It was the CBC (hours ago) who showed me an article that had me up with roughed feathers. They did nothing wrong, they aren’t making some CNN or FOX case. The article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/titan-sumbersible-anger-schadenfreude-1.6889506) giving us ‘Here’s why people are being so mean about the Titan going down’ and there the article gives us a whole range of reasons, some are accurate, some are the setting of averting emotions. Yet the one reason not given is astounding. It is not eagerness of making fun of people paying $250,000 for a near ten mile ride. We see “Other experts say it’s driven by wealth inequality, or that the response ultimately reflects a lack of civil discourse.” We also see a mention of Schadenfreude which made me giggle and made me think of the comedian Gary Delaney. He gave us “My friend asked me to spell Schadenfreude, I could not but he is dead now, so I still win” it is a darker side of us that allows us to shed discomfort. You see the one reason is not given to us here. I see the Titanic as a mass grave, a collected funeral and monument for the over 1,500 people lost that day in 1912. We have no business being there. Just like we have no valid reason diving near the USS Arizona. Some monuments are to be left alone. I get to some degree that James Cameron went down, he did so to prepare us for an Homage to the USS Titanic and he made one in 1997 that become one of the biggest successes in Hollywood history. It is now the fourth most successful movie in history. It was more than a movie, we were all reminded of dreams too big too hold, we blindly relied on the presentations like ‘The ship that is unsinkable’ and well over a thousand lives were lost. The article is showing us all kinds of reasons and they aren’t wrong but the underlying reason is not touched on. Most of us believe that this is one of these places we leave alone forever and the only group of people thwarting that common sense setting are the uber rich and they paid for it with their lives. I remember one presentation on the Titanic in PowerPoint, which still makes me giggle on the inside. The starting slide gives us “Would you like to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet without their clothes on?” And we see that question a few more times and in the end we see an image of two skeletons on the bough of the ship waving their arms (just like the movie in the flesh). A nice deceptive strike. But it touches on the one setting we need to accept, that movie is as close as we should ever be allowed to get to the USS Titanic that is the part the article misses and optionally intentionally steered clear of.
Those shoes were not meant for dancing, they were meant to tiptoe around some things and we need to take heed of that. That is merely my personal view on that matter and we need to consider that we aren’t meant to be in some places and I believe that places like the USS Titanic and USS Arizona are those places. We can pay our respect, we can accept that we need to pay homage to these places but we should steer clear of them for now and forever.
Enjoy the day, it was like yesterday but now one day closer to the coming weekend.
We get it, newspapers have their opinion articles and sometimes they strike a nerve. I for one am not ever writing against the royal family, I am a royalist, like my grandfather before me. Yet when I read ‘£3m to fix the UK’s housing crisis? Ha ha ha ha ha, your royal highness’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/27/prince-william-homewards-homelessness-3m) I had a few thoughts. First of all, I had no idea where ALL the quotes come from, whether they are pulled out of context and how accurate the quotes were. You see, consider the sentence “Pull the red wire” and it gets you killed, because the complete sentence was “Pull the red wire, after you isolate the yellow wire” meaning that the partial quote got someone killed. This is how I saw the article without the complete stage. Yet it still gave me thoughts. You see, to deal with “Prince William is going to solve homelessness with a new royal foundation, launching a project called Homewards that starts with £3m for six towns and cities across the UK. It’s such a short sentence to make so little sense” we need to realise that building 50 buildings 6 floors high, each floor containing a dozen one bedroom apartment will get us 3,600 apartments, solving less then 2% of the problem, now consider the price of merely one building and we see that three million is noway near enough to solve the problem, it might be enough to pay for a paper on the problem, but that is as far as it gets. And how to pay for the building? Well, the idea is that those given a place to live will sacrifice 50% of their ‘income’ which pays for the rent, heating and electricity. Their quality of life will improve immensely. Now this is merely what came from my mind top of mind and there are better ideas out there, but the real issue is that nothing is done, there are no advances into stopping homelessness. It is not cut and dry but the lack of activities whilst a player like Apple was reported ‘UK Apple stores paid less than £800,000 tax despite £971.5m of sales’ and this gives us that Apple paid 0.0000823% in taxation. You still think that overhauling tax laws (which I have advocated for over 25 years) is out of bounds?
