December 20, 2019 · 12:29

Two unrelated issues

OK, today is not the day to piss off Alexander Bortnikov, I wanted to do that just to celebrate his 11th anniversary of him being the Director of the FSB, as such my sense of humour demands that I would put a whoopi cushion on his car seat, alas, I could not get close, someone decided to try a novel approach to the concept of Suicide by Cop (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/19/moscow-shooting-russia-people-shot-dead-intelligence-agency), instead of pushing the buttons of a militia officer, we see the apparant acts of a looney tunes person who decided to fire on the reception of Federal Security Service, that is an act that will get you killed and he did. Now, let’s be clear, there is a reason to bring this up. You see there is one building in Moscow (basically in the entire CCCP), where the most vile, the most feared and the most despicable member of any Russian criminal organisation takes a detour, it is the Lubyanka building, the headquarters of the FSB in Moscow. Consider some Bratva captain, 120 Kg of muscles, fearless and life ignoring person ends up shaking and like a little girl that is crying, the cause would be one building in Russia that does that. So when a person comes around shooting at its reception, I tend to call that a novel way to invite Suicide by Cop and I cannot fathom the desperation from life that a person has to pull that off (there are 999 other ways to go with 99.99999% certainty and most of them are 100% less painful and scary), optionaly as distractions go, it is perhaps the worst one yet. 

Oh, and there is not some special required form of data intelligence required, we could argue that the fear for that building is handed to any Russian citizen when they start school, so for the life of me I can not figure out why someone would be this stupid, it is like grabbing a bucket of water from the Volga in Saratov and personally dumping the bucket in he Caspian Sea, not only meaningless, but you end up being alive at the end of that journey, attacking the FSB building with anything less than an entire army and your chances to survive become a whole lot less certain. Yet in all that, the fact that the attack made several newsgroups is important, you see, the news never sleeps, yet they do get to filter what we hear. 

From the Israeli news desk

The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/19/israeli-spyware-allegedly-used-to-target-pakistani-officials-phones) (as well as Israeli Newspapers, give us ‘Israeli spyware allegedly used to target Pakistani officials’ phones‘, with the byline ‘NSO Group malware may have been used to access WhatsApp messages for ‘state-on-state’ espionage’, news that made a lot less newspapers on a global scale, is that not weird? Now, I am not stating whether there is validity, I am not stating on behalf of the NSO Group that it is false, yet this private firm founded by Niv Carmi, Omri Lavie and Shalev Hulio is showing to be an expert company in acquiring information. The papers need to guard their words and I get that, yet when we see anonymous sources and “those who could have been compromised” I feel like I am in a play that I have seen before. The more important part is “All the suspected intrusions exploited a vulnerability in WhatsApp software that potentially allowed the users of the malware to access messages and data on the targets’ phones“, yet it seems that there is not really that much taste for the weakness of the makers, is there?

When get the optional state where we see “The lawsuit claimed intended targets included “attorneys, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents, diplomats, and other senior foreign government officials”” and in that state I would make the demand ‘can we see those names please?‘ Yet it is a personal demand that will not be answered, there is too much doubt on the who did what and who wanted to know. I have a little more faith in “NSO has said it will vigorously contest the claim and has insisted that its technology is only used by law enforcement agencies around the world to snare criminals, terrorists and paedophiles“, you see that is a business approach to intelligence that brings money on the table and Yes, there is a chance that someone wanted to know more about certain Pakistani, yet that list given by Facebook is just a little too weird, yet the names might brighten up the need for it, and as we are treated to “The alleged targeting of Pakistani officials gives a first insight into how NSO’s signature “Pegasus” spyware could have been used for “state-on-state” espionage“, it is the difference of stance, the state of ‘alleged‘ that brings the doubt. In the article I do not disagree with “This kind of spyware is marketed as designed for criminal investigations. But the open secret is that it also winds up being used for political surveillance and government-on-government spying” for that we need to say that John Scott-Railton is seemingly completely correct, yet in all this, we see and identify a timeline and it becomes more and more apparent that not only did other interest groups (CIA, FBI, MI-5, MI-6, DGSE, et al) need this weakness, we see a longer timeline and we wonder what WhatsApp and Facebook have done about it so far. More important, why would any official use something like WhatsApp? I mean for private use, yes, yet for their business phone? It is the application of Common Cyber Sense that is lacking here and to give all that data to Facebook (WhatsApp) is calling some parts into question. CBS News gave the people in 2018 ‘WhatsApp co-founder: “I sold my users’ privacy” to Facebook‘, I get it! Cambridge Analytica changed a lot, but so it would have changed a lot for state players, as such the act of pushing for WhatsApp in government and secure conversations, it does not make sense. CBS also gave us in 2018 “U.S. intelligence agencies have said that Russian actors used Facebook and Instagram to wage a campaign of disinformation in the election” and if WhatsApp and Facebook are owned by the same person we see the even larger lack of Common Cyber Sense. WhatsApp has been the name in Scandals in 2017 and 2018 as well, so when the needed question ‘Why is a state player using WhatsApp in the age of Common Cyber Sense?‘ comes out, we see that the bulk of people, hacktivists and journalists have not asked this question, just like the weird part where we all look at the attack on Lubyanka, and no one looks beyond a certain point. 

This view does not exonorte the NSO group, yet it is asking larger questions that take the group out of the field of vision and looks at the larger issues. More important the claim “While it is not clear who wanted to target Pakistani government officials, the details are likely to fuel speculation that India could have been using NSO technology for domestic and international surveillance“, you see pointing at their natural enemy is fun, however the fact that most European intelligence groups want to know about scores of Pakistani is also left off the table, in light of Pakistan and its Middle East connections, so are Israel and America, especially as America is losing foothold in the Middle East, finding any Russsian link to any Pakistani would be worth a lot to them, they lack all plenty of resources there.

You see, there is all the need for action when we see “The government of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, is facing questions from human rights activists about whether it has bought NSO technology after it emerged that 121 WhatsApp users in India were allegedly targeted earlier this year” however everyone is overlooking ‘121‘ as a number. There are 400 million WhatsApp users in India, nobody would get to the 121 users in such a short time, the absence of ‘alleged‘ and optionally ‘so far 121 alleged users have been found‘ is a much larger issue that anyone realises. The fact that there are more questions popping up regarding the alleged NSO software is also overlooked. There is a much larger play in the field and it seems that certain people do not look towards certain players and the absence of Common Cyber Sense is just overwhelmingly staggering. It is almost like you are tired of life and decide to attack FSB headquarters with a gun. 

Yet in all this, the amount of users in Pakistan is also the part we need to look at, you cannot merely check in seconds, this is a not an on the fly solution, so there are all kinds of questions, especially with 1.5 billion users of that app, we see a lack of thoughts, questions and especially software engineers treating the software weakness and this has been going on for quite some time. the fact that the larger collection of media is not getting to this question is just allegedly largely insane. 

So as we consider “users in India were allegedly targeted earlier this year” we need to ask, how long until this glitch is fixed? The fact that certain glitches have been there since 2017 is a much larger concern, but the media does not stop at this point, does it? I reckon they are taking their time looking at the one suicidal person pointlessly attacking Lubyanka.

Two issues that might seem unrelated (and they are not), yet it tells a lot more about the media and state players than you should be comfortable with, feel free to WhatsApp that question to others, the state players will get to it eventually.

 

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December 19, 2019 · 15:08

Paranoid

OK, I admit it, I am calling myself paranoid (at present). You see, I have been looking at the news (nearly all news in Europe) and there is seemingly a low creation of rumbles going on. The strongest two are the Netherlands and the UK. The issue is not easy to explain, but I will. Corporations are in a frantic level of actions, Brexit has scared them and the unfolding of the EU is basically becoming reality. In a corporatocracy, that is a scary realisation, but they have an alternative. You see, the balance of the EU is not the nations, it is the two most powerful ones that set this tone. The difference is seemingly small but essential. Any nation can govern by the needs of its corporations, yet a monarchy has the responsibility to take ALL its citizens into account, a lot of issues would not exist if these monarchies did not exist. So the need of corporations is to destabilize and overthrow monarchies. In the end overthrown they might take their value and business interests, and those corporations do not care, they can tighten the screws and focus on the 80% that is consumer, not the 100% that is population. We have seen these acts in the US for the longest time in the Walmart family, not the strongest example, but the most visible one. They have spent well over $4,500,000 this year alone on lobbyists. Firms like the Alpine group, Capitol counsel, Cove Strategies, Ferox Strategies, Mehlman, Castagnetti et al and several more to represent their needs in political Washington. Let’s be clear, they are not breaking any laws, they committed no crimes, the Walton family merely uses the tools available to them to set the premise as powerful as possible towards THEIR needs. This is where the issue become a problem, as a republic driven political might adheres to the needs of a corporation, the people lose. In this the Walton family grows its wealth by a little over $100 million a day, some sources indicate that their total wealth grew by over 20% last year alone. That family has a wealth that puts the wealth of Bill Gates (Software Man), Jeff Bezos (the Amazon Boy) and Warren Buffett (Mr. Investment calling himself the Philanthropist Man) and their wealth combined to shame. That is the impact of a corporatocracy, when the companies rule a nation, their needs are set as the number one, followed by actual consumers and enablers as a second.

