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| Click above for the Short. Prince Faisal in his perfect English accent |
Saudi Arabia will attack Iran …
… if attacks against Saudi continue. But Iran “doesn’t want diplomacy” says Saudi Prince Faisal, above. “I’m doubtful they have the wisdom” to stop war and negotiate instead.
Arab nations are united against Iran. They support U.S. and Israeli actions against the Iranian regime.
As the Riyadh Statement shows. Not just Arab, but nearby Islamic nations as well.
The Prince Faisal Short, above.
Salt & Vinegar Chips. Spitting Chips. Sour Grapes.
Take your pick.
I'm talking about how pissed off China is that the largest high-end chip-maker in the world, TSMC, has done a deal with the United States to make their chips there. Beijing are super pissed off.
How do they show their anger? Reveal their saltiness? Display they're spitting chips?
Why, through the voices of pro-Beijing columnists in the South China Morning Post, of course! There's plenty of them these days.
The most pro-Beijing, the most of a sock-puppet for Beijing is long-time columnist Alex Lo. Who writes two days ago, in his column: KMT Chief shows way forward to avoid blind confrontation with Beijing. [Internet Archive page]
Taiwan’s political pendulum is reversing. The government led by Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) William Lai Ching-te is increasingly discredited, not least for selling out the jewel of its semiconductor industry to the United States under pressure from President Donald Trump.
"Selling the family jewels"?? Hardly. They're increasing Chip capacity by manufacturing in the United States. Does it make sense? Surely it does.
America is the largest customer of TSMC by a long way. America takes some 75% ot TSMC's output. Next largest customer is Taiwan itself with 9%. Only then comes China, with 8%, a figure that's actually fallen in recent years. IOW America takes ten times the amount China does of TSMC's output. Of course it makes sense to manufature some of your product in your dominant customer's home.
Committing some $US 500 billion to build facilities in America is just smart.
But it smarts for China too. This is not TSMC "selling family jewels". It's TSMC being smart.
ADDED: My post on TSMC: the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Who's TSMC? From Grok:
TSMC produces the vast majority of the world's most advanced semiconductor chips (over 90% of leading-edge nodes below 5nm or so), which serve as the foundational "brains" powering everything from smartphones and consumer electronics to AI accelerators, high-performance computing, data centers, and modern military systems.
Without TSMC's manufacturing capacity and technological leadership, global supply chains for AI innovation, digital infrastructure, and countless high-tech products would grind to a halt, making the company a critical chokepoint for the modern economy and technological progress.
In short, TSMC is the indispensable engine behind today's digital world and the AI revolution.
I post this as a history lesson in Islam as the "final revealed religon". And what this means for all non-Muslims in the world.
A history lesson in "Why the Muslims try to kill or subjugate all Jews".
I've been banging on about this since the beginning of this blog.
Why?
Because it's in all the doctrines of Islam -- the Koran, the Hadith, the Sirah, the life of Muhammad, the Sharia -- and in all the actions of Muslims when they attack via terrorist acts in the west. They make it clear. "We are not here in [the U.K., Europe, wherever] to take part. We're here to Take Over".
Mosab Hassan Yousef is the so-called "Son of Hamas". Because he's the son of one of Hamas' foundational leaders. He's a hafiz -- one who has memorised the whole of the Koran. He knows whereof he speaks.
Muslim believe, because Mohammad told them so, in the Koran, that Islam is the latest revealed Abrahamic religion and it abrogates -- it cancels -- the previous religions of Judaism and Christianity. This is a very dangerous belief because it leads to their attempts to physically silence, to kill, those Christians and Jews who continue to believe that they have the right, the obligation, to carry on with their religion.
... and it's good news for the West.
I am most certainly aware that that's not the view of the legacy media. That they're taking every opportunity to big up any perceived negatives against America; and to diminish any of the achievement of Operation Epic Fury.
I find it disgusting that the European West, the American media, the media in Australia, the UK, the EU, can be against winning a defensive war on Iran -- defence against a burgeoning Islamist caliphate -- because they don't like the man waging it.
I'm fully on side with winning this war. I know that America and Israel are trouncing Iran. But also that Iran's is not a finished regime. And that the main battle now is against the headwinds from the West itself. Weird and disturbing. And should not be so.
Shame on pusillanimous leaders like France's Macron, Britain's Starmer, Italy's Meloni, Germany's Mertz and the Spanish socialist shill whose name I can't be bothered to remember. But who seems happy to have the Modern Moors reconquist Andalusia. Which, bottom line, is what this war is all about. Pushing back Islamist Jihadi attacks, of which Iran, its Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, are just the tip of the spear.
Is that too tough to read? Too difficult to acknowledge? So be it.
00:00 Long View on Iran War 03:02 Iran Weakened Militarily 04:24 Winners and Losers Russia Gulf 06:22 Global Fallout China Europe NATO 09:16 US Outlook and Conclusion
Great news for Tesla!
Great news for the world!
The beginning of the transport revolution is here!
The Dutch regulator, RDW, just gave permission for Tesla's Full Self Driving (FSD) software to be used there. That will mean the rest of the EU 27 will soon do the same. The Dutch, and its RDW, are known as the gold standard in testing and licencing vehicles.
About the Tesla FSD, the RDW said more than just "OK". They said Tesla's FSD was "the best system" they've tried and tested, rigorously, over 18 months.
Likely other countries outside the EU will follow. China. Japan. Hopefully us here in Hong Kong, where Tesla's are super popular.
