October 17, 2020 · 23:23

Follow Dick the Butcher

Yup, this is one for the record books, and one for publications. First of all, people who follow me here know that I have to the largest part no real love for most of the media, I tend to flock to those giving us the clear views, and I make fun of (read: chastise) all the others. That is how it should be. Yet, I have stayed short of actual violence (as it tends to be counter productive). One of the good media outlets is the Dutch NOS, it is government run, but to the largest degree for well over half a century it gives the Dutch the real deal, it has no issues going after government issues with the subtlety of a mallet. They have done this for pretty much for the length of my life (before that I was enjoying the view from my dad’s left testicle, so I cannot vouch for the time before I was born). 

So as I have been taking in the news of the NOS having to hide their logo, NOS journo’s getting attacked, I was a little dismayed and I wondered, especially in light of the population requiring a really large decrease in numbers to sae nature, the idea formed ‘Lets kill all the stupid people’, it is based on an idea submitted by Dick the Butcher given to Henry VI, it must be true, because Shakespeare wrote about it.

I was for a little while wondering why I am the only one coming up with this brilliant idea, but I was wrong, I was not and a book was published on this concept. The book (see image above) gives us the stage we have today. I will not go into the book (copyright issues) but if you want to catch up, it can be found (at https://www.amazon.com.au/Saying-Stupid-People-Warning-Problem/dp/167518836X), and also because I have not read it yet. The cover was all explanatory to me.

I also found a T-Shirt, but that reflects on a virtual kill, so basically a non-kill and even as there is a second of relief, there is no legal issue, yet the fact I that there is a larger stage, whether these people are scared or frustrated, the stage to attack journalists or health care officials is a separate class of stupid. Now I have seen the ass kissing journalists out there and there is an inner need to become violent, take an image of Paul Dacre, who does not have the feeling to attach his picture to a dart board and have some fun? The same can be argued on a whole range of newspapers and publications, Yet when we go after people of the Washington Post, the NY Times, The Boston Globe, Dagens Nyheter, the NOS and a few others, we seemingly lost the plot. In part the politicians are to blame here, they wanted all the papers out there, they catered to Rupert Murdoch and his ‘assistants’ and the problem becomes slightly clearer, the people cannot tell the difference anymore, although in the UK the difference between the Daily Mirror and the Guardian is rather large, in the Netherlands it is a little harder, their journalists are for the most pretty high end, and we agree every basket has its rotten apples, but those tend to not be around in the Netherlands for too long. The Guardian gives us ‘Dutch state broadcaster pulls logo from vans after attacks’ with the added text “the national counter-terrorism agency warned of a heightened risk of far-right violence in the Netherlands”, for the most I have no issues with political differences, but this far-right violence is completely unheard of in the Netherlands. The stage as the Guardian gives us “almost daily, journalists and technicians on the road to report are confronted with verbal abuse, garbage is thrown, vans are blocked [and] people bang on their sides or urinate on them”, as such we see a shift and people wondered what got into me when I proposed a movie called ‘How to Kill a politician’ with a likeness towards Geert Wilders, when people ask me why, I can now point at the NOS situation saying, “Because of this!”

A stage that is ignored for the longest time and consider that Geert Wilders is not even close to the worst. That part is seen in Foreign Policy (at https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/28/the-new-face-of-the-dutch-far-right-fvd-thierry-baudet-netherlands-pvv-geert-wilders/), where we see “On election night, Thierry Baudet, the leader of FvD, addressed his audience with a speech that was broadcast live to well over 1 million households by the Dutch national broadcasting organisation, NOS. Baudet did not, as is common, address the crowd in front of him and thank staff and volunteers. Instead, he spoke directly into the cameras. Baudet repeated his core political message of the last two years, conjuring a stark image of the near-total decline of the “boreal world”—a term popularised on the French far-right as an alternative to the discredited “Aryan”—imagining a white cultural and political space “from Gibraltar to Vladivostok.” A quaint word to the uninitiated, the term “boreal” has long been recognised as a deafening dog whistle to white supremacists.”

For me it means to swallow for a second, I knew that neo nazi and white supremacy organisations were around, but the idea that they have Dutch origins is a little more than I am ready for, the Dutch are in a stage where they blamed the Germans the last to decades for something the Dutch themselves created. I would never have guessed that and it seems to me that these players fear the NOS the most, the NOS has never had any scruples holding politicians to the sunlight and let everyone see what they were looking at and for those people the NOS is scary, the NOS never hesitated to set light to the things not making sense. 

In the stage where nearly all politicians voiced negatively against the violence against the NOS, we see Thierry Baudet give us (at https://www.alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5101936/Distressed-reactions-after-decision-to-remove-NOS-logo-‘Terrible’.html) “according to him it is his job as a politician to express ‘cultural criticism’. “But the idea that that could be translated into threats in the physical sphere is of course terrible, absurd and abject and must be fought with the fiercest of terms,” he told Een Vandaag”, when we read this carefully we get to “the idea that ‘cultural criticism’ could be translated into threats in the physical sphere is of course terrible and absurd”, I am not so sure, it is his side that sets the stage of violence, and he is not calling optional transgressors to stop violence, he is giving the world a political statement declaring himself not responsible, they are not the same.

The problem is larger, it is not merely the stage of inactions and the stage of ultra right, the budgets have dwindled to zero pretty much all over the EU, setting a much larger stage where inaction is all that we see and as such the situation will get larger soon hereafter, how much worse it will get? There is absolutely no way to set any kind of expectations here, but as long as the far right keeps on getting away with it, they will continue. That is how things tend to go, hence the power of one book cover.

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October 17, 2020 · 02:54

Without trial

It happens, and most often it is some American source that gives us the alleged goods. I state here alleged, because I am not now, not ever willing to take the media at their word, there have been too many events where the media goes free because someone whispered to them ‘as far as we can tell’, or ‘an anonymous sources close to the matter at hand told us’, the media hs had too many of these events. Yet when Reuters give us goods, it is time to take notice, mainly because Reuters does not go out on a limb that often. So when I became aware of ‘Why 4,998 died in U.S. jails without getting their day in court’ (at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-jails-deaths/), I woke up pretty quickly. 

