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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December 9, 2019 · 16:50

Is it progress?

We have at times a fair feeling of what costs are required in any business, we are at times a little off, we are at times a little bemused, but what is the feeling that people got two days ago when the Financial Times gave us ‘Europe’s banks slash 60,000 jobs as outlook turns negative‘? The story (at https://www.ft.com/content/e17ee0f2-183b-11ea-9ee4-11f260415385) seems to hand over another part of a story, but not the one that is out in the lighters. When we are confronted with ‘European bosses have been left with little option but to slash tens of thousands more jobs to try to address their chronically poor profitability‘, we might think that banks are unprofitable, yet the entire debt issues seemingly takes that out of the equation. When you look around in your area, are there more banks or less banks? There is another side, any debt driven errors and system malfunctions are now clearly in the hands of the banks, this means that THEY must give rise to repairs, to paying for the issues at hand and they are not allowed to pass these costs onto the customers. You see 60,000 jobs are ‘suddenly’ regarded as ‘poor profitability‘. It seems that the data dimensionality of banks is almost literally set to ‘profit through inactions‘ and as such they must pay for the blowback because inaction is never a cause of non stop profit.

So when we see: “lenders across Germany, UK, France, Spain and Switzerland have collectively announced more than 60,000 jobs cuts this year” and we investigate the stage, we would come to very different conclusions. Yet the picture is not that clear, the graphics that the article show, an image that include those trading below book value and those above book value gives a different picture, it shows a remarkable group of European and Rest of World banks trading below book value, so they are trading at a loss, which is of course debatable at the best of times. In that group we find ING, HSBC, Deutsche bank, Santander and a few others, the question becomes, why were they allowed to trade below book values in the first place? and it opens up a can of worms on several sides. As such we see a repetition of the Dutch bad bank issues when we are confronted with “resulting in 18,000 job losses and the creation of a new “bad bank” to dispose of €288bn of unwanted assets” Yet what happened to the commissions of hundreds of staff members as close to a third of a trillion is not returned? We merely see banks that wanted to look good whilst there was no reason to see them as good, so as such “chief executive Christian Sewing announced a retreat from investment banking over the summer, resulting in 18,000 job losses” makes me wonder about the levels of stupidity allowed at Deutsche Banks, does that not count for you? I wonder if we get an article on just how much the bunglings of Christian Sewing got him paid, in base income and bonuses. The fact that Deutsche Bank is losing one in five jobs is a larger issue, the idea that one in five jobs are lost in a bank shows that they have been playing the numbers and in all this europe will see another wave of bank responsibility whilst it is done AFTER the fact, so why was the EU not on top of this? And people complain about me mentioning the entire EU gravy train, I reckon that this example should set the straight, the EU have been facilitating to a much larger degree and the taxpayer gets to pay the bill, or did you think that shoving ‘a new “bad bank” to dispose of €288bn of unwanted assets‘ was done for corporate responsibilities. 

It gets to be a lot worse, Moody’s which does not have the greatest reputation when we look at financial meltdowns is stated to have said “Moody’s, which this week changed its outlook for global banks to negative from stable, warns that the “profitability gap between euro-area banks and global peers will widen further” in the medium term despite the large headcount reductions” yet when we mull over the numbers (Deutsche Bank with one in five jobs lost) gives out a whole different stage when we are confronted with “this week changed its outlook for global banks to negative from stable“, all whilst the numbers show that this was a flaw in the making, months in the making, as such it makes Moody’s a joke, not a reporting entity.

So all in al it is not consolidation, but a lack of oversight that is causing additional pain to the industry, I wonder how long it will take the other newspapers to catch on, and this is not limited to banks, this will take on a larger role all over Europe. Yet the gravy train will ignore the pains and it will support its own interests through recommendations.

 

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December 6, 2019 · 18:09

Weapons on special

If there is one place where the Status Quo would be ensured, it would be the arms industry. It is as polarised as anything and some long term ‘friendships’ go back decades. So when I see that Egypt is making waves towards the SU-35 (instead of the F-35), the first two will arrive shortly, ahead of about 2 dozen planes compromising of $2 billion in revenue. When we add Turkey who already had moved towards the S-400 missile solution, whilst at the same time pushing for the Russian SU-35 as well. So as Russian hardware is moving towards Turkey, Egypt and India, we see a much larger shift in the military hardware department. 

Then there is the UAE where the planes are not merely bought, the UAE is now vying for a building contract, and with that in mind, there is every chance that Saudi Arabia will also get a push into the Rusian hardware environment. Algeria is stated to be on that ship already, yet the issue now is not that the Russian fleet is finding new considerations, it is that as Russia makes headway all over the Middle East, America is taken off the field as consideration, so when people clap themselves on the back on how arms were taken away from middle eastern players, a toxic non option, we see that business partners switch out and US congress might pat themselves on the back on how they prevented weapons to be gained in the middle east, whilst in principle the US was taken out of the Middle Eastern consideration.

