Temple of Heaven, Peking, 1977

From a recently found Kodachrome slide of Peking -- as it was then -- in the 1970s, when I first got there. 

The above is May Day 1977, just shy of a half century ago. I was very much taken by framing hard down, with little at the horizon, and lots of sky. A little too much so, in the one above, I reckon.

I converted the slide into a the digital above with Photomyne App. Not difficult at all, but couldn't have been done at all, just a few years ago. 

I'll post the occasional converted slide from the seventies, if and when there's a decent one. Most of them so far are pretty ordinary, tbf. Still, it's the seventies in Peking. An historical time. Mao Tse-tung's death. The earthquakes. The overthrow of the Gang of Four. The revival of Deng Xiaoping. The beginning of the transformation of China. It all happened then. 

Penny Wong lies

 Australia ForeignMinister PennyWong: “In the West Bank the situation is worsening. In the first six months of this year alone, settler violence has driven more than 15,000 children from their homes.”

That was our Foreign Minister Penny Wong, on 23 September 2026, lying to the United Nations General Assembly. 

When I first read that, I thought “it doesn’t pass the sniff test”. It just doesn’t sound right.

And it wasn’t.

The “more than 15,000” is out by more than an order of magnitude (>10x). 

The actual figure, from the official counter of these things, the United Nations (the very body at which she was spreading this lie), is under 1,000. Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Moreover, Wong says nothing about why the children were displaced. Which was: in responses to attacks from Palestinians. 

She doesn’t mention the Palestinian settlers attacks on Jews at all. Which though fewer than Israeli Settler-on-Palestinian are far more deadly. 

Finally, no recognition from our blatant Jew-hating FM, that we’re talking Area C in the “disputed territories” (the West Bank), an area under Israel sovereignty per (agreed!) Oslo Accords II of 1995. Why should Jews not be able to settle there and expand settlements? No reason. Other than visceral blood-hatred of Jews by brain-rotted Palestinians, brought up to hate Jews from suckling stage. Or must we accept that any “Palestinian State” will be, like Hitler’s Germany, judenrein? 

Why do we have to put up with such pernicious lying from politicians, like Penny Wong, who we elect to do their best for Australia?  Duplicitously quoting false data which helps genocidal death cultists, is hardly in our best interests. Even if it helps her Labor party with its Hamas caucus. Sleazy self interest; against the national interest. That’s our Penny Wong.

Natasha Hausdorff (Natasha The Wonderful) tackles Wong’s duplicity and other speakers’ falsehoods, all from the recent UNGA.

MSM carry water for terrorists | the case of Flydubai Flight 1073

Rich Lowry being spot-on, yet again.

When I first heard of the Flydubai news — that is, the failed terrorist hijack mass-murder attempt —  I thought it was an “altercation”, because that’s what the news said.

Then I delved into it and it was clear that one pilot, an Omani Muslim, had attacked the other pilot, an Indian national, and tried to crash the plane. That was news from onboard the plane. From all the videos onboard. From all the passengers and crew onboard. From every sentient being with an operating brain. 

And yet:

I went back to check with CNN. Not just its main site, but its “ breaking news” site, hours after we all knew the terrorist part of the story. “All” but CNN. Which still carried the  “altercation” angle! No hint that it was an attempted mass-murder-suicide event. Sigh….

The satirical Babylon Bee has a take on it. How the New York Times might have covered previous mass-murder events. 

• 911: “Planes diverted to Twin Towers after passengers quarrel”. 
• Custer’s Last Stand: “American Servicemen Engage in Spirited Debate With Locals”. 
• Pearl Harbour: “Japanese Tourists Visit Hawaii”. 

Rich Lowry gives three reasons the mainstream media (MSM) is incapable of calling out Islamic terrorism.

