Smart Tesla crushes Dumb Toyota…

… And crushes Dumb Ford, and Dumb Mercedes, and Dumb Kia. And Dumb any car. 

“Dumb” is any car that’s not Smart. That can’t drive itself. That can’t update its OS overnight. That can’t deliver energy to the grid, for money. That can’t be ten times safer than humans driving. 

Flashback to 17 years ago, in Antarctica. We’re there in Christmas Day 2009. We’re sitting on the deck of a smallish expedition ship, the Ocean Explorer. We’re anchored in Half Moon Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula. The sea is calm. Overhead a cloudless sky, a windless day. A rarity in Antarctica. It’s so calm and peaceful, it’s almost surreal. Anchored for Christmas amidst icebergs, penguins and assorted sea creatures.

We’re sitting on an outside deck, enjoying the pale midsummer sun. It’s a balmy zero centigrade. We’re sipping our pre-lunch champagnes in shirtsleeves.

Time for present giving. I give Jing the newly-released “iPhone”, the one that everyone’s been talking about. The very first model. Which you may recall now as clunky and buggy. But was super hyped at the time. The other presents I don’t recall, but don’t matter to this story. Which is about the iPhone. Which (to remind) I gave Jing. Who professed satisfaction.

A few weeks later, back in Hong Kong. It’s my birthday and I find my present from Jing is an iPhone. Jolly good, I thought. She’s so enjoyed the one I gave her that she’s gone and got me one too. We can share experiences! 

But no! The one I’m holding is the very same one I gave her in Antarctica a few weeks ago! She explains. She’s just too wedded to her Nokia Foldable phone. She can’t give it away, so best that I have this newfangled iPhone thingie.

OK. Fine. NP.

I take it on board our boat Xena and show to our crew. It gets passed around. There’s been a huge amount of hype,people want to see it. The conclusion is almost unanimous, in line with what Herbert Ong describes above. Versions of:  “This keyless keyboard thing won’t work. I’ll stick to my Blackberry”. 

And here we are today. Blackberry is bankrupt and iPhone is dominant. A phone which redefined what a phone was and could be.

Tesla is in the same place as Apple was then. We’re in another iPhone moment. When a car is about to redefine what a car is. If you believe this, then Tesla is the best stock to buy for the next half century. At least.

Oh. There’s a follow up to Jing’s re-gifting the iPhone to me. I’m sitting in bed, doing stuff in my new iPhone. The one I gave her and which she boomeranged back to me. She looks over my shoulder, trying not to seem interested, but can’t help herself. Asks to have a look. I show her. Next week she’s bought her own iPhone. We’re not in model 13 now…. In how many homes did that happen? 

Watch the video above, and imagine the same happening to Tesla. As a robotics and AI company, not as a car company. 

ADDED: Tesla Full Self Driving approved in The Netherlands, described as “the best system”. Soon to be approved in rest of Europe. 

Dog Dreams

Our Byron, contemplates three tennis balls. On our local Siena Park.
“Why is so not throwing them? Gerrr…”

In the background is Discovery College, a private school of the English Schools Foundation on International Baccalaureate curriculum. Our son attended.

The AI industry is built on fraud?

Given how much we worry about AI -- correctly in my view -- this law suit below is super important. @Ric_RTP explains why: 

In 19 days, a jury in Oakland is going to decide whether the entire legal foundation of the AI industry is built on fraud.

Everyone thinks the Elon Musk vs Sam Altman lawsuit is a billionaire grudge match. Two egos, one grudge, a $150 billion damages number designed for headlines.

