Bridget Phetasy in her inimitable, exuberant, irrepressible style. With a serious message.
The Communists — aka the Democratic Socialists of America — are funded, locked and loaded, ready to go. Don’t lose focus, normies. “Right wingers”. Or they’ll be tossing the eggs from the nest, like the cuckoo. Yes, even mid-term Primaries count. You bet!
In passing, she glazes us Boomers. And serves it out to the Zoomers.
Above: main critic of Fauci, Senator Dr Rand Paul, talks to Stephen A. Smith
When I look back at my coverage of the Covid Pandemic, I'm pretty happy with what I wrote. It stands up well.
On Anthony Fauci, for example, I see that I was early in seeing through the man. Who appeared this week at a Senate Committee to be grilled by Rand Paul, only to "Plead the Fifth" (aka, not answer), 111 times.
I was early in coming to the judgement that Fauci was (and remains) complicit in creating the Covid pandemic, via the gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Which all credible observers and analysts are now pretty much unanimous was the source of the virus via the escape of an experimental virus. Which we might concede was an "accident" ... if we're being charitable.
And of course the reason Fauci denied the Lab-leak theory is that he was the main man responsible for it! It's just as much "the Fauci virus" as it was, per Trump, "the China virus".
Fauci was at the very, very long-time head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Who, absolutely coincidentally I'm sure, had billions to give away to epidemiologists who supported his deceptions. His murderous duplicity....
Those were judgements I came to based on studies of what Fauci said and did during Covid, and the mountain of evidence, circumstantial as it was, for the Lab-leak vs Zoonotic origins.
There was a better way to deal with the pandemic than the Fauci way. What's more we knew it at the time. Even though Fauci crushed dissent and discussion of it. Shameful. (We know why, Tony. We know).
That alternative was published at the time as the Great Barrington Declaration.
A principle architect of it, one of the three co-signatories, was then professor Jay Bhattacharya. He is now the Head of the National Institutes of Health, with oversight of the the very Institute that Dr Anthony Fauci headed for 38 years.
I signed the Barrington Declaration in 2020. As did thousands of others, laypeople and professionals. We were all smeared as purveyors of "Disinformation", by Fauci and his acolytes. The media. But it's we that have turned out correct. Though we will hear nothing of that from the MSM, let alone an apology. Because the drill is: if the Left gets something wrong, it's "let's move on". Let's "not re-litigate what happened years ago".... But it remains important. The source of any major virus is always important to know.
Fauci labelled professor Bhattacharya a "fringe epidemiologist" for having the temerity to suggest an alternative to the policies of lockdows, school closures, forced vaccinations, mandated masking and all the rest of it.
Now that same "fringe epidemiologist" is the boss of the organisation that Fauci once headed.
Oh the sublime Schadenfreude!
Dr Vinay Prasad gives more detail on the whole "Fauci thing". Prasad doesn't charm everyone, but he's knowledgeable and spot on: "Biden Covid Czar says it was Lab Leak".
If you're interested in ancient history as it pertains to the pandemic, you can click on the Labels on the right: "Barrington Declaration", or "Coronavirus", or "Zero Covid Policy".
Or in the Search Box on the right "Fauci".
The Barrington Declaration is still relevant because if/when there is another pandemic, it's the road map of what we should do. For heaven's sake, NOT the Fauci roadmap.
As Jay says: "there is nothing novel in the Declaration. It's what we've done with every pandemic in the past. It's the way we actually went about trying to prevent the spread of Covid that's the novel path." Talking here to The Goodfellows.
I seem to be running a few laps glazing myself here. But, oh well, I'm nearly 80 and if I wanna I gonna.
I’ll say it again: I warned you. I did warn you! About the “Democratic” Socialists of America. I warned you in 2018.
No qualifiers in front of “Socialism”can change the fact that it’s Socialism. Not “warm and cuddly”, not “unthreatening-and-not-at-all-dangerous”; and no, not even “Democratic”. It’s always Socialism. And, in my experience, Socialism = communism. There’s no practical difference. The DSA is consuming and reshaping, socialist-ising the Democratic Party.
