Category Archives: Media

January 17, 2022 · 18:32

Principle of a chair

Yes, we get that. We sometimes we rely on the principle of a chair until we figure things out, we sit on the problem. We aren’t hiding it, we aren’t ignoring it yet at times we aren’t sure where we are in such a situation. We contemplate and I am no different. So when I saw (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59970281) the article ‘Is the pandemic entering its endgame?’ I was not sure how to feel about that. So when I saw ““We’re almost there, it is now the beginning of the end, at least in the UK,” Prof Julian Hiscox, chairman in infection and global health at the University of Liverpool, tells me. “I think life in 2022 will be almost back to before the pandemic.”” I was not sure how to feel, was the man openly optimistic? There is optimism and there is folly. Until November 2021 there was no Omicron, there was no enhanced danger to the global health systems. Now we see that we are seeing less cases, but it is still almost 2 million new cases a day. And that is whilst we openly see that the numbers from India do not make sense. A setting where the US has a health system that is near collapsing and the UK is in no better state. Then there is the one thought we all ignore, what comes next? Omicron slapped us across the face and when is there a next version? Is this Prof Julian Hiscox trying to sell us genuine pink salmon? (A Barnum and Bailey joke). Yet we also get the good stuff here, because we are told “What’s changing is our immunity. The new coronavirus first emerged two years ago in Wuhan, China, and we were vulnerable. It was a completely new virus that our immune systems had not experienced before and we had no drugs or vaccines to help.” I agree with that part, I agree that the vaccines are the solution, yet the evolution of Covid is still largely unknown, or at least we are not being told. So a next version could spell a lot of havoc in many lives. And that fear is confirmed with “The only major curve ball would be a new variant that can outcompete Omicron and cause significantly more severe disease”, as such the article makes a lot of sense and I cannot disagree, but at what stage do we ignore what might come? When do we accept the endemic path? People are all about to get back to the job and income, but the danger with endemic and a new version in that endemic universe means more death and even as I applaud that (we are as overpopulated as we need to be), will you feel the same when it is your children or your parents whose lives are on the line? We see the line that less die but this time around we have a new setting, the lack of hospital beds could also fuel deaths and Omicron made that clear in the US and the UK. Even if we see causality in these cases, we cannot continue on a path where people die because all the beds are taken by Covid cases. That was why I supported the stage where unvaccinated cases are not allowed hospital beds, and if required only through fully paid services (upfront), if you feel it is unfair, too bad. It is shown several times over that vaccinated people can get seriously sick, but shorter and for the most not fatally. So whenever I see another hack piece where someone claims that the unvaccinated take only 50% of the beds, I kinda go ‘Yes, and the pope is Jewish!’ There is a clear station where vaccines are the solution, yes there are a few dangerous side effects possible, but that danger is nowhere near the station of the unvaccinated dying of covid. So how do we react to anti vaccine people like Kelly Ernby, Marcus Lamb, Glynn Steel, William Hartmann? We need not react, covid killed them all and a lot more like them. My only issue is that they talked others in refusing the vaccine, optionally killing them all. 

Some say we need to to make fun of them. I am on the fence on that. On one side it might make those who listened to these anti-vaxxers wake up and get vaccinated, on the other hand their graves should be a clear message and in all this misinformation continues on nearly all fronts. The only issue is that even doctors are spreading misinformation. Not many, but those who do are fuelling into vaccination feelings under the average person and that is a dangerous stage. You see, the stage of an endemic is fine as long as we are ALL vaccinated, when that is not the case we will see more mutations and more deaths and that is the larger stage, the next mutation might be a lot more deadly than Omicron was. In Omicron it was about spreading the disease, but if that evolves into a more deadly version the game changes by a lot and to stop that danger we all need to be vaccinated, there is no other option. This is a stage we face, we either act in fear (for kids, siblings, parents), we act in denial, we act in support or in acceptance. I get it, they are all stages that propel us, but that is equally wrong, as is sitting on the problem, but at times when there are too many unknown elements it feels like the best solution. I got vaccinated in the early days, I am a product of vaccines (60’s) I lived through the eradication of Polio, difteria, TBC, measles and so on. Some of these diseases still exist, but they are now so rare that we act in surprise when a case does show up. At some point this will be the case for covid as well, but not now, there are still too many dangers and to some degree the anti-vaxxers are making it happen. It is my personal believe that a mutation can only come from an unvaccinated person. I know, it might be completely wrong, but that is how I feel and the medical people still do not know what drove covid, what brought mutations and why Omicron was regarded as ‘mild’ when we knew so little. Too many questions and we see no answers that is in part the problem because it fuels the feelings of anti-vaxxers. 

The principle of a chair is at times not the wrong position to have when enough information comes towards us, yet that too has not been the case with covid and w get it, there are a lot of unknown elements and scientists do need the time to study and prove parts. But this is a setting that has gone on for well over a year and the people are burning out on all sides and their less accepting side is becoming visible more and more, especially now.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Science

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

January 15, 2022 · 19:29

A woman’s voice

Something bothered me, it bothered me from the beginning, but I let it go. There are several important things going on in the world and this was not one of them, or was it? It was the Guardian that pushed me into action. The article ‘Hollywood stars back Emma Watson after Palestinian solidarity post’ gave me the view that is was essential to act, and believe it or not act is the central part of the whole story.

