The UK Has Fallen?

Has the UK fallen?

It is a very peculiar set of affairs. The UK has a soft invasion occurring, whereby largely military aged males arrive by inflatable dinghies from France, and then those now abandoned dinghies are collected up and returned to France. Why? Wouldn't the more sensible thing be to destroy the dinghies!

For those not familiar with a soft invasion, they're possibly most common in Southeast Asia. An example of this was when Indonesia tried to invade East Timor. After a period of chaos, Australia and New Zealand took charge and restored order. 

The numbers illegally entering the UK by boat from France are alarming. I asked Google about how many, and I didn't get much of a search result, funny that, but I did find this link https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats-last-7-days

1,593 arrivals by small boats over seven days from the 5th to the 11th of August 2025. That's on track to reach 80k for the calendar year. I read that since Labour came to power, the number is 50k

The numbers in aggregate equate to an army. 

Trump Takes Over D.C.

Donald Trump hit a home run with this one. He's called a crime emergency in Washington D.C. Hopefully he'll follow this up with cities such as San Francisco too. These cities are literally falling apart.

Oh and I embed the below reaction video for the comments alone. My favorite: Dads are taking over. Clean your room boys!

And yes, I too thought the reactor ate all four eclairs. Haha.

Executive Order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/08/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-declares-a-crime-emergency-to-restore-safety-in-the-district-of-columbia

Irish Civil War?

Interesting view, exactly how will the Irish react to uncontrolled immigration?

Why No Women in F1?

Despite their driving ability being all around the place, there are no women currently in Formula One, and none likely to be for the foreseeable future. Why is that?

Lella Lombardi was the last female to qualify for the grid of an F1 Grand Prix and to start in that race. She actually scored half a point in her career but that isn't considered her best race. Her best race was finishing one place out of the points at the old Nürburgring, a phenomenally difficult track. That was back in the 1970's.

Right now, and considering good women do exist, I think F1 does not have women for reasons related to marketing. To make that argument I'll present two pictures of women currently good enough, in my opinion:

Sophia Flörsch

Abbi Pulling

See anything these women have in common? I do, they're very pretty.

If women such as these are allowed on the F1 grid, they'll suck all the oxygen out of the room. All cameras will be on them, and the pretty boys will be left out. Sponsorship dollars will not go to the bloke drivers. Look, I get it, the F1 drivers are good lookin' Dudes, but given the choice of looking at good lookin' Dudes or Chicks, it's Chicks every time.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I've long said the FIA are dinosaurs, prove me wrong. Oh, and I was a fan of Lella Lombardi, she was amazing. Some of the best competitive driving I've ever seen has been from women behind the wheel, rally driver Michelle Mouton being on that list. Of course women can be on the F1 grid, they just don't want them there.

New Zealand Satellite Launch

Australia, watching this? Yeah, suck on my big left one...hahaha.

Las Vegas Finished?

If you were looking for a vacation spot, Las Vegas was at the top of many lists. I've stayed in a good hotel in Downtown Las Vegas for only $21 per night. And it was a large room too, very much appreciated. Many years later I was in Reno, and it was nowhere near as good. 

But these days, people are saying Las Vegas is dead, empty, a bust. What happened? The below video looks at what went wrong:

Reaction to UK

This is an interesting reaction video, where an American reacts to an Englishman talking about the trouble the UK is heading into. The American makes valuable observations, worthwhile listening to:

Seachange in UK Politics

In the latest poll in the UK conducted by Find Out Now, new party Reform UK lead Labour by a whopping 12 points. Here are the published poll numbers - called the headline:

Reform 32%

Labour 20% 

Conservative 16%

Liberal Democrats 12%

Green 9%

Scottish National Party 2%

Plaid Cymru 1%

Others 7%

However, these headline figures 'squeeze' out Don't Know. If you put them back in, this is the result:

Reform UK 22%

Labour 11%

Conservative 10% 

Liberal Democrats 7%

Green 6%

Scottish National Party 1%

Plaid Cymru 1%

Other 7%

Don't Know 35%  

The way I read this; the main political parties are looking at being wiped out by Reform, with other parties also becoming stronger. If this trend continues, I would not be surprised if the Labour government take drastic action. I'll leave you to figure out what that action might be, just use your imagination.

Here's the excel spreadsheet link: https://cms.findoutnow.co.uk/app/uploads/2025/08/6th-August-Find-Out-Now-VI.xlsx   

Manufacturing in the US

Here's a counter argument to my claim that the US cannot bring its manufacturing back onshore. Guardian Bikes brought their bicycle manufacturing to the US from China, and they're moving to acquire all components domestically.

