August 11, 2020 · 01:21

The 51st State

Consider that the US just grew a little, it seems that Canada has become the 51st state, Governor of that state is Justin Trudeau, that is until President Trump decides that he is not allegiant enough. How did I get here? A few sources are giving us ‘US court issues summons for Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman’, under normal circumstances there wouldn’t be a big thing. Yet consider the events, an exiled person moves to Canada, when we are confronted with “Mohammed bin Salman attempted to send Tiger Squad to Canada to assassinate al-Jabri, according to a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in August 2020”, so a person went in exile in Canada and now relies on US jurisprudence? And if you are in doubt, the other element is (rephrased) “allegedly attempted to send a Tiger Squad to Canada to allegedly assassinate al-Jabri”, so in the first it was an alleged attempt, in that case where is the evidence of the alleged attempt? What evidence is there to assassinate al-Jabri? Beyond that, why is this case not heard in Canada? In the second, it is my personal belief that Saad al-Jabri needs to get evicted from Canada into America, he is so sure of their legal system. And of course there is the stage where we need to investigate on why an optional case of alleged events in another country are being heard in America, is that not a question that baffles you too?

And it does not end there, the only additional information is given by Gulf News. I am making mention of it as I cannot vouch for the information. I am not willing to use merely one source because it fits my speculation better. Gulf News (at https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/report-fugitive-saudi-official-misspent-11b-in-government-funds-1.72662340) gives us ‘Fugitive Saudi official misspent $11b in government funds’, and lets face it, if I walked away with $11,000,000,000 I would move to Canada, buy the Edmonton Oilers, or the Calgary Flames, buy a nice mansion in either city, train to be their goalie and live the life until I die. It is a plan, not a plan everyone will embrace, but I like that plan, especially if I have that much money. Oh, and the quote gives is “Al Jabri, a 61-year-old with a doctorate in computer science, was the virtual No 2 in the Saudi Interior Ministry, which was run for years by Mohammed bin Nayef. Al Jabri ran a special ministry fund that mixed government spending on high-priority antiterrorism efforts with bonuses for himself and others, according to documents reviewed bio y the Journal and interviews with Saudi officials and Al Jabri’s confidants,” the WSJ report read”. In all this and in fact of tha accusation of corruption and through that (as well as) “spending on high-priority antiterrorism efforts with bonuses for himself and others”, who else was paid? So in this, how much investigation was done by the FBI, for did they allegedly acquire enough self-funding to be above the law? I am merely asking!

So in this universe where Canada is the 51st state of the US, and as we see a quote by the Wall Street Journal, how much investigation did the US do? How much investigation did the Canadians do? The are mere questions but they matter, even as the newspapers on both countries are all about “A former top-ranking Saudi intelligence official living in exile in Canada alleged in a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent a team to kill him in 2018 but the effort was foiled by Canadian authorities” if those are the facts, what investigation was done by the Canadians? Consider that I would be angry when someone steals $1,000,000 from me (an amount I do not own mind you), so an amount that is 11,000 times higher will get the blood boiling in many persons. So in all this, the entire matter does not make sense, Oh I get the need to add $11 billion to my bank account, that makes sense, although I would hope to use my own IP to get there, then there is the stage where I doubt that it was about ‘assassination’ I reckon the Saudi’s want their money back, so there would be a stage of alleged kidnapping, not assassination. And lastly, I reckon that the US would love Saad al-Jabri to move to the US so he can spend $11 billion (minus addition taxation) freely in the US and the US is so bankrupt, they are willing to set the legal stage in their nation, a nation of laws they will claim. 

Yes it is a brand new day as we see the optional stage of laws to whitewash money that was not the property of the person white washing it. It is my point of view and some will claim that it is not a valid one, but consider, how many papers set the stage of making the money link in all this? That is the $11 billion dollar question of the day, have a great one!

 

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August 10, 2020 · 06:51

Government driven destabilisation

That is a term you are not familiar with, is it? Yet it is more now than most other things, even as some are all about ‘donations for Beirut’ all whilst the larger groups ignore corruption there as well as the stage that Hezbollah is not in the clear for storage of explosives in the Beirut harbour.

Last month Houthi forces fired on Saudi Arabia, now there is an issue. First of all, the target was military (King Khalid Air Base) making it in my eyes a valid target, yet the western press for the most ignored it completely. The Jerusalem Post gives us “Saudi Arabia said it intercepted ballistic missiles fired from Yemen overnight between Sunday and Monday. Four missiles and seven drones were launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen”, the fact that the Iranian part in all this remains largely unreported in the EU and the Commonwealth is still a massive issue, I have little faith that the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) starts being of use in any way (other then prolonging the war in Yemen), yet the larger issue is not the attacks, the issue as I see is that as I personally see it, governments feel happy to set a stage of destabilisation in the Middle East, so that they can feel safe, at least from their Ego driven point of view. The paper also gives us “The military of Yemen’s Houthi group said it attacked and hit a large oil facility in an industrial zone in the southern Saudi city of Jizan” and in all this the amount of goods that is required coming from Iran is still not being investigated, and the dangers that they bring can be wielded in a few directions. My personal issue in this is why we are not getting a full constant update from the Middle East, why are the papers ignoring the actions from the Iranian side and Houthi atrocities in 

Yemen? We might give rise to the article (at https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2402186/yemeni-speaker-complains-un-over-houthi-violations), yet the western media steered clear of ‘Yemeni Speaker Complains to UN over Houthi Violations’, so when we consider this, who was aware of “Yemen’s National Alliance of Political Parties (NAPP), a group of parties loyal to the internationally recognized government, had also called on the UN and its envoy to condemn the ongoing Houthi attacks against Yemeni pro-government leaders”, how many Commonwealth and EU newspapers took notice? And when we take notice of “The parties added that the militias insist on continuing the series of their crimes against the Yemeni people, rejecting all international efforts to reach peace in the country. “Such behavior is reflected in their decision issued last March to sentence 35 Yemeni pro-government deputies to death,” after charging them with cooperating with the Saudi-led Arab coalition, the statement added”, how many newspapers took the trouble to see what the humanitarian impact is of Houthi decisions here? 

