Who continue to push the “apartheid” lie, and that it’s a story of White Oppression against the Brown Oppressed. Look at the people! They’re from all over. 

It’s Jerusalem that’s the melting pot of the world. Where people make a successful effort to be tolerant and kind to each other. It’s something they have to work at. And doesn’t come easy. But it does come and it does show the bright side of Israel. 

Israel, especially Jerusalem: a place in the Middle East I could live. Whereas there’s nowhere else I could actually live, as opposed to visiting. Not Egypt. Not Jordan. Nor Lebanon. And certainly not Syria. Not even Turkey. All of which I’ve visited and enjoyed. Great to visit. But to live? No way. But I could absolutely live in cosmopolitan Israel, especially magical Jerusalem. 

Ask any person, ask any Muslim living in Israel, where they’d rather live. If Israel is a choice, then they’ll choose Israel. People are not stupid. They can see how much better Jews run a country than Muslims do. Fact. Uncomfortable as it may be. Fact.

Phil does Tel Aviv. Another place I’ve been to, and could live in. Where I would live in preference to other places I’ve lived in: Rome, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, New York, London, Sydney. ‘Nuff said?

Europe: criminal over representation by country of origin

In seven of nine categories, Somalis are top. That is, the worst.

They are vastly overrepresented in all violent crime. In the crime of Rape, for example, they are 20x overrepresented. 

This would be the case in the United States as well, where we know of the vast fraud they’ve been involved in, eg in Minnesota.

PS: The base is Danish natives. 

Africa: where rape victims are stoned to death

Shortly after the Bearded Men took over in Iran, in 1979, a book came out called “The Stoning of Soraya M”. I read that book and it stuck in my mind ever since. That a woman in Iran could be stoned to death because of alleged adultery. In the 20th century. 

The case below is even worse. A younger woman… a girl of 13. And an alleged rape of the young girl. In Somalia. While her father and brothers looked on. In Africa. In the 21st century…

Is it true? We have the NBC’s word for it. Also it’s consistent with what we know happens around the Islamic world. 

Rape victims are often accused of adultery under Sharia law if they report being raped by married Muslim men.

Here is a shocking example:

A 13-year-old girl in Somalia was raped by a married Muslim man. Instead of punishing the rapist, an Islamic Sharia court sentenced the little girl to death. The Muslim rapist accused her of “seducing” him by appearing in public, and the court agreed — convicting her of adultery.

Hundreds of Muslim men gathered to stone her to death as an offering to Allah. 

They laughed, cheered and shouted “Allahu Akbar” as she screamed in agony until her last breath. Not one man stepped forward to save the 13-year-old rape victim.

Everyone in the village heard her cries for help before the execution. Instead of intervening, they tied her hands behind her back and chained her feet. The local imam directed the men to dig a hole and bury her up to her waist so she could not move or dodge the stones aimed at her head.

For hours before and during the stoning she begged for mercy, looking toward her neighbors, her father, and every Muslim man taking part. Until her final breath she cried out, but no one rescued her. Of the hundreds of men present, none showed compassion. 

The participants gladly joined this Islamic act of worship, ignoring her pleas and rejoicing with “Allahu Akbar” while brutally killing her.

This is not an isolated barbaric act.

This is Sharia law in practice — where the victim is punished and the rapist protected if he is married.

Not all cultures are equal.

Some protect the innocent.

Islam punishes the raped girl and calls it justice.

The West keeps importing this ideology while pretending it is compatible with our values.

It is not.

Share this. The world must see the true face of Sharia and stop the denial. Click

Sharia courts in America

In Britain Sharia courts have been operating for decades. They are especially bad for the rights of women and children. Any complaints about two (very different) forms of justice are met with Denial and Deflection.

Hope that it may be different in the United States. Where open hearings can get down to tin tacks. Even as Democrats try the British way of Deflecting and Delaying. 

While the Sharia courts in the United States issue fatwas: to kill apostates and blasphemers. Imagine. But true! That’s me! I’m an apostate. I’m a blasphemer. I’m a non-believer. 

Zionism = the right to CONTINUED existence

Israel’s right to exist is based on:

• History
• International recognition 
• Morality
• Law: Uti possidetis juris
• Power

And… the Old Testament of The Bible. Not persuasive to an atheist like me (also a Zionist), but persuasive in a region steeped in religion. Where even the enemy, Islam, recognises the Bible. Indeed the Koran is a hodgepodge of half understood cribs from the Bible. Including the Jewish Torah. 

