Category Archives: Law

September 4, 2019 · 11:26

Unemployed or UN employed?

I got hit by the news last night and I had to sit down to settle a little. Now, I already had plenty of issues with the UN, the first one is Eggnog Calamari (aka Agnès Callamard) with her essay, several parts of that being debatable (as I personally see it) and too much on speculation and what might have been. OK, besides that point there are plenty of other issues, yet the news yesterday takes the cake. The news (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/france-britain-complicit-yemen-war-crimes-190903103122355.html) giving the headline ‘US, France, Britain may be complicit in Yemen war crimes: UN‘ makes the UN now come across as a joke. Even as we get the same approach with their ‘secret list’ the quote: “The United States, United Kingdom and France may be complicit in war crimes in Yemen by arming and providing intelligence and logistics support to a Saudi-led coalition that starves civilians as a war tactic“, it is the ‘as a war tactic‘ that is the part that bothers me. There has been enough news and enough mentions that Houthi forces took food from the people. In addition there is enough evidence that Houthi forces stopped the flow of food and medicine. There is equal sources (unconfirmed) that Hezbollah set that stage, in addition the Iranian part in all this remains unmentioned. Apparently the report also gives us: “The Houthis for their part have shelled cities, deployed child soldiers and used “siege-like warfare”” yet no mention of the famine actions that have been reported on a few occasions instigated and pushed through by Houthi forces. I am clearly not stating that Saudi Arabia and the UAE did the same tactics, the acts that the report accuses them of. I am not aware of this part and I am not saying that this is not so, yet there is now allegedly (because the Al Jazeera article is the source) more than one piece of evidence missing, as such the UN can no longer be trusted at present. The intentional absence of Iranian actions, the absence of Hezbollah mentions, as well as the fact that UN volunteers earlier this year reported that Houthi force claimed and blocked food supplies is a large issue and as it is unmentioned now gives rise to the UN becoming a questionable presence.

The quote “Its appendix lists the names of more than 160 “main actors” among Saudi, Emirati and Yemeni top brass as well as the Houthi movement, although it did not specify whether any of these names also figured in its list of potential suspects” is equally debatable. By trying to steer clear through: “it did not specify whether any of these names” implying that Houthi forces are less guilty. Still the actions of Iran supplying arms, drones and missiles are seemingly not mentioned. And if there is truth to the quote: “the information in these reports is absolutely crucial to build cases in the future“, the absence of Iran and Hezbollah become even more interesting. The question with me is whether the person behind that report is UN employed, or should that person become unemployed immediately.

When I take a helicopter rise (or a magic carpet ride) I can agree that there are no real innocent sides, all sides will transgress, make mistakes and so on. Did Saudi forces refuse to feed people, or were the food supplies already seized by Houthi forces? It is not a case of bias; it is active strategies on a theatre of war that was active. The fact that Houthi forces were mostly unmentioned is a much larger issue; the absence of Iran makes the entire Al Jazeera article optionally worthless. I will wait for the actual report to come out and nit-pick that report to death. Yet the article in France 24 gives us: “US, Britain, France, Iran and others that they “may be held responsible for providing aid or assistance for the commission of international law violations if the conditions for complicity are fulfilled.”” gives an optional first stage where the bulk the question is larger, Al Jazeera voiced it as: “while also highlighting the role Western countries have played as key backers of the Arab states and Iran has played in support of the Houthis“, yet it is the only mention of Iran and no mention of the acts of Hezbollah at all, which is still an issue on several levels.

There is one additional failing in the article, and optionally in the report as well. the quote: “it found that a Joint Incidents Assessment Team set up by Saudi Arabia to review alleged coalition violations had failed to hold anyone accountable for any strike killing civilians, raising “concerns as to the impartiality of its investigations”“, the quote shows a larger failing in the train of thought here. It is the task of a Joint Incidents Assessment Team to see of proper procedures were adhered to, that is not an impartial task, that is a clear task whether military protocols were ignored. The Human Right Watch (at https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/08/24/hiding-behind-coalition/failure-credibly-investigate-and-provide-redress-unlawful) gives us a few parts, but the quote: “JIAT originally consisted of 14 individuals from the main coalition members. It has a mandate to investigate the facts, collect evidence, and produce reports and recommendations on “claims and accidents” during coalition operations in Yemen” is seemingly accurate. The task is to initially investigate whether proper military procedures were adhered to. This is important as this sets-up the investigation through the chain of command. At that point SIGINT can determine whether communications were passed on correctly, it is there where I believe that one additional independent member would be required to investigate ALL the raw data. It is a time consuming job, but that is the path to find out what happened. And anyone thinking that this is simple, think again any event could take months to investigate if ALL the data is available. Yes, I agree it might seem partial, but it optionally is not. If anyone accuses this JIAT to be partial, than there might be a case for that, but it is still edged on the need for the Saudi Government to investigate whether they did something wrong. A defence attorney is not impartial, he or she opposes the prosecution to find all the evidence and applies the law to show innocence (or better stated an absence of guilt); it is a military approach, a Judge Advocate General (JAG) job to investigate. They apply the law and at present I have not seen any evidence clearing or properly accusing Saudi Arabia and the UAE from being actually guilty. Yet the other HRW parties are eager to ignore Iran’s part in all that. In addition, as the HRW gave rise 6 months ago with ‘Yemen: Houthi Landmines Kill Civilians, Block Aid‘ (at https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/22/yemen-houthi-landmines-kill-civilians-block-aid) where we see: “Mines have also prevented aid groups from bringing food and health care to increasingly hungry and ill Yemeni civilians“, gives a larger truth. The article in Al Jazeera (and France 24) give no rise to that given, Houthi involvement was minimalized and that is a much larger crime (as I personally see it) giving rise to my premise that this person behind the report should not be UN employed, that person should be unemployed.

That took less than 20 minutes to figure out, I wonder why Al Jazeera made no clear mention of that failure, where is their head at and where is their media allegiance at?

 

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September 2, 2019 · 11:23

Funny Money, Amusing Thickheads

There are two issues and they do not link, but they are supportive of one another. I made notice of this situation 5 months ago in my article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/04/27/then-the-hard/) called ‘Then the hard‘, in the article I give “Now we get to the part where the €2.5 trillion mark matters, as the ECB is trying to find new ways to convince others that the continued provision of stimulus to the economy matters“, as I see it the stimulus protects banks, makes them more powerful, it allows for political stupidity, yet the economy has not been saved (not in the two attempts), it has not been jump started, and it has not been a positive impact for its citizens, merely the industrial executives and the rich CEO’s (OK, that was a more biased view from yours truly, the writer).

As Bloomberg gave us on Saturday (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-31/more-ecb-officials-pile-into-stimulus-debate-as-economy-wilts) ‘More ECB Officials Pile Into Stimulus Debate as Economy Wilts‘, and when we see: “the ECB should keep all options on the table to reinvigorate inflation and growth, including a relaunch of quantitative easing“, it is at that point that the EU citizens are getting screwed (again), more debt (again) and no resolution because the ECB is about the gravy train and not about resolutions. Yes that same article gives opposing voices, yet I would not be surprised that (by a narrow margin) the stimulus people win. This is why Brexit was so important!

In the end the retirees get hammered for those debts, the ECB officials have too fat wallets to care. At this point the debts have surpassed €3,000,000,000,000 and it seems that the end is nowhere near, yet the stage of bankruptcy is there. Even at 0.1% (no debt interest is ever that low) implies that the interest is €3 billion a year. A payment that is way beyond the budgets of any of the EU nations, payment due every year whilst the bulk of them have overextended themselves with budgets that should have been shrunk by well over 5%, so pretty much all the EU nations are running an economic deficit whilst the Mario Draghi Posse is handing out more money, printed money, for a lack of a better term funny money.

What the ECB is not telling anyone that most stimulus options fall flat when the UK officially leaves the EU that is the despair there. Their options melt away when the UK is out and that is why everyone is suddenly in a panic, that is why we get these moronic acts and even UK Labour is all about remain now. And with that part we move to the second part of this.

Now we get to the Chief of Grief, the Duke of Fluke, the one and only real loser in history (as I personally see it) Jeremy Corbyn. When we see headlines like ‘No-deal Brexit: Jeremy Corbyn vows to ‘pull Britain back from the brink’‘, or ‘Final sovereignty on Brexit must rest with the people‘ we see the idiot he is. There was a referendum, there was a voice and Brexit won, the issues with the ECB shows us that we are a lot better outside then inside that mess. There is no brink of Brexit, there is an economic mess and we will enter a stage of recession, anyone telling you that it can be presented is lying to you, or they are wielding massive amounts of money, amounts that no one has. This has been shown by people more intelligent than me and by people with actual economic degrees; they all are on the ‘remain’ fence, merely because it butters their bread. It gets worse when we see that the Hysterical Remain groups that have become violent, abusive and out of control, more important, to a larger degree the media isn’t even covering it. How is that for balanced information?

I have heard one or two actual ‘remainers’ who made a really good case, yet in the end, they have no control over the ECB and the ECB is in Europe at present the great evil. What they claim is good for Europe is to a much larger extent merely good for big business. When we look at those companies leaving the UK, these are all companies hiding behind taxation options, or facilitating to really large players and to some degree that is fine, but the ECB forgot that the well over 150 million small business owners see nothing of any of that and more important, they will see the impact of the 3 trillion euro of debt that the ECB created, things are that much out of whack and I do not get why people accept the presented BS that people like Jeremy Corbyn have been presenting to the masses. I am aware and I also believe that Brexit had its own waves of BS presenters. I made up my own mind and for the most I was leaning towards Remain, Mark Carney (the Marky Mark of the British bank) and especially his speech to the House of Lords was the setting of that stage. Yet he too had one flaw (if you want to call it that), there was no controlling the ECB and they are out again making some lame excuse on the essential economic need for more stimulus, whilst we already know now that it will not save the economy and they are willing to wager another trillion euro and spend it up front.

