Category Archives: Media

December 8, 2021 · 22:52

The media caper

I set the stage in an earlier article responding to CBC in ‘Six of one’, I set a few issues there and even as I did not oppose the Canadian view, the stage is a lot bigger. And what happens? To my surprise it is ABC News who gives us another angle, one I contemplated and dropped because it requires evidence. This they handed to me when the search tool gives us “Chinese developer Evergrande is likely to be in default, amid reports it has missed a final bond payment deadline, but markets are shrugging…” the article (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-08/evergrande-default-debt-developers-china/100682242) gives the goods, yet there is the stage. You see It is the search text we see (as above) and the added “but markets are shrugging…” is not ANYWHERE in the article.

The article gives a lot, but someone using the media is playing a game with all of us. A stage that is about the fine parts, about the innuendo. It is a lot more subtle then “Why are your boobs so big? Are you a free-diver or do you have a pneumonia?” There is a real chance that a collapse hitting investors for their $18,000,000,000 out there and the media plays games? Yes, you think this is trivial, and to some degree it is. But this stage happens EVERY day. It happens in all kinds of ways and it happens all over the field, but we keep slamming China and Saudi Arabia, all whilst we get a distorted view by the media and it overwhelms millions of people. 

Why does it bother me?
Well we have some serious issues and our votes are buttered by alternating and adjusted views that the media gives us. They claim to be informing us, yet they adhere to other voices and those voices decide what we see. To be honest I was a little surprised to see ABC on that stage. For the most, them and several other papers are not inclined to be that active, so it is a rare find. When we go to the ABC site, we get a little more “but markets are shrugging off the news amid stimulus from China’s central bank.” Yet the article has merely one mention of stimulus “China’s growth slowdown in 2014-15, and the large stimulus [that] drove the economy’s recovery after the COVID-19 shock early last year”, as such it is not “amid stimulus from China’s central bank”. It is also hindered, and the article’s reference to the central bank is a mere “to lower borrowing costs”, to be honest this is the first time I notice ABC in such an action, they tend to be above board all the time that I looked into matters, so this was a find, there are other media outlets that have a simpler approach to their reporting integrity as I personally see that. 

So is there no issue with Evergrande? Yes there is and when that companies implodes and defaults the damage in China and far beyond those borders will be massive. There is an added station that it will almost directly halts China’s economic growth and it will impact Chinese lives all over, one firm losing that much will have larger impacts all over China. So the news is correct, the setting is not a positive one, yet the search-line and the article shows that the media is playing a dangerous game and when people do wake up they will want their pound of flesh. And when the people will demand the names list of stakeholders, I wonder how long the delay will be and how quickly these stakeholders will run (for their lives) to the nearest airport. 

We see the stage of social media and “Deception is a distortion with an intention to mislead users, analysts, organisations, etc.” So when that gets dealt with, will someone also deal with the generic media? I doubt it, but I can hope. 

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December 8, 2021 · 20:43

Somewhat connected news

Yes, news has two options, it is either connected or it is not. This sounds silly, there are plenty of news articles with no connection at all, but what happens when there is a link (to some degree)?

It is that setting we regularly face. I actually wanted to link in Reuters news, but they screwed up their system, there is no replacement for competency and Reuters seemingly lost that. But to some degree there is a larger stage. CNBC gives us ‘U.S. to release oil from reserves in coordination with other countries to lower gas prices’ yes that is a setting we get, but the article at Reuters, which is now beyond reach is alerting us to market volatility, that is a setting we get. Yes we see all kinds of voices to state that we have to let go of fossil fuels and I get that, it makes sense. Yet we now get “The U.S. will release 50 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the White House said Tuesday”, this sounds great, but consider that this represents a little under 10% of that reserve. So what happens when the reserves are gone? So when we see “part of a global effort by energy-consuming nations to calm 2021′s rapid rise in fuel prices” we all tend to see a good thing, and it is for the most a good thing. The issue that Reuters cannot give us is that there are larger concerns. These oil executives are right, even though they are in part buttering their own bread, the reality is that the need for fossil fuels is so in our systems, the need will remain for at least a decade, a decade we actually do not have, but COVID could kill over 22.8% and solve the issue for us. 

You see, if you want to debate that and oppose that, that is fine. To these people I say ‘Drop the use of your car and your furnace for a month, just one month and you will be right’, that is a lot harder to do is it? How many can go without your car, your motorcycle, and your oil based heaters? You might think that you are in an apartment building, so it does not hit you, but your entire building has a heater, shut that down for a month and see where you are then. These two alone will result in the ‘Yes, I will, I just have to’ group. They cannot leave their car alone, it is part of them and that is fine, but you cannot have it both ways. 

