All Saints Church, Yekaterinburg, Russia, May 2013

 

L to R: Joe Bottomley, Gordon Ketelbey, Peter Forsythe, Rob Bottomley

The church above, the All Saints Church, in Yekaterinburg, Russia, was built on the site of the Ipatiev House, where the Bolsheviks murdered the Romanov family in 1918. 

The execution of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their five children, and several retainers took place in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. The Ipatiev House, also known as the "House of Special Purpose," was where the imperial family was held captive by the Bolsheviks.

The All Saints Church, built later on the site of the Ipatiev House after its demolition in 1977, commemorates the Romanov family, who were canonized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church. 

It's commonly referred to as the Church on the Blood or the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land.

The above was taken on a road trip we made from Vladivostok in the far East of Russia, across Siberia to Moscow, by a Toyota Voxy we bought in Vladivostok and sold in Russia. We saw the grim centre of Russia, its belly. Riven by decay, empty villages, crumbling factories. People who were, at best, cool. While we were the extremely rare foreign visitors in some of those places. 

Maybe because it's the worst place in the world to live, according to some reports.

I should have made a separate blog, but didn't. Sad 'dat.... I did put some posts on the Xena blog, for some reason, starting here. 

It was a good trip. In that we made it to the end unscathed. But could've been scathed a few times along the way. 

All of us above were and are sailors over in the East, around Hong Kong and Thailand. The others also in Australia and the U.K. Gordie has just been over to Cowes for the Admirals Cup, representing Australia, with young Joe, above as a crew member. 

"I Exposed Paid Protestor Leaders" | Nate Friedman

 

Nate Friedman talks to pro-Hamas protesters in New York City. 

What's scary is when you realise, at the end of this report, just how many and just how well entrenched, are these openly anti-Jew, openly anti-capitalist, openly anti-American, openly anti-West, organisations there are in the United States. 

We may comfort ourselves that it's still "only a minority". Two responses: (1) They may be small but are clearly growing and (2) revolutions only every took a minority of people to happen.

In the Soviet Revolution of 1917, it was less than 5% of the population who were committed Bolsheviks who overthrew the Czar. In China in 1945, it was less than 1% who overthrew Chiang Kai-shek's Republicans. 

In the UK, the size of Islam is already 5%. In the US it's 2%. But growing in both places. Growing across the west. With an agenda. Which they are open about. Which is: to bring Islam to the world. To subject the whole of humanity to Sacred Sharia Islamic law. 

More Islam ➡️ Less Freedom: the link between Islamisation and Freedoms in the West

I wrote years ago about how there's an inverse relationship between the size of the Muslim population in a country and its freedoms, as measured in the Freedom House Index. That is: the larger the Muslim population the less the freedoms. First in 2011 and then in 2017.

ADDED: I saw article the other day that I can't put my fingers on right now, that claimed around 90% of the pro-Palestinian and of the anti-government, anti-Trump demos are these days paid for. From the ones I've seen, I don't doubt that. Pre-made professional signs, people masked up, palettes of bricks or cinder blocks and other "throwables", unified responses to questioning... which is, in short, to say nothing. To refer questions to some central spokesperson, who can never be found. By contrast in all cases, the counter demonstrators, if they're present, are quite happy to speak, have scrappy hand-made signs, are unmasked and open. 

“Islam is the sanctification of man’s most corrupted instincts” | Dan Burmawi

	Dan Burmawi ⁦‪@DanBurmawy‬⁩ Islam is the sanctification of man's most corrupted instincts. It takes what is base in human nature and give it a divine sanction. Man's desire to dominate women? Islam codifies it. Veiling, polygamy, child marriage, testimony worth half a man's, all justified as God's will.   19/8/2025, 7:12 pm

"Islam is the sanctification of man's most corrupted instincts." Absolutely true. 

100%. 

From the Qu'ran to the Hadith. From the Sirah of Muhammad to the Umdat of Sharia, every line, every word, every verse of Islamic doctrine sanctifies the base instincts of man. Specifically man. To do exactly as Dan Burmawi lays out. (A man I'd never heard of till now).

I've read every one of those foundational texts of Islam, many of them more than once. They are chilling. If you absorb them and you truly believe them, you're halfway to Jihad. To war in the name of Allah. To kill and to be killed. A martyr for your god, your family and your community. And thence to waft heavenward to your promised 72 virgins, your houris, your almond-eyed maidens, in that carnal parody of heaven. 

After Jihad, Jannah. 

And so we get the actions of Muslims. Not the majority, but enough of its 1.4 billion to keep the chaos at full burn. 47,000 terrorist actions since 911, most against fellow Muslims, many against neighbours. Nowhere does Islam live peaceably with its neighbours. Not in the Philippines, not in Malaysia, not in Thailand, not in India or Kashmir, nor in Africa, and… most of all … not anywhere near or next to a neighbourhood of Joooz! 

