May 29, 2019 · 12:57

Sexual abuse is apparently fine

The Washington Post gives us the news one hour ago. The article (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/private-letters-indicate-the-vatican-imposed-but-didnt-enforce-restrictions-on-former-cardinal-mccarrick/2019/05/28/dc3ca440-814f-11e9-b585-e36b16a531aa_story.html) gives us: ‘Private letters indicate the Vatican imposed, but didn’t enforce, restrictions on former cardinal McCarrick‘, the setting here is that “an aide to former cardinal Theodore McCarrick released excerpts from emails and letters laying out how the Vatican tried to quietly sanction McCarrick years before he was defrocked for sexual abuse“, so this was not in the short run, this is not a small matter, the Washington Post has additional articles on this in 2018, and it gets to be worse when we consider that clerical abuse expert Richard Sipe published excerpts from the 2005 and 2007 settlement documents in 2010. Yet I am still in another phase. You see most of us got the wakeup call through the movie Spotlight (2016), we had heard rumours left, right and chapels, but the fact on just how big and large the problem is has not made it to mainstream media to the degree that it should had. How can I as a Catholic, remain Catholic when I am confronted with: “send reported abusers for mental health counseling; reassign them to pastoral work regardless of what a professional recommends (i.e. restriction of access to minors); allow them to work again unsupervised; wait for another report of offence; repeat the cycle; cover it all up“, which we got from Richard Sipe in May 2010. And it gets worse when you consider: “The trouble is that it is sealed within the system. Few of the seminarian/priest victims will talk on record. They have everything to lose. Sexually active priests who have no intention of being celibate do everything to cover their tracks“, so according to the release evidence (excerpts from court cases) and the amounts settled was a lot; basically, all the funds that the people hand over for charity, for the church, for the needy. From that amount around $4 billion regarding cases that go back up to 35 years, the largest amount $600 million regarding 221 priests to dress the wounds of well over 500 victims. Whilst none of these clerics are in prison, these people give us lectures on humanitarian aid and the suffering in places like Saudi Arabia? How hypocrite can we get?

So as Newsweek, who was the source gave us one part, they also gave us BishopAccountability, who is actively ‘documenting the abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church‘ give us the additional “We document settlements involving 5,679 persons who allege sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. These survivors are only one-third of the 15,235 allegations that the bishops say they have received through 2009, and they are only 5% of the 100,000 U.S. victims“, the realisation that this is from the last 10 years and that it involves over 15,000 allegations, as i see it a large prison holding up to 25,000 priests called ‘Concilium Vaticanum locum seorsum‘ (Vatican Isolation Location) is required, build at the expense of, as well as funded by the Vatican. I reckon that in the end it is a cheaper way to resolve the issue, when we set these beasts in prison for 5-15 years, things might look up. How acceptable do you find the notion of: “wait for another report of offence; repeat the cycle; cover it all up“? How will you see this when it involves your child or a relative you were close to?

In all this the lamest of all reasons is seen with: “Adult men make less instantly sympathetic victims than children, and the alleged incidents involving McCarrick are less headline-grabbingly horrifying“, so why is the DA not doing his/her job? Crimes were committed, hundreds of times, over and over again, yet we see no convictions, we see no culling of the acts by these priest. When you see all the evidence stack up with a failing to convict and as I see it: “before the 88-year-old simply passes away in seclusion“, is not a verdict or punishment, it is merely a stage of house arrest with optional benefits.

The only thing it does is leave us with the clarity that ‘abuse is fine‘, which is weird, because I know it to be 100% wrong, so why are people sitting on their hands? Why are people trivialising the fact that globally thousands of victims were created and the Catholic Church did next to nothing? At present there are 22 US senators who are Catholic, and how many of them have been active towards the prosecution of these clerics?

Even as lawmakers have passed a bill that would force priests to disclose information about child sexual abuse that they hear in the sacrament of Confession, we see in the Catholic sun that Archbishop José H. Gómez, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was “deeply disappointed”, which we cannot accept, that feeling of disappointment is a mere 15,235 allegations too late, a stage where we see that there are up to 15,235 victims in the US alone and for the longest time priests would cover for one another and more upsetting higher elements in the Church were part of the cover-up. It is when we consider the CruxNow (at https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2018/08/24/what-new-jersey-bishops-now-retired-knew-about-mccarrick-settlements/) and we take notice of “The Metuchen Diocese made settlements of $53,333 and $100,000, where one (2006) was regarding a former priest who said he had been abused by McCarrick and others. This priest submitted the first known written complaint about McCarrick“, this puts Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski in the firing line, yet we also acknowledge that he also reported the offenses to law enforcement, yet what actions were taken are not known to me at present. Yet this indicates that at least a Cardinal or higher had to be aware of it as early as 2006, giving us 13 years of danger to more victims. However, to get back to Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski, you see Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington was never informed of the settlements according to the Catholic News agency. It gives questions when we read: “Cardinal Wuerl said last week that he was never informed that those settlements had been reached“, it leaves the actions of Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski open for debate and investigation. The fact that Richard Sipe personally wrote a letter to Benedict XVI in 2008 stating the hazard that is Theodore Edgar McCarrick (source: New York times, 2018) supports the view that the events were known in the very top of the Vatican, and as such, how can we remain comfortable as Catholics? I certainly do not feel comfortable at all.

