February 3, 2023 · 00:12

As the tide turns

That is the subject of today. I have seen the events, I saw the considerations and I saw the traitor politicians (Thierry Baudet) as they betrayed their own country for a pro Russian rhetoric. For the most I stayed away, I did not care. It is not that I did not care, I merely cared about other things more. The accusation that countries did enough to keep the Ukraine in the war, but not enough to win it struck a chord with me. It made sense and it made sense for some to keep a distance, but they kept a distance for too long and now that the tide is turning people will demand answers from these people. I expect them to hide behind settings of nuance, or that it was too complex an issue for them. But the stage is set, these weak politicians will be out of a job soon enough and whilst they cry to any entertainment channel (example Fox News) that gives them a few seconds of limelight. The people who know are the people sidetracking those weaklings.

Now the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64495520) with ‘‘I apologise to the whole Ukrainian nation’ – former Russian army officer’ or (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64470092) with ‘Russian army officer admits: ‘Our troops tortured Ukrainians’’ these people as well as the Wagner officer who ‘defected’ earlier. They are busy to create humanitarian revenue. They need good coins because they see it is the end for them. The Russian Stalin approach does not allow losers, the Russian stage is falling apart and even as I am not sure whether they will completely lose, they will lose a lot and with the exception of an execution of Putin by the Kremlin. Putin remains in charge and the losers have no place to go to. It will be a larger setting soon enough. The Russian army needs to order 129,000 bodybags (or coffins) so there is revenue for some in front of them, but the story behind them is a lot worse. 

The image gives us that over 300K are wounded and they never had that much medicines to begin with, the long term cost is beyond what Russia can give to themselves so the number of Russians seeking any kind of currency that keeps them away from Russia and away from the Russian Army is going to be the choice of too many Russians. A war that was badly conceived, poorly executed and even worse considered with the opposition to have and even as Russian propaganda continues, the propaganda people are starting to realise what the bad end of propaganda is when you lose. These people have no place to go. The Russian mafia is losing grip on to many places. With the oligarchs out of billions and most of them left with nothing, the material support for them is not going anywhere and without their billions in support other groups will now push in, soon that scenery changes for a lot of people too. Tongs and Yakuza will see their options soon enough to take over terrain and as loss after loss is becoming clear, some governments will start to draw out papers where Russians without permanent residency or citizenship will not be allowed to own anything. In the mean time as the BBC gives us “Konstantin Yefremov, the most senior officer to speak openly, said he witnessed interrogations and the mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners”, it is my personal belief that he does this for a passport for him and his family. Russia is about to become an automated deathtrap for him. You see, not only did he lose, he spoke out against the Kremlin and that never ever goes good for any Russian who does so. At the same time we get ‘Fvd-leider Thierry Baudet op Curaçao om stemmen te werven’ the politician Baudet is on Curacao to get votes, but personally I reckon he is starting to feel too much pressure in the Netherlands and soon enough his voice will be shut off from politics and too many people will want him hurt, so better for him to go to a place where no one cares about him and the tropical setting of Curacao might be the last place where he has a chance to live out his life. 

That gets me to the final part of this. Over the decade too many Russian primed people have had their options to fill their pockets and the hunt that will start no later than 2024 will happen all over Europe. Ukrainian coated hunts for all these people who thought that they could hide behind Russian colours will now find themselves in a new setting, a setting where they all hunt them and it will not go well for them. Beside that there will be a setting where over 300K Russian women will seek a man, any non Russian man will do. Russian lives will be slammed all over the field and Russia will see what the short end of a Versailles treaty feels like. That is a future I expect to see, I could be wrong but considering that a Ukrainian army, 21st on the army size list took Russia to town and put over 500,000 Russian troops in either a hospital bed or a bodybag is a setting no one saw coming and now that they are getting some real equipment the impact will increase dramatically. This is merely my point of view and I could be wrong. I will let you decide.

