Category Archives: Law

September 28, 2020 · 00:33

Exit stage right

Yup, I am back. In the first there is the Swiss issue I discussed earlier today, as set the free movement ending is not reached, 68% rejected that part. So in this the larger stage were (as I personally saw it) the fear mongering side, but that is merely my view on one part. The election was on a few items and the Swiss have spoken, they rejected the ending free movement part and I am fine with it, yet I do feel that the term of all those benefits, I wonder if we ever get to see a list on that. But no matter what it was up to the Swiss and they rejected the notion.

Then there is the corona issue (not the beer), as per now we have 33 million infected and one million are dead. I believe that this number is actually higher, but I cannot prove it, the top three are USA, India and Brazil. In this I partially reject it because I believe that Indian infected is most likely a lot higher and those who died are cremated rather fast, so even as the numbers are too low, I cannot say that there is intent here, consider that in India the alleged personal need for ignorance is high, a nation where the Mumbai region alone has 55 million people, so 6 million over all India and only 95,000 deaths does not add up. When we apply the global mortality rate, the death count in India is close to 50% too low, a nation where population pressure is through the roof. I get it, not every person gets tested, there are not enough test packages to get even close to the testings required, there is no blame, no one is at fault, but we need to realise the setting and in a lot more places than India, the setting does not add up. 

And in the third setting, we see that there is every indication that President Trump will be exiting the stage on the right side. There is an overwhelming amount of push on places like Twitter where we see the Rock, George Takei, Billy Baldwin, David Cross and numerous others are giving their voice to Joe Biden, there is even a growing amount of Republicans on that list (including me) and the stage that President Trump has set is for the bulk of all the people no longer acceptable. I reckon that if the voting amount is raised from 55% to 65% it will be over for President Trump. As far as I can tell, at no time in history have Americans united against an elected president ever before. These events are making the anti Vietnam and anti Lyndon B. Johnson events fade. Even as Joe Biden has presently a 10% lead, it is a dangerous setting. Some people will fall asleep and will not bother voting, but the is the danger that got President Trump into the Oval Office in the first place. I would hazard a guess that if only 65% votes, one could argue that the USA does not deserve saving, not t this stage. The active people seem to realise that and their voice is simple “please vote”, they do not say who to vote for, they seem to think that this will be enough to get them to vote and hopefully not for President Trump. People like Dwayne Johnson are more eloquent in this, they name the people they endorse and give additional information. Still, I am to some extent in awe, I have never seen such a level of unison coming from America since WW2 (the Hitler is bad group) and perhaps it is important to pause at this notion. Yes, I remember my last piece, yet that was not about being pro-Trump. That was about the law and the constitution, little pesky things all kind of people want to avoid, I do not. 

What else is on the table? 

Well, games would be my guess and even as we are all still reeling from the Bethesda, now Microsoft decision, PC Gamer gives us a past overview (at https://www.pcgamer.com/au/what-happened-to-12-of-gamings-biggest-studios-after-they-were-sold/). I understand what they bring and I do not oppose it, but what stands out is that Bethesda is bought for more than the amount spend on 12 other acquisitions (not all Microsoft), there we see the the purchase of Mojang by Microsoft implies that all is not lost for Sony, yet this close to release of a new console makes it a question mark at best. In this there is also the thought that EA has options for Mass Effect and even the original trilogy, yet that is for another time. For the most the countdown clocks are running for Cyberpunk 2077 and the PS5/Xbox series X. November 19th 2020 for Cyberpunk and the consoles will come at November 12th (PS5) and November 10th (Xbox). The mayhem starts in 43 days 6 hours and 34.2 minutes.

 

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September 27, 2020 · 21:22

What is the law? 

That is the question I got myself wondering about. Now consider the law, the US and Commonwealth nations have common law, other nations like most in the EU have civil law, all nations that embrace the rule of law. I myself am largely in favour of the law (alas it does not suit me all the time, but the is life). So when I saw Reuters give me this morning ‘Democrats hammer Trump’s Supreme Court pick, say she could jeopardise Obamacare’. Yes, I get it, democrats are not in favour of conservative judges, the setting is however that the elected president gets to nominate whomever they want, yet it is the Senate that elects them by majority vote. In all this we see “Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and others in his party on Saturday blasted President Donald Trump’s choice of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court, focusing in particular on the threat they said she would pose to healthcare for millions of Americans” (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-barrett-healthcare/democrats-hammer-trumps-supreme-court-pick-say-she-could-jeopardize-obamacare-idUSKBN26I00H). Yet here is the kicker, it seems that there is too large and too polarised a view in America for the situation to continue. Now, I have nothing against judge Barrett, I do not know her, and I don’t know any of the supremes, actually I knew one when she was a supreme (Diana Ross) and there is the case where I optionally know two judges, both named Dredd (Sylvester Stallone and Karl Urban). I will admit that I am making light of the situation (apart from the fact that I can), but consider the setting here. The nominated judge (at https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/barrett-amy-coney) gives us:

  • Law clerk, Hon. Laurence H. Silberman, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1997-1998
  • Law clerk, Hon. Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court of the United States, 1998-1999
  • Private practice, Washington, D.C., 1999-2001
  • George Washington University Law School, 2001-2002; adjunct faculty member, 2001; John M. Olin Fellow in Law, 2001-2002
  • Professor of law, Notre Dame Law School, 2002-2017
  • Visiting associate professor of law, University of Virginia Law School, 2007

This youthful youngling of 48 summers has experience, as such she is eligible. And this is where we get to Jo Jo Biden. This is important as they claim “the threat they said she would pose to healthcare for millions of Americans”. Now, I am not stating that she is not, I merely wonder how a judge with so much years of experience might optionally invalidate a setting unless it is an illegal one. Let’s not forget the this is a supreme court judge, not the election of Judge Fish (again the Dredd connection). 