When we realise that the Vatican was informed again in 2000 and 2006, yet in the end nothing was done for decades, that is the larger evil in all this and it is right there within the Vatican. The fact that according to news that McCarrick lives currently at St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas and not in prison is really beyond me, the fact that the Washington Post gave us three hours ago that the Vatican imposed restrictions, but did not enforce them (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/private-letters-indicate-the-vatican-imposed-but-didnt-enforce-restrictions-on-former-cardinal-mccarrick/2019/05/28/dc3ca440-814f-11e9-b585-e36b16a531aa_story.html), gives rise to additional issues on several levels, yet if there is hope to be seen it does not come from the very top, but from the other side as Rev. Anthony Figueiredo, it is also in that article that we are made aware of “Cardinal Wuerl has previously stated — and he reiterates again — that he was not aware of any imposition of sanctions or restrictions related to any claim of abuse or inappropriate activity by Theodore McCarrick“, this ‘revelation’ is not about Cardinal Wuerl but on Bishop Paul Gregory Bootkoski, consider where McCarrick went, what kind of a danger he would optionally be to the people there; it is my personal view that the bishop created a dangerous place of intentional harm by keeping quiet, how Christian is that? How Christian are we when we merely accept that there is no prosecution to a lot more members of the clergy?

When we see: ‘Why ‘moderate’ Muslims need to speak loudly against terror‘, yet we also see that we do nothing against the Vatican on these transgressions, where is the greater evil, in the Vatican or in Mecca? Most Christians would consider Mecca to be ‘evil’ yet as we allow for the Vatican transgressions, can we even tell what evil is and what it looks like?

In the 80’s I knew what evil was and what it looked like. I felt like a proud Catholic going up against the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. Today I am still against the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah, yet from those days I am not certain that my mind was playing for the right team, as such my mind wanders all over the place. What do you do when you learn after half a century that would have played for the wrong team? I know that Christians were never innocent, there is plenty of evidence that they wiped at least 17 civilisations from existence, the fact that Catholics are optionally to be seen as an internal cancer that is destroying itself from within is far more dangerous. If we are here to give rise to a better soul and the messenger cannot be trusted to protect our soul, where are we left?

If sexual abuse is fine, and we are no longer able to tell the falsehood of that, how doomed are we really? It is at this point that I recollect (in reality I searched for this) the Quran, specifically Taha 20:102: “The Day when the trumpet shall be blown, and on that day we shall gather the sinners together, blue-eyed (- the spiritually blind ones)“, to be honest ever since I saw Spotlight (2016) I have felt like a blind man, when you fear the people you would easily trust, how deep is the trouble that Christians face and how utterly wrongful has the Vatican reacted to all this, and how many more mistakes will they willingly make to let it all go away under cover of denial, settlement and ignorance towards the victims that they created?

I wonder if we learn the truth of that in time, all of us.

 

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May 28, 2019 · 10:35

Danger on the Australian shores

There is a danger lurking, it took over Japan, the US and Europe, now we see Greg Jericho (aka gorgonomics) vocally giving us: ‘The government needs to get into more debt, our grim economy depends on it‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/may/28/the-government-needs-to-get-into-more-debt-our-grim-economy-depends-on-it) and my first reaction is: “You have got to be out of your bloody mind“. In the first politicians should never be trusted with the option of deeper debt, the US and Europe are clear evidence of that. The second is that giving that much power to the banks is just unacceptable. We see transgression after transgression and they walk away with mere fines. Reuters gave us less than two months ago: “The largest ever money laundering scandal in Europe is rippling through the region’s banks“, these people think that they can get away with murder, and whilst we hear politicians proclaim that they will use the full power of the law, we have yet to see any banker do any serious prison sentence since 2004.

Latvia’s ABLV, the Estonian branch of Danske Bank, Sweden’s Swedbank and it is all about €200,000,000,000 between 2007 and 2015. So far the chief executive of Swedbank was let go, and how much money did they make? These issues are connected. Deutsche bank and the Dutch ING, which was ‘forced’ to pay a $915 million last year for example, yet when their takings are part of billions upon billions, these players go home with a pretty penny. So far the Australian banks are decently clean large debts will optionally change that, anyone telling you different is lying through their teeth. When we realise that EU banks payed over $16 billion in fines between 2012 and 2018 because of lax money-laundering checks, we think that there is a solution, yet how does $16,000,000,000 compare to €200,000,000,000? Someone is going home rich and whilst the banks pay of the fine making it a mere cost, the cost of doing business goes up and so do the fees.

the Singapore Independent (at http://theindependent.sg/nigerian-based-in-singapore-jailed-for-role-in-citibank-money-laundering-scheme/) gave us last week “Paul Gabriel Amos was sentenced to three years’ jail after he pleaded guilty to two counts of dishonestly receiving stolen property amounting to more than S$1 million and one count of money laundering” ad this is still about a 2008 case, it took over a decade to get this far, and when we see “Amos agreed to help in exchange for a cut of the criminal proceeds“, that is how it works and this is in places where banking is a lot more sophisticated than anything Australia has. You might hear accusations that these cases are not connected, but they are. They are connected to greed and ‘opportunity’. My issue is that the Australian government has no business taking out large loans of any kind until they fix the tax system, no matter how long that takes. It gets to be even worse is we take the Business Insider (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/maxine-waters-deutsche-bank-subpoena-trump-kushner-2019-5), the fact that we see: “The chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee told INSIDER on Tuesday that a New York Times article detailing how Deutsche Bank buried reports of potentially illegal financial activity linked to President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner “reinforces the need” for the panel “to obtain the documents we have subpoenaed from the bank.”“, when we consider that the banks facilitated for someone who is not President of the United States and we consider on how willing any bank is on the criminal path as the worst thing they face are fines at a mere percentage of the takings, when they call that the cost of doing business, how long until Australia is thoroughly tainted in a similar way?

the fact that ABC gave us 4 weeks ago (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-01/google-facebook-make-billions-in-australian-sales-pay-little-tax/11060474) ‘Google, Facebook make billions in Australian sales but pay less than $40m in tax‘, do you not think that overhauling the tax system so that these players pay a fair share is a much better solution? Do you think that paying 0.000002% or less is acceptable? Besides that, the least said about the former car industry and their option for legalised slave labour the better.