The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jan/13/hollywood-stars-back-emma-watson-after-palestinian-solidarity-post) gives us a few things. Now to be honest, for the most I tend to take the side of Israel, for several reasons. The setting was that Emma Watson showed an image, an image that gives us “a photograph of a pro-Palestinian protest with the banner “solidarity is a verb” written across it. It was accompanied with a quote about the meaning of solidarity from the intersectional feminist scholar Sara Ahmed.” I reckon that Emma Watson agreed and she posted the image. In the initial hours I saw responses and also the accusation of antisemitism and I thought nothing of it, I believed it to be an overreaction. In this, I also saw the tweets by Danny Danon and I believed he was wrong, he too overreacted, but I let it slide. Now that we see all these responses, I feel that it is important to respond. 

As I stated, in most cases I tend to side with Israel. Here there is a truth. The truth is simple “solidarity is a verb”, that is truth, it is a verb until it is followed by acts, commitment and actions. If you want to see that look in your history books on Poland in the 1985-1999 era, solidarity came from actions, until that is done, it is merely a verb. Yet all sources ignore the third side in all this. There is one side, there is the opposition and there is the photograph. You see the photograph is brilliant. It starts conversations,. It starts views and it does create opposition, yet nearly all ignored or overlooked the third party, didn’t you? We see the acts against a young lay, and let’s face it, she is only 382 months old. It is not an excuse, it is not negative, it merely is a fact, just like the fact that “solidarity is a verb”. And she identified with the verb, she identified with the thought. In this she is right and a lot of people are wrong. So it is good to see names like Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Capaldi, Charles Dance, Gael García Bernal, Jim Jarmusch, Maxine Peake, Viggo Mortensen and Steve Coogan standing with her. In this Danny Danon and Israeli officials did the wrong thing, perhaps Palestine was hoping for an overreaction, perhaps it was something else and in all this Miss Watson never uttered an anti-semite word and that needs to be seen and seen as soon as possible. And in all this we see a second failing. Did you pick up on it? The media merely gives us “the meaning of solidarity from the intersectional feminist scholar Sara Ahmed”. So what was the meaning? Why is it (as I personally see it) overlooked? And more important, who is Sara Ahmed? The Quote was “Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” Do you know where I got that from? Vogue Magazine! They gave a more complete story than the newspapers, how weird is that?

So as we wonder who is right and who is wrong. I gave my view, yet I will not deny that Palestine has a hard situation, in part Palestine created it, but the truth behind the setting is that “Solidarity involves commitment, and work” it is an absolute truth and I wonder all those voices screaming and parroting that Emma Watson is an anti-semite, who did their vetting, who did their investigation? I fear that this group is far too small and that should sadden us all. 

But there is also good news Emma Watson turned 382 months today, so she can celebrate her day in life, her month in life and she can do it holding her head up high, she never did anything wrong here. 

So solidarity is a verb, so is judgemental. Who thought it through and who considered that the photograph did what it needed to do, to get people talking. As I see it +15 points for Gryffindor.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, movies, Politics

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

January 13, 2022 · 22:07

Bitches be like….

This is the start of an issue I have with a BBC article. The article is not wrong, it is merely short sighted and incorrect, yet the BBC did nothing wrong here. Let’s be clear about that. The shortsightedness comes from the complainers who want to blame Google (YouTube) for everything, but the larger picture is ignored and there my issue starts. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59967190) gives us ‘Fact-checkers label YouTube a ‘major conduit of online disinformation’’ I do not disagree here, it is, but when we get to ““livelihoods have been ruined, and far too many people have lost loved ones to disinformation”. It goes on to accuse YouTube of not making enough effort to address the problem, saying that it “is allowing its platform to be weaponised by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others”.” This is as I personally see it the moment the wheels comes from the wagon. Let’s take a look. 

Example 1
In the Netherlands there is a person named Willem Engel, he was removed from Twitter for violating rules. The man is a Dutch Covid conspiracy theorist. Now the removal seems plain and simple, yet he created close to half a dozen new accounts within 24 hours, some people go through that trouble and this is merely one person. 

This reflects on YouTube as the same thing happens there, but the problem is a lot larger. First how large is this issue? Some sources give us that EVERY MINUTE 500 hours of video are uploaded, that gives us 720,000 hours of video EVERY DAY. This also sets a different premise as YouTube is visited by 122,000,000 people every day, over a billion hours of video are watched every day.

Example 2
We are given ‘too many people have lost loved ones to disinformation’, yet who of them vet the information? We have to take responsibility people, we need to check and check the data and numbers given to us, we all do. And let’s not forget the disinformation does not merely come from conspiracy theorists. There are over 30 hedge funds channels on YouTube, yet we also get (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQEpHwYer-o), which comes from the University of Buffalo. So is one evidence of the other? Hedge funds are too often about deception, to grow they need your money, yet in the end it is still a heads or tails game. Where is the disinformation here? Where is the disinformation when game makers use young kids offering them the game if they can write something nice? How do you think influencers are made? I have seen video’s that do not seem to be deceptive, but until you bought and tested the product, you cannot tell, so how can YouTube? 

Example 3
We get food, we get it all the time, so we are influenced what YouTube video’s offer us and (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHjbujGPX8Q) we get the view of ‘Tricky Ways Fast Food Restaurants Deceive You’ and we get it, people can often not be completely honest when they are in marketing. 