In an age where the US cannot afford any opposition as they need to deal with $23 trillion in debt, they merely ended up losing $15 billion in revenue, that has to bite and that is only at this point, if there is a  larger contingency towards alternatives there is every chance that Russian hardware will gain middle eastern footing to a much larger degree. 

When did the world sign up for that?

Well it did when it started to paint the issues through the media ‘UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia unlawful, court of appeal declares’, or perhaps all that Campaign Against Arms Trade ideology in an age where if one does not supply, the other side will, you did think that through, did you?

It was like watching two teachers and two nana’s holding up a sign, making the statement that Saudi Arabia was naughty and we should not deal with them, well do not worry, for every arms dealer in the UK there are close to a dozen not connected to UK revenue. So the term  #StopArmingSaudi was a good way to advertise towards places like Russia that they could get these customers if they were interested, and they were. As I see it, there was a gap of £4.7 billion in hardware needs that Russia could satisfy, as well as any other needs, because when they become the trusted deliverer of hardware they also get all kinds of other deals, deals that the UK needed and the UK dies not get to cry foul at that point, they merely get to point at the CAAT and state “This is what you got us“, and so far so good for Rusia, is it not? 

Even as we see places like Defense News give us ‘Russia’s S-400: An offer US partners should refuse‘, we need to see behind the deals and see the change of weaponry to a much larger degree. so as we are told ‘the Trump administration wisely decided July 17 to remove Turkey from the F-35 fighter program‘, the truth of the matter is that the entire F-35 program was oversold and Russia is countering it all by also offering the SU-35 and in some cases the SU-57 stealth fighter. so whilst some rely on “If Riyadh adds insult to injury and procures the S-400, it could represent a tipping point in the relationship with Washington — especially on Capitol Hill“, the truth is that the Hill as well as a few other players have injured themselves in billions, the oldest issue was always a given, Saudi has no intentions to attack Nato grounds, we knew that and we now have the same situation but without the friendship and without the revenue, it was not that simple, was it?

So whilst the White House notices “the F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities” we see another matter, we see Egypt, Algeria, UAE, India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey all selecting a Russian solution to national defense. that is only 6, there are currently 4 other players all ready to select Russian hardware. All whilst the media gives us ‘The Pentagon is battling the clock to fix serious, unreported F-35 problems‘, ‘Supersonic speeds could cause big problems for the F-35′s stealth coating‘ and those are merely in June, the F-35 has a few additional problems, even as the plane has been on the designer table since 2006 whilst there was a sample flying, it seems that there are setback upon setback and that merely stokes Russian fires. In all this Politico gave it in 2015 “By 2014, the program was “$163 billion over budget [and] seven years behind schedule”“, yet that is something to be proud off. 

It is in this environment that we find weapons on special, well perhaps ‘special’ is the wrong phrase to use, they are up for grass from other delivery agents and payment is often a larger debatable issue, especially if a new hardware solution provider gets to make an entrance into other places, places he was not greeted into but that is another matter, it seems that the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant will optionally send a Fortnum & Mason Christmas basket to the manager of CAAT, it’s the least that they can do (and I just want to see those CAAT faces when they get one).

 

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December 5, 2019 · 18:19

NATO @ 70

Yes, there have been a few issues in the last few weeks and if we try to highlight to pieces we would go crazy, mainly because one element truly is less likely to be one. Too many issues cross contaminate and give rise to other elements, as much as we do not like it, so is the issue of NATO. even from the first image we see (Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan get close at the summit in Watford), we get the issue of treason to deal with (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/how-does-nato-look-at-the-age-of-70-its-complicated). We seemingly forget that Turkey was the one nation stopping US assistance until all debts were forgiven, you remember those two buildings in New York? They were no longer there and hours later and it started a larger war, but Turkey stated that even as a NATO party it was supposed to be on our side, it merely was on its own side. We then seemingly forget the issues that plagued Turkey, we did not ask for any support on the hundreds of journalists it put in prison, we seemingly forgot to give any level of documentation from  Turkey, and even now, we treat it like it is an ally as it has given a larger concern to Russian hardware. NATO did nothing in light of all this, you see any corporatocracy is about the revenue of the whole and limiting that is a larger concern to those in control in Strasbourg, we could even argue that Turkey played the game brilliantly. Yet the people @ NATO are not given any requirements for evidence and for accountability.