Should we not prosecute every treasurer over the last 10 years, and after that see what we can do? I am not some anti-capitalist, I understand that capitalism is a driver and a powerful one, yet even at 1% (giving us at least $200,000,000) would solve a fair amount of issues, would it not? So whilst politicians are wasting our time with “Both companies are facing various probes by regulators in Australia and overseas over issues relating tax“, the entire tax mess should have been addressed well over a decade ago, as such can we get the incomes off al treasurers between 2009 and 2019 back please? This treasurer, if he does not adjust tax laws would be allowed to keep $1 for his attendance.

When we make this law the issues change and yes, we will get all kinds of threats, but they can equally fuck off and bleed someplace else dry. I am certain that a market share of 20 million will draw in other potential investors, because 20 million consumers will want all kinds of stuff.

And whilst people like Greg Jericho are talking about the sweet spot, they all overlook the issue that debt will have to be paid back, that whilst we see that Japan, the US and Europe have no exit strategy to end debt, at present that debt will be there for generations, making them the bitches of banks and fortune 500 companies, plain and simple. When the debt matures the quality of life in these places hit another snag, we did not and will not sign up for that.

I would love to see infrastructure fixed and improved upon, but whilst these idiots are unable to fix the tax system they have no business pushing the tax payers into deep debt.

And whilst there is no doubt that Greg is working from logic, he truly is; the issue is not: “Imagine being able to get a loan to upgrade machinery and equipment for your business at 1.5% – lower than inflation! – and you didn’t take advantage because you have a theory about how debt is bad“, he seemingly forgets that politicians are inherently stupid (they are optionally dumb and greedy in a nice compact package), these politicians ignore and push forward what they had to resolve, the amount of evidence on a global scale is overwhelming. And in the end, we the taxpayers get to pay that hardship, all that whilst tax laws were not dealt with a decade ago, how is that fair to anyone?

 

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May 27, 2019 · 12:11

Yay or Nay

There is no escaping the EU elections, the issues are large and the anger in Europe is equally sizeable. In France Marine Le Pen has the lead with a little comfort, but not much. Still Macron got initially defeated (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/europe-election-results-france-marine-le-pen-macron-national-front-rally-latest-a8931361.html).

So even as National Rally is ahead by a fair bit with 24%, it is only 1.5% ahead which is comfortable but by no means a done deal at present. With “even slightly down on what the National Front won in 2014 – meaning the party has made little progress on previous years against an unpopular president” we see that Marine Le Pen is not set in stone, she will need powerful allies in the EU to get anything done and as we learn that “the Danish People’s Party and AfD have stood still or fallen back” it implies that she is already two allies down, and as we also see that at present the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (led by Nigel Farage) only has 54 seats (7.2%), and in all this her Dutch allies fall short by a lot, there the reversion to the old parties is remarkable, it is there that we see that the Forum for Democracy (Thierry Baudet) is seen as the joke it needs to be seen as. Although having 11% and the Dutch PVV (4.1%) shows that Geert Wilders is pretty much done for. Dutch Labour took 18%, with the classical parties VVD (15%) and CDA (12.3%) together they are taking a little over 45%, when they get the Greens on board, the majority is a fact and the other two are out of consideration. The independent also shines light on something I noticed earlier in Australia. It seems that the Greens and their choices are having an impact on Global scales. The Green parties have made remarkable strides in the Netherlands (Groen Links), the Greens in the UK and in France (Europe Eologie-Les Verts) are now a European force to be reckoned with, a shift I actually never expected. As we see that in several places their growth is almost everywhere (where it matters that is) is a 10% growth, it requires us to look into it, these are the voices of the people and even as I am a Brexiteer, I will not ignore the Green view when it grows that fast. I have always given support and specifics on why I am a Brexiteer and I understand that plenty of people have another view, so when we see such a shift it is important to examine the optional why. I refuse to give in to some ‘voting fraud’ BS story. Yes, there will be voting fraud, but the optional 322 fraudulent votes do not add up in a place where 675 million people are eligible to vote. Only a complete fool will set weight to 0.000477% to invalidate any election (I guess that there is a chance that Dutch Thierry Baudet will do just that soon enough).

I am actually willing to speculate that for every Brexiteer there is a person who thought that Brexit was too extreme and pushed towards Greens, other opposed UKIP and went LibDem (a wisdom that is definitely debatable), which is my personal sense of humour that is kicking in. I made notice on this in the last election. I wrote about that in ‘On the purple side‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/05/26/on-the-purple-side/) in May 2017. When I dug into the numbers that the Guardian had, I noticed that “a lot of UKIP and Labour are too uncomfortable with the conservative view“, The numbers showed that the shift when Tories were number one, that the growth went to either Ukip or LibDems and they were almost always mutually exclusive, Where LibDems ‘ruled’ there was a diminished Ukip and vice versa, which was an interesting side to see. I believe that this trend has continued, which is why the LibDems surpassed Labor, Greens and Tories, for a lot Brexit was too extreme and they went LibDem instead. How this will work out in the next national election remains to be seen. In this case it will depend on what the Brexit party actually achieves and so far the EU elections do not give them too much to work with. Nigel might have Marine Le Pen in his corner, but with the Dutch, Danes and Germans absent in this, they lack the seats to get anything concrete done, which would have been essential if the Brexit party would be growing a national impact. On the plus side Jeremy Corbyn got kicked out of London, so there is still another reason to party and when we are confronted with that result we see a reason to have a milestone party, even if that milestone has a LibDem flag firmly planted on it.