It leaves me with questions, one of them is what would be illegal about Obamacare? If the second president keeps on unravelling on what the previous president put in motion, how useless has the American legal system become? That is a valid question, is it not?

All this whilst the vote of confirmation has not passed yet and this is where the Democrats panel members get to ask all the questions that could interfere with the nominee being confirmed. The Sydney Morning Herald gives us (at https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/the-trap-democrats-must-avoid-in-the-supreme-court-nomination-battle-20200927-p55zm0.html) “Republicans want to turn the confirmation process into a grievance-fuelled culture war by portraying Barrett – a devout Catholic conservative – as a victim of left-wing bigotry. Democrats want to use the Supreme Court showdown to highlight the precarious status of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and elevate it as an election issue”, I believe that this is right on point. Yet when we look at this, would either ever elect the best nomination? Lets not forget, the even as we accept “There is no precedent for a US Supreme Court vacancy to be filled so close to election day”, the reality is “He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law”, this is what Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 states. There is nothing about how close to election it is. It is about the elected president of the United States, the constitution is actually that simple (no fish required). And none of it can happen without the consent of the Senate, and they are elected by who? Yup, you guessed it they are directly chosen by the people of the State, in this those 55% (the part that actually showed to the election) made their decision known and these senators, elected by the people will confirm (or reject) the nomination to the supreme court, but those parts are not really that highlighted by the papers are they?

Now, I will happily agree that I am not the greatest expert on the matter (apart from a master degree in law), but there is a lot we need to consider. How can the USA move forward when the setting is created that optionally the next term undoes the actions of the previous term? Is anyone considering that non-productive stage? Apart from the stage where we see the confirmation that the Affordable Care Act is in a precarious situation, implying that it was never properly set into law, and if that is so, whose fault was that? If we focus on the law, let’s make it about the law and there, the current president has been fortunate enough to elect 3 supreme court judges. The last one to do this was former President Reagan and he got to nominate 4 of them, just like former President Nixon, only President Eisenhower nominated 5. And so far, do the people of the USA have anything to complain about? Reagan nominated Judge Scalia, where some state that he was he was one of the most influential jurists of the twentieth century. Nixon elected Judge Blackmun, who was seen as became one of the most liberal justices on the Court. He is best known as the author of the Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade, which prohibits many state and federal restrictions on abortion. Then there was President Eisenhower who nominated Justice Brennan, and ended up being known for being a leader of the Court’s liberal wing. So when I see all the tears on a lack of liberal judges, I wonder how valid it is. OK, I have an actual life, so I did not dig into EVERY nominated and elected justice, yet I hope that I am raising enough questions for you all to wonder and lets face it, unless you went in and actually voted, you have no real right (unless you were younger than 18 during the last election). 

In the end, we have to wait and see, mostly if the confirmation succeeds or not, because that is the next step. Let’s wait and see, the next step starts on October 12th.

 

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September 22, 2020 · 23:46

Choices

We all see them, we all have them and we often have a feeling of polarisation when we are hit by them. It all starts with a tweet by George Takei. I greatly admire the guy, not in the least as Lt. Sulu on the Enterprise. The man is intelligent, direct and has (as I personally see it) ownership of the statement ‘Oh my!’ George has an impressive history as an actor and as a humanitarian. He is also an activist and all that does not break down in any way of the person he is. I have no problem s towards him as a person or as a republican, he is the kind of person that actually makes America great and we have to accept that. I have no issues with him and I have no issues with his stance against President Trump, even as I agree with him on this matter, no matter how republican I am, we need to be held to account for what we say and what we do and I believe the fits with the republican point of view.

So when I saw the tweet, I was a little miffed. You see, in the directness of the setting Senator Gardner is actually correct. When we look at the constitution we see “When a vacancy occurs, the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints a new justice”, it is however a little more complex. The president can choose whomever he wants, yet it must be settled through a majority in the US Senate. As such 51 senators need to confirm the appointment and that is where it gets to be complex. 

“Candidates are nominated by the President of the United States and must face a series of hearings in which both the nominee and other witnesses make statements and answer questions before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which can vote to send the nomination to the full United States Senate. Confirmation by the Senate allows the President to formally appoint the candidate to the court. The Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a Justice, thus the President may nominate any individual to serve on the Court”, yet feel free to read up (at https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Nominations.htm). 

It is the series of hearings the are the big issue in most cases, yet here to President Trump has an advantage, or does he? To see this, we need to voice the opinion of an individual. This was done with “RIP to the more than 30 million innocent babies that have been murdered during the decades that Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended pro-abortion laws”, the issue is not one I agree with, but that visibility will aid us. Some republicans and especially the pro-life people will want a different type of judge, they will have a polarising look at the entire situation, yet when we examine congress we get a grasp of PEW research (at https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/18/three-in-ten-or-more-democrats-and-republicans-dont-agree-with-their-party-on-abortion/).

No matter how we want to see the data, we need to see the top-line net numbers. In this only 64% of the Republicans agree with this stance. Moreover, the 7% of the democrats agreeing with the Republicans will not be enough to carry the call of a majority, the hearing will be on many issues, but as you can see depending on the hearing, there will be any number of issues that the senate will be dissenting on and the hearings will be a task on a few items and even as there is a Republican senate, it might not be enough for a few reasons. 

As a law graduate I have to believe in the process and the US has a larger process, as I see it the constitution sets a large protective fence around the nation of law setting and that is good, so as such the selection of any Supreme Court judge is a big thing, it will be a big thing for either side of the isle and it is the right for the Republicans to select one (for now) and if the US senate confirms the choice, it will be a one deal.

When we see “When a vacancy occurs, the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints a new justice”, why does anyone assume that the presently elected president would not try to select a Supreme? It is one of the greatest things any president gets to do. So for the Democrats it kind of sicks that the timing is off, but that does not matter, there is a vacancy, and this president gets to nominate the next one.