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February 2, 2023 · 03:23

Weeping Whinging Whiners (W3)

Yes, that is the double meaning and it is the stage that we need to accept. And most of it comes from the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64472806) called ‘White House calls Exxon record profit ‘outrageous’’ with the quote “President Joe Biden has sought to focus blame for last year’s high motor fuel costs on companies failing to spend their profits to boost supply.” As I personally see it, trying to set to focus blame is not just stupid, it is very stupid. You see, oil is a commodity and there is offers and there are demands. A buy and sell setting that has been here for decades. And before President Biden starts laying blame. The blame is at his own address. The White House has had its share of disappointments, but they are on both sides of the isle. Massive changes were required going back to the age of Clinton and in the last 5 years alone other options were available in the form of the Tesla battery, but you all wanted to make fun of Elon Musk, so now he has the commodity you all need (but that is for another day). We are given “Exxon’s shares sank sharply in 2020, when demand for oil tumbled, leading the firm to report its first loss in decades. But the price of the shares has soared since 2021, especially since oil prices jumped when the war in Ukraine disrupted energy supplies last year”, yet the part we all forget is that oil is a commodity, and for the most (with a few small examples) it is a good commodity to have. The war is not on Exxon, the need for oil is not on Exxon, it is on the administrations of the White House. For decades you REFUSED to act when action was needed, and action was needed for close to two decades. You can blame all you want, but to see the guilty party any occupant of the White House only needs to look into a mirror. You alienated Venezuela, you alienated Saudi Arabia and you massively alienated (justly so) Iran and you are in a war with Russia. The four largest oil producing nations AFTER America. But America cannot supply its own oil, can it? It exports the bulk for cash and the American people (not just them) are short on oil, as such the price goes up. All options were cut short and you have no options left and that pesky war does not help, we get that. But none of this is on Exxon, two decades squandered and no end in sight. That is how it is. As such the White House can cry, whinge and whine, but in the end. This what they wanted and this president does not get to blame Donald Trump. Former presidents Obama and Clinton, both Democrats did far too little and now time is pretty much up. As such those who have the commodity oil will have wealth coming towards them, massive wealth until at least 2025, this will continue for a while. Even if the war ends in 2023, the shortages are getting larger and larger. Elon Musk was a solution but that bridge was burned. Cities like Austin, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles will need three to five thousand batteries to make a dent in the oil needs for energy, they will need options for heating and that list is merely getting larger and cities in Europe are in a similar state. One source gives us “Over half a million people will use wood-burning stoves this winter, and industry experts report fears of a potential shortage as thousands more turn to the appliance as demand rose by nearly 40 per cent between April and June compared to the same period last year” and this is merely the UK so what happens when heating prices grows by another 20%? Will you blame Exxon, or will you finally realise that more was required and the administrations of several governments fell flat? 

As I see it this was a system that has existed for decades and Exxon is not to blame, this shape of commodities comes from Wall Street, you do remember that greed driven institution? This problem is a lot larger than you realise and too many people are sitting on their hands.

So let them whine and cry all they like, once you realised they are partially the cause of it, that is when you get to be angry.

Good luck.

 

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February 1, 2023 · 14:02

Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers (IMF)