We cannot tell what Vince Cable will do next, but today he gets to party, he has earned it and he should. It has been a while since any political leader went out on a high note, just ask Theresa May, and as I see it the win for the LibDem will be the hardest challenge for whomever succeeds Vince, keeping the votes will be a large task, even as Jeremy and Theresa are on the way out (Jeremy Corbyn is in denial of that part for now by his intent to be monitoring workplace humour), their infighting implies that either party will not be out for LibDem blood, but that might not be for as long as the LibDems hope for.

In the meantime just to appease Jeremy Corbyn: ‘How many managers does it take to change a lightbulb? None, they are not qualified‘, monitor that Mr Corbyn!

In recognition

So if I am such a Brexit fan, why am I not angry at the defeat? I believe in democracy, if Bremain would have initially won, I could have lived with it, because we are all for the most democracies (except Turkey at present). The issue was that the Bremain groups were complacent, ignoring the danger, and when they lost the fear mongering began. I will revisit certain articles form then and highlight the big business connections whenever possible. The EU facilitates to big business, only the delusional highlight laws and proclaim that the butcher and grocer at the corner benefits. It all benefits the Tesco’s and large providers, it makes the multi-millionaires and billionaires richer, the rest still end up with a diminished quality of life and for them the EU has had a close to zero impact, but they all share in three trillion in debt that the ECB hands over and the chosen (not elected) individuals walk away with enough coin to live in luxury for the rest of their life. That was the biggest issue and so far no serious attempt has been made to cull that problem. Earlier this month when the Irish Examiner (at https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/ourview/pay-for-meps-time-to-halt-the-gravy-train-922371.html) to the small fact of “outgoing Cork MEP Brian Crowley — whose health condition has prevented him from attending the parliament since the last election, in 2014 — will be entitled to severance payments of more than €350,000 and a €1.4m pension package“, so basically the man has not done his job (for 5 years) and gets a £1,541,000 package? Most people have to take a medical to proof that they are good enough to work in a bar at £7.90 an hour, as such, when you are in denial regarding the gravy train, think again. It is one of the larger supporting reasons to be on the Brexit side. A group of people who basically cost a lot and in the end do not bring that much to the table. And it is not merely their income; it is all the extra facilitation and expenses that are the much larger problem, an issue that the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/25/mep-expenses-eu-court-ruling) gave some visibility to. So when we see: “Details of MEPs’ €4,416-a-month expenses to remain secret“, whilst the larger issue is seen when we consider that besides that part, there is also: “Members of the European parliament are paid €8,611.31 (£7,705) a month in gross salary, plus pension. On leaving the parliament they receive a golden parachute, a transition allowance worth up to €206,664, depending on length of service“, which makes partial sense to some degree, yet a ‘transition allowance?‘ We usually get fired or we’re on a contract with a known end date, for a European MEP that is optionally the next election. And it is not one, it is a setting of 751 members and to some degree their staff will also be offered some expenses (which is fair enough).

So when you consider where your money went (besides the unacceptable 3 trillion in debt from the ECB, there you have it and the entire EU gets to pay for all that, so how useful is the EU for non-huge corporations in the end? I accept that there is a positive part in the EU, but it is one that comes at too high a price and that should have been central, but it is ignored to a much larger extent and now that the election are over and the new wave of keep the EU intact continues, yet even as we all bitch on expenses and nothing is done, I feel that Brexit was the only option, I wonder if it will ever actually happen and if we are on the final nose length to enable Brexit what false promises will we see from Brussels and what will actually be done about it all.

I am not optimistic at present, and I have every reason not to be optimistic any day soon.

 

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May 26, 2019 · 15:24

Surprise, surprise!

There was an interesting surprise this morning. It was not any newspaper; it was no DVD or Blu-ray. It was a YouTube video (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu3mP0c51hE), the announcement of the Downton Abbey movie coming in September. Weirdly enough, I had not felt this happy since the initial teaser of Avengers: Endgame, a movie that is now less than $100 million away from breaking the Avatar record. It is weird how a TV series with 6 seasons have had such a profound impact on viewers and I am not the only one who is amazed and happy with the coming of the movie. Hugh Bonneville, who plays the lord (aka Mr Henry Brown in both Paddington adventures), Maggie Smith, Dowager Countess of Grantham (also famous in a very well-known hotel in India), and of course the list is not complete without Jim Carter as the undoubtable Mr. Carson and some might remember him as a Transformer too.

The list is too long to go into detail and it is important to remember that. Even as the record of I, Claudius is not broken. Downton Abbey got closer to breaking that achievement than any other series ever did. When ITV started this, they had no idea how large a behemoth this would become. The foundation was given by Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford. And we all know that as a member of the House of Lords he would be able to spin a fine yard under the most mundane conditions. Yet Downton Abbey is anything but mundane and that is the first requirement into making a legendary piece. I have mentioned it before, I, Claudius had all the elements in place, for the most so does Downton Abbey. The story is excellent, the cast is amazing and many fans feel linked to many of the actors and actresses to a larger degree. The writing got the start, but it was the player that embodies the script and there is not one who gave less than 110% that part clearly shows in the end result. So there will be forum upon forum that will ask and speculate on what they will get. I reckon that a fair amount will go into the speculations of Robert James-Collier (Thomas Barrow) on what he will be like in the movie, antagonistic, devious or a third still to be revealed part, and let’s face it, the man ‘grew up’ on Coronation Street (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNV_Hh5ZWaE if you forgot the tune, which should be unlikely).

There is no way not to get enthusiastic on the series and now we will be getting the movie. I believe it to be an important work as it is truly the first work that would be close to thumping ‘I, Claudius’ of the throne of being the best drama in the history of TV. I personally believe that it did not achieve that, but only by a nose length. Perhaps it is because the Roman era allowed for more murder and intrigue, perhaps it is the view of lavish parties, but for the first time, it is not about the actors, each set of players was pretty much on par with the other set of players, which was an amazing achievement. As for the script, I believe that the quality of drama Robert Graves and Julian Fellowes are on par as well; the element remaining is the director, the visionary in all this. It is impossible to do this, comparing Herbert Wise to Michael Engler, Brian Percival, Catherine Morshead is unfair, it is work separated by decades of vision and technology. The fact that they all try to meet the Herbert Wise standard speaks for Mr Wise as he set the bar half a century ago and the fact that this bar is still there is slightly too amazing for words.