I personally believe that Prince William would have known all this, I personally think that this article was meant to ruffle feathers, I merely wonder what short sighted approach was taken here. You see the end quote is “It’s baffling, this commitment to a delusion, where nothing systemic has gone wrong, there is no crash round the corner, no spectre of homelessness stalking all the graphs. It’s such an intricate phantasm, collectively constructed, of an old world in which individuals can solve all their own problems, and if they can’t, Prince William can help. I almost admire it.” You see the larger failing is Zoe Williams (et al) where I a offering the next quote “It’s baffling where this media propagating delusional thoughts whilst not informing us on matters that are actually important. where the media systemically does whatever it needs to get ‘clicks’ a wrongful setting at the expense of the people, exploiting or presenting every crash round the corner, no spectre of induced fear mongering is a stage on every graphs. It’s such an intricate phantasm, collectively constructed, to prey on fears, to prey on missing settings where people are presented that they can do better whilst the presenters know that this is not possible. Lacing income by any means and if that does not work they are happy to reset the quote of any royal, because the people to care about they monarchy even if corporations will not, it impacts their bottom line.” I might be right, I might be wrong, but that is how I feel and for the most the media has already lost over 90% of the credibility they had a decade ago, so when you wonder how much credibility they have in 2026, consider how much they cater to corporations at the expense of you.
As I was writing the previous story, the story (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65997926) arrived to my desk. As we see ‘Can we stop being tricked into subscriptions?’ My mind went back to a similar story I wrote in 2022, when someone accused Amazon of porn site approaches and we see here “‘I spent £6.99 for 18 months’ A huge range of firms now offer subscriptions ranging from food delivery to contact lenses and it is a growing market. Many offer a free trial, or discounts in exchange for people signing up. However, people the BBC has spoken to say they feel they have been locked in unintentionally because they have forgotten to cancel their subscription when their free trial period has ended.” Consider, when you forget a monthly responsibility, is that the service offerer or is it the schmuck who close that deal? And in this case Schmuck is the right word. When you have a deduction on your bank statements for 18 months, that person was not on the ball, missing the point. So when we are given “John, for example, told the BBC he had signed up to Amazon Prime video for a 30-day free period and forgot to cancel it when he had to start paying for it.” As such is that on Amazon, or on the dumbo forgetting he SIGNED for a responsibility?
As such consider WHY are you taking a subscription? Was the reason valid, or was it a short term need? None of this is on Amazon, none of this is on the subscription offerer. That is the very first thing you need to realise. Just like those Gyms offering subscriptions by letting them be offered by ladies looking really good in D cups (or larger). It was the simple stage of sex sells, there was no sex involved, but the ego of the man never figured that out until he had been there for 2 plus years.
Yet there is a side I cannot disagree with. It is given with “But Citizens Advice says it should go further, calling for auto-renewals to be banned altogether and making firms ask people to opt in, rather than opt out of subscriptions after a free trial.” It is not what these people want, but there is a clear stage that any offer should be by monthly, quarterly or annual opt in is fair on the consumer. As such some change is required. It is not on Amazon, but Amazon will be affected as well. As such, I can get behind ““The government has to acknowledge the pressure on consumers’ pockets. This has to be the start of reforms, not the end,” says Matthew Upton, executive director of policy and advocacy.” Matthew makes a decent case, even as people like that John might be too stupid to figure it out. There is indeed a need for reform. I cannot state that Amazon needs it, but plenty do. Netflix too has a decent cancellation option. Yet which do not? I cannot tell and as such I find the opt in continuation a decent solution. But the real issue is not the actual issue. It is a person like that John is so stupid that he paid 18 months because he forgot and the BBC picked it up as news. The headline should have stated ‘Should we adjust to the need of stupid people?’ That is merely my personal view on the matter.
This is the stage my mind has been in for the last 24 hours and yes it is a DC comic reference. You see, the movie Thor, Love and Thunder woke something up in me. It was the mid 80’s and there was a Dutch version of an Avengers comic book I read. In this there was a reference on a ‘villian’ which led to all kinds of things and I remember that in the end there was an image of all in hell for torment felt relieved for a second as Lucifer felt fear for the very first time. It was about the optional undoing of Eternity. The end god in the Thor movie and he was just like the real thing, except for size (the length of his foot is about the size of the Chrysler building) but lets keep this to semantics and creative freedom. Yet these is the stage, it started my thinking. You see, it started at that time and the movie Black Adam merely build on the stage my mind devised.
