My wooden boat, Nim Shue Wan Beach, Discovery Bay, HK, 15 August, 2014

Sent from my iPad

“What Have the Muslims Ever Done for Us?”

 

Hmmmm…

The headline above recalls the evergreen “What have the Romans ever done for us?” Written and performed by John Cleese. Who became red-pilled about Islam right in from of my eyes. 

Except, of course, what has Islam ever done for us? Except— to be 100% clear! — to diminish and destroy their host countries… 

Bondi Babe

Iconic Sydarb…

The Three Icons at Milsons Point Wharf

 

This morning at Milsons Point Ferry Wharf

We’re Doomed !!

Cassandra warned the Trojans about the wooden horse – she was given the power to see the future, but was cursed that no one would believe her. In Silicon Valley’s version of this story, the Trojan horse is superintelligence, and its Cassandras warn that AI researchers are “gambling with our lives” in the race to build it. 

But there’s a twist, Geoffrey Cain writes in this issue’s cover story. 

The ending stays the same, but first, instead of ignoring the Cassandras, “the elders hear them out, agree with every word.” The people who most vocally proclaim that AI might kill us are also insisting that they must be the ones to “pace” its development. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has said that AI development must slow down; OpenAI’s Sam Altman agrees, as does Elon Musk, who has warned that humanity is “summoning the demon.” 

Investors give them billions to continue building their “safer” machines. And so the Trojan horse – slightly hobbled by regulation, accompanied by auditors – will trundle along, straight through the gates.

Top Dogs

Basil the lab, Marcus the Weimaraner. Discovery Bay, HK.

Piddington and the idiocy of middle-class progressivism

The result is in. Ninety-two per cent of the voters in the tiny Oxfordshire village have voted to secede from the United Kingdom – 285 yes, 26 no. Why? Because the British government plans to dump hundreds and hundreds of small boat ‘asylum seekers’ in a military base slap bang next to the Piddingtonians. 

Of course, this is a symbolic gesture. There is no legal mechanism to actually achieve secession, which is perhaps just as well. As we know, it’s hard enough to get British politicians to acknowledge the results of an official national referendum, let alone a wildcat local one.

Blogger and Mum

“Mutti”. Turned 105 yesterday, in Canberra, Australia…🎉🎂

“Why Migrants Tend to Make the Countries They Move To Like the Ones They Left” | William Meijer

So relevant to where I’m now, Australia, a land of immigrants. Somewhat nerdy, the article below, but worth the read…

For centuries, economists have tried to understand why some countries are rich while others are poor. Numerous explanations have been proposed—geography, inclusive institutions, and knowledge—but all seem to fail at explaining empirical reality.

Iceland, South Korea, and Israel are prosperous despite their geography and lack of natural resources. China and Russia outperform most countries despite having extractive institutions. Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany have recently become economically stagnant despite their inclusive institutions. Poor countries tend to remain poor despite decades of good advice from competent economists.

Women in Islam

 Look at what happened to the women in these countries. 

They once wore their own colors, clothing and traditions. Their faces were visible. They looked like they belonged to their own culture.

Then Islamist rule took hold.

The color disappeared. The women were covered. Their choices were taken away. Their voices were silenced. Culture after culture, the same thing happened.

And somehow, we are told this is “diversity.”

There is nothing diverse about erasing women. There is nothing tolerant about forcing them to hide their faces and bodies while men continue walking around as themselves.

That is always the part they leave out. Women are expected to surrender their freedom, their identity and eventually their place in public life.

Europe sees what is happening. Spain sees it. So do London, Paris and Dearborn. We were told this was cultural enrichment, but women are once again being told to step aside, cover themselves and stay quiet.

This is not about Muslims who practice their faith peacefully. It is about an ideology that controls women and calls anyone who objects hateful.

Women in the West had better start paying attention before the freedoms our mothers and grandmothers fought for are handed away.

Australian Indigenous Space Science

No Comment …

The Australian, 12-13 September 2026

Byron is sad…

… because we are in Australia. 

Chasing a ball in the beach always helps.

“Alternative for Germany” party is “far-right”?