We can argue all week on what is right and what is wrong, yet consider that we cannot argue on matters that most newspapers do not publish, so when we see ‘Huawei-supplied stc wins 5G contract for Saudi mega-city’ (at https://www.capacitymedia.com/articles/3826056/huawei-supplied-stc-wins-5g-contract-for-saudi-mega-city) in here we see “NEOM’s infrastructure will utilise AI, robotics, and human-machine fusion to deliver greater predictive intelligence and enable faster decision making across all NEOM sectors. The procurement and deployment of a future-proof wireless network is a critical first for NEOM in realising our goal of driving innovation in the future digital economy”. Considering that I wrote about that part in ‘There is more beneath the sand’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/11/15/there-is-more-beneath-the-sand/) almost 9 months ago, and on some matters even before than, two weeks earlier I raised ‘Change is coming’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/09/01/change-is-coming/), all matters on Neom City and 5G that the western press left unattended, so what else did we not get to see?

Issues in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iran all remain unreported. And I admit, there is a reach from unreported to Government driven destabilisation, I will admit to that part, in all this there is a larger stake, when we consider that papers are run by people adhering to the needs of Shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers, we get the first part in this, and yes it is subjective and there is space for debate and disagreement, I do not deny this. But when did you (if ever) wonder on matters not published in Western media? OK, in this, I admit that this is still a far stretch towards destabilisation, and that is a fair call, and I would be wrong if it was 1-2 items, but when we add the numbers Houthi attacks on civilian Saudi targets in 2018 and 2019, Iranian intervention in Yemen 2015-2020, with ‘US Navy intercepts ‘Iranian weapons’ bound for Houthis’ (at https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/us-navy-intercepts-iranian-weapons-bound-for-houthis-1.978874), we get a larger stage, how many newspapers reported on this in the EU or the Commonwealth? I also have https://news.usni.org/2020/02/13/video-uss-normandy-seizes-cache-of-iranian-made-weapons-in-arabian-sea and a few more newspapers (like the Adelaide Now), yet over three pages of links, no BBC, No Guardian, no Washington Post, No Dutch, Swedish, or German Newspapers. There were Middle Eastern newspapers and the Jerusalem Post. Did you consider that part of the equation? When we see the redaction of Iran smuggling drones and weapons to Houthi forces in Yemen, what other matters are you not aware of?

#JustAsking

 

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August 9, 2020 · 19:16

This is boom, that is not

Yet, Beirut, the place where buildings get free air-conditioning through the application of 7.62mm ammunition, the place where something went boom and it enraged a whole lot of people, yet on August 5th I wrote in ‘Boom goes the dynamite’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/05/boom-goes-the-dynamite/), we see “It is speculation, but consider the blast, according to some the blast was noticed well over 100Km away. I do have a point of reference, the Fireworks blast in the Netherlands (Enschede) had a similar effect, but nowhere near the size, the video’s I saw told a different story, one car on the highway with a distance of around 2000 meters away got its windows blown out and the rear view mirrors got blown off the car, and that is one of a few video’s that show me that this was no ordinary blast” and it was merely the toppling of issues. We get to see a better picture when we consider “Ammonium nitrate does not burn on its own” (Source: American Scientific), it is merely the foundation. When we consider “For combustion to occur, oxygen must be present. Ammonium nitrate prills provide a much more concentrated supply of oxygen than the air around us. This is why it is effective in mining explosives, where it’s mixed with oil and other fuels. At high enough temperatures, however, ammonium nitrate can violently decompose on its own. This process creates gases including nitrogen oxides and water vapour. It is this rapid release of gases that causes an explosion” we need to look any the explosion again (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdSHRbSZkwc), it is one of many explosions, and as you see there was a fire in the vicinity, but the explosion is violent and complete. The stage is in two fold, in the first, Ammonium nitrate doesn’t burn well and to explode oil is used. The images we see could not be done if it was merely the ammonium nitrate. It is my view and I am not the expert (I did study chemistry), yet experts tell me ‘Ammonium nitrate does not burn on its own’, all the footage I have seen give implication that this was not merely ammonium nitrate, yet Scientific American also give us “It’s stable under normal conditions, but you can do things to it that will cause it to misbehave. The main trigger is an external heat source. Depending on how you want to count it, there have been probably somewhere between 20 and 30 major catastrophic explosions with ammonium nitrate since it came on the scene as a commercial product in the 1920s. And fire is a frequent trigger. It’s the heat of the fire that warms up the ammonium nitrate that can become a problem”, it seems that everyone is willing to give Hezbollah a pass on this event. I am not willing to do so, even if they merely blew up their own city, there is a stage where we need to consider what else was there and was it meant for pro-Houthi or anti-Israel actions? In an age where we see a whole range of analytics and geometric based analyses, in this the Guardian gives us ‘The explosion that devastated the city was no accident and anger is boiling over’, and then we see “It was so huge it was heard in Cyprus. It was so huge it shattered glass and ripped doors off their hinges kilometres away. It incinerated trees, tore the red roofs off centuries-old buildings and brought the blue sea inland. It left 5,000 injured and 154 dead – so far. There are many still missing under the rubble”, which leaves us with the setting that it all went up in one big explosion, consider the fact that it required (read: used) 2,750,000 Kg of ammonium nitrate, I get that there might be an explosion, but IT ALL exploded at once is the larger issue, the facts do not support it. And the fear of some is merely strengthening my view. With “We don’t really know how this ammonium nitrate, confiscated from a ship and stored in unsafe conditions in the middle of our city for six years, ignited. Because those who are responsible are actively rejecting an international investigation”, and in this I see their fear, international experts will bare out what I expect, there were explosives there and that contributed to the much larger explosion, not a fire, and that gets us to Hezbollah, it will feel the brunt of rage from the Lebanese people. Something it cannot afford at present. My initial speculation that Iran handed out of date materials beneath cost price is still on the table, as dynamite sweats nitroglycerine and in the heat in Lebanon it would fuse the ammonium nitrate as well. Yet some media is giving us ‘it requires a combination of things and that seems to have happened’, or something to that regard. They all avoid Iran and Hezbollah in all this, true there would be some speculation linked to it, but things that go boom to this degree requires much more investigation, I do not disagree with this, but blasé painting over the stage with paint of the colour ‘that seems to have happened’ is not the way to go. 