I think it is a decently wise move to sell from the reserves now, but there is only so much reserves and this will not go away, so when we realise that, oil will go from $87 a barrel to $154 a barrel in a hurry and there is a second thought, that market will be a lot more volatile when the reserves are gone. And that is before people realise that agreements when dropped tend to be more expensive once they pick them up again, because that is most likely the result of enduring volatility. The US is not alone in this, but in this case their setting is important. You see, France became part of this. We can say it serves the US right for messing with their submarines, or we can look at the larger station. The news ‘France signs $18B weapons deal with UAE’ (at https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2021/12/03/france-signs-18b-weapons-deal-with-uae/), which replaces the Reuters news, for competency reasons, is one that shows us “The UAE is buying 80 upgraded Rafale fighters in a deal the French Armed Forces Ministry said is worth €16 billion (U.S. $18 billion) and represents the largest-ever French weapons contract for export. It also announced a deal with the UAE to sell 12 Airbus-built combat helicopters”, I am honestly happy for France (even though I lose out of 3.75% commission now), but the larger stage is that the US loses the anticipated $18,000,000,000 as well. And it is not that they didn’t need it with debt ceilings, resource shortages and contracts they might lose after that. And this links to it as others (Saudi Arabia) will also consider alternatives. So when you see this in the light of ‘the sector’s largest 25 companies totalled US$361 billion in 2019, 8.5 per cent more than in 2018’ (source: Sipri) a setting where the shift in the top 25 will shift to other players in that list, the US economy would take a massive hit in 2023-2024 I reckon, a setting that they could have avoided and the senate issues next week are important. When they are cancelled, take notice of ALL the senators who opposed them, you see they will give you some BS human rights setting, and that is fine. But the consequence is that Americans will face larger and harder heating bills and fuel prices. And then there is the setting that Rand Paul (Kentucky), Mike Lee (Utah) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont) leave you with, not the setting of “argued earlier on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen’s civil war, including an air and naval blockade of Yemen, “is an abomination.”” What they (intentionally) forget to mention is that the Houthis are the aggressors and they get direct support from Iran, and to some degree Hezbollah too. A stage that the people do not get to see, the media is making sure of that, or at least their stakeholders are. 

And it will fuel the fuel prices. You see the US needs these funds to pay debts and to get a smooth quality of life result in the US, when that falls away settings that I have stated over the last few weeks will hit US citizens hard, much harder then ever before with dwindling sources of revenue. 

And the jester from Kentucky adds to this with ““For years now, ships that would otherwise carry food, fuel, and medicine are turned away by the Saudi-led coalition, depriving the Yemeni people of the necessities to sustain civilisation,” Paul wrote in an op-ed published in The American Conservative” Yet when we see “Three-way talks between the Houthi rebels, the UN-recognised government of Yemen and the UN have foundered, despite repeated warnings, including at the UN security council, of the impact if the tanker explodes, breaks up or starts leaking. UN officials have been unable to secure guarantees to maintain the vessel, including its rotting hull, which is now overseen by a crew of just seven”, I am giving you another part, yes, there is a blockade by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, yet the setting is that too many goods will end up in Houthi hands and it is something that US intelligence operations know as well, it is a dirty mess down there (not part of this conversation). 

The stages are fossil fuels and revenue. The US needs both, and as the reserves are now tapped, the US will desperately need revenue, a setting that is diminished by some of the players. Not merely the stage of lost revenue, the stage of catering to Iran is a much larger problem. 

So the articles are merely casually linked, or perhaps more correctly stated ‘seemingly casually linked’, seemingly is a much larger word in that equation and it is ‘hindered’ by my personal view, yet I have shown (way too often) that I tend to be correct in that setting. So enjoy the future people in the US (EU too) will face. When the reserves run dry (no exact date can be given), the loud Ka-Ching sound in the sky will be the start of your energy and fuel prices going up by 20%-30% again and again, I personally believe that it will take a few more months after that months until the previous maximum of June 2008 at $156.85 per barrel will be reached, but after that the sky will be the limit for those selling fossil fuels. You did realise that, did you not?

So when you consider that over the last year energy prices have gone up by almost 50% (in the US), consider where it ends as revenue goes down further, consider how much reserves would be needed to address just the last year price hike and the price hike seen over the next 12 months. I reckon that the reserves will end up getting tapped by well over 10%, and I have no idea how long that will stop the price hikes, there is too much data missing and those who have that data are not lining up to share it with the world, let alone little old me.

So the stage of somewhat connected news is set to raise the bar on several fields. And for people to feel the need to stop Saudi arms sales, I get it. I would feel the same way if I was given such a one sided story by the media, but I learned to look to a much larger station (and a lot more sources). Yet with all the COVID protestors help will come from an unconsidered option, we merely need to lose 32% of the population to halt fuel price hikes, stop pollution settings and reduce the carbon footprint by enough, as well as food shortage that will come next. 

Yet I feel certain that plenty of people will disagree. 

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December 8, 2021 · 02:34

Six of one

Six of one, or half a dozen of the other. You will have heard the expression. It is widely used, yet the meaning has changed. This reminds me of an old WW2 movie. A sergeant tells the soldier, we kill them, they murder us. It is more than semantics and weirdly enough there is a chance that this was on the back of my mind when I wrote ‘Jump into the deep part’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/06/jump-into-the-deep-part/), yet the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csis-trudeau-china-media-1.6270750) just drove it to the forefront of my mind. You see the article gives us in the article ‘Spy agency warned Trudeau China’s tactics becoming more ‘sophisticated … insidious’’ and here we see “As Canada’s spy agency warns that China’s efforts to distort the news and influence media outlets in Canada “have become normalised,” critics are renewing calls for Ottawa to take a far tougher approach to foreign media interference”. I am not debating the events in Canada, but the field is actually a lot larger. The media with (as I personally see it) unsubstantiated accusations towards the NSO group by the Guardian. Attacks without supporting evidence towards Saudi Arabia, the papers are drenched in that mess and it is not merely ‘foreign media interference’. You see if these people are serious they will take a hard look at media stakeholders, but they will not, will they? 