Below from Grok. I asked it to summarise the AfD platform, in the wake of big wins for the AfD in Germany. Which are widely labelled “far-right” even “neo-Nazi”.

But these policies are close to those of a Bill Clinton. Or an Australian Labor’s Bob Hawke. Or a British Tory Party of recent years. They would never have been characterised as “far- right”. Conservative, yes, or centrist-Democrat (Bill Clinton, even Obama). But not “far-right”, let alone “neo-Nazi”. That’s how far the Overton Window has shifted Left, that anyone gives these slurs any credence at all.

I read the AfD platform below and I agree with most of it. As would anyone who yearns for a decent, well-run, safe and secure country. As have a majority of Germans in recent elections. 

The push back on the“far right” and “neo-Nazi”  slurs should be strong. 

Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is a German right-wing populist party. Its 2025 Bundestag election program (“Zeit für Deutschland”) and longer-standing Grundsatzprogramm emphasize national sovereignty, strict limits on immigration, lower taxes and regulation, traditional energy sources, and a more direct form of democracy.

Immigration, asylum, and citizenship

This is the party’s signature issue. AfD calls for:

• Full control and closure of borders against illegal entry; people without papers or a valid claim would be turned back.
• Processing of asylum applications outside Germany.
• Switching asylum support from cash to in-kind benefits and cutting or ending benefits for people without a legal right to stay.
• Large-scale “Remigration” (deportations) of those required to leave.
• Ending fast-track naturalizations; citizenship would not be automatic.
• Withdrawing from the EU asylum system and from UN migration/refugee pacts.7

Economy, taxes, and welfare

The party presents itself as pro-social-market-economy and pro-Mittelstand:

• Broad tax cuts (income, corporate, energy, and consumption taxes); higher tax-free allowance (proposed at €14,000); abolition of the Solidarity surcharge and CO₂ levy.
• Less regulation and bureaucracy; repeal of supply-chain and similar laws.
• Abolition of inheritance and wealth taxes.
• Tightening of Bürgergeld (citizen’s income), especially for non-citizens; stronger work requirements (“Fordern und Fördern”).
• Measures to raise the birth rate through family incentives rather than relying on immigration for labor.5

Energy and climate

AfD rejects the Energiewende as implemented and questions or downplays anthropogenic climate change as the basis for current policy:

• Restart and expand nuclear power; keep and build coal plants.
• Resume cheap Russian gas (including repairing Nord Stream).
• End subsidies for wind and solar, scrap CO₂ pricing and the emissions-trading system.
• Repeal the combustion-engine ban and building-energy rules that force heat-pump conversions.3

Europe, euro, and foreign policy

• Transform the EU into a looser “Europe of nations” or “Bund europäischer Nationen” focused on the single market, external borders, and security cooperation rather than deeper political integration.
• Leave the euro and restore a national currency (possibly in parallel at first).
• Foreign policy based on German national interest; more pragmatic relations with Russia and China; continued NATO membership until a capable European alternative exists.13

Society, family, security, and institutions

• Traditional family defined as father, mother, and children; opposition to “gender ideology,” early sexualization in schools, and gender-inclusive language in public institutions.
• Direct democracy via Swiss-style referendums; limits on party power and public-broadcasting funding (reform or replace the GEZ-financed system with a slimmer basic service).
• Stronger police, preventive detention for high-risk individuals, lower age of criminal responsibility, and deportation of foreign offenders.6

These positions come from the party’s own 2025 election documents and earlier basic program. Implementation would require major legal changes (including EU and constitutional law) and is contested by other parties and parts of the German state. For the full text, see the official AfD site (afd.de) under the 2025 Wahlprogramm and Grundsatzprogramm.

Germans have had enough. GB News. It’s a tactical mistake for conservative parties to refuse to deal with the AfD. 

There is NO moderate Islam | True Truths on the eve of 911

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 several 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. 

Amy Mek’s discussion on the eve of our quarter-century anniversary of the horrors at The Twin Towers:

Pool. School.

I’m just back from some laps at the pool. International School in the background…

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").