Yup, that is the slogan and to get there we need to take a little trip down memory lane before we get to the article that jogged my memories. You see, it all started on October 10th 2013 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/10/10/economic-management-through-newscasts/) where I gave the readers “The same day I get the news on a diplomatic escalation in the Netherlands, sky News UK comes with an entirely different matter. Two elements seemed to be in play. The IMF suddenly lifted the economic growth for the UK by 1.4% for 2013 and for 1.9% for 2014. Those are numbers that are beyond remarkable. Sky News showed Olivier Blanchard the Chief economist of the IMF to make this statement. It was interesting that the IMF calls on Christine Lagarde to give the bad news and Olivier gets to give the good news. There was a shimmer of hope for realism as Ed Conway, economic Editor at Sky News was happy to not reject the notion that the IMF have been lousy forecasters in the past to say the least”, as well as “‘Suddenly’ there was good news, a week before the debt ceiling needs to be raided, whilst the US is still in shutdown mode. Let us not forget that Greece, who also suddenly had ‘good’ news last week is still beyond broke, in addition France and Italy are still not in good shape. The biggest issue is that the UK forecast, which was +0.6%, which was a pretty good achievement to +1.4%. That boils down to a miscalculation of almost $18 Billion! That is a massive miscalculation. There is no indication that such errors were made. Consider that the IMF had high criticism towards the tactics by Chancellor George Osborne, UK’s faithful exchequer.” Are you clued in at present. There is now an indicator that the IMF is nothing more than a political presentation tool to hand out lollies for others to look away as credit limits are increased. It is one of the reasons I went towards Brexit. After the speech by Marky Mark of the British bank (aka Mark Carney, a Canadian no less), I saw the dangers of staying in the EU. Mario Draghi was using a Credit card for trillions after the first trillion was a miss. Now, that happens, solutions are selected hoping it will set the outcome to another stage. There is no fault there, but then he does it again for another 2 trillion. Wasn’t it Albert Einstein that stated that only a lunatic will do the same thing twice hoping for a different outcome? And it wasn’t just me, others had reservations too. There was no outcry when Mario Draghi was shown to be a member of an exclusive bank group. So how much did his friends end up with catering to that debt. Consider that bank bonds have a registration fee and commission. So how much commission did these two dozen people get over three trillion? I can tell you that is would be up to 2%, implying that two dozen people ended up with $600,000,000, not a bad run. So why should the UK pay for that?

Now that we are all caught up (to some extent) it is time to look at the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64452995) giving us ‘UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF’. Now I am not stating that this is not the case, it could be. Yet when we look to 2013 and later, the IMF has played the wrong spades in this game. So when I see words like ‘expected’ and ‘only major economy’ after it took the IMF and Creepy LaStrange (I think that was her name) a year to admit that they made an error of well over $18,000,000,000 I have issues with anything they claim. And when I see “The IMF said the economy will contract by 0.6% in 2023, rather than grow slightly as previously predicted” without clarity I have issues. The numbers could be true, but with the Russian clambake in the Ukraine, the Covid issues (especially in China), the labour shortages and a few other elements that influences the issues, we merely see  “Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the UK outperformed many forecasts last year. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the figures showed the UK “lagging behind our peers”” and charts and numbers how bad the UK is doing, but the problem is that the IMF (or Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers) have been too much like a political tool. They proclaim that Russia is getting a positive boost this year but we do not see that it might be mainly woodworkers to create the  126,650 coffins for lost troops, so their economy is up, but who pays that bill? And in the stage of presentation my issue is that these people are all about ‘forcing’ the UK back into the EU so that their GDP can be added to their credit limit. The EU is running out of credit card space, it has been for a year and the UK revenue is essential to turn that about and people need to wake up to the unaccountable overspending the EU is doing. At present the EU debt is well over €12 trillion  with several nations having too much debt. We all know about Greece with over 193% of GDP, Italy surpassed 150% of GDP and Portugal surpassed 125%, Spain is almost at 120%, and France is at almost 115%. The credit limits have been reached and it does not bode well, so all hands on deck forcing the UK back into the EU, but the truth is that once the hardship is passed (which will take some time), the UK will become the power player and the EU will be reduced to a third world nation. So basically at present (a personal view) the German debt of 80% of GDP is the only economy keeping the EU standing. That is not enough and I spoke about that in the past (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/) in ‘The finality of French freedom’ on the 7th of March 2017 where I wrote “Which is why France is a big deal, that whilst they represent one of four anchors keeping the Euro in place. With the British anchor removed, the stress on the three is intense, the Euro cannot continue with the remaining two anchors that is the desperate game Draghi is facing now. Weakness and non-decisions from 2012 onwards have caused this mess, and of course he is not done yet. As we see in Reuters, last Monday he stated “If non-high-tech companies adopt more innovative technology, that would provide a boost for European productivity“, speaking as the European Central Bank President last Monday, it that so? With what funds? Innovations requires money, such steps have a cost” here I compared the economy with a floating platform kept in place by 4 anchors. It used to be the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Now that the UK is gone, the platform is now in trouble as only the German anchor has any strength left. The economic sea is in turmoil and I already saw this in 2017. Then we got Covid and that stupid bear named Russia and now the economy is a problem, especially for the EU and when that breaks up, the US (Japan also) have no way to go but down and that is what they all fear, they can prolong this if they can bully the UK, but we have seen enough bullies. We all have had enough and that is why I chose Brexit. I could not predict Covid or Russia, but a next economic disaster is alway just past the horizon, there is always a next fire to put out and now the IMF wants to make matters look worse. As I see it, they need a whole range of better and more descriptive numbers. As it stands, at present I do not trust the IMF. Yes the UK could face another recession, but it will be nowhere as bad as the one the EU faces. In the end the UK is part of a Commonwealth and we all (Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) need to united to face the headwinds of the coming storm, we owe it to each other with the acts of irresponsibility we do not owe the EU and we do not owe the US. The US has had over a quarter of a century to overhaul their tax laws. I made mention on this as early as in the age of President George H. W. Bush (1998) now 25 years ago. I say enough is enough and the IMF better give us a lot more and a lot clearer numbers than what we see in the BBC article. That is my personal point of view on the matter.