So as we see “One way foreign states — including the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — try to exert pressure on other countries is through media outlets, say the documents, obtained through an access to information request.” Do they realise that it is not merely ‘foreign states’, in this ‘corporations’ are equally to blame, they all have other goals and they use the same channels, the problem is that the media has become too unreliable, people do not know what or who to believe. In this the CSIS has equally a role to play, and for the most they are all about the safety and security of Canada (as it should be), yet in all this I wrote a few days ago about Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri. So as some might remember “Aljabri gained worldwide attention last year when he filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging he had been the target of a failed assassination plot orchestrated by Mohammed bin Salman”, an assassination attempt? In Canada? So why is the US courts involved? Why is this not set in Canada? Then we get “Sakab Saudi Holding Company, “had no operational business” despite receiving $8 billion US in government funding and was used “almost exclusively” as a vehicle to funnel money to the other companies”. My issue here is not merely whether this is on the up and up, it is happening under the noses (optionally with blessing) of the CSIS, this is an Unites States setting (with $8,000,000,000) and it is happening in Canada. Now, the point is not merely on what the CSIS is doing, because they care for their nation (Canada), yet the media gives us a different view and the Human Rights Watch is joining them with “(Beirut) – Saudi authorities should immediately release the imprisoned children of a former Saudi official following an unfair trial that took place in an apparent effort to coerce him to return to Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch said today. Omar Al-Jabri, 23, and Sarah Al-Jabri, 21, the children of Saad Al-Jabri, a former top Saudi intelligence official, were arrested in March 2020 and held incommunicado until January 2021.” Yes, the thousands of children of Yemen are casually forgotten (for that moment) but the children of a multimillionaire, in the eyes of the government of Saudi Arabia a traitor and a thief. The man walks into Canada with $385,000,000 and what we get is “he made at least $385M — and says there’s ‘nothing unusual’ about it”, really? Last time most people made a mere few millions, close to every tax agent within 50 miles came calling for a cup of coffee, but then I must have forgotten about the US and their $8,000,000,000 investment opportunity

So I digressed, but it was important. You see, I am not opposing “Chinese-language media outlets operating in Canada and members of the Chinese-Canadian community are primary targets of PRC-directed foreign influenced activities.” But the problem is larger, PRC is a paid engine, and in this that scammers, Iran and a few other players also use it. I do not think that I am telling director David Vigneault anything he does not know, but the stage is that PRC is used by stakeholders, marketeers, media outlets ho need some ‘casual’ link of evidence, the list goes on. The problem is not that China is involved, they probably are. Yet in that same light Russia is optionally using PRC media pages to make China look bad, Iran uses it to set misinformation onto other streams. In this Forbes gave us in April ‘China-Iran $400 Billion Accord: A Power Shift Threatens Western Energy’, we get to see the references towards Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a few other matters, yet what is kept in the dark (not intentionally) is how Iran and Turkey are using PRC for marketing politics, a marketing engine devoted to the ‘headlines only people’. And in that stage there are also the corporations. They merely pursue their need for green (dollar bills), but the ploys they use are larger and taint all parties and in this the global media does close to nothing, because corporations represent advertisement dollars and they are all desperate (like a crack whore for a fix) to get those dollars. A little like the Sony 2012 Q3 advertisements needs, yet now a lot larger and many corporations that are a little shy of the limelight. 

This gives us the one part I do not fully agree with, it is given in “Mainstream news outlets, as well as community sources, may also be targeted by foreign states who attempt to shape public opinion, debate, and covertly influence participation in the democratic process,”, my issue with this is “may also be targeted by foreign states who attempt to shape public opinion”, it is not wrong, but I think it should state “Mainstream news outlets, as well as community sources, need to be more proactive to stop outside influences from state players and corporations who attempt to shape public opinion, debate, and covertly influence participation in the democratic process,” because corporations have everything to gain and they are trying to do just that, on a global scale no less.

As such six of one or half a dozen of the other is not the same, the two elements tend to represent a very different currency. Consider the alternative six apples or half a dozen bananas, that might make more sense. As such I tend to ‘alter’ another expression to make sense: You say tomato, I say potato. My approach to the setting we see here on a global scale.

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December 5, 2021 · 06:48

Before the script

That is a stage we find ourselves in. There is no real reason, it was a stage I moved into as I was contemplating a few ideas. You see with any erotic tainted movie it is about how it starts (and for some do they get married at the end). With spy stories it tends to be jumbled, to maximise the impact of the story the movie Anna is a great example. Yet with assassinations it tends to be about timelines, and it needs to start in the middle, a great example is Colombiana with Zoe Saldana.

You see it adheres to a few items. A good assassination adheres to the golden three. 

Separation
Segregation
Isolation

You separate the target from his support system, we do not need to comedy capers to involve themselves making matters worse, the career person likes to get away from it all before it is too late. You segregate the person from the people that know and trust their insight, their family, it is a separate cog in the machine and not always required, but it should always be considered. Isolation is the kill moment. It is best to have that person apart when you perform the deed. I do not believe in the Jason Statham method (the Mechanic), it is nice, it makes for good movie suspense, but too many things can go wrong and they tend to go wrong at the wrong instance. 

So in all this when we look at the Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri case, I just have to laugh. 12 people? I am still decently convinced that he got out (with the money) by setting up an attack and warning the US of that attack, but that is me. It matters because now we see (source:  Reuters) “A former top Saudi intelligence official who is living in exile accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday of targeting him, and made an unprecedented public plea to the Biden administration to help obtain the release of his children jailed in Saudi Arabia”, a larger stage as he is in Canada, so why is he not pleading with Canadian authorities? Did you consider that?

It matters in this stage as we look at ending the involuntary heartbeat of a person. He has to some degree isolated himself, he is decently segregated, but not completely and there is the mere need of isolating him, that never required 12 people and any intelligent person would see that, lets be clear MBS is not stupid, so the entire song and dance that the media gives us does not make sense.