These people are not held accountable in any way and I say: ‘Enough is enough!‘ The UK is better off by itself steering the economic waters as it had done for centuries. Oh, I almost forgot the second part on sovereignty, sovereignty does not rest with the people, it rests in Buckingham Palace with HRH Queen Elisabeth II. There was a referendum and the Brexit group with a little over 51% won. And to those people still in doubt, you only have yourself to blame with the mess you are creating. There were 46 million votes, representing a 72% group, so 28% did not even bother to vote! Those 13 million votes were invalid straight of the bat, with only 25,000 invalid or blank votes we see no real impact, it they were all remain voted it would not have mattered. When you consider all this and you see the hooligan masses being remain people, we see two parts, the first is that they are moronic (worthy of UK Labour), yet the larger issue is that a lot are in anger because they are not getting properly informed. Stories like: ‘UK government officials told the food industry that supplies of liquid egg could run out in a no-deal Brexit‘, yet the operative word is ‘could‘ we just do not know, and not knowing is adamant in a lot of this, yet the people have faced two years of fear mongering, all large consortiums that see a danger to their margins, not the margins of the shop, the margins to executives and their bonuses, and the people are eating the fear hook, line and sinker. There will be actual issues, but the foundation of all this is that this has never happened before and the EU and the ECB did this to themselves. We all forget how this started, this all started when Greece in 2009 had misrepresented itself and we saw issue after issue, debt after debt and the politicians that caused it merely walked away. Then we were told stories on how Greece might be evicted from the EU, the news was all over that yet the truth was that we were misled (or is that made Miss Led?) The Guardian (in 2015) gave us: “As Athens will be unable to satisfy its financial obligations after a default, many hardliners expect Greece to leave the Eurozone, and printing as much neo-drachma as necessary. Some see this as the only solution to the Greek crisis: it would allow Greece to devalue its new currency, supposedly making the country competitive and resulting in economic growth and the ability to repay its debt“, in addition we get: “while only article 50 of the EU treaty regulates how a state can leave the union. And a mechanism for leaving only the Eurozone or for expulsion even has not been provided for at all“, basically the stupidity of the EU was that they stated that every member will always be up front and do what must be done, which was deceptive in its own rights. So a group that is merely inclusive and under stringent rules can they leave, yet in addition other sources gave us that NO MEMBER can be expelled. This is called a Corporatocracy, not a democracy. Corporations decide on what happens and that is what we basically see at present. The problem here is that any Corporatocracy will limit its actions towards enablers and consumers; the rest is pretty much screwed. In a monarchy all citizens matter and the people do not seem to be able to grasp that, the UK (and the Netherlands, as well as Sweden, Belgium and so on are monarchies within a Corporatocracy and that is a very different setting, that stage can only be made profitable where debts are soaring and the banks not the government decide where you can be at, a situation we see all over Europe. this is not new, I did not invent it, other voices going back to 2014 say pretty much the same thing, I merely have a lot more data available at present. The media relies on advertisement money from any Corporatocracy, so you cannot expect them to actually inform you, it is a double edged blade and both sides are pointed at YOUR guts, it is that detrimental a situation.

So as Greece made a few issues clear in the wrong way, people like Nigel Farage went with the notion of ‘Better Out than in‘, I agree with him, yet I remained on the fence for the longest of times. It was the second ECB stimulus who would put us so much deeper in debt that got me across. The first stimulus was fine, it was an option and even as it did not work out, it gave Europe time, yet the second one the best we could hope for was time and that is where the problem started and now as stimulus 3 is on the table the setting is too unacceptable, the UK needs to get out and fast, deal or not.

Let’s not make a fairy tale, this will not be a nice time and things will get worse for a little while, anyone telling you different is lying to you. The issue is that with the ropes cut the EU cannot force debts on the UK to the degree it is doing now, more important the UK gets to make a few other choices and it will down the road (3-4 years) turn the economy in something stronger. It will result in an actual better quality of life over time, but it will not be immediate. This is why the ties and economic options with players like Huawei (5G), nations like Saudi Arabia (all kinds of goods) and a few other players become important (optionally India with generic medication). Anyone with the misguided notion that Human Rights are the optimal route better stay at home. If Human Rights were an actual power there would be no age discrimination, there would be actual better (and more) housing and there would be a better social security. All missing and mostly because in a Corporatocracy, corporations are largely tax exempt, exactly what we see today. In that stage we now see the rumblings, even as players like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and others are all making noises on leaving, they do so at the risk of losing 69 million consumers. Facebook is truly global, so is Google to the largest extent, yet for Apple we get Huawei, ASUS and HP, Amazon leaving would give the people a slimmer HMV and optionally small businesses come back (my preferred solution), and even as corporations are shouting, screaming, streaming and threatening, they all realise that you cannot walk away from 69 million consumers. Not when they need to share the smaller EU pool with 3-4 competitors at every corner. That is the part we all forgot, consumer power is actually power and we listened to the likes of Jeremy Corbyn for far too long. To be honest, I never thought that it would be possible to be more dim than Nick Clegg (LIBDEMS), yet I was wrong, Jeremy Corbyn pulled it off nicely. I am not stating that Boris Johnson is without flaws (his barber being the obvious one). I am stating that the UK has been in a dangerous position for far too long and as long as the ECB does the way it does it, the danger stays, getting away from that danger is an immediate need at present.

 

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August 31, 2019 · 11:06

When in doubt

It started 5 days ago when I wrote ‘Bitches on parade‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/08/26/bitches-on-parade/). The premise from my point of view is that you cannot heckle a country based on a lack of evidence (read: CEO Jamie Dimon), so whilst he pulled out of the Saudi Conference, he was eager and willing to take a chunk of a $2,000,000,000,000 pie at the drop of a hat (any hat). The man has no principles when it comes to money, which is fine. Yet now the entire event is exploding in several directions as the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/29/political-uncertainty-puts-london-listing-in-doubt-for-saudi-aramco) informs us that “state oil company may rule out the London Stock Exchange amid Britain’s rising political uncertainty“, in one word brilliant! Two years of whining and lack of decision is not about to hit the British MP field in a massive way. It gets to be even better when we consider the impact for the EU as a larger field, the current favourite according to insiders will be the Japan’s Tokyo stock exchange. If that happens, I get to smile whilst a whole range of bonuses will not arrive with Wall Street, the ECB or London (I am least happy about London missing out). There is a price, there is a cost to doing business and it seems that this week Saudi Arabia is making the tally to that event.

And now we see that the field changes. With quote: “Saudi energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, reignited plans for the float earlier this summer after announcing that officials were working to list the company within the next two years. Aramco announced earlier this month, in its first investor call, that it is ready for the listing whenever its shareholders agreed market conditions were “optimal”” It is here that we need to see the profit, the sudden option for Tokyo, who was not in the race at all also implies the added risk that Tokyo says ‘yes’ (read: Hai!) too eager giving the Saudi Aramco executives a much larger bonus than they expected, making the wave on the market gives rise that there will be two waves and these executives get to enjoy the windfall of both waves. I reckon that Lürssen Yachts (optionally Damen Yachts and CRN) will get to look forward to at least 5 additional commissions for yachts over 90 meters before the end of the year.

There is a much larger issue; it is not merely who gets what, and where we buy in. Bloomberg gave us on Thursday: “It’s been a good week for those seeking to pare bets on a market that brokers including Morgan Stanley say has become too expensive, given weakening fundamentals. MSCI on Tuesday wrapped up the second phase of including Saudi shares in its developing nations index, prompting billions of dollars in inflows from passive funds. Some active managers took advantage of the increased liquidity to reduce their holdings“, there is no way for me to comment on the issue as stocks are not my trade EVER! Yet consider the quote ‘brokers including Morgan Stanley say has become too expensive‘, yet they too are rallying to get their fingers on Aramco. Business is hard and I am fine with the directness that the market needs to be. Yet Aramco is different, everyone wants in and as such Saudi Arabia gets to elect the offerings and as such some players are about to enter the new field, they are optionally becoming the next Ricky Fuld, who was the only person not offered a deal in 2008 whilst the others got one. I am not sure on how to see that, The Wall Street Journal gives us ‘Branded a Villain, Lehman’s Dick Fuld Chases Redemption‘, these people walked away with massive amounts whilst almost one in two households got foreclosed in the end, that is a massive amount of anger to deal with and I personally believe that the Saudi’s will do business with everyone, just a certain group of people will have to be willing to cut their margins by a fair bit. Certain actions have impact and will have a considerable impact of the option to do business, Saudi Arabia could afford to wait, of those people had only decided to wait factual evidence, that would have been nice, not?

I believe that their hypocrisy on Jamal Khashoggi now has a price (to some degree); in addition the economic turmoil gives Saudi Arabia the option to select the host, who will gain a lot. I never considered Japan before today on this, but the choice makes sense.

