Category Archives: Finance

January 15, 2015 · 20:54

Exploiting mobile users

Is it not amazing that in an age, where we all move into areas where things getting cheaper and cheaper, we see that mobile phones is the one article that remains into the top priced push. Yes, when you move to the post office, or to some ‘budget’ place, the only ‘cheap’ phones are the ones that are the ones that are basically in the bottom part of functionality, phones that have less than 6 months of decent quality usage before Google pushes for more updates, more android and the applications will add towards the maximum RAM.

This is my situation, I got a new phone in 2012, I needed a new one, and the one I bought was ‘decently’ priced at $299. I never regretted buying it. It still has a good screen, I have one game and a few applications, yet over the last two months the push has shown that when I have more than 2 apps running (including the dialler) the lag, the jittery screen, it all starts getting slightly wobbly, so I lock the phone, unlock it, remove all apps except the one I need and it all works fine again. Yet, my phone needs replacing not due to the hardware, but purely due to software. Looking around has been quite the revelation.

Looking at those options, I see that the $99 phones are less and less useful (specifically the smartphones). So as I started to dig, I am seeing a new change. If you want to find the price of a phone, it is often harder and harder to get clear pricing, more important, we can find less and less about how prices were and how the prices devolve.

Is it not strange that there is such an abundance of buy now places, but less and less information on the devices, the price and how long these articles are set to be for? The mobile is the new field for the technological armistice race and there are too many parties willing to make certain that the people cannot be properly informed. You see, this field has evolved for control. In the 90’s and the decade after that, it was relatively simple to get information on what graphic card one needed, which soundcard would be best. But not unlike the gaming industry, the information places are given less and less information. Is it not strange that Ubisoft (a gaming company) did not give a testing sample of Assassins Creed Unity weeks in advance? Especially when literally billions are riding on it? This is at the core of the issue, at the core of some ‘technology’ pages that are less and less information, more and more ‘typed’ marketing, not for their readers, but for the prospective buyers of the product. The media has been changing more and more and many readers remained asleep whilst reading. I must admit that the last description might not be accurate. Many will not realise this faltering until they are confronted with the fact of change (not unlike me).

If you’re looking for a console you can Google ‘PS4 price console’ and you will get pricing information on the very first page, even price drops, all localised. For mobiles it is a jungle out there and no matter how many ‘suddenly’ appear, when you want to look for that actual good deal (like the ZTE ZMAX) you will suddenly find that no one has such a good deal in stock (finding a decent site is also a challenge). They have cheaper (ad therefor useless) smartphones (I will dwell on that shortly) and of course the really ‘up to date ones’ which are not that much better than a ZTE, but will cost you 275% – 450% more. It is all about the money in the end!

You see those who choose Android (like me), will now learn what the cost of alleged abandonment is. (at http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-stops-providing-patches-for-pre-kitkat-webview-abandons-930m-users/), we saw early this week that Google is now stopping the update of the older versions. This means that as we see the headline ‘Google stops providing patches for pre-KitKat WebView, abandons 930 million users‘. This includes the bulk of the people who bought their mobile before Q4 2013. What a fine android web we weave!

You would think that it is a simple matter for updating, don’t you. Well that is not entirely correct. In my case Motorola was pretty decent in giving the information, however, when I press system update, it tells me that I am up to date, so I cannot get beyond 4.1.2 Android. This is now at the heart of several problems.

Who knows what version they are on and more important, when we consider the following text from ZDNet “In other words, the next time a researcher or hacker finds a way to exploit WebView on pre-KitKat Android, Google won’t create a patch for the vulnerability itself. However, if anyone else builds one, Google will incorporate those patches into the Android Open Source Project code“, more important, as long as this is not fixed, an increasing population will be at the mercy of forced upgrades through buying new phones outright, or chaining themselves to a new contract.

There are two sides. In fairness, should Google keep on fixing their ‘flaws’ ad infinitum? Yet on the other side, if my 2 year old mobile is now a security risk, what on earth am I paying for? More important, in this economy we would keep on paying premium just to be connected? The math does not balance out towards the need of the user. So are we witnessing a start from smartphone, back to normal phones? Let’s face it if smartphones are charged to your account and after that abandoned to this extent, what should we do?

Some will push for Apple, but there to some extent, the danger is changed, not necessarily removed. A normal phone will less likely have these issues, or change to the new player. Even though the brand leaves (from past events) a bitter taste in my month, Samsung has taken a new direction with their mobiles called Tizen OS. The following parts are known at present “It is Linux-based platform built from Nokia and Intel’s ditched MeeGo“, open source means many views, so perhaps better patches. The fact that it is Linux based is not bad either. The fact that Tizen is using HTML5, it means that we will get a wave of content that is state of the art, slim and memory efficient (no flash needed). You can look for yourself to some results (at http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/examples-of-html-1233547), so it seems that the new road that Samsung is taking is also changing the perception that they are getting. From these upgrades, Samsung could evolve from ‘player’ to ‘top contender’. It will definitely bring the fire to the ankles of Apple, which is never a bad idea.

Tizen is not new or just a gimmick, it had been announced before and more important, it has been in development for years, yet with the Google decisions and with the issues that mobile users might be facing sooner rather than later, the timing for Tizen is pretty good and Samsung could benefit greatly, they will get additional benefit as people realise that patches are no longer coming for their less new mobiles, which will hurt consumer confidence.

If you have any doubts then the clarity from Greenbot.com should help. “Google drops Lollipop on November 3^rd2014, if you have the right device“, which makes us wonder, do I have the right device? “Maybe you don’t have a Nexus phone or tablet. Well, then the situation gets a little murky. If you have a phone purchased in the last year, odds are good that you’ll get an upgrade to Lollipop…eventually“, which gets us, what if your phone is older than one year? Then what? Which gets us the last part “Manufacturers like Samsung, LG, HTC, and Motorola have promised swift updates (typically within 90 days of release) for top devices, but those have to go to carriers to be tested before release, too“, knowing I am ‘up to date’ with my version ‘4.1.2.’ does not inspire confidence! How many people asked questions about versions of Android when they bought their phone? I am a technologist and I never gave it too much thought (other than that I wanted an Android phone). Now, it seems that my Motorola is will remain on Jelly Beans (4.1.2) and now, we have ourselves a ball game, because as this unbalanced approach is pushed from both the desire to remain free (not chained to a provider) and as the life cycle of a mobile phone is now in danger of staying under two years due to the Google changes, we now see the need to not just chastise Google, but to make it clear (actually demand) that consumers are properly informed on the limitations that they are buying at $300, if we regard that patching is done to undue the lacking security of a product sold, we get a new game where the consumer must be informed clearly in a shop regarding the purchase they make.

A costly jump that might not have been needed! This year will bring changes to the mobiles and the shops selling them, I wonder if Google considered that, or perhaps they never cared. Especially when the people get told that they will not face any issues, if they had a Nexus phone (Google’s mobile). Samsung is not without options either, as they progress towards ownership of Blackberry, they might drill into a new mobile market that revolves around data and communication security, which is another mobile hot potato, and it instantly gets them huge chunks of the financial sector for reasons not here speculated! Tactically both Google and Samsung have made brilliant moves, for the consumers not the worst move but likely a costly one this year!

Will you remain in a Google mind or move to Tizen?

Will Eva choose to try the Apple in the end?

Time will tell!

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Tagged as Android, Assassins Creed Unity, Blackberry, creative bloq, google, Greenbot.com, HTC, HTML5, Jellybean, Kitkat, LG, LINUX, Lollipop, Meego, mobile phones, Motorola, Nexus, Samsung, Tizen, Tizen OS, Ubisoft, ZDNet, ZTE ZMAX

January 14, 2015 · 11:01

By the Jewish numbers

I have been thinking a lot in regards to the Jewish population. It all started when the numbers showed how small the fraction of Muslim extremists is. Was it like the fatwa pronounced against snowman in Saudi Arabia? I am not judging on that ruling, or on the reasoning there. It seemed so odd that one religion was such a large issue to some. You see, outside of Israel and the US, the Jewish population is less than 2% of whichever nation they are in, it is 1.9% in Gibraltar, because Gibraltar counts 600 people (excluding the monkeys), which gives us less than 12 people. It is likely just one family, perhaps even two. Why is this hatred against the Jews so intense? Perhaps the thought is sedition? Anyone who ever has a Shoarma (with garlic sauce) will decide to become Jewish?

A totally random reason, but what to think of this hatred? A level of hatred (or perhaps envy), that has existed in the minds of some people for such a long time. Let’s not forget that the total Jewish population is around 15 million globally, which is less than the Dutch population, giving us 0.19% of the global population, so what gives?

It is not just the events in France that have sparked an issue regarding the safety of Jews. When we look at the Atlantic, we see a different link (at http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/will-this-time-be-different/384322/) ,

“A survey of French Muslims in 2014 found a community seething with anti-Semitism. Sixty-seven percent said “yes” when asked whether Jews had too much power over France’s economy. Sixty-one percent believed Jews had too much power in France’s media. Forty-four percent endorsed the idea of a global Zionist conspiracy of the kind described by the Holocaust-denying French Muslim comedian Dieudonne. Thirteen percent agreed that Jews were responsible for the 2008 financial crisis“. The quote is an interesting one. You see, statistics are at times like horoscopes, if the numbers fall flat, you can just ignore them. The last one on the financial crises is such a revelation, because the fact is not false (Marcus Goldman, the founder of Goldman Sachs is indeed Jewish, so is a slice of the top of Goldman Sachs), so even as this fact cannot be denied, the entire 2008 financial fiasco such a weird mention. Yes, the same involvement could be stated for the Lehman brothers. It was a twist of managed fates that kept Wall Street out of jail. Loads of the involved parties were not Jewish at all, the fact that national laws allowed for these events calls blaming the Jews even more in question. It is actually the mention “Sixty-one percent believed Jews had too much power in France’s media” that is central in all this. You see, these facts have bearing, but not in the way you might have ever considered.