Apart from the images, the article starts with “The U.S. government collects detailed data on who’s dying in which jails around the country – but won’t let anyone see it. So, Reuters conducted its own tally of fatalities in America’s biggest jails, pinpointing where suicide, botched healthcare and bad jail-keeping are claiming lives in a system with scant oversight”, I get why the US government wants to keep a lid on it, yet 5000 deaths is not something that goes unnoticed. So what is going on? The setting only gets worse when we see “Death rates have soared in those lockups, rising 35% over the decade ending last year. Casualties like Hill are typical: held on minor charges and dying without ever getting their day in court. At least two-thirds of the dead inmates identified by Reuters, 4,998 people, were never convicted of the charges on which they were being held”, as such we see an institution that has failed on several levels, 35% over a decade is quite the increase, when we look at lives lost, any percentage change that is a mere one digit is seen as disastrous, so how does this happen? I am asking because the institution that we can laughingly call the Human Rights branch of the UN, seems to have no problems going after Saudi Arabia, and when we are told “Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Saudi Arabia. The country performed at least 158 executions in 2015, at least 154 in 2016, at least 146 in 2017, at least 149 in 2018, with possibly 184 executed in 2019”, as such can someone explain why the UN has such loud trumpets on the 791 death, all whilst the US put 4998 to death without a trial. With the Saudi allegedly ending the lives of close to 15% of what the US might categorise at ‘Business as usual’, ‘the cost of doing business’ or even ‘workplace accidents’ (with the optional oops! At the end). Yet this is not about Saudi Arabia, it is to some degree about Reuters (the good part) and to a large extent about the United Nations (the bad part) where we heard an essay writer and French Human Rights expert and the Special Rapporteur for the UN how she shouted (debatable) events, she never gave us the 4998 inhumane endings of life, did she? So as Reuters treats us to “The U.S. Constitution grants inmates core rights, but those provisions are hard to enforce. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees fair treatment to pre-trial detainees, but “fair” is open to interpretation by judges and juries. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel punishment forbids “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners,” but proving deliberate negligence is difficult. The Sixth Amendment assures speedy trials, but does not define speedy”, we see the larger picture and we understand and get that some events cannot be anticipated, but 4998 losses that continue to go on is a much larger stage. It is optionally a stage where we see that the debts of the US are now the almost given guarantee to loss of life in the US, all whilst there is a larger stage where there is a chance that the largest percentage of these 4998 losses are not criminals, they are people caught in a bad setting and awaiting a chance to explain themselves. All this, in a stage where people in the US are calling Saudi Arabia bad, all whilst they are in a setting where they have killed 631% more people, all innocent people, you are innocent until proven guilty and these 4998 people never got their day in court, all whilst the 791 executed people, were proven to be guilty in a Saudi court of law.

So who represents the larger failure (apart from the UN who never acted, perhaps because their HQ is in New York). Yet Reuters is nowhere near done. When they give us “Many jails are not subject to any enforceable standards for their operation or the healthcare they provide. They typically get little if any oversight. And bail requirements trap poorer inmates in pre-trial detention for long periods. Meanwhile, inmate populations have grown sicker, more damaged by mental illness and plagued by addictions”, it is my personal view, yet a stage where we see “not subject to any enforceable standards”, a stage that merely escalates bad situations quickly towards what could be regarded as ‘worse nightmares’. There is however a small gem there too, but you will miss it when you read the article too quickly. The quote “Reuters was not able to identify the race of 9% of inmates who died”, you see this is a stage with a much larger frame of mind. In my personal opinion, this either sets the stage of a shoddy administration, or optionally a party wanted to make the identification of 9% of the cases close to impossible. There is the case of multi-racial stage, but to admit to such a failure gives rise to an inmate registration failure that should have been fixed well over two decades ago, as such I see a much larger stage, yet with the limited information available I cannot say which is the more accurate one.

The article is much larger and it has several sides that make this dynamite on several levels and to see this in Reuters and not in the Washington Post or the New York Times is a larger stage. So the last part I will look at is “The Justice Department has grown more secretive about the fatality data under the Trump administration. While BJS never has released jail-by-jail mortality figures, it traditionally has published aggregated statistics every two years or so. The 2016 report wasn’t issued until this year”, the stage has a few items that are debatable and optionally a larger stage that has issues all over the board. The lack in mortality figures is the largest and most visible one, you see, this stage was much larger in the 70’s and Robert Redford gave us the low down in the movie Brubaker in 1980, a movie that is a gem on several levels. So 40 years ago there was a clear stage where mortality rate was a visible issue (11 years after the fact), a large one and someone swiped that issue OFF the table. The movie was based on a fictionalised version of the 1969 book, Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal by Tom Murton and Joe Hyams, detailing Murton’s uncovering of the 1967 prison scandal. The unsettling stage of something that came to light when he had the wardenship of the prison farms of Arkansas. 

It is when we consider this stage we see the largest failure in the US, a stage where side entries into society (criminals) are set to a stage off the board making them marginalised. There is one little issue, the 4998 people were innocent, they were never convicted, they never had their day in court and the system failed them close to 100%. And even if we give credibility to Michelle Deitch, she might be right on her turf, the setting of “these gaps make comprehensive nationwide statistics all the more important. “You can’t have good policy without good data,” she said. “Data tells us what is going right and what’s going wrong.””, the fact that racial info was missing in 9% of the cases give rise to a faltering system that has never properly overhauled, or the system is fault due to possibilities of data manipulation, that part is given a level of clarity when we realise that out of these cases the racial data of 450 people could not be ascertained. It is not a flaw or a data gap, it should be seen as a systemic failure. When a person is arrested, from the arrest (2 people) to local arrangements, to transport, to arrival into a jail, well over a dozen people missed it, and more important, they missed it 450 times. This is a systemic issue from day one and no one has rung the bell, at least not to the degree that this bell should have been rung. 

Well done Reuters!