But back to the story. When the golden three are adhered to the decimation can begin. The important first part is information, in case of the person we discussed earlier, he is in Toronto, a city. This means that there are more options to get to him. The opposite is that he got there with hundreds of millions, so he can afford all kinds of security. The second consideration is given by The Star “It is alleged one of the companies, Sakab Saudi Holding Company, “had no operational business” despite receiving $8 billion US in government funding and was used “almost exclusively” as a vehicle to funnel money to the other companies, which did carry out legitimate business, as well as to Aljabri and his co-conspirators”, so in what universe do you get awarded $8,000,000,000? 

The stage for any target is to understand what is going on and this implies that he is more than an exile, he is optionally a US intelligence taskmaster (Middle East minder of intelligence). Using him as an example is nice, for a few reasons. He has Canadian protection and he gets American protection, in Canada it will be the CIA, optionally the CSIS is involved. The problem for any target of this size is that the Canadians have their own Navy Seals, they are extremely capable and on a person like this, they are somehow involved. There is no way that stakeholders walk away from a $8,000,000,000 jackpot. 

So why does it matter? Well the story is about more then suspense, it will be about realism. So how to get to such a target? Well we could ask Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri and that is where we get to the good stuff. You see, the foundation of this was seen in a comic book in 1978.

It was the first Franka, a comic made by Henk Kuijpers. The researchers researched a crime for a movie, which then was soon thereafter done by criminals. The stage to get the experts to solve the problem for them, simple and brilliant. You see there is nothing wrong with a silenced .50 from the top of any building, but when you see what you are up against, the stage changes soon thereafter. I saw the premise of a c4 loaded drone, which allows for a few settings, but that pesky CSIS. These people get awfully cranky when you trespass on their soil and if you think the CIA is trouble, wait for the CSIS to get creative and nasty. So you need two options. The first is that you were never there. The second is that you need to vanish with a clear path (to your fake alibi) that can be tracked on the other side of the world. Like what they did with the RAF, spending some of their money in a place like Buenos Aires, all whilst the missing people were already laid to rest (mom, dad and the three children). When a large enough pile of cash goes missing people will find you, unless the money is burned (apart from the cash spend in BA) and the bodies can not be found, not in decades, not ever. 

That setting when united gives a much larger stage to play and when it is done, I reckon that it is better if the assassin is a she. (Zoe Saldana made good on that in Colombiana). So whilst we wonder what more we can do, I personally believe that simplicity is best. It is the one stage I did not like in the Mechanic. Even it all seemed simple. The air-vent scene showed how things turn sour in an instant. Simplicity is key. What is simpler then flying a DJI drone three buildings away straight into the open window and boom? After that it becomes a mere exercise to vanish, which in Toronto is still a massive undertaking, unless they look for the wrong person, it becomes a little easier then. You could join an Oracle event in Mississauga, or take across lake Ontario and vanish via Rochester, at which point you are in the US. 

That script is easy enough to write, it will be about the details and about how the details play out. There is no use if the event results in a global hunt by the CSIS and their seal equivalent giving you less then a 1% to survive for any decent amount of time, a number no career person wants to consider. And these are the thoughts before the script is made. If you can pull it off you have the making of a new Hollywood (or Netflix) blockbuster. 

Darn, it is only 06:36, what ever will I do the rest of the day? 

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December 5, 2021 · 04:56

America wakes up

Yes, it is apparently starting. Some in America have woken up. USA Today (at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/12/03/oxford-high-school-shooting-updates/8850669002/) gives us ‘Bond set at combined $1 million for parents of Michigan school shooting suspect after overnight arrest’. Before we begin you need to know something about me. I for the most am pro guns. I love guns (to some degree), but I was never a true gun nut. I was for a long time a precision shooter (long range). So I would want the rifle that gets me there (Accuracy International). I started young and I started with small bore weapons. Anyway, I am not the focal point here. These parents thought it was a good idea to give their 15 year old a gun as a present. How stupid is that? So as we take consideration of “Each was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said they bought the firearm for their son, Ethan Crumbley, 15, as a Christmas gift.” And before we go all overboard. Should the kid have gotten a small bore rifle, I might not have been objecting. There are plenty of places with wild where the grandfather takes the little one into the wold and teaches the kid how to shoot all kinds of animals for food, they also learn to respect the power of the rifle. It is a tradition that has gone on for generations. And that is not the case here. The massively stupid mommy and daddy decided to buy their 15 year old a SIG Sauer SP 2022. A weapon used by the French police no less. Why on earth would you want to give a 15 year old a weapon like that? Then we get to the warning signs (like giving a 15 year old a SIG wasn’t enough of a warning). We are given “Crumbley’s parents did not ask where it was when they were called to the school the day of the shooting for a disturbing drawing their son made of a firearm, McDonald said at a news conference Friday.” And in addition to that we get “The gun used in the shooting had been stored in an unlocked drawer in their house”, say what? 

The setting of a stage that should never have happened and to set the parents in prison in a stage where they are equally guilty is the way to go. Even though they are not charged in first degree murder, the stage of this level of stupidity seems to equal the field of premeditation. You can not now, not ever be this stupid. That is my take on the matter and as such, I reckon there is a larger stage to proceed. No matter how it turns out, if the parents want to stay out of prison they will need to cough up serious money, they will need all the lawyers money could buy them. There is more, there is also the case why on earth they bought the gun as a Christmas present. I gave the reasoning for any kid to get their first rifle, see image below.

This is a gun that is for kids. It is a mere .22, it is single shot and it prepares them for the hunt whilst they cannot shoot anything more hazardous then a Turkey (or bunny rabbit, or pheasant) you get the idea. A setting that spans generations. I personally approve and more important, these people get the respect for a firearm handed to them. By the grandparents, the parents and they are instilled with the knowledge that it is a serious tool. Yet in all my life, I cannot fathom anyone giving a SIG to a 15 year old, it boggles my mind. And it is not even a sporting weapon (too inaccurate), for that see below. That is a sporting pistol, a precision pistol and the drawback is that they are too un-wielding for a 15 year old.