If you look at different religions, we see that some are in unison, but for the most, people for the most remain at odds and in strife. The next is not a proven given, but it has shown to be correct. If we look at the old ages, we see that at times the Jews started in a place, in Munich (Germany) the first recorded name is ‘Abraham the Municher‘ in 1229, persecution through rumours and non-evidence has started from as early as 1285 (Source: Susanne Rieger), it took until the late 1700’s for levels of false persecution to diminish. When the Jewish population returned, it did so fairly quickly, and there is a weird situation linked to this. Wherever they moved to, the change was monumental.

Now the next parts are supposition and very speculative. It is my personal believe that the Jewish community is not one person, it is a united group. I have seen that the Jewish population at large is communicative almost in extremis ad infinitum. They debate and discuss everything with one another. What was then the Jewish area, now in Munich ‘the streets surrounding Gaertnerplatz in the trendy area of Glockenbachviertel are in increasing demand‘, which is a real estate quote! So as you consider my statement as reductio ad absurdum, than consider that this is not an isolated case. Amsterdam, Paris and many other cities in Western Europe have areas what was before the German culling through World War 2 to be amongst the most valuable real estates. This was not due to magic, witchcraft or crime. These people would buy a property and then take all effort to improve the house and to make the house a proper home, keeping it in perfect order. Where we would see rental properties fall into decline due to bad maintenance and greed driven choices, the Jewish houses would increase in value. In many cases (especially in Paris and Amsterdam) we see the proper optimised commercial use of any property, making it a long term asset. Now consider the Jewish population talking with each other, not at each other (as we see in many Christian places).

Weirdly enough, nowadays we share information open through social media, in those days the Jewish population did this using a Goose-feather, an ink jar and paper (aka actual communication). That trait got these people an advantage in banking, commerce and what is now regarded as media.

So is my speculation (based upon information read) so far out of synch with what might be? That is of course the question, which does not let the Goldman and Lehman family off the hook, but here we see an aggregated factor of growth that is exponential above many others. Is that the reason for the hatred? When someone internally ponders ‘the Jews’ are doing so much better then poor old lazy drinking me? If that is the view of some of these people, then perhaps they will consider getting educations and jobs instead of picketing against Jews (a subtle Westboro reference). Interestingly enough, in a Jewish family, everyone works (not unlike some Muslim families I know). That will in the end have an impact on the budget a family has and on the amount of debt that they can reduce.

Now we go back to some of the references, so even though some statements are true, are they still correct? That is the part no one can actually honestly answer. You see, they do not have too much power over the French economy, they are part of it, and many regard Natixis to be the biggest player in France, not a Jewish firm at all (as far as I can tell), so as we watch the quote of ‘found’ events, we see that in the cold light of day, against all elements the fact seemed true but they were not, neither were the facts correct.

The big issue here is anti-Semitism, by the numbers we see a correlation where bad economies seem to need scape goats, as these emotional attacks start, we must tactically acknowledge that for those people, attacking a group that represents less than 1% is an easy target, what is strange is how this can happen again and again, whilst the governments involved seem unable to stop such attacks until serious damage has already been inflicted. Yet, this is not completely correct either, when we see that in the French case it was actually a Muslim hiding the people under attack in the cooler, there we see that this one man Lassana Bathily, made all the difference in keeping the intended victims safe.

The issue goes further when we consider the Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/13/french-jewish-community-ponders-future-after-paris-attacks), where we see the following ““I’m tempted to go,” he said, referring to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s invitation on Saturday to French Jews to “come home to Israel” to escape anti-Semitism in Europe“. I very much disagree with the sentiment for two reasons. The first one is that if the Jews leave and they all move to Israel, we as a people have failed them. I believe that people when united, can and will achieve a lot more then when they are segregated and divided. We must find a way to keep our people (in a local national sense) all of them regardless of religion safe.

Yet then again, we need to learn how to stop and how to counter such hatred. Part is seen in the analyses of the people regarding Charlie Hebdo. The Guardian article states: “Amédy Coulibaly took the first steps towards terrorism in prison, but what the three had in common was growing up on the margins of French society“, here we see part of the issue as Nazi Germany grew, and now we see similar patterns after the 2008 crash. ‘The margins of French society‘ is more than just a phrase, it is a global issue. As we see the stronger and longer exploitation through big business, we see an unbalanced shape of life, so unbalanced that the mass of the people is growing resentment and require the need of scape goats to focus, the reality is that their marginalised lives came from speculators, big business and the financial industry. Sides governments all over the world were unable (partially refused) to deal with, now we see the results and this is only the beginning. As we see the facts evolve on how these events also could be seen When we take the quote “At that point, the young Kouachi, known as Abou Issen in the group, didn’t seem structured in his thinking. “He couldn’t differentiate between Islam and Catholicism” and wasn’t well educated, said the source“, we see a pattern that we have seen before, radicalisation through confusion. It is not unheard of. What is more important is the person who was connected to Amédy Coulibaly, namely Farid Benyettou. When we take the NBC quote “Farid Benyettou was sentenced to six years in prison for recruiting young Parisians for al Qaeda, including Kouachi, but since his release from jail has been training to be nurse“, we must wonder why he had such a change. Has Farid truly changed, or has he taken a vocation, where his chance to find marginalised people has a much stronger chance on finding those ready to radicalise through a marginalised world.

This is a question, not an accusation!

You see, in the way the Jews are spread (thinly) over nations, Lone wolf attacks would be devastating towards diminishing the Jewish population. The authorities would have no way to counter it and until it deals with the elements of marginalisation, they might never succeed at all. That part is not just France, that is a global issue and we need to find a solution fast, because as the economy goes at present, there is every danger that the attacks in France are only the beginning. I truly hope I am absolutely wrong here, time will tell!

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Tagged as Abou Issen, Abraham the Municher, Amédy Coulibaly, Amsterdam, Charlie Hebdo, Christianity, Community, Farid Benyettou, France, French Jews, Germany, Glockenbachviertel, Goldman Sachs, Israel, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Jewish population, Jews, Kouachi, Lehman brothers, margins of French society, Munich, Muslims, Natixis, NBC, Paris, Shoarma, Susanne Rieger, the Guardian, Westboro

January 9, 2015 · 15:25

The Cat and the Bacon

I have written about the economy on several occasions, I always proclaimed that it was pure insight as I saw it and that I do not have a degree in economy, I am an analyst. Yet today these borders of non-knowledge might get stretched a little further than previously shown. Today is all about the Euro!

I personally never believed it to be a good idea. We saw how all these politicians were proclaiming on how ‘good’ it was for the economy. Was it? You see, it might not matter for the bakery on the corner, the grocer next door or the butcher across the street. It matters to the giants of industry and how it benefits there bottom line, the extra coin for the members of the board, not for the people in the stores, that image tended to be a virtual one, it virtually did not matter at all!

I saw how the change of coin, from the Dutch guilder, things suddenly seemed to be 50% cheaper (2 guilders equalled one euro), but the math is easily made there. What those people experienced that buying a chicken on the market was 6 guilders, it became 3 euro’s, but then what? In a little less than 4 years that chicken from the same dealer ended up being 6 Euro’s. An annual 25% hike in prices. The chicken example is a little extreme and many articles did not raise that quickly. Some will mention the issues of milk in the Netherlands, but that is an issue much more complex and the Euro itself is only a small fragment there.

So, could I be wrong?

That is centre in this debate. I could be wrong, but it is very likely that we are all looking into the wrong direction. It would be nice to blame places like Greece, and they are definitely having an effect, yet the issue is not the EEC, it is more and more pointing towards America. You see, we are all in a bad shape, no one is denying that, yet in American, things have not gotten any better for a long time. Let’s face it, some people are now shooting at the police for fun, or for reasons of aggravation and despair. The people in America are suffering in many ways, but the all holier than DOW keeps on rising in addition, their currency is massively on the up, which under the issues showing, seems a little too good to be true, it an assumption, but is it fair and correct?

That remains to be seen, when we look at the Guardian, we see (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/08/euro-dollar-1999-levels-deflation-oil), the following: “Recent data for the Eurozone has proved weak, with inflation falling and unemployment rising. Italy remains in recession while France has seen consumer and business confidence wane. Only Spain and Germany among the major economies have appeared to gain in strength, though Berlin has failed to kick-start GDP growth and Spain still suffers from an unemployment rate of 25%“, these are facts, they are not in denial, but where are the results of the UK (which were not great)? You see, these facts are true, but there is more to consider (besides Greece dragging the EU down). What about Sweden and the Netherlands? Not the greatest economies compared to the big 4, but still sizeable ones, we can admit that they are all struggling, yet the fact that we see a ‘propagated’ booming economy in America needs to be addressed too.

Who statistically has a job?

When we consider an article in Forbes last August, where we see “My friend and the waitress are victims of a massive but hidden problem called underemployment. Watching falling unemployment numbers being reported at 6.2%, down from nearly 10% four years earlier, is simply misleading“, attached to a headline ‘Tackling The Real Unemployment Rate: 12.6%‘ (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/louisefron/2014/08/20/tackling-the-real-unemployment-rate-12-6/), we get to see the picture that the people are living, Wall Street is ignoring and the current administration of the US is misrepresenting. So is the Euro doing this bad, or is it dragged down by a misrepresenting nation carrying a 17 trillion dollar debt? By the way, did we not see something similar with Tesco and a few hundred millions misrepresented? How did THAT turn out?