 

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August 9, 2020 · 04:22

Rad 451

Yup, creativity bone got active again. It is a thought I had before and in light of the PS5 coming and the time of a new Fallout (Fallout 5), I decided to think things through. I loved Fallout 3 and 4. I never played Fallout 76, for the mere reason that I am not in multiplayer games. And in all this the idea floated to add to what Fallout 4 brought and in this I started. The first thing I did as consider Fallout shelter, what if the players can transfer the three vaults to the game? Your own vault, they can all become places to live (once they are cleared out) and the game will set a stage based on the amount of rooms and on the locations used. There is a form of randomisation in this, but consider the situation where you the player have created a vault and it can become your new home. In addition I thought of a way for Bethesda to gain a few millions by making one change to the game, but that is for another time. So there I was thinking on the additional vault(s). So up to three vaults can be added (as Fallout Shelter has three vault options), and the stage is set to add it in another way as well. Each vault becomes a larger storyline in several ways to gain a larger stage. The new game is set around Seattle, from the Atlantic, the Olympic National park, Raymond, Centralia, Mineral, all the way north to Bellingham. It will be some area to explore. As such, one vault will be around Forks, the second around Blyn and the third will be around Yelm, these three will be additional to the Vaults in play and the stage that is set will aid to more exploration and a larger stage of exploration. The story in this game will be around restarting a new city, so the build option is required. In Fallout 4, it was limited to about 20, now it will be up to 100 for a city and three need to be created, beyond that there will be chapters on growth and chapters on each of the actions required. Filling it in will take time (this took me two hours). When we set that stage we have to evolve short and long distance weapons, we get a form of experience, each experience can be set to holo-discs and be used to create a stage of experience. Yet the holo-discs are rare, really rare. So we need to find those as well as holo-readers (one for each town). The challenge is to make it non-repetitive. In this game there will be 5 by 5 sectors, there must be a ring of non towns around the town selected, so that there is ample distance, in addition, the towns each will have one speciality (greens, fishing, hunting, building, tinkering, vehicles, armouring or X (currently unknown). The second part is that certain items will be class E (Exclusives), they will be placed in selected locations, but the 70 places will get 50 items seeded (so 25 remain empty) and they will be shuffled every new game, so there is a new situation, running after a guide or solution is a thing of the past. The idea of the 25 empty locations is to keep the pressure on and to allow expansions (or DLC’s) to add a few items over time. Then there is the situation of the Shelter locations will stage 5-15 additional spaces. 

There will be 10 main stories, one for each of the shelters, three for the villages created and there will be in addition a railroad, a synth, a story of a Brotherhood of steel equivalent, and a Mariner story. Apart from the 10 main stories, I was considering adding several stories founded and connected to the native American tribes that were part of that region. So there are 10 main stories and 5-10 connected stories and after that smaller sub-quests that players could be connected to. 

The idea is to set the stage where we get a adventure that is well over twice the amount that Fallout 4 allowed for. 

In all this, there is a need for me to address the small issue I had with number 4. The workbenches  made sense and were accepted, but what I saw from Fallout76, having a mobile one that we can place wherever. As such we get the second part, not just the mobile part, but to get a piece that like the holo-disc is really rare. It gives the game another dimension. As the title implies through innuendo, there was a thing in Fallout 3, There was the need to find the ‘pre-War books‘, here we will add 100 titles (out of 300) to a loot class, so 100 books will be set in locations, even as there are 200 locations, first 100 from 300 will be set, and they will be spread over 200 locations. Just a thought.

There is more to come, yet in an age of iterative gaming that gives us more of the same (certain Ubisoft titles), I have now given the readers 5 games (over the past stories) with highly innovative parts in gaming, so what is keeping makers like Ubisoft giving its gamers true innovative gaming?

 

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August 8, 2020 · 02:51

Business lost, options lost

There is no denying it, at times people take decisions, and when that happens others get to live with the consequences. This is how it has always been, it is a simple truth. Yet, when was the last time you had to live with the ethical believes of others, all whilst they refuse to demand the same on the other side of the coin? 

Consider the headline ‘Belgium suspends arms exports to Saudi national guard’, I get it, it is a choice, so when we see “the southern Belgian region of Wallonia halted weapons sales to Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry and air force over concerns about the conduct of its war in Yemen”, I cannot say one way or the other, yet so far NO ONE has held Iran to any level of standards, and the same was not demanded from the Houthi forces. That part is a first in understanding just how stupid the action was. Now, we need to understand that human rights groups have their own ideology and that is fine. So as there is now an increased danger that $2-$4 billion in small arms over the next 5 years will now end in the coffers of either Russia or China, one had to wonder how the US (at minus 25 trillion) or Europe (at minus 14 trillion) will live with losing billions in revenue and handing it over to China and/or Russia. Let’s be clear I have nothing against human rights, yet this is a situation where the house is on fire and someone is telling you (not a fireman mind you) that only rainwater can be used to stop the fire, all whilst it is not raining, so how will that end? I have seen a whole range of actions, but the EU refuses to act against Iranian interference or Houthi inhumane actions, for the most the European media has taken all the efforts to keep it out of their publications as well. Even as Israel’s Hayom gives us ‘Iran sees disaster as opportunity to advance regional interests’, we might not react, but who will asks the questions that matters when we see “more than 84,000 children who have died of starvation in the bloody civil war in Yemen can teach us a basic lesson”, so when we compare that to the UN news which was given last month, and similar news for close to a year ‘Waiting to declare famine ‘will be too late for Yemenis on brink of starvation’’, so please explain to me how ‘on brink of starvation’ is staged in a situation where well over 84,000 children that died of starvation? How much more idiocy will we watch, empty actions from human rights groups so that we can sleep at night in a stage where it is already too late?