So here is the conundrum, which are misinformation? The first for certain, yet examples two and three? Who decides that? And whilst you are contemplating this, thousands more movies were uploaded. 

So when I see “YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez told the Guardian the company was already investing in ways “to connect people to authoritative content, reduce the spread of borderline misinformation, and remove violative videos”.” I get the steps, but there is another step that these 80 group are ignoring. The need to make the act of spreading disinformation criminal, that is a stage they could take, but in the US there is the First Amendment, the US cannot act in Russia or China and the list of limitations goes on, and even in the US and UK (and many EU nations) we see a lack of acts mainly because the law was never meant for such actions and too many fear a first step towards a totalitarian state. I get it, but to blame YouTube again and again is just folly (but it seemingly give places the limelight they desire). 

So when we we see ‘More context and debunks rather than just deleting videos’ we see the beginning of a dangerous premise towards censorship, also that is not on YouTube is it? Debunking information is YOUR job, it is called vetting information and it has been around since before the Sudan Wars (1885), Julius Caesar dealt with misinformation by coding his letters (2100 years ago) and the list goes on, so when did we become absent of common sense? 

So when you give premise to “a British man who died with Covid-19 after refusing to be vaccinated, made – according to his family – a “terrible mistake” of being influenced by online anti-vaccine content.” As well as “Florida taxi driver Brian Lee Hitchens lost his wife to Covid-19 after they were influenced by Facebook content that claimed the pandemic is a hoax” consider that Dr. Faucci has been blowing the horn of vaccination for the longest time, a real scientist, so when were you stupid enough to listen to a nobody on Facebook, whilst a doctor who

  • Joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’s (NIAID) Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI).
  • He became head of the LCI’s Clinical Physiology Section in 1974 
  • In 1980 was appointed chief of the NIAID’s Laboratory of Immunoregulation. 
  • In 1984, he became director of the NIAID, a position he still holds.
  • Fauci has been offered the position of director of the NIH several times, but has declined each time.
  • Fauci has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to contend with viral diseases like HIV/AIDS, SARS, the Swine flu, MERS, Ebola, and COVID-19. 
  • He played a significant role in the early 2000s in creating the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)
  • Driving development of biodefense drugs and vaccines following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

is largely ignored and debunked by nobodies, in some cases even by presidential nobodies. At what point does a nobody on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube have anywhere near these qualifications? So, we do not care if you kill yourself in one of the most stupid ways imaginable, however I think you need to stop whining like little chihuahua’s and just die so we can take your job and your house. The central point is vetting information and that is on us. Yes, I have been duped once or twice, but it needs to be a real clever person to dupe me (yes, it can still be done). So when I see another this will make you rich, or I can offer this house to you so cheap, I know it is a scam. You see people give good deals to friends and people they really know, if it is someone else then no one wants it, or it is a scam, scammers win by making you believe that you won the lottery even when you never bought a ticket.

My issue with the BBC article is that there is a much larger stage and the first step to that stage is the law, we all know it, but we all ignore it. Just like ‘Tax the rich’ (tax laws), we seem to fall for it every time and it saddens me. In the 70’s I was a youngling (almost a youngling) and I was trying to become smarter and around me were people that were smart (some only made that claim), now it seems that no one takes the trouble to investigate, the answers are on social media and there every minute another sucker is born. Yet in all this, how do the fact checkers look at government propaganda? How do they see through media filters that intentionally keep you in the dark? As the barrier between news organisations and filtered information bringers goes ever thinner, fact checking goes out the window. So let’s not blame YouTube for all this, perhaps more could be done, I will never deny that, but what an be done when people are unwilling to test the setting against the law, that first step? And in all this I reckon that TikTok and Facebook also bare some of the blame, but they are not mentioned here are they?

So when we see the article end with “It cannot be left to internet companies to decide how to tackle bad information or choose how transparent to be about it” we see an uncomfortable statement that is not wrong, but who will do this? Oh, and to be clear who will check TikTok? And how will these be checked? More important, what will we do about the disinformation up-loaders? That too deserves attention, if we are not willing to prosecute them and when we are unable to prosecute them, how can any of this be with YouTube/Google?

If you want to stop disinformation, you need to factcheck yourself, that has been a truth for millennia and we forget that part of the equation a little too often, do we not?

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Politics, Science

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

January 13, 2022 · 17:22

Greed, Consumerism and safety?

There is a dangerous stance, a stance not on the safety of people, but on the revenue that they represent and there is every chance that this level of greed driven consumerism is at the core of a lot worse to come. 

Part 1
Part one is seen in the article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-criticizes-china-canceling-some-flights-over-covid-19-cases-2022-01-12/) called ‘U.S. criticises China over canceled flights’. There we see ““China’s actions are inconsistent with its obligations under the U.S.-China Air Transport Agreement. We are engaging with the (Chinese government) on this and we retain the right to take regulatory measures as appropriate,” a U.S. Transportation Department (USDOT) spokesperson said.” OK, we can accept that, but in that setting can that spokesperson please show us the paragraphs that deal with issues like pandemics? The greed driven will see and focus on ‘obligations’, but what of the safety of the people? The Chinese government is obliged to look after the safety of people, so where is that part? I am not taking a side whether one or the other is right and which party is wrong. Yet when I see “identify a path forward that minimises impact to travellers” I wonder who they are working for. In December, Bloomberg gave us ‘Omicron May Double Risk of Getting Infected on Planes, IATA Says’, I heard from a friend who went on vacation that the return flight was filled with people coughing and yes, two days later he had covid too. When will people learn that IF YOU ARE SICK YOU STAY AT HOME? And more important those who get sick on vacation are all about ‘safely getting home’ dangers be damned. And that is the core problem with air travel. So I cannot fault China for its position, I understand the greed driven side for getting people to travel, yet it seems to me that the greed driven do not care as long as they see the revenue, infections be damned. Those stating that they take all precautions are delusional, there will never be a safe route in this.