Poverty in the US might be the lowest in the last decade, but it is still set to 11.8%, in the Netherlands it is a little below 5%, that is not because the Netherlands is so rich, or their situation is so much better, it is because a monarchy looks at the needs of all its citizens (the rich, the poor the enablers and the non-enablers). So when I see ‘Money is the Achilles heel of a monarchy‘ (at https://www.nu.nl/economie/5991045/de-kosten-van-het-koningshuis-geld-is-de-achilleshiel-van-de-monarchie.html) with mention of “Alles samen kost het koningshuis daarmee op papier in 2019 bijna 36 miljoen euro” (All together, the cost for the monarchy are set on paper to be around 36 million Euro). Now in opposition I will throw that Robeco paid a new CEO €30,000,000 annually around a decade ago, so it seems a little farfetched to look at the cost of royalty, and we need to consider that a monarchy comes with cost, it is in part also the cost we pay to keep all citizens safe, in other settings this tends to be the consumers and rich people. 

The second large monarchy is the British one, even as we have a lot more to look at, I will not, yet I will highlight that the attacks on Prince Andrew were more than attacks. It was the need of media to get circulation and in the UK that sells, it is money. OK, I will admit that HRH Prince Andrew received some real bad advice from direction he was listening to, yet beyond that the man is under constant (and not just him in that family) attack, even today I find well over a quarter of a million articles (not just from the UK) with headlines like ‘Who’s your Prince Andrew? Ten signs one of your employees is deadwood‘ (Source: Smart Company, Australia). Titles like ‘surplus prince‘ and statements like “The total number of people in the world who believe his side of this super-creepy story is one. You’d ground your small kid for telling tales like: “I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War, when I was shot at … it was almost impossible for me to sweat.”“, from my point of view, the royal family is under non-stop attack by the media and haters. In the UK we see optionally one part that is an issue, their Monarchy is a lot larger, yet so is their population, yet the UK is a monarchy, both the Netherlands and the UK would not have made it to the place they are now if they were a republic, that much is almost certain. Europe has other monarchies, There is Denmark, Monaco, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain and the small ones Andorra and Liechtenstein. Norway is not part of the EU, yet they are so close to the Danish and Swedish families that they are part of the problem for corporations. Yet for corporations the Netherlands and the UK are the largest problems, they have strong political ties, they have well organised systems and they both have the ability to limit the actions of most corporations. 

Now, just to be clear, we see the cost of royalty (especially the Dutch one) almost every year (the Dutch are cheap as), yet the underlying story is still within me, there has been a larger attack on royalty in Europe and I personally believe that corporations are fuelling it through their links in the media. The attacks are subtle and for some reason two links I saw earlier this week are no nowhere to be found, the right to be forgotten is seemingly used to a wider degree (my speculation). More important, I believe that the Brexit delivery from Boris Johnson will open up a lot more than just the Brexit, at that point these corporations in denial realise that the overall force of greed will end in 2-3 years and when Brexit is complete there will be a larger need in the EU breaking it up faster. When we see ‘EU ministers opt to continue overfishing, despite 2020 deadline‘, we see more, we see a larger need towards greed and as we read “ministers ignored science and fought bitterly for their own vested interests” we see some of the signs that the EU has ended, the fact that they knowingly, willingly and intentionally ignored “By 2020, all quotas were meant to be based on a maximum sustainable yield – the most fish that can be caught without damaging the ability of the species to recover itself” should be regarded as evidence, I personally stand by my original thought, merely end the lives ot 94% of the global population and the problem is solved (that did not take long did it?) The issue is larger and more complex ad as such my thoughts towards the monarchies can be seen as paranoia. The two nations (UK and Dutch) have all kinds of interactions and even as the attacks on Prince Andrew are actual attacks, they are often done by circulation desperate media, which is still a corporation, but it would be a twisted example. Perhaps I am paranoid, but I feel that there is a larger attack on EU monarchies, I will let you look at the evidence in your own newspapers and tally the articles that are an example. Oh and I am not dismissing the fact that there are other driving factors either, that was shown by the NL Times last April (at https://nltimes.nl/2019/04/15/dutch-royals-less-popular-among-young-people-study). Here we see: “Support for the Dutch monarchy among young people fell sharply over the past years. In 2007, 70 percent of Dutch between the ages of 18 and 34 were enthusiastic about the Royal Family, last year it was only 55 percent, according to surveys by Ipsos commissioned by NOS“, I wonder how the percentages fall when we tae that number and set it in two groups, 17-26 and 27-34. You see until 25 you have no need to take things into consideration (like retirement), after 25 you do and that is when people get to realise that a Monarchy is a larger economic umbrella than a republic is. Yet they also illuminate the other side “support for a republic with an elected president is not increasing much. In 2007, 14 percent of respondents supported the idea of such a government, last year it was 15 percent, according to the surveys“, I reckon that the people realise that their cushy life is over when it becomes a republic, but the Netherlands and the UK are too large spoils of war for the large corporations and it is my personal believe that they will not give up on rich grounds of that nature, the breaking of the EU will force them in that direction soon enough, in that regard I have absolutely no doubt, greed remains an eternal journey.

 

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December 18, 2019 · 13:07

And the laurels go to

It is that time of the year, with 13 days to go and no new titles in sight it is time to look at what I consider to be the best games of 2019. This year I particularly look at value, graphics, sound and gameplay still matter, yet in the past value was underrated, in my mind the re-release of Tomb Raider is still the cause of this, a game that is truly a Tomb Raider game, yet way too short, the graphics the sound it was all sublime, yet I am not paying $99 for a game I finish in under 10 hours in hard mode, that is just not on. The makers made a massive miscalculation there, whilst the feel of the game was great. As such value needs to be a massive factor nowadays, it is also the reason why I never touched any of the sequels.

Resident Evil 2 (Remake)

I had a few issues with adding this title, I played the original on the (very first) Sony Playstation, as such I wondered whether it should be allowed to go in, yet the changes in the game, setting up barricades, having limited resources and the fact that you always need to look behind you made a jittery boy out of me, I believe that some puzzles were easier (to get into), but the overall need in the game makes it a Resident Evil Plus edition, it rips your nerves whilst you play, and I personally advise you not to play that in a dark room, especially if you brothers and sisters in the house playing a game of let’s give that player a heart attack, you will piss your pants (believe me you will). The atmosphere is coming with an attached level of graphics and decent music, the sounds are amazing (or awful pending on your point of stress). Capcom outdid itself when it decided to re-release the original Resident Evil 2, you can play as either Clair Redfield or Leon Kennedy and they are basically two games, there are some changes and the two issues that bothered me the most is limit of ammo and managing your inventory, which by the way is the central issue in survival, so it works out nicely for all you survival fans. Considering that this is a remake of a 20 year old game made me realise how perfect the makers had the game in the old days and I never appreciated it to that degree, even as I gave it one of the highest scores in those days. Resident Evil 2 (remake) is pretty much a must on every PS4 (pro), if you like the genre, if not keeping it around to give your dad a try into gaming (and a heart attack) is a solid second reason. 

Sekiro: Shadows die twice

I had a go when it came out and I loved it, yet budget reasons made me leave it off my ownership list, now that the game has been made a GOTY title it becomes an uppassable need to own, the graphics are great yet it feels very non-western, crouch walking in the shrubs gives it stealth and the setting where we attack from behind also gives the edge to the fight, I like the entire stealth part, yet the idea that I was 50% above the shrubs whilst no guard saw me was a little unsettling, the game is actually more than that, the gameplay is very much intuitive and makes for a much better experience, there is also the feeling that I missed a few things on every level IO played and comparing that to time played gives rise that value is well set. The fights themselves from the very first level give rise to a larger stage where the button mashers will not live long, not even after the second attempt make the game more testing and keeps it closer to a Bloodbyrne experience, but let me tell you now not to compare them, the same with Nioh, they are all set around a tactical approach and Sekiro fits in there nicel, so those who loved any of those games will see a fight style they love, you are at times (quite often) attacked, and even whilst you can not avoid them, you can dodge them and you will have to if you want to stay alive, the game relies on counter attacks and second actions to give you the upper hand, a stage I found refreshing compared to Nioh and Bloodborne, Sekiro feels more tactical that way, the choices you make have impact, the considerate and cautious fighter tends to win, seeking out WHEN you make your move is important and Sekiro has gone to great lengths to make it close to utterly perfect, so good luck finding some AI flaw and exploit it. Breaking the oppositions posture and position tend to be winning choices and there are several bosses, all very different in how they attack, each a puzzle in its own right. Oh and it’s important not to lose your focus in this game, I did so once (my phone rang), that one second was enough to get killed, Sekiro is unforgiving that way and for me that was half the appeal. This game is near perfect and one hell of a journey (as far as I got). 