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October 17, 2020 · 01:41

When a war is called

The thought started when I saw an article by Yahoo Finance pass by, it was named ‘Why Saudi Arabia May Be Forced To Start Another Oil Price War’, two thing came to mind, it is October, and the northern hemisphere is now going into Winter, it seems trivial, but 700 million Europeans and well over 50% of Americans (and also all Canadians) will need heating and oil is more often than not the essential fuel used. The second part is seen but perhaps missed, as we are given “The threat of European lockdowns is real, hitting global demand again while taking a heavy toll on the economy. Financial easing and subsidies worldwide have kept some demand in place, but the financials of major economies are bleak, which can be seen in the rising level of unemployment” what everyone forget is that in the past most of these people were in offices and shops, places of employment. During the lockdown all these people will stay at home and their houses, places that usually tends to be 5-8 degrees colder because they are at work, these houses will now need heating for all that time. In addition there are in the US over 1,050 power plants operated by oil, all these houses need power, all whilst many shopping centre needs less power, yet the need for power and heating will seem to rise, especially when the cold days come through. Even as some question “Global oil storage levels are still high, while the world is awash with oil and gas. International traders are openly questioning the current OPEC+ move to put extra oil on the market”, I am not convinced. Yes there is less fuel needed for jets, but jetful is only 2% of crude oil production, so I have been told in school (a long time ago), yet power and heating needs oil and there will be a shift, summer is gone, autumn is squarely here and we see a few hundred million places now needing power and heating most of the day, which stands against the needs of a working environment. As such the statement seen here “Saudi Arabia, supported by its main ally UAE, and Russia are both looking at a financial crash of unknown magnitude if oil markets don’t recover soon. Oil prices are currently too low to sustain the government strategy of both nations” becomes one of debate. I cannot counter it, but when we think things through, oil needs are essential during winter, and I see it, these people will not need gas for cars, so where is the tradeoff? Well, mot of these houses still need food, so the car remains used, to a lesser state. Yet heating and power will be needed to a much larger degree, so even as we can assume to some degree that there will be a lesser need, it will at best be a ‘somewhat lesser need’, in light of all this, why is there a call for a war (well, a pricing war)? The article still gives a truth, several in fact. We cannot disagree with “Without higher crude oil prices, not only is the Kingdom’s flagship Saudi Aramco suffering but most government projects too. The world’s largest oil company has already put several major new projects on hold, while at the same time reassessing investment levels of others. High-profile offshore projects” yes there will be an impact, and the impact will optionally continue into 2021, yet the larger stage is not how Saudi Arabia will do, the question becomes when the EU collapses after another lockdown, how will those government foot the bill for essential services (power and heating) when the trough (finance coffers) run dry?

So as we get to “If the threats made by Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman that the Kingdom has had enough of profit takers, short investors, or lack of support of members, are to be taken face value, the market should not be surprised if the OPEC leader decides again to go its own way. A more aggressive move by Riyadh towards market-share or oil prices is not at all unthinkable”, I start to wonder who the writer Cyril Widdershoven is and I see that he is linked to Verocy and that he oversees Mediterranean Energy Political Risk Consultancy. As such, I wonder if he hopes to create a pre-creationary wave, or that there is a stage which in the article is assigned to Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman. I do not know (I honestly do not know), yet any quick or knee-jerk action required by others, tends to set a different stage in all this and when someone gives me ‘Why Saudi Arabia May Be Forced To Start Another Oil Price War’, I tend to wonder why something like that I needed. Yes from our side a lockdown is not good news, but who considered that they would be warming the house an additional 12-15 hours each day? 

It is well over half a day more, as such heating is required, as well as additional power, because these people will need their TV, their computer, their radio, their console and in many houses they need need close to one of each and with an additional 12 hours a day that drives up the need for power too. So yet there is every indication that there is some level of downturn for Saudi Arabia, I am merely not convinced that it will be as bad as me predict, yet I am willing to admit that I might be wrong. So I will let you do the math on what you need in your house, and consider, will it be more or less than before and when you consider that part, consider the thousands, nay millions of additional homesteads in Europe, the US and Canada. That is what went through my mind, and overall there is an impact for Saudi Arabia, but I am not convinced that it will be as dire as some say. When someone calls for a pricing war, they tend to multiple motives, that I what history taught me, I am merely thinking things through, but as stated, I might be wrong.  

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October 15, 2020 · 23:44

Hindsight intelligence differs

Yup, there is. rather large different between the hindsight intelligent that comes from the Monday morning quarterback and the intelligence that we see when we look at the timeline. There is a large difference between the two and I will not explain the difference. I will however show you some hindsight intelligence.

The information is gives in a few ways, but I will rely on ‘Saudi air defences shoot down Houthi drone’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/1746741/saudi-arabia). Here we see “An explosive-laden drone targeting the southern part of the Kingdom was intercepted and destroyed by the Arab coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognised government on Saturday”, you see it is not different, it is not not unexpected. The stage of the operator differs, as such it goes to support that Iranian troops were actively engaged when the Aramco site was attacked by drones and missiles. Yet the western media does not report, and it will not act on Iranian actions against civilian targets. So the group that misses again and again, had several perfect hits on two target sites? There is no way that this is an actual case, leaving us with optional additional evidence that Iranian forces were behind the Aramco attacks.