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January 31, 2023 · 17:01

One issue, more to come

The first issue is known. I wrote about it on January 23rd (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/23/a-national-consequence/) it was ‘A national consequence’ where we see the events unfold between Turkey and Sweden. I want to side with Sweden, but this time they broke their own windows and now we see (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64457233) ‘Swedish flag burnt in Jakarta amid Turkey Nato row’ it took a few days but now the anti-Sweden issues start rising and that is before Egypt and Pakistan wake up to the issues that Sweden allowed to be mainstream issues. As I personally see it Rasmus Paludan started this and is not only cause to Sweden being halted from entering NATO, Swedish tourists will do well to stay out of Islamic nations for a while. You all it freedom of expression, most others will call it targeted racism, but the Swedes will get all time to ponder that stage. As we get “Other anti-Sweden protests have also taken place in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Lebanon this month.” We see that Pakistan is awake, not sure about Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but that cannot be far away. Even as we are given “We urge the Indonesian government to not just condemn this, but to also join in boycotting everything Swedish,” said one protester in Jakarta, Wati Salam. What they [the Swedes] did was an insult to our holy scripture,” said another, Junaedi Abdilla.” We recognise the Swedish defence with “the burning does not reflect the government’s opinion” which came from their embassy in Djakarta, but the truth is that they allowed the extremist to start the fire and now it is an international problem. Rasmus Paludan played you and you let it escalate. For me it does not matter, at some point one of the Arabic nations will consider my script ‘How to assassinate a politician’ and that works well or me. It was designed with the Dutch politician Geert Wilders in mind, but it can be easily reset to Denmark (or Sweden) with Rasmus Paludan being the target. There is a consequence of insulting Islam and we need to accept that these consequences have far reaching consequences. Drawing the image of Muhammad, burning Qurans. These are mere two events and the far right keeps on going to these two places. They have been doing it for years and at some point something will have to give. So what happens when Iran and Saudi Arabia stops delivering oil? Will Europe pay premium for American oil, or will they consider Venezuela as a supplier? Something has to give and in this day and age, the available options are not out there in numbers. You did realise that, did you not?

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January 30, 2023 · 19:20

IP that is to be admired

This happens, some of us (including me) we admire IP, not ours, we love ours. But we notice someone else coming up with a golden idea. We might be a little envious, but in the end, they came up with the idea in THEIR field, which might not be our field and in this case it wasn’t my field. But I took notice a year ago of the invention and I was amazed. Someone came up with the innovative idea that would never have come to me and that is an IP that is to be admired. Before I let the curtain drop, a small set of numbers need to be handed to you. In the US alone 11,000,000 women get drugged EVERY year before they get the wiener up the canal. That amounts to over 30,000 women each day and considering that the EU has twice the population these numbers are staggering. So every Friday evening when the girls go out together 212,000 women will be taking it up the canal (there are two options) without their consent. So when we think of Revlon, Inc., Sinful Colors, Estee Lauder, Maybelline New York, Cover Girl, Chanel, L’Oreal, Lancome, Rimmel and several other brands. They filled their pockets through the purses of millions of women, but what did THEY do to keep them safe. Take your time, in the last weekend alone around 250,000 women took it up one of the canals without their consent. What was done?