The revolution is not just to the ease and increased safety in driving cars. It's another step to fully autonomous cars. And then to a whole new paradigm of how we get around. Cities will change. They'll get better, as we don't need so many private cars and so many buses and so many parking lots. Cities will get cleaner, more friendly, more relaxed.
Things is gonna get better!
EVs ranked by total unit sold in the U.S. in Q1 2026.
1) Tesla Model Y: 78,591
2) Tesla Model 3: 31,672
3) Toyota bZ: 10,029
4) Hyundai Ioniq 5: 9,790
5) Chevrolet Equinox EV: 9,589
6) Rivian R1S: 5,494
7) Ford Mustang Mach-E: 4,600
8) Lexus RZ: 4,456
9) Tesla Cybertruck: 3,519
10) Cadillac Lyriq: 3,370
11) Honda Prologue: 3,319
12) Rivian EDV: 3,213
13) Subaru Solterra: 3,041
14) Cadillac Optiq: 2,847
15) Kia EV9: 2,740
16) Tesla Model X: 2,346
17) BMW i4: 2,184
18) Kia EV6: 2,023
19) Hyundai Ioniq 9: 1,990
20) Cadillac Vistiq: 1,902
21) BMW iX: 1,788
22) Rivian R1T: 1,658
23) GMC Hummer EV: 1,653
24) Lucid Gravity: 1,631
25) Cadillac Escalade IQ: 1,432
There’s more. Courtesy Sawyer Merritt on X.
Steven Mark Ryan comments on his "Solving the Money Problem" YT Channel.
Shall I make the obvious point? Oh, go on then. Well, it's this: that Tesla's top models outsold the rest of the top 25 by 33%. Tesla's single top selling car, the Model Y, outsold the rest of the top 20 put together.
Plus, not shown here: Tesla was the biggest selling EV in the whole world in Q1. Yes, they did outsell China's BYD! Tesla outsold Chinese EV cars even in China. While costing 3 to 4 times as much as Chinese made EV and hybrid cars, in China.
Not just Elon Musk. Me too! I also said it was crazy for Germany to shut down its nuclear power stations!
But seriously, folks. It was blindingly obvious that it was a crazy decision. Even to a midwit like me, sitting in Hong Kong. Let alone to a quixotic genius like Elon in America. But German politicians and bureaucrats did it anyway. And are now suffering.
Why did they do it? One word: Greens. The Greens are so wildly, so obsessively and I must say, so ignorantly anti clean-green-safe nuclear power and they have been so influential over such a long time in Germany, that they overrode common sense and science. They threw 25% of Germany's clean, green, safe and cheap nuclear power into the bin.
The same is true in Australia. We have abundant uranium resources. We are quite happy to export it. But we refuse, by law, to use it ourselves. Sheer insanity. All our Green bodies are against it. Challenged that their views are ideological and out-of-date, they respond with ideological and out-of-date diatribes.
In Australia too, being anti-nuclear energy is “total madness”. [Though, of course, it's seen as being a virtue by most on the Left].
Elon Musk warned Germany in 2022 about shutting down their nuclear power plants
He called it "total madness" years before the current crisis peaked
"It’s crazy to shut down nuclear power plants... especially if you are in a place where there are no natural disasters" — Elon Musk
Germany shut them all down anyway in 2023
And now the consequences have become undeniable:
- Energy prices skyrocketed with German households paying the highest electricity bills in the EU in 2025.
- The grid became increasingly unreliable
- Germany is now burning billions in subsidies just to keep the lights on - money that wouldn't be needed if they'd listened
Now, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has officially admitted that the nuclear phase-out was a "huge mistake" and a "serious strategic error" that left the country without enough generation capacity
What's even worse is that the exact same EU bureaucrats who pushed for the shutdowns are now actively campaigning to build MORE nuclear power plants
Elon was right. Again
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| Courtesy @Xfreeze. The dotted line is replacement level, and all these are below it |
Note how the very lowest birth rates are in East Asia. Where we live…. If I were a bit younger I'd try to give it a nudge along.
Demographer Stephen J.Shaw explains how immigration is not the answer to low birth rates. Neither for the country losing the emigrants nor for the country hosting the immigrants.
Shaw also explains how it is that humans survived major population declines in wars and plagues. But how and why it’s different today. We are circling down a population plug hole. We ignore it at our extreme peril.
It's a long video. But then complex issues need complex explanations.
Errrhh... No. It's not true. No way Hong Kong is a "Zombie economy".
I'm posting the video above as what the Chinese call "a negative example". It's the most untruthful, the most lying, the most ... just the most off-the-planet Disinformation and Misinformation that I've ever seen. In any video. Anywhere.
And that's from me, who's no fan of the China Communist Party. Hong Kong is jsut not like they (mis)represent. And, By the way, I do know Hong Kong in previous difficult times. During the 1997 financial crisis. During the 2008 Financial Crisis. And during the Covid lockdown. So I know what it looks like when shops everwhere are closed down and the city is struggling. That's not the case now. No way.
Surely the Labour Party, surely Keir Starmer & Co, cannot go on ignoring this.
This may be the most important video you will watch this year. Please share widely.
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| Our Byron, contemplates three tennis balls. On our local Siena Park. “Why is nobody throwing them for me? Gerrr…” |
In the background is Discovery College, a private school of the English Schools Foundation on International Baccalaureate curriculum. Our son attended.
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.
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.
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.
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| North wall. South facing |
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]
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.
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.
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| Earth set |
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
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!"