I gre up being a huge Batman fan, in my preteens I grew up on the Batman that Adam West gave us and the man was dope. He was the real deal. OK, that is and will forever be the kid talking in me. But as others went for all the other comic book heroes for whatever reason they had and this tainted the thoughts I had. There was a side in that comic book that gave me pause to think, even now almost half a century later these thoughts are still there. What if the villains were right? They might go about it wrong, but what if there is truth in their actions? Joker, Lex Luthor, Ares, sorceress Circe, Lucifer, and that list goes on. So what happens when we create a hidden trap. A mindset where Batman does the ‘right’ thing, but he falters to see what he does is right. The encounter with someone like Eternity brings it to the surface? It allows for an interaction with Constantine, it allows for all kinds of options. And today’s world is all about what is legally right and what could be correct and they are not the same thing. We have all seen versions of that and as far as I can tell the comic movies aren’t digging into that, even though Black Adam gives a nice stage to exploring that side deeper. The creation of Amanda Waller allows for a deeper investigation of that side and perhaps the people behind DC movies should do just that. You see, there is too much polarisation in these movies and for the most we accept this as the villains in these movies are over the top bad. Yet what happens when the hero (unintentionally) overreacts? We see that in some cases, but at times it is some plot twist. What happens when we wrongly hunt down a person and we learn after we stop them that they were trying to set us all free? Consider that we have ben misled by the church for almost a millennium. Now consider that we have an Arabic setting where an Afreet is set free, but that Afreet is tinted by the history up to 1200AD, that character missed out on 800 years and that anger is now unleashed. We want to ‘protect’ and stop that character and we now have a setting that approximates what we are trying to achieve, because we learn of what was done is only now beginning to surface, in this we create a new level of ambiguity. One that most comics never touch on and it is these new borders where we get a much larger setting for who are the actual villains? Perhaps some are tainted through polarisation and recognising that opens a new dialogue, a new stage of more interesting movies.
Consider an article from 2019 ‘Medusa was punished for being raped—so why do we still depict her as a monster?’ This sets a new premise towards the stage of a Medusa. In the Theogony, by the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, she is described as being the child of Phorcys and Ceto and she was raped in the temple of Athena by Poseidon and Athena punishes her of all people. So what happens when we see this in a new DC setting, but until the end of the movie we aren’t told of HOW the transgression started and that opens up new doors, opens up other doors too. What if the avenging demon is Lex Luthor, getting aid by Lucifer no less and the stage is that Constantine is trying to figure out what Lex Luthor is up to (and of course Superman gets involved). Yet as we are given a partial tapestry, the loom will see the involvement of others, but until that for example the daughter of Wonder Woman Trinity was kidnapped which starts the manhunt, but at the end we learn that Trinity feared her future and got Lex Luthor to aid in her escape her dark future. Lex feeing for her and feeling his heart for her aids her and it starts a much larger feud all fuelled by Lucifer (which gives us Constantine) and there we have the making of a larger tapestry and the loom involved has the wires in one direction and cannot vouch for the fabric of the tapestry (an Odysseus reference). The stage that still bothers me is how the loom is managed, someone is pulling the strings behind the curtains of the stage and that comes to light after we see parts of the truth involved. It creates new settings of polarisation, not entirely unlike the people choosing team bat (team Cullen) or team hound (Jacob Black). The same is said for the Underworld saga. When the people are left to chose which team is the right one, you get a lot more interaction, a lot more social contribution and that pushes the story and the movies to the top of so many lists. Ambiguity gives us one side, but not all sides. What happens when Ares (opponent of Wonder Woman) is pushed to this degree by the fates Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos? What happens when they are pushed by the future and by someone wielding that side to push towards a reality free of Αion, the god of eternity? We now have a very different setting and we get the question into the open, what makes a hero a hero and a villain a villain?
Just a few thoughts going through my head (its Sunday after all) and tomorrow is another day.
Enjoy the end of the weekend, soon it will be Monday.
Yup that happens as well, sometimes the news agencies are right on top of something (in this case the Canadians) and we heard it before. That doesn’t make it not news in Canada, but when the same failings happen, it becomes a little less applauding. For this we need to take a look at the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65969970) where we are given ‘Facebook and Instagram to restrict news access in Canada’ a setting that happened in Australia in 2021, yet here too the setting is slightly irritating. You see, News agencies USE Meta to advocate their brand, They advertise. As such we might see (see images below) choices of what news they offer. For example the Daily Mail
We get a forced login at times with a paywall (like the New York Times)
This is called advertising. So not only are they advertising on Facebook (or Meta), they now demand fees for their own advertising? How lame is that? In the defence of Canada, none of the Canadian news outlets have done this Montreal Gazette, CBC to name but a few. BBC and the Guardian do not employ those tactics either. But there are too many who do and if one is set to scrutiny, it must be demanded that these news outlets either vacate Meta completely (and do so until an agreement is reached) or they offer that news freely, which is fine by me. Yet I think that they are not on board for option two. In case of the Daily Mail you get taken to a different screen with all the advertisement that they offer, which is fair enough, especially as they do not invoke a paywall that many do. In the age of digital awareness newspapers become more trivial and less of a credible news source, which adds to the equation as I personally see it.