And before we give rise to the ones making noise on the fairness of it. Consider the this president got elected by the 55% the voted, if Demo(c)rats are so about the issue, remember, 45% could not be bothered getting out of bed to vote. That sucks doesn’t it?

So as we are confronted with the choices of people, we need to accept the we might not agree with all, but we accept the they have a right to chose. I might not agree with George Takei all the time, but his choices tend to be intelligent, as such I will take notice. So whilst we see all kinds of flames are started on Twitter and Facebook, we have to consider to reset a lot of them (99%) from the get go and learn what is involved with certain choices and nominations. Who of you knew of the hearings? Who knew that a nomination requires a majority approval? Who knew that the last one elected (also by President Trump) got there after a grilling that took 48 hours and well over 1250 questions. As such there is a stage we need to consider, if the last two were not bad choices (Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh), why is there so much opposition? We all accept that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an amazing judge and filling those shoes will be a hard task, but the rules of the game (the constitution) are clear, There is a vacancy and a nomination can be put forward, the vacancy happened in the age of President Trump and unless there is actual evidence that the previous two were wrong choices, we get to blame the US senate, I merely wonder who dug through those 1250 questions and came optionally to the conclusion of wrongful election?  

I made a choice, George Takei made a choice, Senator Gardner made a choice, the US Senate made its choice and President Trump made a choice. I am not wise enough to proclaim who was wrong, optionally none were. Could you be wrong?

This is the beauty of subjectivity, it is our right, it is the right of most people living in a free democratic world.

 

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September 18, 2020 · 01:29

On the way to a destination

It was yesterday that I came up with the Vatican game, a way to expose the truth and let it be seen to everyone who wishes to know. It was a stage where I got to design original gaming IP. I have original 5G IP, but the games (TESVII, Watchdogs IV), they are all based on IP others made. I came up with other gaming IP, but the Vatican view is 100% my IP (as a game that is). It is also intoxicating to design original IP. Originality is the food of life, in originality we trust, the rest can fake it until they make it.

Yet the intoxicating side is there, it will always be there and everyone creating or designing original pieces can concur. Yet in the light of the PS5, we can see that the intoxicating part tends to take over, especially as I spend $3 on a MAC game, only to be haunted by the bugs. Then I got a dose of irritating steam, I set up that in ONLY want to see MAC games, but I get every PC game in sight, can people not design anything without massive flaws? Oh and Apple is not off the hook, but I will tell you about that soon enough. I think back to the ideas of ME:A(1,2), Mass Effect Andromeda, both parts 1 and 2, in a very different coat, but that is not what is driving me today. Neither is it the new Mario 3D bundle out in 8.4 hours (when the shops open), no now is about the idea that is moving in my mind, left right centre, up and down. It was an idea I had written about before, a game that is based in Amsterdam, in about 500 years when the population is zero. It is set to people with two life cycles, a normalised on and a biological one. The biological one has no needs, nature preserves it in every way, the normalised one, needs tools, needs technology and it needs sustenance. Yet the two cycles are opposing one another and what heals one, will kill the other. I got the idea watching Aftermath: Population Zero, in this series we see scripted AI showing us what buildings will look like after 300 years and no population to maintain anything. This got me to thinking, what if we set that to a city (Amsterdam) and we deploy it parameters? It sets the stage where every game will be different, more importantly your neighbour playing the same game will get to face a different Amsterdam. That was the premise, so not only do yo get to seek for technology, it will be in a different place, optionally in a different building, in another street. It sets a different stage to survival. Yet this is merely one facet, the other facet is to adapt to a new stage, a stage where the plants that sustained you become poisonous. That too is part of the game and Amsterdam with all its canals will be about plants and water plants. So there I was considering the drive, curiosity can be a drive, but it is not powerful enough. Yet in all this there is a stage, and in that stage does technology drive us, or do we drive technology? 