When we see this quote in Forbes we see the real danger “741,000 discouraged workers – workers not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them – are included within the list of marginally attached people. Another 7.5 million were not considered unemployed because they were employed part-time for economic reasons. Those people are also called involuntary part-time workers – working part-time because their hours were cut back or because they were unable to secure a full-time job“. The danger is twofold, how many of the 741,000 are over 50? It seems that companies, especially those with younger, inexperienced executives are afraid to hire people with skills and know how. In regards to the 7.5 million part time workers, does that include those Wal-Mart people, who need to rely on food stamps and all kinds of other support systems? I am not debating their need, more that the owners each walked away with well over a billion in 2013, whilst its staff was on governmental food stamps. How does that ‘boom’ your economy? It almost reads like ‘gangbang’ for your buck whilst the governmental administration bends over, a lack of fairness on more than one front, one could state!

Booking a balance!

You see, the unbalance goes a lot further, the US as a nation can float its currency, this is not a bad thing, normally every nations does it to some extent, to weather a really bad time, so that business and consumer is not hit with weird spikes, it is an issue that has happened for a long time and it will continue to happen, yet the Euro does not have this privilege, these economies are set to what is done in Bruxelles (Brussels), and as such, it is likely impacted by spikes to some extent. However, as their currency is spiking downwards against the Dollar, which seems to be decently overvalued, we get a new danger that the drag will continue, whilst no one seems to be looking and the bubbled version of the US Dollar. So is my non-economic view correct, right or wrong? Yes, there are three options, because, what is correct may still not be right.

Consider, that the Euro nations are not doing so well, which is true after all, that fact does not make the dollar better does it? It is correct that the dollar looks better because the Yen and the Euro looks less good, but the economy in America is not booming, if it were, we would see a lot more people gainfully employed without the need for government support, you see, here we get to the matter on what is correct and what is right. If the US is having a virtual boom, we are judging the US on merits of misrepresentation, which by the way might not be illegal, but should an economy not be held to its cost as well? The US debt is still increasing; the people (a large amount) are not paid to a level of being self-sufficient. We see an economy that had made the thirteen amendment in 1865, there we see “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction“, in 1867 the US got the Peonage Act of 1867, where Congress abolished “the holding of any person to service or labor under the system known as peonage”, as well as specifically banning “the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise”, now this all sounds pretty clear, and having a job is not this, but when a population is forced to work for scraps, whilst still requiring food stamps, it seems that we now have an issue. no one is a slave, but under the conditions where the very rich grow their fortune at well over 30%, whilst those on average grow less than 2%, we should clearly see that the balance of fair play is no longer anywhere in sight. I am not against making profit, it is a capitalistic form that has merit, yet when we see six members of a family, each making a 9 figure number, whilst the 1% of America it employs makes less than the line of poverty, we need to ask serious questions. In addition, as we see a group where they deal in articles that are from questionable sources (at http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-prawns-thailand-produced-slave-labour), where the quote “A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats off Thailand are integral to the production of prawns (commonly called shrimp in the US) sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco“, we are confronted with a governmental issue, where it allows for profit at expense of its own industries in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. We can acknowledge that the oil spills have been detrimental to the health of the industry, but when the big players get their goods overseas, how can any economy recover, especially as these overseas players (as implied by the Guardian), can rely on profits through slave labour. This goes further than just the shrimps, other food items or clothing. It shows a disconnection from the people, you see economies are more than just behemoths, we could see them as parasitic in nature, which sounds wrong, but is actually very correct. The retailer lives off the people, but can only do so if the people can spent. It is a symbiotic relationship; it requires the host to remain alive. Large businesses have forgotten about that, they focus on where the profit is, not on the required equilibrium, so as places like India grew form a third world market into a super economy.

Cycles of equilibrium

The people outsourcing, seem to forget that its own population is every bit as important, so as that group falter, so will businesses slowly but surely. As we see that cycle progress, is it not strange that the US Economy remains booming? A nation with many people unemployed; even more people in a state of poverty; 15% in poverty, this gets us a little more than one in seven in poverty, meaning that big business is now relying on revenue based on the remaining 5 out of 7. It looks nice in a statistical model, but as the overall quality of life goes down, that group of 5 will dwindle down too, when that happens, the economy will falter in new unprecedented ways, leaving the only option that a few people walk away with all the money they can carry to their own island and the rest is left without anything. This can be read as misrepresentation as well, but is it far-fetched? that part is not a given until we see an actual economy that truly improves, which means that the poverty line descents, people will start having a liveable income, that will give rise to shops needed and more jobs created and all that opts for the US national debt to go down by a lot, something that this administration has not achieved, more important, it might take 2-3 administrations for that debt to be addressed in any way, shape or form, which only fuels the wealth of banks and financial players. If it is addressed too quickly, the poverty line could soar far further then 21%, giving an instant crises in the US that goes beyond the imaginations of many and will be one nightmare Wall street did not foresee to this extent. Yet how would that affect the Euro? Well in two ways, as the US people will become more and more desperate for jobs, suddenly the economy looks even better on our grass, but it is an ‘economy’ for the wealthy living, the rest will see a further drop in living conditions (an assumption on my side)

So as big business ties the cat to the bacon (meaning: opportunity knocks), we must wonder how these elements call for a booming economy as an economy is reliant on people spending money, buying items and none remain to do just that.

You see, there seems to be a fluctuation on what an economy is (seriously!).

The first one we see is: “the state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money“, which is what we all believe it to be, yet the second meaning “careful management of available resources“, which we can take as “offering good value for money” and “a financial saving” last there is “the cheapest class of air or rail travel“. Weird or not, they all apply. I got them straight from the Google dictionary.

Now when we mash them we get: “the National state in terms of the production, the cheapest way possible, whilst advocating good value for money, whilst ensuring the highest efficiency in regards to managing our available resources, whilst optimising consumption of goods and services, ensuring the best supply of money through contribution“. Does that not sound very familiar? You see, it seems like a booming economy, if you are getting the money. The consumer is left with the option, whilst not guaranteeing a pool where such sufficient income can be maintained, almost a death pool of discontinued certainty.

So, how did we move away from the Euro? Well, I actually did not, you see, these elements have been a factor with American companies all over Europe, now consider how much taxation they did not have to make due to tax havens and specific invoicing? You see, a government is depending on its coffers to be filled so that there is a growth and continuation of an economy, whilst these corporations are now stating that this inherent side of the symbiotic relationship was not theirs to care for. Now we see and a loss of balance as well as a first glance on how dislodging an economy can have long lasting effects. As the Euro has less ‘floatation’ options and as some unbalanced it even further, we now see no options on the Euro side, whilst the Dollar has legal options to float its currency, unbalancing the amount further, the upped representation does the rest!

Blame Game

Now, it is important to see that I am NOT blaming the dollar for the Euro, yet it must be said that those behind the Dollar (businesses) have presented themselves overly good, so there is a secondary effect, whilst we see more and more often a changing scale of what is to be reported on. Let us be clear, several EEC nations have done this in the past, but the balance is now changing further and further, giving no one a clear view of what is real, we see presentations that are all a little out of whack, so as Europe starts its plan of credit easing, we will see the numbers jump, yet in what direction cannot be predicted (not by me at least), because, if investors walk away ‘en mass’, no credit easing will do any trick, if you doubt that then look at India, is it not weird that NTT DoCoMo / TaTa, the big winner of 2013/2014 suddenly wanted to dump its one billion share? Is it not strange that in this ‘booming’ economy, all are looking on the inside? Is a booming economy not about growth? So as we ‘see’ a growing economy, is that not (usually) a sign of growth? So why are the mobile providers T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon all steering clear of the Indian market that is seemingly up for grabs?

So is the US economy booming, or is it going boom-boom?

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January 7, 2015 · 21:41

As we judge morality

This all started a few days ago, I was unsure what to think, for the most I remain in a state of disbelieve. I was also one of the last to come on board on the train regarded Rolf Harris. I could not believe his guilt, even now there is a sense of surrealism here. You see, when we see this larger than life types, their lives and fame, we see a life that we expect to be glitter and jet set. These people are in positions were we expected that women would throw themselves at them. In that regard we often see those who are beyond normal wealthy. Especially when we see men like that, who look a lot better than the average Joe Worker (like me). Why would they bother with certain acts, when women want these men all the time? You see, as you read this, this is all assumption. It is a view that me, myself and many of my fellow man believe to be the truth.

So when we see accusations against a person like Jeffrey Epstein, until he had been found guilty, we tend to regard them as the fantasies of a woman trying to score it big.

But the Law taught me to look at all sides, to be critical and to remain on the fence.

When we look at the Epstein case, we see that the press is all over the innuendo, but what about the facts? In addition, the circumstantial facts involved should count to some extent too. The smoking gun had the affidavit which would be really nice, but now, I can only get the first page to load, the rest is no longer there. Fortunately, ABC News had the goods (at http://abcnews.go.com/images/WNT/Palm_Beach_Records_Epstein.pdf). This report is more than just a smoking gun, even if there is one, perhaps more than one event where (as stated in the affidavit) that the girls claimed to be 18, there is at least one that mentioned that she was 16, now we have ourselves a game of balls!

Florida Statutes, § 794.05 (at http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0794/Sections/0794.05.html), gives is the issue that it is statutory rape. A child who is at least 16 years of age and less than 18 years of age cannot consent to sexual activity if the defendant is 24 years of age or older, at least one girl has stated that he was 16, he was very much beyond 24 (almost a quarter of a century), however, the plot thickens by a lot after this, you see, when we look deeper, via for example www.findlaw.com, we see the following: “To prove a rape offense, a prosecutor must establish each of the elements for sexual battery given by state law. As required by the Florida statute on sexual battery, the prosecutor must show that the defendant engaged in oral, vaginal, or anal penetration of the victim with a sexual organ or another object. Alternatively, the prosecutor must prove a union by the defendant’s sexual organ with the victim’s mouth, vagina, or anus“, if you reread the affidavit after knowing this, then the report present itself to be a manifest of what a man can get away with, knowing he is doing something wrong, even though there was penetration at least with one of the women, the document reads (implied as how I read it) as the work of, not as he himself states as a predator, but as a manipulator. I actually cannot conclude what is worse; did these victims consider that they were meeting not with a ‘sugar daddy’ but with a masterful manipulator? When we consider sentencing guidelines (at http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/sg_annual/0001/intro.html) that a second degree felony gets you a hotel ‘Iron Bars’ stay for up to 15 years, his 18 months seem extremely light under these conditions, even with the top lawyers he was able to afford. However, when we look at the statistics when we continue the Florida DOC pages, we see that his sentence falls within the 45% that were convicted for the same crime severity, 30% got up to 2 years more than that, yet, this all falls into a field where less than 25% went to prison and over 50% got probation, so as I see it that he did not get anything ‘lighter’ then implied by the maximum punishment, through his wealth he could have ended up on the probation group.