While Guardian are well organised, I still think that the availability of a skilled labour force will be the problem for the US as a whole.

Ferrari F40 For Sale California

A court in the US has ordered a Ferrari F40 be put up for sale, this is the video showing the car. It is in pristine condition:

The sale process also has its own website:

https://www.f40forsale.com

It goes under the hammer in six days time, but is also offered at a buy now price of US$5 million.

Update: SOLD for $2.55 million.

Britain Is Screwed

Listening to Lionel Shriver, you can hear the tension in her voice. Britain appears over, as the changes being made by unrestrained migration are permanent. How can Britain survive?

Chris Bishop - Clown

Update: this proposal, moving from a fuel tax paid directly at the time of purchase, to an indirect payment via bank accounts has the look of China interfering in things. Sounds conspiratorial I know, but they do have a system where all users pay for all miles electronically. It is possible the NZ government have done a technology deal with China, and this will allow China to sell their technology and know everything about our vehicle use at the same time.

The New Zealand Minister of Transport, Chris Bishop has announced plans to change the way road users are taxed. He wants to move the NZ transport fleet onto a fully digital platform, with every vehicle paying according to the weight class of the vehicle, monthly direct. He likened this to paying for your Netflix account.

Currently, petrol vehicles pay fuel taxes on each litre of petrol poured, while diesel vehicles pay Road User Charges (RUC's). Light diesels pay off the odometer, while heavy diesels pay via a hubodometer fitted to a wheel hub on the truck. Diesels have to display their RUC sticker, and if they're caught not having the mileage paid for, they can receive heavy fines.

So, what's wrong with the proposal as put? For starters, for most road users it means yet another bill arriving at the end of the month. We need that like we need a hole in the head. Right now, we pay at the pump and that covers maybe 80% of all users. So, we pay the once now, what's wrong with that and why change it? Then, the car fleet is quite old and so all these cars will require a costly upgrade to add the technology to them. Many people simply do not have this kind of money. And another problem; the tax is now paid when the petrol is bought. That's simple and effective. But, under this new scheme, what happens when the road user cannot pay?

The reason Bishop wants the change is because EV's and hybrids mean less fuel is being sold, and so the tax take is down. Those batteries are heavy, and they cause more damage to the roads by adding weight to every journey. 

Here's a simple solution Bishop has not thought of: why not raise the price of annual vehicle registration for EV's and hybrids, and adjust the amount of fuel tax taken as well, to cover for any increase in road use over the year. Yes, this would mean a slight subsidy by petrol cars of hybrids but it would be a small amount and easily forgotten as there would be no extra steps required, just the amount would differ.

Bishop was on the TV talking about how easy it would be for cars to be fitted with transponders. Err...that's old tech, he's so out of touch. I was in Queensland when they went from transponders to number plate recognition. They're now so advanced, they know the vehicle and how much it has on board (truck ride height and the like is measured).

Chris Bishop is as silly as a wet hen. 

Labour are no better, their leader Chris Hipkins agrees with Bishop. Clearly, it hasn't occurred to him to simply adjust EV and hybrid registration fees and to make an adjustment to fuel taxes.

Another problem which will be felt in the poorer regions; car users will be incentivised to not bother registering or getting a Warrant of Fitness (WOF) for the car. You must have a WOF to be registered, so I'm guessing part of the WOF procedure will involve checking the car is enabled for road user charges. What will happen? Car owners will increasingly not bother getting a WOF, thereby not registering, and driving uninsured. Some regions have only 60% compliance at the moment. If the fuel at the pump is cheaper, why spend money on an old car to bring it up to speed! So, the roads will have even more unregistered vehicles out there.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/569149/road-user-charges-for-all-vehicles-move-a-step-closer

Karoline Leavitt on Nancy Pelosi's Stock Portfolio

How come politicians leave office rich?

Tariff-Free Living USA

An American woman investigates whether it possible to live without buying anything imported from overseas:

NCEA Scrapped

Regular visitors to my blog will know I am very critical of New Zealand's secondary education system of awarding qualifications. Known as NCEA, it is very flawed and ended up being a dog's breakfast of feelgood claptrap mixed with unicorn kisses and rainbow hugs.

Well, it is being scrapped, and not before time. This should have happened 20 years ago.