It is important, but for different reasons. With ‘Dubai may be as indebted as South Africa if dissenters are right’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/dubai-indebted-south-africa-dissenters-200917095907711.html) we see the stage we need to see. Even as we accept “Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings include Dubai’s local bank borrowings to make the calculation, arriving at an estimate of about 290 billion dirhams ($79 billion). The debt burden could equal 77% of this year’s gross domestic product, according to S&P, comparable with what the International Monetary Fund predicts for South Africa and just behind Oman”, consider that the UAE has a population that is less than 10 million, about the size of Sweden, yet the debt is half of that of Sweden and here is the kicker, nearly every nation on the planet has crushing debts, so who has the actual funds that allow for these debts to continue? In a stage where we are polarised against nature, we need to see that embracing nature might be the only option left. Should you doubt the and of course, you can, consider the debts out there and consider that we are handing the debts to the next generation. In all this, IP is the only way for some to keep the next generation afloat. My version of Amsterdam was more spot on than even I realised. And if patent are the next currency, or at least the grounds for basic wealth, I am sitting decently pretty, but is that enough? I reckon that the next generation will see a very different stage of life, one that is not set on what is, and what they are entitles to, but what they can conquer, what they can overcome ad nature is a bitch when it comes to adversity. There is no denying that we are in a state of change, but our governments have gone the way of the dodo and the ostrich. They merely latch onto the largest payday possible and they cloth for bad weather, but that time has come and gone, it is no longer on what we can overcome, it is about what we can survive. You see, the owners of the debts could decide t cash in, and where does that leave us? Some even set the stage by claiming that there is good debt versus bad debt, yet in the end, all debt is bad and we need to catch on. As I see it this is the first generation that is worse off then the previous generations, in addition to that, we have created a life of legalised slave labour, legalised discrimination and legalised inequality. I wonder if we realised that when we were young, did we realise that this was a stage that we were signing up for? We might want to blame covid, but that would be wrong, perhaps it drove it to the surface, but the weak spots were already there. Even as CNBC gives us ‘What Would It Mean If U.S. States Went Bankrupt?’, yet it is too late, the US is already there, with the $25,000,000,000,000 debt, we need to accept that the annual interest would be no less than $150,000,000,000. This implies an amount that taxation is not getting, in addition to that, there are the spiralling costs of keeping the US alive (infrastructure) and it is not the only nation facing this, Japan is also on that scale and the EU is almost there, but they are all in denial that this is so, they are all setting the stage that they will overcome this, so how is that? Covid-19 brought it to the surface a lot faster, but we were already there and those who want to survive, will need to change to a patent grounded economy, which means that China has a decent advantage, so does the US and Japan less so, the EU is pretty much toast. In this everyone is in denial. You see the US amounted to $3.5 trillion collected taxation, but that is before the funding of the US started. When we take this into account, we see that the US was already $900 billion short, and that is before the $150 billion interest hits them and they are not alone, it is not merely an American flaw. Japan and the EU are on the same horse, not as big, but still a massively large horse of deficit. So when this collapses (when, not if) we see that the economic value of any nation will be the patents that they hold and as such, I personally feel that I am sitting pretty and with two new IP concepts created this week alone, I wonder where I will go next, I heard that the pastries in Monte Carlo are super yummy! (Piers Morgan told us that much) and bless his heart, I do like my pastries, so where we end up being, it will be in a very different economy soon enough, how soon? Well that depends on the powerbroker holding onto this failed horse, they like to stay ahead of the debt curve, surfing that wave for as long as they can before the wave crashes, it will drown a massive group of fin-tech people, but those who survive will come to worship the nations with patents, and as the new economy comes up, will you understand that you are merely driving these exploiters, or will you demand a fair system? Because that demand went so well the last time around. 

No matter what destination you go to, the currency you currently have will no longer have value, it is a harsh reality, but it is the one we all signed up for and the only one that the powerbroker accept, they have too much invested in the idea that their arrogance is the only one that ever mattered. 

 

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September 16, 2020 · 00:52

The delusional stage of me

Yup, that was always going to be a phase. Even if it is merely academical, the best setting towards a stage of balance is to reflect on the matter that I might be bonkers. To others this mean gaga, mad, insane optionally freaking bug nuts. Some people might be afraid of setting their mental capacity to minus 365, but I do not share that. There is the chance I have been correct on every count (I usually am), but to set that stage I must reflect on the chances that I somewhere to the right of insane and to the left of being bonkers to the umpteenth degree.

You see, it is easy to blame Reuters, but the merely propagate the news, do they not? So when I see “U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said he is confident there will be effective 5G competitors to Huawei from Western vendors at comparable costs, adding that he believes Western technologies will come to dominate telecommunications” some could consider that I am not alone in the fashion house with the long sleeved shirts, but that is just them. When I see ‘Western technologies will come to dominate’ I see a clear admission that China is ahead in 5G and they are. This s further fuelled by “I am confident that there will be a cost effective deliverables from Western trusted vendors that can deliver the same services or better services at comparative cost”, there we do not see ‘trusted vendors that will deliver’, but ‘trusted vendors that can deliver’, it sets the stage to a presumption. The former CIA director is precise with his language, he is no fool, not by a long shot. This sets a different scope for me, to counter it, I will be pushed to offer my IP to either Saudi Arabia or the UAE, an alternative is Qatar, but that has its own issues and it might cost me in the long run. If the ‘person of patent calculations’ os to be believed, I would have a lot to lose, but there is no way that I can trust most of the governments, yet Google and Huawei is a polarised field, in this setting Saudi Arabia or the UAE could be the in-between to whomever bids next, and that might be Huawei, they have the advantage on software and they are a smudge ahead of Google in that matter. The Reuters article is limited and one of the smaller articles, it is like Reuters is merely setting out one paragraph of a memo. I see no questions, no rhetoric of even speculative settings towards what is and what could be, Reuters is playing this cautiously, which in light of the ‘revelation’ is interesting, but the stage is one that I cannot ignore. Dealing with Huawei is the safe bet on the value of the IP, yet the bully tactics of the US are starting to pay off, and now that the UK government has handed ARM to Nvidia, the stage will turn for yet another turn. In all this the media remains oblivious on delivery times by Apple that in some cases are set to 20 weeks, a 2 trillion dollar company with a delay of 20 weeks on their iPad air? That means that there is a shortage of unbridled proportions and this is not merely the COVID stage, there is more, there has to be. 

When you cannot deliver for that amount of time, yet you open more and more stages of shop displays (in other chains), the shortage is fundamental and as I see it, when chip shortages hits 5G hardware, it will be fun to see some people panic. This is not a given, and not speculatively, Sony already has issues with its SoC chip. They are expected to ship 4 million less PS5 consoles in the coming year. 5G also has a SoC chip (a different one) but if one has issues, the setting that others have it too is not too far fetched. Gizmodo gave us a little over a month ago ‘MediaTek supply for 4G chips run dry, fresh stock to arrive by 2021’, it does not matter how Mediatek voices it, if it cannot supply the world with 4G chips, it will not be able to keep up on 5G either, and that is what matters. Because the moment China has a decent alternative to offer, 100% of that stock goes straight to Huawei increasing the advantage they have and at that point, how many of them will go to the US? My speculative guess is 0%, and that is where the Middle East comes into play. Huawei needs to make nice and the EU is not ready, but the Middle East is, Egypt too, although not sure if they have a lot fo needs at that point. But the stage that I predicted months ago is still coming to pass, although chip shortage was not on my radar, merely the shortsighted actions by the American govern mental administration.