The outer worlds

I am in my heart an RPG lover, I never made any secret of that and this game delivers. I am not making any attempt to hide my discomfort regarding that one person who made a 12 minute YouTube on how to get the game done in that time, any person who sees that as a solution is not really an RPG lover, it is like running all over No Man’s Sky, a real RPG lover looks at where he is and takes in the views he /she is offered and the Outer Worlds does not disappoint, I personally believe that too many views are colour tainted or look too non-terran for the impact and that is a little sad, but in the story it all makes sense. I did like the steampunk feel the game had, it was fun to be in that world (too many RPG’s stay away from the steampunk vibe). The game has humour, good looks and decent ploys in the game, there are often more than two actions you can take and even as you forget option number three, it could be the one placing you in best position. Important is that this comes from the makers of Fallout: New Vegas and their fingers are on the button often, you see and feel that yet what you often forget is that this is not a main development house, a B-level maker that is giving you a AAA game that is much better than a house like Ubisoft has given us in the last few years. That part matters, because when we see graphics, value, sound, music and gameplay, we see that Outer Worlds passed a test unlike any, I regard it as a beautiful game, I personally like the fact that the game adjusts and appreciates the stealthy player (me) and there were some nice benefits there, overall the Outer worlds is a good game for RPG fanatics and actually a decent game for those who never dabbled in RPG, the learning curve is good that way and the game seems to like all kinds of gameplay. 

Those are the three titles for 2019 hat I found worthy of being a game of the year, I will say here that I have not looked at Death Stranding yet (budget), and there are a few more titles out there, as some papers give you a list of 20, I personally do not regard some as they were either not on console, or I merely looked past them, these three titles are well above board and well above gaming standards to stand out. Even when we look at last year we see a small drop in new titles, I get that, there is every chance that the large houses are focussing on the two new consoles, apart from Ubisoft releasing such a disappointing game, a AAA releases an actual bad game, the 40% rating that it got is a specific one, yet there was also a 3/10 and metacritic had a mere 55/100, Ubisoft had dropped the ball to THAT degree. The fact that this game is supposed to have actual DLC is laughingly inappropriate, it shows that there is a new wave of gaming required and I hope that some of the Indie developers take up that challenge. 

Nintendo has always been the odd duck out, yet they gave us two/three games that should be in this list. 

Pokemon Sword/Shield

Pokemon Shield/Sword are the first two. For anyone that has played a Pokemon game there is a joy of changes and adaptations coming their way, the Switch was pretty much maximised for that experience. using the switch to lob balls at the Pokemon, the graphics look larger and the 3D view we see make for a much larger experience and all that whilst the game did not change its core. Now as we see the pokemons in the grass and the environment, we can avoid random fights, we see what is coming our way and we can search for the specific Pokemon in the location, a massive plus, the entire region you see in 3D is still a lot larger than before, so we have more to travel, the fights are like the Gamecube Colosseum had, which is really nice, all that and new pokemons too? Yup, so there is a lot to look forward to, the entire experience made it more fun to play, the initial feeling that we get when we try another Pokemon game (like Ruby in 3DS) was not here, the look and the game was different enough to feel invigorated to play this game, from the very beginning this feeling comes across the experienced pokemon player, so there is that to look forward too. I found the overall look and feel comforting and there is no beating the value of a Pokemon game, even as some might be able to finish the game in 30-40 hours, we see that these people are running to the finish line missing the point that every Pokemon game has had since I started on the Gameboy Advance (sapphire), the game has more than a mere quest and missing out on any side quest because it is not the main quest means that you limit your options and miss approximately 40% of the game. I was especially surprised on the amount of Pokemon’s I had never seen before. Yet another point of consideration to get either of these games. In light of all the enhancements that this game has, it is an absolute must for anyone with a Switch.

Luigi Mansion 3

Another must for the Switch players (and my persoal favourite of the year) and here Nintendo does not (has never) disappointed its players when it comes to sequels, here humour takes a large limelight in this game and even if it does not play in a mansion (its a hotel), even as I missed the second game, I did get the original one the Gamecube and this game is a lot (really a lot) larger, as well as a much larger combination of puzzles and other options once you use a person named Gooigi, the man is too much of a scaredy cat to be a ghostbuster and still this game is the best ghostbusting game I ever saw, the approach to humour in this game is often practical and is without a doubt a setting where this could be the funniest game that Nintendo ever released (crazy bunnies eat your heart out). It is without any doubt in my ghost stricken heart that this is an absolute must for any Switch owner, and I almost forgot about the graphics, they are good, above good. It is like playing a pixar animation game, the switch outdoes an Xbox in no uncertain ways, each floor having a theme look on it and the game took it to a new level, basically a level you have never seen before in this kind of game. In addition the setting where it does not take you to THE next floor, but from level one you go to level 5 for example gives it a nonlinear feel and there is more to find, so like the Mario odyssey game you will revisit places. If there is one part that I missed is the option to upgrade my vacuum ghost sucker. Overall this is an amazing achievement every time I think of this game I want to run home to play it for an hour or so, that level of addiction in gaming is one I have not felt for a long time and needs to be accentuated as well. Nintendo still knows what makes us gamers tick and they show it.

There are two sides to all this, there was no intent, let’s be clear about this, yet the titles I illuminated on consoles have two PS exclusives and the Nintendo exclusives are there too, with this in mind, we see that Microsoft seemingly stayed away from all this, now there might be a clear reason as they are now in the final year before their next console comes out and there is every chance that they want to rule it (which is fair enough) and whether that is the actual reason is not for me to say, but it seems that 2019 was ruled by Nintendo and Sony, which is partially sad and partially just the way it seems to be. Yet overall 2019 was not a great year for gaming, yes there were 5 great games, there was also Jedi: Fallen order and Call of Duty Modern Warfare, which is an alternative that kicks Breakpoints ass. I did no consider either as best game yet they are not bad games and worth consideration, especially when you are a Star Wars fan. I found 2019 to be a little disappointing when it comes to gaming, I accept it as the two new consoles are now a year away and it implies that both Sony and Microsoft are taking the new consoles serious, which implies that release day games on either should be interesting. 

What was your choice in gaming in 2019?

 

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December 17, 2019 · 13:35

We forgot the slogan

Yes, we forgot the slogan, the one I will tell you later and it was not mine, but it is a slogan I have admired for years. The view exploded as I saw ‘Toxic avengers: what Scorsese and Tarantino’s new films say about male violence‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/16/scorsese-irishman-tarantino-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-toxic-male-violence), I need to be careful here as I do not wish to attack the views of another person, in this case David Alexander. Yet he almost forces me to do that when we see ‘are they doing anything to move the discussion forward?‘

I am not certain, you see “Outside the Tarantino dreamscape, in which men enact their fantasies of aggression in defence of quasi-fictional innocents, what is the implication of violence for male relationships – with families, women, indeed other men? It’s surely devastation, Scorsese tells us, as he presents male violence as a problem rather than a solution“, in the end a movie is like a book, it is entertainment. I could watch either movie and then still have fun to watch ‘Spies in Disguise‘ as well, Will Smith as a turned pidgeon might be nice and the movie made me slightly curious. Me wanting to see film number three as well does nothing to the value of movies number one and two.

Just like a good book, a movie can be entertaining, educational or even inspirational, yet the inspiration could be the drive in any discussion and moving something forward, yet am I an Irishman? De Niro (for the most is not, he is American (with descendancy from both Italian and Irish side), so does that make him an Irishman? Nope, but he is an Irishman in the movie, still we focus on the actor when it is a Scorcese movie. Scorcese is the director, the author of the movie, Scorcese controlled the artistic and dramatic aspects and he visualizes the screenplay by Steven Zaillian all whilst he guides the crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. We can state that we wanted to have a discussion, but it is in the end a discussion on a piece of fiction, we forgot the slogan that mattered ‘The story is everything‘, it was the slogan of FX and it is still the best slogan in entertainment I know of.

