Monthly Archives: September 2022

September 24, 2022 · 17:32

Corporate noun of stupid

Yes, that is the thought. You see, I have had a few issues with Optus recently, the first one is that customer care went into the basement and took the elevator down from there, the second one is that I can get NO information on my account events in the shop, some lesser setting of an individual stopping people and pointing them towards their ‘customer care’, but organised crime and hackers, they get ALL the assistance. Information like email, date of birth, phone number, ID document. Yes they get all the information. And it goes beyond that. If all that information is available to hackers and organised crime, it implies that basic cyber security failed.

And the most stupid of all (as corporate idiots go) we get “no financial information or passwords have been accessed”. We didn’t merely loose something, all the elements to create fake accounts and make fake creation is out and about. For some it will take months to clean up the mess others made, if it can be cleaned up at all. Fake mortgages tend to follow the victim around for the rest of their lives. So the idiot that approved THAT message will be looking for a job soon enough. To trivialise such a massive blunder needs a much larger response and some article stating “However, this breach, like most, appears to come down to human error,” the Optus insider told the ABC.” That with the headline ‘Optus rejects insider claims of ‘human error’ as possible factor in hack affecting millions of Australians’ yes, give it a human error side, but the larger issue might be the insufficient cyber defences at Optus were overcome by hackers endangering the economic lives of millions. So my version is a lot darker than ‘affecting millions of Australians’ but which one will be more accurate? That is the larger stage and that is where the media is very supportive of Optus, but I have seen three issues in one week, so I am not certain it will be this easy. And this is all over the field, it is all over Australia and it will cross borders, especially when we second wave of events pass us by, when? That is anyones guess, but that much identity information is not merely to create a rainbow table, this is optionally the prelude of something more, what? I cannot tell, but you do not get this kind of information to simply show that Optus is asleep at the wheel, this implies purpose, but that is merely my point of view.

As to the answer of the header: “a group of people who are all stupid”

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Science

Tagged as , , ,

September 23, 2022 · 21:29

Dopey to some

Yes, Dopey, a name I cloak myself in frequently, that loveable dwarf not right in the mind and that is me to a fault. I just saw Matrix resurrections. I did not really like it, that is not the fault of the actors, they all played their hearts out and you can see that. The story was clever, really clever but the WOW factor was missing. I saw the first three as a complete story and I was fine with it. There was nothing missing. It had the elements of a Greek Tragedy, it had action (a lot of that) and several other sides. I was happy. So when the 4th movie came out, I was not really on par with my thoughts, and it had been close to 2 decades. I still remember the trailer that I saw in Chicago, it blew me away, I saw the movie 8 weeks later in Europe and I saw it more than once. Then the DVD came. I reckon that plenty of people got a DVD player just for this movie and that is saying something. There was a WOW factor that numbers 2 and 3 continued. It was missing here, but it made it not a bad movie, it merely made me less interested and I was not alone in this, but it does not matter. The storyteller in me woke up. I had my own movie considerations. It is called ‘How to assassinate a politician’ and the story was made for the Arab world (Egypt, UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) in this I personally believe it would be a hit, but that I my view. Then my mind created ‘Another Furlong’ after the whole 9 yards with Matthew Perry. Just now I saw the Hulu Trailer of Hellraiser, it might be a hit. Especially if they resurrect the Nightbreed franchise as well, in the comics there have been several interaction between these two and there would be enough materials for either movies of mini series. The mind does not sit still, so as I was contemplating ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’, more important the other books. Not sure if Tim Burton is considering to make the others into movies, but if he is not any of the streamers should consider it. There are so many options, but we get to see (for the most) a newly resurrected version of Death Wish, Robocop, Firestarter or Flatliners. I have nothing against any of these movies. Yet where is thee good stuff? Where is the original stuff? Now, lets be clear Matrix resurrections is original, based on a franchise, but an original story. Yet where are the titans? Another Lord or the Rings? OK, this is the prequel, the rings of power. I grant you that, but we are so about seeing more of the same that we merely endure repetition, this was one of the reasons why I came up with ‘How to assassinate a politician’, not the most important reason, but a reason none the less. I wonder what more I could make. I started to pencil season two on the grandson of Hades (still no title come to mind), I made one on the stage of the past with Kenos Diastima and Residuam Vitam. And past that a few small parts that require evolution. Perhaps it is a dopey thought, but is this what most of us have resorted to? Repetition? I am uncertain but overall I see less awesome movies. I reckon that Maverick is the most overwhelming movie I have seen this year and that is not a good thing. Consider, how many truly good movies have You seen in the last 6 month? If you need more than a minute to name 5, you will be able to see my point of view. With Netflix, Hulu, Disney we see so many more works, but the overall quality is falling down, that is not a good thing. You might have another idea regarding this and that I fine, but I worry what we will get in 2023, 2024 and 2025. That might just be me though.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 23, 2022 · 04:24