And me? My delusional stage? Well that is out in the open, either Saudi Arabia or the UAE can get hold of my IP for $25,000,000 upfront with shared patent ownership, as the investor they get 60%, I keep 40%, which would be an awesome payout, especially when the US has no options but to buy in. It was a choice and a risk to play it like this, but there was no trust with some corporations, as such there was only Google and Huawei and Huawei is becoming an international discriminated party, it will hurt me, so I am taking an alternative road and these people want to play on the 5G table, I had to make a choice and I have everything to gain and nothing to lose, in the worst case I make my IP public domain, if that happens it means that governments and corporations are so greed driven that engineers on a global scale will walk out and start for themselves, I wonder if I see that happen.

Well, have a great (delusional) day.

 

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September 11, 2020 · 20:21

The shores I see from here

OK, I am not beating around the bush, I have given my point of view on several matters and I have always stated that I have always been driven by evidence. As such I have opposed the views of Agnes Calamard, not for Saudi Arabia, but because of the debatability of the evidence, so as we now see ‘Trump boasted he protected MBS after Khashoggi hit: Report’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/trump-boasted-protected-mbs-khashoggi-hit-report-200910195007682.html), all whilst there is no actual evidence of the hit. Now, I get it, I understand that you would doubt me, I would doubt me as well, but perhaps the following will convince you. When we see the quote “Trump bragged that he protected the Saudi crown prince from consequences in the United States after the assassination of Khashoggi in October 2018, the news outlet Business Insider reported on Thursday. “I saved his a**,” President Trump said about the US outcry about Khashoggi’s killing, according to Business Insider, quoting from a copy  of Woodward’s book. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to  stop,” Trump said.” What do we see? Basically, the only action we see is ‘I was able to get Congress to leave him alone’, my question becomes, what evidence is there for congress to rattle Saudi Arabia with? When we re-open the report I spoke about yesterday we see at [6] “the Special Rapporteur was not provided with any information regarding the evidence they may have collected during this period.” Which is funny when we see at [8] “The Special Rapporteur found credible evidence pointing to the crime scenes having been thoroughly, even forensically, cleaned”, here we get the issue, they claim guilt on the setting that the room was clean, it is like you getting found guilty of killing your mom and dad because the house does not contain evidence of their death. OK, a small exaggeration, I get that, but the finding of guilt due to no evidence is the setting and she was kind enough to create doubt by ‘found credible evidence pointing to’, so the stage of ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ is avoided, added to the facts that there was no credible evidence that any order was ever given to kill Khashoggi and the Crown prince was roughly 12,756,587 meters away from the crime scene. Yup, that evidence is so overwhelming isn’t it? So how come this US president is that stupid to alienate his allies? And that is merely the beginning. As we are given “US and other foreign intelligence services have reportedly concluded that MBS directed the killing” we are drawn to the report that gives us at [39] “At some point, there comes a time when an intelligence service or operative simply has to make a stab at assimilating what all this means. There is rarely space for scrutiny from anyone outside the intelligence system”, which is interesting against the ‘concluded’ part earlier when it is about “make a stab at assimilating what all this means”, which is not evidence and is nowhere near ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’, did anyone consider this? The report has plenty of issues that could be speculative gems of fingering any party as guilty, but is that what a murder investigation is supposed to be about? And in this mess we see ‘Trump boasted he protected’? What is this, an episode of Comedy Capers? And the article goes on giving us “Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents while his fiancee waited for him outside the consulate building”, all whilst there was no evidence retrieved in any way that there was a killing and there was no evidence on dismembering, it is all speculation.

You see the claim of dismemberment implies that there is a body, there is forensic evidence and that is disputed in the report starting at [8], it is not about what might have happened, it is about what can be proven and there is no evidence, there is merely speculation through the expensive words like ‘credible evidence’ and ‘may have been collected’, the lack of ‘evidence that can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt’ and ‘collected evidence’ is missing making the issue moot and it makes the statement by President Trump one of the least intelligent boasts that any US president has ever made. But there is an upside, I needed EU 324,000,000 for a project, so I am willing and willing to offer myself as an in-between to other arms dealers to set up office with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as such I would be willing to find another party to offer the “$8bn in precision-guided missiles and other high-tech weapons”, let’s face it, fair is fair, right? Boasts on one side (especially those linked to a lack of evidence) should be countered by economic deals to other parties on the other side. That is what Wall Street taught us all and we are all willing to learn (especially when we earn a few coins), so that is that state of matters and I will be taking calls from the BAE as per direct. Raytheon eat your heart out!

Suddenly the shores I see from here don’t look so bad, what should I do, play hard to get? I think not!

 

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September 10, 2020 · 23:22

Squid rings of theatrics

I was about to enter the relaxing side of Thursday pushing towards Friday. It was to be an uneventful setting towards the weekend, yet there Al Jazeera comes with the setting of “UN special rapporteur tells Al Jazeera the Saudi trial over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi made a ‘mockery of justice’”, in my personal setting, the UN Essay writer has an issue, so lets recap the issue.

A lot of it was given in ‘Demanding Dismissal’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), I even added the report there. Yet one thing I left alone (until now), in the article I referred to “The Saudi officials we are sanctioning were involved in the abhorrent killing of Jamal Khashoggi. These individuals who targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States must face consequences for their actions”, as such I ask ‘What abhorrent killing?’ Let me explain this. Abhorrent is repulsive, disgusting or horrifying. So is there a grade in killing? It also implies that someone witnessed it, if not how can it be abhorrent? So let’s get back to the report.

[92] Turkish Intelligence assessed that he may have been dead within ten minutes after entering the Consulate. Here we are treated to ‘he may have been dead’, ‘may’ refers to speculation, not fact, the footnote gives us “The ten minutes reference is based on the fact that after ten minutes, Mr. Khashoggi voice was not heard”, this implies that Turkish Intelligence has 100% of the embassy bugged and wired, that is extremely doubtful on several levels. 