Part 2
The second part is given to us by SBS. There we see (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/another-53-people-have-died-from-covid-19-as-nsw-posts-record-92-264-new-cases/4809f03d-d922-4c30-bfe8-6c1251568bfa) that ‘Another 53 people have died from COVID-19 as NSW posts record 92,264 new cases’, the issue is that when we see it next to the UK (120,000 cases) all whilst the population of the UK is 300% larger, we see that things do not add up, in that same setting the US with 829,000 cases are a larger setting. The us has around 500% of the population of the UK, yet they have a lot more infections. Now this is not the proper way to vet numbers, but there should be some linearity and these numbers are all over the place. So in this India with 247,500 cases all whilst they have 4 times the population of the US does not make sense. The numbers do not add up, I get it there could be a dozen elements influencing other facts, but the numbers are wrong, and I personally believe that India has a much larger problem, so when we consider that is it really wrong for China to act the way it does? 

The entire setting of flight have to continue in an era where we live in a pandemic, someone needs to wake up. The entire need to travel all whilst a lot of issues can be resolved virtually gets to be on the centre stage. In addition to that view we see “China has all but shut its borders to travellers, cutting total international flights to just 200 a week, or 2% of pre-pandemic levels”, is it right, it is wrong? It seems to me that it is to stop a wave of infections that have close to free rule in any nation that did not lock its borders. Last November the NY Times reported “At least 13 people who arrived in the Netherlands on two flights from South Africa on Friday were infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and more cases will most likely be found, Dutch health officials said on Sunday.” We saw South Africa protesting that it was a mild issue, now we have over 3 million new cases EVERY DAY, so how is that mild? How is the drastic shortage of hospital beds a mild consideration?

Is this what happens when greed shakes hands with consumerism? I do not know, but from where I sit, the view regarding the safety of people is close to totally ignored. There is every chance that those who closed their borders stand a much better chance. That is unless you open borders for tennis players who later admit “that he released a statement with new admissions, including the fact that he sat for an interview and maskless photoshoot knowing he had Covid without disclosing his status”, so a person who knew he had covid went knowingly and willingly maskless. And China is the one that is painted as the attacked party? I reckon that our laws and our regulations are blatantly failing in these pandemic stages, I will let you ponder on why that is and before you blame China for anything, wonder why no spokesperson raised issues on pandemic obligations that should be out there. I wonder how consumerism won that side of the battle. And before you think it will be easy peasy, consider what optionally might come AFTER Omicron and when that part is less mild, what will the consequences be? 

I do not know, but more important, the scientists that should know do not know either, it is new turf for them. So when we listen to obligations and consumerism lets also wonder how safe these obligations were in the first place, especially as yesterday gave us an additional 3,201,862 new cases. I will accept that most will be mild, but 1% might not be and that means that globally for 6-8 days 32,018 new beds need to be secured for the yesterdays cases alone. So what about tomorrow and the day after that? How many beds are left then? I do not know, do you?

Leave a comment

Filed under Law, Media, Politics, Science

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

January 12, 2022 · 22:43

Commencing Crazy

This all started before ‘Call for change!’ Which I wrote on October 25th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/25/call-for-change/), I saw the numbers and the idiocy of non-vaccination. I do not care what they call it, it is their life, but in that it is their life and they also need to accept the consequences. So as I wrote “The first port is that anti-vaxxers and those not vaccinated with a good provable reason will have to pay UPFRONT for any hospital admittance for COVID. So there are no stories about “Anti-vaxxer Kristen Lowery”, or those radio hosts and stories on how sorry they were lying in a comfortable hospital bed. They can tough it out at home and optionally die there.” I saw a station we were all heading to and today (11 hours ago) the BBC gives us ‘Quebec to impose health tax on unvaccinated Canadians’, the story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59960689) is not the first one, others have reported on similar settings, we also see some of these facts here. Singapore took my advice (seemingly) which requires Covid patients to pay for their own medical bills if they are not vaccinated. Greece imposes a fine and others will follow, when their national health care systems collapse due to those non vaccinated, this is a result and it was always heading this way. I do like the response that Premier Francois Legault gives. He states “I think right now it’s a question of fairness for the 90% of the population who made some sacrifices,” Mr Legault said. “I think we owe them this kind of measure” and I agree with him. Even as some news agencies are hiding behind positive flames like ‘Omicron may be set for rapid dip in US, UK’, I merely wonder how stupid these people are. They are (clinically speaking) telling a truth, but behind that facade we see numbers that globally went from 1.7M cases on January 1st to 2.4M cases on January 9th, All whilst the cases were 50% to 65% lower a week before. This is not going away soon or quietly. It has become a numbers game and in that game the numbers are overwhelming a stretched health care system on a global stage. All this whilst one source gave us 20 hours ago ‘Intensive care doctor reveals EVERY critically ill Covid patient being treated at his hospital is unvaccinated’, that is the reality and it is not the vaccinated people who are the larger danger, they do get sick but their symptoms are seemingly mild to really mild. And in the UK with so many unvaccinated people the dip as some might call it will not matter, a lot of them will die (which brings down housing prices), so there will always be a silver lining. Just not the one the media or anti-vaxxers rely on. And still the the issue is not as good as you think it is. The numbers from India with 1.3B people does not add up, so there will be a lot more coming all our ways. So whilst CNBC gives us ‘U.S. sets fresh records for Covid hospitalisations and cases with 1.5 million new infections’ today, we see the need to vet the journo’s who give us ‘Omicron may be set for rapid dip in US, UK’, as the data show us it was not directly a lie, yet the underlying issues we are already seeing, the people catering to that article are out of their minds. And in all this I reckon that the US and UK will soon follow the path Canada is taking and it will happen to people who cannot afford to pay, so they are denied access to hospital health care. It is one way to cull the herd, but it is not one that comes from choice, it is one grown through necessity and that is a much harder lesson to face. When the systems buckle, when the systems that gave us the protection we expected, when they collapse the real crazy starts and it will be some sight to behold, that much is an absolute given. 