Consider the quote we see: “Nato’s focus continues to spread. The summit is the first time its leaders have considered the rise of China, which has never been a focus for the organisation; they also confirmed that it was time for Nato to have a military presence in space, and they worried about cyberwarfare and Russian disinformation“, the two elements in play are 

  1. Rise of China tech (Huawei in 5G)
  2. Russian data bindings.

The two elements are given in different stages in the statement and off course they are given in a different light, yet the larger given setting has ben visible to a much larger issue. it is about economic advantage and NATO has none to play, merely the use of fear mongering that goes without saying, even as the UK PM adds to the fire with ‘Boris Johnson suggests Huawei role in 5G might harm UK security‘ the truth of the matter is that both the UK and the US still have not shown ANY LEVEL OF EVIDENCE that this is (going to be) the case, they are the tools of a corporatocracy trying to hold onto the next iteration of economy, a place they cannot be because they relied on flaccid technologists to create IP instead of relying on the status quo to continue, both elements fell short and the advantage of the far east came into play. This is the direct result of short sightedness and to be honest, my IP going to Huawei will be just fabulous, it would for me be the difference between a value of $2 billion and optionally $4 billion and I get 35% of either that amount (I’d be happy with either setting). 

In the second the entire consideration of Russian data bindings. As they get to syphon off the entire social media they get an advanced edition of data, the advantage that the US banked on is lost to them, or better stated they are not the only ones with access and for corporatocracy that is a larger failing, data shared is data lost meaning that larger bulks of data will go towards Russian entrepreneurs and they are hungry for a slice of the revenue cake that is in circulation, it is an amalgamation of revenues that are overlapping and larger pieces of it are starting to be lost to places like NATO, making their position smaller and more scrutinised than ever before, that is the consideration that one faces when one is nothing more than a stepping stone for any corporatocracy. It does not end there, because of the fiasco’s that the US introduced to NATO security, the first was the USS Zumwalt class, a ship that had to be almost completely redone AFTER LAUNCH, so far it is a $21.5 Billion fiasco and when we see corporatocracy setting the sun on fiascos this large, it tends to undermine places like NATO to some extent, the second fiasco is that matter is F-22, a raptor that looks awesome but is like a drained cobra, which looks nice, but in the end until it refocusses its poison is merely deadly looking and it was supposed to be deadly. Then there is the flaws that the F-35 has, in the end it all comes down to an exercise in tapping the vein at $2.7 Trillion dollars. No matter who in NATO signed up for all of it, the defense forces have close to a $3 trillion dollar fiasco and there is no substitute. All whilst Russian and Chinese engineering is making headway in several directions.

In all these events we merely see that NATO has lost traction and has lost a futuristic setting of that hat comes, it can no longer predict and whatever it predicts is based on data that all people players now have, it lost whatever advantage it had. 

All whilst those connected to whichever corporatocratic setting of checks and balances are now without any kind of accountability and as such corporations get to fill their pockets on a stage of $3 trillion that has nothing to show for it and we ask why this is not countered? Well actually the gravy trains are making sure that the question is not offered out loud, or at least not at the intensity and volume required. The Hill produced and article a little over a year ago with the headline ‘The long NATO gravy-train may soon be over for Europe’ (at https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/412837-the-long-nato-gravy-train-may-soon-be-over-for-europe) yet the current statement as we see NATO @ 70 gives light (read: indication) that this is still very much on the mindset of too many people, as such the gravy train is still gobbling up resources on a global scale. Even as we saw “Both Trump and Obama even accused NATO members of relying far too much on American citizens and free-riding of the U.S. security umbrella” we are left in the dark that the needs of NATO are to a larger extend Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and BAE systems and all three have issues. So whilst we seemingly adhere to “While all 28 NATO members agreed in 2014 to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, only the U.S., Greece, Estonia, United Kingdom, Latvia, and Poland are meeting the minimum guideline” we all forget that this 2% is more than merely a number, three projects are shown to be huge cash drains whilst not offering the value they supposedly have, so as such there is a larger failing. in addition we need to see the value of whatever GDP Estonia has and seek it next to the Dutch and Belgium, that number is laughingly short and Estonia would optionally have made the numbers if it bought two trucks and replaced part of its military uniforms. That is before we see what the Dutch had created towards its goalkeeper signature weapon for the navy. 

There is a much larger failing going in and NATO @ 70 is not giving us the goods, merely that it is under the mandate of a gravy train whilst reporting to corporations on what is required. Corporations that are not connected to the needs of the people, they are not elected officials and merely giving their needs to elected officials who need long train rides to figure out how to spin what is required, in all this after 70 years whilst we see Recep Tayyip Erdoğan getting close at the summit in Watford to others, yet it all makes perfect sense, and especially whilst Turkey has selected the S-400 defense system. Yet that is definitely one NATO partner we want to keep close (or that is how any corporatocracy will voice it).

Yes, I believe that the value of NATO is gone, not because of what it was supposed to do, but because the people involved created new adversarial players, players that NATO was never ready to face, it was never trained to do so and some of these players are part of the problem, they were never part of the solution.

We were always going to face new adversaries, but we never knew when they would come and for the most we never considered that it was an internal review of whatever drives us that would be our adversary, all driven by greed. 

 

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