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Lying maps

	HonestReporting ⁦‪@HonestReporting‬⁩ This set of maps is designed to promote the lie that Israel has been stealing land from "Palestine" since 1946. Shame on ⁦‪@thetimes‬⁩ for including it in an "explainer." Here's an explanation of what these maps really show. 🧵 pic.x.com/OuXUtgH1N5   17/8/2025, 5:16 pm

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Reposting “Can Banna the Younger right the wrongs of Banna the Elder?”

As I learn the other day that the Muslim Brotherhood has been banned in the United States, and about time too, I wondered when I had first mentioned the Brotherhood on this blog. Turns out it was 1 September 2009, an amazing 16 years ago. I wrote the piece below, which still reads pretty well, me reckons. 

Read below, or also here’s the link to the 2009 post.

Since that post, I did a car trip from Cape Town to Cairo, across the whole of Africa. Blog here.

In Cairo I did a tour of the city with a taxi driver who was the spitting image of Sayyid Qutb, the legendary promoter of Hassan al-Banna’s new organisation, in the 1920s, which he called the Muslim Brotherhood. I said that to the taxi driver. He was none too pleased. The Brotherhood was then already banned in Egypt. As it is in all the Gulf Countries. It's just not banned in the ever-trusting, ever-naive West. Till now, at least in the U.S....

For quick reference, the Muslim Brotherhood is the Big Daddy, the OG, of all the worst, all the most brutal, all the most efficient terrorist outfits in the world today. Hamas, to Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PLO, Al-Qaeda and ISIS; the Brotherhood is the progenitor of them all. 

It’s also spawned more benign-on-the-surface outfits to fool western intelligentsia, like CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations, and the MCB, the  Muslim Council of Britain. Which do fine jobs of fooling the intelligentsia, because the intelligentsia want to be fooled, to have plausible deniability, so they don’t have to face the reality of what the Islamist influx to their countries means for their populations. The threats, the dangers.

But enough of that. 

The article is re-posted below where be a pic of said Sayyid Qutb. 

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

1st September 2009 Post begins: 

What do an 88-year old Egyptian writer living in Cairo and a teenage American girl living in Florida have in common?

Answer: the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad and “honour killings”.

Here are the dots….

Gamal al-Banna is the 88-year old Egyptian writer, the younger brother of the late Hassan al-Banna.

Banna the Elder established the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.  

The Muslim Brotherhood’s influence was greatly expanded by Sayyid Qutb in the 1950s (that's Qutb pictured here).

Qutb was mentor to Osama bin Laden and to Ayman Zawahiri, a “theoretician” of al-Qaeda.  Much of the terror rhetoric of al-Qaeda draws directly from the Muslim Brotherhood.  In the US, the Muslim Brotherhood has said that it is engaged, in its own words: 

"... in a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

The Muslim Brotherhood motto: 

"Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

The Muslim Brotherhood platform demands strict implementation of Sharia law, which calls for death for apostasy, including killing one’s children:

“When a person … apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed”  (Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence, Reliance of the Traveller,  o.8.1).  And:

“The following are not subject to retaliation: …  a father or mother for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring” (o.1.2)

This is not just Islamic legal theory.  It is also fact. People are killed, tortured, raped or threatened with death all the time for apostasy from Islam [Ref 4].

“You get the picture?  Oh yes, we see…. 

Hassan and Sayyid, 

the leaders of the pack…”

Banna the Younger [Gamal] writes for a more moderate Islam: he’s against the wearing of the veil, against female genital mutilation, in favour of women leading prayer.

The teenage American girl is Rifqa Bary, the 17-year old from Ohio who converted from Islam to Christianity in 2005, and about whom I wrote here .   When her father found out she had become an apostate from Islam, she says he beat her and threatened to kill her.  She fled to Florida in July, in fear for her life. 

The Muslim Brotherhood connection?  The lawyers for Ms Bary have issued to the media an “Investigation and Intelligence Memorandum” [3] which provides evidence from the US Justice Department of connections between the Noor Mosque in Ohio attended by the Bary family and the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas, and Jihadi terrorism.

Since (a) the Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist organisation calling for for strict adherence to Sharia, which mandates death for apostates, since (b) the Noor Mosque has clear connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and since (c) Mr. Bary was a devoted attendee at the Noor Mosque, there is at least clear a priori evidence to keep Ms Bary away from her father.

You would think that the “moderate Muslims” we hear so much about would tackle this issue: try to get the death penalty for apostasy provisions changed.  But the problem is, they can’t.  There can be no change in Islam and Islamic law: Ijtihad (Koranic and Hadithian exegesis) closed its door centuries ago.