All this happened after an investigation of 11 months; now we get to accusation regarding Prince Andrew in the Guardian and several other papers (at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/06/palace-prince-andrew-links-jeffrey-epstein). You see, there is something seriously wrong here, which is why I was happy that the internet has so much, including the affidavit in PDF form, which several sources had for some time. The quote “claims made last week in a Florida court by Virginia Roberts, a former masseuse employed by Epstein, that she was forced to have sex with the Duke of York over 10 years ago, as well as the Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz“, now becomes central in all of this, especially in light of the affidavit by the Miami Police. The document shows (as I see it) a manipulator, one that never held anyone against their will, and who paid each girl/woman involved. This all looks wrong, a manipulator would not resort to violence, in addition, there is nothing indicating any indecent act EVER by Prince Andrew.

The issue takes on another turn entirely when I read some of the news as portrayed by ‘journalistic’ sources. You see, the headline ‘Virginia Roberts’ new lease on life after escaping from billionaire sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein‘ reads mighty strong in the Sydney Morning Herald on January 6^th 2015, as well as some of the headlines as we see the Daily Mail in the UK, yet when we see the quote “Virginia Roberts was allegedly kept as a sex slave by Wall Street financier Jeffrey Epstein and was forced to have sex with the Duke of York” we should look at all the angles. Yet, these so called newspapers are all about the emotion and little about the facts. Is it not weird that it took me less than 15 minutes to find the affidavit, and find that the officer involved Detective Joe Recarey, is now a retired police officer, still working and he is also on LinkedIn. Did anyone talk to this man? When someone is on a case for this long, is this distinguished (80 commendations), you might want to consider being an actual journalist and look into the matter, especially when it is about a member of the Royal family, or am I oversimplifying things again (as I usually tend to do)?

If we consider the ‘allegations’ by the Mayor of London (Boris Johnson), the man with a hairstyle not unlike Donald Trump had the following to state: “Prince Andrew, let us be very clear, is a guy who does a huge amount of unsung, unheralded work for this country. People go on and on about air miles and so on. But I’ve seen that guy get out there and sell this country, try and help British firms get business around the world“, that is one side of him, we can all agree that his connection to Epstein would be a bad idea, so when we read more Daily Mail junk with the headline ‘Prince Andrew’s billionaire paedophile friend given permission to land private jet at RAF base for visit Sandringham‘, we might all get a little unnerved, yet suddenly the small fact emerges: “The flight log of Epstein’s Gulfstream revealed it touched down at RAF Marham on December 7, 2000, before he was hosted by the Andrew at the Queen’s Norfolk residence“, which was half a decade BEFORE the Epstein case started, so is this just more junk and badly investigated trash, which relies on circulation through innuendo.

It is somewhat sickening to see that the press might be the fuel for falsely alleged trials and claims. Yet, I must also be aware that I need to remain on the fence as fair and as balanced as possible. The question becomes: “How much contract has there been between Jeff Epstein and prince Andrew since the conviction of Jeff Epstein?” there is no answer in any of the articles as I saw it and the allegations are about events more than a decade ago, which would have made it important, for any level of reliability to talk to former detective Joe Recarey, interesting that no one either tried this (and reported on the attempt) and no view from that side was given, it seems to me that someone investigating this for such a time might have interesting sides to show, but that might also immediately show the innocence of Prince Andrew, which calls to question the motivation of the press. Are they just about revenue and the ‘excitement’ factor, or are they about properly informing the readers. I will let you decide, but the fact that I got you some of the facts in less than one hour should also give light to work that these papers produced.

How the case progresses will remain an unknown for some time. I cannot judge on hearsay and all this might not reveal any valid levels of evidence, or they might, time will tell, yet the fact that all this comes to light almost a decade after the conviction of Jeff Epstein is what I personally regard to be a factor too. It is my personal believe that the claim would have had a lot more weight if it had been done either when the trial was on, or soon after the conviction, not a decade later. Yet when we consider the Sydney Morning Herald in the article that does offer something (at http://www.smh.com.au/world/why-the-prince-andrew-accusations-are-surfacing-now-20150105-12hz27.html), we should consider the following: “the US Attorney who agreed to the plea deal with Epstein now appears to believe it was too lenient“, which cannot be denied, yet the statistics as offered by the DoC showed that 65% of the people in this category got this sentence (if I read this correctly at http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/sg_annual/0001/desclevels.html), we see that over two years, around 45% got such a verdict (offense severity 6), whilst over 50% ended up with probation. My issue with statement “Prince Andrew’s relationship with Epstein is well known and has been a source of controversy” is that I have found no links to their ‘relationship’ after his trial, there is every indication that their paths might have crossed, but if we accept the statement by Boris Johnson, then there is every chance that the Prince will enter a room filled with billionaires, which (likely) means that less reputable billionaires will be present. If we limit a person by who might be there then we can pretty much end the option of doing any business, so if this is about morality, then try to visit Cannes next year, you will likely meet several dealers in narcotics, weapons, at least one chemical weapon dealer and possibly people who used to supply Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. So will you go to Cannes and shake hands with Bruce Willis, or will you stay at home and watch a DVD?

False morality is a state of delusion and morality often relies on false believes; so when we judge it should be on facts, in this case we see a lot of articles and many of the facts there are absent, misstated or severely out of date, why is that?

Palm_Beach_Records_Epstein

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January 6, 2015 · 11:09

Implosions

An interesting article hit the Guardian this morning; it is another decent piece by Zoe Wood. The article does leave me a little wondering on what is either wrong with me, or with everyone else. You see, I feel like a Ghost Rider, driving on the right lane on the M11 from Cambridge to Stansted Airport. The radio is warning me to look out for a Ghost rider, I am wondering how crazy the BBC dude is as I am seeing dozens of them all in the wrong lane.

That is the feeling you need to keep into mind when we look at the article ‘Bank Fashion collapses, putting 1,500 high street jobs at risk‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/05/bank-fashion-collapses-1500-high-street-jobs-at-risk). You see, when we consider ‘young’ fashion retailer, 84 stores, whilst we see at Parliament UK “The unemployment rate (the proportion of the economically active population who are unemployed) for 16-24 year olds was 16.6%“, then we should ask ourselves whether this is such a stretch at all. Yes, we can see that the curve of young employed is lowering, but almost 1 in 5 is a huge group to miss out on. And let’s face it, not all will buy at Bank either, so the question remains, is this such a worrying step? Should we ask why the group did not trim down its size long before this? The quote ““Bank has struggled in a highly competitive segment of the retail industry and has been loss-making for a number of years,”” only adds to this amazement of not trimming. In my (possibly incorrect) view, I wonder whether this group wagered with the existence of 50 shops by not getting rid of 34 of them. The number is arbitrary and highly randomly generated, but you get the idea. Did some people bet on better time for their possible commission and were they as such willing to pay a dangerous game with the 50 shops that might have been saved? In addition, what formula change might have given them a broader perspective? I am not telling, merely asking.

So we see that the previous owner (JD Sports) did coral the wagons when they sold the Bank Fashion part with the part “JD Sports’ executive chairman, Peter Cowgill, said at the time that the sale of Bank was in the “best interests of the group” and that he expected the deal to result in a “substantial recovery” of an intercompany loan“. It makes perfect tactical sense. Yet when we see the earlier statement “In a statement to the stock exchange announcing the sale to Hilco in November, JD Sports said Bank had made a loss of £8.1m in the year to 1 February 2014 and had gross assets of £51.7m at that date“, we must wonder what made Hilco decide to buy it in the first place. So less than a year ago it had made a loss of £8.1m, which is fine, but who expects to turn this around within 18 months in a time of low economy should be willing to answer a few questions to a panel of economic boffins. In my personal view I would set up a second meeting with this person and a mental health review board 30 mins after the economic meeting, as it might be an interesting second interview to say the least.

Fashion Bank might be the visible one today, but it has not been the biggest one or the only one. A less clear view is the reasoning behind Blockbusters, how was it to be turned around by Gordon Brothers? I am not judging them, perhaps they had a changing formula that might have worked, there will always be a different look on how firms versus equity firms look at their new baby and shape it to be a return on investment to some extent, in addition that blockbusters catered to a much wider audience, giving additional possible solutions that might have been backfiring, it is just speculation.

No, going back to the Bank group, or those behind it. Why was the ‘transfer’ made? I mention transfer, because is that not what it is, someone takes hold of a loss making firm. Who answers the questions on the strategy of buying something that is losing you money, whilst you remain using it in the same field. When you buy a car with a broken engine, you fix either the engine, or you replace it. No matter what you decide, fixing it will take time. That part is an absolute given; I just wonder how the rationale went for something that is supposed to get turned around in 10months, whilst it has lost an equal of 15% of its total value. It requires deep changes; such changes take time, more than the projected 10 months here. So again I wonder, am I that Ghost Rider, or is the bulk not watching in what lane they are driving? It is not that far fetched a question!