We could go with the option: ‘When in doubt select the ally that seems more sincere‘ or we can go with ‘Be careful who you wake up with presented and insincere morals‘ I reckon that Wall Street and Especially the ECB need to learn from the second option. No matter how things unfold, pretty much everyone will be keeping 100% attention on the Tokyo exchange, something that has not happened in a long time and Aramco made it happen. And all whilst this is going on, the UK is still in all kinds of childish banter, especially by opposition parties. So when we get the Jeremy Corbyn quote “avoiding a No Deal Brexit” my (absolutely less than diplomatic) response would be “If you weren’t such a stupid dick, you could have done something 2 years ago, but you all played the ‘it will blow over’ tactic ignoring the democracy when they majority decided to Brexit!“, and now the mess is becoming even larger as London lost the option for hosting the Aramco deal. We even see Dutch issues with: “Dutch Foreign Minister Stephen Blok said on Thursday that “serious talks” on Brexit had taken place in Brussels this week, but warned the two sides “are not there yet” on a deal“, there was never going to be a deal, all delays were set to try and overthrow Brexit, now you see that there will be a much larger impact and there will be trade deals in the end no company will walk away from the option to tap into a 69 million consumer base.

That was a clear setting from the very beginning, anyone ignoring that part is delusional. Let’s not forget that the need to exceed shareholder expectations also automatically imply that the EU customer base representing half a billion people also means that 13.5% of them will not ever be shunned, someone else will walk in and take over.

For some, the entire Aramco was icing on the cake and now that this falls away and falls away from Europe also means that the EU will have several grim numbers to report in January 2020, plenty of people are already scared whit less and ready to retire as soon as the October 2019 numbers are released.

When in doubt, never trust Status Quo to actually remain. It is the deadliest of traps and it just sprung.

 

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August 27, 2019 · 11:44

Legally dopey dealings

We all know people who are out and about, some are out for dope, others are merely dopey. As such we have all kinds of checks and balances in place (or so one would think). It was there for a little surprising to see: ‘Johnson & Johnson responsible for fuelling opioid crisis in Oklahoma, judge rules‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/johnson-and-johnson-opioid-crisis-ruling-responsibility-oklahoma-latest). I was of the mind that this would not happen. Not because I like the firm, not because I like the product Pledge (for my furniture), and optionally I use other materials by Jay & Jay, I merely am unaware of it.

I am also not debating the events, or the guilt of Johnson and Johnson, I merely have a lot of other questions, questions that as far as I can tell are not answered. To get there, we need to see the accusation: “the giant drug maker helped fuel the deadly opioid epidemic in the state“, first of all, there is a larger failing. When we focus on the ‘deadly opioid epidemic‘, we need to see that this does not go over the counter. So when we look at the words of AG Mike Hunter “a “cunning, cynical and deceitful scheme” to ramp up narcotic painkiller sales alongside other opioid manufacturers by using their huge resources to influence medical policy and doctor prescribing“, I wonder who these prescribing doctors were. Did they not study medicine? The fact that thousands of doctors prescribed opioids is a larger issue, it does not make J&J less guilty, it makes others a lot less innocent. J&J should not be standing there alone. The claim “selling as many narcotic painkillers as possible” calls for an inclusions of the doctors giving out the recipe and the pharmacy accepting that doctors kept on prescribing the drug. We also need to look at the FDA who approved the drug in the first place. Here we are looking at three guilty parties, with two groups consisting of thousands of people involved. Yet the article shows merely a J&J in the dock, having to shell out $572,000,000. This leads to questions that do not add up.

In addition we see: “Oklahoma resolved claims against Purdue Pharma in March for a settlement of $270m and against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries in May for $85m“, it calls for additional questions and they are not given, it seems that the essential questions are not even asked in the article. Even the CDC has questions to answer. This part is given with: “Opioids were involved in almost 400,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to 2017, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention“, there is already a clear case on how these opioids were prescribed, yet we see nothing of that. And as the article continues with: “Since 2000, some 6,000 Oklahomans have died from opioid overdoses“, this implies 300 deaths a year and we see nothing demanded from doctors and more important on how dosage had this effect. All elements that might be attributed to J&J, but it took a doctor to decide on the medication, is that not the case?

The truth of that is seen at the very end of the article by John Sparks, Oklahoma counsel for Johnson & Johnson. “Not once did the state identify a single Oklahoma doctor who was misled by a single Janssen statement, nor did it prove that Janssen misleadingly marketed opioids or caused any harm in Oklahoma“, I would phrase it: “Not once were doctors and their pharmacies called to explain these numbers, the total numbers who got prescribed these opioids and not once do we see any alerts to the CDC on any of this“. The evidence in this is that the 22,500 overdoses a year should have rattled the CDC no later than 2003, so where are the actions shown that there was an issue? The American pharmacy system failed on several levels and even as no one denies that Johnson and Johnson had a role to play, the FDA and the CDC should have clearly intervened no later than 2005 that is seemingly not the case, because the cadavers kept on stacking for at least another decade.

It took me less than 600 seconds to see this truth; as such Mike Hunter is actually dealing with a massive systemic failure that goes all the way to his own office.

And as we read: “cunning, cynical and deceitful scheme“, it seems more apt to accuse the office of the Attorney General for inaction, complacency on a matter that endangered the lives of hundreds of his state constituents every year and his office has remained inactive for well over a decade, it seems to me that his office should equally be investigated for reckless endangerment of people. In all this the pharmacies and doctors need to be heard on how and why these patients were prescribed. My view was supported in July 2019 when we were told (by the Guardian) “The company has previously acknowledged delivering 5.7m opioid pills between 2005 and 2011 to the small town of Kermit, West Virginia, with a population of just 380 people“, this shows the larger extent of pharmacies and their distributors. More important, who was prescribing these opioids?

We can argue that Johnson and Johnson is guilty or innocent, yet the truth is that this reckless abuse system is a lot larger than the pharmacy creating the opioid containing medicine, it is a much larger greed driven setting and I believe that Oklahoma and specifically Mike Hunter failed the American people. He might feel all happy and joy joy that he won the case, yet I believe that it is merely part in covering up a much larger crime that goes all the way to the top of the CDC, as well as a national pharmacy failure. The article does not give us that, does it?

It gets to be even a little wilder when we consider a 1978 episode of Lou Grant (season 2 Episode 1 – pills). In that episode we get a similar setting, more important, in the dialogue at the end we hear: “246 kids went to the same three places. Druggists are obliged to report any doctors who are prescribing abnormal amounts of dangerous drugs, the state pharmacy board had not received a report from any of the three“, now I accept that this is the text from a TV series, a drama series. Yet the premise remains, is there a legal premise in the US (still) in place that this reporting needs to happen? If there isn’t why was this never done? The danger of substance use disorder has been around for decades, this failing cannot be held over the head of a pharmaceutical company. There is a clear indication of violations on local, state and federal level, it is a systemic failure and we might large applause that a large pharmaceutical gets the bill, but the failing is much larger and because of that there is an injustice in all this.

I believe that Johnson and Johnson has a much larger role to play and they are not innocent, yet the failing is systemic, as such there is every chance that their appeal will have large consequences on a national level in America.

I wonder if Ed Asner, Robert Walden and Mason Adams ever considered that they would be part of a stage where they pointed out a much larger American failing 4 decades before it went to court. I remember the series as I was almost 18 (just two years short of that) and It was my dream to become a wartime photo journalist (a younger Daryl Anderson). It was not meant to be, but I never lost my passion for photography.

This case is more than we see and I reckon that jurisprudence papers will soon enough fill up on the systemic failings that Mike Hunter is eager to avoid in the court room.

Even now, we see another article from the Guardian that is almost an hour old. There we see: “It was also revealed that Johnson & Johnson hired the consultants McKinsey, which recommended the company’s sales force should focus on doctors already prescribing large amounts of Purdue’s OxyContin”, there is a level of validity of looking into that practice, yet the part linked to all this, the doctors prescribing the medication in the first place, they had a duty of care towards their patients. A marketing strategy might be debatable, it might also be immoral, yet in the end the doctor is the one acting, so is the pharmacy handing it out again and again, where are they in all this?

It is in that article where we see a two sided issue (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/johnson-and-johnson-opioid-crisis-ruling-responsibility-oklahoma-latest), with: “Sabrina Strong, one of the trial lawyers for Johnson & Johnson, said the ruling was flawed. The company argued that the drugs it sold were approved by federal regulators and that they could not be tied directly to any deaths in Oklahoma”, we see that Sabrina Strong is opening two doors, one bad one. Yes, we can agree that they were approved; the error was ‘they could not be tied directly to any deaths’. Were all hundreds each year all vetted? That is the flaw, because that data could also reveal which physicians prescribed them and which pharmacies filled the prescription. That evidence was not covered by the media, and as this goes over almost two decades, how did the CDC cover this? 300 deaths a year in one state is too large to ignore, especially when it is part of a larger failing. That is the part that Johnson and Johnson have seemingly not covered. I feel certain that the appeal will cover it and it will make life for Mike Hunter a much larger problem than he realises.

 

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August 25, 2019 · 13:36

Famine issue solved

Yes, isn’t that a good way to start Sunday? The world solved the famine issue. It took no trouble at all, the media merely needed to stop writing about it. There is so much other stuff to write about. All the things that Saudi Arabia are accused of, some sources state that an Iranian oil tanker is now ‘under terrorist command‘ (no real evidence has been presented though), and the UK is sending another ship (the third) to reinforce the anti-Iran armada. All news, there is no more famine, famine has been resolved.

How come?