Not about the milk

This is a weird story, there is no realism involved (other than that the locations exist), the whole event woke me up and the reason remains unknown to me. I have been thinking of season 2 of the grandson of Hades and I have a few ideas but that is not what stopped me today (at 03:30). The event takes place at the Canadian consulate at Harrington St, The Rocks NSW. I was walking in for some unknown reason and there was a blonde, a gorgeous healthily shaped blonde and it was not herself that took my attention, it was her T-shirt. It was a sort of golden yellow with a white icon (see below)

The icon kept on taking my attention and a few moments later the woman got up lifted her T-shirt (a spectacular view to say the least) and my puzzled look got to her. Is that not what you were looking for? I told her it was the icon, she could not tell me what it was because the T-shirt was a gift. So there I was trying to figure out what I was staring at. The symbol you see is almost what it looks like, it is as close as my wake mind can capture. The back of my mind has a reference to Ontario grain farmers, but I do not know any. At present I have not yet visited Ontario. So why does this bother me, why is this calling to me? It was not bout the woman (yet she was breathtakingly good looking) I cannot find any reference to the symbol or where I might have seen it before, Google was actually no help at all, so I am awake before 5 am and the reason eludes me. So here I am drinking my glass of milk (too early for coffee now) and I am smitten with the puzzle my mind gives me. Now I will probably lose most of the day trying to figure out the symbol and in the end it will be meaningless (one can only hope) and it will not have any relationship to anything I am doing. What a way to start Friday.

Well, this is me trying to get some more sleep, I’ll write more later readers.

1 Comment

Filed under Stories

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 22, 2022 · 19:01

Mr Nitty and Mrs Gritty

We can all go into the nitty gritty of any matter, but it has to be done. I did not avoid my need to do so, yet until there was a decent offer on the table, I would not bother. It is not exactly like that. The larger station is not doing the setting, but to do so without giving the game away to those unwilling to pay for it. And now that the last leg of the race is coming into sight, I need to do something, or better stated, I need to make preparations. As I see it Saudi Arabia will have to create 5 software houses. 2 of these houses represent $80,000,000 of the business each and that would be PER MONTH. 2 houses represent roughly $140 million each and one house represents $160 million. Optionally a sixth house will be needed, but that is more about managing the overall. They represent $500 million a month. And this is the first stage towards a long term income bringer. A stage where Saudi Arabia gets what it wanted, an additional economy not based on oil. And it will be larger than even I initially expected, but as the IP grew, so did the application and now it will take corners from Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. It was never designed to do that, but as the IP and application grew, so did the overall mass of impact. Now the application can travel via Amazon Luna, or Google Stadia, optionally both, but it will be VIA Riyadh and it will be owned by Saudi Arabia, a stage all the big-tech companies forget about. They were in service of others, or so they claimed to be and now they are about to be partially reduced to channels, to serve the people they channel and there is the rub, there is the crux. Amazon and Google never had a clue because they forgot about the basic need of people. It made sense that Facebook would lose marketshare, but for Google and Amazon to lose them implies that they were always hooking to the wrong horse and as such they started the race on a track where there was no race and no one was watching. Part of me will be curious how far this can go, how large this could become, because I have no idea, but when it catches on it will grow larger than I would have ever considered and now it is one step away from being Saudi IP, it was a choice to make and I was happy to make it because the rest remained clueless, remained in their own shadow all whilst they had no idea that their shadow was shrinking faster than they could comprehend. It is the marketing curse, when you forget what you originally spin, you get to fight the shadows you create and as such have nothing to work with and nothing to win, never ever.