These are not the only players, at http://www.retailresearch.org/whosegonebust.php we can see a range of players not making it, but business has always been like this, some make it, some do not and they are replaced by newer or better players. This is a phase going on way before the recessions. So why is this issue such a deal now? You see, now, we see a two pronged survival streak. In the first pass a company under threat seems to buy more businesses to seem larger, hoping that they will survive a little longer (which tends to work short term), then as this fails it all goes on the block and we see the shattering of chains, leaving with every shattered attempt 1000-2000 retail workers in need of a new job. As I see it, the problem just grows, when a worker is competing with one to two hundred working peers, they have a decent chance, you see, from the ashes others rise, but when competing with one to two thousand peers, the issue becomes almost unsurmountable, bosses love this as they can get people at 10-15% less, but the workforce becomes uneven, unfair and those bosses as they blow their own business, they tend to walk away with a pretty penny to survive the 5 years that follows. It is this level of implosion that the law should start to protect against. It is for that reason that there should be a new panel, one that does not just question what happens, but also sets a punitive change, because the man behind the purchase, addition and sell of Bank has another part. He gets to be audited and he should be revoked any right to in another company in any level of authority for at least 10 years.

The fair question becomes, is this at all fair? That is actually the question that bothers me too, because innovation and success are fine lines, it is a fine line drawn on a thick black bar called ‘failure’, which is on an even wider bar called ‘getting by’. This must be regarded too, yet is a 10 month turnaround realistic in any way, shape or form? I do not know the answer, because I am not a retail innovator and here I cannot see what some would see, but in the opposite side of the same fairness, Tesco might be regarded as an extreme, but is the case of Bank Fashion not set on an equal face of misrepresentation? You see, before Tesco went (as I see it) criminally overboard in misstating their ‘achievements’, there must have been a phase of misrepresentation (which is not a crime). Where do we see the steps where an economy becomes a better place when these acts of quick fixes and quick manipulations become the centre of business? If we look at the names in the retail research link we see stated words, words we might regard as facts, but are they? When we look at the numbers we see another case.

In that view, in 2008 on average 1380 people per company lost their job, 54 companies and 74,500 people is a big group out to find new jobs, of course it was hard on all then. On average it comes down to 9-12 people per store, which makes perfect sense, yet when we see that almost 4000 stores were shut down, we do get a skewed view on how not so good the economy is, but is that entirely true? The economy is stated to be improving and I am willing to believe that, it is just that under these skewed projections we also see a difference where the employees are getting a lessened deal with each iteration of failing companies, because as more merge and still fail, we see a stronger competitive need, which is translated into getting the same work done for less money, the standard of living falters, which gives views that getting by is almost no longer an option, which then sees us how Bank Fashion is losing money because people are not buying anything, that was the (not so) nice consequence of a lesser income, the snake that eats its own tail ends up with a hunger that does not satisfy and with an increasingly diminished size, did the players of that game consider this or were they only interested in how much they got out of it?

So as we look at possible future implosions of retail chains in 2015, consider the story of the Ghost Rider. Was I the Ghost rider, are you all Ghost Riders, or are we now considering option three, where someone removed the no entry sign and optionally replaced it with a one way sign?

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January 3, 2015 · 11:03

Slander versus Speculation

There is a lot wrong in this world, we cannot disagree with that. Soon we might see rental prices go down in London, because of Superman (the New Ecstasy), yay to those needing an apartment, being free of drugs was never so nicely rewarded! So is this speculation, or slander?

We could debate my sense in taste (many have for decades), yet in the firm juridical ground, when can speculation be regarded as slander?

That part is more and more a question when we consider the US sanctions against North Korea. Oh, and perhaps we forgot to mention that Sony Is a Japanese firm (even though the crime was on US soil), giving additional spotlights to the reasoning of certain actions. Consider the following sources. First let’s take the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30661973). Here we see sanctions against organisations and individuals. First there is “Jang Song Chol: Named by the US Treasury as a Komid representative in Russia and a government official“, then there is “Kim Yong Chol: An official of the North Korean government, according to the US, and a Komid representative in Iran” and last there is “Ryu Jin and Kang Ryong: Komid officials and members of the North Korean government who are operating in Syria, according to the US“. Now the article ends with the most hilarious of all quotes “White House officials told reporters the move was in response to the Sony hack, but the targets of the sanctions were not directly involved“.

So the White House is within this part confessing to the breach where they are targeting innocent civilians (of that crime at least)? Can anyone explain to me how this is anything less than legalised slander? Consider that if (not when, but if) they ever figure out who exactly was responsible for the Sony hack (the actual individuals involved), how the US government could be held responsible in any court of law for this. Consider this part (source was the APA of all places, at http://www.apa.org/about/gr/issues/violence/hate-crimes-faq.pdf). “Current federal law defines hate crimes as any felony or crime of violence that manifests prejudice based on “race, colour, religion, or national origin” (18 U.S.C. §245). Hate crimes can be understood as criminal conduct motivated in whole or in part by a negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons. Hate crimes involve a specific aspect of the victim’s identity (e.g., race)“. If we clinically look at the facts, then these acts are a hate crime against North Korea.

Now, let’s be fair as well. Most will not care, I reckon that the North Koreans might not even care, but this act does remain a legal transgression!

Let me show you why (because without reason, there is nothing), part one is found in yesterday’s news in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/02/sony-hackers-may-still-access-computer-systems-the-interview).

Here we see the following parts:

“Sony Entertainment is unable to confirm that hackers have been eradicated from its computer systems more than a month after the film studio was hit by a debilitating cyber-attack, a report says“

So not only has the hack occurred, it is very possible that the transgression and the damage is currently still ongoing, in addition, one of the most watched and scrutinised nations is still accessing Sony? Not one press agency is asking the questions that matter. For example, there was some visible Press Tour into North Korea (must have been around when Kim Jong-Un was elected big boss in 2011), when we saw some of the filmed events there, we saw North Korean officials in total disbelieve that a smartphone could take photographs and these people walked over Sony’s cyber security?

Now we get to the Chief Executive of Sony himself, his quote gets us the following:

““It took me 24 or 36 hours to fully understand that this was not something we were going to be able to recover from in the next week or two,” Lynton told the Wall Street Journal“

So this was not a mere grab for data, this is a system paralyses of sizeable renown, the hack was so complete, high paid executives could not get their minds around the events. So, are we still looking at North Korea? Basically this requires an evolved form of ‘stuxnet’, the hack was seemingly more complete then the stuxnet virus could achieve. We now have only three players left. Russia, China and whatever hacking organisation walks around within the US and its allied nations. How is North Korea anything else but a mere puppet for slander? Whilst some people are possibly hiding their lack of skills, and likely other people linked to all this are trying to cover up issues that have been ignored ever since the first hack of 2011 (the Sony PSN hack). By the way, I am using stuxnet as a comparison, I have zero knowledge how the transgressions was done, but we can all agree it was way beyond a normal level of sophistication.

Yes there is another scenario and I will get to that soon, North Korea is not off the hook yet!

You see we have been looking at the event, but not at the capital involvement that is two tiered at present.

“Sony’s network is expected to be fully operational within the next two months but hackers have so far released only a tiny fraction of the 100 terabytes of data they claim to have stolen“, so not only will it take months to repair security measures, the fact that the new fences are there are still no guarantee that the data remains safe.

When gets us to the first tier. Data! Someone streamed 100 Tb, which is more than just a number; it would require every PlayStation 3 on the planet to download up to 2Mb. The fact that this is not monitored, or that is got through to this extent, is a first view that this was no mere trifle event. And even though 100,000 Gigabytes seems small when compared to the PSN issues, it becomes interesting when we consider that the PSN had been hit more than once, but as those members did not all download, where did all this data get syphoned to?

Now we get to the one part that might be regarded as tier two. You see, it is not just the amount taken, which takes a good server park to store, it goes back to issues I discussed in regards to piracy and the parts I mentioned in my blog ‘For our spies only!‘ on September 26^th 2014. There I stated “in the end this is NOT about copyright, this is about bandwidth“, the big players all knew it and they were all very concerned if such events would start to get measured and logged. Now someone casually walked away with 100,000 gigabytes of data?

Before I restate, it was not North Korea, let us take a look at another article by the Guardian in that regard. The title is ‘North Korea may have hired outside hackers for Sony attack, says US‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/30/north-korea-hackers-sony-pictures-cyber-attack) and it was written on December 30^th. Now we must consider the following: “US investigators believe that North Korea most likely hired hackers from outside the country to help with last month’s cyber-attack against Sony Pictures, an official close to the investigation has said“. The operative word is ‘believe‘, they just do not know. As a speculation that would be my guess as North Korea does not have the skill needed for this, not even close. By the way, those hackers might want to get paid, how will North Korea do that, or perhaps that is beyond US oversight too, because it would be a sizeable amount for something this complete.

The next part is the part that opens the discussion ““The FBI has concluded the government of North Korea is responsible for the theft and destruction of data on the network of Sony Pictures Entertainment,” it said in a statement“. The first question: What evidence? As stated before, North Korea is lacking in many ways, the fact that they hacked past Sony to this extent, whilst at present no guarantee can be given that the systems are secure at all, whilst North Korea has been watched 24:7 for a long time now gives rise to the demand of evidence showing the guilt of North Korea. So, they are seemingly better than the cyber divisions of both Russia and China? I am not buying it, in addition, the fact that the article implies that outside help was engaged for a hack this thorough leaves us with two thoughts.

If true, where is the real balance of power in cyberspace, because this now implies that North Korea is a real player, even though no one (including people a lot more intelligent than me) have concurred that North Korea does not count when it comes to the internet and cyberspace.
If false, what incompetence is the US hiding from us all and is that not the true crime?

Consider this quote (from the Guardian article too): “Some private security experts have begun to question whether Pyongyang was behind the Sony cyber-attack at all. The consulting firm Taia Global said the results of a linguistic analysis of communications from the suspected hackers suggested they were more likely to come from Russia than North Korea. The cyber security firm Norse said it suspected a Sony insider might have helped launch the attack”

I cannot disagree with Taia Global, as this could be Russia hitting back at US sanctions, but that would be speculation on my side, I also very much agree with Norse. Consider that if someone walks into a bank vault and it is empty. There was no sign of break in, the doors were not forced. At this point the police and the FBI will initially look at ‘the insider’ plot. It makes perfect sense. To get past the Sony server parks to this degree someone was giving aid in some way. Initial passwords, the network structure, because if that was not the case there would be a lot more logging evidence to giver clear view whether North Korea was guilty (or not involved).