[97] Around 15:00, CCTV cameras captured a consular van and another vehicle leaving the Consulate’s garage and arrive at the Consular General’s Residence at 15:02. The cameras recorded three men enter the Residence with what seem like plastic trash bags, and at least one rolling suitcase. Turkish Investigators have not been able to identify the size, the shape or the type of bags that the three Saudis carried into the Residence or where they may have purchased them. OK, we accept the footnote on contradictory parts, yet there is no evidence that Khashoggi, or him in parts was anywhere there, there is no evidence. 

The report mentions ‘interrogation’ 4 times, yet these so called tapes on the torture/interrogation of Jamal Khashoggi. Who heard them? How were they forensically tested and who tested and seconded any report of these findings and optional facts? 

I even added “It is these two events alone that requires the United Nations to consider your dismissal, it gets to be even worse when you called “Donald Trump’s administration has to share its findings into the murder with the international community“, please explain to me how the United States has any actual evidence regarding the events in a foreign nation on a consulate that is another nations grounds? How was this evidence collected? Creating a mountain of non-substantial evidence is not really evidence, even as circumstantial evidence that is founded on probability will not hold water, even if the statement “officials have said they have high confidence“, they lost the credibility they had with a silver briefcase holding evidence on WMD in Iraq, you do remember that part, don’t you? (It was roughly 16 years ago)”, the larger issues I have here are ‘has to share its findings into the murder’, so ‘findings’ and still unproven ‘murder’ is a setting that we need to accept and realise, there is negligent homicide, homicide, manslaughter, murder and capital murder. They have different settings towards intent that must be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, there are the actions of the reasonable person and they all require a body to show the evidence, the body was never recovered. Now, I am not stating that Jamal Khashoggi is alive, it is more likely than not that he is no longer alive, but I cannot prove it, as far as I can tell no one can. 

I ended the article with “The consulate is Saudi territory, Turkish territory (the grounds around the Consulate) was implied to be monitored and there too a lot of errors were made, judgment calls that were basically colossal blunders. The realisation of any journalist getting so much attention with the dozens and dozens of incarcerated journalist in Turkish prisons calls for another venue and all these so called venues give rise that there are plenty of others with an optional issue with Jamal Khashoggi and you calling out HRH Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud should be regarded as stupid, the lack of evidence and the amount of circumstantial evidence alone calls you out.”

I still believe in the law and a person is innocent until proven guilty. Now, I understand that there is a lack of evidence, it makes a person not guilty. In this I accept that ‘not guilty’ and ‘innocent’ are different dimensions, yet the lack of evidence still counts, there is nothing to go on and the puppet theatre that Turkey engaged with is part to blame, the fact that they have the most incarcerated journalists on the planet counts, the report never makes mention of it. The report gives us “In killing a journalist, the State of Saudi Arabia also committed an act inconsistent with a core tenet of the United Nations”, yet the lack of evidence shows that it cannot be proven that any act was done by the State of Saudi Arabia, even if evidence shows that Jamal Khashoggi that he was killed with intent, there would still need to be evidence that the State of Saudi Arabia did this or ordered this, and that is where the problem lies. Even as the report states on page 4 “From the perspective of international human rights law, State responsibility is not a question of, for example, which of the State officials ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s death; whether one or more ordered a kidnapping that was botched and then became an accidental killing; or whether the officers acted on their own initiative or ultra vires.” Actually it does, there needs to be evidence (it is a pesky thing that evidence)  that there were actions and orders by the State of Saudi Arabia they do not exist, they are at best implied. I am actually bewildered that there is no report that goes over every media on the fact that Turkey has its own history with journalists “The killings of journalists in Turkey since 1995 are more or less individual cases. Most prominent among the victims is Hrant Dink, killed in 2007, but the death of Metin Göktepe also raised great concern, since police officers beat him to death. Since 2014, several Syrian journalists who were working from Turkey and reporting on the rise of Daesh have been assassinated. The death of Metin Alataş in 2010 is also a source of disagreement – while the autopsy claimed it was suicide, his family and colleagues demanded an investigation. He had formerly received death threats and had been violently assaulted”, so where are these reports? I hope that the UN Special Rapporteur is something more than a mere UN Essay writer. I am certain that the world is eager to see what happened to these people. The media tainting setting has been extraordinary, in 2019 Google search gave well over 32,000,000 links to ‘Jamal Khashoggi’, especially as ‘Hrant Dink’ only has 1.4 million links, and ‘Metin Alataş’ has less than 850,000, so where is the visibility there? It matters because this all has been happening in Turkey, the puppet of Iran and its consort in the proxy war against Saudi Arabia, an established fact that the reports did not make mention of, the setting of Turkey is left out of consideration, which is odd as it is the nation that surrounds that setting and there is no consideration that this was not a Saudi operation, but a Turkish one. It is far fetched, I completely agree, but it was never investigated, especially when the weeks of the issue had all these contradictive issues and the media gobbled it up, but they were not investigated. Why not?

My view is supported in the report at [108], here we see “the Turkish authorities opened an investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi on the evening of 2 October, after Ms. Cengiz called the local police about Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance. The police then contacted the prosecutor on call who in turn wrote instructions on how to proceed with the case. That same evening, Turkish Intelligence began reviewing what they say were seven hours of raw recordings from the Consulate that they had in their possession. In their own words, the assessment of the raw footage was complex and it took them several days to reach a firm conclusion regarding the fate of Mr. Khashoggi. Their initial assessment of the recordings led them to believe that Mr. Khashoggi had been injected with something, passed out, and taken alive from the Consulate in some box or container.” I have issues with “Turkish Intelligence began reviewing” and “seven hours of raw recordings from the Consulate that they had in their possession”, now the fact that governments keep tabs on embassies and consulates is not that much of a surprise, yet when we see “Mr. Khashoggi had been injected with something, passed out, and taken alive from the Consulate in some box or container” is weird, especially as there is no evidence on any of it. 