But, the devil is in the details as they say, and what replaces it really matters. What I expect will happen, is the system will be dumbed down even more. That's so that the government will be able to trumpet how they've restored things, while hiding they've actually got worse still. Basically, things have got so bad, that the system had to be scrapped as too many students were failing even basic literacy and numeracy assessments.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/568958/ncea-changes-some-aspects-like-a-step-backwards-in-time-principal

The government's plans to replace the NCEA system are on a tight timeline and will require a lot of support, say teachers.

After more than 20 years as New Zealand's official secondary-school qualification, the government has pulled the pin on the NCEA.

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement will be gone by 2030, replaced by a basic literacy and numeracy award at Year 11, and the Certificate of Education and Advanced Certificate of Education at Years 11 and 12.

'Achieved', 'not achieved', 'merit' and 'excellence' will be replaced by marks out of 100 and letter grades A, B, C, D and E.

The new certificates would be standards-based, like the NCEA is, meaning every student passes if they demonstrate the required knowledge or skills, but they would have to study at least five complete subjects and pass four of them to get their certificate.

This year's Year 8s would be the first cohort through the new system, starting with the foundation award in 2028, which might look a lot like the current NCEA literacy and numeracy tests.

Arrests May Be Coming

Related to Russiagate - arrests may be imminent

Critical Infrastructure

For a lot of people, this will be hard to listen to. What Mike Benz does is describe how the lie that was Russiagate was weaponised effectively, resulting in the conspiracy that resulted in the years-long coup to undermine Donald J Trump from late 2016, and potentially up to the present day.

What happened is that elections were added to the concept of critical infrastructure, meaning the deep state could say that in censoring free speech, or outright rigging elections, they were protecting this infrastructure.

I hope I've got this right, correct me if I've got this wrong.

It looks as if arrests will be made, I wonder who?

US Tariff Wall

I've been thinking about the effects resulting from the US wall of tariffs, and the following are the three most important points, in my opinion.

1. Wealth Transfer

Surely the brains in the White House must realise that industries such as garment and shoe manufacturing, shipbuilding, and even mid-size earthmoving equipment manufacturing are not going to be revived by the imposition of tariffs. The simple reasoning - who will work in these revived industries?

It just isn't going to happen.

The reason behind the tariffs must be something else; so how about wealth transfer? The peasants will pay higher prices resulting from the tariffs, and the Wall Street elites will carve off greater profits for themselves and receive windfalls from tax cuts and subsidies.

2. Competitors Benefit

With the US hiding behind a wall, competitors learn to change and diversify. Many suppliers to the US will have become complacent and will have just been doing business because of past practice or habit. Now, shaken from their slumber, they'll examine and reevaluate all supply arrangements and this may mean the US gets jettisoned. This would mean exporters not even bothering to price for US markets, and when it comes to their own inputs, not even bothering to give US companies a call. Likewise, governments may rewrite regulations to effectively shut out US products.

This process will make other countries leaner, more agile and ultimately move ahead of US operators.

3. Countries Trading Amongst One Another & De-Dollarization 

BRICS and other moves will accelerate whereby countries move away from using the US dollar as the default currency used to conduct trade. China has developed a system for direct country-to-country transactions, and this will gather pace. 

If we look at Brazil, they're the world's biggest beef exporter by far. Increasingly, they'll look for other countries to supply their equipment needs while continuing to export their protein worldwide. Also, China has moved away from buying Soy from the US, instead, they now prefer Brazil, Argentina and Australia. The tariff wall incentivises cutting out the US, in both the physical trade of goods and through the payments system.

Conclusion: The US leadership appear unaware of these effects or they don't care, as their own pockets will benefit.

Troubling times ahead indeed.

Trump's Tariffs

Here's a useful graphic outlining the tariffs as they apply to ASEAN and neighbouring countries in Asia:

This is a retrograde step and I think the Trump administration have got this badly wrong. There will be an initial uptick as US importers pay these tariffs, resulting in a lower US deficit, but then things kick in which the US has no control over. For instance, countries will increasingly just deal with one another and ignore the US.

Here's a Bloomberg piece, I presume from their Asia desk:

US-EU Trade Deal Extracting Tribute

It makes sense, the EU buckled and are being made to pay tribute to the US. Another angle I've read somewhere, is that the EU elites have so much invested in the US, they are effectively owned by them. If the markets in the US tank, the EU stands to lose their wealth. I've been saying it for a long time; the EU isn't a democracy, it is owned and operated by former Princes and Count von Wotsits. With this latest deal, they've shored up their own holdings and told the peasants to suck it up.

Of course, I have little sympathy for the EU as they've been kicking the rest of the world since their establishment.