So, as I personally see it. Things are about to get worse and it will come with populist claims, it will come with the blame game and when the reality pulls through and we say the unvaccinated people do not get a voice in all this, that is when matters get worse fast. People are all about complaining and not about taking responsibility of their acts and their life. It is the nanny state on steroids and now we will see just how strong the nanny state vibe will be in several nations. I reckon the next two weeks will be decently exciting ones.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

January 11, 2022 · 17:08

Media in Limelight

That is the setting, is it time to put the media in the limelight? It started yesterday in Al Jazeera which was based on an article that came from the Wall Street Journal. The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/9/iran-likely-smuggling-weapons-to-yemen-confidential-report) gives us ‘Iran ‘likely’ smuggling weapons to Yemen: UN report’I got there over three years ago, with a little later, in December 16th 2019 when I wrote ‘Joke of 2019: United Nations’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/12/16/joke-of-2019-united-nations/), where we see the UN giving us in some delusional Tate of denial “The UN has reportedly so far been unable to confirm Iran was involved in drone and cruise missile attacks on two key Saudi oil facilities in September”, they were that much in denial, one could argue that the UN allowed itself to be steered clear of any evidence involving Iran and the media was happy to oblige. If you search for these elements in Western media you will find very little. The Wall Street Journal who gave us two days ago (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-navy-port-emerges-as-key-to-alleged-weapons-smuggling-to-yemen-u-n-report-says-11641651941) “Thousands of weapons seized by the U.S. along supply routes for Yemen’s Houthis likely originated from Jask in Iran’s southeast, according to a draft report” might be one of the first that takes a larger look at the acts of Iran, well, I have to say that it took them long enough. I have a three year head start on most of them as such I wonder which stakeholder is out in the cold now?

A stage most ignores for the longest time is now a hot potato. So we do hope that General Turki Al-Maliki, serving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will get the support he has been entitled to for well over two years. And all this is before you realise that Arab News gave us (at https://youtu.be/6Ab-8bIHY90) the setting of what Saudi Arabia was getting done in Yemen. Now, I am willing to be skeptical and not one sided, but the media did not report on any of that did they? It would be fair to see opposition, there always is, yet that part is also missing. We see blunt debatable attacks by tools like Stephanie Kirchgaessner (the Guardian, Washington DC) and a few other tools, but that is the extent, this is one of the larger first articles that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and in particular General Turki Al-Maliki has been rowing upstream for far too long all whilst the media shuts down any reporting on Iranian actions towards and in Yemen, why is that?

If there was opposition, disagreements on matters it would show, it always does, one side reports on knives being delivered, the other party will state that the manufacturers of stone knives are being pushed out of a job. This is life, but the shutdown on news regarding Iranian actions is another matter and the Wall Street Journal (as well as Al Jazeera) seemingly broke rank. And when we see the response in the WSJ “Iran’s mission at the U.N. said Iran doesn’t interfere in the conflict in Yemen, as a matter of policy. “Iran has not sold, exported, or transferred any arms, ammunition, or related equipment to Yemen in contravention of Security Council resolutions,” the Iranian mission said in an emailed statement.” We get the political side of the statement, yet the part where we see “thousands of weapons seized” tell a very different story. So whilst there will be twisting and turning for some time (which always happen) the one side that does not get to be in denial is the media, two sources? The media are all over each other whenever possible and Yemen is no exception. We need to consider the media and the irresponsible acts of keeping news from us. Keeping us in the dark on what Iran is doing, we need to set the limelight on the media and their stage of denial, it is that simple. When they all start doing their job, the job of some become more outspoken and we see a much larger wheel in motion, and perhaps the headline we saw in September 2021 ‘Iran Selling More Oil In 2021 But Middlemen Reap The Profit’, the setting is simple. In what universe does the middlemen reap the profits, close to all the profits? I wonder if the media will grace us with a list of names, yet I doubt that, the stakeholders on a few levels will not allow for that. This is of course personal speculation, yet consider the revenue that oil has and now we see that the alleged Iranian profits go somewhere else? Do you not think we need to know where they go? Do you think that the CIA, FBI (and many others) are not interested where billions in profits sailed to? The media is suddenly not interested?