Well that is the question; it is only the Independent (according to some now partially owned by Saudi players) that gives us (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-war-civil-independence-south-mahra-aden-saudi-arabia-iran-a9076546.html) the headline ‘The war to start all wars: Inside Yemen’s troubled south‘, an article by Bel Trew, a true Belle gives us the harsh reality of what we are trying not to see. Yet there is disagreement of what I read. As I am introduced to “They talk of a war within a war within another war in a nation already in the grips of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, where 13 million people are currently on the brink of famine“, I see the same words again and again for many months. I believe that the situation is worse, the quote ‘where 13 million people are currently on the brink of famine‘ should actually be ‘hundreds of thousands of Yemeni, mostly children are in and beyond a stage of famine‘, my point of view is supported by data intelligence, signal intelligence and trade craft intelligence. The amount of food getting into Yemen is nowhere near the amount that should be going into Yemen and there are still Houthi clusters taking possession of food and water supplies (or destroying them). It is a lot worse and the media is looking elsewhere for optional debatable facts to publish.

In an age of these transgressions, in a stage where I see that there are no true innocent players, not on the Saudi side, not on their opposing sides, the effort that the UN needed to make is a joke (and a bad one at that). I am not placing blame on Saudi Arabia, I am merely noticing that they cannot be innocent, it is not the same. The initial option for Saudi Arabia would be to set up a refugee camp near Thabhloten. There is a tactical reason. It is 225 Km away from Yemen, there is not strategic goal there and any attack by Houthi forces would be seen as a direct reason for UN forces to open fire on attacking forces. I myself would be willing to brand an Accuracy International .338 and cull the attacking herd myself at that point. It should be a refugee camp, for children and women only; a camp to give medicine and sustenance trying to oppose the famine numbers and get the immediate help going.

It seems like a little, but let us accept no mistake here; that camp would be temporary and would settle close to 700,000 people in the shortest time, a camp offering real help and real relief to a larger part of those in the famine group. Something needs to be done, yet the media is to some extent hiding behind ‘on the brink of famine‘, as I personally see it that point was passed will over three months ago, it is worse and the media looks away for whatever reason. We cannot settle the Yemeni and Syrian issue, but the worst of the two, the Yemeni one can get relief to some extent. I have some degree of certainty that Saudi Arabia would want to be seen as the actual caretaker here, the question becomes do the Yemeni feel the same. I look at this from a Christian point of view, whilst I accept that there is an Islamic view, and it takes precedence here. In that respect the UNHCR gives us:

And if anyone of the disbelievers seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the word of Allah, and then escort him to where he will be secure. (Surah 9:6)

I believe that if this applies to disbelievers, that it equally applies to believers and the goodwill that Saudi Arabia offers in this way is not to be underestimated. When the famine lessens these people would most likely want to get back to Yemen and rebuild their lives, there too Saudi Arabia could steer these people to a better tomorrow, these people have to determine for one’s self what the better stage is, yet I believe that any stage is better than the one they face now, especially as the media is no longer interested in keeping a non-stop view of just how bad the situation is there.

That same paper (at https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/protection/hcdialogue%20/50ab90399/islam-refugees.html) refers to the hijrah, which was a new word for me. It means migration and this is where I am given: “Muhammad’s popularity was seen as threatening by the people in power in Mecca, and Muhammad took his followers on a journey from Mecca to Medina in 622. This journey is called the Hijrah and the event was seen as so important for Islam that 622 is the year in which the Islamic calendar begins“, if this is true than Yemen might start a new Hijrah, a journey for the children and women to travel (transport) from Yemen to Thabhloten, a stop, or perhaps better stated an oasis on the journey to where they end up going. We need to find an actual solution to save as many Yemeni as we can and we need to start with the women and children. We would love it to be in Yemen, yet the Houthi forces as well as the escalations make that no longer an option. The delays and obstructions are too large, the benefit is that other parties can then participate and open fire on anyone firing at these refugees. Houthi forces (the most likely transgressors) would find themselves in a stage of open war against troops that are ready and willing to protect the refugees. Thabhloten cannot be the end destination for that journey, but could allow for actual action against the famine that is now getting more and more ignored. In all this the civil war that is now sprouting in Yemen makes any other option impossible. With UN reports on Cholera outbreaks we need to do more and we need to set the stage where players like doctors without borders have a better stage to do something without getting into direct danger, or ending up in the firing line.

And matters are getting worse. The quote: “But for Elisabeth Kendall, a Yemen expert at Pembroke College Oxford University who travels frequently to the south, the training of separatist groups had “unleashed a force” the UAE may not be able to control” gives us more. You see it is not about the separatists, it is about who is training the separatists. Even as the UAE was preparing the separatists fighting the Houthi forces, we see a stage where old grievances are now a much larger issue, the old issue of north and south Yemen is returning, not a good thing. If these forces are truly in a path to a better Yemen (or better north and south Yemen) than getting the famine out of the equation would be an accepted first for both sides.

Is that actually true?

Well, it is something that I cannot prove, yet the UNHCR gives me: “In Islamic law, all individuals, including non-Muslims, have the right to flee persecution and seek protection in an Islamic community. The provision of refugee assistance is obligatory to people who flee from “injustice, intolerance, physical persecution, disease, or financial insecurity”“, if that is true than all parties would be willing to participate in the dissolution of famine, to set a stage where these people could be treated and protected.

I am merely trying to find an actual solution that would do something for the people in famine, which makes me already a much better person than any media who has been turning away from these events. I am not trying to set blame to any party, merely trying to find a solution where disease and famine might be defeated, it is not a Samaritan choice, it is not a Christian choice, it is a human choice and we are all human, no matter which faith drives us. I learned this lesson in my lifetime, and that makes me (for now) a better person than many others, no matter how much or how little life is left in me.

I always tried to steer a decent course, I stayed true to my nature, I remained creative, humane and a force for the good of others. So whether it is our heavenly father or Allah facing me where I end up being next, I will stand proudly accepting whatever judgment comes for me, I was a decent person. I wonder how many others can truly and honestly make that claim.

 

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August 23, 2019 · 13:26

Another Brick in the growing Wall

The wall of profit is going nicely in France, even as I would like to take another gander on how the western media is all about ignoring the Houthi attacks with drones on Saudi Arabia, it seems that we will get more on that soon enough. As I see it, we have a situation where at present 5 attacks have been ignored by the western media, like they are all about calling Saudi Arabia the big nasty, even though there is no factual evidence, merely biased opinion on several fronts. Today is not about that. Today is about France (the land of Wine, Cheese and Citroen). This place is pushing a few boundaries and even as we think that things are still open to discussion, it seems that the mighty bosses of banks (one particularly) have made their choice, I mentioned it a little over a week ago, yet all were easily persuaded to ignore it. Now that we are given: ‘French parliament passes “Huawei Law” to govern 5G security‘ (at http://telecoms.com/498728/french-parliament-passes-Huawei-law-to-govern-5g-security/), we see an optionally much larger change. This might be the first step in changing the landscape on a much larger scale and as far as I can tell it is just the beginning. There is an important notice to all this and it opposes the UK point of view to almost 180 degrees. In the UK, Alex Younger (big boss of MI-6), aka El Capitano de observadores furtivos is off the mind that important infrastructure should never be in foreign hands. This is a policy issue and I do not oppose this choice. It is the short minded and stupid American view of being shouting anti-Huawei accusations without proof that I object to. Now we see on the other side (France) where Mathieu Duchatel gives us “the French government is creating a regulatory environment that helps reduce its vulnerability to foreign intelligence collection“, which is another policy approach. I tend to like this more than the one Alex Younger gives, but both are valid points. Yet the one Duchatel gives us leaves the players with more options.

To see this, we need to go back to 1993, when Sybase and Microsoft dissolve the partnership they had and Microsoft receives a copy of the SQL Server code base, this was the best approach and after this we see that Microsoft sets their own designers to make evolve their SQL servers, a choice that ends up making them a direct competitor of the code Larry Ellison pushed for (the solution we know as Oracle), and whilst he went sailing across the oceans, MS SQL Server got the be lean and mean. Even as we see flaws, we see that Microsoft created a much larger market than we thought possible. It is that path Europe and America needed for 5G. So as the Yanks decided to screw themselves 6 ways from Sunday, Europe has a much better approach and now we see the path where France has opened up a dialogue to enable that solution down the track. It is a solution that would assist Huawei as well, as we see a solution that uses the Huawei 5G path as a benchmark, France et al could deploy a non-Chinese 5G solution that is set to the Chinese standards and that would suit China (read: Huawei) in a few ways. It all goes from bad to worse for America. What everyone seems to forget is that Azure in China is Shanghai Blue Cloud Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly (or is that holy) owned subsidiary of Beijing 21Vianet Broadband Data Center Co., Ltd. and it now implies that the accelerated evolution of 5G via Huawei has the stage where the best upgrades to implementation and facilitation to 5G will come from 21Vianet and not from Microsoft. Just as Sybase gave the keys to Microsoft in the 90’s, we now see the opposite where the business advantage will be with the Blue Cloud bosses, together with Huawei they now have a much larger advantage than anyone realises. Even as there is a shift in china through the players like BitTitan, I believe that Huawei is still preparing for a much larger innovation giving 21Vianet when that kicks off an overnight advantage that Microsoft cannot equal, not for a much longer time, leaving Microsoft losing momentum to a much larger.