Mark Rasch hits the nail on the head with this quote ““I think the government acted prematurely in announcing unequivocally that it was North Korea before the investigation was complete,” said Mark Rasch, a former federal cybercrime prosecutor. “There are many theories about who did it and how they did it. The government has to be pursuing all of them.”” there is the crux, the mention of theries on who did it. Even if it is outside help, Russia would still make more sense, the Russian Mafia could be the front for cashing in on selling the data, they pay commission to the people ‘hurt’ through US sanctions, they are looking at the least likely suspect because of a comedy, one that I (and many others) had not even heard of before these events.

It is the last quote that is food for thought from Kevin Mandia of Mandiant “Mandia, who has supervised investigations into some of the world’s biggest cyber-attacks, said the Sony case was unprecedented. “Nobody expected when somebody breaks in to absolutely destroy all your data, or try to anyway, and that’s just something that no one else has seen,” he said”

That part is not entirely true, I remember the DBase virus of 1988, I remember some people who had fallen victim to them, a garble parser that does not show until the virus is removed, it leaves your data garbled from that point forward. There was also a data virus in the 80’s. I forgot the specifics, but whilst most viruses would attack ‘.com’ and ‘.exe’ files, this one would attack data files, until that day a truly scary moment. So, it is not entirely unprecedented. Consider, if you copy someone’s data, the best sale is to sell it to the competitors, yet, what happens if the owner no longer has that data, does that not drive up the price? Yet, it is bad tactics, to copy in secret and resell it all makes perfect sense, the fact that these events happened, whilst Sony IT, the Cyber divisions of the FBI and others are not able to track the events is something very novel. It is a first to this degree, do you now understand why it makes no sense to accuse the one nation where we see this as their highlight: “Aug 6, 2013 – North Koreans hungry for tech skills are buying up used desktops on the black market, these desktops smuggled in from China have become a much sought-after item in North Korea“, this is the nation that thwarted one of the biggest cyber power players?

People please wake up. The question becomes what was real? I call my version insightful speculation. I have been involved in IT since the 80’s, this level of hacking requires serious system skills with in depth knowledge of all layer one components (hardware layer), if we ignore the inside job part, this takes North Korea out of the loop, it also removes a massive amount of hackers of the table too. It requires the skills we would require to see from people at the NSA and other high tiered cyber firms. From these facts I come to three options:

The hackers are a new level of hacker with the ability to get past the security of nearly any large firm and government data system.
Sony has been criminally negligent and the US is willing to ‘aid’ this Japanese firm for a price.
A simple inside job (possibly even a disgruntled employee) with links to organised crime.

Please feel free to give me a valid fourth alternative.

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January 2, 2015 · 10:54

Misrepresentation

That was the first word in my mind when I looked into the Guardian seeing the following headline ‘NHS cancels 3,000 operations in two December weeks‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/28/nhs-cancels-3000-operations-in-two-december-weeks), it is not the only NHS story in the Guardian and to be fair, there has been an awful lot of bashing of the NHS, not entirely in an unfair way, but it has been in a very misrepresented way.

I have written about the NHS a few times, with the main reason that whatever hits the UK, will hit Canada, Australia and perhaps even New Zealand, later if not sooner. The small inserted text “The figures, highlighted by Labour” is entirely an issue too. Perhaps the Guardian might also want to illuminate that part of all this is DUE TO the actions of Labour, not just illustrated now by Labour. It all starred in the age of Blair, perhaps not the most unknown Prime Minister of the UK (1997-2007), followed up by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown who continued the mess from 2007 to 2010.

So why blame them?

Even though the project started in 2002, during these three administration cycles, that project was blown in access of well beyond 10 billion with nothing to show for it. 10% of that fund could have prevented well over 80% of all current NHS issues. So, I will state that Labour might not have started this mess; they definitely were in the midst as it got bungled again and again. When we consider the September 2013 article (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn), where we read “CSC’s contracts could not be cancelled because a legal challenge by the company may well have succeeded, the report claimed“, we can see that this issue was bungled in several departments, the IT branch not being the smallest one.

Yes, we know, we see and we all feel that any NHS system costs us, but this fiasco is beyond the entire budget of the Ministry of Transport for 2015, so we can say that there are issues. Whatever we will hear in defense regarding how things must move forward, the current administration is still cleaning up the mess of Labour, best way they can (with emptied coffers), so the sanctimonious highlighting by Labour (not unlike the current acts of Labour in Australia), should be looked at with some contempt. When the previous landlord sells the garage, he does not get to remark on how less ‘clean’ the car is, when he had removed the shelter in the first place.

When we see the quote ““To reduce pressures on hospitals and to keep a flow of patients coming in and leaving hospital, we need to manage the number of available beds more efficiently. To achieve this, we need to reduce unnecessary admissions and visits to A&E and improve community care.”“, we should add to that that the system was meant to be better by having an actual system. When we consider a previous made quote “Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA, says £20bn savings drive to blame, as doctors and nurses are made redundant“, we must now remember that wasting in access of £10bn for a non-working IT system has everything to do with that part. But that is only one factor.

For the next part I need to refer to a decent article in the Independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-myth-excessive-government-borrowing-got-us-into-this-mess-8601390.html). There we see the following: “In fact, government borrowing did not get us into this mess. As we shall see, the last government did not borrow excessively, whilst the recession was a consequence of overleveraged banks and the collapse of the US housing market. The banks overextended themselves in poorly regulated financial markets, indulging in high-risk lending in the belief that a housing bubble would never burst“, this is absolutely true, yet not entirely correct. consider in 2008, Gordon Brown was handed a lemon for sure, yet, the strong measures that should have been taken, like cutting back hard, especially in late 2009 onwards, were also absent. The article has a few other ‘represented’ events that are true, yet incomplete, you see, no one will deny that the banks were all at fault for the bulk of the mess, yet harsh acts afterwards were mostly none existent, moreover, many of these big wigs went home with a golden handshake a fat donation to their bank account and enough to buy a ‘St James Hamper’ for all the members of their family (Catalogue Code: 2099429 at http://www.fortnumandmason.com).

So when we see the current Labour highlights, we need to take a few more details into consideration and can we agree that those issues were absent in this article?

So when we see the very premature promise of “He pledged Labour would invest an extra £2.5bn in the NHS each year, resulting in 20,000 more nurses and 8,000 GPs“, we need to consider that the bungles under labour had costed many of them their jobs in the first place. The NHS still needs a much better IT system then it has for now and until this is completed these issues will remain, trusting labour to get the job done is really not a good idea. We could misrepresent that we currently have well over 10 billion pieces of evidence to make that case. I will let you mull over any contemplation in that direction of financial deficit.

By the way, when considering that part, we must also consider Wednesday’s article (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/31/sexual-violence-soars-uk-hospitals), there we see security issues of several levels in the Guardian, now reread the issue from December 28^th, at that point, these issues would have been clearly know. There is no mention of security or upgraded HR needs; just nurses and GP’s, so how out of touch is a three day old statement that did not consider known details at that very moment?

I see this as an out of touch Labour government that is highlighting and promising, yet the highlight is incorrect, the promise in inaccurate, perhaps even insincere and all of this in completely unrealistic (personal note: it sucks to be Labour at present). This is the view from Labour, whilst only looking at the issues that are touching the NHS, one of the most important issues that will remain around in the coming decade. I hope that the siblings of the UK (Read: Australia, Canada and New Zealand) take these thoughts into consideration, because if we ‘the Commonwealth’ in the upcoming age of IP want to survive, we need to up the game in several areas buy a lot! In this regard IP is not just a piece of software; our Intellectual Property is not just software (even though it is largely regarded as such). If we consider that the mind is the software of the brain, we need to rethink the premise that Big Business has forced us to make in the age where ‘they’ had set the target, the premise and the consequence. If we take the basic approach where ‘the Turing test is a test of a machine’s ability to conclusively show intelligent behaviour that is indistinguishable from a human being’, can we make a similar statement that ‘a system’s adherency to set and cater to a rule of definitions, which in turn allows servicing the need of a community’?

So what if we invert the current situation as we might see in the paper by Alan Turing ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence‘ around 1950. Our systems have been exceeding the ability of those computers for a long time, yet as technologists have been greed driven into a iterative release of hardware (and software), we ignored use of innovation in UNIX (or LINUX or SE-LINUX), to truly drive productivity as large players like Microsoft, to cater to profits forced business to take a step back, to be the sheep carrying the pay checks for these large corporations. So as we stare at the words of Alan Turing and as we look at the words of cognitive scientist Stevan Robert Harnad, where we wonder whether a machine can act indistinguishably, we all forgot (an implied assumption by me) about the part, ‘can a system truly cater and flexibly work under a premise of security as it caters to the need of health officials’, so that they can focus on treating and curing. A system bogged down by consultants and speculators on how it ‘must’ be, whilst ignoring the small academic innovators on how it actually could be.

Whilst dishing billions to a company with a legal challenge, we all should have looked at the future of IT as these minds were shaped at universities. The technologies required were never with the people in office now, they learned the previous iteration of technologies, the actual innovators are at university now and catering into that direction at 1% of the cost is more likely a solution then the one not delivered at present. Consider for a moment the PDF (at http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/rec-man-pol.pdf). Now, there is nothing wrong with the entire approach to the document, yet at 5.9.12 we suddenly see “Be aware when redacting Microsoft Word documents electronically by using the black highlight text tool as this process is reversible. A Microsoft Word file converted into PDF can be easily read merely by copying if from PDF back into Word” suddenly we see that Microsoft is just part of all this, a ‘simple’ formatting is now a Microsoft based guideline. Why?