Consider this question whilst I introduce the IP. I saw a rehash of an article I saw a year ago. The article at (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/05/date-rape-drug-test-allows-women-to-discreetly-check-for-spiked-drinks.html) was from September 2018, so in 5 years these firms did nothing? In almost 5 years something should have been achieved. There are some issues with what I read, but the idea has a much larger merit. And 4 students from the North Carolina State University came up with this innovative measure. The idea of nail polish when it is covered with the drink will turn a shade when it is chemically enhanced. They could detect Xanex, Rohypnol and a whole score of drugs. They do not detect all, but the drugging weasels could soon be made to run before they shoot their load. So when I see that undercover colors CEO Barbara Cook give us “They do not screen for other common date rape drugs, such as GHB or ketamine” we see progress. OK, improvements could be made but that is with every IP, I myself reinvented the same IP close to half a dozen times before it seemed decent and that is before others go to town on that 5G IP. But the almost simplistic stage of making nail polish a drug detector is true innovation at the core and we see Undercover Colors, So what about the other brands? They made over $11 billion in 2022. Don’t you think that they owe women some level of safety? I would seriously reconsider what you buy and from whom you buy it. It seems that only Undercover Colors is trying to keep you safe, so why we give salute to the quarter of a million women taking it up their canal without consent this coming weekend, I actually wonder how long they will let this happen. How long until all colours in any nail polish will turn a shade or two when it detects certain chemicals. So I salute these four students from the North Carolina State University for being one of the true innovators of tomorrow. We give credit where credit is due.

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January 29, 2023 · 22:32

Evolution in gaming

That is the subject of today. As I wrote a few chapters in the past regarding that, some people had questions and questions are good. But to coin a phrase, I just got you an evolution here. This is merely a setting, merely an example and I believe it opens up the game stage for everyone involved (mostly for the Amazon Luna). 

The game I selected here was Crush, Crumble and Chomp by Epyx. A game I bought around 1986 as a CBM64 disc game. 

As we see the image above, we see the map as the CBM64 was able to manage with its 64Kb. It was a big thing in 1985, in 2023 not that much and in this case we see the first step of evolution, we use the map that was used in Watchdogs 2, which also plays in San Francisco. 

Like in the movie Rampage we start with three monsters. Godzilla, Dwayne Johnson (oops, I meant the giant Gorilla) and the wolf. What makes this different now is that this game has three game modes. In mode one we are the government side. We get to automate (to some degree) the police, the army and the fire brigades. As the game progresses we get to enhance the intelligence of the government sides and we get more hardware to do so. In the second mode we get to play the monster and we can have a free for all on the city of San Francisco. The more damage, the higher the score, and of course there will be options to have a snack in the shape of Malin Åkerman, its only fair as she played the Corporate B from hell. It is mode three that becomes the stage, we now get to ‘program’ the monster and we got through the motions to make it as smart and devastating as possible. More important when it gets to level 4 (my mind came up with 5 levels) you can put your monster online and see how it does as others try to play the game with YOUR monster and that gets you ‘international’ recognition. You see, as I personally see it, the game that Jon freeman and Jim Connelley designed deserves a second chance to life and I thought it was limited at the time, but that was due to the memory restraints on the CBM64, now we can turn it to something real with real sides. Of course Ubisoft would have a large advantage to produce it as they created the city, but that shouldn’t stop others. Ubisoft has more advantages, as it adds Chicago and London and more importantly, as they add New York the mayhem is close to complete. 

 I would like to try and find a way to incorporate the music used on the CBM64 which was Mussorgsky – Night On Bald Mountain, it set the tone nicely and was a great choice to have. This took less than an hour to create and the library for a dozen more games are coming to mind. A stage that would service the 50 million subscribers in one setting and optionally the Amazon Luna setting too and this was not the best game to begin with (compared to thousands of other games). For the GAAS environment enhancements are the future of gaming and when Amazon figures this out they will be off to the races leaving Microsoft far behind them, as they should have in the first year of operation against Microsoft. Microsoft can buy all the software houses they want, but those with a lack of imagination will hollow out Microsoft faster and faster. Creativity cannot be bought by those who embrace fake it till you make it. That is how I see it.