So when we see another imploding gas tank in a field with someone humming the music of Titanic (by James Horner) consider that this is soon to become the quality news we can expect from some sources.
The article also gives us ““A legislative framework that compels us to pay for links or content that we do not post, and which are not the reason the vast majority of people use our platforms, is neither sustainable nor workable,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.” A stage which I have to agree with, it is not what some Canadian news outlets were hoping for, but that is what it is, and it bites in several cases, but the stage was never workable and that is the truth of the matter. We see journalists (and wannabe’s) being fired left right and center, yet the message is not that they did the wrong thing, their bosses leached on a digital platform they never properly understood and the money went nowhere and definitely not into their pockets. Some people will wonder what now. I think just like the Yellow pages lost their appeal plenty of others are on that same boat and evolution tends to do that (I am happy is solved it in other ways).
Will certain things happen? They all will, it is a shifting timeline and it will come to everyones doorstep. As world powers collapse (which is inevitable) the media will suddenly be confronted with a new line of demarcation and there they have no say in the matter. This is starting right now and some will chose to diversify (preferably before they fire their journalists) and new grounds will open to those who can see the new fronts (and news fronts), but I give you one clear message. Those who have been screaming ‘Jamal Khashoggi’ on every turn they had are pretty much done for. A personal vision, but I feel that I am getting that one correctly.
Yup, I just went there (not for real though). I saw the headline and my mind pulled that internal question mark and on the first page, there it was, the name of that tool and her anti Saudi mindset Stephanie Kirchgaessner. There we are given ‘US Senate asks governor of Saudi wealth fund to testify over LIV-PGA merger’, which could be fair. It is after all (for the most) an American thing. What I wonder is why the Senate wasn’t all over this before the merger. The question beckons “Why is this on the plate of the US Senate”? There might be a very valid reasoning, but I am not seeing it at present. I reckon that with all the Karen’s, the destruction of the Florida economy by its own governor the Senate has a few other things on their minds, but OK, as I said. It could be valid. So then we get the byline “Invitation raises possibility Yasir al-Rumayyan could be questioned under oath about execution of Jamal Khashoggi”. Why?
In the first, that columnist no one gives a hoot about, was he involved with golf or the PGA? Was Yasir al-Rumayyan in any way involved with that missing columnist? Let’s not forget a real issue. Jamal Khashoggi is at present missing, presumed dead. There was never any bod, there was never any evidence on the things the media gives us all and essay from that UN person Calamari was as shoddy as it gets, the paper shows if anything that we are dealing with a missing person.
Was Yasir al-Rumayyan ever involved with anything, was he at any time around October 2018 in Constantinople (now known as Istanbul)?
So then we get some relevant stuff. With ““Our goal is to uncover the facts about what went into the PGA Tour’s deal with the Saudi Public Investment Fund and what the Saudi takeover means for the future of this cherished American institution and our national interest,” Blumenthal said.” I cannot disagree, but at what time were the board members of the PGA in the US Senate explaining why they sold it in the first place? Of course, one look at News outlet Golf Australia gives us “PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, and LIV Golf CEO Norman have been asked to appear at a meeting on July 11 to examine the shock merger.” Kirchgaesner hid that part in the smallest mentions lasting two small lines with the mention ‘were also invited’, can’t she ever do a proper job? The entire article is about boasting “Americans deserve to know what the structure and governance of this new entity will be” which is a laughable setting as most American do not give one hoot about Golf. I think their interest faded when David Leadbetter fell out of sight. Then we are given “While the focus of the hearing will undoubtedly be centered on golf, Rumayyan could also face questions about his role at the PIF and his relationship with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who is the chairman of the PIF”, as such this seems like another witch-hunt and unless laws were broken there is absolutely no valid reason why a person like Yasir Al-Rumayyan should sacrifice any lunch or afternoon tea to cater to some stupid witch-hunt. If they want a real witch-hunt, go after Governor DeSantis who basically ruined the Florida economy and lost them billions in jobs and revenue to boot.