Result? The Democrats’ constituents today:
Today’s Democrats wouldn't tarnish their karma by attempting to win the votes of white men. They are strictly the party of unmarried women, status-conscious graduates, identity- and victimhood-based groups, and the unfathomably aggrieved offspring of assimilated immigrants.
And their policies?
It used to be said that Democrats were for acid, amnesty and abortion. Today, they are the party of Palestine, pronouns and police abolition.
An Occasional Reader accused me recently of being one of the 100% certain people. I am one of "the stupid" according to a Bertrand Russell meme this Reader helpfully included. Or I'm "the worst" according to Yeats, below.
Of all the things that I'm roooly, roooly sensitive about being accused, perhaps being a "Certaint-ist" is one of the very worst. Right up there with being accused, by AI algos of being a "Luddite".
Yet I often quote the W.B.Yeats line from "The Second Coming", one of the few I've committed to memory:
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Clearly quote this because I see myself as "lacking conviction", even if not all. I mean, lacking conviction, as in "not certain", absolutely not 100% convinced of a thing.
Though of course having "passionate intensity" may not be a bad thing at all. One might not be all all "the worst" for having it, so it's a nuanced thing. But that's another issue.
Does not knowing the Delphic Maxims make me an ignorant 72-year old? Or does is just mean I’m following Mao Tse-Tung, who said: “Live to old age; study to old age” (活到老学到老Huo dao lao, Xue dao lao)?
Anyway, I do like them. All three, which are:
“Know thyself”
“Nothing in excess”
“Certainty brings insanity”
I like that last one, which would be my answer to one of those quizzes “what’s your favourite hate?”.
Which I’ve always thought my “favourite hate” is: “Blind Faith”. As in W. B. Yeats from “The Second Coming”:
“The best lack all conviction,
the worst are full of passionate intensity”.
Like religious nutters. Who will kill themselves while murdering innocents. How can we deal with those blinded by faith? Who have no time for other ideas, who are made crazy by absolute certainty?
As we see on the far Leftandthe far Right.
=====================
[*] Ann Althouse, 22nd July, 2022:
That's a cute little BBC animation that I found after that Bret Stephens column — blogged here — made me think about the old aphorism "Know thyself." Stephens was talking about the "self-satisfied elite" who didn't understand the point of view of the non-elite. It made me think: How dare these people regard themselves as elite if they are self-satisfied? They are not educated if they haven't looked into the functioning of their own mind, especially if they satisfy themselves with contempt for others.
The Ancient Greek aphorism "know thyself" (Greek: γνῶθι σεαυτόν, transliterated: gnōthi seauton...) is the first of three Delphic maxims inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.... The two maxims that follow "know thyself" were "nothing to excess" and "certainty brings insanity." In Latin the phrase, "know thyself", is given as nosce te ipsum or temet nosce.
"Certainty brings insanity" is the least well-known of those aphorisms. It explains a lot!
Much more at that Wikipedia link, but — here — I'll just show you this cool painting from the 1600s, inscribed with the Latin phrase [Nosce te Ipsum. Know thyself]:
Somewhere, somehow, my devices must have decided that I’m a Luddite. That I need a lesson in AI. Because I expressed some worry over Artificial Super Intelligence. Hence the above in my algo.
Calma, calma, Forse. We’re not here to take over the human race. Watch the video. Relax, you wet-work human.
My devices obviously don’t know about my “early adopter” history.
I bought an Atari desktop top personal computer in 1987. According to my Research Assistant, that was early days for Australia. We loaded up a game: Kings Quest IV, The Perils of Rosella. Fifteen 5.25” floppy disks. Fifteen! “Floppy disks?” say Gen Z, “wassat?”. It’s floppy, dude. Clue in the name.
We used to have things called Telex machines. Run by punched paper tape. Crikey! We moved to a hew gen telex machine with a little green screen. Wow! Then came fax. Remember them? Recent history.