And this is not an attack on SIG, it is an accurate weapon, it is a reliable weapon, it is not a precision match weapon, those needs are a lot higher. So in all I see close to half a dozen reasons to never ever get a SIG for a kid. What were these parents thinking. Which brings me to a small and interesting part that the media did not cover. Did they sign up their son with a firing range? How long have they been registered at a firing range? I am willing to bet that both parents and sunshine boy were never signed up. He never had any training wielding ANY kind of firearm. So when you consider that, why on earth would anyone have a firearm? (not debating Detroit safety on this)

A stage that is evolving because if the parents had no gun, why buy the son one? Did anyone consider that part of the equation?

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December 4, 2021 · 11:07

Merely a dream

I had a decently weird dream last night. It might be a movie, but I think it is not good enough for that. It might be a popcorn movie, merely for streaming and DVD sales and that would be fine too. The setting is that the dream started a few other things and I wonder where we are in less then a year.

It started in Toronto, I was there for whatever reason. There was a lot of chaos, a lot of shooting and a lot of damage. It was primarily in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It is around February 2022, the US has defaulted on its loans. The people lost almost everything they ever owned and the stage is that ultra right angry people are whipping up the others who are coming to terms that their politicians are as useless as everyone expected them to be. Canada suddenly has to deal with 30-50 thousand invaders all angry and all taking whatever they can, they have nothing left. I saw police officers in Yorkville getting shot, store windows were getting crashed and houses are overrun. The American had turned into rabid dogs. The army was trying to create bottlenecks but an army spread over Canada having to deal with three clearly way to large fire points and a lot more in the rural areas is not an army that can get a whole lot done. And nearly all Americans were wielding firearms. It is then that I see the army starting to shoot to kill and I wake up.

Now, that was merely a dream, but the larger station remains. Everyone is in this ‘lets hope’ phase, but America has been utterly broke for well over three years. And every time the debt ceiling is raised. A political system that cannot take responsibility, that uses the blame game and points at the previous party if it is a different political party. They both failed and they both refused to overhaul tax laws for well over over 25 years. In the 90’s the idea of a trillion dollar firm was ludicrous. Now they have 2, maybe 3. These firms did NOTHING wrong. They adhered to tax laws and they did what the tax laws demanded that they would do. So every time I see another tax the rich, whilst these people look at three parties (ignoring 15 others), I get nervous. The larger station is not that they refuse to overhaul tax laws. It might be that they are too stupid to overhaul them.

And this too is nothing new. What will be new is that the US government will take a look at their patent office and make (forced) deals with any isolated (registered in America only) patent and demand a financial deal with that owner. So lucky my IP is not registered in the US. A setting of grab it whilst you can will start soon enough and whilst the US will be in denial, there will be behind the scene deals with Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft and IBM. All to get a little more use and traction out of the failing US economy. All whilst it has been clear for decades that the tax laws need a complete rewrite, a setting where everyone is taxed fairly. But that will not likely happen. That will upset the large donators and political friends they have and they would lose them, so nothing will happen and the dream that I have will come closer to becoming an optional reality. 

Is it a wish or a dream? No one wishes for this. Not when you consider all the innocent lives struck by American stupidity, but the larger station is that a lot of Americans are close to desperate and the default will push them over the edge, I feel certain of that. Even as the news (mainly media) is now flaming their need for digital advertisement, hiding behind the announcement that the US of A could default next week, we also get a mere 16 hours ago that ‘U.S. Senate passes bill to avert government shutdown, sends to Biden for signature’, but that is not the same is it? A shutdown is one thing, a default is something else. There are paths that they could walk, set up a massive loan with JP Morgan, Blackrock or Morgan Stanley, the turnaround will need to be massive and that is how the slippery slope becomes a diagonal sheet of ice. A timeline extended and extended, all whilst the premise of stopping this going from bad to worse is ignored.

It was but a dream, I realise that, but perhaps my brain is working out a few financial items covered in nightmares. 

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December 3, 2021 · 22:03

It is difficult

One one hand, thee was a reason to be joyful. There was another article by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, so let the bashing begin. On the other hand, this is actually a good article. It is also an important article. And there is a stage where we need to consider what is and what could be. The article ‘Rights groups urge EU to ban NSO over clients’ use of Pegasus spyware’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/dec/03/rights-groups-urge-eu-to-ban-nso-over-clients-use-of-pegasus-spyware). This is interesting in two ways. We see no such ban on Remington, Fabrique national, Glock and a few other firms. And I would like to add that the NSA has done worse, much worse, so why is it now onto the NSO because their clients are skating on the edge of what some people might seem as ‘unacceptable’?

We see “Letter signed by 86 organisations asks for sanctions against Israeli firm, alleging governments used its software to abuse rights”, we see it, but do we realise what is going on? We are holding the publisher of a law book accountable for criminals using those books to stay out of prison. And it is not mere criminals using the books, it is governments using the books. 

This is a slippery slope and as Stephanie Kirchgaessner illuminates this, we are left with questions. I personally want to see a list of these 86 organisations. I am not saying that the Guardian is lying, I am stating that the NSO and us have a right to see these accusers. Yes, we see Access Now, Amnesty International and the Digital Rights Foundation. But where are the others? We also see “the EU’s sanctions regime gave it the power to target entities that were responsible for “violations or abuses that are of serious concern as regards to the objectives of the common foreign and security policy, including violations or abuses of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, or of freedom of opinion and expression””, it is here that the problem starts. We see “freedom of opinion and expression”, but who allows for that? Who allows for ‘peaceful assembly’? Consider the US and their ‘Black Lives Matter’ setting. We see “Some states have recently increased the severity of criminal penalties for protesters along political lines”, so where is your freedom of expression and opinion now? 