Summary courtesy Grok:

In the National Review video “CNN and The New York Times Can’t Bring Themselves To Be Honest About Islamic Terrorism,” Rich Lowry ends with three reasons the mainstream media is hesitant to call an incident Islamic terrorism (here, the Flydubai Flight 1073 cockpit attack):

1.  Multiculturalist sympathy. The media shares the multiculturalist attitudes of the left, so it tends to treat the West and the United States as in the wrong, and Islamists as deserving some sympathy and as portrayed too harshly. It does not want to blame Islam if it can avoid it.

2.  Fear of feeding “bigots.” It treats people who focus on Islamic terrorism as irrational and bigoted, and does not want to give them “any oxygen.”

3.  Bias against Israel. On the Middle East dispute itself, Lowry says the media is deeply biased against Israel, which produces unusual and indefensible standards for what is fit to print when the subject is Islamic terrorism.

Seems to me these reasons are broadly correct (though not exhaustive). They are powerful mind-viruses that do great harm to societies — vide: U.K., France, Germany — while Leftish governments refuse to take any steps to stop the causes of the harm, because it would violate one or all of these three mindsets

Look at recent history. Wide swathes of voters, around 70-80%, want control over mass immigration. It is often the top concern of voters. Result: nothing. Explanation: see above. 

Remember my example of David Sedaris. I’m a big fan of his. I love his writing. But I commented on one of his essays. Where his worry about the 2020 nationwide riots, of widespread looting, of massive property destruction, all in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, was not the huge damage ($300+ Billion which largely affected minority businesses), nor the deaths (20+), but that “they will give Trump talking points” in the presidential election battle. 

Sedaris’ concern, iow, was the “fear of feeding the bigots”. Not addressing the issue itself, no matter how deadly serious, but the fear it might help your political opponents. 

I’m going to call that: warped values. No matter how much I like and admire his writings. 

Cirrus. Periwinkle

 

West, from our Siena Park, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong 

“Don’t fuck with Zionists” | Brendan O’Neill

Brendan O’Neill at his rhetorical best. Discussing the failed plot to bring down a Flydubai jet with 147 people on board. 

I’m 100% with him on this.

“Don’t fuck with Zionists”, Spiked, 1 October 2026

Brendan’s final paragraph: 

Ask yourself this: who would you rather have with you on a flight if some psycho with a knife were to try to take it down? Coddled, pasty-faced Gen Z Westerners who need a self-care day every time JK Rowling tweets? Or Zionists? A few people from that state that has survived against all the odds? Men and women who likely have military training, don’t buckle in the face of danger, and who are world famous for refusing to take shit from jihadists? I know who I’d choose. Yesterday, the world was once again reminded: don’t fuck with Zionists. How many more reminders do you need?

Stop Qatari funding of western universities!

Especially any funding via the Muslim Brotherhood or any of its many affiliates.

They are pushing for the downfall of the West, to be controlled by Islam.

I’ve long warned here of Qatar’s duplicity; of licking Trump’s boots then funding anti-west curricula.

I’ve long warned of the insidious danger of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It’s crazy that we allow them to fund our own destruction. 

Singapore under Lee Kwan-yew was not so stupid. Early on, he banned any foreign funding of mosques. But we in the West: “oh no, that would be racist”. Or something.….

See here. And here.

List Of Celebrities Who Have Condemned Iran For Sentencing Women To Public Beatings For Uncovering Their Faces

We are blessed to live in a world where movie stars, musicians, and celebrities of all stripes care so deeply about the oppressed people of the Middle East. There is such power in hearing these voices boldly call out injustice, wherever it may be.

Here now is the complete list of all the brave celebrities who have condemned the Iranian regime for its mass executions and for beating women who uncover their faces:

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

An incredible list. Let's all take a moment to applaud these heroes!

**********

(H/t: Babylon Bee. The list is as long as that of Bernie Sanders’ accomplishments…).

It's the Competence, Stupid!

It's not about whether or not they're women!

No matter what the Dems keep banging on about, like: "America didn't vote for Kamala in 2024, because... misogyny".  No. It's not.

Look at the two women above. From the U.S. and the U.K. 

I could never vote for Kamala Harris, because she's proven herself an incompetent dolt. 