And this movie? It is a movie and we can see from actual events that this could optionally have happened, yet when we realise “Hoffa vanished in late July 1975; his body was never found. He was declared legally dead in 1982“, as well as “At 3:27 p.m., Hoffa called Linteau complaining that Giacalone was late. Hoffa said, “That dirty son of a bitch Tony Jocks set this meeting up, and he’s an hour and a half late.” Linteau told him to calm down and to stop by his office on the way home. Hoffa said he would and hung up; this is Hoffa’s last known communication” A lot of this can be found in FBI files, does this make the movie truthful? No, it makes it a story that seems believable and that is not the same thing. Yet the issue that it does show is that we all love movies that are dipped in reality, whilst we leave space for Will Smith as a pigeon. Yet to be honest, how does a movie like that ‘move the discussion forward‘? It is in that context that I do not see “Both present vibrant ecosystems of toxic masculinity. And both reveal much about the largely male environments they present and the shocking violence within them, through the way they think about their central female characters“, both are basically pieces of fiction and one has been dosed with the facts of events making the movie a massive dose of realism, realism that was out and about in the 70’s.

If my movie became a reality (optionally as a short movie), would ‘How to Kill a politician‘ be the stuff of fiction that drives a conversation, Yes, I would hope so, yet what conversation it would drive is another question. I thought through ‘How to Kill a politician‘ as a viewed version of my response towards anti-Islamic feelings in Europe and the anti-islamic feelings driven by politicians (in this case a Dutch one). It is a different setting, and it does not oppose the view of David Alexander, who in the end states “Scorsese tells us, as he presents male violence as a problem rather than a solution. In doing so, he ultimately creates the more meaningful film“, that is a fair enough view and we see that it is up to the director to validate or partially invalidate that view, perhaps it is not valid but it is what we take away from the story that is the beauty of the book and movie, they inspire us to have thoughts, they inspire us to dream and they inspire us to consider, three very meaningful and essential points that are in anyone’s self. And in all this we forgot one more point of inspiration, it is the story that David Alexander gives us his view on the matter, or on the matters at hand. 

It does not matter whether he is right or wrong, it is HIS point of view and it made us consider issues, so in this he became ‘the story is everything‘. That is also a point of view that we need to consider. There are points that come from within us, yet are they fictive or realistic? ‘How to Kill a politician‘ is a point of view that is all about fictivity, but the events around it were real, still it is fiction, can fiction become reality? It is the serious question behind it all, especially as the article is about the Irisman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it is in that that I see not the question can fictivity become reality (a side every Harry Potter fan yearns for), yet the view can fictivity drive reality is another matter. It can drive things (the movie JFK is evidence of that), yet the drive is specific and that part matters to me, it was a central consideration in the drive as I thought through ‘How to Kill a politician‘, I wanted there to be a drive for questions, yet I wanted to be clear in the fictivity and in this the optional view of children as they considered how to counter hate. I considered that the stronger the drive for questions, the larger the drive from people to see it and that part intersects with both Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorcese, I believe that they push a similar drive as this is one way to make people curious and keeping a curious person away from any movie is a non-option (my sense of humour is voicing that as it refers to curiosity and all those people who saw Deep Throat). 

It gets us to the one sentence that I oppose (partially) towars the view of David Alexander in “Both present vibrant ecosystems of toxic masculinity“, I have an issue with ‘toxic masculinity‘, we can go from the part where all violence is toxic, but it does not stop us from watching it, and we can see that it is about the story and in this violence sells, just like sex sells. Both make most men (and some women) curious, and that grips back to the curiosity setting in watching a movie, any movie maker wants to set the stage in a place where it leaves the people really curious and of course the movie needs to settle that curiosity, yet at this point that feeling need not be based on reality (Spies in Disguise anyone?) that is just my feeling in this and they all adhere to the one side I still admire ‘the story is everything‘. In the end we are all slaves to what we need, what we need satisfied and curiosity has been a number one for a long time, Hollywood figured that out long ago, if they had not record after record would not be broken in Hollywood, but it has. 

I merely wonder when we see a historic movie based on the era that comes over the next 20 years, will we see the optional “what X and Y new films say about female violence“, we might not believe it, we might ignore it but it is there and there are facts all over the place that violence by women is on the rise, to be honest I wonder when people figure out that violence is an issue for all homo sapiens, not just men. It has been merely more visible in that group. That realisation makes me wonder how we see violence and do we see it correctly. Violence tends to be a tool to get from one point to another nothing more, it is hard to see it in that way, but it is a truth, and Yes, I do understand that violence is overwhelmingly a male tool, I am merely stating that it is not ignored by women. And it is important to realise that the movies were not about that, they were stories and for the most we all love stories, we were addicted to books for centuries (those who could read), over time we went to the cinema’s and both the cinema and TV replaced books for the longest time now, yet the need for a story remains.

A lot of us forgot the slogan (or were not aware), let us never do that again.

 

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December 16, 2019 · 12:50

Joke of 2019: United Nations

You might remember the article I wrote a few months ago when Eggnog Calamari (aka Ages Calamard) an essay writer at the UN wrote a piece where she used boatloads of circumstantial evidence (at best) and accused the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia of ordering the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. I looked at that part in ‘Demanding Dismissal‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), in that article I go over a number of issues and I also published the UN report in that article. Now, I am not stating that certain people are innocent, I cannot prove guilt or innocence either way, yet I get to question guilt in the UN report to a larger extent. So, if that organisation (or Joke) would have truly be consistent, they would have made similar steps in the the Saudi attacks that happened in September 2019, yet there we see “The UN has reportedly so far been unable to confirm Iran was involved in drone and cruise missile attacks on two key Saudi oil facilities in September“, you might remember the origins of the United Nations, It replaced the League of Nations as they were unable to limit the actions of the at that time active national bully Nazi Germany, so as we now see that the UN has been unable to modern day bully Iran, it has become the joke that the league of nations once were.

So when the BBC gave us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50742224) a few items, I decided to search a little further. When we look at the actions that instigated the damage in September 2019 there are a few issues that need to be looked at. 

The optional attackers

Basically that is a list of any attacker that could have been involved, let’s look at the list:

Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. This list are all the players that optionally could have instigated any attack. So let’s look at that list: Oman, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain and Jordan fall away as they have warm relationship with Saudi Arabia, in addition to this, there have not been any attacks or negative actions against either Saudi Arabia or Aramco, these elements take those players of the list. Iraq gets separate recognition, it seems that 15 agreements have become reality between the two countries and Saudi Arabia, whilst the Arab News gives us “Saudi Arabia donated $500M to support exports of Iraq and $267M to support development projects“. In addition to this, Iraq imports drones from China, none of the debris gives any indication that Chinese drones were in play. Even as Iraq has close relations to Iran, there is no indication that Iraq has any hostile intentions towards Saudi Arabia or any proxy agreement with Iran to attack Saudi Arabia. In addition to this, there is no indication that Kuwait has a trained drone group, or even the used cruise missiles are not in the arsenal of Kuwait, as far as I can tell Kuwait only has land based PAC-2 & PAC-3 Patriot missiles. For Qatar the issue is different, they are not on the friendliest terms and an attack (an airlift) from Qatar would be too visible from too many sides, in addition the Saudi Navy would be able to detect any missile launch from Qatar.

Israel has absolutely no plans to engage with Saudi Arabia ever, also, the materials used are not part of the Israeli defense forces. So at this point, Iran and Yemen remain.

Yemen

Yemen has every (self delusional) reason to attack Saudi Arabia and they made claim of this attack, yet let me give you a list why I doubt this.

Infrastructure, Yemen has no infrastructure left to create the drones, in addition, the entire arsenal gives rise to question Yemen as the guilty party, that is also seen in the UN through “the report also noted that the Houthis “have not shown to be in possession, nor been assessed to be in possession” of the drones used in the attacks“, there is another matter, when we consider the strike on Aramco locations and the hit percentage, we see that this in opposition against earlier strikes on Saudi Arabia over 6 months give a success rate that opposes this. In layman terms it translates to:  someone is playing on a slot machine (drone operator), and so far it got hits that do not register (which was fair enough) the attack on Aramco translate in that as getting on the same machine using 25 quarters 14 times the three sevens (jackpot) came up. Now we can consider that a machine gives a jackpot, yet to get it 14 times out of 25 quarters might be impossible, yet it is so unlikely that the likelihood is to be rejected. In an attack 25 drones and missiles were used, 14 hits that punctured storage tanks, three that disabled oil processing elements, it gives 17 debilitating hits and as such it cannot have been made by Yemeni forces. 

To be this good whilst there is no infrastructure to build drones is as far as I and several experts have been able to ascertain is impossible. 

In addition, do you remember how the Khashoggi report has that part from the CIA? The Calamard report gives us: “US officials expressed high confidence in the CIA assessment“, I looked at that in ‘Uber driving facts‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/11/13/uber-driving-facts/), the fact that we see (regarding the attack), “US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Iran was behind the attacks” (source Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post), yet it seems that the CIA part is not mentioned (does not come up) in the BBC article, is that not weird as well? 