Is it that dark? Yes, it is but is it dark or is it a new beginning? I cannot tell, when you are at the centre of anything, the stage of seeing ones limits are not that dependable. And I prefer my data to be clean and crisp. In addition, I never expected to take this to Saudi Arabia, but then there is only so much deaf, dumb and blind actions one can accept from large corporations claiming to know it all and see it all and proving them wring is it own reward. 

Now, I need to set the station for the first two software houses. They are not the most important part, but they will help create part of the IP and create a larger trained workforce, because without a workforce this will not work the way Saudi Arabia would like it to work, that much I can foresee. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 21, 2022 · 20:26

Clusters

Clusters are a weird concept. There is the science, the art and the personal which tends to be a blend of both. We think that we love that one person more than all the other grapes in the bunch. We think that we know more than all the other grapes in the cluster of grapes and we watch how all the grapes get squished and we avoided that wreck. Clusters are weird, they are at times like Horoscopes. We merely ‘believe’ them when they are positive. And we are all the same, I in this am no different. I know more than a lot of people in certain areas but not all areas and still I am like all the others, I am the one grape aside from the other grapes in a cluster of idiots. There is no delusional side, it merely is what it is. Yet when you realise this and you start to dimensionalise that cluster of grapes, it is then that you might see structure and that structure is important. It gives size and shape of what you contemplate. I might compare myself to Amazon and Google, but the reality is that my solutions merely outstrip the one grape that Google or Amazon hired to make sense of that structure. When you realise that part you start to understand the company and now you have a new setting. That setting can help you to see what they are missing and optionally where else they are not looking. Yet the cluster is more dangerous than you think. You see one grape, but you do not see the other 143 grapes and what THEY see. That is the larger stage. And it is not limited to Google and Amazon. There is Apple who merely focus on the white grapes, there is Microsoft who is blind to all other grapes, and then there is IBM, SalesForce, SAP, Adobe and many others, all focussing on THEIR vintage, THEIR strengths and that is how it is, but for you it matters where these focal points are. Google is in the news about the news, and when we try to look at the Australian in google search when we click on ‘Google’s ‘News Showcase’ stalls in US as media outlets balk at terms’ we merely get what we see below.

