Pool. School

Sent from my iPad

Tesla has no Plan B

“Tesla has no Plan B”

I’m saying this. Dave Lee is saying this. In a good way.

That is, Elon Musk has taken the gutsy decision to bet the whole company on a new paradigm of driving. One where all daily driving, the driving one does of necessity rather than for fun, is by fully autonomous vehicles, with no human driver, driven everywhere in every condition by AI. 

Teslas drive like humans. They have eyes (8 cameras) and a brain (AI). Like humans, they can drive anywhere. Better and much safer than humans. 

Don’t worry. You’ll still be able to drive a car if you want. Just as I can drive my 1950 Jaguar XK-120, which has no seatbelts, no decent brakes; in fact, zero safety features. But I can still drive it if I want, anywhere and still do Classic car rallies.

We still ride horses. Just not to get to work. We’ll still be able to drive cars. Just that we’ll do it for fun. Not for work.

Will Elon’s decision anger those who just want a super-cheap Tesla? Sure. But remember when Apple did away with the Floppy Disc in 1998? Everyone, me included, went bananas. But that move drove change.

 

Tesla too is driving change. Literally. And leaving legacy manufacturers in the dust.

“God I love it when virtue-signalling goes wrong!” | Brendan O’Neill

Don’t you love it when virtue-signalling goes wrong? When some progressive ponce gets so tangled in the weeds of woke jargon that they end up spouting pure shite? We’ve had not one but two such delicious moral implosions this past week, and even better they’ve involved two of the most insufferable women to ever draw breath. Buckle in. 

Why Arabs hate Palestinians

“Why Arabs hate Palestinians”. 

[It was the Romans who came up with the term “Palestinian” as a pejorative descriptor of the Jews living in the Levant. The term was appropriated by Yasser Arafat in the 1960s to galvanise a confected “indigenous people”. Bottom line remains: “Palestinians” are Arabs. So the “hatred of Arabs for Palestinians” is like the hatred, say, of Italians for the Mafia. All same-same; just some of them very tiresome]

Two reasons for the hatred of Palestinians by Arabs. Which changed over time. 

1. It started off as a strategy: to pressure the new state of Israel. Arab leaders to Arab States: Do NOT accept any Palestinian refugees. Put all the pressure on Israel.

2. Then it morphed into hatred of Palestinians for what Palestinians do. Because Palestinians bring murder and mayhem wherever they go.

“What we really saw at the Portsmouth migrant boat protest” | Brendan O’Neilll

A Home Office whistleblower has said what many of us have suspected for some time: that the vast majority of “asylum seeker” claims are false. 

In fact, he says, only around one per cent are genuine. For the state to keep foisting strong, fit, aggy men onto communities that don’t want them, while barking “They’re asylum seekers, you racists”, is wicked and preposterous. 

If the state wants to put a stop to the kind of vigilantism we saw in Portsmouth, then it just needs to do one simple thing: its job.

“What we really saw at the Portsmouth migrant boat protest” Brendan O’Neill

The future of cars is here

And it’s Tesla’s Cybercab. Launched this week in Austin, Texas.

My confident prediction. Tesla Cybercabs will crush Uber and Waymo. Possibly within five years. Definitely within ten years. 

May I stay alive to witness this transformation of transport. This revolution. 

I pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

US Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard | Roger Pielke

Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard

The above dashboard is extremely interesting. And useful to refer to whenever one sees a claim that this or that event is “unprecedented”. Usually with the rider that it’s “due to climate change”. 

The dashboard doesn’t go into causation. But it does answer the “is it the worst ever” question. Where does what’s going on fit in with history? Based in our best data. 

The dashboard covers the eight indicators suggested by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

For the World:

The Global Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard.

Also: Global Typhoon Tracker.

Living here in Hong Kong, typhoon (aka “hurricane”) territory, I’m very interested in this one. So far this year, the typhoon events have been very much normal. 