In the second part, we see that Yemeni forces do not have ANYONE to fly drones to this degree, their training (mostly via Hezbollah) has been lacking for such a long flight, and all the previous attacks give rise to the fact that these drones were in the air at least 3 times longer, having to fly under the radar. After that we need to consider that to hit that many drones on that many targets could not have been done by one pilot, which makes the Yemeni claim of options and abilities almost ludicrous. Should this have been able then it could only have been with Iranian hardware usd by Iranian troops visiting, not even Hezbollah has this level of experience (as per their own history), although the likelihood that it was done by Hezbollah forces is higher than Yemeni forces, the alleged involvement of them in other Saudi raids makes the Aramco success it almost unbelievable.

From several expert sources we see that Yemen does not have the hardware, the UN even supports this view themselves, which now means that only Iran remains as the guilty party.

It is interesting that the UN dismisses any evidence to find the crown prince guilty of alleged assasination regardless of lack of evidence, yet it refuses to hold Iran to account when the list of evidence is increasingly long and showing several levels of Iranian involvement. That is just in case you were wondering why in 2019 the United Nations became a joke and a bad one at that.

The attack, whether from Yemen or from Iran would have required Iranian forces and Iranian hardware, that is the long play, the Yemenis could not have had this level of success even if they received all the hardware from Iran, their troops lack training on several fronts, the basic needs for the cruise missiles are not met by any Yemeni forces and as such the success rate of the missiles alone would have been impossible, the same can be stated for the drone operations. It is clear that it was Iran, their was too much success in this attack, if only 1-5 tanks were hit and 1-3 infrastructure buildings were hit it would be a much harder proof that Iran was guilty, they were so bound on making every hit count, that is the actual stage that sets Iran up as the guilty party, Yemen could never have succeeded to this degree, there is personally no doubt in my mind to that part in this. I also feel that several military experts share my view making the UN report, as well as the UN a joke and a bad one at that. The organisation that was created to stop the German Nazi bully now lets the Iranian bully get away with it all and as such it is my personal view that Secretary General António Guterres needs to get out whilst he can, even as the UN hides behind ‘a report that summarised the experts’ initial findings‘ (initial being the operative word, they are to be seen as the laughing stock, you see, from my point of view those people in charge have been allowing Iran to get away with too much as words like “Had we had been behind this, it would have been disastrous for Saudi Arabia“, I do not think that this is true, this was as good as it would get from Iranian forces. I agree with Saudi defence ministry spokesman Col Turki al-Malki who told reporters in Riyadh three days later (according to the BBC piece): “This attack did not originate from Yemen. Despite Iran’s best efforts to make it appear so, their collaboration with their proxy in the region to create this false narrative is clear.“

The biggest issues is not the story of the UN, it is the fact that I was able to punch holes in it is, the fact that this level of consideration is given to Iran by the UN is just overwhelmingly amazing, I wonder what global event the fail to interfere in, optionally because there is a larger political need, was that why they were set up? They might hide behind “The UN was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future wars, succeeding the ineffective League of Nations“, yet what are you when you do that by ignoring the acts of a bully? It makes you a tool and a tool never prevented anything, especially wars in the long term, tools merely make sure that the systems for war are tweaked to needed perfection.

That is merely my personal view, but there have been enough wars to prove me right and regarding this situation, Sun Tzu teaches us that all war is set to deception, and in this case I personally am calling the UN a deceived party, have a great day!

 

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December 13, 2019 · 12:21

Rise of the corporatocracy

Yes, there is a lot wrong in the UK, no one can deny this and an election does not tend to be the place to find out what is wrong, we all know that. The politician that kisses the baby on election week might be the one person who hates babies, it is almost a given, even as I illuminated the short sighted blunders of UK Labour, there is no doubt that all parties (i never investigated all of them) have shortcomings and they will all make carefully phrased promises that they can get out of the day after the election. It is not rocket science, they all entertain such paths and we basically live with it hoping that we over time make the right choice. I have always been a tory, yet I had no issues giving my congratulations to Chuka Umanna Yesterday on his LibDems standing which is pretty good. Yet for the most it is a better system that we have in Europe, so as I saw ‘‘Brutal, packed with untruths, uninspiring’: European press on UK election‘ an article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/12/brutal-packed-with-untruths-uninsipring-european-press-on-uk-election) I saw more, more than the headline and I hope others see it too. 

France

France gave us the quote “Boris Johnson: the liar weakening Europe“, Interesting is it not? ‘the liar weakening Europe‘ is a very distinct setting, a setting that happened BEFORE Boris took his present position, a setting that was decided on by voters and ‘weakening Europe’? Yes that is the worry of the corporations. You see With the UK leaving the EU the debt issues will rise to the top of nearly every nation in Europe, the UK has a much larger role to play and it wanted out. The stupidity of Mario Draghi will continue for at least 2 decades and the media is not ready to unite and state that these procedures and choices were a mistake, not or years. And for the longest time the EU was in a play where delay upon delay could keep the UK in the EU and that is now at an end and France will feel the pain of this decision, all European nations barr Germany, but they will all feel the impact and they are all scared and with them all corporations with European interests, now that the smoke is settling the plays become clear.

Germany

Germany is setting sights on Brexit, they are hoping for a Labour win because Labour is all about remaining in the EU, even as it is voiced as “A Labour victory would be a blessing for the economy. Because in the case of a victory, Corbyn wants to negotiate a ‘soft’ Brexit deal with the EU … which should be better for the economy than Johnson’s comparatively hard Brexit” I foresee a soft brexit claim, then a 180 degree on the exit and then a remain setting.

Spain

Spanish voices for the most seem to take the UK in an age of Trumpism and that is fine, it is not entirely incorrect, here we see the quote “Rafael Ramos, the London correspondent for La Vanguardia, filed a report from Tony Blair’s former constituency, Sedgefield. There he found Labour’s once impregnable “red wall” looking vulnerable, ” I had a similar view on ‘The speculative numbers‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/12/10/the-speculative-numbers/) three days ago. and at present the news is coming by that Boris Johnson will attain supremacy (not unexpected), yet also they give ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s election performance will be the worst by a Labour leader for more than 40 years. He will have done worse than‘, I made a similar prediction, although I never made any mention that it would be the worst in 40 years. 

However, the BBC forecast seems to think that it will be CON 368 – LAB 191 – SNP 55 – LD 13. They have much better predictive models, but I am at odds on the results for the LD, Chuka Umana might be the exemption, but I expected the LD to do much better, Yes I predicted a rough exodus of Labour members, yet I expected most of them to go towards an LD environment, not ending up in the CON field. People do not tend to go from Labour to Conservatives and visa versa, in this they would take an alternative and I expected the Greens to be the alternative choice in many cases, yet the numbers do not reflect that at present, and perhaps there will be an alternative reasoning, yet the view that I personally see is not the one that is shaping and of course, I need to ask questions of me and make alterations to me views after that fact. That is what happens, but I do not usually get it this wrong and even as the winner was never really in doubt, neither was the loser, but there is a midsection that (until the full picture) emerges over time and that one I saw change in a wrongful way, I admit that and now I have questions.

Russia

The Russian side is all about the collapse of the EU, they saw that coming and so did a few others, so the quote “Zhirinovsky was probably trolling, but the sentiment is real. Russia has largely welcomed the UK’s exit from the EU as proof that the European project is coming apart at the seams” is not that much of a surprise, we all saw the writing on the walls in Strasbourg

Italy

Here we see ““Socialism or Brexit? This is the Hamlet-like dilemma of the vote in the UK,” wrote Enrico Franceschini in La Repubblica on Thursday“, it is an important view, the Guardian is right, I never looked at it that way, but the danger of a two pronged solution and a polarisation of socialism versus reality is pretty much the core for the UK in the next 4-7 years. i voice it that way because the UK coffers are empty, there is a near immediate collapse of the NHS and the consequence is a struggle with socialistic views versus the reality that will bite everyone, there is no denying it and it will bite for at least 2-3 years, the fact that it will end the EU will also make for new truths to bare out, the EU is in a worse state and when that gets out the UK path will make sense and the EU will be in denial for a long time, its laws not ready to deal with Greece, with the debts of Italy and a few other things will surface, that reality will show the power of Brexit and corporations are afraid, their numbers and predictions will go straight out of the window, at that point the debts of the US and Japan will become very real. Their cushy jobs and fat paychecks end, it scares any board of directors based in the US, their life within the land of ‘milk and honey’ will become the sustenance of ‘water and bread’ that they pushed upon many others with the greatest of ease.