Yet the fact that no one ever stopped getting there speaks for those pursuing excellence in any way possible and that is what Downton Abbey also embodies, a view towards excellence and that too drives us to the movies and the mini silver screen (aka TV). I think that the end of the Victorian age and the age of George V as the UK was led from WW1 towards WW2 is often ignored, but more important than most would think, the sinking of the Titanic in the pilot, the start of WW1 and the impact of the end WW1 and the setting of the veterans as we saw its impact in Downton Abbey is an eye opener, a side that the previous generation onwards ignored is now directly reflected towards us and it impacts us and how we look at this all. A similar impact was seen with The Crown in season one when some saw the episode ‘Act of God‘, I was not born in the UK as such that episode hit me hard, I never expected such a view on chimneys, the smog it created and what kind of a health hazard it actually was in 1952, as such the way we view health hazards and the way politicians neglect it nowadays is a too little astounding.

Downton Abbey had another part shown during the episode where one hospital takes over another one, it is that part where we see the impact to the population in those years, it hits us directly as it is a real setting, not some drama, or better stated drama that doubles as reality just a little too closely. In the end you cannot have anything but the greatest respect on a part of history and how it is portrayed to us, as such the movie, even as it is about a royal visit is likely to have hidden gems that have to be seen to be enjoyed, and that is likely what the makers are hoping for. A TV series that had 11 golden globe nominees and 3 golden globes won, in 2011, Downton Abbey made the Guinness book of world records with the highest ratings for any TV show, the first time a British show got that distinction. A stage that covers 13 years of history, so as the movie is set to 1928; I wonder what we will be treated to. There is no speculation from me, I am slightly scared to be right in this case and I hope that the readers want to see the movie all the way without any spoilers, other than the ones the trailer gives us. I think that this is the biggest part of my appeal to it. On how historic events affect the characters of Downton Abbey, which historic events we will be made aware off. There were the floods of the river Thames, the Oxford English Dictionary first edition was completed, the London and North Eastern Railway’s Flying Scotsman steam-hauled express train begins to run non-stop over the 393 miles (632 km) of the East Coast Main Line from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh (on my birthday no less), the voting age for women is lowered from 30 to 21, Amsterdam hosts the Olympics and the Dangerous Drugs Act 1925 comes into effect. All events of that year and some will be mentioned; optionally we will be introduced to the discussions on it. Downton Abbey will give so many reasons to watch it and as far as I can tell (judging from the TV series) absolutely no reason not to go see it on the large silver screen (aka not the TV).

We still have 15 weeks to go before the movie makes it to the big screen, and as I see it, September 2019 can’t come soon enough.

 

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May 25, 2019 · 13:06

Short on sight, darkness without a light

It is the Washington Post who gives (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/22/qualcomm-violated-antitrust-law-judge-rules) a stage that is now three days old, but this is one event that keeps on getting bumped to the top of the list for a long time to come. With ‘Qualcomm violated antitrust law, judge rules‘ we see a dangerous step into a murky road, a road that is all about the bottom dollar and those who are pushing for decisions have not considered the long game and how it ends a lot more. Perhaps you remember the issue with anti-trust, why it came into existence in the first place. With “protect consumers from predatory business practices“, it is the foundation that is at play, especially when we consider the quote “U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Qualcomm had used its monopoly power to bully companies such as Apple into overpaying for royalties on Qualcomm’s wireless inventions, ordering Qualcomm to renegotiate its business deals“. I wonder who she serves in this case, because I am personally getting the feeling that it is not the law, or the case.

To understand that you need to consider a few items, the first is Intellectual Property. Qualcomm has something everyone wants and no one bothered to redesign or improve on it, and now at the start of 5G, the bottom line of Apple, who has always been eager to bleed its consumers dry, they now see the bottom line and they feel wronged. For three generations they became iterative, and as they now have a second iMac, for sale at A$22,197.00, (mainly because of the colour I reckon). That is the joke that once was Apple. A similar PC for High end gaming will remain under $10,000 (and that is with all the bells and whistles. As apple gives us that we must pay for exclusivity, than so must they.

In addition when it comes to royalties, the judge merely needed to look at iTunes to see that the stream income has settled at $0.00735. Artists on Apple Music would need around 200,272 plays to earn the US monthly minimum wage amount. And important side part is that Apple is by no means the worst there. (Google got that distinction).

From what we see, I have a few reservations whether Justice Lucy Koh has a good view on what ‘predatory business practices‘ are. I do not think that Qualcomm is innocent here, yet to see the example “bully companies such as Apple into overpaying for royalties” voiced, whilst from more than one direction we see that this could be a case of the pot calling the kettle Space grey.

The Post also gives us “Qualcomm is the only U.S. company making 5G chips for mobile phones, the components necessary to connect smartphones to cellular networks. The new generation of cell networks might create another round of innovation and economic growth as start-ups figure out how to use it in new products and spur the development of self-driving cars, smart appliances and remote medicine, which rely on a stable Web connection“, as well as the mention of Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University who gives us: “the FTC’s case against Qualcomm the result of “self-serving arguments by some companies looking to benefit their bottom line.”” and I agree with him. Whilst the FTC was too stupid to sound the horns when iterative technology was the key in ‘their’ profits, others realised that new borders will always come and they will be ruled by the true innovators, as this happened and that firm is not an American one, but a Chinese one. We see these cases come up so that optional momentum can be gained, all whilst Apple had 10 years to find an equal solution, to reengineer technology to equal, they never did that, they merely copied old ideas and let their marketing department spout some innovation story. To their credit Apple Marketing is extremely good at their job, so when we accept: ‘They create something that is designed to improve the lives of their customers. To market that, they create experiences that are memorable and keep people coming back‘. It is brilliant in the now, but innovation is about tomorrow and the Apple board of directors forgot about that part in 2004-2017, so they can only move forward with Qualcomm and that is hitting their bottom dollar hard, especially in 5G. That is the market and the gap between US industry and Huawei is increasing, the US is falling further behind.