Easy to dismiss. Easy to scroll past. That's exactly what Altman wants you to think. Because what's actually on trial on April 27 is something much BIGGER than Elon's hurt feelings... A jury is going to decide whether you can legally take billions of dollars in nonprofit donations, use them to build the most valuable technology in human history, and then quietly convert that nonprofit into a for-profit company worth $850 billion. If the answer is no, the entire AI industry has a problem. Because OpenAI is not the only company that did this: Anthropic was founded by OpenAI defectors using the same nonprofit-first mission language. xAI pitches itself as building AI "for humanity." Every frontier lab has used the moral cover of "we're doing this for the good of the world" to attract talent, capital, and regulatory goodwill they would have never gotten otherwise. An Elon win doesn't just touch OpenAI. It creates a legal precedent that every AI company built on a nonprofit or public benefit promise becomes vulnerable to shareholder and donor clawback suits. That's why this case matters. And that's why Altman is panicking. Just look at what he did this week: Elon filed a motion demanding the court remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and FORCE OpenAI to return to its nonprofit origins. Then he amended the suit to say if he wins the $150 billion, all of it goes to OpenAI's charity arm. Not him. Zero dollars to Elon personally. That amendment was surgical. It stripped Altman of his entire public defense. He can no longer claim this is about Elon's ego or Elon's bank account. Elon is now legally on record saying he just wants the mission back. OpenAI's response was to panic-write a letter to the California and Delaware attorneys general asking them to investigate Elon for "anti-competitive behavior." Their strategy chief publicly accused Elon of coordinating attacks with Mark Zuckerberg. They called the lawsuit "harassment driven by ego and jealousy." That's NOT the response of a company that thinks it's going to win. Real companies with real defenses don't ask the government to silence the person suing them 3 weeks before trial. They let the evidence speak. OpenAI is scrambling because they know what's in discovery. Elon's team has been building this case for two years. Emails, board minutes, internal conversations about the conversion. The kind of paper trail that juries understand and executives can't explain away. And the timing couldn't be worse... OpenAI is trying to IPO at $852 billion. They just raised $122 billion. Microsoft has $135 billion of exposure to them. A jury verdict that even partially sides with Elon in late April or May would crater the entire IPO runway and send shockwaves through every major AI investor on Earth. This is why Altman spent the last 2 weeks doing press tours and policy blueprints and "super intelligence agendas" aimed at Washington. He's trying to REFRAME himself as the responsible statesman of AI right before a jury decides if he's a con artist. Most people will watch this trial start and think it's celebrity drama. The smart money is watching it and realizing that the legal foundation of the AI boom is about to be tested in court for the first time EVER. And if that foundation cracks, everything built on top of it is at risk.

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

I add: "Writing Doom" a short film on the dangers of AI.

“Israel accepted, but Palestinians refused” | Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton: 

“Palestinians were offered a state on the entire West Bank and east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel accepted, but Palestinians refused. They did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians. All they wanted was to kill Israelis"

This must be shared every day.

Palestinians — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, PLO… — have never accepted a “Two-State Solution”. They want Jews OUT. Out of Arabia, where they’ve been for 3,000+ years. Expelled or killed. End of…. 

Bibi understood that early on. I’ve only come to realise and understand that in recent years. It may be uncomfortable. Nevertheless it’s true. 

It’s the ongoing story. Israel accepts. Palestinians refuse. 

Did Israel drag America into the war?

A constant attack by the Loony Left and the Marxist Right. 

The short answer is “no”. 

History teaches. If Israel, or, before Israel’s founding, “the Jooz” control American policy, they’re not very good at it. 

Here is the full list of Israel/“the Jooz” failing to control America:

- Pre-1948 (WWII): The US enforced strict immigration quotas under the 1924 Act and refused to significantly ease entry for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution; the 1939 MS St. Louis was turned away, and requests to bomb Auschwitz were rejected.

- 1948 Arab-Israeli War: The US imposed an arms embargo on all parties; Israel could not buy weapons from America and had to source them elsewhere.

- 1956 Suez Crisis: Israel seized Sinai with allies but withdrew fully after US economic pressure and UN demands under Eisenhower.

- 1963 Dimona: The Kennedy administration demanded inspections of Israel’s nuclear reactor and threatened consequences for non-compliance.

- 1981 Osirak strike: The Reagan administration condemned Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s reactor and suspended F-16 deliveries.

- 1982 Lebanon War: The Reagan administration suspended cluster munitions and pressured Israel to halt its advance on Beirut.

- 1991 Gulf War: The Bush administration urged Israel not to retaliate against Iraqi Scud missiles to preserve the coalition; Israel complied and accepted US Patriots.

- 2003 Iraq invasion: Israel warned against it and did not push for action.

- 2015 JCPOA (Iran deal): Despite intense Israeli lobbying and Netanyahu’s congressional address opposing the deal, the Obama administration negotiated and implemented it.

- 2016 UNSC Resolution 2334: The Obama administration abstained, allowing the resolution condemning Israeli settlements; Israel had sought a US veto.

Orchid Ovation

 

North wall. South facing 

The Orchids still bloom on our Frangipani.

The koi carp still replicate in our fish pond. 

The sun still rises over our Banyan tree. 