So as I take notice in Al Jazeera of “There were Islamic scholars who debated whether this was a crime under Shariah (Islamic) law that could be pardoned. Because it was a premeditated crime, because it was so gruesome”, so how is it ‘gruesome’? A body was never found, murder is not proven, even if it ends up being manslaughter (me speculating that the killer, if there is one, did not intent the killing), the setting even lacks the foundation of a ‘premeditated crime’, this is a real stage and I wonder why Al Jazeera is keeping this alive. How many articles did they spend on all the journalists killed in Turkey? How much attention did the international media give all these incarcerated journalists in Turkey? When we consider that 231 journalists have been arrested after 15 July 2016, how much attention did Al Jazeera give them? It seems that the UN is part of a bigger play that requires Agnes Calamard to keep the Khashoggi issue alive, yet how much time did she spend on other issues? Incarcerated journalists in Turkey is only one, the actions of Houthi and Hezbollah combatants in Yemen is another one, and how much time has Agnes Calamard spend on Syrian issues? #JustAsking

The math in all this does not add up!

 

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September 3, 2020 · 12:21

Overkill anyone?

There is no going around the news that Alexey Navalny did not slip on a bar of soap in the bathroom. Yet the news ‘Nerve agent Novichok found in Russia’s Alexey Navalny: Germany’ given to us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/germany-nerve-agent-novichok-russia-navalny-200902135330447.html) and other sources needs to be evaluated on a few levels. The media is of course eager to give us “Novichok – a military grade nerve agent – was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the United Kingdom”, that event had a few issues and this one has even more. First of all, I do not really know the man, so my information on him has a few dubious sides. Consider his life in Moscow, on his walks in Moscow there are well over a dozen vantage points where his life could be snuffed out with a cyanide tipped bullet (or Ricin), two much more stable compounds than Novichok ever was. From each of these vantage points, I would be able to get to 1-2 streets over and after that simply vanish, the M24, or DVP Druganov equivalent I would leave behind, as a present for the eager beaver. As such Navalny would be dead. There are alternatives with Lithium, and several more opportunities that end life permanently, so we do have options. In this we now get another stage. This is the third known Novichok attack where the person does not immediately die, or does not die at all ‘Comatose Russian dissident Alexey Navalny arrives at Berlin hospital’ (source: CNN). And even as the media hides behind ““Only the state [FSB, GRU] can use Novichok. This is beyond any reasonable doubt,” Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on Twitter, referring to the FSB internal security and GRU military intelligence services”, I had shown in ‘Something for the Silver Screen?’ In March 2018 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/03/17/something-for-the-silver-screen/) we see that the statement ‘Only the state [FSB, GRU] can use Novichok’ is not true, there are at least two instances where reach of Novichoks are outside of state actors, that is separate from the issues shown in the OPCW papers and in this, there are more questionable acts by Vil Mirzayanov in this. And let’s be clear, if the FSB or the GRU wanted Alexey Navalny dead there are over a dozen of ways to do that. If you need to get rid of the neighbour, you don’t resort to nuclear weapons, it is a level of overkill that is apparently accepted by all the media whilst no one is looking at the larger picture. Novichok is massively unstable and way too dangerous. These are known properties and no one is looking into the matter or asking questions. 

Is that not really really weird?

And it does not end there, Al Jazeera also gives us “Sergei Nechayev, who was summoned to the foreign ministry on Wednesday, asked for evidence and received “no answer, no facts, no data, no formulae”” as such, we see the accusation, we see no facts and no real evidence, and even as I am willing to accept that there was something real here, there is still a larger car where this is not a state operation, but another setting where Russian organised crime is involved. This does not absolve the Russian government but it does show a much larger setting and optionally a case where the Russian government is not guilty. The act of one corrupt official does not make a government guilty, and is that not a nice surprise “In December 2010, Navalny announced the launch of the RosPil project, which seeks to bring to light corrupt practices in the government procurement process”, it seems that Navalny has been dipping his feet in the pool of corruption hoping to see what is swimming there and who the sharks are (a West Side Story reference). Yet the media is not looking too deep there, because someone mentioned the word Novichok. In this the very first setting in this situation is that the use of Novichok is a massive overkill, and no one is catching on, why is that?

And if the west is so about freedom and about being nations of laws, why are they all negated in several cases? 

 

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September 1, 2020 · 17:56

Just the facts?