I could always vote for Kemi Badenoch, because she's proven herself a highly competent operator. 

Better yet, she stands for common sense ideas and policies. (most pleasing to me -- she's anti-woke and its poisonous ideology).

It's not about them being women! It's about their competence. FFS.... 

Yet the Dems are prolly going to put Kamala forward again in 2028, then bitch and moan about misogyny when she doesn't win. Again.

If Kemi doesn't win at the next election it'll be more about how the Right in the U.K. is fractured -- Tories, Reform, Restore -- than about her competence. Let alone her sex. 

Close Call. “Another Flight 93 Averted” | Jeffrey Blehar.

 … to quote one proud Israeli commentator, “Overall, the probability that a plane full of Israelis will contain a trained assault team, two additional pilots, and, statistically, at least one cardiac surgeon, psychologist, lawyer, and diamond dealer is substantially higher than 50%.”

From “Another Flight 93 Averted” by Jeffrey Blehar.

The Indian pilot of FlyDubai FZ1073, Captain Smit Machchhar, managed to unlock the cockpit door.

This was crucial. Had he not done so, passengers could not have stormed the cockpit and the plane would certainly have been brought down. With all 174 aboard killed. 

What a monstrous tragedy mercifully avoided.

If you’re religious, and you’re a sane person, you’ll thank God. Unless you’re Muslim, in which case you’ll curse Allah wail why did Allah forsake us?? (yet again…).

For an atheist like me: I see it as a combination of bravery, but also of luck. We, the civilised world, were lucky this time. 

Questions: how will this affect the Abraham Accords? How will it affect ongoing negotiations for more countries to make peace with Israel? How will it affect the FlyDubai flights, which are quite recent addition to the region?

“…young men are taking up the pipe…” | Joseph Morris

 

My bestie, Oz on left. Me with pipe. 18 September 1970

More people are smoking pipes. Apparently. And more young people. 

So says Joseph Morris in “The church of pipe smoking”. 

The photo above was at an anti-Vietnam war protest in Canberra, Australia. It was front page of the 19 September Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times. The first and last time we were famous! 

And… this is us 56 years later, at the Spanish MoviDa, in Melbourne a few weeks ago:

No smoking …

Morris’ penultimate para:

Like so many remnants of our culture, pipe smoking is threatened. There could have been no show this year had the Toolmaker’s Son banned smoking in beer gardens. As it is, the generational smoking ban means the influx of younger people will cease. But my experience at the show has been a good one. Young hipsters, maybe, but sincerely trying to discover the hobbies of their antecedents. Older eccentrics, definitely, but most kind and charming. Talented craftsmen, making something only sought after by a few, facing ever-rising costs. I may call it a religion with tongue very firmly in cheek (avoiding the pipe stem), but think of these people brought together in common cause, with ever-more young people desperately seeking a connection to previous generations. There’s no lanyardism, weathervane politics, or prizes for Islamists at the UK Pipe Show. 

The Mission Statement of the National Review | William F. Buckley Jnr.

From the essay “Our Mission Statement”, November 19, 1955, by William F. Buckley Jnr, founding editor-in-chief of the National Review. I came across the article quite recently. 

“Conservatives in this country… are non-licensed nonconformists.. this is dangerous business in a Liberal world…”.

I like that term "nonconformist". I feel that's what we are, we conservatives, in most societies: non-conformist. Because, in most western societies, it’s conformist to be Left-of-centre.

Here in Discovery Bay, Hong Kong, for example, the majority (~70%) of our community is Left-leaning. That's the conformist side (by definition). They are the conformists in most cities in most major countries, at least in the West. Leftists (aka “liberals” in the United States) feel free to say whatever they think, about whatever topic, knowing that those around them are going to agree. 

Not so for conservatives, for nonconformists. 

The National Review, now over 70 years old, is the most respected magazine on the conservative side of politics in the United States. It's the sane Right, if you will. The thoughtful Right. It is quite ready to savage Trump, for example, if he goes against its stated “credenda” (see below).