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January 29, 2023 · 01:55

Simple History

It all started with a tweet I saw a few hours ago, it was tweeted 14 hours ago. See the image below, Elon Musk gives a response that sounds nice, but he is more clued in on finance, so he was every bit as aware as I am, this is going south really fast now. 

This jugged my memory and I had to search the system (and my memory) for this. It was an article I wrote in May 6th 2020, well over 2 and a half years ago called ‘New World Order’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/05/06/new-world-order/) where I wrote “Even at 1%, the US will have to hand over $25,000,000,000 in interest, and there the setting is stage, or better yet the stage is set. The BBC reported that “The government has also extended the annual 15 April deadline for tax payments adding to the cash crunch” it is the final downfall acts through a consumer based economy and we will all feel that crunch as the US governing table will now mandatory include a representative of the banks, not some ‘political commission’, no a stage where the banks set the stage of what is allowed to be done.” I was overly optimistic, the tweet gives rise that the interest is a whopping $853 billion, a lot more than I guessed at, over 25% of the entire budget to merely pay interest, no debt reduction, to do that about a third of the budget needs to go there and the impact will finally be visible 15-35 years from now. As I also gave you then “No matter how we see it, the US has no stage to pay for the interest on $25,000,000,000,000. Their economy will not allow for that, so what will drain first, their pension plans, or will they pay out of the unemployment funds? The banks will get their pound of flesh and they do not care how the US brings the numbers, as long as they bring them, when this new bill comes across, the numbers are reached and the needs of the banks can no longer be ignored. Aneconomy by commission driven people, the almost ultimate nightmare towards an economy you do not want to consider.” And now we are there, the USA is inches away of a debt interest of a trillion dollars. Do you still think I was an idiot trying to sell my IP to Saudi Arabia? They are about the only player that has any money left and some there would think my $50,000,000 is mere lunch money for them. The US has no funds left and over the next few years as infrastructure buckles over the lack of repairs and upgrades. The US played the wrong cards all whilst they had very little options to begin with and now it starts to hurt them. 850 billion is a large interest ticket, too large. And it could have been prevented so as the US is now drawing close to sell whatever IP they have to stay afloat, others will own what the US should never have surrendered and as I see it my (still unsuccessful) choice to sell my IP to Saudi Arabia or the Kingdom Holding Company seems to have been the better idea (would be nice for them to buy it) and soon there is every chance that Saudi Arabia will have no problems holding defence options. The US might have to sell their airforce IP to reduce debt by 2-3 trillion dollars. A choice they would have never considered in the past might soon become their only way out and with that sell they would keep revenue away from China as well, so there is more than one reason to do whatever they will decide on. 

A stage I saw coming in May 2020, so how much media was on board? Interesting that they remained silent on serious matters. As such we will see what will come next, but to be honest I left clues in m articles over the last 2 years and when it happens showing you when I saw it coming whilst some media will give you some exclusive news, you just wonder how exclusive it actually was. The US went from superpower to close to a third world power in less than a quarter of a century. Presentation is all fine, but if you have nothing to show for it, it becomes a slideshow no one cares about and that is what I expect will happen a lot sooner than even I expected it to happen.

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January 28, 2023 · 20:51

Some hypocrisy

I saw the news earlier this week and I kinda shrugged it off. In the end it was about “Djokovic’s father was photographed with the Putin supporters after his son’s quarter-final win over Russia’s Andrey Rublev.” I cannot judge this part as I did not see how it all happened. This is important for a few reasons. And the idea that his father has to watch it on TV is a bit of an issue for me.