If you want proof, then I have to admit that I cannot give it, the market seems to facilitate to a larger shift and it is not some hidden gem that no one else found. I believe that the Sybase example is what we face today, as Mathieu Duchatel is setting the new policy, we see policy that is accepted over most of the EU, so as Germany, Spain and Italy accept this push, most of the EU nations will follow, they are willing to drop America like a bad habit ion all this. The US overplayed its hand and now they will face the consequences of choice. In this the UK must soon make up its own mind. The path Alex Younger opted for was not wrong, but it is a larger choice that could impede economic growth to a much longer degree for a much longer time, two elements the UK does not really have at present.

The SCMP article (at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3020354/while-weighing-5g-security-risks-france-predicts-it-can-manage) we see another solution for France and somehow I believe Credit Agricole had been preparing for this step a little longer than most others. France needs to be on top of this as 2024 Paris is coming near soon enough, implying that a multi-billion euro scheme for 5G will be announced before years end to get anywhere near ready and it seems that the Credit Agricole dividend is about to push upwards to a much larger degree. And when we get to the end of the article where we see: “5G infrastructure poses more complex problems. The distinction between core and edge is no longer as relevant, as many software operations will operate in the cloud“, we get to be introduced to the benefit and advantage that Beijing 21Vianet Broadband Data Center Co. now gets to have; Microsoft forgot that most cannot get to China (for simple linguistic considerations) that limitation does not exist in the other direction. And now as the cogs connect we see how the market takes a shift. Remember when I made the joke (and connection) to the cloud; it is merely someone else’s computer. Everyone so needy to muddy the water claiming it is so much more complex. OK, to the smallest degree it is.

To see my point of view consider the NASA Mainframe that was there for the moon landing (and perhaps a little more), now consider my old Mobile, this 2011 mobile needs 5% of available processing power to do what that entire NASA room did. The mobile that followed 4 years later was 400% more powerful with 1600% more storage and the one that followed was close to 300% more powerful than the previous one with an additional 1600% more storage, the market shifted THAT fast.

So when we see a data center now, and consider that a dozen racks with terabyte storage can be replaced by ONE drive, yes there is an Exabyte drive now, one drive with well over 1,000,000 terabytes. We are nowhere near replacing the entire data center, yet in 10 years, that center could be replaced by one large tower in that time, it might look a little different (I always loved the Cray systems, it comes with a place to sit and heating, but that so called ‘cloud’ will be in one clear specific location (just as it is now) and that is the issue;

it is the location of someone else’s computer that is the issue, soon it will no longer be in America, China is now in a position to offer the same, optionally cheaper and when the America BS starts with ‘It needs some vague quality seal of approval‘ (a SAS marketing trick we saw 20 years ago).

It will be at that point that the entire mess becomes ugly real fast and we are already pushing in that direction. The problem is not China, or America. It will be the policy considerations on where data is allowed to be; a lot of cloud issues on data locations are still open to discussion. The problem is not the hardware, it will be the place with the most logical policy in place, that will be the main player for the next stage and it seems that France has been keeping busy on becoming that European location. I reckon that China does not care, as long as they get the business and that is when we see the American failure on getting the business. They planned on greed when pragmatism was the only solution to push the market forward. Now as most nations start waking up on the loss of pragmatism, we see the consideration, to be a player or a tool and some are realising that they banked on the wrong horse and the American horse is about to become a ‘horse no show!‘

Whether it was merely some bank, some policy, or a larger linked consideration, this time the French have played a good long term game and they have every chance to reap the benefits of that game. We have yet to see how it all plays out and Paris 2024 will be the big test, but as the issue stands, the French are pushing forward, it is there that I found some references to Credit Agricole, DGSE, and a very large billion dollar option. Even as 21Vianet and its subsidiaries are not mentions, neither is Azure in any way, it all falls to the one mention of ‘Microsoft Corporation‘. This might all be true, but I still seek confirmation, on a stage this large 21Vianet could not have been unmentioned, the same for the entire Azure part. the line “the proliferation of real-time data from sources such as mobile devices, web, social media, sensors, log files, and transactional applications, Big Data has found a host of vertical market applications, ranging from fraud detection to scientific R&D“, makes its absence of certain players either short sighted or the elements of that article were unreliable. I believe it to be a little of both.

I wonder how the game unfolds; I reckon we will know a lot more by the end of the year.

 

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August 17, 2019 · 11:54

When it is the typeface

There is an expression that we all use; I used it as well, twice most recently. The expression ‘the writing is on the wall‘, which implies that “there are clear signs that a situation is going to become very difficult or unpleasant“, the stage to a specific warning. Yet I believe that the expression is further than that, I also see it was an approach of something inevitable, yet always in a negative connotation. So when I saw the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/16/independent-evening-standard-links-to-saudi-arabia-inquiry-blocked), where we are treated to ‘Court blocks inquiry into Independent and Standard’s links to Saudi Arabia‘, I saw something that has been given exposure before, yet I looked in another direction. And that direction is shown at the very end. The quote: “Since the investment was made the Independent has launched a range of foreign-language websites run by a Saudi publisher that uses its name, raising concerns about editorial oversight given the Middle Eastern kingdom’s poor record on press freedom“, it is here where I see that Jeremy Wright has another agenda. As former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom he knows what is in play, but he is not telling us that, is he? I believe that the expression ‘the writing is on the wall‘ is one that is set in two places and they impact one another. Even when we get back to the origin of the expression, we see a shortening of ‘mene mene tekel upharsin‘, which is of Aramaic origin. Yet how was that staged? We see that some give us: “The point of the moral tale was that Belshazzar couldn’t see the warning that was apparent to others because he was engrossed with his sinning ways“. The subtlety of the biblical wordplay is now somewhat lost on those of us who don’t speak ancient Aramaic, yet a Daniel in a stage set to war could have translated it into its actual meaning: “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?”

The problem is that the writer is assumed to be on a stage, and in that stage we see writing, we see the text, but we forget that text is more. It is a font, it is a size and collected we see a typeface. We are so used to take the newspapers and merely gobble up the text like it is an ASCII phrase, we forget that the stories are presented, the typeface presents this and newspapers have done so for well over a century. They have been in a stage where they represent themselves as neutral and authoritative, and this style of type has come to represent those attributes. Yet they have not been that for the longest of times, they have had an agenda for decades, WW2 started it and progressed through wars as they maintained facts under the air of neutrality, an air and stage they forsake long ago. In the end, the entire stage of ‘concerns about editorial oversight given the Middle Eastern kingdom’s poor record on press freedom‘ was never an issue. You see, the simplicity here is that people can always change papers. It is when that freedom is not trodden on; it is there that the old owners see the dangers. It is not about what is not presented, it is what is presented and how it is presented. The Russian Evgeny Lebedev, figured that out long ago and now he has arranged that Saudi Arabia and optionally more Middle Eastern players get a seat at that specific table.

The media silenced the truth of a lot of issues in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, now we get the stage where the people will get informed on a lot more of it that is the fear. When we hold a large candle to the media, we see the greed driven faulty and now we optionally see a new player informing all others and that rattled people like Jeremy Wright. We see the events in Yemen, we see a civil war within a civil war and the media is blaming Saudi Arabia to the larger extent, yet we are told half a story at best. Now we will face the stage where Saudi Arabia has a larger voice and it will be heard. The Independent and Evening Standard are too large to ignore and that voice will carry on an international level. And the court case gives us: “The judges ruled that while it was legitimate for the government to have issued an intention to intervene, the final referral should have been made by 1 July“, if there was a true danger the government would have acted sooner, they did not. Now they must face the events that two papers will get a lot more information and the previous times where the media initially disregarded missile strikes in Saudi Arabia will be ignored no mare. We can also question whether the media has failed its readers to a much larger degree, but that would be on the papers that are not the Evening Standard and not the Independent. The accusation is almost ludicrous, the UK has well over 14 larger daily newspapers, if there is real diminished freedom of the press, the other 12 take over and the value of these two papers fall to zero, after which a new owner will come and take over. As I personally see it, the entire oversight is a bogus issue, the fact that Saudi Arabia would now have a typeface that allows them to be heard is another matter, is it not?

So if the writing is actually on the wall, we need to look at the typeface used and who would place the text on the wall in the first place. And that is before we look at: “It was claimed in court that the companies were ultimately part-owned by a Saudi bank with close ties to the government” we can argue that the bulk of the newspapers are owned by banks with close ties to governments on a global scale, to me it all reads and reeks of a stage where the larger players are just too uncomfortable with Saudi Arabia getting a seat at the table, which is a whole new issue on discriminating elements. It is also the slow question that comes to the surface here. As we see: “A spokesperson for the news outlets said they were delighted by the outcome and that the intervention had been “disproportionate to the facts, unfair and a waste of public money“, as such, if we openly demand to see the costs involved for this case, will we be given the actual costs involved? If the UK had only 3 newspapers the stage would have made sense and more important, the chance that Evgeny Lebedev owned any part of it would be out of the question, but that is not the case. There are dozens of papers all over the UK, losing two would not be a huge impact and if Saudi Arabia intervenes with press freedom, a dozen of others take over on the spot diminishing the value of two newspapers, a temporary small market shift at best. A simple fact not given at all, so when we look at the typeface of it, what was this really about? Is it really about Freedom of the press, or is it about stopping Saudi Arabia from getting a larger international voice that is clearly heard all over the UK?

It seems to me that several players are not happy about that last option; we can now hold those players to account for news that was never given to us before.