So not only are these people in denial, they are handing billion dollar industries over to China and/or Russia, so how does that sit with you? And let’s be clear, Belgium is not in the greatest economic situations. Yet, they have that right, and they are not doing anything illegal, it is merely silly on a few levels. So when the initial options are lost and the opportunities are lost to a group of nations that can ACTUALLY SPEND money, how intelligent are these people? The moral high ground is only interesting on a level playing field and it was never a level playing field. In this some may state that they would never work in the arms industry, but what happens when you are offered an instructor job on weapons? If you are unemployed, are you allowed the station of refusal? Consider that for a moment, working or unemployed? Is it such a bad call to teach a person how to properly handing a firearm? Is it illegal to be a data miner? An investment banker? What is the borderline where we decide on the events of others? 

Where is the wisdom?

We seem to believe that we have the wisdom to make things better in Yemen and Syria, but the people who should have acted refused to do so and now human rights are making it impossible for issues to be resolved, so basically our believe in human rights killed 84,000 children of hunger. Have you considered that part in the equation? Until human right groups can deal with both sides of the equation, they are basically worthless, not achieving much of anything, so if they get baskets of Yum Cha or Black-bread and Vodka this Christmas, they know which government is thanking them for the billions of extra revenue in 2020 and 2021. You see, in this instance the house is on fire and there is no rain coming, so will you forfeit the house or will you safe what you can? In the end having principles are nice, but unless the others are on the same page, you are merely handing others money you could make to make things better and remember, as an economic partner the EU had some options of talks in Saudi Arabia, when that falls away they are merely speakers with intent to be useless it ends. So tell me, when was the last time ANY government made time for any person with the mere intent to be useless? 

No matter who the need has, I was willing (and eager) to sell either the MP5, the Vityaz-SN （PP-19-01), or the Norinco NR08. Whatever the client wants, and if MP5 is pulling itself off the market, we should remember that there are 2 alternatives. I wonder how much thought the human right groups took that into consideration and when the money stops, their options stop as well. Sun Tsu learns us what battles to fight and which ones we should ignore, it is a basic setting in commerce as well. If certain people will not learn that lesson a lot faster there will not be a population in Yemen left.

 

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August 7, 2020 · 21:24

Allegiances and Alliances

Two words at the beginning of the alphabet, both important. There is a side that I share with Dante Alighieri (and a few others). No matter is as bad as treason, you need to have a decent level of loyalty. As a person you need to have allegiance to your employer, your regent (or president) and your country. Now, we might have points of debate on any of these three levels. The soldier has them much higher towards your country and national leader then his actual employer, others have then higher to their employers, it differs per person, but faith in those above you doing the best towards the ones you support (company) seems to be in play. Within limits the people tend to have alliances towards business partners, and others we are indirectly connected to. That is the nature of things when we are not connected to ourselves, with allegiance only to self we think that we are above matters. When we compare those towards idiots like Bradley Manning, who as a private thought he had the right to make public whatever others decided to make public. No matter how others frame it, it remains treason. So when I see ‘Former Saudi intelligence official accuses crown prince of plot to kill him’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/former-saudi-official-accuses-saudi-crown-prince-of-plot-to-kill-him) some issues come to mind. Now, I am not saying that the accused are innocent or guilty. I wonder how “A former senior Saudi intelligence official with close ties to western intelligence agencies has accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of plotting to kill him, claiming in a US lawsuit that one such attempt was thwarted by Canadian officials in 2018”. Consider ‘senior Saudi intelligence official’, it implies that this person requires a high level of allegiance. Now consider ‘close ties to western intelligence agencies’. We understand that one nations specialist can have ties to those of another one, yet there would be barriers. So how are ‘close ties’ defined? I am asking, not telling you. Then we get “the Saudi state launched a campaign to target the former high-ranking official in Canada because he was viewed as a threat to Prince Mohammed’s relationship with the US and his eventual ascendancy to the throne”, when we consider “target the former high-ranking official in Canada” I am left with questions. Was the (optionally former) senior intelligence official no longer in service? I remember that I had to agree a 42 year sentence of never entering an Iron curtain nation in 1981, and I was never a senior anything at that age. And when we consider “he was viewed as a threat” it might be true enough, yet the part of “relationship with the US and his eventual ascendancy to the throne”. If that is true, then the person was a whole lot higher than expected, as such we need to wonder where HIS allegiances lie. A person who is willing to betray his own country for reasons of self will only ever align to self at the expense of everything. Then we get to “The complaint includes references to two previous alleged plots – one against synagogues in Chicago and one involving a plan to blow up two cargo planes heading for the US – that were allegedly thwarted thanks to Aljabri’s assistance”, you see, I wonder who Aljabri is actually aligned to. Consider the stage, do you think that the placement of Aljabri is linked to the Crown Prince directly? Between a senior intelligence officer and the Royal family tends to be a few circles. In this there is also the consideration that the Al Said family is over 15,000 in size and the power of Saudi Arabia is set to a little over 1,500 members, as such, how easy can a senior intelligence officer get to the top of the royal family? The numbers do not add up, the station of a few circles are circumvented leaving me with a lot of questions towards Aljabri. So as we are given “praised by former colleagues in the US and UK for helping to keep westerners safe amid the threat of al-Qaida”, and not one is wondering on what HIS agenda was regarding ‘helping to keep westerners safe’? 