You see to get that part of the equation, you need to learn something. Yesterday I was given ‘Why are so many Western companies still doing business in Russia?’ by the Strategist. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (at https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/why-are-so-many-western-companies-still-doing-business-in-russia/) here we see “The study identified 1,404 companies headquartered in EU and G7 countries with a total of 2,405 subsidiaries in Russia before its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Only 120 of these companies, or 8.5% of the total, had ‘exited’ at least one of their subsidiaries by the end of November.” So where is your outrage now? Why is the media not hounding these players? Actually, why is the media not hounding these players? You have a go at some father whilst we see that the bulk is selling their wares in Russia, what a bunch of cowards you are. So 90% is still filling their pockets and I actually do not care what they are selling, they are supporting the Russians and their war efforts, so here is my message for Ukraine’s Australian ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko who stated that “Tennis Australia should ban Srdjan Djokovic for “such a disgrace’’”. I have nothing against Vasyl and he has genuine beef with the Russians, so I get it. But I am PERSONALLY holding him responsible for investigating the media and why they are not all over these thousands of businesses who are still selling to Russia. I get that we are given “The researchers acknowledge that there are many sound reasons why companies might fail to withdraw. ‘A Western firm operating in a sector excluded from official sanctions may decide that it is inappropriate to abandon its Russian customers, who may have played no part in the decision to invade Ukraine or in the prosecution of the armed conflict,’ they wrote.” But is that enough? What do you think Vasyl Myroshnychenko? Is it enough? In this US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has repeatedly called on the US business sector to strengthen the resilience of its supply chains by ‘friend-shoring’, or redirecting investment to allies. In the context of the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, she urged US businesses to pay greater heed to geopolitical realities. Which is also massively fair. Yet in light of the outburst that Vasyl Myroshnychenko gave us, I reckon he is now equally responsible to hand out outrage of these businesses still doing businesses with Russia and he needs to expose them all, because when over 1,000 businesses are still selling to the Russians, they are sure to miss out on the pressures that would force the Russian army to fall back. What do you say? Do you think I have a case here? I believe I do, but I am but one voice (so is Janet Yellen) should more be done? I will let you decide on that and decide what you should do to make is harder on Russia, even if it is for the simple reason to give Paddington bear time to eat his marmalade sandwich.

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January 27, 2023 · 21:31

Banking on it

This is the case as I read it a few hours before, it also strengthens my case against banking apps. You see, the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64240140) gives us ‘Mobile phone fraud: ‘They stole £22,500 using my banking app’’ and we get “A pickpocket took Jacopo de Simone’s mobile phone and used his banking apps to steal £22,500”. In this case I have a few questions. You see, when I have my phone on me it is ALWAYS locked. A locked phone can still accept phone calls. So as I see “He said his bank investigated but found him liable for the losses so he is still fighting to get the money back.” To be honest, I cannot completely disagree, I also agree with “banks need to do more to tackle it, according to charity the Fraud Advisory Panel” which becomes the issue. I always though on a separate app that is NOT next to the app for certain bank activities and that app needs to receive a code within 30 minutes. And when the app receives three (my magic number) wrong codes the app is blocked from that person until he goes to one of his bank’s branches where they can unlock and reset the app. Everyone is always nagging about simplicity of usage, well if you are willing to surrender £22,500 for that convenience  you are welcome to proceed, but somehow I feel certain that it is not worth that much money. So when I see “Criminals are stealing mobiles not for the device but to try to access finance apps to steal thousands of pounds, the Fraud Advisory Panel said” I feel a little happy as I keep zero financial apps on my mobile. I never ever trusted those and the Optus and Telstra issues we had in the last year merely strengthens my resolve on that issue. As such, when I see “Mr de Simone fell victim to the crime while walking around London Bridge in May 2022 when his phone was pickpocketed” the question comes back “How the hell did they unlock his phone?” Then there is “Use different pin numbers for unlocking your phone and opening banking apps” as well as “Don’t store passwords or pin numbers on your phone” in this case I never put pin numbers there and I do keep some passwords, but they are encrypted and my skill of half a dozen languages helped here and if these people can decipher those codes, good luck. The password for my discontinued UTS password is all yours. But there is another setting, like Google allowing for encrypted notes, encrypted via a number. I am a little surprised that they did not cover that after a decade (well, they dropped the ball on a few other matters too, one of those costed them 50 million subscribers). So there is always space to improve things. But when I look at the case of Jacopo de Simone I at present will side with the bank. Parts do not make sense, but the issue of improving security on banking apps remain, more needs to be done and a separate app makes sense. It reminds me of a solution 30 years ago that the insurance agent Aegon had. They called it Aegon LAR. The app contacted the server that agent X needed contact and within 60 seconds the server contacted the agent. As such all the security was on the server side and triggering a hack would not work from a remote location, it contacted the router on a specified number and there were security protocols in place, so you had to be there, you needed the codes and any deviation would stop activities. Simple and  decently safe. How come we let all that slide for simplicity and ease of use? 