Even as we are told “Iran-backed Houthi militias have been launching missile, drone and rocket strikes targeting civilian centers in Saudi Arabia for the past few years”, the stage is not merely ‘Iran-Backed’ there is a larger stage where Iran is actively training and handling equipment in active engagements against Saudi Arabia. This is not some speculation, the evidence is there, the levels of engagement, the act then and the lack of skills by the Houthi forces, the last one is not an issue, but it shows the situation when we re-consider the attack on Aramco sites. And even as we think that journalistically it is sound to use ‘Iran-backed’, the setting of active engagement is seen on a much larger scale. The most recent news is from Reuters a month ago, most western media will not even report on acts against Saudi Arabia, even then we are most likely to see “Abha airport, near the border, has been a regular target for Houthi drones and missiles in the last two years. Many have been intercepted, but some have hit, causing deaths and injuries” with little to no mention of Iran at all. Yes the stage of an impartial press and a so self-stated of their honest press is missing the beat of honesty to a much larger extent. We can agree that they are cautious to blame Iran for this, yet for the most several of the attacks got no news coverage at all, which sets a much larger stage of anti-Saudi sentiment, with optional one sided reporting. And as we the notice of “Al-Maliki said the launching of the drone shows how the Houthis continue their systematic attacks on civilian targets in Saudi Arabia” we see the ignored stage in intentional targeting civilian targets by Houthi forces, with additional support from Iran, the last one is not in question as Houthi forces have no ways to create and manufacture drones in Yemen. I reckon the press forgot about the latter part. As such we wonder why Saudi Arabia is very defensive on accusations against them? When they are openly attacked by Hezbollah and Iranian forces acting with impunity from Yemen (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/1630276), we need to wonder, can we blame them? 

When you want something, remaining ignorant and in denial of what is happening there is not the best way to go about it, but that might merely be me.

Have a great pre-weekend prep day (Friday).

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October 15, 2020 · 06:16

In pieces

When was the last time you went out and researched something? For me it started 83.4 minutes ago (roughly), to fight insomnia (meeting it half way) I decided to do a puzzle, and as I was completing the puzzle, I became mesmerised by the picture in the puzzle. The house is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. It turns out that it is a traditional maramures monk house in Romania, the image is from Adrian Domokos (at https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/traditional-maramures-monk-house-1190795452). I soon found a few other examples, but for some reason Adrian captured something the others did not and I cannot get the right words to describe it. Yet the house is printed on my mind, and as my mind is working out other things it is also converting that very same house to a Minecraft place of living. You might not get that, which is fair enough, but my mind captures things and recreates it in different dimensions, sometimes for fun, sometimes for other reasons. 

I am (at times) hesitant to let the mind wonder freely, not merely because it tends to lead to insomnia, in other cases it got me to design something to sink the Iranian fleet with (one needs goals after all), yet when I was rethinking the weapon and its delivery system I considered that this solution would also work on that ugly American contraption called the Zumwalt class, and lets be fair, that thing is way too ugly to not make it sink, especially as Defense News gave us yesterday ‘US Navy eyes new design for next-generation destroyer’, as such we get “I don’t want to build a monstrosity. But I need deeper magazines on ships than I have right now,” the chief of naval operations said. “I’m limited with respect to DDG Flight IIIs in terms of what additional stuff we could put on those ships. … So the idea is to come up with the next destroyer, and that would be a new hull. The idea would be to put existing technologies on that hull and update and modernise those capabilities over time”, the added “To avoid another costly failure, such as the canceled next-generation cruiser or severely truncated DDG-1000 program, the service is harkening back to its successful Arleigh Burke program, the mainstay of the Navy’s surface combatant program for the past 30 years”. A program with in mind building 32 dinghy’s and 29 of them got cancelled, the there three never properly worked. A wasted $22.5 billion, well, let’s consider that it is not much if you say it fast (I dare you). And when we consider that “the Zumwalt had been sold to Congress based on unrealistic minimum-cost estimates. Eventually, program costs exceeded the budget by 50 percent, triggering an automatic cancelation”, so in light of the unrealistic minimum cost estimates, did anyone go to jail? Did these estimators get paid? So we have a stage where my 5G solutions require ‘assurances’ for the $25,000,000 initial part whilst the $22,500,000,000 sails into the deep end without any problems (or assurances for that matter)? Oh and that is all before we consider these so called smart bullet, the ones that Congress would not approve as it was well over $1,000,000 per shot, How much was sunk into that part? 

So the rebel rouser in me thought it might optionally be a nice idea to try the new weapon system called ‘Gordian One’ on the USS Zumwalt, you know, before we piss off all the Iranians, and lets be honest, there might be some congratulatory slap on the back in it for me from an American Admiral or two (isn’t that why we tend to be innovative?), ahh well, such is life I say!

And lets face it, no one asked anything about the Zumwalt class and what the need was to ignore the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. We know that the Zumwalt was designed and build for a very different kind of war, one that it was not able to do in the first place, but let’s not haggle on those details. And all this is before you realise that the Zumwalt class (compared to the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer) is almost 987% more expensive, so how exactly do we need to see the setting of ‘minimum-cost estimates’, me thinks that someone was buttering their bread on both sides other thickly, yet that is merely my personal train of thought. 

So whilst we look at one and the other, why was there so much about some traditional maramures monk house in Romania? Well, that is linked to the topic of Copyright Law and the nice setting of some silly bugger registering a few pieces of paper and forgot a setting or two with a few documents, which gave me the idea as I looked at the hull alloys and you see, the setting of a Tumblehome wave piercing hull sounds nice, but there are constraints too and that is where I started to wonder, if it sinks the Iranian fleet, the Zumwalt might not really have a chance either. In addition, even if Gordian One does not do its intended purpose, the stability of the Zumwalt will change enough for it to sink itself (which might be poetic justice in its own right). 

So whilst the USNI News reports that ‘Navy Lacks ‘Clear Theory of Victory’ Needed to Build New Fleet, Experts Tell House Panel’, I decided to gain victory by building a weapon system that achieved more than one goal (not telling the kids at present), and as that is shown to work and the delivery system works (not tested yet), we see a stage where Bryan Clark, a naval analyst and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute gives us “We don’t really have that clear theory of victory or operational concept today”, OK, here at this point I take one step back and if I misreported on his quote then I apologise (I tend to not have access to confidential US Navy events), yet if I did voice it correctly, we have a much larger problem. If it is true that the Navy is in doubt on ‘clear theory of victory’ or on ‘operational concept’, which flagrant yahoo of a milk-dud admiral approved the stage of the extremely sinkable Zumwalt Class? It seems to me that clear stages leading to victory and a natural need of irrational concepts is essential for any new boat, submarine, dinghy or pleasure cruiser (Spearhead-class). And if the staged speculated theory of victory is not visible, no Zumwalt class should ever exist. That was clear from day one, was it not? Here we go back to the beginning, traditional maramures monk house in Romania had a set stage, a stage it still fulfils almost a century after it is build, the Zumwalt has been unable to meet basic standards from day one, and people wonder why I want to test a new weapon system on it? Well, consider that I would never test it on the Blue Ridge, as that ship after 47 years is still working to near perfect levels of excellence, the USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19) is expected to get its retirement in 20 years, however there is every chance that it could function until deep past 2055, when we see these events, when we see these parts of success, can we at least begin to understand what an utter failure the Zumwalt class is? 