There is an issue, there is and in this Stephanie is right, but is there any kind of stage where the NSO can be held responsible for the actions of their clients? What do you think will happen when the NSO sells what they have to China and/or Russia? Do you think these 86 organisations will have anything to say then? 

And there is a larger stage, the stage everyone is silent about, the stage we all know but no one is willing to look there. We are so willing to blame the NSO group, but no one is wondering why Apple and Google didn’t have better protection? We can understand that there are always, but they do not seem to work and for some reason, Apple and Google have a massive problem. So when we consider Forbes ‘Apple Starts Sending NSO Hack Warnings To iPhone Users’, why was this not done earlier, and more important why was the problem not fixed 5 years ago? Apple is playing the cautious game, leaving the NSO group out of the debate with “State-sponsored attackers are very well-funded and sophisticated, and their attacks evolve over time. Detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete. It’s possible that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms, or that some attacks are not detected. We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future.” So why are new phones not more secure? Why are cyber locks a problem? Because Apple (Google too) caters to people who need automation to get better and more revenue and that crosses with the needs of some players who need access. 

In all this, the simplest solution was that no one gets access to your mobile, and it is not a new concept. The Blackberry started that idea and was quickly pushed out of the market (they were not the cheapest either). I saw this come up a few times when I was considering the evolution of a console (name xxxxxxxx redacted) , but the premise is larger and it is all linked to the simple setting that Facebook opened a door and EVERYONE wants to get through. In this case the NSO group saw that as a great idea to collect information and they are not alone, let that be clear, they might be the most visible player, but they are not the only player, but the article does not give that part, do they? You see there were a few nations on the list (that everyone ignores) and they are not NSO group clients, but they have certain abilities, so they are a client of someone and these 86 organisations are about to give that one player (with no scruples) the entire market.

Did you consider that?

Moreover, the accusations from some against the NSO group are still absent of evidence. Several newspapers gave light that the list of 10,000 was bogus and it was from 2017. In addition, I found the financial link missing, 10,000 hacks implied that the NSO group had received in excess of $600,000,000 and they have not. Some give us specifically worded accusations. Like the Citizens Lab giving us that 36 phones might (emphasis on might) have been transgressed upon, 36 out of 76, and we seemingly delete the word ‘might’ with our minds, but I did not. I am not opposing the Citizens Lab, but 36 might out of a debatable list of 10,000 is a long stretch and so far none of the media have given us any clear evidence, but these 86 organisations see there limelight moment, so they are all crying foul (or is that fowl). 

I for one want to see the media become responsible and hand over a dashboard of alleged victims. 10,000 numbers, that would be a massive list, but a dashboard stating how many are government, how many are journalists (which was in one article no more than 180, I think) making that a mere 1.8%. How many infections per nation? The list goes on and the media over all these months presented ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. But now we see “Letter signed by 86 organisations asks for sanctions against Israeli firm”, all whilst no clear evidence has been presented EVER. This is ab out something else and it has nothing to do with the NSO group, it has everything to do with a group of journalists who have become obsolete and as we see event after even (like that running Joke called the ICIJ), how much evidence have we see on their so called 11.9 million leaked documents with 2.9 terabytes of data, and zero (none) dashboard giving a summary, even with all that time and 600 journalists no one had time to give us a run down, that is how pathetic the media has become. Oh and they promised not to investigate the source, interesting is it not?

All flaming for digital revenue and presenting close to nothing, flames and way too little  substance. So when we ask these media players for clarity, their most likely answer will be ‘It is difficult’

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December 2, 2021 · 04:43

The shoddy essay

I actively dislike certain people, especially as they use their position to merely lash out at others. This is seen (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/01/saudi-arabia-yemen-un-human-rights-investigation-incentives-and-therats) when we see Stephanie Kirchgaessner have another go at Saudi Arabia. I honestly think that is all she does. So here is my take. The article ‘Saudis used ‘incentives and threats’ to shut down UN investigation in Yemen’ Of course my first reaction was ‘What UN investigation in Yemen?’ And the article starts off with “Political officials and diplomatic and activist sources describe stealth campaign”. I go into the article and I am treated to “according to sources with close knowledge of the matter”, “Riyadh is alleged to have warned Indonesia”, and lets not forget ““You could see the whole thing shift, and that was a shock,” said one person familiar with the matter”, so what people were familiar to the matter? What actually happened? It is a fair question, especially when we are given “The resolution was defeated by a simple majority of 21-18, with seven countries abstaining”, it is in this case that I am apparently a much better investigator. So, lets take a look.

First lets look at some headlines ‘UN calls on Yemen’s Houthis to release detained staff’, ‘UN: Houthi rebels impeding aid flow in Yemen’, ‘Yemen: Houthi Terrorism Designation Threatens Aid’, and these are just three headlines from dozens in the last two years. In this, the UN and other parties (like essay writers) have been really active in silencing any actions that included Houthi and Iranian forces in Yemen. The article has two mentions on Houthi, one in a photo and none (read: Zero) mentions of Iran. We see one mention of all in “committed by all sides”. The article is that one sided and that much of a hack job. The situation in Yemen is large, much larger then this essay writer makes it out to be. 