Netherlands

The Dutch view is echoes via the NRC, who has a flair for the dramatic, so when we see their quote ““poor on substance and rich in empty rhetoric” for an election that “could change the course of Brexit, and the country”” we see an actual truth, it is the reality TV of politics and it has been blazing for 12 weeks 24:7, I am not surprised to see this. I just now see the message (8 minutes ago) that Jo Swinson will lose her seat to the SNP representative, OK, it shows the growth for the SNP, yet I feel a little sad for Jo Swinson, she achieved a great deal for the LD in such a short time. We also see here that the LD will win 13 seats, that is more like it! I expected the LD to be a much larger winner, yet it could be a stepping stone for the LD for the next election, Labour is unlikely to fall into any line within the next three years, the could still remain the larger loser in the next elections, they only have Jeremy Corbyn to blame and he will get blamed, make no mistake on that. 

Scandinavia

They (the Guardian) and I might have left Scandinavia for last but they do bring an interesting point to the table. With “Sweden’s Svenska Dagbladet described a country hopelessly split, and in multiple directions, leaving many voters facing “an impossible choice. How is a Conservative who wants to stay in the EU supposed to vote? Or a social democrat who believes Jeremy Corbyn is a leftwing extremist?”“, it was a fair point to bring, as a conservative I had no issues, it would all result in a stronger win for the Tories, yet I expected that some of those views would be the stuff for the LD to hunt for and bring those people into the LD field, apparently not enough was done there. Basically they all agree that the views in the UK are polarised, yet none of them take a deeper look at why they are polarised. The Greek setting changed EVERYTHING, without it Nigel Farage would never have sought the limelight, the EU through indecision only had itself to thank for that, the irresponsible spending by Mario Draghi (€ 3 trillion) is a much larger setting and whilst the EU went into managed bad news forms, we see a much larger failing in the EU, Farage started something that the people accepted, the EU is a waste of too many resources and the corporations paid to fuel it all are now in a desperate setting to avoid what comes next. Or did you think that a gravy train fuels itself? 

The UK is in a stage where it is almost desperate to seek its voice whilst the choir of 27 other voices are drowning out national needs. And when the UK does move, you will see a changing picture overnight of EU nations with towering debts, when the UK is no longer part of that, the debt stage will change and it will impact everything, that is the part that others seem to ignore, debt was, debt has been, there is no debt tomorrow, that is the wrong thought, debt must be repaid and when the UK leaves the debt picture changes and some banks will seek early payment on several debts. that is the reality of what they face. 

All this whilst the votes are still being counted in the UK.

I expect the managed bad news cycles to continue in Europe for a few days, the UK will have to lick its wounds, the Tories are up 51 seats (a lot more than I predicted), Labour is down 71 seats (I expected less worse) yet the confounding truth is that LD did not do as well as I expected. The stage is changing even further, as the WP gave us ‘Trump caves again to corporate lobbying pressure as he flip-flops on flavored e-cigarettes‘ (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/11/18/daily-202-trump-caves-again-to-corporate-lobbying-pressure-as-he-flip-flops-on-flavored-e-cigarettes/5dd2377d88e0fa10ffd20edd/), we see that corporations are stronger than ever, even as it is given in the age of Trump, ther power came from the last 3 administrations, those corporations are in the know in how much dangers they are as their votes are on consumerism and debt, debt they need to see continuing and that is now in danger, the UK elections is polarising that part of all this right now. And the part where we see this come to light was given to us almost two weeks ago when we were given ‘12 EU states reject move to expose companies’ tax avoidance‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/28/12-eu-states-reject-move-to-expose-companies-tax-avoidance), the article mentioned Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and Croatia. And only mentioned Sweden’s express view “its government feared that the directive might water down their higher standards on transparency“, which entirely different from Ireland where we saw that the IFAC (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council) warning its government “the country’s economy has become so reliant on taxes paid by multinationals that half of all of corporate taxes paid in the nation come from just 10 global companies“, 10 companies setting the taste of 50% of all corporate taxation, so for those doubting the stage I had on Corporatocracy, consider the 12 countries blocking the view we would get and why. Although in this instance the 11 (taking out Sweden) is almost 50% of the entire EU, and corporations have a lot of power, also in the 15 not mentioned. Do you still think that the entire UK exit from the EU was a simple clear cut problem? I never claimed that, but I did make the claim that the UK is better out the EU than in and this election is the first step in completing that part, corporations be damned!

 

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December 12, 2019 · 13:49

Creation of the non-Humanitarian

It is a simple thing, according to many religions there are gods, in some cases they refer to the same being, yet there are two groups, the agnosts, they believe that there is something larger than all of us in the universe, but they are not sure about the name, the shape and where he or she is at. Then there are atheists, they categorically deny the existence of a stronger power and they have their reasoning in this. This happens and we shrug on people who are one or the other and we go on with our lives. 

Now what happens when these two groups enter humanitarian sides? 

There are then two groups, those who believe that there are humanitarian values to be found in some way but they have no idea what shape it takes and they will evolve into homo sapiens, the people that believe in self and ‘self’ alone. Weirdly enough these groups are created by human rights organisations. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/11/bae-systems-accused-of-being-party-to-alleged-war-crimes) give a visible rise to all this. Companies like the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) are creating these two new waves.

Apart from the denial of the reality of what is happening, we see that they are groups that are just flaky, the fact that they attack one arms dealer and then go in denial of what is actually happening is just too weird. How can we believe in some humanitarian approach of being in denial, whilst we know that an alternative is available next door? It is a one sided approach to being in denial, others can buy weapons wherever they like, except from us. What these people don’t understand is the fact that dealing with a nation like Saudi Arabia would open doors for talks, would open doors for optional resolutions. When we look at the War in Yemen we see two things:

  1. At almost every turn we see the Saudi Coalition painted as a negative force
  2. At almost every turn the actions of Hezbollah and Iran in the Yemen region was not reported on and ignored.

These two points do not make good bedfellows, they have polarised views and to up all that I placed an image (that came from the Guardian article at https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jun/20/uk-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-for-use-in-yemen-declared-unlawful) with the view of the CAAT that I saw mattered, the view of two suspected teachers and two grandmothers, none of them with a proper global view, all just out there to stop UK Economy and having no idea why they are there in the first place.

It seems like a harsh view, yet the problem that everyone ignored is that the weapons that Houthis fired came from Iran, forces came from Hezbollah and both are Iranian fueled, they get there weapons most likely from Russian sources (partial speculation). 

So in all this, when we see people with such blinded agenda’s and no idea on the hard that they are instilling, how can we remain Humanitarian when we see such stupidity? I get it that there are people that are against the arms trade, yet at that point they are against ALL arms trade, that is fine, I get it some people hate weapons, so I am OK with that sentiment, yet the reality of Yemen is a lot more and to blatantly believe in #StopArmingSaudi without knowing what Iran and Hezbollah are up to is just stupid, it is like saying to the boy in the street, you should not defend yourself whilst he is being attacked by two bullies. I personally believe it to be a shortsighted view of pacifism. And I do not oppose Pacifism, The movie Mel Gibson ‘Hacksaw Ridge‘ shows us a real pacifist, he did not stay at home, he went to war as a medic and he did so without brandishing a weapon because of his views. A role beautifully played by Andrew Garfield. Now the world is no longer that simple, no longer that Black and White, Yet I wonder how those two teachers and those two grandmothers survive giving aid in Sanaa, even as they stopped BAE Systems, even as the achieved #StopArmingSaudi, when we see that Houthi forces are given new rockets and guns by Iran, whilst they are restocked by Hezbollah, will they survive with their narrow views? As we see that Houthi rebels are attacking aid workers, killing plenty in the process, none of those troops were supported by BAE Systems were they? 

How can we live in such ways with a limited mind?

So whilst we read “BAE Systems is cited in the complaint because the British arms giant is the principal supplier of Eurofighter Tornado and Typhoon jet aircraft to the Royal Saudi Air Force, which has conducted a string of deadly strikes Yemen, as is the UK arm of Raytheon, which manufactures Paveway IV guided missiles used in the conflict“, the question becomes are these Humanitarians meely humanitarians or are they opposing Saudi Arabia, are the anti-Muslim? And when we see “It also references Airbus companies in Spain and Germany, France’s Dassault and Thales, Italian group Leonardo, the Italian arm of Germany’s Rheinmetall and units of European missile manufacturer MBDA in France and Britain. Dassault supplies fighter aircraft to the UAE” I get a chill wondering whether these people are merely there to give Iran a free pass to prolong the suffering in Yemen, because that is what they are achieving. So whilst we get emotional over “A child injured in a deadly Saudi-led coalition airstrike in 2018“, all whilst we ignore the dozens of images that we see regarding the atrocities committed by Houthi forces all over Yemen, and that is not even the larger number of casualties committed by Houthi forces as they stopped humanitarian aid to civilian victims, that number goes towards 50.000 alone and will double by years end, in all this we seem to think that #StopArmingSaudi was the answer, all whilst the parties are ignoring the part that Iran plays in all this, any Humanitarian that is this short sighted is not a Humanitarian, they are merely part of the problem, that is the realisation that they need to make. I know they put on blinders and go with: ‘But what if we stop one, then the next, then the next‘ it is the ‘What If’ group of people that are the danger, this mess is a lot more complex than anything we know and there might be cause to interfere, but why not by having an international naval fleet who sinks ANY ship sailing towards Yemen carrying weapons? That too would have stopped the suffering to go on this long years ago. But that was not done, was it? 