 

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August 14, 2019 · 10:36

In light of faith

We all have faith to some degree, the atheist believes in himself (or herself) and believes in science, the agnostic accepts that there is something more, optionally there is a god (the dyslexic one totally believes in the existence of ‘dog’) and the believers, where do they stand?

I grew up being a Catholic, when the news from the Boston Globe reached the world, we became confused, the matter did not help when we watched the movie Spotlight and got a better view on a global scale just how corrupt the world facilitating to the Catholic Church had become. The 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven by Ridley Scott did not help the Catholic case either.

Now, we accept that the premise of the movie is not real, but the background is and there is plenty of supporting evidence. The Council of Clermont (November 1095) gives a lot to consider, the words by Pope Urban “a barbaric fury has deplorably afflicted and laid waste the churches of God in the regions of the Orient” has been accepted as a undisputed truth and for the longest of time (almost a 1000 years), we have been taught from primary school that the Saracens (Arabs) were the great evil, yet after the entire cold war and the Vietnam war, the word by government is no longer readily accepted and as the entire Catholic abuse stage has been evolving over the last decade those believing in something larger are in a internal fight of faith. Even in historic ways our place in the world is debatable. It is shown going back to the Treaty of Clermont 1095, when Georg Strack from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich gives us in his article ‘The Sermon of Urban II in Clermont and the Tradition of Papal Oratory‘ the larger issue: “Since we only have the reports of chroniclers and not the manuscript of the pope himself, each analysis of this address faces a fundamental problem: even the three writers who attended the Council of Clermont recorded three different versions, quite distinctive both in content and style“, even there the scribes were all about paraphrasing giving us no clear report, a failing to be sure. Even beyond the Crusades, the Catholic Church has been the driven power to lay waste to dozens of civilisations, eradicating them all.

Fulcher of Chartres

When we look at the very first crusade we see: “a cleric who took part in the First Crusade and was probably present at the council itself. At least he asserts in his prologue that he has recorded only those events which he saw with his own eyes. Even though it has been argued that personal experience was of less importance in crusading chronicles, it is noteworthy that Fulcher explicitly mentions this topos and other sources do not“, in addition to this, we are given “he reports not only a call for the crusade but two speeches by the pope. According to this source, Pope Urban first admonished the clergy and declared the official causae of the council in an opening sermon. Probably on the first day, he addressed the gathered ecclesiastical dignitaries with an ‘eloquent address’ (adlocutio dulciflua) about the necessity of Church reform. Firstly, the pope exhorted the assembled bishops and abbots to meet their responsibilities. He explained that they were called shepherds and should, therefore, ‘guard on every side of the flock entrusted to them (John 10. 12–13)’” A stage that could be seen in a few ways, but there is a call for the stage where we see the need of ‘the assembled bishops and abbots to meet their responsibilities‘ and there we see the problem, the nobles pillaged the realm of Saracens to the maximum, there are indications, but no witness reports to the degree we would accept. Yet the stage between 1095 and when Jerusalem was handed to Saladin (An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub) in October 1187 (after a siege that lasted two weeks), was only the beginning, even as the Kingdom of Jerusalem shifted its capital, in the end Saladin took control of Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon, with only Tyre remaining because of the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat. In all cases those fleeing the cities took whatever of worth they could carry. It also gives more on the status of Balian of Ibelin (played by Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven), even as he was nobility, the Muslims regarded him as a king.

The movie gives a background, yet remains highly fictional, what does come to the foreground is that the pillaging by Christian nobility was almost a given, and the quote: “Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, and their leaders generally retained control of captured territory rejecting and removing Byzantine control whenever possible. Intolerance of other faiths and traditions increased, particularly with Jews and those considered heretics. Muslims were murdered in their thousands on several occasions, as were non Catholic Christians” all this is now coming to blows in a different way.

Hajj

As we witness the Muslim Pilgrimage (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2HTiOUY8Mc), we become witness to well over 2 million pilgrims, Shia and Sunni Muslims next to one another, one Quran identical for all. One source gives: “Saudi Arabia announced Saturday that the total number of pilgrims reached 2,489,406, increased 117,731 individuals than last year“, it seems to me that we should take a closer look into Islam, not to attack it, but to learn from it. Earlier this year we were able to see the Eid al-Fitr (Festival of Breaking the Fast), you can see the event in Mecca (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs8obP4uRa0), showing me more religiously connected people than the Vatican (read Christians) ever showed.

This does not make me a Muslim, but learning more about Islam and Muslims is an essential first. When we can no longer trust the Catholic Church, when we see now over the last two years alone on how the abuse by the clergy was seemingly tolerated up to the highest level, we need to find a balance, we need to learn what faith is, and we need to learn what it is. Even as people like Charles Stanley make speeches like ‘The Stages of Our Faith‘, where we are shown what faith is, but does Charles actually know what it is? When we hear ‘It is clear in the scripture‘, yet it is not, and more precisely, which version? The Catholic and Protestant versions are not the same. When it is followed by ‘Jesus honours faith‘, we wonder if that is true. Even if some person named Jesus of Nazareth stated somewhere between 25AD- 30AD that he honours faith, I wonder how much value it has to the sexual abuse victims his preachers created (in the US way above 100,000) it does not seem to voice and show any level of honouring faith, In Europe these numbers are a lot higher giving us a mountain of victims, in all this how can any person who accepts that the protection of children is a first remain a Christian?

I do not have all the answers; I never claimed to have them. Yet it seems to me that those in doubt of faith need to find their faith. Whilst the Christian documentation has several versions and several relations in a stage of not knowing, it seems to me that a nation like Saudi Arabia, where the Hajj is visited by all Muslims nations, including Iran has something that many cannot ignore, even this year in light of the Iranian – Saudi issues we are given that ‘Iran opens mechanized catering center in Mecca‘, it is seemingly without issues, there is a clear indications that there are no acts against people who are there for their faith, something that we have not seen in the western world ever!

These steps are now more than ever essential, as we have been sold a bag of goods again and again, and as our need for the actual truth increases, we need to start showing which sources are trustworthy and which ones are not.

Two Days Later

Today, several sources give us: ‘Muslim pilgrims pray in Mecca as hajj winds down without incident‘, the quote “Senior officials said there had been no major incidents and the logistical, security and health plans had been successful, even with some heavy rainfall. Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, and its organisation of the pilgrimage. It hopes to continue expanding attendance to help to build its tourism industry“, during this event that ends after a week, we find that 88,000 Iranians attended the event. A stage where Saudi Arabia and Iran are in a proxy war, a stage where the mistrust between two nations is great, the 88,000 were able to perform their Hajj without incident. There is something wrong, it is not with them, or with Islam, it is with us and it is time that we start recognising it.

The heretic burnings in the UK (1532), the Protestant & Catholic wars in Ireland (up to the late 70’s) are two of the most visible ones, then there was the Spanish Inquisition (not the Monty Python edition) and the list goes on, versions of the same faith trying to remove the other ones, this in opposition with the versions of Islam where they all use the same Quran and as we see that they all pray side by side, no fighting. We need to take example from this, in a stage where Christians are more and more regarded as the violent ones, where we see how the Catholic church was given reprieve again and again, protecting a quoted 7% of all Catholic priests being involved in the act of sexual abuse, we need to start accepting that not only can we no longer tolerate Islam phobia, we need to start learning the simple truth that the Islam is not the evil here. We see all the humanitarian shouting is out of balance, the equal silence form these people as loud outrage is absent whilst thousands of children were sodomised is equally astounding. That evidence was shown on August 8th 2019 with the headline: ‘Paul Muschick: One year after explosive Catholic Church investigation in Pennsylvania: 300 priests, 1,000 victims, no state action‘, what do you do when you wake up in the morning, only to realise that we are the evil supporters? How would an American react when he/she is woken up in 1947, only to be told that they actively supported Nazi Germany? Is that offensive? It better be, because this is worse. We have instigated and supported a form of government and jurisprudence that refuses to prosecute a criminal clergy, whilst a homosexual population in America is prosecuted and vilified without evidence.

We as a people, we as Christians have failed humanity and we need to accept that and live with the evil that we created. Yet do not take my word on this, find out yourself and consider one source (from TEDx) which discusses ‘What I Learned by Converting from Christianity to Islam‘ (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1yKKGchRcc), a small 11 minute video that might open your eyes.

 

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August 10, 2019 · 12:30

How America loves mass shootings

Yup, there you have it, there we see the elephant in the room, the media loves mass shootings, they love the limelight that families bring when they look at the cadavers of family members. It is basically that simple.

Did you take offense? Good!

You see, it is time for you all to wake up. It is time for you all to realise that there is a power struggle and the media has other interests. If that was not the case, how would you know?