This is the larger stage, the news makes claims but then uses the news to advertise and even as the Australian is the most visible, they are not alone and lets be clear I wanted to see what the news war regarding Google. And yes, others gave me ‘Google films people reacting to the Pixel 7 Pro, confirms pre-order start date’, I was merely curious. I recently got the Pixel 6 and I am happy with that one, the camera is heaps better, the battery is good, the phone is faster and the screen is better. For amount X I got a mobile phone that is well over 3X better. So I doubt I will get the Pixel Pro 7, I will most likely wait for the Pixel Pro 8, or perhaps 9. The previous phone laster me well over 6 years and it did its work. No regrets on previous phones, no regret on this phone. Merely Optus making a mess of too many things, but that is not on Google. Amazon announces its new kindle and the first thing I notice is that it ‘only’ has 32Gb, double the previous one, but instead of just adding 64GB or even 128GB, it keeps the pressure on and I reckon that it will bite them soon enough. In SD card settings it is $10 versus $19, less then twice the price and when you offer something for long term use, storage matters. It gets to be even less nice when you consider “The Kindle Paperwhite 8gb does not have the ability to add more memory via an sd card like the Fire Tablets” this is not asleep at the wheel, this is creating one brand dependancy and that is not a good thing. It does not matter for my IP, but the fact that Amazon is optionally (make sure you see the word optionally) brand dependancy matters, it makes Amazon a lesser choice and they did this too themselves, as such my advice to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia could go “For the future of your 50,000,000 subscriptions there is now added value of selecting the Google Stadia choice over the Amazon Luna as a choice for the future of your IP. One selection could have that large an impact and as such it is important to see as much of the Kindle cluster as possible, because this could reflect back to people like Andy Jassy. Is it fair? That is not the question. He allowed this to happen on his watch, it is that simple. And it matters because the 32GB would seem enough, but we are not always in reach of decent internet, and as 32GB allows for a decent amount of books, 128GB allows for 400% more and is that not why you travel with your Kindle? It was a simple equation and the grapes of that cluster either missed it, or the grape in the cluster had its own agenda. It sounds simple, too simple. Yet that was where Microsoft was in 2012 and in a decade they are close to going tits up (not in a nice way). They are not a player in the gaming market (no matter what their marketing states), the tablet market went past them and they are close to lose 15% of their cornerstones. Of and when we add Adobe to the mix, they lose even more. This is what asleep at the wheel looks like (or the wrong grape in charge of the bunch, or cluster). So clusters matter. They are often not scientific, but they rely a larger story and that matters too, it also gives rise to other choices YOU will have to make and not all of them can be made on solid numbers, as such the cluster view tends to have a larger or weightier effect. 

There are clearly times when the media cannot be trusted, or the numbers they bring. That is not really their fault at times. Too many stakeholders, too many mouths to go after the Microsoft grape-juice, or whatever grape pie they serve.  We need to make up our own minds and at times the cluster view is not as scientific as we would like it, but it does tend to give a much better view when we realise how to see all (or as many as possible) grapes in the cluster. At times that is all we have, especially when we solely rely on our instincts.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 20, 2022 · 21:13

Equational parts

Today might take a moment. You see I was getting ready to write something else when my brain started to shout in my head. The phrase was ‘shifting sands’. I am uncertain what started that, but when the brain shouts, I tend to listen. I had to look it up as it was kinda familiar but the exact meaning wasn’t clear. The dictionary gave me “used in reference to something that is constantly changing, especially unpredictably” that did not completely helped me, yet a thought was getting hold there. You see, I offered part of my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And even as Amazon and Google decided to ignore the option, I saw the IP for what it was, a stage to something larger and the three elements that it did cover was a lot bigger then the sum of the individual parts, as such I thought I was sitting pretty, even  though I am not great at waiting. So as I was contemplating the individual parts, I suddenly realised that there are additional stages that interact. As such we get “used in reference to elements or parts that are constantly changing towards the engine that supports them, predictable or not” and if I am correct (still uncertain) then the IP picks up a few billion in value. Now, at this point I do not completely care about its total value, but the 20 year sales commission will take a leap forward. So let me try to explain it without compromising the IP. You have a game for example Skyrim, this came has locations and this game has clothing. You can see both as cosmetic parts, but when they become elements of the game they change application. For example cold Skyrim relies on warm clothing, we have (almost) never been been exposed to these elements, but what when that changes? What happens when the bad weather picks up? How useful will a bow be? All elements Skyrim ignored, but what if that is not the case? So what happens when you are dressed for Skyrim and you end up in a place like Valenwood? Now, you can see that when you are in a game like Elder Scrolls or Fallout. But what happens when we go into a game like Diablo? Or even more contextual, I saw today that someone is making Impossible Mission 3, a game franchise that flourished on the CBM64, so some people are picking up the ideas I had and they are evolving them. So what happens when we take the simple game below and make the terminals more interactive and more important, what happens when we do not have limited time, but limited access because elements are still unfound? 

Have you thought of that? I reckon Google did not and neither did Amazon, and no one cares what Microsoft thinks, but Apple remains an option. Now take THAT idea and add the game ‘V’. There on the CBM64, we merely ran from place to place and we were content, but what happens when we add the mini game of Impossible Mission to that game (or the other way round)? 