Yet the bigger issue is not seen and the article was not about that, so there is no blame. The issue now is that the US is a mere 325 million and they are left in the dark that the larger world with well over 2 billion have (with the exception of politicians kissing US ass) embraced Huawei, equal or better quality at half the price, which is in light with the iMac Pro and normal maximised PC’s. True innovation sells itself, the rest needs marketing to get to the base of their revenue needs. In my case I have an older Huawei, the Nova 3i, it is older than the P30 series, yet still for the most on par with the latest android phones released this year. They learned, when others refused to learn that storage is everything to consumers, so whilst Samsung and LG started jerking around the consumers with ‘sorry, we only have a 32GB model‘, or the ‘that specific model was not available to us‘, Huawei decided to give us 128 GB (Google did a similar thing early on). The rest followed much later. The mobile industry has for the most all been about ‘Iteration to facilitate for exploitation‘ as I personally see it. Both Google and Huawei were instrumental in turning that around. So whilst I can get an iPhone for A$1,299.00, the Huawei I got has the same storage and for the most an equally able phone for A$499 (6 months ago). As we see the issue of ‘bully companies such as Apple into overpaying‘, whilst Apple has been known to be the biggest bully of all (optionally a shared #1 spot with Microsoft). It seems to me that the FTC is about the bottom line and not losing more distance with true innovators like Huawei. So when we look at the FTC and we see: “Competition in America is about price, selection, and service. It benefits consumers by keeping prices low and the quality and choice of goods and services high. By enforcing antitrust laws, the FTC helps ensure that our markets are open and free“, is the Apple iMac pro not a direct violation of that directive?

In addition, as the Trump card of bullying was given regarding Huawei, we see: “Google said complying with the ban would mean future phones sold by Huawei would be without a license for its Android operating software and would have no access to its Play app store, which would render them nearly useless“, so what happens when that becomes actuality? When Huawei has its own ‘app store’ and its own system in place? When hundreds of millions are willing to switch, what would it cost Google? What happens when we demand action on taken paths and Google is seriously impacted? Will the FTC wake up and see the folly that they created?

And let’s be clear, the biggest issue is not the Trump administration. It is the collection of technology dumb fucks (to coin a phrase) that have been so eager to rely on iteration and now that these people no longer matter in their respective board rooms, what remains? Apple relies on computers that almost no one can afford, especially as hundreds of PC assembly providers can build equal powered solutions at less than half the price, that too will impact 5G, because even as we are a mobile planet now, when we are at work (over one third of our daily life), it is the workstation and not the mobile that rules our needs.

So now as we look at the impact that 4G had with: “When the United States took the lead on 4G mobile technology, for example, it gave rise to the app economy, which is still dominated by U.S. firms, according to Cisco“, Cisco is a player there, yet with the severe vulnerabilities it showed and remains showing until the end of the year, they too are in the dump. Even now as TechTarget gives us a mere 9 hours ago: “The Cisco vulnerability fix for thrangrycat could make affected hardware unusable. But the vendor said it’s ready to replace products, if needed.” At what point do you realise when you read the article (at https://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/news/252463965/Cisco-vulnerability-fix-for-thrangrycat-carries-risks) that Cisco is not merely falling behind too, the impact that they have to deal with will hinder them for some time to come. In addition, the quote “If an affected product becomes unusable and requires a hardware replacement, it will be replaced according to the terms of the customer’s support contract or warranty,” gives rise to other considerations too. How many would sue when they lack the support contract or warranty? Let’s not forget that they have advertised for the longest of times on ‘the Trust Anchor‘. It was innovation, true innovation. But there we see how iteration can diminish innovation. Once the feature is surpassed and dealt with, the issue becomes a much larger concern. So as Cisco is trying to deal with the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), Huawei is moving forward another leap. Now, there is no chance that Cisco will be replaced, they are too big and they have good hardware. What do you think happened to the Samsung with their Samsung ISIS (with exploding battery), it took Samsung 2 years to recover and now they are surpassed by Apple and Huawei; that is how the cookie crumbles. Samsung is still in the race and could regain momentum (especially with the power share novelty), but it took them 2 years and now in the start of the 5G dimension, 2 years is a lifetime, it is the difference between the locomotive that drives the innovation and the caboose that gets all kinds of shit. That is the game and the US is in and not in the caboose, but on a hand trolley trying to catch up with the train that has already left the station, the US is in that deep at present.

Oh and when it comes to the FTC, as they see themselves as: ‘The FTC protects consumers by stopping unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices in the marketplace‘, so when it comes to AT&T 5G Evolution, how much action has the FTC undertaken, whilst the media in many places have clearly stated it as deceptive conduct. Even whilst AT&T hides behind “5G Evolution is a lot more than just a name“, yet it is not 5G and the FTC remained silent on it all, which as I personally see it is all about the bottom line, as such, how much credibility does America have left? Even as Sprint and AT&T settled, Sprint was not the only player and as far as we can see the FTC did nothing, so when we see (in several sources) ‘speed tests have confirmed that AT&T’s 5GE service is no faster than LTE from Verizon and T-Mobile‘, I merely wonder how the antitrust ruling could be given whilst the market itself is in such disarray that this case should not have made it to the courts for years to come, but that is the problem with a nation that is $22,000,000,000,000 in debt, the bottom line becomes everything and the concept of the rights of any consumer will be hung out to dry until that noose has been removed from the neck of the US economy. Too bad they relied on iteration; a nation that relies on innovation might be able to move forward on its merits, an option the US seemingly no longer has at present.