At 5.18.1 we see: “A secure drive (S:drive) has been created to hold such data and staff should contact openservice@atos.net to request a secure folder“, so this goes via a French multinational IT services corporation headquartered in Bezons, France, making 10 billion in 2013? How much of that revenue is coming from the NHS, and why is this cost not going through a British company (seems like an awfully simple question to pose). By the way, one other thing to notice is that the Glossary after page 27 shows the term ‘metadata’, yet the document itself leaves the term metadata unused, which refers to Protective marking, only discussed in Appendix D, where it is mentioned to the minimised extent. Although this document should not be seen as any representation of NHS IT (the document is actually a very decent piece of work), it should leave us with several questions, we might not get an answer to, if not for the now, then definitely towards the goal the NHS must steer to if it wants to survive beyond 2015, just adding funds will not do, and the funds Labour offers are those they have no access to until after an election, which will then be the funds that are non-existent as the present shows.

So where should we look when we are confronted with these misrepresentations (as I see them)?

I am not telling, just asking!

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Tagged as Accidents and Emergency, Alan Turing, Atos, Australia, Bezons, big business, Canada, chairman of the BMA, Community, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Dr Mark Porter, england.nhs.uk, France, Gordon Brown, Labour, LINUX, metadata, Microsoft, Ministry of Transport, NHS, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Prime Minister Tony Blair, SE-Linux, St James Hamper, Stevan Robert Harnad, the Guardian, The Independent, Tony Blair, UK, UK Labour, UNIX, www.fortnumandmason.com

December 31, 2014 · 11:31

Last Clooney of the year

My idea of stopping my writing until the new year has truly been bombarded into a sense of that what is not meant to be, so back to the keyboard I go. One reason is the article ‘‘Nobody stood up’: George Clooney attacks media and Hollywood over Sony hack fallout’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/19/george-clooney-sony-pictures-hack-the-interview), which I missed until this morning. So has the actor from ER become this outspoken because of his marriage to Human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin? Nah! That would be incorrect, he has been the champion of major causes for a long time, outspoken, thinking through and definitely a clever cookie with a passion for Nespresso!

The article kicks off with a massive strike towards to goal of any opponent “George Clooney has spoken of his frustrations with the press and his Hollywood peers at failing to contain the scandal around The Interview, which Sony has pulled from cinema release as well as home-video formats“. It goes a lot deeper then he spoke it does, perhaps he fathomed the same issues I have had for some time now, some mentioned in my previous blog ‘When movies fall short‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/12/15/when-movies-fall-short/), two weeks ago.

I will take it one-step further, several players (not just Sony) have been skating at the edge of competence for some time now, as I see it, they preferred contribution (revenue minus costs) regarding issues of security. It remains debatable whether this was intentional or just plain short-sightedness, that call requires levels of evidence I have no access to.

By the way, Mr. Clooney, you do realise that this topic has the making of an excellent movie, not unlike the largely unnoticed gem ‘Margin Call‘ with Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany and Zachary Quinto.

The one quote I object to (to some extent) is “With just a little bit of work, you could have found out that it wasn’t just probably North Korea; it was North Korea … It’s a serious moment in time that needs to be addressed seriously, as opposed to frivolously”. You see, the inside job is a much more likely part. Yes, perhaps it was North Korea (requiring evidence), yet this would still not be the success they proclaim it to be without the inside information from disgruntled (or greedy) employees. In addition to the faltering security Sony has needed to ‘apologise’ for twice now (the Sony PSN hack of 2011), none of which was correctly covered by the press regarding this instance either. There was the press gap of November 2013, so we have at least two events where the press catered with silence, but at the price (read: reward) of….?

Yet the part: “He joins others who voiced their dismay at Sony’s decision, including Stephen King, Judd Apatow and Aaron Sorkin. Rob Lowe, who has a small role in The Interview, compared Sony to British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and his capitulation to Nazi Germany before the second world war“, is more than just a simple truth, it shows a fear of venue, cater to the profit. Chamberlain was from the old era and he failed to perceive the evil that Adolf Hitler always was. That view was partially shown by Maggie Smith in ‘Tea with Mussolini‘ too, yet the opposite was strongly shown in Remains of the Day, when Christopher Reeve as Jack Lewis states: “You are, all of you, amateurs. And international affairs should never be run by gentlemen amateurs. Do you have any idea of what sort of place the world is becoming all around you? The days when you could just act out of your noble instincts, are over. Europe has become the arena of realpolitik, the politics of reality. If you like: real politics. What you need is not gentlemen politicians, but real ones. You need professionals to run your affairs, or you’re headed for disaster!”

This hits the Sony issue straight on the head. Not that the Gigabytes of data are gone, but that they got access to this data at all. IT requires a new level of professionals and innovator, a lesson that is yet to be learned by those having collected Exabyte’s of data. It is a currency that is up for the taking with the current wave of executives that seem to lack comprehension of this currency. Almost like the 75-year-old banker who is introduced to a bitcoin, wondering where the gold equivalent is kept. The new order will be about IP, Data and keeping both safe. So, it is very much like the old Chamberlain and Hitler equation, we can see Chamberlain, but we cannot identify the new Hitler because he/she is a virtual presentation of an identity somewhere else. Likely, a person in multiple locations, a new concept not yet defined in Criminal Law either, so these people will get away with it for some time to come.

Yet the final part also has bearing “Clooney was one of the Hollywood stars embarrassed by emails being leaked as part of the hack. Conversations between him and Sony executives showed his anxiety over the middling reception for his film The Monuments Men, with Clooney writing: “I fear I’ve let you all down. Not my intention. I apologize. I’ve just lost touch … Who knew? Sorry. I won’t do it again.”“, personally he had no reason to be embarrassed, when your boss spills the beans (unable to prevent security), do you blame the man or the system that is this flawed?

Why has it bearing? Simple, he shows to be a man who fights and sometimes fails. He states to do better, just as any real sincere person would be, a real man! By the way, since 2011 Sony still has to show such levels of improvement. A lacking view from the people George Clooney served in a project, so we should not ignore the need to look at those behind the screens and the press should take a real hard look at what they report and on where their sources are, that same press that has not scrutinised its sources for some time. When was the last time we asked the press to vouch for ‘sources told us‘?

Consider the quote “We cannot be told we can’t see something by Kim Jong-un, of all fucking people … we have allowed North Korea to dictate content, and that is just insane“. As I mentioned in the previous blog, with the bulk of the intelligence community keeping their eyes on North Korea, why is there no clear evidence that North Korea did this? Not just the US both United Kingdom and France have access to an impressive digital arsenal, none have revealed any evidence. Consider that the École polytechnique under supervision of French defence is rumoured to be as savvy as GCHQ, can anyone explain how those three cannot see clearly how North Korea did this? So, either, North Korea is innocent and just surfing the waves of visibility, or the quote by George Clooney in the Guardian “the world just changed on your watch, and you weren’t even paying attention” would be incorrect. The quote would be “the world just changed on your watch, and those in charge do not comprehend the change“. In my view of Occam’s razor, the insider part is much more apt, the other option is just way to scary, especially as the IT field is one field where North Korea should be lacking on several fronts.

I will let you decide, have a wonderful New Year’s eve!

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Tagged as Aaron Sorkin, Adolf Hitler, Amal Alamuddin, Christopher Reeve, Criminal law, Data, ER, George Clooney, hollywood, Human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin, IP, Judd Apatow, Kevin Spacey, Maggie Smith, Margin Call, Nazi Gemany, Nespresso, Neville Chamberlain, North-Korea, Paul Bettany, Paul Bettany and Zachary Quinto, Remains of the Day, Rob Lowe, Sony, Sony PSN, Stephen King, Tea with Mussolini, the Guardian, The Interview, When movies fall short, Zachary Quinto

December 30, 2014 · 14:42

Fur ball?

OK, I thought I was done for the year, you know, the last article when I threw a little lob ball in a less serious approach to reporting events. However, that part threw me a little fur ball, almost like coughing up the Cheshire cat.

It all started with the Jerusalem Post today, at least that is when I noticed the message. The title states: ‘Israel expects world community to oppose Palestinian efforts at UN, Netanyahu says‘ (at http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israel-expects-world-community-to-oppose-Palestinian-efforts-at-UN-Netanyahu-says-386058), true, there are issues with the entire UN debacle to some extent; my emphasis is regarding the use of ‘some’. You see, as much as I oppose the entire anti-Semitic approach towards Israel. Having a strong anti-Palestinian view seems equally wrong; however, Palestine has created this issue whilst condoning whatever Hamas did to the largest extent, which is completely unacceptable either, none of those actions make sense. The quote “Israel will oppose conditions that will endanger our future” is very much central into this. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is very correct in that statement. Hamas has always and remains ‘dedicated’ to wiping out Israel, which beckon the thought why the EEC courts would rule against giving Hamas the ‘terrorist’ label. We could argue and speculate on how this is even acceptable. Did this grow out of fear on the Islamic state presence in both Gaza and Sinai? The fact that they are growing in Libya and even in other parts of North Africa is a nightmare scenario coming true (at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/27/islamic-state-opening-front-in-north-africa/). There have been unconfirmed reports of Islamic State in Algeria, but if so, if they could start getting any level of hold in Morocco, then they are just a footstep away from Spain. That should scare the EEC plenty, they have no funds left to manage any event, and giving up Israel means that they get a little time to ‘clean up’ their border issues. This would be a step that is delusional in many ways. You see, Israel remains essential to balance in the Middle East. The Economic Judges took little notice of that part of the equation; just on the formality of what a terrorist is, (apparently blowing up Sbarro filled with civilians is not a terrorist act). By the way, did anyone notice how there dos not seem to be any paper explaining the formality in that legality? Just the fact that is was ‘a formality’.