I quote in full its Mission Statement. It comes at the end of Buckley's essay. It has stood the test of time very well, I reckon. 

Quote:

The Magazine’s Credenda

Among our convictions:

A. It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens’ lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side.

Yay! It's China’s National Day

 

Which means it's a national holiday here in China and the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. Which means that I have to look after myself for the day, as Arlene is off. Gloom...

Hong Kong Gloaming

Bernie the Boringly Bloviating Billionaire-Basher

This is 💯 % accurate. H/t: @bskimike22802

That aging fraud, Bernie Sanders is at it again. Bashing billionaires. 

He seems to think they’re sitting on wads of cash, wallowing in green paper which they purloined from long-suffering working people. 

Whereas billionaires are the ones creating new industries. Giving jobs and futures to millions of people. Making retirees more comfortable by the growth of their stocks in retirement portfolios.

Whereas all Bernie had done is…zzzzzz …….  zzzzz …….  Nootthhhhinnng!

From Robert Sterling on X. It’s a super-abbreviated list. I could have added a lot more.

what Elon Musk has done to make my life better:

- electric cars

- satellite internet

- saved free speech

what Jeff Bezos has done to make my life better:

- nationwide next-day delivery

- architecture that powers the internet

what Larry Page and Sergey Brin have done to make my life better:

- made the internet searchable

- online email and documents platform

what Mark Zuckerberg has done to make my life better:

- social media to keep me connected to friends

- online ads platform

what Larry Ellison has done to make my life better:

- database software for my businesses

- data centers for AI and cloud computing

what Jensen Huang has done to make my life better

- hardwarethat powers the AI revolution

what Bernie Sanders has done to make my life better:

RELATED: Peter Thiel, a billionaire himself, has pointed out that 75% of the GenX billionaires in America’s top 50 made their own fortunes. In Europe, that figure is zero. 

America is simply much more inventive. It creates new industries. Europe and China copy. China does a better job than Europe. But it’s still largely copying. 

The future of Woke

“Woke 1.0 was crazy” said Alexadria Ocasio Cortez (AOC) of the dozen or so years between 2012 and 2014. 

So we hoped that it was done with. The end of Woke. No such luck. 

[“Woke” I’ll define as the sacralisation of innate human differences, like race, ethnicity, gender. Others call it “political correctness on steroids”]

Noah Rothman argues that Woke will come back, stronger and more vicious than ever. Last two paras of his “The future of Woke”:

While woke 1 was, on the margins, infatuated with the foreign, it sought influence by appealing to the Western tradition and its highest ideals. Woke 2 has no use for the West, its systems, or those who would work within them to advance incrementalist political objectives — even someone as radical as AOC.

Still, she was right, of course. The first version of wokeness was crazy. It was fanatical, obsessive, apocalyptic, belligerent, and predatory. But underneath it all, its enthusiasts behaved as though there was at least something about the West that was worth preserving. Woke 2 disagrees.

Let’s keep an eye on Woke and see how Rothman’s predictions pan out.

The mood was light on the set of ABC’s This Week one Sunday in August as co-anchor Jonathan Karl bantered with his guest, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Suddenly, it seemed, the phenomenon of “wokeness” could be marveled at as little more than an imprudent episode.

Tucker Carlson interviews Adolf Hitler

 

Click above for the Short

I called out Tucker Carlson’s dingbattery early on. Eg, “Tucker Carlson is a complete dingbat”

All my posts about him here. 

Muhammad and Moses: the story of two educations

From my post in 2015: 

I remember many years ago a documentary on Israel and Palestine called "Muhammad and Moses". 

The concept was as simple as it was fascinating: filmmakers in Gaza and in Israel would film children, their families and their schooling. Each filmmaker was given free rein to make whatever film they wanted, but was not allowed to see what their opposite number had done. And there was a limit to each, 30 minutes IIRC, to make a one hour joint documentary.

 

What jumped out of the final merging of the two halves was this: that in the "Muhammad" half the children were constantly told to hate Jews and that their goal in life was to kill them. In the "Moses" half the children were taught things like the classic "3 Rs", and tolerance for other views.