The first piece is seen in the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/09/im-gun-owner-nra-member-i-support-red-flag-laws-help-stop-mass-shootings/). It is here that we are introduced to: ‘I’m a gun owner and NRA member. I support red-flag laws to help stop mass shootings‘, which is fine. If I was an American in America, I would be on that same part of the highway. Yet when we see: “I am a gun owner, a member of the National Rifle Association and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. But the horror of Parkland demanded a swift, practical legislative response to try to prevent future such nightmares“, we also see another part and it is not given here. Even as Rick Scott tells us “The steps we took in Florida, in addition to committing $400 million to increasing school safety, included a “red flag” provision. Properly constructed, the extreme risk protection order, as its known, is a common-sense public safety measure“, the part he is not giving us, because he is not doing the part that matters. The one part that can and will make a difference, Rick Scott is not giving us: “We have given the ATF serious teeth and the ability to bite“, that part is not given, or ever enabled for that matter. So let’s take a next step, let’s go to the Washington Post competitor, namely the New York Times. The article (at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/us/politics/trump-atf-nra.html) gives us: “The agency, which has not grown significantly since its founding in 1973, is about to confront a staffing shortage and is set to lose its tobacco and alcohol enforcement authorities. President Trump has yet to nominate a director to oversee the agency, which has been without permanent leadership for eight of the past 12 years“, what the New York Times ignores is that in the last 3 years of the Obama Administration that nomination was not done either, so the problem is with both sides of the political isle and the New York Times might make that clear next time around. So when we see: “One funding provision, for example, forbids the A.T.F. from using electronic databases to trace guns to owners. Instead, the agency relies on a warehouse full of paper records“, what the NY Times seems to be ignoring to some degree is the part they gave us in 2012 (at https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/us/legislative-handcuffs-limit-atfs-ability-to-fight-gun-crime.html) where we see: “The bureau’s tracing center performed 344,447 gun traces in the 2012 fiscal year, but its staffing is no higher than it was in 2004, according to its chief, Charles Houser. Still, he added, the center manages to complete urgent traces in about an hour, and routine traces are done within several days“, in addition there is: “The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, for example, prohibits A.T.F. agents from making more than one unannounced inspection per year of licensed gun dealers. The law also reduced the falsification of records by dealers to a misdemeanor and put in place vague language defining what it meant to “engage in business” without a dealer’s license“, so when I am calling the Washington political players nothing more than hypocritical pieces of shit, I am not kidding. If they REALLY wanted a safer environment, the ATF would have had been given a much better stage to do something about this. I mentioned this 5 days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/08/05/capone-syndrome/), where I gave the premise “If these people who are crying and shouting ‘Gun Control‘ actually wanted any of that, then the ATF would get the needed budget of $3.8 billion, they are trying to get done what they can with a 30% budget, in addition, to properly overhaul second hand firearms an additional 1500 agents would be needed“, as I see it, the stage is clear. Any American that is shouting on gun laws and does not demand from their elected official that the ATF charter is updates, upgraded and with an actual serious budget. These Americans have no rights to complain and they can watch their children die, it is that simple! (OK, that was not very subtle)

And to those who take offence I say: “Hip Hip Hurrah!“, now get a clue and make changes that actually work! Oh and before you think the politicians are alone, as far as I can tell it has only been the New York Times who has taken a serious look at this, more than once. It is followed by the Washington Post who took some look at matters, but who has taken a look at ALL the senators and Congressman who voted in favour of restricting the ATF? It gets to be worse when we take a look (at https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-552) and we take a look at the GAO (U.S. Government Accountability Office) and we are shown the following: “Multiple Sales (MS) includes firearms information from multiple sales reports. FFLs are required by law to report to ATF sales of two or more revolvers or pistols during 5 consecutive business days. ATF policy requires that certain information in MS be deleted after 2 years if the firearm has not been connected to a trace“, so there is ‘two or more revolvers or pistols during 5 consecutive business days‘, implying if I buy one gun a fortnight, I do not show up, so in a year I would have enough to arm a small army. Then there is ‘certain information in MS be deleted after 2 years‘, traced or not, if someone has more than 4 guns there is a decent reason to keep that person registered for life! Not because he has 4 guns, but if that person gets robbed, the data mucst be handed to that region immediately, now there is a danger if the records become incomplete, and that danger is very realistic. We see: “MS complies with the restriction, but ATF inconsistently adheres to its policy when deleting MS records. Specifically, until May 2016, MS contained over 10,000 names that were not consistently deleted within the required 2 years” This claim whilst the report stems from Published: Jun 30, 2016. Publicly Released: Aug 1, 2016, whilst in that same time we get:

  • June 12, 2016, a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub (Orlando, Florida).
  • July 7, 2016, a shooter killed five police officers and wounded nine other officers and two civilians (Dallas, Texas).
  • July 17, 2016, a gunman killed three law enforcement officers and injured three others (Baton Rouge, Louisiana).
  • July 30, 2016, a student at the University of Washington killed three people and injured one other in a shooting at a party (Mukilteo, Washington).

Between publishing and going public we see no evidence that any congressman or Senator demands any hearings to upgrade the abilities and powers of the ATF. In addition the Media did not propagate this stage in any way, so when we see that Americans are so anti-Gun and so desperate to resolve it, what was done to make a decent start in resolving the issue?

The press had no issue to exploit the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, they even went as close as possible to an 8K resolution to show the American people on how then President Obama paused twice during the address to compose himself and wipe away tears, perhaps the term ‘crocodile tears’ apply? Consider that in his reign the ATF was without a permanent director for 3 years. So as we were made witness to the stage of “Within 15 hours of the massacre, 100,000 Americans signed up at the Obama administration’s We the People petitioning website in support of a renewed national debate on gun control. Obama attended and spoke at an interfaith vigil on December 16 in Newtown, Connecticut“, which I regard to be a BS movement, if I was wrong the ATF would have had a massive increase in budget and an overhaul of what they were allowed to do and record, that NEVER happened. We see all the accusations towards Violent Video Games, and mentions by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (who enjoyed the privilege of getting shot at some point) on gun control, yet none have done anything to enable the ATF to get serious, and nobody seems to catch on that the largest danger is not the guns, it is who gets to be the second owner of a gun. That failing, as well as the limitations of the ATF is to a much larger degree why the dangers of mass shootings will not go away. We get that there is gun worship in the US and the largest part of that group has not broken the law, has not shown any aggression towards others, they merely dive deep into their passion and it keeps shooting ranges in business. So why not protect these people too and let the ATF hunt the actual problem?

It is not a short term solution, there will never be a short term solution, but the problem now is that there is no solution at all and it is never getting resolved, plenty of evidence on that front, yet when the limitation of visibility is just a few papers all whilst the US has over 1300 daily newspapers, so how come that Google Search does not show the largest numbers of these 1300 papers when we look for “ATF” “Newspaper” “Guns” “2019”?

It is high time people stop shouting ‘gun control‘ and start learning that as long as this is the only shout we hear, the issues continue ad infinitum, the first step is to properly equip the ATF with software, more draconian laws to allow the ATF to do their job and remove the restrictions, as long as that is not done, the situation is not likely to ever become any better.

When we are confronted with raffles where you can win a $9,000 Barrett .50 sniper rifle, we have a much larger problem and even as I am willing to move to the US to win this rifle, I would never object by being in the ATF database. I am not ashamed and I have nothing to hide. Yet, is that true for American elected officials who have been aware for over a year that: “The A.T.F. is also bracing for the departure of nearly a fifth of its roughly 2,500 special agents. Of them, 499 are at least 50 years old, according to the budget proposal, and face mandatory retirement at 57“, 20% who have dedicated themselves to keeping America safe and are unlikely to be replaced 100%. In 2017 “141 agents retired from the A.T.F., Mr. Jackson said, and only 117 were hired. An additional 24 agents left the bureau for other reasons“, the stage where a dedicated group of Americans cannot do their jobs keeping America safe, mainly because the resources available are no longer able to do the most basic functions of the ATF.

As such, can you really blame me for believing that America loves mass shootings, how can they not?

 

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August 9, 2019 · 12:05

The snipers empathy

Today is a different day, today is not some case where I am a Don Quichote wannabe, I am not fighting a windmill and I am not hunting for Credit Agricole and certain upcoming 2024 events (for those who were able to comprehend the links between three earlier articles), not to mention an unconfirmed rumour that a small group will end up with the better part of €467 million. Today is different, this is a point where I might be wrong from the very beginning, and I am OK with that.

This is about an article in the Guardian last Wednesday (at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/07/ads-human-stalking-satire-the-hunt-pulled-us-mass-shootings). I saw the trailer and to be honest, I never made any link to the El Paso and Dayton killings, I also understand that in this turbulent times the studio needs to rethink its approach to a movie that took most of the previous 2019 to make. It was also the moment that I learned that is was based on the 2012 original Jagten with Mads Mikkelsen (Death Stranding, Dr Strange, Rogue One), which is actually a little issue as this was done before with the remake of Nightwatch (Nick Nolte), the makers wanted an English movie without having to rely on subtitles and missed to boat to the larger degree, the issue is not the makers, the director was for both Nattevagten and Nightwatch Ole Bornedal, so I am at a loss how the movie was worse, the actors were good, I felt that the original had a much better atmosphere. So now I do worry for the Hunt, yet in all this the hunt has a strong cast (Betty Gilpin, Hillary Swank, Emma Roberts), and it might work, the idea that hunters overestimate a woman is not without premise giving an edge to the movie, the idea that ‘they’ve been chosen to be hunted in a game devised by a group of rich elite liberals‘ is also strong, the idea that clueless rich people cannot look beyond the veil of a spreadsheet is readily accepted by the audience, yet that is not what this is about.

This is about the event where a filmmaker is now getting his hands tied behind his back because of an event in real life and the polarisation of the people around it. I believe that there is strong character in the cast and crew to look at other ways to adjust creating awareness. Creating awareness is an important part of any movie and spreading creativity has a plus and a consequence. I get it, you do not want to set the open stage of ‘entertainment’ where the people are all upset over events, yet the premise remains.

Does it really?