So what happens when the next step is open to all non-Americans? What happens when one of the 10 competitors does come with a truly innovative step? You see that is the nice part of true innovation, what goes down, might come up, so if the setting changes and for example the Kodenshi AUK Group finds some solution in 5G that the others did not consider, how will that play out? There is a long term short sighted approach to IP and the drive to truly push it forward in a non-iterative way. The 5G players will soon and quickly learn that 5G will not have space for iteration; it would almost literally play out as: here today, gone tomorrow.

I don’t think that technological America realises that danger to the degree it needs to, that is the vibe I have been getting for a while now.

 

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May 24, 2019 · 12:09

When the media decides not to tell us

This has been a subject that has been a focal point for me for a while now. The first instance When I got a clear indication was in 2012 when the media on a global scale decided not to inform the people on actions that Sony had taken. The gaming stage for 35 million consumers was changed almost overnight, yet the media trivialised it to the largest degree. It was then that I decided to keep tapping the pulse to see what else was going on.

You will have heard about the issues in Yemen and that the Arabian coalition led by Saudi Arabia is part of this. That you know, but for the longest time, the involvement of Iran and the terrorist organisation Hezbollah was downplayed to a much larger degree, and no one seems to be looking at that part.

In the last 24 hours we were shown to a much larger degree on the dangers that the civil population of Saudi Arabia presently faces (around that airport mind you).

Reuters

Reuters gave us 9 hours ago: ‘Yemen’s Houthis say they attacked Saudi’s Najran airport by drone‘. the article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-saudi-drone/yemens-houthis-say-they-attacked-saudis-najran-airport-by-drone-idUSKCN1ST1HJ) gives us both: “Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement on Thursday launched a drone attack on a Patriot missile battery in the airport of the Saudi city of Najran near the Yemeni border” and “The group claimed responsibility for last week’s armed drone strikes on oil assets in Saudi Arabia and on Sunday said they would attack 300 vital military targets in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen“, so far nothing really new, other than this is the third attack in a week. When we consider “Najran regional airport is used by thousands of civilians daily” we see a stage where another part is now making entry, but about that more shortly.

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera gives us ‘Yemen’s Houthi rebels attack Saudi’s Najran airport – again‘ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/yemen-houthi-rebels-attack-saudi-najran-airport-190523140308211.html), where we are treated to: “The group’s Al Masirah TV reported the drone attack on Thursday came as the Houthis said they would step up their offensive against Saudi targets“, as well as “An explosive-laden drone sent by the terrorist Houthi militia to target Najran airport – which is used by thousands of civilians daily – was intercepted and destroyed by the Saudi air force“. This news is mostly on par, we see the small addition by Colonel Turki al-Maliki that there would be a response but did not elaborate on any details.

I think that we can agree that Reuters and Al Jazeera are regarded as sources of integrity. it is news that so far has always been regarded as trustworthy.

So why is it that this news did not make it to the BBC, yet we were given headlines like ‘PSG boss Al-Khelaifi charged with athletics corruption‘ and ‘Egypt releases students held after exams protests‘. I am not stating that those headlines should not have been there, it is regarded as news, but the attack on civilians by Houthi forces was kept out of the news and that is a little weird, especially as the news on a global level had been slamming Saudi Arabia again and again. The guardian, the New York Times, Washington Post, none of them had it. Yet the Washington Post was eager to report: “In addition to suffering the reputational problems of delivering deadly weapons to governments that clearly misuse them, U.S. defense firms should exercise extreme caution that they are not opening themselves, their officers, and their employees to criminal and civil liability by exporting weapons pursuant to potentially invalid licenses“, it seems interesting that Democrat Robert Menendez was willing to sidestep drone strikes on civil targets at the drop of a hat. In addition, that article (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-may-sidestep-congress-on-saudi-arms-deal-drawing-fresh-warnings-from-republicans-and-democrats/2019/05/23/ca4af24e-7d96-11e9-8ede-f4abf521ef17_story.html) also gives us “anxious to protect their authority to have a say on the executive branch’s ability to export lethal weaponry to foreign actors“, the operative ‘foreign actors‘, instead of ‘foreign government‘, this was written by an intelligent person, I accept that and that this is to set the consumer and voting state is also accepted, yet when a newspaper relies on ‘Democracy dies in darkness‘ and it is only giving you part of the information, is that not an equal attack on democracy? when readers are misinformed by only partially informing them, is that not (in the eyes of some people) the larger crime in all this?

The large papers have almost all omitted that part at the moment, and they are not alone, Deutsche Welle, NOS, Swedish news sources, they are all missing out on the Houthi attack, as well as the fact that in most cases the involvement of Iran remains unmentioned in many of the cases. When sources on TV and online are happy to quote President Trump stating: “I’m an extremely stable genius. OK?” (From my point of view absolutely nothing in that sentence was true), and we are not given the attacks on civilians from one side, we need to take a deeper look at the media and why they are given rights when they do it to march all over democracy.

So when we accept that any democracy gives us: “In a direct democracy, the citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each issue” and we see that we are not given the actual facts of ‘each issue‘, can we consider to agree that what was once a democracy optionally no longer is one?

The media has been about facilitation towards the big companies for too long, it is time to hold the media owners to account, it is the setting where we see that a democracy has turned into an oligarchy, it is the easiest to achieve in a republic setting, as corporations have a lot more power, in a monarchy that is a lot harder to achieve, but the power players in any Oligarchy achieve that by controlling the media and that is what is seemingly happening on a very large scale. It is time that we shine large lights on that part of the equation before the people to the largest degree no longer have any say in the matter. The EU is the best example (they have no hold or any say on the matters pushed for by the ECB), and it is there that we see the failing of democracy and some players are better out than in.