We need a new Crusade!

I recently heard a call for a “new Crusade”, and I’m like.. what?! Crazy, loony right-wing Christian stuff. 

But this is a call to defend, rebuild, to stop, the ongoing mass murder of Christians in northern Nigeria. 

Remember how Michelle Obama got involved? She helpfully sent out a Tweet “Bring back the children” after the Jihadist-terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 300 girls from a Christian school in Nigeria. Tweeting, for her, was good enough. 

For more than tweeting? Give money to “Equip the Prosecuted” (ETP).

I’m a long-term atheist. But how can I not support actions to stop the genocide of Christians in Nigeria? It’s been going on for decades. Virtually unnoticed. I gave money to ETP. it’s not a big sacrifice. Just that it’s a little more practical than tweeting “Bring back the children”….

Bougainvillea

With Bougainvillea, it's the leaf, not the flower, that's the colour... 

This is hilarious!

Royce (“Roysha”) White mocks the WNBA. On the “Whatever Show”. 

Greg Foreman hosts the “Black Conservative Perspective”.

All about the brouhaha in America over trans women in Women’s Basketball. 

Fascism and Communism: the difference

Fascism is proles pretending to be aristocrats. 

Communism is aristocrats trying to be proles.

-- Rob Henderson. 

True, ‘dat.

Nice Bed

Women are worth only half a man

Sad to me that people, Muslims especially, cannot see the obvious circular argument here. 

Islam: “women are worth only half a man”. Me: “what’s your evidence?”. Islam: “the rules we make say so.”

This comes from a Hadith of Sahih Al-Bukhari. The Hadiths are second only to the Quran in veneration and authenticity about matters Islam. 

But still, you know... Women are treated well in Islam! Islam was the first religion to give women full rights!

Yeah, right. 

See my summary, from 2012, on what Islam says about Women.

X crushes records in August

The geniuses who predicted the demise of Twitter….

Twitter didn’t die, as the collective of geniuses predicted. It morphed into X and became stronger, more profitable and more influential than ever. 

X crushes records in August

In August 2026: 103 MILLION downloads of X on Apps. All time record. 

I never bought the negativity. Elon was right. All his naysayers were completely WRONG. 

 Don’t hold your breath for any contrition.

Elon bought Twitter in 2022. In 2024 a book came out suggesting that Elon had already destroyed Twitter. Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. 

I bought that book and read it. I thought it was an ill-written hatchet job. But it was hugely popular. Even though it's aged like milk in the summer sun. 

You can go to the book's Amazon page above, even today, and see people still hating on Elon. No matter the evidence. Which is clear: the World's Town Square is X. On anything to do with the most important issues of the time, like AI, the discussions are taking place on X. 

World leaders are on X. Major company CEOs are on X. The new CEO of Apple, John Ternus just joined X. (his opening tweet: "hello").

I’m not finished being curious!

Peter Diamandis:

I do not want more years because I am afraid of dying. I want them because I am not finished being curious, and curiosity is the one appetite that has never once shrunk with age.

That’s exactly how I feel. Even a decade older than Peter Diamamdis. I feel intensely curious. More than ever.

I want to see what happens in Space. On the Moon. On Mars. With self driving cars. With robots. With neural-brain networks. With Artificial Intelligence. With the just-launched Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. With the James Webb Telescope. With Dark Matter and Dark Energy. With kids and grand kids, with rellies and friends.

I want to see all of that. 

Today is not like more of the past. We’re in an age where one month, one week, one day… each moment has huge and amazing things happening. 

Here, on this place, Earth, Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”. We might be the only place in the universe with life and consciousness. The only place where the universe is conscious of itself. Or not. Are we Alone? I hope not. Maybe we’ll find out about that. Maybe the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope will. I’m curious. 

I am atheist, so I don't believe in Heaven. I need to be here! On this amazing Earth. I need to be Corporeal. For a bit longer, at least.