I had some thoughts in that direction in the past, but I never contemplated a larger stage but when the system is accepted by Saudi Arabia the larger stages become debatable and they become elements of discussion. They are not games, but the same setting applies. The shifting sands elements allow me to grow system one with system two and we get a much larger system 3. Systems like Facebook sort of gave it to you, but they basically added to the junk you had and called it novelty or ‘expanded opportunity’, but we could see that it was merely more for THEM. Yet when these systems are (partially) in YOUR control and you get to decide whether you want system two to enlarge system one? We get a form of system individuality, like a system SHOULD have been all along and that is at the back of my mind (without giving the IP away), as such we could optionally see that the application of shifting sands to a user system will make it truly user friendly, now consider that we add security like WE want it to be, whatever it is. Now we have a new setting, well optionally a new setting but these systems are up to US, like they should have been all along. I just never contemplated it because I was thinking like an American as the expression goes and now I see that more is possible, but the application is a new one, and it is not free of challenges. You see, how can we evolve a closed system? It has to be closed as there is too much cybercrime and cyber theft. There is not a way to make it zero, but we can make it so that only the top tier hackers might get away with it. So whomever the 80 people are that the NAB hires (see previous article), they are all about stopping hackers, whilst the access levels were the ones that required scrutiny. Should you doubt that then consider the news that we got merely an hour ago ‘Major crypto trader Wintermute hit by $160 million hack: CEO’, there we are being told “Decentralised finance platforms and software, which aim to provide crypto-based financial services without traditional gatekeepers such as banks, have been targeted by numerous heists in recent years. The sector is little-regulated and victims of crime rarely have recourse” yes, because hackers really take notice of rules and laws and a bank vault that is open is one they can access, and there is a reason that banks use traditional gatekeepers (pointless or not), the larger stage is that open systems are done for (like Microsoft) a new setting is required and that is what I figured out. I am certain that others have too, but the greed of Fintech is stopping them and as such they lose small amounts like $160,000,000 such is life. And as such the world turns, so congrats you hackers on getting enough to pay next year rent, but at some point Fintech will grow up (or they go out of business). It is merely a matter of time which of the two becomes the winner. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 19, 2022 · 23:40