So when we have these elements does anyone wonder how reliable the statement “Prince Mohammed sent “explicit death threats” to Aljabri and frequently used WhatsApp, the popular messaging app” actually is? So now we see a crown prince (seemingly) relying on tools used before, on people of (for them) lower ranks, all whilst there should be a larger debate on how reliable the information is. So when we give weight to “The complaint alleges that the assassins are part of a so-called Tiger Squad of the crown prince’s own personal mercenary group and attempted to covertly enter Canada on tourist visas on or around 15 October 2018 with the “intent of killing” Aljabri”, there are a few issues with that part, but I will not bother you with that element. I will however leave you with two elements. The first is “Canadians can be confident that our security agencies have the skills and resources necessary to detect, investigate and respond to such threats. We will always take the necessary action to keep Canadians and those on Canadian soil safe and we invite people to report any such threats to law enforcement authorities.” The second part was given earlier “own personal mercenary group”, and then consider that both the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) are not to be trifled with. No matter how picturesque the RCMP is, they are a lot more able to hunt down anyone in rural Canadian regions than most of the US troops, military and police troops, the CSIS has its own success rate, I would NOT EVER rely on mercenary groups, not one that stands out all over Canada. That and the Canadian population that is 5 times more allegiant to its national needs than most Americans ever has been. That is the situation that is out there, and it makes the numbers and the setting of the situation off. I would not be at all surprised (personal speculation) that Saad Aljabri would have been quite the jewel for Al-Qaeda needs, knowing about Saudi Arabia and having the ear of Western Intelligence. Mind you! This is speculation! In the other parts, why was Saad Aljabri exiled? In all this there is another optional part “new claims comes just weeks after the Guardian reported that another Saudi living in exile in Canada was warned this his life was possibly under threat by the Saudi regime. Omar Abdulaziz, a close confidante of Khashoggi, was warned by Canadian authorities that he was a “potential target” of Saudi and had to take precautions to protect himself”, exiled people all ready to point the finger on the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi. Now, there is no evidence, but where is the likelihood of reliability when certain people go into exile? When the money coffer dries up? They become tools for whomever needs them (if the price is right). 

My views should also be scrutinised, I get that and I accept that, yet the media gives us a view that does not add up, not in several ways. In a family with 15,000 members with 10% at the top, do you think that a person like the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia would be this careless? 

We seem to be looking at one side, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has the same elements, his alliance is his father, his allegiance is Saudi Arabia and in that setting exiled people do not add up to that much, no matter what claims they make, especially as they cannot back it up with any evidence. It does not mean that Saad Aljabri and Omar Abdulaziz are not optional targets of the Saudi government, yet it seems that they have time and people in exile tend to run out of money a lot sooner than they think. The media seems to have forgotten about that, the optional links to other places was seemingly overlooked by governments, so what is real and what is not? That remains a debate, yet the media thinks that the cover of ‘assassins sent’ is sexy, it might be for them, but for anyone in that game it is not the greatest policy and neither is the use of mercenaries in that stage, mercenaries that light up like Christmas trees even less. 

Just my view on the matter, feel free to disagree.

 

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August 5, 2020 · 23:46

EU fart bit, Google Fit Bit

Yes, we leap left, we leap right and as we see options for choice, we also see options for neglect. In Reuters we see “Google’s parent company Alphabet agreed a $2.1bn (£1.6bn) takeover of the wearable tech firm last year. However, the deal has yet to be completed”, we see that at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53647570, and as we see the BBC article, we wonder about a lot more. Yes we acknowledge “While the European Commission has said its main concern is the “data advantage” Google will gain to serve increasingly personalised ads via its search page”, and in the matter of investigations we see:

  • The effects of the merger on Europe’s nascent digital healthcare sector
  • Whether Google would have the means and ability to make it more difficult for rival wearables to work with its Android operating system.

From there there are two paths, for me personally the first one is Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, to be honest, I do not trust her. I will admit right off the bat that this is personal, but her deal relying on what was requires her to get a win, any win. The setting is founded on “officials acknowledge that the EU’s competition enforcer faces hard choices after judges moved to quash her order for the US tech company to pay back €14.3bn in taxes to Ireland”, which was a juridical choice, but in all this she needs a win and I reckon she will do whatever er she can to get any of the FAANG group. For the most I would be on her side in the tax case, but on the other side the entire sweep of the Google Fitbit leaves me with questions.

The first point is on ‘effects of the merger’, so how is this in regards to the Apple Smart Watch, the Huawei smart watch (android), and a few other versions, how much investigation did Apple get? How much concern is there for Huawei? Then we see the second part ‘Whether Google would have the means and ability’, it is not a wrong position for Margrethe Vestager to take, but as he does it upfront, in light of the EU inactions regarding IBM and Microsoft, it seems weird that this happens upfront now (well to me it does). And as we see ‘difficult for rival wearables to work with its Android operating system’ I see Huawei and the solutions they have, Android solutions no less, so why is Google the problem? 

Then there are two other parts. The first one is “Analysts suggested part of the attraction for Google was the fact that Fitbit had formed partnerships with several insurers in addition to a government health programme in Singapore”, the second one is “Google has explicitly denied its motivation is to control more data”, in all this there is less investigation in regards to what data goes to Singapore, or better stated the article makes no mention towards it, and as I see it, there is no mention on it from the office of Margrethe Vestager either. The second part is how Google explicitly denies its part, yet that denial does not give us anything towards the speculated “its motivation is to have access to more data”, and when you decide on a smart watch, data will end up somewhere and the statements are precise (something that worries me), I have no issue with Google having access, but the larger issue is not Google, it is ‘partnerships with several insurers’, the idea of privacy is not seen remarked upon by Margrethe Vestager and her posse of goose feather and ink-jar wielders, the focus is Google and is seemingly absent from investigations into Fitbit pre-Google in an age where the GDPR is set to be gospel, so who are the insurers and where are they based? Issues we are unlikely to get answers on. Yet when we consider “John Hancock, the U.S. division of Canadian insurance giant Manulife, requires customers to use activity trackers for life insurance policies in their Vitality program if they want to get discounts on their premiums and other perks”, so what happens when that data can be accessed? Is the larger stage not merely ‘What we consent to’, but a stage where the insurer has a lessened risk, but we see that our insurance is not becoming cheaper, there is the second stage that those not taking that path get insurance surcharge. So what has the EU done about that? We can accept that this is not on the plate of Margrethe Vestager, but it is on someones plate and only now, when Google steps in do we see action? 