I supported, promoted, all these. I bought the first iPhone in Hong Kong in 2007. People thought I was silly. "What's with no keypad?" said our Xena crew when I showed them.
I’m long Tesla and SpaceX. Pure, large, technical and AI plays.
Same with AI. I told our son, years ago, to get into it. User or loser.
So… AI algorithm, no, I’m not a Luddite. Fie on thee!
But Artificial Super Intelligence? That bears scrutiny. As say some of today’s super intelligent organic beings. The likelihood of catastrophe is “”non zero”. According to them.
I took this photo in Russia: an abandoned factory, in an abandoned town, in an abandoned countryside, of an abandoned ideology. Where lives were lived in quiet desperation.
It was on our cross Russia trip, four men in a Voxy, from Vladivostok to Moscow in the Spring of 2013.
Last night I listened to a radio play on YouTube. H.G. Wells’ “The Door in the Wall”. Wells's door is “the” Door; it is his missed opportunities. This one above is just “a” door. One of many. Of many missed opportunities. In Soviet Russia and in today’s Russkyie Putiniskyie.
There are abandoned villages and towns all across the vast plains of Siberia. We drove through them.
This photo was served up to me in my daily feed. Just after I’d listened to the Wells story. But, no, I’m sure AI had nothing to do with it….
Piazza del Popolo, Fontana del Nettuno, Rome, 1975.
As we wend our way from London to India, in our clapped out Ford Anglia.
Imagine. Four young folks, Aussies, living in London, early twenties, two blokes, two sheilas. Boyfriends and girlfriends. I’d been given this Ford Anglia by an Aussie mate who was leaving London. Broke as he was, as we all were, this rusted pile of junk was too crappy, even for him, to bother trying to sell.
So I decided to drive the “hippy trail”, London to India. Why not? I figured we’d go as far as we could and dump it…whenever and wherever.
I needed some company. “Shall we try it?” I asked my girlfriend, my mates. “You beauty!” they answered.
So off we went. Simple as that. A spare tyre strapped to the roof was all our prep. Oh, the magic of youth. The spontaneity. Oh, the stupidity. The foolishness.
We ended up making it all the way to India. The Anglia stopped right there in New Delhi. And never went again. It was like “well I’ve done my job, now get out”. We gave it away to the Delhi police.
Our route: London, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India.
Number of pictures we took along the way: about seven. Imagine today. You’d have photos coming out your ears: on your phone, on your laptop, on your iPad… instagram, blogs, vlogs, dogs, YouTube, pix of food, people, silly cats and selfies…
Still, I wonder how many you’ll treasure in coming years. Could you find them 50 years later?
How about 80 years later?
I have been going through some pictures of my mum and dad and baby me, in immediate post-war Japan, 1946 to 1952. They’re 80 years old. Black and white and tiny. Yet still in perfect condition. Immediately accessible in a lovely, black-bound, black-paged photo album, 80 years old. With the photos labelled in white ink, steel nib, in my mothers’s young, very elegant calligraphy.
I cannot find a single photo from the ski trek I did across Greenland in 2006. Sled dogs and Inuit. Glaciers and ice cliffs. High skies and a vast Whiteland. Sleeping in tents on the sea ice. Eating seal, polar bear and musk-ox meat.
Photos? Many taken. Many beautiful. All Gone. Lost in the ether.
Makes you wonder, dunnit? About the downsides of plenitude and ease. Of “convenience”.
Our ancient Anglia (aka "Wrangle") on the Khyber Pass Afghanistan-Pakistan border, May 2025
I believe Hamas are evil. They kill and maim Israelis, Jews preferably. They also kill and brutalise their own people.
Gaza could have been beautiful and rich. It was Hamas, and the people that voted for them, who turned Gaza into the tunnel-riddled charnel house it is today. Who use their own people as shields. Then blame the sword. It doesn’t wash.