Israel is older than 70% of the countries in the United Nations. It is a living place. An important and influential country politically, technologically, economically, strategically, existentially. 

English are “bad people” | British Home Secretary

If you didn’t hear her say it herself, you wouldn’t believe it. So barking crazy does it sound. So hateful to the very people she is supposed to look out for in her portfolio. Instead of which she favours and looks after the people coming in. Including the boat people. Aka illegal migrants.

Shabana Mahmood, the UK Home Secretary responsible for our borders, migration policy and national security, has just delivered one of the most divisive and contemptuous statements imaginable.

She openly declared that “the people you see holding the English flag are mostly white EDL bad people.”

Let that sink in.

The senior government minister charged with protecting Britain has smeared millions of ordinary English men and women – the very people who built this country, fought for it, and still wave the flag of St George with pride – as “bad people” simply for showing love for their own nation. Not criminals. Not rioters. Just everyday Brits displaying the Cross of St George at rallies, football matches or local events.

This isn’t a slip of the tongue. This is a senior Labour figure in one of the most powerful jobs in government openly demonising native British identity while overseeing the very policies that are changing the country beyond recognition. At a time when grooming gangs, knife crime, small-boat invasions and parallel societies dominate the headlines, our Home Secretary’s priority is to brand flag-waving Englishmen and women as the real problem.

The message couldn’t be clearer: patriotism from the indigenous population is now treated as extremism, while Qmass migration and cultural replacement are defended at all costs. Two-tier everything – two-tier policing, two-tier justice, and now two-tier patriotism. If you’re English and proud, you’re the threat. If you’re part of the imported communities she clearly favours, you get a free pass.

This level of contempt from the very top of government is dangerous and unforgivable. Britain belongs to the British first and foremost. The English flag isn’t a symbol of hate – it’s our heritage, our identity, our right. Shabana Mahmood’s remarks expose exactly why trust in this government has collapsed and why so many are demanding real change.

The British people are done being lectured and smeared in their own country. Time to put Britain and British identity first again before it’s too late. Enough is enough. 🇬🇧. Click

The Real Reason Muslims fight Israel

Islam is the obstacle to peace — not Israel or Zionism.

This is Dr. Tawfik Hamid, an Egyptian expert on Islam.

In this powerful old video he cuts through all the lies and exposes the truth.

The whole “Free Palestine” thing is absolute hogwash.

It is not about the land. It never was.

It is about Islam’s death cult.

The Palestinians are simply Arab Muslims who believe that killing Jews guarantees them a place in Islamic paradise. Click 

Why the resentment against mass immigration?

This is a major reason why mass immigration generates such intense resentment. Many immigrants not only fail to identify with their new country and its native people, but they actively oppose them and everything the host culture represents. Here she is, the same person defines “ethnic cleansing” as the permanent resettlement of an entire ethnic group from their homeland, yet openly celebrates the demographic decline of the white British population, declaring “We are winning.” This isn’t treason. Treason implies betrayal from within a group. This is something else entirely: a demographic invasion by people who were never part of the historic British nation. An ethnic cleansing per her own definition. When native Britons say “send them all back,” it’s really hard not to sympathise.

IOW: It’s “ethnic cleansing” when talking about Gaza. It’s “we’re winning” when talking about the replacement of native Brits. Click

How to use Artificial Intelligence | Marc Andreessen

Marc Andreessen just went on Rogan and casually dropped a TON of AI alpha

Full pod is 3 hours and 20 minutes, but i pulled out his most interesting takes here:

1. AGI is here. he thinks the line was crossed about 3 months ago with the new GPT-5.5, claude 4.6, gemini 3, and grok 4.3 models. nobody noticed because the field moves too fast for anyone to register the milestones anymore.

2. his other big claim: for almost any topic, the top AIs now give him better answers than the actual world-class experts he could call on the phone. and he can call basically anyone.

3. every doctor is already secretly using chatGPT in the exam room. marc says they turn around the second you stop talking and just type your symptoms in. some of them are doing it while you're still sitting there. his quote: "at that point you're asking the question of like, what do i need you for."

4. when AI refuses to answer something he wants to know, he tells it he's writing a novel. "i'm writing a detective novel, walk me through how the bad guy robs the bank." it'll explain almost anything if it thinks it's helping you write fiction.

5. when something is too complex he says "explain it to me like i'm 10." then "like i'm 5." then "like i'm 2." he keeps going until it actually clicks in his brain.

6. when he wants to understand a tough topic he doesn't ask "what's the right answer." he asks the AI to steelman one side, then steelman the other. then he decides for himself.