The reality of the matter is that BAE Systems was not a bad organisation, the Saudi Government was not evil, and the mess we see in Yemen is caused through an uprising supported by Iran whilst the legitimate government asked Saudi Arabia, their neighbour to intervene, Iran is not even on that entire landmass, and Hezbollah is 4 countries away and a terrorist organisation. Is it not interesting how all those elements were overlooked by Humanitarian organisations?

There are even more factors visible, but I believe that they will muddy the view, the important factors are out there now, including the idea that places like CAAT are a reason to stop having any humanitarian views at all, what we do not realise is the mere fact is that the Humanitarian ideals are supposed to be: “having concern for or helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people. of or relating to ethical or theological humanitarianism“, what we see here is merely driving Corporatocratic ideals. Of course the people at CAAT will deny that this is so, yet their actions are very much driving corporatocratic ideals, just not in the UK. And when we see the one quote in the article when we read “arms made by 10 companies “contributed to the capacity” of the Saudi-led coalition in the conflict“, a stage where there is complete denial of the Iranian side of the matter, denial of the Hezbollah side of the matter, a stage that prolongs the armed conflict, we see the aside that opposes Humanitarian needs, we see a different side and the people all remain in denial, mainly because those two grandmothers looked so cute, two nana’s trying to #StopArmingSaudi. 

It is nice to know that Iran and Hezbollah did not get mentioned in that ordeal, you cannot have a one sided humanitarian approach, that is perhaps the strongest side of all and the 50,000 cadavers in Yemen are proof of that. 

 

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December 11, 2019 · 16:32

Lying through Hypes

I was thinking on a Huawei claim that I saw (in the image), the headline ‘AI’s growing influence on the economy’ sounds nice, yet AI does not exist at present,not True AI, or perhaps better stated Real AI. At the very least two elements of AI are missing so that whatever it is, it is not AI. is that an indication on just how bad the economy is? Well, that is up for debate, but what is more adamant is what the industry is proclaiming is AI and cashing in on something that is not AI at all.

Yet when we look at the media, we are almost literally thrown to death with AI statements. So what is going on? Am I wrong?

No! 

Or at least that is my take on the matter, I believe that we are getting close to near AI, but what the hype and what marketing proclaim is AI, is not AI. You see, if there was real AI we would not see articles like ‘This AI is a perpetual loser at Othello, and players love it‘, we are handed “The free game, aptly called “The weakest AI Othello,” was released four months ago and has faced off against more than 400,000 humans, racking up a paltry 4,000 wins and staggering 1.29 million losses as of late November” this is weird, as we look at SAS (a data firm) we see: “Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks“, which is an actual part of an actual AI, so why do we see the earlier mentioned 400,000 players with 1.29 million wins whilst the system merely won 4,000 times shows that it is not learning, as such is cannot be an AI. A slightly altered SAS statement would be “Most AI examples rely heavily on deep learning and natural language processing. Using these technologies, computers can be trained to accomplish specific tasks by processing large amounts of data and recognizing patterns in the data” The SAS page (at https://www.sas.com/en_au/insights/analytics/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html) also gives us the image where they state that today AI is seen as ‘Deep Learning’, which is not the same.

It is fraught with a dangerous situation, the so called AI is depending on human programming and cannot really learn, merely adapt to programming. SAS itself actually acknowledges this with the statement “Quick, watch this video to understand the relationship between AI and machine learning. You’ll see how these two technologies work, with examples” they are optionally two sides of a coin, but not the same coin, if that makes sense, so in that view the statement of Huawei makes no sense at all, how can an option influence an economy when it does not exist? Well, we could hide behind the lack of growth because it does not exist. Yet that is also the stage that planes are finding themselves in as they are not equipped with advanced fusion drives, it comes down to the same problem (one element is most likely on Jupiter and the other one is not in our solar system). When we realise that we can seek advanced fusion as much as we want, but the elements requiring that are not in our grasp, just like AI, it is shy a few elements so whatever we call AI is merely something that is not really AI. It is cheap marketing for a generation that did not look beyond the term. 

The Verge (a https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/28/18197520/ai-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-computational-science) had a nice summary, I particularly liked (slightly altered) “the Oral-B’s Genius X toothbrush that touted supposed “AI” abilities. But dig past the top line of the press release, and all this means is that it gives pretty simple feedback about whether you’re brushing your teeth for the right amount of time and in the right places. There are some clever sensors involved to work out where in your mouth the brush is, but calling it artificial intelligence is gibberish, nothing more“, we can see this as the misuse of the term AI, and we are handed thousands of terms every day that misuse AI, most of it via short messages on Social Media. and a few lines later we see the Verge giving us “It’s better, then, to talk about “machine learning” rather than AI” and it is followed by perhaps one of the most brilliant statements “Machine learning systems can’t explain their thinking“, it is perhaps the clearest night versus day issue that any AI system would face and all these AI systems that are dependable growing any economy aren’t and the world (more likely the greed driven entities) cannot grow any direction in this. they are all hindered what marketing states it needs to be whilst marketing is clueless on what they face, or perhaps they are hoping that the people remain clueless on what they present.

So as the verge ends with “In the here and now, artificial intelligence — machine learning — is still something new that often goes unexplained or under-examined” we see the nucleus of the matter, we are not asking questions and we are all accepting what the media and its connected marketing outlets are giving us, and when we make the noticeable jump that there is no AI and it is merely Machine learning and deeper learning, whilst we entertain the Verge examples “How clever is a book?” and “What expertise is encoded in a frying pan?“

We need to think things through (the current proclaimed AI systems certainly won’t). We are back in the 90’s where concept sellers are trying to fill their pockets all whilst we all perfectly well know (through applied common sense) that what they are selling is a concept and no concept will fuel an economy that is a truth that came and stood up when a certain Barnum had its circus and hid behind well chosen marketing. So whenever you get some implementation of AI on LinkedIn of Facebook you are being lied to (basically you are marketed) or pushed into some direction that such articles attempt to push you in. 

That is merely my view on the matter and you are very welcome to get your own view on the matter as well, I merely hope that you will look at the right academic papers to show you what is real and what is the figment of someone’s imagination. 

 

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December 11, 2019 · 16:15

The List

What happens when we demand certain action by the media, yet that same media might not think it is in their interest to pursue such actions, will the people win, or will the media win. It is a direct question as we are being told (via the media) that we have been kept in the dark for years now and we need the media to step up, will they do it?

I have been playing with this idea for a while now and I think it has become a largely visible issue now. I am taking the action as per ‘Greenland’s ice sheet melting seven times faster than in 1990s‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/10/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-seven-times-faster-than-in-1990s), and it is time to recognise the players. 

The first fact is that this particular issue has been playing for well over 20 years, so we now have a timeline. Even as the media now alerts us through “Scale and speed of loss much higher than predicted, threatening inundation for hundreds of millions of people”, the issue has been playing for well over a decade, so we now can demand a list.

The list needs to show ANY scientist who have been hiding or trivialising facts. These scientists are NEVER EVER to be considered for government jobs or for environmental jobs, they are to be named and any of them attached to big business will find their presence to be a nullifying factor in assessing a company’s environmental value. When we are given the value “Glaciers calving icebergs in south-west Greenland, which has lost 3.8tn tonnes of ice since 1992, and the rate of ice loss has risen from 33bn tonnes a year in the 1990s to 254bn tonnes a year in the past decade“, we need to see the dangers that some scientists have presented us with. So any scientist who altered their views to please governments will alo be marked and in that stage we will see a fading view of intentional misrepresentation. Scientists have been protected by cushy jobs for the longest of times, by smearing the truth in different directions by marking these people governments will have to face the issues thrown at them, not set them to lay by. 