So whilst the old farts at the EU are taking a gander at what they can get, I wonder what happens to all the other parts they are not looking at. Should Google acquire my IP, with access to 440,000,000 retailers and well over 1,500,000,000 consumers, will they cry murder? Will they shout unfair? Perhaps thinking out of the box was an essential first requirement and Fitbit is merely a stage to a much larger pool that 5G gives, but as they listened to the US, they can’t tell, not until 2022, at that point it is too late for the EU, I reckon that they get to catch on in 2021 when they realise that they are losing ground to all the others, all whilst they could have been ahead of the game, lets say a Hail Mary to those too smitten by ego. 

 

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August 5, 2020 · 19:26

Boom goes the dynamite

Yup, I got this from a trainee presenter in an American show, it stuck and now as we see the numbers come from Beirut and the devastating boom that the population in Beirut is facing, the term stuck again. I have waded through 4 hours of video, I read the articles and the sage does not  make sense. Yet, be aware that a lot of it is speculative, so do not take this as gospel, or as given facts, even as I try to go from some of the revealed facts, they too are up for reconsideration of optional inaccurate facts.

The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/aug/04/beirut-explosion-huge-blast-port-lebanon-capital), gives us a lot of small facts, but some sources like CNN (and others) give us “2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored for six years at a port warehouse without safety measures, “endangering the safety of citizens,” according to a statement”, first of all the number comes down to 2,750,000 kilograms, which is not a lot, it is a massive amount to have. In a nation (with explosive needs or not), where there is a shortage of all things, that amount of fertiliser amounts to 125 40 foot containers, filled to the brink with fertiliser, and it was there for 6 years (according to some). When you realise the events can be seen in other light, the numbers do not add up, yet the explosion was real. 

Speculation
So why if there was more than fertiliser there? Consider Iran has been supplying Hezbollah with volatile goods for a long time, what happens when TNT (or dynamite) stats sweating? Now consider that we weren’t dealing with 125 containers, but with a mere 4 containers, but with TNT and it was kept in what some would consider the safest place, also consider that it had been there for a few months and sweating explosives tend to sweat nitro glycerine. Consider that Iran made a deal with surplus stuff and it backfired on its customer.

It is speculation, but consider the blast, according to some the blast was noticed well over 100Km away. I do have a point of reference, the Fireworks blast in the Netherlands (Enschede) had a similar effect, but nowhere near the size, the video’s I saw told a different story, one car on the highway with a distance of around 2000 meters away got its windows blown out and the rear view mirrors got blown off the car, and that is one of a few video’s that show me that this was no ordinary blast. Even as it is understandable that the real cause cannot be known yet, we see within 13 hours “2,750 tons of chemicals detonated”, the explanation is very much too soon. But I get the inkling of dire need to set a story out there, in light of the explosive nature of goods that Hezbollah relies on in Beirut. So when we consider “Over time, regardless of the sorbent used, sticks of dynamite will “weep” or “sweat” nitroglycerin, which can then pool in the bottom of the box or storage area. For that reason, explosive manuals recommend the repeated turning over of boxes of dynamite in storage”, and when we consider that and the supplier to Hezbollah, no matter where it would be stored, is my speculation so thin? Or is it a lot closer to the truth than you would imagine? And when we consider the shortage seem in Lebanon, consider 125 containers of goods untouched for 6 years, or 4 containers with Dynamite untouched (or partially touched) for 6 months, what is more likely? 

It is linked to a second speculation, what if Iran had to get rid of explosives that have a limited time left? Who would be appreciative of receiving explosives at below cost price? I feel certain that this is a direction that Iran did not anticipated, but it is what it is and remember, I am speculating here, yet in this case is it more likely than not is the question and yes, we need to await the real news, but as I see it, the media is accepting the 2,750,000 kilograms of Ammonium nitrate that was in folly stored for 6 years, and remember one small detail “Ammonium nitrate does not burn on its own”, and there was already a fire, I will also give you “Ammonium nitrate decomposition can be set off if an explosion occurs where it’s stored, if there is an intense fire nearby. The latter is what happened in the 2015 Tianjin explosion, which killed 173 people after flammable chemicals and ammonium nitrate were stored together at a chemicals factory in eastern China” The events seem to add up, but the amounts do not (as I personally see it), no matter how we see this, certain people have lost a lot, they will lose a lot more and Iran gets to be a supplier yet once again.

 

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August 5, 2020 · 05:26

What light is the limelight

We all wonder at times why certain matters are brought to attention, we now automatically assume that issues are revealed to seat the limelight, not merely TV and other media, the press is seen in that same way. It is not that we are bombarded with fake news, there is now the assumed feeling by many that the media is giving us fake news (they tend to call it direct and speculated views from experts). 

This view is supported (to a degree) by Al Jazeera who gave us “Long before “fake news” had a name, the BBC was a master of fake news, in fact fake news of the most dangerous, the most vicious consequences, casting nations, not just individuals, into direct calamities”, they did so in November 2018, they also give us “The role of BBC in the overthrow of Mosaddeq was not out of character or unusual. In a piece titled Why the taboo tale of the BBC’s wartime propaganda battle must be told published by The Guardian, David Boyle writes about characters like Noel Francis Newsome (1906-1976), who “as director of European broadcasts … led what is still the biggest broadcasting operation ever mounted, in 25 different languages for a total of just over 25 hours a day, across three wavelengths.””, in this the BBC does not stand alone, there are scores of producers that have had the ear of their governments. 