So all they can do is try to deny that death provisions exist (in which they are plain wrong), and try to shift the focus from the threat on the young girl’s life, by instead raising fears for their own safety!  Robert Spencer: 

“This is, of course, how Islamic groups in the U.S. have reacted to every act of violence and every threat that any Muslim has issued in recent years: they've raised fears of a non-existent "backlash" and claimed they're being persecuted, rather than address the root causes of the violence and brutality within their own community. And the bemused, befuddled multiculturalists in the mainstream media go along with it happily, every time.” (ref)

In his latest article in favour of some flexibility [2] in Islam Banna the Younger [Gamal] has said that belly dancers ought not to be criticized.  

Would it not be nice if this old Lion of Moderation were able to address the Rifqa Bary case direct? A nice kind of squaring of the circle.  To denounce honour killings, flat out, no if’s no buts.  And denounce, while he’s about it, the poisonous legacy of his brother’s most famous creation the Muslim Brotherhood.

BTW: I’ve read Sayyid Qutb: his Milestones and Social Justice in Islam.  They’re pretty dreary, illogical, circular in argumentation, frequently self-contradictory, and otherwise a farrago of sophistry.  I thought them rather like reading Mao Tse-tung in the seventies, when I had to do it at the Peking Language Institute: writing that was like fairy floss, fluffy and insubstantial, superficially pretty, but squashing down to nothing, sickly sweet glob.   Both writers, Qutb and Mao, have caused rather a lot of trouble,  though, thereby proving Orwell right: that we have to watch out for bad writing, as it can have baleful effects.  In particular we need to watch Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood; unlike Mao, they continue to pursue their aims for a worse world.

References:

   1.   A voice for 'new understanding' of Islam -  Michael Slackman discusses Gamal al-Banna, IHT 20 Oct 2006, 

   2.   Hints of Pluralism in Egyptian Religious Debates, Michael Slackman on Gamal al-Banna, IHT, 1 September 2009

   3.    Investigation and Intelligence Memorandum,  Issued in Rifqa Bary case, 30^th August 2009

   4.   Murders, torture, rape or death threats for apostasy from Islam in: Australia, Bangladesh,  Britain, Britain again, Egypt, Egypt again, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia

Trump Anchors Putin

Vince Dao's take, above, is not a bad one. 

I watched Trump standing on the tarmac at the US Military Base in Anchorage, waiting for Putin. He did a couple of hand claps as Putin approached. I thought nothing of it. But the left went insane. Why is he "applauding this war criminal" and so on. 

The left also went bananas over the red carpet. Which, tbf, I'd not even noticed. When I did notice, coz the numbers going crazy about it -- "showing appalling levels of respect and cringe to this dictator", I recalled my time as a diplomat, all those years ago in China. And the protocol. Which is: when you have a Head of State arriving, you give the Red Carpet. So that's all that was. 

Weirdest: the left's reaction to the flyover of a B2 bomber flanked by F15s. To them, somehow this was, like, kowtowing to Putin. Huh?! To me, it seemed like what it was: an out-ant-out power move. You could even call it brazen. Showing Putin what America has that no-one else does. After all, who can forget the shape of those stealth bombers, that flew over to Iran in Operation Midnight Hammer,  precision bombed Iran's nuclear program back into the stone age, and flew back, without a single defensive shot being fired by Iran. It was a beautiful, perfectly executed bombing raid (whatever you think of whether or not it was needed). Then they drove by, Trump and Putin together, an array of American fighter jets and attack helicopters. A pretty good show of force, I reckon. 

The left comments were all negative, said Putin had "rolled" Trump and nothing came of it. I don't know how they know that, given that there was very little revealed. But Trump and Putin did meet for three hours and there's to be follow up meetings with the EU leaders and with Zelensky next week. So it can't exactly be nothing. 

One guy on the legacy media, Mike Smerconish on CNN, did give an opposite take to the bluster and outrage on the left, CNN and MSNBC mainly. That there was no grovelling by Trump, says Smerconish, and that we need to wait to see if there's any results. And, that it's always worth talking. As Churchill is said to have said: "Jaw jaw is better than War, war". Which is also what Trump has said repeatedly. That he just wants to stop killing. 

Devory Darkins gives a pretty reasonable take too. He's a vet, and has a head on his shoulders. Here's his video today. 

“Gabrielle” towed to Discovery Bay, 2014

"Gabrielle" on tow. Central Hong Kong in background

The wooden boat I built, with a lot of help from Arlene, in our backyard in 2013. Blog here. 

We're towing her back across the harbour, from the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, where I'd installed the mast and sails (a gift from North Sails), back to home base at the DB Yacht Club. 

With mate Jonathan Rechen driving the towing boat.

"Tucker Carlson on Christians in Israel" | Ari Kozak

 

I watched some of the recent interview Tucker Carlson did with the nun from Judea and Samaria (aka the "West Bank"). It was horrid. She was horrid. Carlson was horrid.  

It was full of misinformation, malice and hate on Israel. While lauding the people — Palestinians — that have crushed the number of Christians in the very land she's spend the last two decades in. 

The stupidity is breathtaking. 