And as we look at the proposed activity, which was co signed by Ron Johnson, will we get any chance to ask questions to Ron Johnson on five simple issues like carving out a $215 million tax loophole for just three of his billionaire backers who spent over $20 million to re-elect him; A corporate tax handout that he admitted he and his wealthy donors benefitted from; blocking an investigation into one of his Big Pharma donors, then voted against lowering prescription drug costs; using taxpayer money to fly to his beachfront mansion in Florida; and a simple matter on how his net wealth doubled during his time in the Senate, it apparently was not enough for him (according to sources). Yet as was stated, Americans do deserve to know.
It is these double standards in America which is why they are losing ground more and more. And with the anti-Arabic penmanship by Stephanie Kirchgaessner my personal message to Yasir Al-Rumayyan would be not to go there. There is nothing to gain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will intentionally be mocked by the US senate (and the politically coloured press), at best it will embarrass Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and at worst Yasir Al-Rumayyan will be on the receiving end of political jabs that were never on his plate anyway. Personally I get that the other two would receive invitations to explain the merger, but that is as far as I am willing to go at present. The merger of two golf entities in a day and age where a Florida governor scuttles a billion a dollar investment in Florida should be on the front view of EVERY US senator currently elected. Dousing the mouse? Not on my watch.
Enjoy the day, a mere day away from that famous day we all yearn for (Friday).
Yup, we have all been there and me with my mouth at least twice a day. Diplomacy is at times where it is at and I scrapped that word from my dictionary. So as I stated over the last week that Blinky Tony (aka Anthony Blinken) had a hard time coming. First he had to visit Saudi Arabia, the place where its de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud was labelled by President Biden as A pariah (before he become president) then the trip went to China where we assume that things did not go well, as we now see (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65969802) the BBC headline ‘Biden calls Xi a dictator a day after Beijing talks’. So what evidence is there that President Xi is a dictator? I am not opposing the view, I merely do not know. You see the dictionary gives us “a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force.” Now, lets be clear. President Xi was elected. I do not know the election process in China, but there was an election and he was elected in November 2012. Wiki gives us “a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, since 2012. Xi has also served as the president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 2013.” There is no mention that he took that nation by force. OK, I is havening to be jesting. The reality is much more serious. I thin this meaningless jab by President Biden implies that there are a few issues. Apart from the ties with Saudi Arabia, there is now a growing concern that Taiwan could be getting a new flag soon enough (see below).
And this was going to happen. For it not to happen, the US would have had to be able to be a real superpower. This is no longer the case. It is rushing from debt ceiling to debt ceiling and the people just know that this clambake will end sooner or later and sooner is now the premise of that game. You see America made gospel of the expression ‘Money talks, bullshit walks’ which has been around since 1968. Now that America has no money left, the ‘friends’ they had are walking away, the people who bled the system dry are vanishing to zero tax havens to live of their final years and the people caught in the middle will vanish without a penny in their name.
The article gives us ““The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it, was he didn’t know it was there,” Mr Biden said at the event on Tuesday. “That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened,” he added.” There is a lot about a balloon no one cares about and there is even less known who the actual owner was. I am not debating that it was Chinese, but was it governmental, military, a science experiment from a Chinese telecom firm. There are many options, but the press is no longer to be trusted, they have been silent on too many things and the US government is all about boasting, but not on revealing ACTUAL facts (for as far as they might be known). As is see the lack of diplomacy by President Biden, there is every chance that China talks are falling flat leaving Taiwan in the middle of nothing. The other side is that there is every chance that the continuation of BRICS will have larger impact on the west and it will diminish America to a much larger degree. The larger part that we do not know is how China and Saudi Arabia will forge their connections. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now in a central setting to be the hub for connecting Asia, Africa and Europe, a strong setting and NEOM will be that hub implying that this half a trillion location will ensure trillions in business between 2030 and 2050, with news channels, sports inviting the Asian, African and European people to a much larger degree. I wonder if they have made their first designs on the F1 Neom track to start between 2030 and 2035. It will most likely be a magnificent track, add to that the most impressive golf course in history and we will see the first impressions that Saudi Arabia was not wasting money as some imply, they merely lacked vision for what was about to happen and more sport arena’s will follow. Now we see the part of China in a larger degree, the Silk Road and in all that Taiwan will play a more central role (an assumption by me). Two players who played the long game, not some spreadsheet game from quarter to quarter. By the way, what evidence that it was ‘two box cars full of spy equipment’? They blew up the evidence. I am not saying this wasn’t some agent 99 thing, I merely would like to see evidence, just like the evidence on Huawei that so far no one saw or presented.