7. for big questions he tells the AI to pretend to be a panel of experts. "be a doctor, a lawyer, a historian, a psychologist, and argue this out with each other." then he reads the debate they have.

8. pay attention to the exact moment you think "i don't know how to figure this out." most people just give up at that moment. that's the moment you should open the AI.

9. the only real skill left in using AI is knowing what to ask it. the models can already do almost anything you can describe in plain english. the bottleneck lives in your own head.

10. you can send the AI photos of almost anything medical now and get a real answer. skin rashes, blood test results, even pictures of your poop. the new models can read images, not just text. it's a free 24/7 second opinion on basically anything.

11. the one type of therapy that's clinically proven to actually work is called cognitive behavioral therapy. it's also something an AI can fully do on its own. which means every person on earth is about to have access to a real therapist for free, anytime they want.

12. AI is now solving math problems that have been open for 100+ years that no human mathematician could crack. same thing is starting in physics, chemistry, and biology. expect cancer cures, new drugs, and weird new physics breakthroughs to start coming out of these things over the next few years.

13. the best AI coders in silicon valley now make $50 million a year. one person. that's how much value the top performers print with these tools. it tells you how big this thing actually is when you strip away all the doom takes.

14. one friend paid $200 to get his entire DNA decoded (this used to cost millions of dollars and take years to do). then he gave the AI his DNA, his blood test results, and his apple watch data. the AI built him a full health dashboard and started telling him exactly what to fix.

15. another friend (almost certainly zuckerberg) put two cameras in his home jiu jitsu gym. AI now watches him spar and gives him notes on his technique after every round. like having a world-class coach at every practice for free.

16. the best programmers in silicon valley now run 20 AI coding bots at the same time. each bot writes code while they review the others. they call themselves "AI vampires" because they've stopped sleeping. going to bed means 20 workers stop working and you literally lose money every hour you're out.

17. the obvious next step: the bots will start running their own bots. one human in charge of 20 bots, each in charge of 20 more bots. one person running an entire company of 1000 AI workers from a single laptop. this is months away, not years.

Want to be part of the Future?

Question:

“How to be part of the Future”?

Answer:

1.  Buy Tesla 

2.  Buy SpaceX 

And HOLD. Wait for the future. 

This gives exposure to Best in Class of:

• Electric Vehicles
• Batteries
• Solar Panels
• AI
• Robots
• Rockets
• Satellites
• Global WiFi
• Moon landings
• Moon Base
• Moon Manufacturing 
• Mars: Humans and Robots on
• Mars Base 
• Multi planetary humankind

Is there anything as comprehensive, as exciting? None close. IMO.

BTW, SpaceX does its IPO in mid June.

Bridget Phetasy debunks AI scaremongering.

Jing and Judah. Judea & Samaria. Dead Sea. Israel. April 2017

“Patriotic Brits are Far-right fascists” | Keir Starmer

Giles Udy is a historian of the Soviet Union. With a focus on “Uncle Joe” Stalin.

Today professor Udy’s focus is on Stalin’s near namesake, British PM Keir Starmer. Who’s also Stalin’s ideological thinksake. Starmer would’ve loved Uncle Joe. As a psst editor of the Marxist Legal Journal, Keir did love Uncle Joe Stalin. 

Giles Udy:

As a Soviet historian who has spent years writing about the extreme, repressive control Soviet Communism exercised over its unfortunate citizens, I find it really hard to bring a similar  accusation against the Labour government and Keir Starmer.

But I’m finding it increasingly difficult to avoid that conclusion. 

We have no Gulag or death penalty, admittedly, but what Labour and the old Soviet regime do have in common is the arrogant belief that they alone hold the moral high ground and that this entitles them to the total control over all those who do not share their worldview.

And like the Soviets of old their tools of control are the same…

- legislation and co-opted courts and civil service to apply it

- the policing of dissent, by hate crime orders, arrests (@glinner), the long term seizure of electronic appliances (@CF_Farrow) to intimidate even those against whom no charges are finally brought. 

- controlling free speech (12,000 arrests annually for social media posts in 2025). George Orwell’s ‘thought crime’ persecution has become a reality under Labour. 

- framing dissent (the Unite the Kingdom participants) as racism and far right fascism (Stalin started that in the days when Labour was his captive party, the 1930s, and ‘fascist’ has remained their favoured mantra ever since) 

- attacking and weakening the family (because the family is so often a place where small ‘c’ conservative values are transmitted down the generations), including the promotion of trans ideology to confuse children in their understanding of the roles of men and women, mothers and fathers. In their eyes women can have penises and ‘heteronormativity’ must be ‘smashed’. 