 

This is what makes Israel a 21st century start-up economy. And what makes Gaza a 12th century blow-up economy. 

 

The article below I just came across in wandering the Intertubes this morning and covers this education / indoctrination of Arab children in jihadism and death cultism. It shows that what happens in the "Mohammad " part of the above doco is still going on. Indeed, it's got worse and more pervasive. Indoctrination and incitement to murder Jews is now ubiquitous in the Arab world.

And we must recall that the United Nations supports this teaching of murderous Jew-hatred via its UNRWA.

 

This is clear: Israel gave up Gaza to the PA, thence to Hamas. Nothing changed, and attacks on Israel only got worse. 

Jews could give up the West Bank and Israel itself. They could vacate the Middle East entirely. And the terror would not stop. For it's holy war, against the Jews and infidels. Some may not wish to admit this for it seems a counsel of despair. But the fact that it's uncomfortable and tough to face doesn't make it not true.

 

The article below is longish. But it's authoritative and well researched. It repays careful reading.

"Incitement: The Engine Driving Global Terrorism. Part II" | Eli E. Hertz. [Wayback Machine archive of the article]. Part I of Herz's article is here.

Today we see that there's no change. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, with the full complicity of the United Nations, via UNRWA, are still teaching violent, genocidal Jew-hatred to their young children. 

There can never be any peace, let alone a "Two State Solution", when the malleable minds of young children are filled with murderous hate.  

Lisa Rosen on X:

This [video] is Hamas TV for children: four-year-old twins in Hamas uniforms on air explaining why they want to murder Jews as human sacrifices for Allah’s sake.

One boy sang a song his mother wrote about sacrificing his blood and soul for the slaughter of Jews for Allah. He said he wants to be an engineer when he grows up so he can build bombs and hide them in crowded places to kill Jews.

His brother said he wants to be a Hamas terrorist.

The West still supports them. It is a death cult!

Link to Rosen's post is here.

If you're seeing this for the first time, prepare to be shocked. Then to contemplate that this has been going on for a very long time. Since even before the foundation of Israel in 1948. Jew-hatred goes right back to Muhammad, the "perfect man", who hated Jews with a very big Hate.

Christopher Hitchens reckons Muhammad hated the Jews because they laughed at him when he proseletised his "new and final revelations". The Jews were, like, "yeah, but nah. We're good thanks. We got our own thing."

Muhammad never forgave them for the humiliation. To be sure, if you read the Sirah of Muhammad, his official Islamic biography by Ibn Ishaq, there's lots to support Hitchens' take.

Mid-Autumn Festival Moon

From Discovery Bay, last night, looking towards Central, Hong Kong 

Falcon 9 launch brings tears to the eyes

A SpaceX propulsion engineer brought his elderly father to watch a Falcon 9 launch at Cape Canaveral. His father had been a mechanic his entire life. He had never been to a rocket launch. He didn't understand orbital mechanics or payload deployment. He understood engines.

The engineer had worked on the Merlin engine for 4 years. The Merlin powers the Falcon 9. Every component his team designed was about to fire for 162 seconds and either deliver a satellite to orbit or explode.

The father stood in the viewing area and watched the countdown. When the engines ignited and the rocket lifted off the pad, the sound hit them 6 seconds later. The ground shook. The father grabbed his son's arm. Not from fear. From recognition. He knew engines. He had spent 45 years listening to them. This engine was different from anything he had heard in his life.

The father didn't speak for the entire ascent. When the first stage separated and the booster began its descent back to the landing pad, the father started crying. The mechanic who had spent 45 years under cars and trucks watched a rocket engine fire in reverse to land itself upright on a pad from the edge of space.

He turned to his son and said "you built that?"

The engineer said it was the single greatest moment of his career. Not the launch. Not the landing. The question. His father, a man who understood engines better than anyone he knew, looking at the most advanced engine ever built and asking his son if he built it.