A jewish comedian, Ari Kozak, does a much better job than me, in mocking Carlson and this nun-who-looks-like-a-man. (She's supposed to be  George Stephanopoulos' sister. Brother maybe). 

Here's the Carslon interview. The counter to the Carlson with Dana Loesch, here. 

“Uefa’s ‘Stop killing children’ banner isn’t fooling anyone” | Brendan O’Neill

Who does Uefa think it’s kidding? It says the huge banner saying ‘Stop killing children’ unfurled at a Super Cup match last night was ‘not political’. It was ‘about humanity’, insists an insider. ‘In fact, you could just say it is common sense’, they said. They must think we were born yesterday. Everyone whose moral faculties have not been entirely fried by the Gaza war knows this banner was likely a political dig at that state it is fashionable to hate – Israel.

To display such a banner ahead of a Spurs match – a team with deep links to Britain’s Jewish community – is especially egregious

The banner said ‘Stop Killing Children – Stop Killing Civilians’. It was displayed on the pitch in Udine, Italy ahead of the clash between Tottenham Hotspur and Paris Saint-Germain. Children from conflict zones around the world stood by the banner, including two Palestinian kids. Uefa’s rules forbid the display of political messages before, during or after matches. But this wasn’t political, it says – it was a cry of concern for littl’uns everywhere.

I call BS. I suppose it is wholly coincidental that such a banner has been displayed at a time when Europe’s chattering classes feverishly accuse the Jewish State of being a child-killing entity. Spend more than 60 seconds on social media and you’ll encounter this calumny. Browse the ‘respectable’ press and there it is. Venture into your city centre when there’s a ‘pro-Palestine’ march and you’ll hear the mob holler it: ‘Israel spills the blood of children!’

This view of Israel as a uniquely murderous state, as a nation that takes pleasure in the butchery of children, is all the rage right now. ‘Israel is annihilating Palestinian children’, op-ed writers cry. It is ‘targeting childhood’ itself, we’re told. A Unicef official described Israel’s war in Gaza as a ‘war on children’. It is no such thing, of course; it is a war on the neo-fascists of Hamas who invaded Israel on 7 October 2023 to rape and massacre Jews. Read on…

Who's Gerry Mander? Or.. WHAT is Gerrymander?

Searches for "Gerrymandering" have spiked

Gerrymandering suddenly in the news. And I learned some things. Which is all going to be a bit nerdy. So if you don't like nerdy, bail now!

First, definitions, and then WHY is "gerrymandering" in the news. 

I thought that "gerrymandering" was just the rude way of saying "redistricting" (which is adjusting electoral boundaries). But, no. One is OK -- "redistricting" -- and the other is kind of underhand -- "gerrymandering". 

Gerrymandering:

Gerrymandering is the deliberate manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor one political party or group, often by "packing" (concentrating opponents’ voters into few districts) or "cracking" (spreading them across many districts) to skew representation disproportionately to the popular vote.

I asked "where's the word from?":

The word "gerrymander" comes from a combination of the name Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusetts, and the word "salamander". In 1812, Gerry signed a redistricting bill that created oddly shaped electoral districts to favor his Democratic-Republican Party. One district in Massachusetts resembled a salamander, prompting critics to coin the term "gerrymander" as a pejorative, blending Gerry’s name with the creature’s shape. The term, first used in a Boston newspaper, has since described partisan manipulation of district boundaries.

Redistricting:

Redistricting is the process of redrawing electoral district boundaries, typically after a census, to reflect population changes and ensure equal representation, often based on population size. It aims to adjust districts to comply with legal requirements like the Voting Rights Act, but can be manipulated (gerrymandering) to favor a political party or group.

So, we see the difference. One is kosher, the other dodgy. Redistricting good. Gerrymandering bad. 

And why has Gerrymandering suddenly been in the news?

Because the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has said he plans to do some Redistricting. He thinks the result will be around 5 Congressional Seats going Republican.

Reaction: the Dems are howling blue murder. And of course they say what Abbott is doing is Gerrymandering. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom threatens to do his own Redistricting, admitting that it'll also be Gerrymandering. And that he'll get back whatever seats are gained by Abbott in Texas. He is saying "fight fire with fire". (which is a kind of inept metphor, given the recent LA fires that were so disastrously mishandled by his own government. But what the heck). 

All this is terribly consequential. The balance in the House of Representatives is at stake. The Reps could continue to maintain control right through the mid-terms in 2026. Or not.

The Reps are saying that the mid-term Redistricting is perfectly legal. It is.... But also challengeable. 

The Dems are saying that they'll respond in kind if Texas goes ahead with the Redistricting, which of course they frame as Gerrymandering. 

The Reps then respond: "well go ahead, do your worst". Because they believe, they say, that the Dems have already done so much Redistricting (aka "Gerrymandering" per the Reps) that they can't do much more. 

I've done a bit of a deep dive on this, including coming up with a measure of the extent of Gerrymandering, which Grok called "a novel measure". This shows that both sides have done about the same amount of Redistricting, which could be classed as Gerrymandering. It's a tie across the 50 States. 