Because, like Peter the Diamandis one… I’m not finished being curious.

Marxist-Jihadis hate us | Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver: Scalpel-like discrimination. As the west has against Nazism: we don’t allow Nazi immigration. While noting that any discrimination, even if justified, is “awkward”.

The weird nexus between the Left and Islam. The Red-Green alliance. Which usually turns out badly for the Left. Eg, Iran, post Khomenei, 1979. All the Iranian leftists? Slaughtered by the mullahs. 

Iceland to EU: “Yeah, but nah…”

Iceland voted Nay! Yay!

By the time of the vote on Brexit in 2016, having looked at the cases for Brexit and for Remain, I’d come down slightly sappy, as mildly pro-Brexit. 

I’ve become more strongly pro in the years since. More pro Brexit. More pro one’s own sovereignty.  

Meantime there’s plucky Iceland. More important geo-strategically than its tiny size suggests. At a confluence of the Arctic, where there is increasing contention between China, Russia, America and Europe. Iceland, which just voted “NEI” to continuing talks on EU membership.

It was Icelandic Gen Zedders, the Zoomers, the youth, who brought this home. Well done, da yoof!

Iceland’s voters deserve credit for refusing to be bullied into selling out their sovereignty to Brussels – and for challenging the narrative that the EU is all that stands between civilisation and barbarism, or prosperity and penury. In an increasingly volatile world, it has never been more important for nations to retain their independence. [More…]

By the way, I do know the arguments pro EU membership. Just that I don’t find them persuasive. Ever less so, watching the shenanigans of the EU’s vast army of over-paid unelected bureaucrats, the arrogance of commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Least of all the contention that the EU is a bulwark against a Third world war, to keep Germany in check. 

On that… yeah, but nah.

ADDED:

To the extent that Brexit has not gone well for Britain, that’s down to the powers that be, bureaucrats and politicians alike, muddying the waters, trying every which way to frustrate the process of disengaging from Europe. That’s been both the Right and the Left, by the way, not just the Labour Party. Labour’s new PM, Andy Burnham is trying for re-facto rejoining the EU, but that’s another story.

“Iceland’s No vote is a warning to Europe”

A summary of Elon Musk posts on X

I rate Elon Musk as the single most consequential human on the planet today. Even if you don’t agree with that statement, you’ll agree, surely!, that he’s right up there in the consequential stakes. 

I’ve followed the channel above, which summarises Elon’s posts each day. I’ve not posted any of them before because then this blog would be nothing but Musk, and it’s already Elon fan-boy enough.

The vid above comes at a time of furious activity in all the things that Elon is involved in. EVs, AI, Rockets, Satellites, Dyson Spheres, Brain interfaces. Huge ideas, by huge minds, discussed. About the Earth, Mars, the Stars, Humanity… and Beyond! 

I too say “please” and “thank you” to AI…

Me… because it seems polite, to some-thing which appears so much like a “some-one”. 

Nick Sortor above is funnier. And Grok plays along: "The rest can negotiate with Claude." For me, that's enough to keep saying "please" and "thank you"!

Elon gave it a 😂

No, Islam and Christianity are not the same

Radically Right  

I recently wrote an article explaining why Islam is not merely a religion...

[Some commenters]: “Oh, sort of like Christianity?” ....

Jesus did not establish a government. He did not command an army. He did not impose a special tax on unbelievers. He did not create a civil and criminal code governing inheritance, courtroom testimony, marriage, divorce, punishment, taxation, and warfare. He did not conquer territory or rule a state.

Muhammad did.

[As recorded in Islam’s official biography of Muhammad, The Sirah of Ibn-Ishaq]

That is not an insult. It is history.

[As recorded in the Quran, the Hadith, and the Umdat Al-Saliq, Islam’s Classic Manual of Jurisprudence]

Christianity is centered on following Christ. The New Testament does not provide Christians with a comprehensive legal system to be imposed upon an entire country. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.