Isn’t that what it needs to be in media? Just the facts? The issue is that media in general and in this case the BBC specifically is setting a different stage and I am not sure why. Now, I will give up front that it is my opinion and perception against that of the BBC and the stage is up in the air. For the most, or basically nearly always, the BBC is on point and is highly reliable. In this case, some facts are debatable and one factor is that I do not have all the inn’s and out’s (pun intended). That is also a factor and I am trying to keep that in mind. So the article ‘Saudi king sacks defence officials’ would initially be something I would have glanced over. Merely because even if I would be applying for the position of Defence official for the Saudi Arabian government, I do not speak the language and I reckon that there are plenty of Saudi nationals eager to get that position. In the second, the role was until recently in the hands of Prince Fahad bin Turki, and I am no prince (no matter what the ladies say). In addition we are given “The men, along with four other officials, face an investigation into “suspicious financial dealings” at the Ministry of Defence, the decree said”, implying that this is all about the politics, and I never cared for politics. It all starts with “critics say the high-profile arrests have been aimed at removing obstacles to the prince’s hold on power”, my first question becomes, who are those critics? In the second, in light of how things are in Yemen, I see no real setting that Prince Fahad bin Turki is any kind of obstacle in the current power setting in Saudi Arabia, now I will admit immediately that I have no real idea on who is in that power cycle, yet I wonder if those ‘critics’ are aware of what is and who are, or are they merely setting the stage for others to set a presentation stage? You see the accusation is given speculated strength via ‘critics say’ yet we do not get any mention of who those critics are, do we? Yet the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53980115) goes off the deep end when we see “However he has been embroiled in a series of scandals, including the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2018 and an alleged murder plot against a former Saudi intelligence agent in Canada”, this is achieved in a few ways. In the first, the entire Khashoggi debacle is set to flawed intelligence, especially the ‘added’ intelligence by UN essay writer Agnes Calamard, I dealt with that in several articles, especially in ‘Demanding Dismissal’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), so not only can we prove that Jamal Khashoggi is murdered, we can merely speculate on that, and that is before we need to realise that there is absolutely no evidence that there was any directive from Saudi Arabia to allegedly kill Jamal Khashoggi, if there was it would have ‘leaked’ to every newspaper in the world, all we got was a level of emotional outbursts devoid of evidence. And there is the alleged plot against Dr. Saad Aljabri, the allegations went so far that they try to convict Saudi Officials in another country, how is that for failing evidence? Yet that same court has no real intentions to seriously look into “Saudi officials accuse Aljabri of leading a group that misspent $11 billion of government funds and skimmed $1 billion for themselves, the Wall Street Journal reported, an allegation he denies” interesting is it not? 

So it seems that the critics are all about spinning yarn, if not they would have been out there supported by actual and factual evidence, they are not. And the implied situation in Istanbul, which comes up in every Saudi story is this time linked to the sacking of defence officials, all whilst the evidence attached is drowning additional events is disbelief and more credibility is removed from the situation. That was not hard, was it?

 

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August 5, 2020 · 23:46

EU fart bit, Google Fit Bit

Yes, we leap left, we leap right and as we see options for choice, we also see options for neglect. In Reuters we see “Google’s parent company Alphabet agreed a $2.1bn (£1.6bn) takeover of the wearable tech firm last year. However, the deal has yet to be completed”, we see that at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53647570, and as we see the BBC article, we wonder about a lot more. Yes we acknowledge “While the European Commission has said its main concern is the “data advantage” Google will gain to serve increasingly personalised ads via its search page”, and in the matter of investigations we see:

  • The effects of the merger on Europe’s nascent digital healthcare sector
  • Whether Google would have the means and ability to make it more difficult for rival wearables to work with its Android operating system.

From there there are two paths, for me personally the first one is Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, to be honest, I do not trust her. I will admit right off the bat that this is personal, but her deal relying on what was requires her to get a win, any win. The setting is founded on “officials acknowledge that the EU’s competition enforcer faces hard choices after judges moved to quash her order for the US tech company to pay back €14.3bn in taxes to Ireland”, which was a juridical choice, but in all this she needs a win and I reckon she will do whatever er she can to get any of the FAANG group. For the most I would be on her side in the tax case, but on the other side the entire sweep of the Google Fitbit leaves me with questions.

The first point is on ‘effects of the merger’, so how is this in regards to the Apple Smart Watch, the Huawei smart watch (android), and a few other versions, how much investigation did Apple get? How much concern is there for Huawei? Then we see the second part ‘Whether Google would have the means and ability’, it is not a wrong position for Margrethe Vestager to take, but as he does it upfront, in light of the EU inactions regarding IBM and Microsoft, it seems weird that this happens upfront now (well to me it does). And as we see ‘difficult for rival wearables to work with its Android operating system’ I see Huawei and the solutions they have, Android solutions no less, so why is Google the problem? 

Then there are two other parts. The first one is “Analysts suggested part of the attraction for Google was the fact that Fitbit had formed partnerships with several insurers in addition to a government health programme in Singapore”, the second one is “Google has explicitly denied its motivation is to control more data”, in all this there is less investigation in regards to what data goes to Singapore, or better stated the article makes no mention towards it, and as I see it, there is no mention on it from the office of Margrethe Vestager either. The second part is how Google explicitly denies its part, yet that denial does not give us anything towards the speculated “its motivation is to have access to more data”, and when you decide on a smart watch, data will end up somewhere and the statements are precise (something that worries me), I have no issue with Google having access, but the larger issue is not Google, it is ‘partnerships with several insurers’, the idea of privacy is not seen remarked upon by Margrethe Vestager and her posse of goose feather and ink-jar wielders, the focus is Google and is seemingly absent from investigations into Fitbit pre-Google in an age where the GDPR is set to be gospel, so who are the insurers and where are they based? Issues we are unlikely to get answers on. Yet when we consider “John Hancock, the U.S. division of Canadian insurance giant Manulife, requires customers to use activity trackers for life insurance policies in their Vitality program if they want to get discounts on their premiums and other perks”, so what happens when that data can be accessed? Is the larger stage not merely ‘What we consent to’, but a stage where the insurer has a lessened risk, but we see that our insurance is not becoming cheaper, there is the second stage that those not taking that path get insurance surcharge. So what has the EU done about that? We can accept that this is not on the plate of Margrethe Vestager, but it is on someones plate and only now, when Google steps in do we see action? 

So whilst the old farts at the EU are taking a gander at what they can get, I wonder what happens to all the other parts they are not looking at. Should Google acquire my IP, with access to 440,000,000 retailers and well over 1,500,000,000 consumers, will they cry murder? Will they shout unfair? Perhaps thinking out of the box was an essential first requirement and Fitbit is merely a stage to a much larger pool that 5G gives, but as they listened to the US, they can’t tell, not until 2022, at that point it is too late for the EU, I reckon that they get to catch on in 2021 when they realise that they are losing ground to all the others, all whilst they could have been ahead of the game, lets say a Hail Mary to those too smitten by ego. 

 

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