As such we get to the headline. The definition of diplomacy is “the profession, activity, or skill of managing international relations, typically by a country’s representatives abroad.” In this I reckon that there is no managing international relations at present, whatever success Anthony Blinken might have had was undone by one sentence given by President Biden (according to the BBC). As such the situation for Taiwan is not on a good setting, but I might be wrong. And the other issues? Well, we have no idea, but I reckon that China told might have told America to put up or shut up, which is also a speculation by me. No matter how we slice it, there will be more coming soon enough, the question who will be making the initial revelations, China or America?
More soon enough and as we enter the second half of the week, this weekend might give us a little more than we expected.
That is where I stand. Today I got news from the Asia Times on something I have been saying for some time. Now, one source does not make it true, but the information given here and pretty much nowhere else should give people a place to start, moreover it could also be seen as the underlying problem to something a lot more dangerous. The article (at https://asiatimes.com/2023/06/eu-push-to-rip-and-replace-huawei-5g-meets-resistance/) gives us ‘EU push to rip and replace Huawei 5G meets resistance’ where we see “EU Commissioner Thierry Breton wants Germany and other European countries to stop dragging their feet and eliminate Chinese equipment from their 5G telecom networks. The European telecom industry and Huawei are pushing back.” This is the start of something I have stated for a long time, yet now we get “Deutsche Telekom quickly rejected claims that mobile networks built by China’s Huawei could be altered remotely to cause damage or steal data. In a June 16 statement to the German news site golem.de, a spokesman for the German telecom provider declared, “No [software] update can be introduced into the live system that was not fully tested for functionality and security.”” This shows the first chink in the EU armour. This is followed by “The network management systems are located in a high-security network that is completely separated from the Internet and from the company’s office communications network,” said Deutsche Telekom executive Stephan Broszio, according to press reports. “Access to this network is granted only to a few employees subject to strict security review. A remote attack by the producer firm [namely Huawei] is not possible.” In addition we get “Austria’s chief telecommunications regulator, Klaus Steinmauer, told the Austrian News Agency that he “saw no danger from Huawei,” adding, “I don’t know of a single instance” of problems” As I personally see it, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton either publishes clear evidence of these dangers, or he should move to Washington DC and become an Uber driver. You see if there is evidence fine, but for years now we see boasts and never was any evidence given. I see this as a problem and now that the US cannot foot any bills, the others are stating that the US needs to eff off (you know what I mean). I reckon it is not long until these telecom companies will demand that the EU foot the bills for hundreds of billions in hardware change, foot the bill for adjusting that hardware and foot the bill for loss due to diminished broadband capacity. In the meantime Saudi Arabia is extending its reach into Africa and the Mediterranean, after which the telecoms will get loss upon loss and handing over what margins they had to the Saudi Telecom Company (STC), because that is now merely one step away. That was given to us in April with ‘Saudi Telecom Buys Mobile Tower Unit in Europe from United Group’, which now gives them access to Bulgaria, Croatia, and Slovenia, after which the access towards Italy, Greece, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean is all but a simple flick of a switch.
But leave it to players like EU Commissioner Thierry Breton to ignore the obvious. On the upside, with my language skills, I would gain another job option to another company and in this day and age that matters, especially as big tech is shedding thousands of positions.
And even as the article ends with “it would help dispel suspicions that Breton and the European Commission are simply following instructions from the US.” I reckon that until we see actual EVIDENCE of the nefarious implied deeds by Huawei, that feeling will not go away, not for a long time.
So enjoy the day whoever you telecom with, today, or tomorrow.
The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-65920024) gives us ‘Blinken and Xi had ‘robust conversation’ in Beijing’ and I had to take a look, if not only to see what they mean with ‘robust conversation’, that is an expression that could go in any direction and not all of them good. The BBC hands us:
“He says he has been seeking to “disabuse” China of the notion the US is “seeking to economically contain them””, sorry this started a 5 minute intermezzo to get a hold of all the laughter I have. The US has been seeking to contain China since Huawei left Nokia and all others behind them in the 5G field, it is still going on, all whilst we have never ever been given CLEAR evidence that Huawei was doing anything negative. In that same timeline we have an Airman handing out classified information, a former president has more classified materials in his toilet than the CIA has in its archive and we have several other issues. That is before we look at Cisco and its issues (which was not intentional, I know).