It took even less time

This all started some time ago. It was September 7th 2021 when I wrote ‘As banks cut corners’ (at  https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/07/as-banks-cut-corners/) In that article I wrote “They merely needed some time, a $2500 computer and a decent internet connection, the pay off would be a 7 figure number and with the speed they are tracked they would be living large in another country with nothing attached to them. That is the current reality and the level of checks and balances that are missing is just too unbelievable for words. Enjoy your bank account (for as long as you still have it)” and what do you know, ABC gives us less than 20 hours ago (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-19/adelaide-man-prepares-legal-action-after-being-scammed/101452218) ‘Adelaide man enlists help from former South Australian senator Nick Xenophon after losing $36,000 to scammers’ there we see “Mr Xenophon, now working as a lawyer, is representing Adelaide car salesman Michael Edwards, who lost $36,000 to a sophisticated phone scam earlier this month.” It is one way of looking at it. I personally wonder when the stage of ‘a sophisticated phone scam’ is not met and it is simply the absence of proper checks and balances. The party line of “NAB says recovering money from scammers is often difficult” is a joke. And the setting of “after the call ended, he was still suspicious, and then spent hours on the phone waiting to talk to a real NAB fraud investigator.” Is largely a joke. It is not the man who needs to worry, it is the bank. In a full 5G network the damage will become twentyfold, and the banks need to set larger checks and balances, the fact that we see “I’m working for the NAB, I’ll send you something now on your mobile phone saying he was Mark Jacobs from the fraud department, NAB case number and all the rest of it” implies that the system, the bank system has failed. My first (and optionally incorrect) idea was that any bank has a Java-bean system that sets the stage that the person calling asks the person to start a bank application and goes towards the verification stage. Then the person can give three numbers that are encrypted and only the bank can see these three numbers and they can tell the person what these three numbers are, as such there is verification. Not the scammer gets the upper hand, but the person they try to scam and when that person does not CLEARLY state the three numbers, the person hangs up and presses the alert button. OK, this is old stuff but the stage of verification is underestimated and done away with by banks because of the customer unfriendly factor. So how friendly is losing $36,000 dollars? Things need to change and they need to change fast. When we see ““We’ve seen a significant increase in scams in recent years and its upsetting to see the devastating effects these can have on the impacted victims,” Chris Sheehan from NAB’s Investigations and Fraud group said in a statement” we see a clear setting that changes were essential years ago and soon the banks will not pay for that loss, as such they either improve the setting of security or they pay all losses, but that is merely my view on the matter and the fact that I saw this coming a year ago gives a much larger stage of reckless endangerment of bank accounts by banks. So as people like former South Australian senator Nick Xenophon know the banks have been dropping the ball, the problem is a lot larger. We the people need to realise that ‘simplicity’ of options have a risk. There is a reason why I do not allow for online banking. I have seen this flaw for close to a decade and now we see a case and it is not the first case as plenty of evidence shows. But now it will cost us money and as such the people need to change their habits and change their insufferably need for simplicity and easy access, criminals enjoy your easy access too and one person found that out by donating $36,000 to a scammer. He is not alone and a lot of criminals take a different road, they feel safer getting 50,000 pay outs of $10-$45 then one payout of $36,000. Where the banks stand? You ask them, I doubt you get a clear answer and this issue is playing all over the Commonwealth and the US. Australians lost over $2,000,000,000 last year alone. I have no clear image on how it hits the other nations but these scams are not just bank scams, so the picture is not completely clear, but something needs to be done and some message that 80 people are getting hired is not enough. But that might merely be me yammering on fictive issues. What do you think?

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 19, 2022 · 09:57

The new code 20

It seems like quite the conundrum, but in Caesarian code it stands for ’T’ or tea if you prefer. You see, we are all becoming less and less personal in our gifts. It is a card with a gift card and at times the birthday card is overlooked and it is basically a gift card. It has lost the personal touch and that is a shame. And that was my mindset as I passed a T2 site. There was no real reason to be there. I was merely looking at some stuff and then it hit me, what if you could buy an envelope with a congratulation card, a tag and choices and the recipient gets

With an optional tea choice. Is that not more personal? Now, I accept that the recipient needs to like tea. But the larger stage is that the people need to personalise whatever they give and this is an option. It might be 6 months of Netflix, Disney plus, another item. It is not new, inter flora started that concept decades ago and in the electronic age it got lost and that is such a shame. Why did we lose the personal touch? So in the T2 setting, the people fill in the card and it goes to the respective shop, they finish the order and the order is ready and personalised. OK, this does require the recipient to be nearby a T2 store and they have plenty of stores and it makes for a great international gift, especially when you consider the way some couriers treat packages (see YouTube). In this I used T2 because it is a clear obvious one, but the same could be said for Nespresso and plenty of other store chains (yes, Victoria Secrets is an option too). 

But tell me honestly, would you prefer a nice tea set (like above, if you like tea), or some empty handed gift card? Yes, some will prefer the gift card (EB Games) games are massively hard to plan for, the same could be said for Sony Store Credit (and some Microsoft alternative), but there is a larger stage of solutions and we drove away from that. Why? I prefer to do the legwork to get something for a friend, it makes it more personal and therefor likely more appreciated. In this I might be a minority and it is not the stage others look for. But should the choice not be there? Yes, I admit that there are issues and there are small pitfalls, but consider the gift for your favourite grannie, a piece of plastic, or a nice piece of china with an optional personal choice of tea? I know what I would choose, but at present there is no alternative to do so and that seems like such a shame, but that could merely be my view of the matter.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 18, 2022 · 15:16

The new student

There is a class, this class is out there and it has many students. Yet its teacher had never expected that the BBC would be joining his class and this teacher is beside himself. The teacher is Mediocrates and his Syllabus called ‘Thats good enough’ has been handed from student to student for generations. Yet until today this teacher had never considered that the BBC would be joining him, and he is happy, he is very very happy.