So with the stage of the Zumwalt being uglier than a really old building in Romania and less functional than pretty much anything in the US Navy, I leave you to try and tackle my other needs. Have a great day!

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October 15, 2020 · 02:12

Deciding moments

We all have them, there I no exception, I had a deciding moment when I was confronted with the Probable Cause Affidavit of the Palm Beach Police Department, it was a 24 page setting that gives us the anger of what on earth ANY judge would consider Jeffrey Epstein to get away with what he did, and I wrote about it in January 2015 in the article ‘As we judge morality’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/01/07/as-we-judge-morality/), at that point I felt that NO ONE, and certainly not Ghislaine Maxwell should get away with hat happened to these minors, not because she was a socialite, but as a woman letting this happen to underage girls whilst she profits is so far below the belt that the belt cannot be seen anymore. Yet, I am also a person with some faith in the law (even thought judges giving way to Epstein here certainly dented the law and its champions). As such I was on the fence, leaning towards a ‘hell no’ when we were given ‘Ghislaine Maxwell lawyers attempt to keep deposition details secret’. And I in part understand “Lawyers say unsealing details related to Maxwell’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein will undermine her right to a fair trial”, there is the additional “The Manhattan US attorney used the deposition – which Maxwell believed was confidential – in its perjury allegation against her in the criminal case, claiming she lied under oath”. I believe there is an additional issue. It does not come to light in most articles, but when we consider ‘THE USE OF A CRIMINAL AS A WITNESS: A SPECIAL PROBLEM’ (at https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/informant_trott_outline.pdf), we see something more. We see “A cooperating criminal is far more dangerous than a scalpel because an informer has a mind of his own, and almost always, it is a mind not encumbered by the values and principles that animate our law and our own Constitution”, I personally believe that Ghislaine Maxwell (or her lawyer) forgot hat it could also backfire to her and there is every chance that she could have opened a larger stage by her demanding immunity. The unsealing gives rise that she set no stage of any form of special consideration. This is seen in Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 446 (1972). So even as her testimony was against Jeffrey Epstein, without the tied immunity, she can now be prosecuted and there is. stage where she is entitled to the 5th amendment, the right to not self incriminate, yet her own testimony is not linked to any immunity and now she is caught between optionally being found guilty and set against perjury, which is now being read as the optional stage that she lied under oath. And tht is merely one side, the Boston Globe is giving us ‘Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers scouring more than 300,000 pages of evidence from prosecutors in case linked to Jeffrey Epstein’ (at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/09/metro/ghislaine-maxwells-lawyers-scouring-more-than-300000-pages-evidence-prosecutors-case-linked-jeffrey-epstein/). From my point of view, thee I the need to push towards the dead duck as much as possible, the more that can be pushed to one, the larger the stage of her somewhat protective escape. This is seen in “The government, the filing said, “is continuing the process of reviewing and preparing productions of electronic discovery materials, which include extractions of data from numerous electronic devices. The Government expects that it will meet the November 9, 2020 deadline for the completion of electronic discovery productions. Additionally, the Government recognises that its disclosure obligations are ongoing, and the Government will continue to review the Prosecution Team Files for any additional discoverable or exculpatory materials.”” Yet her arrest showed that she was digitally savvy, which now gives ‘preparing productions of electronic discovery materials’ and ‘additional discoverable or exculpatory materials’ are an issue as she had well over a year to get rid of any incriminating digital evidence, as such there is a much larger stage, in the work she was accused of, there is every chance that the digital fingerprint linking her to devices is no longer in existence (if it ever was), and as such the perjury stage might be the optional grass straw we see the Manhattan US attorney rely on to get a start and a grip on Ghislaine Maxwell. And now the stage of Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1972) makes sense. There we see “The United States can compel testimony from an unwilling witness who invokes the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination by conferring immunity, as provided by 18 U.S.C. § 6002, from use of the compelled testimony and evidence derived therefrom in subsequent criminal proceedings, as such immunity from use and derivative use is coextensive with the scope of the privilege and is sufficient to compel testimony over a claim of the privilege”, the affidavit helped again Jeffrey Epstein, even as (in my personal view) Alexander Acosta screwed that up royally, the 13 month stage especially when you see the Probable Cause Affidavit of the Palm Beach Police Department. The witness account by Ghislaine Maxwell is useable as she (as far as I can tell) never considered asking for immunity, she wanted to steer clear, I wonder who her lawyer was there? Was he ever asked the questions that are on my mind (as well as anyone taking a serious look at this)? Consider that the witness stage was set and supported by the lawyer whomever it was at the time. As I far as I can tell, if there is immunity, the witness account cannot be used, whatever comes from their taints her in immunity turning that court event into a farce, there is the stage that the testimony is used to set perjury and from there is becomes a rough game for Ghislaine Maxwell. You see, there is a stage that gives us “The court held that the principle of witness immunity does not extend to immunity from punishment in respect of witnesses who knowingly make false statements under oath”, and thee the perjury is set in motion, if there is one part, one part is all that is needed to shred her testimony, she is fried bacon t the very least. And consider the expose to filth that we can see in the Jeffrey Epstein case, it is exceedingly more likely than not that one part could be found shredding any hope for Ghislaine Maxwell, she cannot hide behind some friends anymore and the rest were never friends and see her as way too toxic, as I personally see this stage, it is covered in cum-break-your-neck-gel, with the optimum patches of coconuts oil. 