My guess is that Texas will go ahead with its Redistricting. And that Gavin Newsome will try to do his own, but that local CA laws will stop him from going ahead at the speed he seems to think he can. Reason being that there's provisions in the CA Constitution that require any Redistricting proposals to go via an independent body. And then to be approved by the electorate. This can't be done in a hurry. Whereas it does appear that Texas can. 

I got into a long discussion cum argument this morning with Grok on the issue. I learned a lot, including about Congressional Districts, aka Congressional Seats, the difference between them and Electoral College votes (which are Congressional Seats + Senate seats (ie, 2 per state). The Congressional Seats are based on population of the State, with about 700,000 population being one seat. I realise as I write this that it's all TMI. Boring, yawn country. But if you're interested in the hard graft of it all, my discussion cum argument with Grok, is here. 

As I say to the ever patient Grok, when I've had enough of a tussle, and am exhausted, TTFN. 

John’s birthday

Lijiang, Yunnan, China

Post-Hamas Gaza reality taking shape | Haviv Rettig Gur

	Haviv Rettig Gur ⁦‪@havivrettiggur‬⁩ The post-war, post-Hamas Gazan reality is already taking shape. The region is preparing to rehabilitate and rebuild. At this point, the parties holding it up are Hamas itself, of course, together with the "pro-Palestinian" campaign around the world that's still desperate for   14/8/2025, 11:41 pm

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“…we are so far from rationality… [we need] a generational moratorium” | Dr Philip Kiszely

	Dr Philip Kiszely ⁦‪@KiszelyPhilip‬⁩ I'm from an immigrant background. My uncle came here, from Hungary, in 1947. He married a German woman and they settled in Coventry. My father arrived in Britain in 1959. I know all about post-war migration. It's as much my family story as anyone else's. That first wave of   14/8/2025, 10:29 pm

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What's with Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel??

Comedian Sarah Silverman talks to late show host Jimmy Kimmel. 

The bit I found quite amazing, was the clip above. 

Where they bemoan the Trump second term win, and agree with each other that it's "way worse than we thought".

Kimmel: "As bad as you thought it was going to be, it's way worse"...."It's worse than even he [Trump] would like it to be".

And I'm thinking... WTF??!! As in classic case of one screen two movies. Where two people view one event, but have two diametrically opposed views of it. 

What's he upset about? What are they upset about? That the southern border is now secure? That inflation is down? That gas and egg prices are down? That food cost inflation is zero? That Trillions of foreign investment to the US have been committed? That the stock market has hit record highs? That Iran has had its nuclear program bombed back to the stone age? That Trump's has negotiated the end of six previously intractable conflicts? That men are no longer allowed in women's sports? That racism is being extirpated from institutions? 

[ADDED: Joe Kernen of the Squawk Box on CNBC, asks Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the same thing. Referring to a similar list as I set out above and asking: "Where is the calamity?". Jeffries doesn't answer that question, or any other. He just deflects to "Trump bad"]

What is it, Jimmy? What is it that's "so much worse"? So bad that you talk of exiling yourself to Italy? (yeah, sure, Jimmy, sure....). 

Oh.. I get it! It's the Deportion thing. Our caring Sarah and empathetic Jimmy don't like that. They don't like the the Trump administration is doing what it said it would do, which is to deport criminal illegal aliens. Do they know that that policy is popular with 70-80% of the population? If they do, it doesn't register. 

Our dear Sarah and Jimmy are so caring their upset, and so "it's way worse that we thought". 

Sarah and Jimmy find it awful. Makes them feel... I dunno... yuck?! 

I guess they feel like this because they're the Elite. But then they say they don't like the Elite! That the Democratic Party must move away from the Elite. That it must start appealing to the Working Class. (Ok, but how? Nothing mentioned; let alone discussed). 

Jimmy delivers this gem: 

"There are repulsive Democrats. In the sense that what they say and how they say it repulses people".

"They're the loud voices in the party that scare people from saying what they believe, or think twice about telling a joke, or whatever....".  "Sometimes they're wrong. But they can't admit it. Admitting you're wrong is so hard". 

Too right, Jimmy! You ought to try it yourself, sometime. 

And to which one commenter says: "Talk of 'Repulsive' Jimmy? Look in the mirror!" Jimmy Kimmel has been the prime one doing exactly what it is that he's criticising, above! No self-awareness. None whatever. 

The lack of self-awareness of these two -- representative of so many in their Party -- is amazing. 

Kimmel, after all, was the one who said, during Covid, that unvaccinated people who went to the hospital should be left to die. Has he ever uttered a single word of apology, of shame, of regret, for this murderous malice? 

[The whole podcast is here, but warning: it's a bit hard to take, at least for me. Smug sententiousness on open display].

ADDED: Megyn Kelly tears these two apart, here. There's plenty of other mockery of this pod, around the conservative pod-sphere. 