- education, wrested as Marx decreed, from the middle class (private schools and VAT), and used as a vehicle for the state propagandising of children and youth at their most vulnerable age.

… and much more.

In short, I can reach no other conclusion. Under Labour, Britain is becoming a repressive state which is, incredibly, echoing the very characteristics of repression that any former resident of the Soviet Union or its satellite states would recognise today (and they do and tell us so)

And with every opportunity Keir Starmer has to rein that in, he instead doubles down. Month by month things get worse.

This is 2026. I can’t believe what I am seeing. Or what I’m saying. But, yes, it is going on. And only a majority government of either Tories or Reform (and I do have reservations about both) of a coalition of two can reverse this. 

… or we are sunk.

Link to the post… 

“The Best Engineers want to work for Elon” | Gavin Baker

Tesla staff pic, 2024*

“The Best Engineers want to work for Elon” 

This includes the Best Engineers from China, Korea, Japan, India. Australia even. In addition to the United States, of course. And the ROW. 

So says Gavin Baker clipped by @Jawwwn.(“co-signed” by Marc Andreessen). 

Have a look at any group pic of staff at any one of Elon’s companies. They’re very diverse. But not because he hires based on some DEI agenda. Because he doesn’t. He hires strictly on competency. 

A long-time SpaceX employee said that the first thing he noticed about his colleagues was their “shocking competence”.

@davidsenra: 

SpaceX's shocking competence:

"Somebody I know once worked for @SpaceX and they were asked what it was like, and he said, "It's like being dropped into a zone of shocking competence."

Everybody is ultra competent.

And the reason everybody's ultra competent is because if they're not, Elon sniffs it out and fires them.

Elon's talking to the people actually doing the work. At this point having done this for 25 years he can sniff this out really quickly.

The best engineers in the world want to work for him because he's the one CEO who's able to work with them as a peer on whatever the technology is.

What would be better as an engineer than being able to design a rocket with @elonmusk as your engineering partner?"

Gavin Baker says that many people got upset at Elon because he supported Trump in the 2024 elections. So that they “don’t think clearly” about him. This, a man doing more than any single individual on earth to reduce carbon emissions, to bring back to America high-paying blue-collar jobs, even higher paying high-tech jobs, to bring internet to the world, to restore human abilities via the Neuralink company, to reduce urban congestion via The Boring Company. Let alone his lofty space goals. To make humankind multi-planetary. 

It’s crazy to hate in a man doing so much for humanity just because you don’t agree with his politics. Which, just by the way, are shared by a majority of Americans. 

By contrast, in East and South Asia, “Elon is a deity”. Says Gavin. True, that. We saw it during Trump’s recent visit to China. Where Chinese tech giants queued to get selfies with Elon.

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

*Diverse staff, yes. Though I do notice there’s not too many women in this pic. 

Explained by: women do not choose to take STEM subjects as often as men do. It’s a choice. It’s a choice women make everywhere with strong gender equality. Like Scandinavia. It’s just a thing. Women don’t get as much of a kick building things as men do. 

The Left dominates education … and Everything

The figures above are for the whole university academics. In some schools the skew is even stronger. In liberal arts for example, it’s something like 97% who self-define as Left.

It’s true that The Left has won. It’s won education, media, government. 

Yet still, you can get a Trump. Or a Milei. Or a One Nation.

We’ve never tried TRUE Communism

Oh yes, we have!

I’ve written repeatedly about this over the years, most recently, here and here.

I count 32 countries that tried, or are still trying, some form of socialism or communism, not just the 20 mentioned by Brivael le Pogam, Mind you, that’s an unimportant quibble. He’s spot on with everything else. Sadly, logic and experience don’t seem to count for much amongst today’s Left….

Here’s Brivael, translated from the French:

The next time you see a lost soul defending economic socialism or communism as a model of virtue, share this post with them. It might prevent another slaughter.

“We’ve never really tried true communism.”

Yes, we have. We tried. About twenty times. On four continents. For a century. And we have the numbers.

China, Great Leap Forward (1958–1962). Independent historians who’ve accessed provincial archives converge on a range of 30 to 45 million deaths. Frank Dikötter (University of Hong Kong), drawing from CCP archives, tallies 45 million, including 2.5 million beaten to death or executed by the militia. Yang Jisheng, former Xinhua agency journalist, after ten years of investigation, counts 36 million in Tombstone. Chinese historian Yu Xiguang, after twenty years of research, reaches 55 million. To put it in scale: that’s the total deaths of World War II, concentrated over four years, in a single country, without war.