If she keeps standing in this trial it is mot likely because there is a whole range of rich people too scared to be mentioned in any of this. That is the other side, her label (handed by the media I reckon) as Madam and her stage of houses and travel, that cannot have been from one person, I personally refuse to believe that, as such this trial, even as it is set to a 2021 event will out more than one surprise.

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October 13, 2020 · 21:47

One matter is not another

Yup it is that flaky, it all started with two events, I saw the first event, but I basically ignored it, it was more of old news and politicians getting in on the tailcoats of another is a setting we have seen too often. Then there was the other new news, the was based on the old, and I will start with that, it makes more sense that way.

I got the news (and I had seen it) Pikmin 3 is coming to the Nintendo Switch. I knew it but I had not made up my mind yet. A budget implies that I cannot go out and buy whatever tinker trait is out there. I am not in the worst setting, but blatantly buying a game is jut not on. What made it interesting is the Nintendo added a demo to their shop, so I went out and played the demo (twice) and I recaptured the feeling that the first Pikmin on Nintendo Gamecube left me, the endearing feeling of using the Pikmin and keeping them safe, it is a weird setting, the feeling that came to me almost 19 years ago (18 years and 49 weeks to be a little more precise). The game was a true original and never disappointed, a full blown homerun for Nintendo. I am not exaggerating when I say that Shigeru Miyamoto outdid himself with that one. There are times when we rejoice when something is knocking on our door and we see it is something we have seen before, this is quite the opposite to the first matter and is when we see ‘Australians sign Kevin Rudd’s call for inquiry into Murdoch influence’, you see, he is now in full show with a goatee, perhaps so that he looks as endearing as Rolf Harris once did. Oh, no, it is more of an actual beard, my bad.

Yes Kevin Rudd is calling for an investigation into Murdoch industries, something he never achieved when he was Prime Minister, did he? When we look back there was the Leveson inquiry that focussed on the UK and gave us a series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. It resulted in the Leveson Report in November 2012. I remember it because I have it, all 2200 pages. In April 2012 we were given ‘Rupert Murdoch gives away more than planned at Leveson inquiry’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/apr/25/rupert-murdoch-planned-leveson-inquiry), so whilst Kevvie was Prime Minister, what did he call for? Nope, he left that apparently to get back into politics, now it is ‘‘A cancer’: Kevin Rudd calls for royal commission into ‘Murdoch monopoly’’, so that took him 8 years to figure out? If it takes that long, he has no business been in politics in the first place. But I agree slapping around an 89 year old multibillionaire might optionally be entertaining, yet in this I find the sanctimonious actions of a former Prime Minister who did nothing when he was in office a bit much. And I am not alone here. When we see ‘Rudd has become Murdoch’s accuser, but once he was his cheerleader’, with the added “Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, Murdoch took over the Herald and Weekly Times publishing company, which gave him control of newspapers accounting for about two-thirds of daily circulation”, so not only does Rupert Murdoch have the power he has now, but it was the Labor party the enabled it, can sarcasm be any prettier?  As such, when we get to “The Herald reported that “cabinet colleagues were appalled at Rudd’s flagrant courting of News’ favour”” we see the mess he made of it, and now he wants to get back into politics by opposing he former friends? Well, that is politics I reckon. And the result? Well, I have to agree with “But what could a royal commission achieve? It is impossible to see any legislation improving the situation. Journalists often justify their efforts to bring transparency as being in the public interest with the words of American Justice Louis Brandeis that sunlight is the best disinfectant” (source: Sydney Morning Herald), the Leveson inquiry showed us how useless this path is, the media will cry like prissy little bitches all claiming that they can do better and continue in the same way they did. We merely need to look at the headlines on MH-370 we were given in 2014, basically the ink of the Leveson report had not even dried at the point. Politics and media, it is a stage where one hand feeds the other, whilst the left and remains ignorant of the actions of the right hand, a stage that will not improve until the laws get adjusted FIRST, a stage that is never ever going to happen. So whatever Kevin Rudd has planned, voting for whomever is the other person remains the safer bet. He did this to himself, a sage that is fraught with danger, yet like the Pikmin, they are the consumers getting the idea of what is safe, but in this case it is not Captain Olimar guiding the consumers (Pikmin players will get this), it is Corporal KRudd the we must trust and he will guide the red Pikmins through the shallows and uses the Yellow ones for the Bulbears, in this I fear for the lives of consumers (sorry, I meant Pikmin), I am slightly surprised that he got 100,000 foolish enough to sign his so called ‘intent’ all whilst there is absolutely zero chance that is ends up amounting to anything at all.

I agree, that one matter is not the other, but both are pages we have seen before one leaves us happy and relaxed, the other does not, for those wondering, the political side is not the fuzzy one.

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October 13, 2020 · 04:45

The Jet joke

The old joke goes “How do you know the plane is full of politicians? When the engines shut down and the whining goes on”, I believe it should be followed by a da-dum-dum. Yet the stage is set and it has been going on for a while now. The BBC article ‘Amy Coney Barrett: Democrats attack ‘shameful’ Supreme Court hearing’ got the better of me and the whining (in an age where we we have actual problems) got on my nerves. OK, I will admit that I am mostly Republican in mind, the issue of this president is one that I am not happy about. From my personal point of view, this president is no Republican, I consider him a greed driven loon, yet he was elected and as I wrote earlier, the constitution allows him to nominate a Supreme Court Judge, and the senate gets to confirm the nomination, this is what the American constitution gives us, yet the BBC gives us “But one Democratic senator on the committee described the process as “shameful””, so which Senator was that BBC? Do the people not have a right to know? In addition, what legal premise is this senator working from? In addition, the BBC gives us “The Republicans – who currently hold a slim majority in the US Senate, the body that confirms Supreme Court judges – are trying to complete the process before Mr Trump takes on Democratic rival Joe Biden in the election”, which is correct, but what are the names in the panel? The BBC also gives us “this process has been nothing but shameful. Worse, it will almost certainly lead to disastrous consequences for Americans”, as such I wonder what evidence can Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy give us? So far he is giving us nothing but air, not even hot air. At what moment in time, has any supreme court judge been anything but legal? Yes, we get it, they all want to have liberal judges and no one denies that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a force to be reckoned with and she was a liberal judge. Yet the law was clear, the elected president gets to nominate a Supreme Court Judge during his tour as president of the United States, electing a Supreme Court Judge is one of the few long term policies he can set, and as such President Trump is allowed to do what is happening today, but the media is nothing if not ‘appeasing’, they will print the ramblings of Democrats, because the larger belief is that this president is most likely a one term president and the media needs brownie points. 