Elon's vision of Mars is abstract to most people. But the moment a mechanic's son brought his father to watch the engine he built change the world is the moment the mission becomes human. It's not about Mars. It's about a father who finally understood what his son had been doing all those years.

H/t Race

Homelessness: the more you spend, the more you get

 

Source: San Francisco Department of Health 

Incentives determine outcomes.

When governments give money to Charities based on the number of homeless they cater to, the charities have zero incentive to reduce the number of homeless. Quite the opposite. For  them, the more homeless the better their “business”.

California spent $24 Billion extra in the last five years only to see homelessness increase in the state increase. 

The solution? 

Tough Love. Force — yes, force — homeless into shelters, either mental or drug rehabilitation. Align incentives with desired outcomes. Re-engage the government, city or state, to do it, rather than NGOs, which have been corrupted by the flood of money and will be hard to reform.

Islam is Islam. Islamism is Islam. Islam is Islamism.

An Occasional Reader asks me what I think about a recent article in the The Economist, "The truth and the lies about Islam in Europe", subtitled "Islam poses no serious danger. But Islamism and the fear of Islam do."

In a word: Bunk. 

I've written on this subject since the very beginning of this blog. Because, since the beginning, there have been people desperate to find something nice about Islam. To find something to give hope that we may be able to co-exist peacefully with a supremacist religion and hit upon this formula: the one that The Economist is belatedly pushing on us: "It's not Islam, it's Islamism!". There we go, problem solved. 

No, it's not. 

Think about it. The formulation "Islam is no danger; Islamism is" makes about as much sense as saying "Communism is no danger; Communists are". 

I wrote again about this on 10th September this year, the eve of 911 in "There is NO moderate Islam | True Truths on the eve of 911", where I said:

Can I ever forget, twenty five years ago, early evening here in Hong Kong, when we heard that an airliner had crashed into the World Trade Center? The North Tower. And then a second plane. Which we saw live, in real time, before even the CNN reporter who was face-to-camera, back to the burning North Tower. At which I turned to my wife and said “it’s got to be Al-Qaeda”.

Can we forget?

Can I ever forget the next day, president Bush standing on the smoking rubble, declaring “we’ll get them”? But also declaring “Islam is a religion of peace”. 

At which I thought “huh?”. How does that square with what we’ve just seen? How can it be a “religion of peace” when we already knew, to a moral certainty, that men driven by this very religion had done it? Had hijacked and flown planes into two towers full of innocent people?

Which started me on my quest to learn about this “religion of peace”. On my first reading of the Quran. Of the Hadith. Of the Sirah of Muhammad. Of the Umdat Al-Salik, the Classic Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence. And my library, now in the many hundreds, of books on Islam from the apologetics to the critical.

I concluded early on that “Islam is Islam”. Its most pious votaries say so. Its religious leaders say so. Its political leaders say so. All knowledgeable observers say so.

At the same time I recognised the tactical reason for saying there’s “Islam” and there’s “Islamism”. Tackling the massive thing that is worldwide Islam is too tough. Tackling a subset is more doable. 

We’ve now reached a point in the west where the dangers of Islam to our societies, to our freedoms and tolerance are so apparent that we have to face the real truth. The uncomfortable truth. That the problem is Islam itself. The problem is its doctrines. Its values. That it’s an ideology more than it is a religion. That that ideology is incompatible with western enlightenment values. 

It's simply not true that Islam itself is "no serious danger". As I've shown by data, there is no country in the world that has over 7% of its population that is Muslim, and which has a perfect score on the Human Development Index which measures a wide variety of social and political freedoms. The more the percentage of Islam, the lower the rank of Human Development. See my: “Freedom and Islam; a statistical survey”

It's The Economist that's not telling us the truth on this. It's The Economist that's telling us the lie, in a mildly reworked format, that "Islam is not the danger", that Islam is a "Religion of Peace". 

As Christopher Hitchens noted, "the extremists of a 'Religion of Peace', will be extremely peaceful". Sadly, we know, to our cost in blood and toil, that the opposite is the case. 