Trouble at Sea

  

 Hmmm...

The Philippine vessels are operating according the the UNCLOS, and within their own EEZ, by the Scarborough Shoals (which we've sailed past on our Xena).  

The Chinese navy and coast guard are harassing a Philippine Coast Guard vessel which is replenishing supplies for its fishing vessels operating in its own EEZ. Chinese vessels are operating in breach of the findings of a court case back in 2013: 

The arbitration case between the Philippines and China regarding their maritime disputes in the South China Sea, specifically concerning the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), was conducted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). 

The Philippines initiated the arbitration on January 22, 2013, by serving China with a “Notification and Statement of Claim” over maritime jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague served as the registry for the case.

On July 12, 2016, the PCA’s Arbitral Tribunal issued its final Award, ruling overwhelmingly in favor of the Philippines. The Tribunal determined that China’s “nine-dash line” claim and its asserted historic rights had no legal basis under UNCLOS. 

It clarified that certain maritime features, such as Scarborough Shoal and parts of the Spratly Islands, were not islands capable of generating EEZs but were rocks or low-tide elevations, thus falling within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile EEZ. The ruling also found China’s actions, including land reclamation and fishing activities, violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights and caused environmental harm. [Source]

But China's like, "yeah, but nah." 

We're seeing Karma here, in the South China Sea, by the Scarborough Shoals. I'd like to think... if I believed in Karma... which I don't. But I sure as hell can say "they deserved it". And, by the way, what shocking seamanship is shown in the vid, by the Chinese Navy. Not only the crash, but then not offering immediate aid to their sister ship??! WTF?...

"My thoughts on what's happening in Gaza" | Coleman Hughes

 

Coleman Hughes is one of the most thoughtful young philosophers out there. 

I've followed him since soon after his graduation from Stanford, majoring in philosophy. I've bought and read his first book, "The End of Race Politics. Arguments for a Colourblind America", which he talked about at a Ted Conference, and gained a whole lot of attention and controversy. I wrote about that whole fascinating episode here. 

I find him a refreshing voice that cuts through cant and drivel, attacking nonsense on both the right and the left. He's been a guest on left-wing shows like the View, CNN, The Young Turks, and on conservative shows and podcasts like Joe Rogan's, Dave Rubin's and Jimmy Dore's. 

In this video of his thoughts, above, he says he says there are "good guys" and "bad guys" and then admits that that sounds rather "cartoonish". Well, I don't know. I also see good guys and bad guys -- have said so for years --  even if the good guys sometimes do bad things. War crimes happen on both sides. But it's only Israel that has 1,000 of its own soldiers in prison awaiting trial for alleged war crimes. Hamas most certainly do not. As Coleman says, Hamas is one big apparatus of War Crimes. 

He also notes that while in most wars, war crimes are committed against the enemy, in the case of the Gaza war, the war crimes by Hamas are mostly committed against its own citizens. For which it has zero duty of care and zero sympathy for. 

At the end he talks of the issue of Genocide, declaring it to be the "most ridiculous" of the charges against Israel. I agree. Nothing it does fits either the definition or the practice of genocide. Consider that if Israel had wanted to commit genocide, it could have wiped out Gazans in a few weeks. It did not do so. That's pretty much QED right there. I've also posted Harvard's law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz's piece on genocide, here. 

But do listen to Coleman, as he expresses things so much more clearly and eloquently than I do. 

“Gabrielle”, the wooden boat I built, Nim Shue Wan, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong

Nim Shue Wan beach, Discovery Bay. Around 2014

Named "Gabrielle" because she's the side-kick of or big boat, Xena. Which was named after the Warrior Princess, played in the TV series by the lovely NZ actress Lucy Lawless. In the show, Xena had a side-kick called Gabrielle. 

In the background is the "Bounty" a recreation of the famous one from the "Mutiny on the Bounty". She was here for several years, a project of one the Cha family who own the company that develops Discovery Bay. We went on her several times, had Christmas and other parties on her, lots of fun. She's now been sailed away, to where I know not. 

Walk right along this beach, about one kilometre and you get to what they call locally "the Philippine village". It's mostly Filipinos who work at odd jobs in DB. Nice friendly folks. Sometimes they do BBQ kebabs and sell them to passing hikers for a dollar a two a stick. Often they're dancing and singing. The Filipinos love to love. And love to have fun. And love to sing and dance.

Albanese's "Two State Solution" -- shades of the Black Knight

 

 We, to Albo and Wong: "The Two State Solution is on its death bed."

Albo and Wong: "No, it's not. It's just a flesh wound." 

We: "You're a loony!" 

Hamas (from the rubble): "Alright then, we'll call it a draw!"

Albanese and Wong are dangerously deluded.

I nominate this Albo/Wong "policy" of Australia, to announce we're going to "recognise the State of Palestine" at the next UN General Assembly, as the most deluded delusional figment of delusional deluded political minds, EVER. Demented.