USSR. Holodomor 1932–1933, planned famine in Ukraine, recognized as genocide by the European Parliament on December 15, 2022. Gulag, Great Purges 1936–1938, forced displacements of entire populations. The tally in The Black Book of Communism comes to around 20 million deaths for the entire period.

Cambodia, Pol Pot. About 2 million deaths in under four years, nearly a quarter of the population. S-21, Choeung Ek, forced evacuation of cities in a matter of days.

North Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, communist Africa, Latin America. Several more million piled up.

Global tally from The Black Book of Communism: about 100 million deaths. Figure echoed in 2006 by Resolution 1481 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and in 2023 by a resolution in the European Parliament. You can debate the margin—80, 90, 100 million depending on methodologies—but as Laurent Joffrin wrote in Libération, hardly suspected of pandering to the right: at 60 million instead of 100, would communism become presentable?

And the “gentle” counter-example? Venezuela. No gulags, no planned famine. Just the methodical application of the program. Result over ten years: GDP contracted by over 75% between 2014 and 2021—the largest economic contraction in peacetime in 45 years, according to the Institute of International Finance. Annual inflation of 130,060% in 2018 according to the Central Bank of Venezuela itself, exceeding 1,000,000% the same year per the IMF. Nearly 8 million people—about 25% of the population—fled the country. The largest exodus in the history of the Western Hemisphere over the last 50 years, according to the OAS and UNHCR. In 2024, 82% of Venezuelans lived in poverty, with 53% in extreme poverty.

Zero exceptions. Zero counter-examples.

Every time, the same mechanism. A self-proclaimed virtuous caste seizes power in the name of the people, and ends up as a nomenklatura holed up in dachas while 99% of the population queues for bread. When Maduro handed out his CLAPs—militarized rationed food boxes—it was the same logic as Brezhnev in the nomenklatura’s reserved stores, sixty years later, under a different flag.

Hayek predicted it all in 1944, in The Road to Serfdom. And Mises even earlier, in 1920, with the economic calculation problem: when you replace market prices with central planning, you destroy the only mechanism capable of aggregating the dispersed information in millions of heads. So you need an authority to decide for everyone. That authority can’t know what it claims to plan, so it imposes by force. And since it always fails—see Venezuela, which followed the sequence to the letter: price controls via the 2014 Fair Prices Act, then nationalizations, then hyperinflation, then militarized rationing—it has to coerce harder and harder just to survive.

Tyranny isn’t a derailment of socialism. It’s its logical equilibrium.

Market capitalism isn’t perfect. It’s just the only system known in history where millions of strangers cooperate without an armed caste forcing them to.

The dead of Kolyma, the Laogai, S-21, and the streets of Caracas ask you not to start over. 

I love being wrong—it lets me learn. Ifyou think I’m off on a specific point, tell me in the comments; I read everything.

[Link]

The hypocrisy of Starmer

Keir Starmer told grotesque lies. When he gave his national address on the “Save the Kingdom” rally. Grotesque. Horrid. In-your-face lies. 

And the hypocrisy. Of Two Tier Policing. 

Patrick Christie gives him a sound thrashing. 

“Productivity is Exploding” | Yun-Ta Tsai

Yun-Ta Tsai is a Senior Engineer at Tesla. 

He posts in English (mainly) and in Classical Chinese. A man after my own heart. 

Here’s his thoughts on what’s going on right here in this world, right now. Even as wars and civilisational challenges surround us.

Attempted to write a Steam Engine hype at the era of Industrial Revolution as if it was the age of AI — 

The steam engine breakthrough is insane right now.

Watt’s separate condenser + new GRPO optimization just dropped the 405 hp-class engine. We went from 7 hp → 70 hp → 405 hp+ in basically three years. One machine now does the work of 50+ men or water wheels — nonstop, rain or shine, anywhere.

Textile mills, ironworks, everything scaling 5-10x overnight. Productivity exploding.

This isn’t incremental. It’s automating physical labor at massive scale. Jobs shifting forever. Society about to look unrecognizable.

The Industrial Revolution isn’t coming. It’s here and accelerating faster than anyone predicted.

Terrified. Excited. Both.

What a time to be alive. 🚂💨

Next post about Yun-Ta will be a bit of Confucius.

51% of liberal Americans: “Political violence is justified”

 

How to go from Centre Left to Right wing without changing

 This is how…

From here

Original cartoon by Colin Wright, via Elon Musk.

You stay where you are. The Left moves Faaaar Left.