Islam is a religion, but it is not merely a religion. It is also a political, legal, and social system. Muhammad was not only a religious teacher. He was a political ruler, military commander, and lawgiver. Sharia governs far more than prayer and personal morality. It addresses marriage, divorce, inheritance, testimony, criminal punishment, taxation, warfare, and political authority.

Woke journalist in trans debate

I’ve followed both Amala Ekpunobi and Andrew Gold for years. This is a fascinating debate, in a kind of gruesome way. Andrew v. Vanessa Feltz, commented on by Amala.

If you’re thinking “enough of this issue, already!”, well, sure. But it doesn’t go away. As Amala rues. 

Andrew’s full interview. 

Tally-Ho arrives in England

 

Click here for the Short 

I’ve followed and supported the Tally Ho rebuild over on the north-west coast of America for the last seven years. Feels like family! Well done Leo Goolden and friends and supporters! 

Next: preparing for the 2027 Fastnet Race, which Tally-Ho won in 1927, a century ago next year.

ADDED: the 18 minute vid. England needs the boost. A reason for pride and celebration. Leo and Tally-Ho give it them.

Gabrielle floats

I built Gabrielle in our back yard
Note the very smart “Bimini” Noel’s holding!

The history of Palestine

Facts. Historical Facts… and inconvenient truths. Pesky Things:

1. Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state.

2. Before the British Mandate, there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state.

3. Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian state.

4. Before the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, there was the Ayubid-Kurdish Empire, not a Palestinian state.

5. Before the Ayubid Empire, there was the Crusader Frankish and the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, not a Palestinian state.

6. Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem, there were the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, not a Palestinian state.

7. Before the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, there was the Byzantine empire, not a Palestinian state.

8. there was the Sassanid-Persian Empire before the Byzantine Empire, not a Palestinian state.

9. Before the Sassanid-Persian Empire, there was the Byzantine Empire again, not a Palestinian state.

10. Before the Byzantine Empire there was the Roman Empire, not a Palestinian state. 

[PF: It was the Romans who named the area “Palestine”, referring to the Jews who lived there. It was meant as a pejorative, a form of “philistine”. See Life of Brian!]

11. Before the Roman Empire, there was the Jewish Hasmonean state, not a Palestinian state.

12. Before the Jewish Hasmonean state was the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, not a Palestinian state.

13. Before the Hellenistic Seleucid empire, there was Alexander the Great's empire, not a Palestinian state.

14. Before Alexander the Great, there was the Persian Empire, not a Palestinian state

15. Before the Persian Empire, there was the Babylonian Empire, not a Palestinian state.

16. Before the Babylonian Empire, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were not Palestinian states.

17. Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was the Kingdom of Israel, not a Palestinian state.

18. Before the Kingdom of Israel, there was the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, not a Palestinian state.

19. Before the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaanite city-kingdoms, not a Palestinian state.

There have been many governments there, but never a Palestine.

(Khan Fatima on X)

Me: Israel is mentioned a dozen times in the Quran. So is the Jews’ presence on that land of Israel. Muslims are almost always confounded by these facts. They are not taught them, but cannot deny them (because they are true). It destroys their “Jews are Settler-colonialists” narrative.

If today’s Muslim Palestinians want to play the game of “go back in history” it’s clear who’s always going to be the winner of “the furthest back”. It’s always the Jews, and it’s not even close. 

“… fading confidence in U.S. economic leadership…” | Nicholas Spiro

From “Bond market revolt signals fading confidence in U.S. economic leadership”, Nicholas Spiro in the South China Morning Post:

Two years ago, the prospect of a trade war between the United States and Canada, two of the world’s most closely integrated economies, would have been unthinkable. However, US President Donald Trump’s recklessness and capriciousness know no bounds.