The problem now is that the media is flaunting the #Fakenews items and procrastinate on what they regard on what is fake news, yet they themselves have been heralding tweaked news and scores of misinformation through either omission or ‘non disclosed sources’ and the people have caught on, they have caught on for a while, so whilst they disregard newspapers, they embrace another level of debatable news that others publish on social media. 

And everyone is seeking the limelight, yet the most obvious question becomes slowly apparent to some, what sort of light is the limelight? And what sort of light was it supposed to be?

That is the question, in people like Freddy Mercury and David Bowie got to be exposed to the purest form that was discovered in 1837, at that point we had: “limelight was used for the first time to illuminate a stage, at London’s Covent Garden. During the second half of the 19th century, theaters regularly utilized this powerful form of light, which could be focused into a beam to spotlight specific actors or an area of the stage”, the stage was set to illuminate and give visibility to, in this case titans of music. In other forms we see the pink limelight, which in this case is not a version of ‘La vie en rose’, it is a version to make softer the harsh reality of a situation that we face, we see it whenever the limelight needs to be on Iran, we see it when bad news must be tempered for the good of that government or for the good of the political needs of THAT moment. In this stage we also need to see the omissions of news and I am not buying the usual ‘we ran out of space’ BS all whilst digital space costs nothing and any additional space implies more advertisement space too. Some might have noticed on the massive lack of reporting whilst Houthi forces (via Iran) were firing missiles on the Saudi government. To merely quote one of the (many) sources “When important news is omitted, we get a skewed or biased perspective”, as I see it, the Saudi example shows a few issues, as the larger lack of reporting was shown, right around the time several governments were setting the stage of no weapons to Saudi Arabia. And in all that mess, the lack of reporting on the actions of Iran take a larger view and we need to do that. We see a global stage that is changing, whilst a group of politic Ians are setting the stage based on their egotistical needs, and that group is getting too large, all whilst the political field of the US is dwindling down and European politics is getting a dangerous overhaul. In this stage of changes, some have figured out that a new way of setting the tone of news is not changing the story, it is adjusting the limelight. As I see it it will open differently across forms of media, but the readers will have a lot more issues to distinguish between news and fake news, you see, there will be news, adjusted news and fake news. The problem is that all have a professional looking character, yet the impact differs. It gets us back to the 90’s when the 256 greyscale solutions came, but the setting is an important distinguishing one. We cannot distinguish these 256 grey scales. Our eyes are not that good, and our brains are even less distinguishing, as the overlap between real, adjusted and fake messages increases, our ability to distinguish becomes a larger issue. In this a personal view is that there is a correlation between phishing and adjusted news. It becomes harder, if not close to impossible to see the difference. I almost fell for two phishing attacks, even as I knew what to look for, the message was indistinguishable from the real deal and news is going the same way, the media relying on ‘adjusted news’ is not helping any. The one clear part (from factcheck.org) is “Not all of the misinformation being passed along online is complete fiction”, the question is when does it become too hard to see the difference between a story that is not ‘all fiction’ and a story that is not ‘all true’. When can we no longer tell the difference? And as some come with the treated excuse ‘Is there not an AI solution?’, the stage becomes rather large, because AI does not exist, not yet at least. You see, the salespeople are selling AI, because it is marketed at all, just like the 80’s when printers had to be sold, they came up with Near Letter Quality. Wit AI we now have True AI: “True artificial intelligence is autonomous — it does not require human maintenance and works for you silently in the background” and there we see the problem, the identification is still done with human intervention, and the part in this that I did not report on is that AI, or perhaps more clearly stated True AI requires to be learning. That is not yet possible as it requires quantum computing with shallow circuits. IBM is close to getting it, but not completely there yet, only when that is ready, complete and true AI becomes achievable. So whilst that stage is still evading us, the issues of adjusted and fake news keep on going. Yet I am concerned with the question “What is the light they use as limelight?”, in this we consider it as we need to contemplate that news should not change when WE change the light, so real news will remain  the same whether it is rose or lime light, adjusted news will change slightly, but perhaps just enough for us to see the difference. It is speculative, but I believe that it is a future option.

 