Wars aside.

Victory? | Michael Doran and Gadi Taub

Victory? 

Of course not to the legions in the media, the Trump and Bibi haters worldwide. 

Not to the “Gleeful Defeatists”. Whose personal hatreds of two men trump their support for the enlightenment values of the west. Who openly cheer for the victory of the worst tyrannical theocracy this century. 

Michael Doran and Gadi Taub have been fair-minded yet hard-headed analysts from a right-of-centre perspective. If you want perspective from left-of-centre, you just need to go to any of the mainstream media. CNN will give it you. So will the BBC. And so will Australia’s ABC. And Democrats too, of course. Australia’s Labor government. All of Europe….

Mike and Gadi are fair: they read out a list of ways the pro-Iran-regime crowd claim IRGC has won. As well as the counter to that. Which amounts to a reckoning that we, the west, are much better off than we were on October 8th 2023. This will no doubt be mocked as being “major cope”. You watch.

But, yeah. A Victory on points.

There’s discussion of the moral dilemmas of asymmetric war. Where the enemy is perfectly willing to put its citizens in harm’s way, to kill them if they dare resist. Gadi mentions an Israeli analyst who says that if the enemy puts civilians in front of military targets, you must stop the war. Which of course will mean that the west can never win another war against terrorists. It’s the ultimate “terrorist veto”. 

It’s what happened with the hostages in Gaza. One’s own military becomes hostage to the hostages. It’s a dilemma. Which some people, like Yishai Fleisher, argue against. And I support. Such are the exigencies of existential battles. Not “if they go low, we go high”. Uncomfortable, sure. 

Me? On the issue of “ceasefire” I’m not at all keen, as  I wrote. So I remain firmly of the opinion of “hmmm…”. Which is, at best, “we”ll see”. What do I know? Nothing. “I know nothing…”.

**************************

Vince Dao, a young conservative commenter, makes some good points. He strikes me as pretty smart. Head screwed on. Why Iran regime is changed, whatever the current appearance.

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

ADDED: There are reports — unconfirmed— that China pressured Iran into agreeing to this ceasefire. This could make sense. End of the day what they want, what we all want, tbf, is a peaceful Middle East. Or at least one without an Islamist, terrorist, genocidal-suicidal, millenarian, regional-global bully.*

*ADDED (2): Grok answer to my query: 

Yes, multiple credible reports confirm that China exerted pressure on Iran to accept a recent two-week ceasefire with the United States (and involving Israel), which was announced on April 8, 2026. The truce includes a pause in hostilities and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz for safe passage. [More]

Victoria ladies, 2017

"Ceasefire"? Or Rearming Opportunity?

 

Joe Siracusa's hard-headed analysis of the "ceasefire". 

Which I'm wary of, but hope for the best. That's all that can be said about it. 

Hope for the best. 

While knowing that the IRGC is going to rearm and that they're trolling America along. Something they've been doing since Jimmy Carter. 

I'm a big "hmmm".... about this. 

The Best Artemis II Moon Images (so far) | Chris Pattison

 

I remember the very first moon landing in July 1969. And now to see this. In Space, in the midst of Earth wars... So much going on, some good. Some bad. And some stupendous, like the mission and the photos above.

Earth set 

Tesla crushing it in China…

 

,,. and Japan and Korea and Australia and Hong Kong…

And… it’s not a car company! It’s a robot and AI company. And an energy company: batteries and Superchargers.

Time for some good news. Brought to you by Danish YouTuber Lars Strandridder.

America: “No man left behind”. Australia: “No man left unprosecuted”

Is this too tough? Too far-right? Too extreme? Or is it a fair take of Australia? At least of the Left in Oz? 

I confess to contemplating this from time to time: that Australia’s guilt at “Stolen land” is at once useless and dangerous. 

The US spent $300 million to save one downed airman in Iran. 

Australia meanwhile spent $300 million to prosecute our most decorated Afghan War veteran and charge him with war crimes.

Our government literally paid for billboards and newspaper advertisements in Afghanistan advertising rewards if random people came forward with war crimes allegations against Australian soldiers.

There is a sickness at the heart of our civilisation. 

We are a country and civilization with no will to live.

Our political class believe that Australia is built on “Stolen Land” and that all white Australians are therefore stained from birth with the crime of genocide. 

They therefore have no will to live. They wish they had never been born and that the nation never existed. 