If Toyota released another ISIS model, the media would be all over the design teams and asking them which of the members had middle eastern relatives. Now they are quiet? I do not think so! I believe that the Wall Street Journal (al Jazeera too) is exposing a little more than they bargained for and the call for exposing and illuminating the media in the limelight is the right call to make. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Military

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

January 5, 2022 · 22:00

When war is the perfect outcome

Yes, it happens. It happens when some consultancy firm sets out the spreadsheet, they crunch the numbers and in all this it would be the perfect solution if war is the outcome. Of course that outcome must not be own its own plate, so these ego trippers need a stage where two others take the short sighted blame for the hindrance and certain people thought it was the best of all outcomes. War comes but it will be on the plates of the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was for them too good to be true. 

So that is the stage when it illuminates completely, but how did it get started? That is where the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/03/talks-with-iran-on-restoring-2015-nuclear-deal-suspended) comes in. ‘Talks with Iran on restoring 2015 nuclear deal suspended’ a month ago now sounds a lot less nice does it? So from here we go to yesterday where Politico gives us “Diplomats from the U.K., France and Germany noted last week that while they didn’t want to set “an artificial deadline for talks,” there remained “weeks, not months” to restore the accord. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said Iran needed to “add real urgency in Vienna.”” A small setting where the ego driven are looking at a stage where they can no longer win, so they cautiously set the stage where they can walk off stating it was all the fault of Iran. Then we get the Times of Israel giving us a mere 11 hours ago (at https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-intel-chief-reportedly-says-restored-iran-nuke-deal-better-than-talks-failing/) “Citing two unnamed ministers who took part in the meeting this week, the Walla news site reported Tuesday that Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva said restoring the 2015 nuclear agreement would provide greater certainty about the limitations on Iran’s atomic activities than if talks between Iran and world powers fall apart.

He also reportedly said a revival of the accord would give Israel more time to prepare for various scenarios of escalating tensions with Iran, and that the Jewish state would be in a better position to gear up for such possibilities.” A mere setting where a General has a delusional state where some level of agreement with Iran is possible. 

So as you wonder where this is going, let me add my own quotes from ‘Iranium, the product’ from November 2020, where I stated “a peaceful solution? They have enough nuclear material to fuel EVERY NUCLEAR REACTOR on the planet. They have one and they are building two, so how peaceful are their intentions? Anyway, I will set the correct stage of my snow globe idea to the internet if they make the wrong move, and they will make the wrong move. And in all this, the larger stage is still ignored, so whilst we are lulled to sleep by people like Rafael Grossi, who are “determined to continue working with the international community to preserve the JCPoA”, all whilst the 1200% of materials held by Iran is not dealt with. All this in a stage where Iran is merely playing for time, and let’s be clear, when Iran ‘accidentally’ misplaces a dirty bomb and it goes off in Tell Aviv, or Riyadh. It will be my option to say Oops, when Evia Miden is shown to have an application that no one considered, it will be my time to say ‘Oops!’, Yet at that point the politicians will make certain that they are absolved from accountability, all whilst they are setting the stage of ‘But Iran is now committed!’, a stage that needs to fall on deaf ears.” So when it is time to look at certain irresponsible and (to what I personally believe to be) incompetent reasonings from Elana DeLozier and Rafael Grossi, all whilst people gave credibility to the statement by Hassan Rouhani, on Al Jazeera 22-Jan-2020 who gave us “I’m telling European countries: we are in the JCPOA. We haven’t withdrawn from the JCPOA. We don’t want to destroy the JCPOA. We are committed to the JCPOA. The reduction in our commitments is according to the JCPOA. If you violate, if you renege on an agreement, you are responsible for all consequences. We are not responsible for the consequences” we now see the clown he is, dragging us through delay after delay. Walking back on agreements and increasing efforts to get as much materials as needed. Well, as I personally see it. I was not willing to wait any longer. Iran is too dangerous, so on December 14th 2021 I gave you all ‘Keeping my promise, part 1’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/14/keeping-my-promise-part-1/) where I gave the world the larger stage of how to meltdown an Iranian nuclear reactor, no bombs required. Something needed to be done whilst ego-trippers remained in denial, so that the world would know that someone had enough and when that was loud enough out in the open, both the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would know that they were not alone, others stood with them even as the media would silence as much as possible. 

So whilst the media is all about trivialising things on orders of stakeholders, thee is an increasing amount of people who will no longer accept that. So whilst I understand the need for Mossad’s chief David Barnea to give us “It’s not lost and it’s worth investing time and effort in a dialogue with the Americans about the contents of the agreement,” I personally belief that it is way to late for this and I think that David Barnea understands this. Yet I personally belief that relying on a bankrupt nation (USA) to get anything done was folly from the start, but that might be just me. Iran needed to be stopped, so I made the idea of melting down their reactors public domain. There will always be an overzealous person there trying it out, and it gives state actors a nice excuse. 

When will people learn that Iran will never ever play nice? The fact that I saw this coming a mile away in November 2020, 13 months ago should be an indication that these so called clever people were playing a folly game and everyone was handing the Jack of Spades to the player not in the room whilst all where looking at the ceiling claiming ‘This is not on me’, but we all should know better, it was on them and at som point these names will be prominently staged in an American article asking why they could not succeed, and the deeper the issue now goes the larger that danger for them starts. It now becomes a game of carefully phrased denials, all pointing towards Hassan Rouhani, whilst they already know they are equally guilty, they enabled this situation and they all know it.