I mean, can there be a more ridiculous set of "preconditions" as set out by Albanese for Recognition of the state, EVER??! There is not a one of these that Mahmoud Abbas will adhere to. Not one. Albo is candidate for the asylum. Poor man. No, not poor man. History-making dangerous man. Shame he's our PM. Sigh... 

"I will debunk ANY Pro-Palestinian video (starting with: the war didn’t start on October 7th)" | Oren Cahanovitc

 

A tiny fact-check on a figure Oren Cahanovitc quotes. The number of Arabs living as citizens of Israel, a total of 22% of the Israeli population, who way they would rather live in Israel than an Arab state, is according to various polls, between 60% and 93%. That's still a healthy number, but not the 99% Oren mentions. 

Ok, I'm quibbling. 

I like this video because not only debunks the errors of the egregious Max Blumenthal -- who drips with jew-hatred and Israel hatred, and he a Jew... --  but also what the even more horrid Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said immediately after the October 7th massacre: "There's context to this". Meaning the same thing as Blumenthal is referring to -- a war in 1948 at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel. All of which Oren tears apart in his video above. 

It's also a common trope amongst the Hamas-nicks -- "it didn't start on October 7th!" -- from the luvvies who march along to support the Horrid Hamas, in their kewl keffiyehs, their Black Flags of ISIS, who march across the Harbour Bridge in support of genocidal barbarians, these ones who think they know a little bit. And of course, do end up knowing just a little bit and a little bit of knowledge is always dangerous. 

Tesla Robotaxis up to SIX times cheaper than Waymo, Uber, Lyft

From here

Multiples of Tesla Robotaxi price, August 2025, San Francisco, for 3 mile ride:

Multiple of Tesla fare in $US per mile:

• Tesla:      ($2.32 per mile). Multiple of 1.
• Waymo:  6.0 times the price of Robotaxi, per mile
• Uber:      4.6 times the price of Robotaxi, per mile
• Lyft:        3.1 times the price of Robotaxi, per mile

When Tesla rolls out tens of thousands of Robotaxis, which it has the capacity to do, and do quickly, they will kill the competition. 

This will have an impact on human drivers. On their employment. Musk recognises this, and says it has to be addressed. But no one listens to him, because, you know, "Elon bad". 

White Chapel, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong

Multi faith, wedding and funeral space. Park Siena, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong

Worth remembering. By President Kennedy

	Akash Maniam ⁦‪@ManiamAkash‬⁩ Worth remembering pic.x.com/huS9JJEpL7   9/8/2025, 11:12 pm

“I made my parents very proud by murdering a Jewish woman…” | Arafat Irfaiya

	Vivid.🇮🇱 ⁦‪@VividProwess‬⁩ In February 2019, Arafat Irfaiya, a Muslim Palestinian, kidnapped, raped, and beheaded a 19-year-old Jewish woman. In court, he said, "I made my parents very proud by murdering a Jewish woman," smirked and smiled. Do you honestly think Jews can co-exist with those demons? pic.x.com/izZmIF3tkR   10/8/2025, 10:00 am

Remember how many October 7th murderers phoned home to Gaza, boasting to their parents how many Jews they'd killed? To the delight of their parents. Which they posted online immediately. 

They're PROUD of mass murder and decapitating Jews.

UN Report: “UN Reports not widely read”

	Hillel Neuer ⁦‪@HillelNeuer‬⁩ U.N. report reveals: "U.N. reports are not widely read." The organization has become a parody of itself. pic.x.com/BwdBfLZ9Kh   10/8/2025, 7:31 am

Heh!

Hamas Terrorist Explains Complex, Nuanced Goals In Palestinian Conflict

 

Satire as documentary.

 A commenter says: "Give the interviewer a British accent and this is the actual BBC"

It's sadly true. The MSM in the west twists and turns into every shape to try to excuse the foundational truth of Islam: that it hates Jews and tries to kill them everywhere. Especially Israel. Or.. starting with Israel.

 Could we not learn that? Acknowledge that? Deal with that? Or, at least, try to deal with that?

Are we going crazy? Britain out to ban books

Are we going crazy? We in the West? Becoming as censorious as any communist country? As any authoritarian state? 

Britain out to ban books. CS Lewis, Tolkien, Orwell among works tagged as triggers for 'far-right' extremism by anti-terrorism group, "Prevent". 

Not just any books, but the books and authors that are the very soul of our enlightenment. Books from George Orwell, for example, and even the plays of Shakespeare. We are to avoid these, according the the UK government's Prevent quango. 

Read on for the craziness, clipped here: 

A government anti-terrorism unit in the U.K. has reportedly flagged key English literature as potential triggers for right-wing extremism – leading one author whose work is on the list to bash the agency's strategy.