This all started some time ago, yet for me to see another MBS bashing exercise is just too much, especially when it comes from the BBC. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-62940906) gives us ‘Mohammed Bin Salman: Saudi prince’s controversial invitation to the Queen’s funeral’. In the first Why controversial? He is the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So far not a biggie, but then we get “A declassified CIA report concluded that the crown prince had authorised the murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018”

So lets make a little list

  1. The CIA report did not do that, it stated that it was highly likely, which is not the same. By the way this is the same organisation that send former secretary of state Colin Powell with a shining silver suitcase to places like a rockstar with the evidence that Iraq had WMD’s. So how many were found in the end? Not any did they? At that presentation they had graphics, now they have less than nothing. The rule of law states that a person is innocent until PROVEN guilty and the prove is missing on many levels. Even the hack job that the UN report represents never properly analysed the recordings, it gets worse that there is no one had ACTUALLY heard the entire recording and that is on Turkey. Then we get the ‘dismemberment’ part, there was no evidence of any kind that this had happened, merely the figment of some limelight seeking individual, and no evidence is showing that this ever happened.
    We now have all kinds of rumours. One is of him and a 20 year old mistress going to Tahiti. I doubt that there is anyone believing that story, but you can find creative yo-yo’s on any street-corner. 

REALITY CHECK

  1. Did something happen to JK? I speculate that this is the case and there is nothing to support that he had any other plans then to go back to his fiancee.
  2. Can we prove that something happened? No, there are strong indications, but no evidence. And in this Turkey, the tool of Iran played a very dangerous game. It is my belief they never had anything, but Turkey wanted to please Iran and the lack of forensic evidence on the tapes as well as the fact that those tapes were never fully revealed plays towards my view on the matter. Is it not interesting that the Washington Post never demanded their release? It made all kinds of other claims, claims that lack evidence, but the release of those tapes were demanded, the same could be said for the United Nations who had their tools attack the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but presented no evidence that actually holds water.

Then we get “The pressure group Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) has accused Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies of using the Queen’s funeral as a way to – in their words – “whitewash” their human rights records.” Here we have a different situation. The CAAT (or the group of tea grannies holding a banner) as I would see it have been clear about accusing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but they never made clear loud mentions of Houthi terrorists and Iran arms supplies, did they? Here the western media has gone out of its way to keep silent regarding the actions of Iran (like drone attacks on civilian targets in southern Saudi Arabia). They gave no visibility to the presentations of Colonel Turki bin Saleh Al-Maliki who on more than one occasion gave the media the clear evidence of Iranian drones. Yet the WSJ had no problems showing the application of “Iranian Kamikaze Drones Creates New Dangers for Ukrainian Troops”, why is that? Do the stake holders and share holders like the Ukrainian side of the matter? The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been forced to fight with one hand on its back against Houthi terrorists for too long. Yet the people and the media had no issue sending Boris Johnson to Riyadh talking about cheap oil. So why would they do that? It is my personal belief that the media has done everything it could to prolong this war. An event that started 8 years ago almost to the day and could have been resolved 5 years ago, but that did not fit with the needs of stakeholders hoping to get some cash out of Iran (a speculative view) and that is not all, the captured smuggling shipments from Iran did not make the news either, so what gives?

Finally there is a stage that most ignore. These acts ‘supporting’ Iran will have a much higher cost soon enough, when that happens will the media make a true call to action and a call to answer from media stakeholders or will they silent and mute like with Martin Bashir? 