It never made sense to me and I do not need a banking app for a few reasons and my distrust of security levels on a few levels makes me avoid ALL banking apps. It is just how I am wired, nothing personal, it is the application of Common Cyber Sense.

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January 26, 2023 · 23:08

And I was right (yet again)

This all started for me on the 8th of January when I wrote ‘Little shits’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/08/little-shits/) I asked questions then which was mere hour after the event. Now the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64406295) ‘Three warnings before US boy, 6, shot teacher – lawyer’ a mere hour ago. We get to see “This included a request to search the boy and a report from another child who said the boy had shown him a gun. The teacher – Abigail Zwerner, 25 – is recovering after being released from hospital last week. In the fallout, the school’s superintendent has now lost his job.” I had clear questions which did not reflect on the quotes. I wondered why the mother had not been taken away on suspicion of attempted negligent manslaughter, there is a case to be made for co-conspirator for grievous bodily harm, none of that happened. And when we get to “The removal of Mr Parker happened only hours after Ms Zwerner’s lawyer, Diane Toscano, announced plans to sue the district, saying the shooting was “entirely preventable”.” It is sacrificing superintendent Parker to make the optional damage less. But that is not the case, it is actually a lot worse. It is seen with “Virginia law prohibits anyone from recklessly leaving a loaded, unsecured firearm in such a way that may endanger a child under 14 years of age.” The added “the gun used by the boy had been legally purchased by his mother. The boy’s family said the weapon had been “secured”. Police have not responded to this claim” merely makes this worse. You see, if it was secured a 6 year old should not be able to get to it, you do get that, don’t you. I saw this in the first instance, questions should have been asked and they are brushed away on a few levels, so as I see it, the monetary claim for the shot teacher will go into the millions and she will win. When her lawyer Diane Toscano has a go at the people still there, this case will be decided for the teacher and I expect this will be a quick decision. And it also shows how much of a joke American schools are. They are all about safety and no guns and basic security is overlooked as the article clearly shows. So when I hear another idiot shout gun laws, I will tell them to get a clue and leave their young child at the Richneck Elementary School in Virginia. The quote “The official allegedly responded: “Well, he has little pockets.”” Merely angered me more. 

You see, I can kill a person with a simple Derringer .22. A gun is a tool and the army trained me to use this tool properly. One you see the elements that make for a gun, a flintlock pistol can be just as deadly as a magnum .44, the bullet kills and the bullet does not need to be large, a decent understanding of anatomy gets you there. So the entire Richneck Elementary School farce is a big joke from start to finish and I saw the elemental issue on January 8th, it seems that the BBC is only catching on 2 weeks after the fact and they aren’t even there yet. If they were the articles would have been a lot more aggressive and the media as a whole failed people and future victims in all of this. A stage that has been visible for weeks and no one acted, more important, the media isn’t asking any questions. With all the anti gun sentiments, are you not curious why?

Consider “The boy’s family”, no mention of the father, the mother and the mother is only mentioned to the smallest degree. So who was responsible for keeping the firearm secured? How did a 6 year old get to it? It might be an acceptable reason, but that also sets the bar for Doli Incapax higher and the mention of “the family of the young boy said he suffered from an “acute disability”” just doesn’t cut the mustard. This case stinks to high heaven and the media isn’t doing it job. Why not?

 

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