So when we see “Democrats demonstrated that they want Amy Coney Barrett’s hearings to be about the Republican rush to seat a new justice before the elections and the possibility that she could be a deciding vote to strike down the increasingly popular healthcare reforms passed under Democratic President Barack Obama”, so where does it state in the constitutions that this is about  “the Republican rush to seat a new justice before the elections”, all whilst all parties (except the Republicans) ignore the constitution that states “When a vacancy occurs, the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints a new justice”, that is the law and the law was abided to, it might not please the Democrats, but the is what it is, so now they all whine like little bitches (I meant like jet engines). Yet in all this we see no clarity on the panel, do we?

As such, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court , who exactly are these members?  Well there is a majority group which consists of Lindsey Graham (SC), Chairman,  Chuck Grassley (IA), John Cornyn (TX), Mike Lee (UT), Ted Cruz (TX), Ben Sasse (NE), Josh Hawley (MO), Thom Tillis (NC), Joni Ernst (IA), Mike Crapo (ID), John Kennedy (LA), Marsha Blackburn (TN). These 12 members are the majority, the 10 minority members are Dianne Feinstein (CA), Patrick Leahy (VM), Dick Durbin (IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Chris Coons (DE), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Mazie Hirono (HI), Cory Booker (NJ), Kamala Harris (CA). 22 members ‘interrogating’ the next Supreme Court Justice, but the confirmation is set when all senators vote and the Republicans have a majority, a very slim one, as such the Democrats have one option, to ask the right questions, as they pound on those, they can merely hope to sway 3 senators away from the ‘Yay’ vote when the confirmation vote starts and they need a majority to make it pass, if ALL democrats agree this will not happen. The is as good as it gets for the Democrats. Will this happen? I do not know, the previous confirmation was Justice Kavanaugh and took 48 hours as well as more than 1200 questions. Will we see a repetition of this? We are about to find out. 

I wonder how much media will actually be focusing on the questions the democrats asked, and why they were asked. A similar setting does apply to the Republicans, yet the setting of “Democrats are avoiding the divisive topic of abortion, which motivates political adversaries as much as it rallies allies, for what they feel is more favourable political ground”, as such we see the chance of finding a justice with a focus on law is low compared to the Democrat need to find a person that is politically convenient. I merely wonder why they want judges to begin with.

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October 12, 2020 · 20:43

When we reconsider

We reconsider at times, we all do. It is not merely a stage of changing of minds, it is a stage of giving a game another chance. In my case it is F1 2020. The last one I had was F1 2000, a game that I got with my PS2, I am not much of a racing fan, but I enjoyed the game to some extent. The ‘some extent’ is not to be mistaken with some critical view of the game. I do not have one, I like racing to some degree, I am not a lover of it. It’s a simple stage. Another game I had was Project Gotham 3, it came with my Xbox 360. That game I loved, it was fun, the F1 game is less fun, more of a simulator, till it is a nice challenge to have and at times we reconsider getting the game, so after 15 years I am willing to get another F1 game. Some go with statement like ‘cleansing the palette’, some go with ‘something else to devour’, some people (like me) never thought negative of the game, merely saw it as something that was not their cup of tea. Yet we all get to a stage that we want to try tea again. It is partially natural. For me, in part it was the stage where F1 2000 was actually a good looking game, I merely was decently lousy in racing. And the F1 game was a decent simulator. That in position to the fact that Project Gotham Racing III was more fun, slightly less of a simulator. Yet this is not about the F1 game, it is about FIFA. The BBC introduced me to ‘FIFA 21 review: ‘The virtual, beautiful game is passing off old as new’’, as well as the Verge giving us ‘FIFA 21 Is Limping Toward Retirement’. Now we should all accept that it is one hell of a test to prolong a franchise, even as soccer is one of the most favourite sports in the world, renewing it for 20+ years is still a massive task. Now, we can all go Monday morning quarterback on the makers, but in the end, I wonder if anyone could have done the job the way EA did. Now, I am not blowing their horn, they have a marketing department for that. In addition, I support their view that loot-boxes is not gambling. I have always supported that side, even as they clearly have made a few mistakes, the fact that they were made is open to debate. And even add the UK gives us “The Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport (“DCMS”) has launched a call for evidence on the impact of loot boxes in video games to help it determine whether they should be classified as gambling products” I still have a personal nagging that this is is a rigged setting. 

Even as we see things evolve, we see a larger stage the is not explored, which is partially an option for discussion. Yet the stage is still in the open. Like the F1 game I looked at, others look at FIFA in a similar way, I am not a FIFA fan, I am an NHL fan and the disturbing part is the here in Australia, the game still cannot get ordered, which is an optional EA play push and a Xbox Billing wish. 

I get the stage that this is, not many Australians have a preference to Hockey. I played it when I was younger. Hence, my interest (and my delusional dream that San Jose, Ottawa, Edmonton, or Calgary calls me that they are in desperate need of a goalie and my name came up), who has not had that thought? Which soccer player does not want to be able to bend it like Beckham? There is a weird interaction with sports games, especially the one we really prefer. We go for the annual setting, but there too EA dropped the ball more than once. It is their right to drop it, but it seemingly gets them in the situation they are in now.

And the stage of sport games is larger than we consider NHL21, FIFA21, Madden NFL 21, EA UFC 2020, Rugby20 2020, F1 2020, NBA 2K21, PGA 2K21, a stage that is a lot bigger than we realise and even if we are not a great fan of some games, EA and others had the option to change the stage and get a much greater following, but they set the game to an event of capture the dough. We can all be or become Monday morning quarterbacks, yet what will this resolve?