And even as several statements came from Strasbourg, the manner of speaking implies a clear American hand on the shoulder of the speaker.
Then we get “Blinken reiterates that the US does not support Taiwan’s independence – stating it does not wish to change the status quo”,which is a harder issue. You see ‘The first agreement under the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade was signed on June 1, 2023.’ Might be seen as a declaration towards support for its independence. And that is debatable, I get that. It seems to me that America hopes it will go good, but at the same time it is afraid to anger China too much, so I can see how this plays and this is NOT against America. It is to acknowledge that some diplomatic strains are strained as far as they can get.
Then it is time for “Blinken says some parts of the talks were “constructive”, but adds there is “work to do” in other areas”, OK a diplomatic answer if ever there was one. But in there are missing parts and there is every chance that they are not for our eyes yet. The ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia are worrying America. The new petroleum refinery that they are building in China must be a cause for concern. You see, the refinery is large enough to hand a lot more oil to China and that is where it is most likely to go, a setting America does not find comforting. They are already losing out to a million barrels a day, but with that new refinery that reduction COULD (could being the operative word) be reduced three times over to minus 3 million barrels a day. This could collapse the American economy and create a third world nation called The United Stages of Anything. For Taiwan it is not such a good stage. I reckon that China has been dipping its toe in the water to see how America would react when Taiwan is added back to China and charges Taiwan for overdue book fees and that invoice is likely to be stellar. Now, this is not a given, but that is what I would have done (if I was Chinese). In all likelihood as the EU and the US are uniting with Ukraine against Russia, China sees an opportunity because America is too broke to stop anything and that leaves Taiwan separated, segregated and all alone. A setting China would like at present and with three optional supports for Taiwan too poor to do anything (US, EU and Japan) Taiwan might not have too many options left. I reckon that a similar conversation with Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud took place almost a week ago. I reckon that at present China has all the answers it needs, but that is pure conjecture from my side.
So as I see it, I wonder just how robust that conversation was, rejections by China does not make the conversation less robust, but that is about the only classification that conversation might have had overall. Am I wrong? Optionally yes, but the larger stage is catering to China, and with the ties with Saudi Arabia now stronger then anything, all whilst the ties with America are more and more dissolving leaves China in a much stronger position and as Saudi Arabia grows, so will the options for Huawei. It will not take long for the larger contracts with Egypt and Syria to start and when that happens, we get a triangle that covers part of Africa, towards Turkey all the way to India. It will not be overnight, but with the power core in Riyadh that setting would become one hell of a central chain for Huawei. And it is not a new setting, I saw this evolution come a little over three years ago. And with that infrastructure NEOM is not merely a small city, it will be a center piece of Saudi Arabia, uniting Africa to Saudi interests and they will all have that new Saudi news channel. It was a game well played and China is adhering to this not merely because it takes the wind out of the sails of America, it will diminish Europe in similar ways. Asia Times gave us in April ‘Huawei eyes Saudi Arabia as its regional hub’, I think it is only the beginning and it is a much larger partnership with China, who will have access to this and the Silk Road, which was never a secret. As such I wonder what expression they would replace ‘robust conversation’ with and very time that expression gets handed to us by the media, ask yourself. What did they mean with that?
That should happen, but not always. If the spectator is to be believed, clarity is not on anyones mind. So lets take a look. The article (at https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-saudi-arabia-bought-the-world/) gives us ‘How Saudi Arabia bought the world’, which is in part not false, but this is how the Americans wanted it. It was all about values and commodities and the more the better, that is until they went broke. Now it is all about human values, an option they never considered when they handed the reigns to Wall Street. Now America according to sources “The Treasury Department paid a record $213 billion in interest payments on the national debt in the last quarter of 2022, up $63 billion from the same period a year earlier.” $213 billion a quarter, implying that they are now paying $855 billion a year, that is the price of uncontrolled debt. I gave warning over the last several years, yet everyone was calling me crazy, stupid and a whole range of names. Well now the opposite is coming true. Others are now in charge. First Anthony Blinken (aka Blinky Tony) went to Saudi Arabia, now he is trying to convince China on miscommunications. A good trick if he pulls it off, especially after all the anti-China rhetoric. But this is about the Spectator, who gave us the cool image below.