The largest folly is the Aramco attacks on 14 September 2019. It is impossible for Houthi forces to have done that, yet everyone was so eager to accept that it was a Houthi attack. To give an example. I am a goalie (ice-hockey) and I would love to be the Goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I lack the skills to be THAT good a goalie, as such Kyle Dubas (aka the Elvis Costello of the NHL), the general manager of the Maple Leafs will never put me on that spot, I am not god enough. It hurts, but that is fair. That lack of skill is essential. There is NOT ONE Houthi operative that has that skill level. The news gave us that 25 drones and missiles were used. So we either have an amateur rifleman how shoots near perfect bulls-eyes 25 times in a row, or Houthi forced found 25 operatives all getting near perfect hits in place. Such statistics are a fable, yet the media just swallowed the story and there is the problem, the media can no longer be trusted and now we see the BBC signing up for classes by Mediocrates.

There is a lot more but why bother, I reckon that certain people will not care. 

So when we see “All of which partly explain why international criticism of the crown prince is muted at most”, I merely respond

“Frank Gardner, you idiot. How much visibility have YOU given to the Iranian part of that equation? How much evidence did you test and read? Or was this just a hatchet paint-job so that the CAAT gets one more mention?”

Is Saudi Arabia a perfect nation? I doubt it and it would be for Muslims to give voice to that, I am not Muslim and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a Muslim monarchy. I reckon from my side, the most perfect nation in the world is likely to be New Zealand and Canada is in that top 5 as well. Two Commonwealth nations and they got their with the guidance of Queen Elisabeth 2. It will not have been directly, but she was a guiding force. The rest have a lot to answer for and this BBC article shows us that the UK has its own media skeletons all over its bloody field. 

This might be a decently valid article and their might be some concerns regarding the presence of some people according to others, but her Majesty kept global peace (for the most) for over 70 years. I think we can all shut the hell up and let the international dignitaries pay their last respect.

Did I oversimplify the matter?

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 17, 2022 · 17:40

The option in the open

There is always an option, there is always a way. Those are the words we hear, those are the advice we are given. But one mans option is another man’s abyss, or another man’s vacant lot of nothingness. Options are what WE see, not directly the options another person observes or recognises. I got into that frame, not be looking at my IP, but at watching a movie. I was watching the bluray of Death on the Nile, the 2022 remake by Kenneth Branagh. I watched the first movie which I personally did not like as the previous Murder on the Orient Express (1974) with Albert Finney. Still, I was curious and I was blown away. This version was much more overwhelming than the previous version with Peter Ustinov. Now this is not about the actors, they are all top notch. There are two reasons, the first is the curse all the Agatha Christie books have. Any whodunnit remade will lead to the same guilty party. It is not her fault. She never banked on people remaking the same book again and again. The second part is that the music is overwhelming in the remake. It is magnificent and gives the movie added life. Kenneth Branagh really outdid himself and lets be fair, does anyone mind watching Gal Gadot as much as possible (for as long as we can)? No, I really loved this second remake. 

This got me thinking, there are so many great or underestimated movies. I have no idea how players like Netflix overlooked them. In 1989 we were given The Salute of the Jugger. It was an awesome film. I liked the story, I liked the setting. If there is one complaint, than it is the fact that we all got it in 104 minutes, the US cut it back to 90 minutes. But this dystopian movie starring Rutger Hauer, Joan Chen, and Vincent D’Onofrio gave us an interesting story, one that would much better fit a mini series of 1 hour over 4-6 episodes, and lets be clear Netflix could use a few more mini series. We need more embossed storylines, a story that better represents the books they came from. I could not find the reference to any book, yet the setting of 9 cities. The reference to the sport, the dog skulls and the interactions of rural and cities beckons a much larger story and therefor a much larger stage. Possibly even 6-8 one hour stories, perhaps even more. Yet that would be up to whomever writes the remake. You see, in those years we all listened to critics and whatever THEY didn’t like too many others would not like either. That needs to stop and perhaps it is a great legacy for an actor like Rutger Hauer to make, to leave us a treasure overlooked in 1989. I just hope we can leave his impression, like the painting of a ruler of of one of the nine cities, accidentally looking a lot like a youthful Rutger Hauer. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,