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

"Islam or Islamist", my post of 31 October 2011

Want more?  Punch in Islamism to the Search Box on the right, and you'll come up with many pieces I've posted since starting this blog in 2009. 

Shorter me: You can find subtle differences between "Islam" and "Islamism". But they are small and essentially meaningless. As in:

"Islamism is the snake in the grass. Islam is the grass". 

“Britain’s Inertia Is a Warning to America”| Charles C.W. Cooke

Britain’s inertia is a warning to America. Britain’s inertia is also a warning to Australia. 

Australia, currently sitting somewhat uncomfortably, gazing around, a deer-in-the-headlights, between the success of America and the ennui of Britain; between the vibrancy of the United States and the inertia of a Dis-United Kingdom. 

All while we lean precariously towards China, away from our most formidable partner, our most powerful ally with whom we share enlightenment values. Yet we lean Sinical nonetheless because, you know, Trump. Who Tweets Horrid Things.

Charles C.W. Cooke:

In recent years, I have been privy to the curious trend of Europeans who, having been assiduously fed all manner of nonsense about life in the United States, have come to understand that their presumptions were all wrong. In yesterday’s London Telegraph, Allister Heath describes this phenomenon rather well. Beneath the pull-no-punches headline, “I saw a breathtaking glimpse of what Britain could have become,” Heath offers a blunt challenge to the smug among his fellow countrymen:

If you want to comprehend the scale of Britain’s decline, our economic, geopolitical and technological humiliation, the magnitude of the self-sabotage inflicted upon our nation by our incompetent political class, head to one of America’s booming Republican-run Red States.

It will guarantee a shock to your system, and jolt you out of any residual complacency. It will simultaneously energise you and plunge you into depression. You will be blown away by the growth, the clatter of construction, the siege of cranes across the skyline, the massive cars, the energy, drive and ambition, the wealth, abundance and cheap energy, the entrepreneurial go-getting, the ostentatious celebration of success.

Read it all at: “Britain’s Inertia Is a Warning to America” by Charles C.W. Cooke. And if you’re Australian you can take it as a warning g to us too. 

Our backyard, Mid-Autumn Festival evening

Claude’s film on western civilisation

Click above

A fair summary.

中秋快乐 ！Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

From our Village Owners Association. Lovely Calligraphy.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Lee Tung Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Photo by an Occasional Reader.

Loving Australia... all over again

We're just back, Jing and I, from ten days down in Australia. Mainly to see my Mum who turned 105 last Tuesday. Imagine! And still going. Still putting on lippie, a very nice dress and pearls. Our dear Mutti. 

And family. And old friends. 

It's spring in the antipodes; spring was springing and singing everywhere. On the train from Sydney to Canberra, a tootle and a pleasantly slow doddle at four hours for the 300 km, we watch the bush brush past, on either side, yellow with wattle. 

Choo-choo, choo-choo. Past Yerrinbool, Bingara, Mittagong, Bowral, Burradoo. All bloomin' wattle. And bloomin' lovely indigenous names too, aren't they? 

South of Goulburn, Wollogorang, another lovely name, flows off the tongue, then Lake George, for decades dry, sheep grazing on its bed, now flows itself, full of water. The land is green. Usually khaki, olive, grey, now lime-greens, shot through with the everywhere wattle. 

The crabapple too is out:

My sister Anne’s Crabapple, Ainslie, Canberra 

The eucalyptus is flowering. A magnificent Blakelys Red Gum, a true monster, on the corner of Chisholm and Hayley streets in Ainslie, is heavy with cream-coloured flowers.

In the mornings, Magpies sing and chuckle, prancing around in their dinner suits and bow ties, for titbits on the lawn. Afternoons, the Eastern and the Crimson Rosellas reach for a worm, and hold it to eat. Sulphur-crested Cockatoos crack seeds, loudly. The Galahs come shouting through -- "makeway... makeway...". What a cacophony, the delightful ever-changing noise of the Aussie bush. 