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August 4, 2020 · 01:40

The station of choice

As we see that we have stations of choice, we also see that our choices were limited. We are overwhelmed with some flu version that has the name of a Mexican beer, we are overwhelmed with what the media calls ‘bad news’ and they are not playing a game with you (most are not), towards the stage where thousands of jobs are gone in any nation that has signs of Covid-19. And we haven’t even seen the main event in any of that. So whilst we see the BBC giving us “HSBC plans to speed up job cuts after interim profits plunged and the bank said bad loans linked to the coronavirus could reach $13bn (£9.8bn)”, OK, we get that, loans were all amassed and extended and then the people got sick, startup companies and existing companies, all got hit. But then we realise the headline and we need to consider the impact of ‘HSBC to speed up 35,000 job cuts as profits slump’, some choices were not choices at all, not for those 35,000 and not for the hundreds of thousands that also are losing their job. Some seem unavoidable, yet the stage of a bank needing to shed 35,000 jobs has another stage to consider, a stage where the bottom dollar and margins are the movement reasons in this particular time. Let’s be clear, it is a time that we have not seen for a little over 100 years. In Australia Victoria is now in a stage 4 lockdown, a second lockdown. There will be businesses hit, there will be consequences for a lot of people, yet when I saw last year in 2019 reporting 23% more profits, I find it a little distasteful to read about 35,000 jobs lost, all whilst banks have been filling their pockets for close to a decade, if there was one situation where loyalty is leaving the building the this is it. There is however an upside, if we consider that 2% of the American people has the Coronavirus and a percentage of that will not survive, we see that job openings are coming. Globally we are moving faster and faster towards 20,000,000 Coronavirus patients, we are almost there, almost 750,000 people were lost on some official places, yet there are loads of articles giving us that the number of deceased people is a lot higher, as such loyalty is not something bosses want to take chances on, but that is merely my view on the matter. Let’s be clear, a lot of them were retired, yet not all, so they need replacement and when the financial sector, after non stop massive profits is shedding its staff, there is nothing stopping a place like Saudi Arabia starting a new financial cornerstone, they are getting access to well over 100,000 people on a global setting. 100,000 people with knowledge of the sector and the clients. Now that they are not spending billions on Newcastle, they could set a corner in the financial sector and setting up shop, with staff needing a job it might not be the worst idea and they have the billions, a lot do not. The world market is soon to be about choice and a lot are handing over the options and opportunities they have to merely meet a short term bottom dollar. I get it, plenty of catering, bars and restaurants do not have the options, or the reserves, they are with their back to the wall and trying to survive, no blame there, but the Fortune 500 and banks shedding jobs, it makes no sense. A situation where they rely on governmental hand-outs whilst they went around making as much profit as they could whilst paying as little tax as they could (which is no crime mind you), but there is a stage where the feeling of insecurity becomes slightly distasteful. Even as we understand that there is a station of choice, yet we seemingly forgot that the station of choice is one with limited settings. It becomes a much larger setting when we consider the impact of 5G, no matter what choice we had, we now see ‘Experts say expanding 5G will boost regional economies during COVID-19’, yet we also see “Although the pandemic has brought uncertainty to our lives, the advantages of 5G infrastructure are increasingly clear. The outbreak has led to increased demand for ICT solutions specifically in areas like 5G amid a boost in network usage and 5G 2B innovations. Meeting that demand will require new forms of public-private partnerships based on open collaboration, supporting strong industry policies that will enable social value, economic development and provide enhanced service experiences to consumers across the region” So when we realise that ‘new forms of public-private partnerships’, some might get the idea that it means new jobs, but this is exactly the danger I had spoken about and this meeting of the SAMENA Telecommunications Council Leaders was in Dubai and Huawei was making enough noise to unite the 5G community in the Middle East towards Huawei, not just Huawei, but there is a clear station where they are coming out on top. It was the scenario I have described a few times and now that the view grows towards ‘new forms of public-private partnerships’ via Huawei, the stress levels go up, the US has a lot to lose and they will lose a fair share of it, in an age of loss of jobs, we get to slowly witness a market shift towards Huawei and the Middle East in almost EVERY segment of 5G and as western corporations fall short on innovation and lack of speed in their apps, we see the danger flexing in a few new directions, I saw several of them as the US is bullying others to drop Huawei, but so far has NEVER shown clear evidence of Chinese governmental dangers. Especially in light of the open dangers that Cisco is leaving out in the open (not intentionally mind you), I think that in the networking environment we have larger dangers that have been confirmed, also by the maker of the hardware. Even as we see the buyout of chipmakers, we see a dangerous setting, we could lose a lot and as I see it, most nations are blindly accepting the stage that America is feeing Europe and the Commonwealth, most are getting more and more aware that 5G is for some treasury coffers will be the last straw of one with coins and one with IOU notes and the stage we are approaching is now set that 5G will be lacking in speed and will be behind all with Huawei hardware. That is the stage we are moving forward to and a stage where job loyalty is at an all time low, a stage where others move in on fields they were never able to move in on and now 5G will move faster. Ericsson gives us “The frontrunners in 4G – largely in the US and China – became the big winners of the “app economy.” The same dynamic will play out with 5G but on a potentially massive scale”, consider that quote, consider the advantage that Huawei has and now consider that players from the Middle East will be entering a field with freedom of movement for well over a year and that stage has never existed before. Consider that in 2018 the stage was “US 4G leadership also resulted in more than $40 billion in additional app store revenue”, so that stage was a large benefit for the US, who is now losing that stage where Asia and the Middle East will get a much larger share than ever before, do you really think that app designers aren’t packing up ion a stage where nations lose more and more loyalty? If Google wants to stay in the race, they need to grow at least three more data centres in the next year alone, and that is merely Google, the others need to grow a much larger input into those regions to stay ahead of the game, the advantage that they had ib 4G is now gone, India was making waves and when they realise the losses they will get as Huawei is shown the door is staggering. In a stage of $40,000,000,000, we see the new economy rise an d Europe and the US will only be a smaller part towards it, the stations of choice are dwindling down and those who SHOULD do something about it are indecently silent. It worries me because it will impact the Common wealth for far too much, as America stops being a superpower, the Commonwealth will be alone taking up the baton of the free world, we will have to seek a partner and Europe is unlikely to make it, so how can this so called ‘free world’ be insured when the option for the Commonwealth becomes Russia or China? I don’t see it, do you? And even as there is no cold war, there is a new war coming, not with fighting units and out in the open bashing, but it will be a new war. The Digital war will be new, it will be massive and our team has thrown out the most important options from the get go. It worries me and it should worry you as well. 5G is too important a battle, and so far both Ericsson and Nokia are all making marketing claims, but are they showing equal or more advancement than Huawei? As far as I can tell no, and that is where Samena comes in. A council where we see STC, Batelco, Arabsat, Etisalat International, Mobily, Omantel, Orange, Sudatel, Zain Kuwait and of course Samena. A stage where there is a much larger stage for meetings that impact the Middle East as it becomes a larger stage for players like Huawei. So here’s hoping that the current US president is not getting this wrong as much as his stance on the Coronavirus, because the cost will be a lot higher this time around. A stage where the big players handed over revenue to Asia and the Middle East via a conscripted setting of ego, it will be a first, yet at present it iOS close to certain to become actuality.

 

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