The second quote is the one that seems to be a little debatable: “Netanyahu said that Israel and western civilization were under attack from Iran and Islamic radicals, and that this attack also included Palestinian efforts to impose a solution that would endanger Israel’s security and place its future in danger“, one part should be (as I see it): “under attack from extreme supporters within the Iranian government and Islamic radicals“, which would be more correct. I do not believe all Iranian (at present) are like that, yet open support from Iran towards Hamas has been seen, these military elements seem to get some political protection, which proves my point (to some extent), yet I am not certain (or there is at least a decent level of doubt) that it does not blanket all political Iran as I see it. The fact that President Obama announced the possibility of an American Embassy in Tehran is not a bad thing, but these developments should be closely watched, because there is an issue. It is not the fact that this meeting was with Indiana Governor Mike Pence. The act that he is a Republican and that this meeting was absent of Democratic heavy weights might be fuel for speculation were the current Democratic administration stands. Especially as the White house was unwilling to confirm or deny it stance towards Israel. This has all the makings of a political issue that should be a moral one. Israel remains under siege from rockets on a nearly daily basis, it seems that people forget how the US reacted when there was some demolition going on in New York close to the corner of West Street and Liberty street. Let us not forget that this was ONE event. Israel has remained under attack for decades. Israel now has two generations under attack from rocket fire. These events cannot be compared, but perhaps the Americans can remember their anger on September 12^th, which is the feeling Israel has had for a long time. It wants to survive plain and simple. It’s neighbour will continue to attack Israel, whilst Israel wants to survive, yet, in fairness, I must look towards the other side too. I believe there can be a Palestine WITHOUT Hamas. That is an option, but Hamas does not want it, it wants to lead and to do that, it must remove Israel. It is not a puzzle, it is a simple equation, one denies the existence of the other solution, so I must side with Israel and as such, as long as there is Hamas, there can be no Palestine. A situation now worsened with the existence of Islamic state in that area.

There is another view that I must bring forth. I am not sure if I can agree with it as there are a few parts that touch on items I never looked at (it is not a small document at http://www.academia.edu/5145129/Gunning_-_The_Conflict_and_the_Question_of_Engaging_with_Hamas_in_EUISS_CP124_European_Involvement_in_the_Arab-Israeli_Conflict), but it has views that are not invalid. As such, I call to attention to the following part “They could, for example, spell out the rewards that would be forthcoming for a new unity government that would share responsibility for delivering basic services and the rule of law in both the West Bank and Gaza“, this is found on page 41. I am not stating that this is happening, but when we consider the events, it is not that far a stretch to see that this might be part of a path that the EEC is currently treading. If so, they will soon see the other side of a terrorist organisation. It remains nice and talkative as long as steps in their direction are made; when that stops when THEY need to show progress there will be delays, miss-communication and other events. Then those big business judges will see innuendo towards ‘give us the rest or else‘, then what? When THEIR ego is in play, what will they decide then? Let us not forget that they are gambling with the existence of the state of Israel. When they are told, there are 10 solutions to this and ‘no’ is not an option, whilst they contemplate what the other 8 options are, when they suddenly realise it was a binary question with a ‘no’ and a ‘yes’, the other 8 solutions never existed in the first place, then what? They might not have pulled the trigger, but they are skating towards the end of Israel for the simple comfort of mind that never existed. You see, terrorists are extremists, they only cater to the view of ‘self’, with no regard of any other view. Israel is trying to survive, plain and simple, a war that continued from 1945 onwards.

Yet, there was also a spark of visibility (in other areas), that gave me pause to consider other dimensions. Not in regarding to what goes boom, but in another direction. In the same way that we look at the EEC decision of Hamas, there is a Jewish issue that the Jerusalem post shows, which gives us another part of this cloak. It is seen at http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Rabbi-Meir-Mazuz-responds-to-Rabbi-Cohens-attack-on-Yishai-385989. As we see a needed separation of politics and Law, we see an equal need to separate state from church (as many have always seen it in the US and other places). The quotes were “Rabbi Shalom Cohen, he should be well, is a great Torah scholar, a righteous man and a great intellectual, but he does not come down to the people and, therefore, he does not understand the common people”, “He has never held public office and served most of his career as a rabbi in yeshiva and a yeshiva dean, not as a halachic arbiter dealing with the questions of Jewish law that are brought to senior rabbis for a ruling” and “Mazuz seemingly referenced one of Cohen’s recent outbursts in which he said during a prayer service at the Western Wall for the welfare of IDF soldiers during Operation Protective Edge that Israel did not need an army because “It is God almighty who fights for Israel.”“. Now I am not debating the issues as they are, I feel not qualified to do so, but there are issues as they have always been in almost any religion. I would not elect a Rabbi to political office, for the same reasons I would not vote for the election of a Catholic in that same category, each having a slight radical, absolute view. A woman’s ‘right to choose’ abortion would end pretty much immediately, also, there would be a diminished view for defence and an increase or humanitarian needs and diplomacy. Yet, Diplomacy without military power could be regarded as either pointless, or useless. Diplomacy requires a stick to fight with when ‘the’ word is ignored. It is counterproductive when we know that the stick remains ignored and the diplomatic view is ignored completely when we know that there is no stick in the first place. This is the damage that Julian Assange created, which too many ignored. The anti-American league had a field day when they saw WHERE the US had made commitments, knowing where the stick was, toppled many American diplomatic endeavour, whilst they remained in the dark where the other sticks were. That view is only emphasised when we see the Jewish elections. How can the people be served without their military need for defence? Is that not counter to the Torah? If we know that the IDF abides by what is seen as “The Torah establishes the boundaries of what is permitted and forbidden in war for both individual and for society“, which gives us how Hamas waged war, yet the ‘legalised’ view of the EEC disregarded that overall view and reacted to, what I regard to be an economic view of judgement, which gives us the escalating issues. The added incentive here is that no one has actually give any visibility on how the ruling was made, on what legal premise is was founded, is this not strange too?

So, as we consider on who makes rulings on how judiciary choices are made, we must consider that the players have their own agenda. Whether we should consider how the law is seen (by some) and when we see how economies ad terrorists make decisions, in a morally biased way how, is any of it regarded as legal? Is there a boundary between those who fell from a rocket and those who fell through economic ‘treason’? How does that reflect differently on the victim? There is a famous quote we see Lee Marvin make in the movie ‘The Big red one’ (one of my five all-time war movies). There he states “We don’t murder; we kill“, I am certain that it did not matter to the one whose live we end, only to our own morality to pull the trigger. A morality a terrorist or a stockbroker for that matter does not seem to have.

You see, the sniper kills (or murders) for the protection of others, the terrorist and stockbroker acts for the wealth (or survival) of self at the expense of (all) others, elements of the same sides of two different coins.

So as the fur ball coughs up a Cheshire Cat, we must worry for the future, we all seem to disregard certain values and adhere to choices of our own survival, even if that requires us to realign our morality, just the slightest. As Saruman the White becomes Saruman of many colours, we see the fading of white, the finding of what was actually right and we lose ourselves into a world where we remove the fences that were there to protect us all. What happens next? I do not know, or even pretend to know, but I do worry, because 2015 is likely to be a year of turmoil, a year where we had to focus on a better economy, a side that might be pushed aside for whatever escalation comes next.

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December 24, 2014 · 09:14

Grinch anyone?

It is always nice that we can go on and on about the Grinch who stole the bankers bonus, or how the Hogfather looked at the vegetarian and how he believed it was all for the good of the pork chop. No!

None of that!

Today is the one day where we see people trying to be nice (the attempt at times is entertaining to watch). There is a fair amount of people doing good things, being extra nice. For example, there is a Miss (or Mister) Goody two shoes who opened the front door to Hotel Gitmo (at http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2014/12/oops-u-s-offers-5-mil-reward-al-qaeda-terrorist-released-gitmo/) and now, they are willing to pay 5 million to get one of their previous guests back. For those working at a Wal-Mart, it is rumoured that the money will be available in food stamps would you prefer it. So as Ibrahim al-Rubaysh is enjoying Christmas cheer (somewhere else), he is sorely needed in Hotel Gitmo, because he did not make his bed and that was a condition for a free stay at this hotel. By the way, it is said that he did not make his bed in Yemen either and that the sewage system is all blocked up because of it. Christopher Robinson whispered that to me whilst sharing a sandwich with hunney with me. Yet, our Christmas spirit might still be under scrutiny, at least that is how it is stated in the US. If we believe the source (at https://www.intellihub.com/new-resistance-film-expose-dangers-roundup-food-water-around-us/), then there is a new Christmas movie called ‘A new resistance‘, no it is nothing like Castle Wolfenstein and those bad German people who enjoyed getting shot, it is about a perfectly ‘harmless’ weedkiller, which is now showing to be not so safe or innocent. It is now stated that Glyphosate is not the safe product experts claimed it to be for 50 years. So, if you get sick, you will just have to drink the safe bottled water that rich people drink. If not, you get sick even more and you die! By the way, these rich people also drink a bubbly form of mineral water called Crystal. I never tried it, but it is stated to be the yummiest!

So as we got towards the Christmas cheer, the holy days, our bible (if you have one) or just be with your family one more time, then take a few seconds to contemplate what you will do in 2015. It is a scary world out there and I for one will consider what should be done and what I am able to do.

I have always believed in the words of Lord Baden Powell and for the most I always tried to live with that approach in my heart: “Leave this world a little better than you found it!”

I know, that for the most I have done just that, if you the reader can do that too in the balance of things, not next year, not next week, but just now, then this world will soon be a pretty magnificent place to live in. You see, you don’t have to fix it all, just leave it a little better, on the balance of all, it will fix everything one item at a time.

So, if this is my last story of the year I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and we will continue this all in 2015.

PS, just to leave on a crazy note: If you haven’t figured out the most desirable moment (or person) for 2014, you have one week left to figure it out! So get to it!

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