Even now as we see: “That means sea level rises are likely to reach 67cm by 2100, about 7cm more than the IPCC’s main prediction. Such a rate of rise will put 400 million people at risk of flooding every year, instead of the 360 million predicted by the IPCC, by the end of the century” we see an issue that could have been a reason for illumination years ago, but in the age of 1996-2006 the world was swallowed by the need of greed. Even now, we see blatant misrepresentation ‘Fossil fuel firms ‘could be sued’ for climate change‘, is that so? So we want to shove that bill to the Middle East? How about shoving it off to the US, they wanted a car driven population. So as I see ‘Filipino human rights committee finds world’s biggest oil companies have legal and moral responsibilities to act‘, which sounds partly fine when we see the international actions by the Royal Dutch Shell, yet in the end it is an economy that pushed for $29 plane seats, as such that the economy suddenly had cash to burn (almost literally), yet no one sets the value of such drives to the test. So as we are treated to “The head of a Philippines Commission on Human Rights panel, which has been investigating climate change for three years, revealed its conclusions on Monday that major fossil fuel firms may be held legally responsible for the impacts of their carbon emissions” (at https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cop25-madrid-climate-change-greta-thunberg-fossil-fuel-lawsuit-a9239601.html) we see an absolute absence of the economies that pushed for those solutions, all to ignore a stage of economy no one wants to hear about in our times of debt and debt driven economies. Even now as we see the stories from half a dozen sources go on about how tree planting jobs could be yours, whilst NASA Engineer Mark Rober (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7nJBFjKqAY) showed a working solution that was modern and could be implemented months ago. he even gave visibility at https://teamtrees.org/, where we see that in 6 weeks he got to 17,756,768 of their required goal of 20,000,000 trees. A clear solution that is (obviously) being ignored by mainstream media. Even as the Independent (at https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/brexit-tree-planting-michael-gove-eu-conservatives-a9205371.html) gives us “‘It’s nonsense’: Michael Gove criticised after blaming EU for government missing tree-planting target” on November 16th 2019, way after the Mark Rober solution was presented, and whilst he presented it, it is clear that this working format was already in existence, so whilst Greenpiece and Michael Gove are butting heads, neither of them make mention of the solution that a NASA Engineer gave visibility to and tried (via viral ways) to entice people to help him get to the 20 million tree target. As I see it, the government, Greenpiece and several journo’s all missed the point that was out there to see for all. I wonder how many scientists have been overlooking certain solutions.

So whilst we get another clear view via “Successive Conservative governments have already ensured we will miss one tree-planting target in 2020, and we’re on track to miss the one in 2022. Now they’ve set themselves a new target for 2025 and people will be wondering whether this is raising the ambition or just moving the goalposts yet again“, we do not see the names of the people who have been pushing for these changes, I think that we are entitled to that, those people should not be allowed to hide behind the media, we are allowed to see the emphasis of all who agree of changed goalposts. And even as UK Labour will find some picture (like a baby in a hospital) to hide behind, lets face the truth that the sliding environmental values started in the 90’s, that measn that both sides of the isle is guilty of environmental rape. 

So whilst we see “Parties across the political spectrum have been boasting about the tree-planting efforts they would undertake if they won the general election” we should add the need to invalidate their right to govern for no less than 3 administrations should they FAIL to keep their word, especially when a happily flaky NASA engineer was able to show the opposite in a clear video, all with examples on how to tackle merely some of the issues we face on how to quickly plant trees (in an affordable way).

This all loosely relates an article in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/07/oceans-losing-oxygen-at-unprecedented-rate-experts-warn) ‘Oceans losing oxygen at unprecedented rate, experts warn‘, the fact that we see “Dead zones – where oxygen is effectively absent – have quadrupled in extent in the last half-century, and there are also at least 700 areas where oxygen is at dangerously low levels, up from 45 when research was undertaken in the 1960s“, so where were all the alert signs a decade ago? Two decades ago? Were we all asleep? Was it hidden in the news papers on page 35 below the fold? The numbers give us that 650 oxygen deprivation areas were added in half a century, I reckon it would have been news two decades ago, so who aided people to hide these truths? As I see it those people are equally dangerous as mass murderers and any scientist on that stack of choices gets to be put on a list. So any scientist that is considering the ‘befehl ist befehl‘ excuse that some Germans used in November 1945, they better realise that the people had no qualms about hanging those people as well. In light of some information we can optionally agree with “the most profound impact on the marine environment has come from fishing. Ending overfishing is a quick, deliverable action which will restore fish populations“, if that is true, then why is there no global agreement on the actions of overfishing? Why do we see the laughingly inactions by Australian law groups in the Great Barrier reef? Why are poachers not arrested, their boats set up for action in another state (to prevent reacquisition) to limit poaching? There are dozens of other options and actions not being seen and the inactions against criminals acting against the environment is an almost global problem, as such the inactions of governments is becoming more and more debatable.

As such I wonder when the media will look at an actual list and give the people a clear view on who is misrepresenting the factual parts, I wonder what we see those scientists say. And lets not forget the number one action that governments use when the data does not meet the question, at that point some will merely rephrase the question, have you considered how often this solution has been an option for governments in environmental questions?

 

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December 10, 2019 · 18:43

The speculative numbers

The election in the UK is getting to a close, soon the die will be cast and the people will have to actually vote. As I was looking at the news and the elective numbers (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec/08/election-polls-uk-2019-latest-opinion-poll-tracker-tories-labour) it was a feeling that the numbers are not entirely adding up. Two stand out, first Labour is too high at 33% and the LibDems are too low at 13%. It is a personaly feeling, but I get the feeling that the LibDems are in a better place and it is thanks to Jeremy Corbyn that Labour is in a worse place, I believe that Labour dug its own grave, so when we read “Corbyn said he thought Labour had “got the message out” across the six-week campaign and rejected calls to encourage tactical voting to defeat Boris Johnson” (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/09/jeremy-corbyn-labour-strategy-general-election-endgame) The first issue that Corbyn does not want to get out is “Massive leak debunks UK Labour’s claim it is dealing with anti-Semitism” (Source: The Times of Israel), whilst we get introduced to “internal files saying there are over 130 unresolved cases; members who called for extermination of all Jews said to stay in party for months“, so this is not a dozen or so, it is stated to be 130 cases, that is a large group of complaints, and the fact that Labour has not dealt with that for months now will hurt them at election time, lets face it, would you realy want to vote for a party that has an antisemitic approach to life?

The fact that the Labour claims can be debunked to such a degree is a larger issue, it shows that Labour has no intention to move anywhere, it merely wants to be elected and to get the numbers to this degree in this was should have the people running for the hills and that is where the second item gets us. This part we get from Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/labour-red-wall-creaks-loyal-voters-parties-191207144943188.html) where we see: ‘Labour’s ‘red wall’ creaks as loyal voters consider other parties‘, here we get ““A defeat here might teach the Labour Party to wake up and listen to the people,” says the 27-year-old former Labour supporter, his flat cap sheltering him from the rain. “I’ve lost faith in them. They have broken promises … the country voted in favour of Brexit but they have turned away from that.”” It is not merely Brexit, Corbyn has been on the ‘promise’ stand again whilst the people know that there is no way to pay for it, the people are slightly less dumb then Labour took them to be and when we add other articles up to the entire setting, we will see that the Labour numbers are lower, a fair amount lower and I beliee that these people have been seeking another party, I believe that the LibDems will get them, even as some will go towards the greens, They are at 3%, some will attach themselves on the principle of the matter, but I reckon that the LibDems will get the larger group, around 4%, making the stage for Labour 29% (1% towards greens). I doubt that any of them will going to the tories field, it would be too much of a change for them. Al Jazeera also gave “His message appears to be gaining traction, with YouGov data suggesting 44 seats are set to swing from Labour to the Conservatives” I personally doubt that, Yes, tories will gain more seats, but not directly from Labour, It will be more of an instance where labour loses to the LibDems and it will make Tories the larger party in some cases, yet a few of these seats will move towards the LibDems, it depends how large the losses were for labour and how large the Tories already were. Even as headlines were giving us last month ‘Labour’s task now is to make its promises seem real‘ there is a lack of faith in Labout to deliver what they claim and the antisemitic part is still there, also waning votes to other players. 

That feeling is not unique, some polling offices have Labour dropping from -5% up to -10%, those are influential numbers and depending on where that drop is, UK Labour could lose a lot. And that is not all, in the earlier mentioned article we take another look, it starts with “some candidates have complained is so packed with consumer giveaways that many voters are baffled” followed with “he pointed to the “enthusiasm of people to write it” and the need to set out Labour’s policies in detail on issues including the environment. “I think it’s right to do that,” he added“, it is what I call the empty promise side, there is no money, any MP claiming that there is money to give away is a folly and a danger to its party. There will not be any cash available until 3-4 years after Brexit, and we know that Corbyn is not that stupid, but it will be the only way for him to get the votes to be a governing party and whatever he gives away will set the economic setback twice the amount of the outstanding debt, so when he comes with a year of relief, it will hit the UK consumers hard for at least two years, so he could set austerity up for another 8 years, that is the fear I have, thank god I am a conservative and I am please (at present) that too many people have doubts on the UK Labour manifesto, no matter how enthousiastically it was written, we will see soon enough, the election is only two days away at present, I wonder how correct I will be and I will look at the numbers again at that point. 

 

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