I am not making some claim that Saudi Arabia is innocent, but I can tell you it is definitely not that guilty either. Houthi and Iranian forces have at least part of that blame (well over 50%) and we seem to forget that all this started by Houthi forces, The Saudi coalition was asked to come and no one seems to notice that. So whilst the Guardian hides behind “the Saudis appear to have influenced officials”, I merely wonder if there isn’t a much larger picture. We see mention by John Fisher giving us “It was a very tight vote. We understand that Saudi Arabia and their coalition allies and Yemen were working at a high level for some time to persuade states in capitals through a mixture of threats and incentives, to back their bids to terminate the mandate of this international monitoring mechanism”, here we see the stage, but we ignore the lighting. In addition to that stage, what evidence is there for “through a mixture of threats and incentive”, you see Iran and  Houthi Yemen do not want any monitoring for a few reasons, and they are non-mentioned parties, why is that? Shovelling BS all on one pile is nice at times and we love to see all that BS piled up at Strasbourg, but that will not happen either will it? 

You think that this I the end, but it is time to add flavour to it all,  because in all fairness, Stephanie Kirchgaessner is not in this alone, the stakes against Saudi Arabia are much larger. That is seen when we add the Conversation (at https://theconversation.com/jobs-are-no-excuse-canada-must-stop-arming-saudi-arabia-171792) where we see “Jobs are no excuse — Canada must stop arming Saudi Arabia”, and I would state ‘Yes, handing more revenue to China is the way to go!’ I would love to get a larger billion dollar stake holding a 3.75% bonus setting. Even as we are given “The bulk of Canadian arms exports to the Saudis are light armoured vehicles, known as LAVs”, We see the attack using ‘Human Rights’ all whilst Saudi Arabia is under actual attack, Houthi (apparently Iranian operated drones) are attacking civil targets in South Saudi Arabia, so whilst we are given “Canada has twice been named by the United Nations Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen as one of several world powers helping to perpetuate the conflict by continuing to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia”, and we are not given the clear involvement of Iranian and Houthi settings, it is all a one sided attack and it matters, these people attack one sided for a larger need, an ego driven need and the media is helping them do this. But feel free to state I am wrong, and I am happy to be wrong, especially if $12,000,000,000 going to China might fetch me a nice 450 million dollars (I can dream, can’t I?). when the numbers are this high 3.75% makes a very nice number. And the world is making this happen, so when we see project after project fail in Europe and the US because the moral high ground came at a price, consider the names of people who made that happen. Hunger on the moral high ground is not rare, it usually is linked to all kinds of revenue that they never got. This is not a perfect world, I never claimed it to be, but a commerce world needs to sell all kinds of stuff, also stuff that seems to be wrong, there is no denying that. And when it comes to that side, these two articles leave Houthi and Iranian actions in the dark. You should wonder why that is, because a nation does not spend 12 billion in any one sided event. If it was truly one sided one billion would have been more than enough. Did you consider that?

The US and the EU have at presently dropped 48 billion in revenue, revenue that they desperately needed and now that von der Leyen revealed the ‘300 billion euro answer to China’s Belt and Road’, how will that be paid for? Not from the revenue that Saudi Arabia required to defend its borders. That revenue will support China’s Belt and Road projects, a nice pickle they got themselves in and no one is wondering how this farce can go on, because soon there will be no money left, the overdrawn credit cards from the US, the EU, France, Germany and the UK makes any economic action close to impossible. And soon (in about 3-5 weeks) when the US has another debt ceiling, consider all the things that the US could have done to stop the new stress settings; the EU and the UK as well, now that these funds are going to China, the stage changed, the electricity bill can no longer be paid and there is no fighting ring, there is no event to watch, it is just a dark room in a dark location and that I the setting we all had to avoid. But rejoice, you then know one element that Yemeni people face, they have no electricity either, the Houthi forces made sure of that. 

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December 1, 2021 · 21:37

Covering one another

In light of yesterday, it is equally important that other information is given to you. Remember headlines like ‘South Africa slams ‘unjustified’ reaction as Omicron continues to spread across the globe’? We saw the ‘unjust’ approach and even as we accept that some nations (the Netherlands) apparently have data showing that they had a case before South Africa reported it, the source of that case is still unconfirmed. That does not mean that South Africa is too blame for this issue. And as we are now given (by Reuters) that “the Omicron coronavirus variant detected in southern Africa could be the most likely candidate to displace the highly contagious Delta variant, the director of South Africa’s communicable disease institute said on Tuesday”, do you still think that it is a bad idea to close borders? All borders no less. There is still a lot that the scientists do not know and we get that, but leaving the borders open in a stage where a disease has now killed over 5 million people, that is a stage that should worry everyone and when we see that 263 million have had the disease, we do get that the mortality rate is low. Yet how do you feel when your parents and grandparents are the dead ones? Still think that closing the borders is the wrong move? Mine are all dead, so I do not care, but you might. 

13 people on a flight from South Africa had that variant, so it is being spread and that might not be the South Africans that are at fault. For all we know (I do not know) the people infected were Dutch people visiting South Africa (for whatever reason). We can guess all we want, but the data is limited and it has too many gaps. We also do not know what causes the mutation, so there is a lot that the scientists do not know. And to help them it seems (to me) important to lockdown as much as possible. Am I right? I do not know, but the politicians are seemingly helping one another out and that is an actual flaw we cannot afford. And as some papers (the SMH in this case) gives us ‘Infections in Europe pre-date Omicron’s identification in South Africa’, we still cannot tell where that version came from, or what made it mutate. And before some people want to use the brush containing the blame paint on South Africa. Consider that Germany gives us “German authorities said they had an Omicron infection in a man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who had been”, as I have a few issues with ‘nor had contact with anyone who had been’, there is too much we do not know, as such the traveller might have sat next to him on a bench, in a mall, behind him in a coffeeshop and so on. But the fact that he had not been abroad still matters. Either this version is massively infective, or there is an element the scientists are still in the dark about. 