So now we await for some think-tank giving the world that war was the only perfect outcome, as long as the poor poor Americans are not part of this, they want to be the diplomats steering in the aftermath towards a solution, a solution they helped bring about. If you doubt that, consider what I could have known 13 months ago, things the media steered clear from for the longest of times. They are happy to use flames on all kinds of manners, but not this one, someone told them and told too many members of the media. It will be fair to doubt my words, but consider that I gave you all the down-low on goods that were in the media for close to 2 years, but no one saw this coming? How come?

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Military, Politics

January 3, 2022 · 19:51

The virtual quarterback

We can consider me being the Monday morning quarterback, it would be fair to call me this. I have been for the longest time a champion of science, I believe that not unlike evidence in law, science is the cornerstone of all daily life decisions. So I tend to take sides with science for nearly all cases. Yet today, in opposition of a piece in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/britain-got-it-wrong-on-covid-long-lockdown-did-more-harm-than-good-says-scientist) I take another side, the non-scientist setting. I oppose the views of Professor Mark Woolhouse. So feel free to oppose my views, which would be fair enough. But in all matters take a long hard look at some of the things we are handed here today. I believe that not unlike some wannabe journalists who wanted to cash in on Jamal Khashoggi with their fiction view of ‘Blood and Oil’ this professor might be trying to find the same rabbit in a different hat with ‘The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir’.

So where do I oppose?
It starts with “I am afraid Gove’s statement was simply not true,” he says. “In fact, this is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.” In March 2020 there was a lot we never knew. Do not forget that the disease was out for only 2-3 months, and it had not spread to the degree it has now. China had no answers, and the people who were responsible for calling this a pandemic did not do so. In addition, the media gave us “This might become a pandemic” all whilst the points of calling it a pandemic had already passed. I wrote about it on February 3rd 2020 in ‘Corona?  I Never touch the stuff!’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/corona-i-never-touch-the-stuff/), a month before we see given here. I already saw the pandemic threshold passed, yet most media were in denial with “This might become a pandemic” as such, it seems to me that Professor Mark Woolhouse will have to explain a few things. Then we get to “We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence, as well as suffering damage to their future prospects, while they were left to inherit a record-breaking mountain of public debt” in this is resort to the blunt ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ In the first there was a lot we did not know, and for the longest time there are still questions, so the response I see with “We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence” is something I would like to refer to as bullshit marketing. You see the first peak of daily deaths did not start until April 13th 2020, with 6916 dead people (aka the non-living). 

I found a table from April 2020 from New York. In this table we see 6839 died, but the interesting part is that 5151 cases had an underlying condition and in that case the older you get the higher the chance of an underlying condition, and in that up to 44 years old 312 died. Most with an underlying condition, but there was a lot not known in that setting. More important, there was no vaccine, there was no protection. The Pfizer solution was still in clinical trials in November 2020. And when you start looking at the facts as they were known, I believe that Mark Woolhouse is trimming his own trumpet for the sake of book-sales (a speculative view, but it is my view). 

Were mistakes made?
Yes, of course mistakes were made, they were made all over the world and with the US having an idiot as president in those days did not help much. There was a large void of knowledge and there was a large void of experience, so looking at the facts after the fact does not help much (apparently it might help a certain professor with a book to sell). And in all this the professor does not take into account the anti-lockdown idiots spreading the disease, the ignorant anti-vaxxers adding fuel to the fire and then the people who were ignorant of the way the disease spread going to relative, friends and so forth needing their social moment. 

And in London that is a large powder-keg waiting to explode and now that it is doing just that we see the blame game in effect. So consider the anti-lockdown protest, it only 10 people had it at that point, at least 1000 could have it 3 days later. And everyone remains in denial, oh boo hoo hoo!

So when we get to “the country should have put far more effort into protecting the vulnerable. Well over 30,000 people died of Covid-19 in Britain’s care homes. On average, each home got an extra £250,000 from the government to protect against the virus, he calculates. “Much more should have been spent on providing protection for care homes,” says Woolhouse, who also castigates the government for offering nothing more than a letter telling those shielding elderly parents and other vulnerable individuals in their own homes to take precautions.” Where is the time line? When did we know what we know now and that is before we add the complications of Alpha, Delta and Omicron. And with the last quote “By contrast, we spent almost nothing on protecting the vulnerable in the community. We should and could have invested in both suppression and protection. We effectively chose just one.”

In the first, the government could not afford both paths (slight speculation), there were too many unknown factors and with Omicron raging now, anti-vaxxer idiots and anti-lockdown dumbo’s, how can you protect a community? You can claim you can but stupid people will do whatever they feel like, the vulnerable be damned. That is how people tend to be. 

So this is my view on the matter and it is a rare event when I oppose a scientist, especially a professor, but here I feel it was needed. And I had a few more views concerning covid over that year and last year too. I kept it low, because I am not a medici (ha ha ha), yet the larger stage is also ignored in the story. The media was fear mongering all over the place and that too resulted in negative actions. There were several factors and I believe that too many factors were unknown, or untested for the longest of times. 

So, if you decide I am the Monday morning quarterback it is fine, I gave my reasoning and my views that go back to February 2020 when it was in the earliest stage. So I am not exactly the Monday morning quarterback, but I am definitely a virtual one. Consider the facts and consider the blah blah from Professor Mark Woolhouse and draw your own conclusions.