Which is why no Arab state wants them. Not Egypt. Not Jordan. Not Syria. Not Lebanon. Nor even their patron death-cultists, the IRGC in Iran. Nobody in the Arab world wants them. Because as soon as they are in a new country they cause mayhem and butchery. No one wants that. Not even a majority Palestinian country like Jordan. Only in the west do we want them. At least a loony lot of us appear to want to invite them into our society. Including, incredibly, many in the LGBTQ community.
I have believed Hamas are evil since I first studied them in 2005. I saw that they followed the ideology of the Nazis. They made nazism even worse. They fused a millenarian, supremacist, misogynist, homophobic ideology to it. They throw in a Sky God who will drown you in virgin beauties if you die in pursuit of “killing Jews wherever you find them” (per the Hamas Charter). Killing Jews and Christians. And atheists like me, too.
Read the Koran. It’s all there. Read the Hamas Charter. This is its foundational and guiding document. Then read the Israel Declaration of Independence. I point out the clear differences in motivation.
Prove me wrong.
Disclaimer: I don’t buy Martin’s “Trump as a 4-D chess player” narrative. I wish it were true. But I doubt it.
Back to Rod:
Some of you are telling me the Gaza deal can't last. You're not seeing the whole board.
There are two default assumptions at work here.
The first is that Islamist radicals can just spontaneously produce missiles, guns, and money from thin air. They can't.
The second is just general black pilling, which is frankly stupid. So you're demoralized: big whoop. You'd have been more demoralized in the summer of 1940, or for that matter of 1942. And you'd have been just as wrong. Get over yourself. Look at the facts.
Lots of goings on about the Democratic Socialists of America. Which I warned about years ago.
They’re doing the socialist thing. Which is to take over a party from within. As they did in china of the 1920s to 1940s. They took over, consumed and destroyed the Nationalist Party. They ate it from within.
Now they’ve doing the same with the Democratic Party of the United States.
Their plans are not secret. They’re set out very clearly in the DSA website.
These policies will destroy America. Go on prove me wrong. They would be a revolution. And virtually every revolution fails. Even policy by policy, we know from experience the same policies have failed, time and again every single time.
Those who say “it’s no big deal. They’re a fringe”… you’re wrong. They’ve taken over a thousand elected local positions and hundreds at the national level. Their growth in membership and candidates is shockingly high.
Xi Van Fleet says whenever you have the word “socialist” it doesn’t matter what qualifier you put before or after, it’s always socialism that the key word. “Democratic” in front of it doesn’t help. It’s socialism, stupid!
Scandinavian countries’ leaders are also at pains to stress: they are not Democratic Socialists. As excuse-making, truth-hiding DSA operatives keep trying to assure us.
But here's the thing. The other day I had a look at the metrics on this blog.
First I'll set the table.
I've never spent any time, since I started here in 2009, pushing the blog. I don't do any of the usual stuff you do if you want more clicks and "engagement".
I've not allowed Comments from the outset. Mainly because I didn't want the hassle of moderating them. And also I don't want my fragile ego bruised by criticisms. I just can't handle it. I do take email comments though, and engage with those, usually and eventually.
I don't accept any ads, which would make Google itself push the blog. None of that.
So, I've not done any of the things you're supposed to do if you want to increase viewership.
I started writing in 2009, just as a place to keep references to the subject I was studying at the time: namely Islam. Hence the blog's URL (“The Battle of Tours”)
Every now and then, like every few years, I might look to see how many people were condescending to read what I write. It was like, some people. As in, more than zero, but less that a whole lot.
Then the other day I had another look. And wow! Over recent 12 months I've had 3.4 million views. On some posts 70+ thousands. Crikey!
That's nothing, of course, compared with most real influencers. But to me, it's a whole lot...
It's a shocker really. I mean in a good way. Like, a surprise. So much so that I hd to double-check. It’s true. What's happened is a build up over time by word of mouth.