There we see “Sarah Leah Whitson, of Democracy for the Arab World Now, the organisation founded by Khashoggi, told me the deal makes no sense in purely economic terms. ‘It’s really important to know how much of a premium the Saudis have paid,’ she says. ‘This is a political move.’ In fact, the FT estimates the Saudis will pump $3 billion into their new purchase. That translates into astonishing rewards for individual players. Some already on the Saudi payroll are reportedly getting $200 million a year.” It actually makes sense. You see people love sports and Saudi Arabia has seen what the eyes on Dubai can achieve and now there is a start to set the eyes on Riyadh. Sports are a first. The Jetset sports like F1 and Golf are a start and more is coming. The people want their games, their sports and if you try to count on the amount of video’s on YouTube and TikTok that are about Dubai and the Dubai Mall, the number goes into the millions and they nearly all have counts that are in the triple digits or close to that. That is visibility. With the projects that are coming over the next 5-7 years these numbers are adding up. Saudi Arabia, like China have been playing the long game and now they are the winning side of visibility. It all adds up further when the KSA launches their English version of Al Jazeera, then the numbers start racking up fast. That realisation was why I tried to sell my IP to Saudi Arabia and Kingdom Holding. It is now an IP that is approaching $35 billion in value. There was a reason that I never wanted Microsoft near it, they only screw things up and the value merely goes down. I would if all goes well end up with 5% of that, more than the accumulated wealth of all my ancestors combined. Yet, this is about Saudi Arabia and it matters, you see next we get “Greg Norman, the former champion who runs LIV, has already ‘moved forward’. Asked last year about Khashoggi’s murder, the body dismembered with a bonesaw, he said: ‘Look, we’ve all made mistakes…’” this is why America is losing all options. What evidence is there? The bone-saw bit and all the other bits. The media was in a frenzy pushing speculations, but in the end there is no evidence, there is no evidence of ANY direct involvement by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. That UN essay (aka the joke of the century) was no help either, if nothing else, it merely showed how useless the UN has become. If there was evidence fine. Yet there was none and when you consider that part. Is it any surprise that Saudi Arabia has had enough of America and the west?
Then we get “All of this has emboldened MBS, who has been steadily creeping back into international favour since Khashoggi’s murder.” Is it because there was no murder? Was it because there was no evidence? Was it because internationally the people in charge are figuring out that siding with America is starting to be a rather large loss? In this America did this to themselves, they invented “Money talks, bullshit walks” and business America embraced that expression as gospel, the problem is that when you are broke, when you rush from debt ceiling to debt ceiling you have nothing left and when the bulk of your budget goes to the interest, you have little less to buy. It is a simple equation, and an abacus can give you that result it will not be a pretty result, but a result none the less.
Then we get to hedge funds, real estate (London) and several other places. These people go to Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia is one of the few places that has the money. If the ROI (Return on Investment) is good, they are likely to take the offer. It used to be America, but you know where they are at and Japan is almost there too. Consider the wealthiest nation in Europe (Monaco) How many projects did Monaco fund in Europe? Look at that list and see where their money is going, when you figure it out you will see why Saudi Arabia is seemingly buying the world. The world is a commodity and no one else is able or willing to buy it. So hard times are ahead (especially for America and Japan) and we are all falling in the middle. It is why I selected Saudi Arabia, Kingdom Holdings and Tencent Technologies for my IP. I go where the money is and the few players that had the money in the west decided to leave billions on the floor. I don’t have that kind of time for them to wise up and consider what they were missing. It is their choice t rely on wannabe executives, it is their loss. To be honest I never expected my IP to get that high this soon, but the inclusion setting I wrote about a week ago (0.0144%) made it a lot more valuable. And that is not even close to the end. All the settings that came secondary will now have primary impact on others too, merely icing on a yummy cake. Yet in the overall setting where we see the Spectator and the other media copying and paraphrasing that part there is a nasty underside. When the Chinese-Saudi link gets firm, when silk road evolves into a next stage and when the governmental coffers in Europe and the US dry up, what will you be left with? Because that is the moment that pensions fall to zero and that, in a greying population is the nightmare scenario that is now a mere 5-10 years away. I tried to send the warnings, but everyone was so sure that this would never happen. So how many debt ceiling raises will go through next? When sports fall away, as such when advertisers go elsewhere (Google is already setting up that side road in Saudi Arabia this year) when marketing options fall flat and result is the only currency that is allowed. How many corporations will remain? How many jobs will remain? Soon it will be about skills that are bankable, billable hours and it will go to every layer of business. And that is the sad part, we enabled that road all by ourselves. There was never any other outcome there.
So cheer up, it is about to be Monday, your favourite day of the week is now a week away.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 