We are in what I call a clear stage to reconsider, the gamers and the makers. This is not about sport games, yet this is the larger stage of gaming and to set the what is new, and the why renews. A stage the gaming seems to overlook again and again, As I personally see it it comes with the marketing field who increasingly limits the scope ‘How to acquire new money and how to get as much of it as we can’, it is a natural setting for marketing and that makes sense. But if gaming leads, it is time to set a very different stage. Even as some as in the setting of ‘What if that does not work?’ Nintendo faced that with the WiiU, yet that led to the Nintendo Switch, a system that broke all their records and pushed the Microsoft console from 2nd to 3rd position and as Switch is in 2nd position, still growing its markets, still growing after 3.5 Years. 

It is time to reconsider the plays that are currently being made.

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October 11, 2020 · 22:45

Pleasing the minority

There is a stage we all face, at times we have to please the minority, I have nothing against that. There is a first need to do this at times, and it is also a stage where we see that ONLY pleasing the majority tends to set an empty example. Let’s set the stage by asking 5 questions, in 5 cases 80% says yes, 20% says no, now consider that the questions are related somehow and the ‘no’s’ never overlap. So there is optionally a state here an unanswered question exist where 100% would say yes, but now it is never asked. It is an extreme setting, but they do exist, and the stage is that if we please the minority at times, we have a stage where there is a diminished need to polarise. Now, this last part is speculative from my side, but it is one that exists to some degree.

Yet it is not about some theoretical side, it is a real side and we have been exposed to the largest stage of it. A global economy in shambles as we gave in to lockdown after lockdown, which is fine (to some degree), I understand and accept that actions were needed. 

Yet in all this, consider that we are in a stage where we are trying to please a group of people that amounts to 2.7% of the people who will not survive the Coronavirus. Now I am all about reducing risk and the setting is not the 2.7%, but the expected 4.3%, which we need to name the stage of expected and actual morality rate. No matter how we turn it, the 95% is trying to please the less than 5% of the population who will not survive the event. 

I understand the face masks, and certain preventive measures like social distancing, we want to do as much as we can, but that stage is not always possible, the lockdowns show that. And in all this we are trying to fictively please a minority to continue all this, consider that we told the news that we are locking down nations because of a flu, how would that have ended?

Now consider the headlines ‘Second national lockdown possible, says top UK scientist’, ‘India’s coronavirus outbreak in 200 seconds’, and ‘Israel’s second lockdown slowing outbreak, data suggest’. We can jump any way we want, but until there is an actual vaccine that works, slowing down is as good as it gets and the stage of lockdowns only results in a stage that destroys global economies and nothing more than that. Even as the BBC gives us ‘A visual guide to the economic impact’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51706225) we see the larger impact. Yes there was always going to be an unemployment issue, but the economy was already weak, this merely pushed it over the edge. Yes, we see ‘More people seeking work’, and a weak economy was in part to blame, the lockdowns merely intensified it. And as we seek other reasons, no one is looking at the part the we ignored, when the lockdown started, we were left at home with nothing to do and the shops were closed too, result, millions of people turned to Amazon, which gave Jeff Bezos a $12,000,000,000 sandwich, and I reckon that it tasted good. Now, none of this is the fault of Jeff Bezos, lets be clear about the, global economies overreacted and we got into a stage where Amazon is one of the few beneficiaries clearly having a profitable stage. I agree that governments had to do something, so there is nothin to state against a first lockdown, but as we now see in the UK, and France as the headlines of France24 give us ‘French coronavirus cases set new 24-hour record with nearly 27,000 infections’, lockdowns are not a solution, we merely need an actual working vaccine and until that happens, people will die, optionally me as well. Am I happy if I do not make it, of course not, but if I die I get to avoid my next tax-bill, is this the silver lining, or the dark close the follows the current silver lining? I actually do not know. 

But we are in a stage where we see politicians act the same solution again and again and expect a different outcome, and before you wonder, yet I am coming with an Einstein setting. He stated “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”, and when will we catch on that this is not working? Even as we see ‘Supermarkets, chemist and Bunnings among alert venues after NSW records five new COVID-19 cases’ (source: 9News), consider that New South Wales has 8.2 million people, most of them in Sydney (5.3M), on 801,150 km², outside of Sydney 3 million people are in a stage of being hindered life on all matters. Of course Australia is an example that is a bit of an outlier, yet I feel that France, Germany and the UK have similar stages outside of the big cities. Consider the overreaction of 5 new cases on a place that is larger than 35 nations in the world.

These places and others too have a stage where politicians and scientists are setting a stage that is not a wrong one, but it caters to the minority. I get it, they want to safe as many people as they can, but now the economy is setting a stage of a much larger time of hardship, I reckon that Amazon is pleased of whatever comes next, they are still roaring, and consider that a new lockdown gives us a stage of two new console and several new games and only Amazon will be able to hand over the goods to people in houses staying away from the debatable diseased areas. This is NOT about Amazon, they did nothing wrong, we need to find another solution, something that results in not getting the Einstein insanity definition thrown into our faces. I get the first lockdown action, it made sense, but now that we see that it is not working and when we see that the White House population was a massive spreader of the virus, we need to wake up and consider that for the coming year we will place ourselves in danger, we cannot solve the setting until there is a cure, until there is a vaccine. We can merely protect ourselves as best we can, we can all wear the facemark, we can prosecute the infected who did not for negligent endangerment, and get indicted for a lot more if it results in a fatality. We  might think that all lives are to be saved, but what happens when the economy dies? Was the economy not worth saving? I am not sure about that part of the equation, I do not know if it is worth saving, and perhaps neither are the people. I cannot profess to be wise enough to make that judgement, yet I believe the inaction is a mortal sin, and so is feigned inaction, by doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, different outcomes. 

Consider what you have done in the last 6 months and see what you gained and what you lost. Close to 99% of the people had a significant loss, so why do we cater to the minority in all this?

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