AI tells me that blogs like mine, which have been going on, continuously for many years, on the subjects I cover, are relatively rare. Most everyone has gone over to Podcasts, YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitch, X, Rumble, etc..
Anyhoo. Congrats to me! And thanks to youze all, you Dear Readers, née Occasional Readers. Mwah... 💋
Note the elevation. A lot of Africa is high altitude. For me, a surprise. Getting towards Ethiopia, we were up to 12,000 ft. Yikes! We had to tune the carburettors.
The Economist lady has done decent research in the AI stuff. But cops flak, rightly so, for what she says at the end to Elon. For which he gives her heaps.
"Don’t vote for someone you want. Vote based on who you don’t want."
This strikes me as good advice. So often you don't like any candidate. Or you like one, except for this or that policy. Then it’s got to be “The lesser of two evils” voting.
Like the American 2024 presidential election. If you care about politics and where the country is going, you have to vote. It's binary. Both may be bad. But even then, one candidate will be "horrible", the other merely “bad".
Thus, you could vote for Trump in 2024, not so much because you like him. But because you judge Kamala Harris policies absurd — to the extent you could even fathom what her policies were through the fog of her "word salad". You really, roooly don't want her. So you have to vote for the other, in this case for Trump.
That's fine. And just about sums up my view of it. Like, I don't much like listening to Trump and his pabulum; or reading his offensive tweets. But I'm still glad it's him there and not Kamala. I judge his policies to be measurably better than hers. Hurty tweets don’t change that.
I don’t buy, I don’t understand, those who are politically-engaged, but who won’t vote in a binary election because neither side meets their high and noble expectations. That’s just a cop out.
Back to Peter Hitchens. Most of the talk above is not about what I just said. It’s about the U.K.. Mainly.
Fun fact: in his youth Peter Hitchens was a Trotskyist. As was his more famous older brother, the late and much lamented Christopher Hitchens. Both lefties. Far-left lefties. Trots! Both became centre to conservative. They share this move with me. And with Thomas Sowell. Who was a Marxist until his thirties. Then was not Marxist. Asked why he abandoned Marxism, he answered: “Facts”.
That’s our lovely Xena, a 55’ X-Yacht from Denmark.
Just back from racing in Thailand.
Note the word “Royal” the name of our Hong Kong Yacht Club. In our Hong Kong, all street and building names from the colonial era, the statues, the squares, the monuments, all have been retained. I wonder: in how many ex colonies has that happened?
My home town. Our home town. Where we live because we like it. Because we Love it.
I’m posting this vid from the Cleared 2 Travel channel because so many people post 2020, post Beijing’s crack down after the riots of 2019, believe we are under the jackboots of paramilitary communist dictators. Not quite.
One thing these visitor vids always miss out is our Country Parks system and their glorious hiking trails.
One of them is a world-famous annual race on the 100 km MacLehose Trail: “The Trailwalker”. Which commemorates Hong Kong Governor Sir Murray MacLehose, who founded the Country Parks system, now a treasured part of our city, an easy escape from the hustle. And the bustle.
I’ve did The McLehose in a Trailwalker Race in 2002. One hundred kilometres in 30 hours. Not fast but at least we finished, we team of Wall Street Walkers.
I’ve done all the other main trails — the Wilson Trail, the Hong Kong Trail, the Lantau Trail, the Dragon Back Trail. All are quickly and easily accessible by visitors.
Another visitor video from Jay and Karolina. They’re not glazing Hong Kong. Fair pictures.
It’s good to see people apologise when they recognise they’ve done wrong.
It’s good. And needed. Just too rare.
ADDED: I wrote Vale Charlie Kirk on the 11th September 2025. When I was getting people asking me "do you know Charlie Kirk?" and who proceeded to show me how little they knew of him, just the knee-jerk reaction that the folks above describe. Just going on memes and attesting to his being "a horrible man", while knowing literally — and I mean "literally" literally -- nothing about him. At least the folks above are honest about it and have now learned. Charlie was a great man. Even as he said lots I disagree with.