This is what it looks like when your elite hate themselves and hate the country. Drew Pavlou 

The Islamic Republic of Iran: War on the United States

I post this for the record. 

Which could bolster a claim -- which I have not seen the U.S. make, but I think it could -- that it has been attacked by a country, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and therefore requires help from NATO members to take defensive action. 

Despite which Capitulationists, like France, Italy, Germany and Spain have refused even the minimum help, like allowing overflight of US Airforce planes. Which I have a sneaking suspicion is partly because Trump posts hurty diatribes on his Truth Social. Now, he shouldn't do that, I reckon. But to get upset about it? As France's Emmanuel Macron has done? Get over it Emmanuel!

Here is the Grok summary of attacks on the United States since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. All of which amount to carrying out their declaration of war, given the regime's mantra: "Death to America!"

Major incidents where Iran or Iran-backed groups attacked the United States or its forces since 1979:

• November 4, 1979: Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. No hostages were killed. A failed U.S. rescue attempt (Operation Eagle Claw, April 1980) killed 8 U.S. servicemen.
• April 18, 1983: Iran-backed Islamic Jihad bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 17 Americans (63 total).
• October 23, 1983: Iran-backed Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. service members (220 Marines, 21 others).
• June 25, 1996: Iran-backed Hezbollah al-Hejaz bombed Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. airmen.
• 2003–2011: Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq, supplied and trained by Iran’s IRGC with EFPs and IEDs, killed at least 603 U.S. troops (per Pentagon).
• January 8, 2020: Iran launched ballistic missiles directly at U.S. bases in Iraq; 0 killed, over 100 U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries.

Iran has also tried (allegedly) to assassinate president Trump. I've not seen the evidence. But I can easily accept that they would try. Given Trump's vitriol against them. His clear determination to defang their nuclear weapons policy. Only Trump would attack them. Why not try to kill him?

We also heard from the spineless Starmer that the U.K. secret intelligence people have foiled at least 20 Iranian terrorist attacks in 2025 alone. How can we collectively, Europe? pretend that there's no imminent threat? That there's no declaration of war on America and the west? That they are not an existential danger to Europe? Keir? 

Resurrection Rescue — the “Easter Miracle”

 

Resurrection Rescue. The day of Jesus' resurrection, a daring rescue brings the downed airman home.

Max Afterburner tells the story. Surely a movie here. 

Retired Colonel Joe Buccino, shows us the map.

ADDED: Mainstream Media — CNN, MSNBC, ABC, New York Times… — can hardly bring themselves to mention the rescue. Such is their hatred for Trump they’d rather the American pilots had been lost, or, even better, captured as hostages. 

Meantime: Chinese media was claiming that America had killed its pilots. Then.. that they were trying to kill their pilots. Apparently based on IRGC propaganda. Vince Dao, grandson of a South Vietnamese Army general who was airlifted in the infamous “Fall of Saigon” helicopter evacuations, talks about the U.S. doctrine of “no man left behind”. And how anti Americans are spinning this rescue (“Huge cost in wrecked aircraft”). 

On the issue of costs of the rescue, I did the calculations. They come to 0.000013 of the Pentagon budget. Less than a rounding error. While Morale boost is huge. And imagine the opposite effect on morale of the Iranians parading a captured pilot. So, yeah, very much worth it. And to be lauded. Screw the Europeans petty-minded shitty take. 

What were Democrats like in the 1990s?

Answer: just exactly like Republicans today. Really! 

Check it out…

The end of Israel | Oren Cahanovitc

 

Oren Cahanovitc torches the lies and misrepresentations on the Double Down News YouTube channel. Which represent the views on Israel of so many in the west. 

All Arab Muslim states are classified “Authoritarian”
In the region, only Israel is Democratic 

15 Flags with Islamic crescent. 30 Dlags with Christian cross
One Flag with the Star of David 

More resolutions condemning Israel at U.N. than all other countries combined

Trump, Hormuz and the end of the Free Ride

Food for thought.

For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface.

The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities.

Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress.

Holy Moonshot BatMusk!

 

I laughed at parts of this video. A giddy laugh. Thinking of the future in space. The next 20 years are going to be wild. One reason I do wish I weren't quite so old. I want to see it. It's the optimistic side of Humankind. 

Mining on the moon, mining and manufaturing bysentient humanoid robots, sending manufactured high-tech stuff back to Earth, shot off by maglev slingshot rail, for zero cost, to anywhere on Earth. 