1 Comment

Filed under Media, Science

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

January 3, 2022 · 02:45

Can I have some more harshness?

It is 02:00 and I find myself at odds with a CBC article. Now, let’s be clear and upfront. CBC did nothing wrong, this is all me. The article ‘Canada’s English dictionary hasn’t been updated in almost 2 decades. What does that say about us?’  (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/canadian-english-dictionary-two-decades-1.6291089) set something off in me. In  world where for the most people cannot tell you clearly what is going on, the media is in a stage of deniability by using ‘could’ and ‘might’ and we see politicians spinning 7 colours from Sunday and all these elements had nothing to do with a dictionary. Even a dictionary from 1855 might have been a better setting than the one we face nowadays. So I was feeling oddly agitated by the headline. So when the article gives us “Hailed as the “maven of Canadian English” by the Washington Post and known widely as Canada’s “word lady,” Katherine Barber was renowned for researching and documenting how language works in this country. In 1991, she became the founding editor of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary — the country’s first authoritative and comprehensive reference work for Canadian English — with the first edition publishing in 1998.” I had to take a step back. As a residing non-Canadian (I reside in Australia) I get the need for identity, I get the need for what can be seen in Canada as a personalised dictionary for all Canadians. Yet why am I so agitated? A Canadian dictionary does not affect me, so why does it bother me? It was then that the words “hasn’t been updated in almost 2 decades” seem to sound like the drumming distance of change. You see, there was a work that did sound like the stuff of nightmares. It is called ‘the use of euphemisms in mass-media discourse’ and there is the rub, the last two decades has been more and more about political correctness, now I am not against political correctness, the problem is that for the most we end up saying forms of insincerities and only in part saying what is the matter. Euphemisms are to some degree part of the problem. When we look at that meaning we get “a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.” There are two issues here, the first is the mild substitution, the second part is the event of ‘too harsh or too blunt’, we end up saying something that is seemingly a form of dancing around the subject. And this has become worse and worse over the last two decades. Which is where I have a problem with the event, not with the sentiment of the article or some idea of it. The problem as I see it is that too often euphemisms are used to downplay events and that tends to have other reasons none of them about being politically correct, or less harsh. Merely more facilitating for the people telling the story and that inaccuracy is a much larger danger. I tend to grasp back at the most ridiculous of phrases “I lost my Husband”, I wonder if she checked the second drawer of her desk. Nope! He was not lost, he merely drove his car into another, the man is dead! There is no non-blunt way to say dead, we can go by non-living as: at present 5,458,856 people have joined the non-living via means of Covid. 

OK, that was not too subtle but at times that is the only way to get things across. The problem is that the act of downplaying is massive in social media, as such the mis use of euphemisms are abundant and they are continuing to muddy the waters of clarity. As I personally see it, there is no need to update the dictionary over two decades, there is however a much larger need to properly use the dictionary that we do have and that is not happening either, the new words will nit change that, we need to be clear, we need to be precise and at times that is blunt and it is not extremely PC. Sometimes the truth and the precise truth is not nice and it is harsh, it happens. Downplaying events and hiding behind euphemisms helps no one, that much has been crystal clear for many years. Yet this is merely my view, you have every right to oppose my view. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Media

Tagged as , , , ,

December 30, 2021 · 22:34

Lest we forget

This is not some Marilyn Mason album (which was really good), this is not some WW1 reference. This is in part an accusation of the media, in this specific case the Canadian media. I stumbled upon this by mere coincidence. In the age of lockdowns I tend to watch a lot more walk video’s, the more extreme (location) the more I want to see it. I have seen a fair bit of them and there are several really good ones, so in the age of lockdown I have seen the streets of San Francisco (I had to go there), Monaco, London, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto and several others. So this evening I saw (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRuRPszR0-8) a Canadian style Christmas market in Monaco and it looked awesome. So why did the Canadian media not put this out as a human interest story? There was an ice rink, a sled hill (no real snow), stalls on Quebec, Ontario, generic Canadian and it was awesome to see in quality. I reckon that when your nation gets a cultural boost in a place like Monaco a single page on CBC or even Global One is not overly weird, but I did not see any of that. 

I reckon that if the subject was Australia, the UK or the Netherlands their media would go all out on it (an assumption on my side). So why are the human stories neglected when it is not the brassiere of some celebrity the story goes to the ‘horse no show’ category? You think I am kidding, but seek events that are international that impact your nation, who gives it any kind of visibility? And lets face it, Monaco is not any place, it is the place where the richest of the rich live (help me out here Jeff ;-)) it is subtropical and the temperature is around 23.4 degrees Celsius warmer than it is in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec or Ottawa, so the idea of watching people in a winter stall in summer outfit will work well on anyone. So why are these events missed? This might be the one I noticed, but I feel certain that it is nowhere near the only one.

So you take a look at that video (especially if your Canadian) and consider why it was missed, a Christmas stall is a Christmas stall and it will always pique the interest of someone, especially if it involves a group of people eating Poutine right next to a Louis Vuitton shop, don’t you agree?

And let’s face it, seeing the locals there having a go at Canadian Bacon will be worth the watch too, but that is merely my sense of giggles turning a frown upside down.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media

Tagged as , , , , , ,