The larger problem is that this entire equation has too many captains and not enough crew, which is a generic failing in the EU. As I personally see it, this will cause more and more gaps and less standardisation of data, as well as reporting over the European nations. We get it that there is a global issue, but this issue should not exist in the EU and I saw just how largely this failing tends to be from my (trying) approach to getting some form of clear data. And now, as the amount of nations with Omicron rises, so will the uncertainty, the fear and the economic drawbacks. A stage we all saw coming (to some degree) yet we never thought it would come this fast, or this completely. So as we view the news of more people ignoring lockdowns, ignoring safety and considering that bleach is a much better anti covid solution than a vaccine is, also consider that now with Omicron we might relax as it will be the death of them. Some might argue that the benefit of these actions is that in California 117 jobs a day open up. I get it, it is crude, but that is the setting. Do you think for one moment that Wall Street cares about you (or me for that matter), it sees the revenue needs, and unemployment numbers drive that down, so they are (silently) happy. And this is not some USA push, the UK is in a worse shape, with only 20% the population it has twice the amount of deceased people, and now we all get Omicron and a larger unknown of how effective our vaccine is, because that is unknown, we hear speculations, all lacking evidence at present. 

So as politicians are covering each other on points of view, we see a larger lack of support of the scientific and medical staff. The media is in part to blame, they are all about flames. Yet I personally believe that EVERY newspaper on the planet has a responsibility to make sure that the views of Dr Fauci (and medical experts like him) are shown everywhere and the absolute idiot at Fox who caused ‘Outrage as Fox News commentator likens Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor’ should be taken off the job, and optionally get treatment from Dr Mengele, so he can feel firsthand how wrong his view was. 

Lets make one thing sure, we need the medical people and its experts. They can wait for us to die and take over all the good mansions on a global setting. We need them, they do not need us to be a risk for them and their family members. Take that consideration to heart. So if you see a medical professional today and tomorrow, buy him (or her) a coffee, a tea and say ‘Thank you!’ We owe them a lot more, but this gesture might take away some of the stress they face on a daily basis and I would like it if politicians take that message to heart, they should be championing that resolve all over the world.

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November 30, 2021 · 22:49

Notice not given

We get that, we sometimes do not inform people. Yet in a stage where lives are in danger, where lives are on a stage where we cannot say whether they live or they will die. Is it moral, or even justified not to inform the people?

That was the setting we have seen in the last few days. I took notice to some effect, but in a stage where I have no influence, I merely set myself into some setting of a wait state. Awaiting more information before I take a larger stand against or for something. 

So the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59453842) 22 hours ago ‘South Africa’s president calls for lifting of Omicron travel bans’, you might want to say that is fair, but is it? Consider “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, unjustified? How about informing the people and the experts of the larger setting that omicron forms? The Dutch NOS gave us (at https://nos.nl/l/2407414) ‘Omikron is in the Netherlands, many questions on this new variant’. As such 13 of the 624 passengers have the omicron variant, so the Dutch get a plane full of the people and no one thought of making sure that these people do NOT travel? And when we see “Little is known on the omicron variant”, as such the other message on the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59463879) where we see ‘No need to panic, South African minister says’, I think he has got to be out of his fucking mind. And even as we see “The heavily mutated variant was detected in South Africa earlier this month and then reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) last Wednesday”, and how come the Netherlands are seemingly in the dark? The variant is seen in several nations, so it is clear that a travel ban needed to be more complete and a lot more shown across nations. It is now in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. We are told that the Ditch cases come from South Africa, I cannot tell if the other nations have the same origin. Yet the stage of a new version in this many cases and South Africa crying on lifting travel bans is just too ludicrous to consider. The larger question remains. How did this variant gets out so far and so wide? I wonder if we ever get a clear answer to this. 

And when we see “South Africa reported 2,800 new infections on Sunday, a rise from the daily average of 500 in the previous week” we see a larger setting. It is not sure how this version got to be, but South Africa has been instrumental to allegedly spreading it all over the globe. In addition, the NY Times reports that scientists are trying to find out whether the current vaccines can stop Omicron, it seems that they do not know. So as such the response we see in the BBC article “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, is complete BS. If anything the travel ban should have ben imposed a lot sooner then it was. 

In addition, when we see “Salim Abdool Karim said he expected the number of cases to reach more than 10,000 a day by the end of the week, and for hospitals to come under pressure in the next two to three weeks”, which now implies that several nations will be in serious trouble soon enough. In this Salim Abdool Karim is the South African government adviser and epidemiologist. And from those assessments, there wee see a government person stating that the travel ban is unjust? Go cry me a river (please).

A stage that might not be blamed South Africa, but in light of what we see, I reckon that Cyril Ramaphosa needs to be clearly considering that the rest of the planet is considering that it was unjust that he let this variant spread on such a global stage. And this is not the first time that governments are slow to react, or to impose clear restrictions. Well on the upside, if this kills off another few million people the unemployment issue will be largely solved, optionally housing issues in metropolitan areas might be solved too. 

And there is a larger stage that will be there soon enough. How many houses/apartment will not be sellable until it has been biologically cleansed? How long until COVID statistics are part of the reporting governments? These are a few of the notices not given, but governments (always eager to blame someone else) might not get a choice here. If COVID is an impediment on commerce, the reporting of COVID will be regarded as important and there will be government needs to belittle related issues soon thereafter. 

What a nice week we are heading into. 

P.S. There are no numbers from Russia, China, Egypt, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. It is possible that they avoided this risk, but I do feel it is too soon for them to howl hurrah! Especially as the World Cup in Qatar started this week.

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