Man oh man!

Listen to David Friedberg of the famous All-in Podcast talk about this, and how "there's everything" on the moon. Except for gravity and air. Which makes sending stuff back to Earth, easy and cost-free. 

When I listened to all this, I laughed. With delight and giddiness. To think.... To think what's coming. To think of the excitement. Stay away from politics. Concentrate on the fun stuff. Rockets and space. 

Friendberg said that just as the railways were the key to opening the west in the 19th Century, SpaceX is the railway of the 21st century. 

Tesla will 100% merge with SpaceX, says Chamath (Palihapitiya).The combined company will have the ticker "Elon". We're long TSLA stock. Will never sell.

You can count on the All-in guys. They're tight with Elon. 

Tel Aviv, 16 April 2017. Mediterranean Sea.

Tel Aviv Mediterranean Beach

A woman’s choice: Live in Tel Aviv or Tehran? No contest. Tel Aviv every time…

Palm, Pond, Peace

 

The Left’s hysterical opposition to the War | Victor Davis Hanson

 

Yes it’s true. Hatred of Trump trumps love of country. Trumps patriotism. Trumps the hope of destroying a clear and present threat from religious fanatics. 

I find it disturbing and disgusting. I remember how political differences used to be about tax rates and health policy. It used to be about policy and policy differences. Which were debated in the halls of Congress. Now it’s about hating Trump. It’s paid protesters on the streets. It’s regular violence. It’s open calls for the murder of Donald Trump. 

Victor Davis Hanson, calm professorial historian, ponders the questions. He talks of the hypocrisy of the Left over this war. If it were prosecuted by Obama, the media and the Left would be swooning and cheering it on. As they did with his bombing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

There is no doubt in my mind, in my following of politics in America, that big chunks of Democrats have become openly, even proudly, violent and anarchical. During the “mostly peaceful” No Kings protests last Saturday, I saw sprayed onto the walls of a Federal Building: “Kill your local ICE agent”, followed by the the Anarchist sign. Nothing was done. Nothing. 

They hid this about Israel | Daniel Greenfield

 

Iran has been at war with the United States for nearly fifty years. It’s just that the United States didn’t deign to recognise it. Except for wording words, from president after president. “We must deal with Iran and all options are on the table”. Except they weren’t. The only options “on the table” were talks, sanctions and deals that were immediately broken by the Ayatollahs. 

Until Trump. Who really did have all options in the table. Which makes me realise the reason for calling the operation “Epic Fury”. You tweak the tail of the lion often enough, he turns on you with fury. *Epic* Fury. Because it’s taken so long to build. 

Daniel Greenfield is correct approximately 100% of the time in the video above.According to my understanding in 20 years now of studying Islam, its theology, its ideology, its caliphate ambitions: he’s spot on.

I used to follow the late David Horowitz, Daniel’s predecessor and founder of the Centre Daniel now runs. Horowitz used to be a Marxist. Who changed when he understood the damage Marxism had done to the world. I always identified with that, as I’d also had an eye opening time when I went to live in Cultural Revolutionary China in the 70s and saw what extreme leftism, Marxism, Maoism had done to China. And by contrast what market forces did in the next 40 years.

Daniel covers a lot in this talk. The current war, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamophobia and more:

• Why the media narrative around “genocide” is being pushed
• The real reason the Israel–Palestine conflict isn’t about land
• How universities became hostile to Israel and the West
• Qatar’s influence in American institutions
• Why the UN targets Israel more than any other country
• The growing divide inside the conservative movement
• And what may be driving major voices like Tucker Carlson

Time stamps at the show notes.

Mural Wars

 

This is crazy. And sad. And disturbing. 

How does the mural of a beautiful young woman NOT “reflect your values”? 

Vince Dao discusses. 

Islamisation of Britain: Complete

 

Andrew Gold talks to Dave Rubin in Hungary. I've followed Andrew for many years. He's sound; a good analyst.

When I started this blog, 17 years ago, I did a spreadsheet predicting the Islamisation of various countries of Europe. I thought the Scandinavian countries would be first, then Germany and France, then the U.K. And my guess was around the 2050s and 60s. 

It's happening now, much quicker than I thought. Much quicker than anyone thought. It's happening right in front of our eyes. There's even talk of civil war. 

When Andrew says "I don't know why people didn't see what happened in the Middle East" he's referring to is the Islamic conquests of all those countries. 