Classic authors such as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, George Orwell, Joseph Conrad and Aldous Huxley were included on the list of potentially problematic texts compiled by Prevent’s Research Information and Communications Unit, according to Douglas Murray in The Spectator.

Other authors whose work is allegedly shared by people sympathetic with "the far-right and Brexit" also reportedly include Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Thomas Carlyle, Adam Smith and William Shakespeare.

John and Basil, Spring 2011, Siena Park, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong

‘The tide is shifting’: Massive Australian protest over Gaza crisis seen as a sign of growing global alarm | CNN

You see? 

CNN tells me (and some ORs tell me): “you’ve got to get with the program”.

And this is why I'm supposed to "get with the program"…. Because there is "growing alarm". Because there are so MANY. Just so many who "care for humanity". Who march for "Free Palestine". 

But I'm NOT down with the program. I'm NOT going to join the mobs. I'm NOT going to march for "Free Palestine".

Because of reasons I set out yesterday. And ought to be clear from the rest of this blog.  

"Tides" sometimes flow in bad directions….

Source: CNN
https://share.google/Sm7WBocyDK62frA3d

Sent from my iPhone

ADDED: “The tide is shifting…” is a pretty flimsy and confusing metaphor. I let Grok tear it apart.

Let’s not FREE PALESTINE! 7 good reasons why we shouldn’t free Palestine

This by Oren Cahanovitc is also my reasons for why I couldn't have attended last week's huge rally in Sydney -- the pro-Palestine rally -- that took over the Harbour Bridge. 

For which I'd been told: "you have to get with the program. Look at all the people that are siding with the Palestinians now and against the genocide in Gaza".... Well, yeah, but nah. 

There are just too many reasons for NOT supporting the demo. A lot of people taking part doesn't make it right. Millions of volk at the 1930s rallies in Germany didn't make them right. Even more millions at Red Guard rallies in China in the 1960s didn't make them right either. 

Here goes with some of my reasons I couldn't support the Sunday Bridge Rally... to "Free Palestine":

I support women's rights. The Sunday Marchers, the "Free Palestine" mob, the Bridge Bigots, do not support women's rights. They support an outfit -- Hamas -- that very much does not support women's rights. That treats women as worth half a man; that demands women in public be accompanied by a man; that says a man may -- indeed must - beat a woman if she disobeys him. 

I support LGBTQ rights. The Sunday Marchers, the "Free Palestine" mob, the Bridge Bigots, do not support LGBTQ rights. They support an outfit -- Hamas -- that very much does not support LGBT rights. Hamas loathe gays. They hang them from cranes in the public square. They throw them off roofs. The number of openly gay people in Gaza = Zero. 

I support not killing people who don't believe as you do. The Sunday Marchers, the "Free Palestine" mob, the Bridge Bigots, do not support being tolerant to those who do not think the same as they. In this case, who do not think the same as Hamas. The Charter of Hamas specifically calls for the world to be under the control of Islam. And these folks, these Bridge Bozos, marching "for humanity" are in fact marching for the killing of non-believers. 

I support not starving hostages to death. The Sunday Marchers, the "Free Palestine" mob, the Bridge Bigots, do not support this. The verified authentic video of a skeletal Israeli hostage being forced to dig his own grave is not only a war crime it is the worst of humanity. But that's what the marchers are marching in support of. 

"But What about the starving children?" they cry. Indeed what about the starving children. Of which we have seen hoax photos, since revealed to be hoaxes by none other than the New York Times, splashed across western media without any verification at all. To the extent that we know the truth of what's going on in Gaza, there is hunger, but it's brought about by Hamas. Even the othersise complicit United Nations admits this. Yet the Bridge Bigots are marching in support of this hoaxing of the public. 

I support the Jews. The Sunday Marchers, the "Free Palestine" mob, the Bridge Bigots, do not support Jews. Way, way not.  They support an outfit -- Hamas -- whose Charter calls for the massacre, the murder, the genocide of Jews everywhere. 

I support the Jewish State of Israel. The Sunday Marchers, the "Free Palestine" mob, the Bridge Bigots, do not support a Jewish state. They support an outfit -- Hamas -- that wants to obliterate Israel. Hamas don't want a Two State Solution --  they've said openly many times. They support One State, Palestine -- "Free Palestine" -- with no Jews, Free of Jews, Judenrein. The very same vision as the German man with the little moustache. Hamas are Nazis, plain and simple. And literally. Where I mean "literally" literally. In fact, one could easily argue they are worse, because of the religious element to their beliefs. Their "perfect man", Muhammad, told them that they must forever hate the Jews and seek to annihilate them. That's all they're up to now. The Bridge Bigots go along with that. 

Given all this, I really do wonder how I'm the one, apparently, who's in the minority. I'm the one who's expected to "get with the program", and to support the Bridge Bigots, because that's the clear trend. 

I say NO. I will not do it. Even if I lose every friend and relative in my life. I will not side with genocidal, homophobic, misogynist, Jew-hating nazis. End of. For me.