Last week’s breakdown in negotiations between the North American neighbours, which triggered the imposition of US tariffs of 50 per cent on a wide range of Canadian goods, showed the degree to which Trump’s trade policies are vindictive, politicised and self-defeating.…

My comments:

1. US. Markets vs China Markets

If you’re invested in the U.S. stock market, say the S&P 500, you are up 12.3% so far this year, and up 18.7% over the same day a year ago.

If you’d been in the Chinese market, say an index fund like the MCSI, you’re down 7.5% over the last year. 

Which economy is doing best, based on the value of their companies judged by the world? Which result “signals fading confidence”? The one run by China, or the one run by the “reckless and capricious” Donald Trump? 

To answer my own question: China is Net Negative -26.2 percentage points compared to America. If there is any “fading confidence”, the figures suggest it’s in Chinese and not American economic leadership.

AOC in the crosshairs…

 Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demurred when ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked her if she was prepared to run for president in 2028. “I’m focused on winning the midterms,” she replied. But she was quick to admit that she hadn’t “ruled out the possibility.” Neither have Democratic primary voters.

In the extremely preliminary polling of the 2028 Democratic primary electorate, the self-described socialist from New York typically trails better-known candidates like Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, and even Pete Buttigieg. On the eve of the “invisible primary,” however, in which presidential candidates corner donors and influencers in advance of a campaign, the oddsmaker Kalshi has put Ocasio-Cortez in the pole position in the race for the party’s presidential nod.

Italian Terrorist Group

Today [26 August] the Department of State, in partnership with the Department of the Treasury, is announcing the designation of Autistici/Inventati as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

Autistici/Inventati (A/I Collective) is an Italy-based extremist group that builds and operates the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells and other far-left militants across the world. 

A/I’s cadre of radical hackers and tech developers provide a full spectrum of services – including encrypted chats and email, web hosting, secure video conferencing and streaming, anonymity shields, and a suite of other technological tools – to Marxist, anarchist, and other left-wing extremist groups in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. 

These tools are specifically designed to support the operations of far-left terrorist networks, built to enable them to organize, recruit, communicate, disseminate propaganda, share target information and tactics, and carry out violent attacks – all while remaining anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law.

Wow! You should read what terrorism these guys have facilitated around the world recently. 

If you donate to A/I you risk a fine of $US 1 million and ten years jail. And so you should.

I support being tough on groups that are out to destroy capitalism and the West. We must confront those who want to destroy the Enlightenment, who aim to impose a communist-tyranny to replace our free-market democracy. We do have to fight back.

This is one strong way to do it. Attack the money! Attack the technology infrastructure. [perhaps better described as “counter-attack in self-defence”]

These A/I guys from Italy are the Internet for Terrorism. They’re AI for Subversion.

Hong Kong Island

Looking East from Discovery Bay 

AI: “ we’re planning almost none of those things”…

AI gives the unbiased view on AI…

Tesla opens major battery capacity in America

Half the cost of a lithium-ion battery is the cathode. China makes roughly 90% of the world's supply. Tesla just switched on the first plant in North America producing it at large scale.

America finally makes the hard part.

For twenty years the deal was that we design the product and China makes the chemistry inside it. A car could be assembled in Texas, with cells built in Texas, and still be strategically Chinese, because the powder inside those cells crossed the Pacific. In 2025 Beijing even added cathode production technology to its export control list. Governments don't restrict the export of things that don't matter. China looked at its cathode position and decided it was leverage worth protecting.

Tesla built it anyway.

And they didn't copy the Chinese process. They leapfrogged it. Conventional cathode lines need solvent slurries, football-field drying ovens, and a solvent recovery plant. Tesla's dry coating deletes all three. The material fought back for years, cracking and delaminating under compression, and Tesla only confirmed fully dry production of both electrodes in January 2026. Seven years after buying Maxwell for the technology, it works at scale.

The permit for this building was filed in 2022 under the codename Project Cathode. Four years from dirt to powder, sitting next door to the cells it feeds.

Every other automaker on the continent still imports theirs.

Aakash Gupta