When we consider the quote “According to the Hollywood Reporter, cable network ESPN dropped an ad for the movie that was to air last weekend while studio Universal reassesses its plans for the film, which is due for release on 27 September in the US. The same publication says “a source” at ESPN said that no spots for the film would appear on the network “in the coming weeks”” and we see the ‘27th September‘ as the start date, why would there be any advertisement on TV before September 1st? There are other venues! for example IMDB as well as YouTube has been seen as a trailer central for movie lovers, there no restraints are needed, those in grief (and we get that) would not be in a state of mind to seek out new trailers, watch movies that are coming, in addition, the Digital world is global and even as the makers need to pussyfoot around their American audience for now, but that restraint is a lot less needed internationally. When we consider that the larger productions are now in a stage where the US is often merely 25%-35% of the total global revenue, focussing on the non-US side would become increasingly more important. There is also an issue with the quote: “The Hollywood Reporter quotes a Universal executive saying that the studio was responding to the politically “fluid situation” amid a wave of protest in the US against gun violence and white supremacism and that it was discussing plans to change direction over the film’s promotion “if people think we’re being exploitative rather than opinionated”” Here we need to realise that the original is 6 years old, in addition, filming was completed months ago, showing the clear stage that this is about a movie and not about exploitation, that next to the fact that when some people are calling the issue a ‘politically fluid situation‘, we need to realise that the politicians are part of the problem here; this was been proven close to half a dozen times over. When we give rise to: “Employees in different departments were questioning the wisdom of making such a movie in these times“, we need to ask additional questions. Was there wisdom in creating ‘the Deer hunter‘, ‘Apocalypse Now‘, or ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile‘? Where do we draw the line? Now we see the Hunt, which is a story, not a reality and somehow people are unable to distinguish real from fiction, we can call that a much larger failing on all of us. And if this was a small (not so) subtle push to propagate the dislike of firearms, does that have a quorum in a work of art (as the maker would call it)?

I will accept that some people do not want to get near this movie for all the personal convictions they might have and that is fine, yet how should we go about fiction because it is uncomfortable? Is art not set to the stage to make it larger? Is pushing a person outside of their comfort zone not an important aspect? If we so object, how come that the protest was not louder when in the movie Final Girl was trained by Wes Bentley to take matters in her own hands? Was it because an Axe gave the coup de grace and not a Benelli M4 Super 90? Seems weird, in the end the person would still be dead. It reminded me of an old conversation, “We are not murderers, we are killers“, all whilst we know that the person we’d be gunning for ends up being equally dead either way we label it.

For me the Hunt will be interesting, the switch away from Mads Mikkelsen and towards a female lead. In addition, Emma Roberts has proven herself to be a bad ass witch (Madison Montgomery), can she repeat it in the Hunt and end up being as bad ass as her daddy was in the roles like Alex Grady, James Munroe, Tomas Leon and several others, to see the ‘bad ass’ stamp pass on to the next generation is just a fun part. Emma Roberts has distinguished herself a few times over, watching Nancy Drew go Madison Montgomery on us is merely icing on the entertainment cake. It also shows that the makers did a good job, which is essential for any movie lover.

Yes, if there is a focal point to the hunt for me, then it is the stage of fun, it always has been that; art and fun need to go hand in hand; it is also the reason why Lars von Trier movies take so much effort for me. I found his ‘the House that Jack built‘ a little meeker that I expected. I remember seeing ‘Dancer in the Dark‘ I was deeply depressed for well over a week, so when I see art, I prefer to feel joy and entertainment. The Hunt is in the end still entertainment, nothing more to it. Is it a hunting story where we get to enjoy the change as the hunter becomes the hunted. It is as stupid as it gets, like jumping into a snake pit and playing with your food, it never ends well. For a true hunter, the idea that someone thinking that he is a hunter and getting eaten by the lion he wanted to kill is just great joy. A true hunter kills for food, not for joy, a true hunter is not there to get the Lion, he wants to get the real deal, the animal that gets him fed, not the pelt (which is merely a bonus at times).

So when I am looking at the story of “a group of globalist elites gathers for the very first time at a remote Manor House to hunt humans for sport” I see the need that this goes Topsy Turvy on the hunters and it remains entertainment. It does not take away the issue that there is a real event in the US and because of that the anti-gun feelings are exploding, I get that, I truly do and I also accept that the film makers are not there to upset feelings, they show the empathy that politicians never show when they exploit events for their own personal limelight. Yet the film makers could take it to better staging (I have not seen the hunt at present and beyond the little captions know, as well as the trailer) I know very little about the movie at present. Yet the stage that we see today also calls for other parts.

Whilst politicians are trying to exploit a movie, the recollection of the New York Times (at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/us/politics/trump-atf-nra.html) where the NRA is accused of “It has aggressively lobbied against nominated directors and pushed Congress to enact restrictions on how the bureau spends money to curtail its ability to regulate firearms and track gun crimes. One funding provision, for example, forbids the A.T.F. from using electronic databases to trace guns to owners. Instead, the agency relies on a warehouse full of paper records“, if that accusation is proven, then we have a much larger setting where the governing members of the NRA might be guilty of corporate manslaughter. If we accept: “an organisation will be guilty of the offence of corporate manslaughter if the way in which its activities are managed or organised causes a person’s death“, will the absence of electronic records set a stage where it caused a person’s death? Consider the Columbine High School massacre, perhaps the best known shooting (1999), it happened in a time where databases and data analyses has already evolved to a much larger degree, consider that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been in the database system, is there enough evidence that this alone might have triggered clearer actions in time? In addition, if the NY Times is to be believed and the issue of: “For decades, the N.R.A. has used its sway in Washington to preserve the A.T.F. in its limited capacity” could be proven, does that increase the chance of conviction of corporate manslaughter on the NRA and the governing members? It is an important question because the evidence that the failing of the ATF is funding and either all politicians unite to grow the ATF or they should be muzzled and forbidden to make any political statement at any shooting, should that increase the chance of actually solving matters?

Perhaps larger visibility to the hunt becomes essential, when we see ‘entertainment’ and the premise of real danger we might take more notice. The notice of sociopathic millionaires and billionaires hunting people for sport is not realistic, but the dangerous premise where weapons are handed out and remains available completely unchecked is an actual danger. I myself have a fondness for guns (specifically long range rifles), yet I never owned one because in the Netherlands there are no proper rifle ranges, and I lived in the city. In Sweden there were options, but I was in the city and did not see the need to get one and so on. I believe in responsible choices and so far there has not been an option to enjoy my passion for years, so I have to limit myself to other fun events and there are plenty.

I believe that the largest passion of guns in the US comes from partial hunting and from passing on the skills and knowledge from generation to generation; there is plenty of evidence that farmers and families are about safety and about proper handling of weapons, so having these people in a database should not be an issue or a worry, it is when a group caters to a 1% group with other needs, that is when we need to worry and that is seemingly happening now.

When we call the entire senate to attention and demand an answer on the limitations of the ATF, will we get a clear answer? The last permanent director of the ATF was Todd Jones (August 31, 2011 – March 31, 2015), whilst President Obama was in office until 2018, so the failing in the White House is much larger than we see. This is important because if the people are not taking this serious, why should a movie maker show constraint on a movie that is not based on real life?

I wonder how the person with links to Universal responds in case a person like Oliver Stone decides to wake up and does a deep dig into the ATF and the political ramifications it has faced for over 10 years, in an age where terrorism is a larger danger, how can you limit the one organisation that could assist the FBI to the largest extent? I wonder how the NRA will scream and cry like little bitches when a movie like that makes it to the world screen. In the end I do agree with the NRA on one thing, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people“, and there is also the hidden wisdom, should we stop a database that connects a gun to a person? It is a larger issue and we accept that, yet the solution was simple and has been for over a decade, the fact that the media and the real politicians who fight for a better nation are not there to protect and grow the ATF also are the shown politicians that are optionally part of the problem. That evidence is shown as the 5th director of the ATF was Bradley A. Buckles (December 20, 1999 – January 2004), and Carl Joseph Truscott as the 6th director from 2004 to 2006.
So in a stage of terrorism and mass shootings, there has been a proper ATF director in play for a period of 10 years out of the last 20 years, why is that not daily news? The fact that the ATF started on 1st July 1972, and so far there have only been 7 permanent directors, with decent governance in the years up to 2004, does that not strike you as strange too, especially after all the 9/11 events?

I believe that those opposing and complaining about the Hunt have a much larger problem, but it seems that calling the white House and the ATF, as well as the FBI to attention on this is not what limelight seekers do, they merely want the stage for the message of selling themselves, not presenting the presentation on how to keep Americans safe, is that not a nice consideration to have?

A sniper does not show empathy to instantly kill its target, there is no benefit to prolong your targets life, it merely needs to e killed and one bullet does just that, kill a person, kill a cause or kill an idea. It is a Hollywood stage where the target has to suffer, or be able to plead, or be able to alert others through screaming.

As I see it, apart from the joy that a movie like the Hunt brings (with a soda and pop-corn mind you), it could optionally show just how stupid people are by not demanding a permanent ATF director and a better ATF budget from their elected official every single day. When people do that every day and make sure that their life (read: their re-election) depends on it, we will see an actual improvement to limiting and in the long term stopping mass shootings. Perhaps a movie like the Hunt is good on other levels, it might make people wonder on how the system is kept in place by political exploiters and that too is important to shove into the limelight (the less diplomatic, the better).

There is no short term solution, there never was and anyone telling you that is lying to you, yet none of it is reality until actual decisions are handed out and for now, they are not.

 

 

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