The Middle East is a lesson. No one learned it. 

Except that now a civil war may be imminent in Britain then Europe. Could it be? Or will it just be the crapification of Europe, as happened in all the Islamified countries of the Middle East? Not a one of which was made better by their submission to Allah. 

Those Islamic conquests across the Middle East are being replicated in Europe and the U.K.. When the Islamisation is complete, it's the whole Sharia law bit*. Women oppressed and in burkas, minorities oppressed, gays arrested or executed, churches and synagogues closed down, Jews and Christians, and even atheists, like me, driven out. 

Grim. Authoritarian. Theocratic. Anti-science. Anti-modernity. Anti-fun. 

ADDED: We here in Hong Kong are just fine on that front. We're not about to be Islamified. Our government won't put up with any nonsense on that front, giving in to Muslim demands to "respect Ramadan", or to "ban dogs". No way. And that's a comfort to me in my dotage. To know that we're safe from the ravages of rampant Islam. 

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

*My handy reference guide. The authoritative "What Sharia says about...", based on the Classic Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence.

Included:

Adultery

Apostasy
Charity
Homosexuality
Jihad
Non-Muslims
Women

Bougainville Best Blossom

It’s everywhere now, blossoming best ever

“Can Iran really be stopped?” | Max Afterburner

 

I’ve followed the Max Afterburner channel for some time. And I’ve posted his analysis before. (By the way, “Max” is not Max as in the Mad Max, but Max as in short for “Maximum”. The “Afterburner” being the fighter jet’s booster). 

Max Afterburner is Ryan Bodenheimer*, who sets out (0:55) his extensive experience in the U.S. Air Force, and in war, war planning and instruction. It’s extensive. 

This is a man clearly proud of his country and its military, but also has a clear-headed view of the difficulties of war. In particular the difficulties of completely suppressing Iran’s IRGC. Which he sees as defaulting to terrorist mode, given its military is essentially destroyed. 

The threat from Iran is and was real and explicit. You don’t have to wait, like a tethered goat, for the lion to eat you. You don’t have to wait for the first mushroom cloud to blossom. You don’t have to wait until Iran has so many missiles, so much fortification, so much drone and missile manufacturing capacity, to act. Act is what the U.S. and Israel did. They are supported by 12 Muslim nations! It’s the Europeans (and Australia) who are complicit in appeasement. 

I guess this is the first time that Ryan has been on a British YouTube channel, above on Spiked, with Fraser Myers.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction – US War in Iran & Latest Developments 00:55 Guest Introduction – Ryan Bodenheimer, Fighter Pilot & YouTuber 03:28 Has America Won? Assessing Trump's Victory Claim 06:36 Was It Ever a Fair Fight? Iran's Military vs. the US 07:54 Kharg Island Explained – Iran's Oil Lifeline & Strategic Significance 10:45 Taking Kharg Island – Risks, Options & Special Operations 12:24 How Iran Might Retaliate – Terrorism, IEDs & Proxy Tactics 14:30 State of Iran's Proxies – Houthis, Hezbollah & Militias 16:07 US-Israel Coordination – How the Air Campaign Works 18:19 Trump vs. NATO – Is Europe Doing Enough? 21:49 European Sentiment Explained – Energy Bills, Terror Plots & Bafflement 23:12 Energy & the War – Costs for the US and Europe 25:15 China's Role – Air Defences, Rare Earth Minerals & Strategic Interests 27:44 China, Taiwan & the Bigger Picture – Why Taiwan Could Benefit 30:25 The First AI War – Drones, Surveillance & Undersea Technology 33:22 Why the B-52? Economy of Force in Modern Warfare 36:27 What People Misunderstand Most About This War 39:29 Closing Remarks

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

*Ryan Bodenheimer is a former U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter pilot with 12 years of service, including two operational assignments and 70 combat missions in Afghanistan providing close air support to Tier 1 special operations forces. He was selected for the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration team, where he flew for two years and performed in 150 air shows before serving as an instructor. 

In his squadron's plans department (PLANS), he prepared for potential conflicts involving the Taiwan Straits, Iran, and North Korea. After Afghanistan, he was chief of the PLANS department, teaching on operations against Iran, including degrading its ballistic missiles, drones, and nuclear capabilities.

After leaving the Air Force he was a commercial airline pilot for five years and later started his YouTube channel, Max Afterburner.