The people we find -- after an absence of nearly a decade -- friendly, open, helpful. Smiling. It's not just Thailand that's the "Land of Smiles". We reckon Australia is too. 

When I'm back in Hong Kong, I mention this to a Thai friend. Who says "well, yeah, of course, but you're Aussie". I say, not but it's also my wife, from China originally, who feels it. She used to feel "like a foreigner" when she first came to Oz, thirty some years ago. Today, not. She's just an Aussie, too.

There's so many now from all over, and especially from Asia. Being asianised myself, now, after 40+ years in China and Hong Kong, I feel it too, and it's comfortable. 

We arrive at our rented apartment in Kirribilli, on the north shore of Sydney. It's on the top floor with no lift. We've got a 25kg suitcase, and me 77 yo.

There's a young guy doing some reno. He offers to help. I don't ask; he offers. Thanks mate, that's much appreciated. He's from Fiji, name of Jerry, looks like a rugby forward. I say this. Yeah, he replies, I used to play footy... in New Zealand. Picks up the suitcase like it's a rugby ball, and marches up five flights of stairs. Doesn't expect anything. Thanks, mate, you're a champ, I say. No worries. 'Ave a good one. And he's off, back to work.

Same at departure. This time it's a young bloke, name of Spike, who says No Worries, I used to do removals. And picks up the case to march it down the steps. Again, expecting nothing but a "thanks mate", to which he's: "no worries. Have a good trip". 

"No worries". The best of Oz. 

The land. The flora. The fauna. The people. The friends. The family. The beauty of it all. 

We're loving it. All over again. 

John Cleese can say whatever the hell he likes about Islam! | Brendan O’Neill

Imagine devoting 65 years of your life to entertaining the nation only to be told by a gang of pious pricks that you’re no longer welcome in England’s second city. That’s been the fate of the great John Cleese. He’s given us six decades of comedy, yet still he finds himself mobbed by hysterics who want to muzzle his wisecracking mouth. His crime? You already know. Everyone knows. It’s the same thing every time. He took the piss out of Islam.

Cleese is touring England with a live stage show celebrating Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He screens the 1975 movie and takes questions from the audience. That’s a pretty stand-up thing for a comedy giant in his late 80s to be doing. Not in the eyes of Islamo-narcissists, though. They’re amazed Cleese can even show his face in public following his numerous sins of blasphemous thought. Nothing makes the pious wet their pants like a comic chortling at their superstitions.

Cleese took his show to the Islamic Republic of Birmingham on Sunday night. News of the blasphemer’s arrival caused a wave of horror

Muslims Say It's Unfair To Judge Their Entire Religion Based On The Actions Of Several Million

WORLD — The international Muslim community issued a collective statement this week explaining that it would be unfair to judge their religion based on the bad actions of several million of its members.

Despite decades of repeated violent attacks in various parts of the world that have taken the lives of many thousands of innocents, Muslims urged the world's population not to judge the religion harshly based on the actions of such a large number of them.

Motorcades for illegals | Tom Slater

Extraordinary scenes along coastal England this week. Convoys of buses, escorted by police, lights and sirens blaring, like a presidential motorcade, but to meet illegal immigrants and escort them to taxpayer-funded accommodations. In places where not even nice, empathetic, middle class, Lib-Dem voters want to see them.

Tom Slater. “The Gosport protests have put Burnham on notice”. 

/Snip:

For what has been taking place across the English Channel is not ‘asylum seeking’ in any meaningful sense. Even Rory Stewart is now saying that anyone who is fleeing, for all intents and purposes, France has no real right to claim asylum in Britain. This is a funnel for illegal migration – and everyone knows it.

The government can bang on about its legal obligations all it likes – to aid vessels in distress, to process those who claim asylum here, to house those who have made a claim. 

What the public sees is illegal migrants being escorted into our waters, landed on our soil and put up at our expense. Because beyond the legal niceties of the situation, that is precisely what is happening here.

 A video of the “motorcade” for illegal immigrants. (aka “undocumented migrants”).

Earlier, at Portsmouth.