Even as the ECB is only now (after months of assurances that the Euro was looking up) giving the media “European Central Bank policymakers are concerned that economic growth in the euro zone is even weaker than feared“, as well as the Washington Post that gives us (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-3-trillion-bond-beast-runs-the-show-in-europe/2019/05/23/db45efa6-7d35-11e9-b1f3-b233fe5811ef_story.html), when we see the headline that I have spoken about for almost 2 years ‘A $3 Trillion Bond Beast Runs the Show in Europe‘, giving the ECB ruling on EU matters, the EU called a democracy now run by non-elected officials not accountable for their actions, whilst they pushed for that debt. That should be regarded that the EU has moved from so called Democracy into Oligarchy and the media stays silent, they need the ECB to feed them for circulation.

The media decided to sway the story, they decided not to tell us and people wonder why Brexit is the only remaining way out? I as a Brexiteer prefer a stage so that people can be held to account, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP) can be held to account, and Mario Draghi President of the ECB cannot. The world is in a dangerous stage and the few that have hold on the media stay out of the spotlight for all the reasons that they consider to be right, do you agree?

I certainly don’t, not with this much evidence out in the open.

 

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May 23, 2019 · 11:51

The Scott Pilgrim of Technology

There is a moment when we have to take account of actions; we have to push into the direct limelight the ACTUAL dangers. I did some of it when the DJI issues hit the news. With ‘That’s the way the money flows‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/21/thats-the-way-the-money-flows/) we see certain actions, but have you considered the actual dangers?

In this case (for a few reasons I move towards the article in the Verge. Here (at https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18634401/huawei-ban-trump-case-infrastructure-fears-google-microsoft-arm-security) we see what transpired half a day ago. With the ARM announcement people are getting worried. Yet they validly ask: “halting its access to current and future chip designs and coming on the heels of similar breaks from Google and Microsoft. Huawei is in deep, deep trouble, and we still don’t have a clear picture of why“.

Yes that is seemingly an issue, if there actually was an issue, in addition we are given “There’s never been a full accounting of why the US government believes Huawei is such a threat, in large part because of national security interests, which means much of the evidence remains secret” and that is where the issue is, it is hidden. There has not been one respectable cyber engineer giving a clear account of where the actual flaws are.

So when we see: “There was never any hard evidence of backdoors in Huawei’s cell towers — but, as hawks saw it, there didn’t need to be. As a hardware provider, Huawei needs to be able to deploy software the same way Apple deploys iOS updates. But as long as there was a pipeline from Huawei’s China headquarters to cell towers in the US, there would be a strong risk of Chinese surveillance agencies using it to sneak malware into the network“. We can accept that to some degree, yet the actual issue stated with: ‘there would be a strong risk of Chinese surveillance agencies using it to sneak malware into the network‘. If it is about risk then that risk is actually zero, you see Cisco solved that problem for Russian, Chinese and North Korean intelligence months ago. The fact that all over the US and now Europe, we see the dropping of Huawei as a consideration is not merely an act of discrimination, it could also be seen as an act of customer being betrayed by their governments.

What is the evidence?

As some experts give us something like: “The vulnerability could allow an authenticated, local attacker to write a modified firmware image to that component. A successful exploit could either cause the device to become unusable (and require a hardware replacement) or allow tampering with the Secure Boot verification process, according to Cisco’s advisory” and make no mistake, routers from Parks and recreation, to the Pentagon right up to the White House are optionally affected at present, the list (at https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190513-secureboot#vp) shows a list that is impacting vulnerabilities to MILLIONS of devices and the media remains largely silent on it.

And when we also consider: “Other routing and switching gear patches won’t roll out until July and August, with some products slated for even later fixes, in October and November.” we should all realise that Chinese equipment does not make US hardware vulnerable, Cisco (an American company no less) did it for them. The Washington Post is not really covering it, are they? Perhaps because we see (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wp/tag/cisco-webex) loads of space reserved for partner content, giving us the credo that I have mentioned a few times before. The media has become a whore (or perhaps better stated a person relying on questionable ethics). They cater to their shareholders, their stake holders and their advertisers; there is the real danger and the real vulnerability.

Keeping the people knowingly in the dark from actual dangerous situations, but that is not really what big business wants is it. The dangers that Huawei grew to twice its size was just too dangerous for those on the Wall Street gravy train, and whilst we see these dangers for almost a month, the value of Cisco goes up? Whilst millions of devices are vulnerable with many of them in that state to deep into November, optionally remaining a danger until well into January 2020, for the simple reason that delays are almost inevitable in these situations?

When we realise that we can Google on reported true and false weaknesses that hit Huawei and Cisco, it is shameful to see the following list:

News source

Huawei ‘danger’ given

Cisco vulnerability mentioned
Sydney Morning Herald

Yay

Nay
the Age

Yay

Nay
the Guardian

Yay

Nay
BBC

Yay

Nay
The Times

Yay

Nay
Australian Financial Review

Yay

Nay
Financial Times

Yay

Nay
Washington Post

Yay

Nay
LA Times

Yay

Nay
NOS (Dutch)

Yay

Nay
Dagens Nyheter (Swedish)

Yay

Nay

 

However, in case of the Sydney Morning Herald we do get to see sponsored content for Cisco and the Washington Post gave the readers Cisco Partner content.

As far as I have been able to tell, none of them gave any light to the vulnerabilities in Cisco Routers and Firewalls. Would you agree that a flaw impacting millions of devices is news? Many of them pulled a similar stunt in 2012 regarding Sony in the month before the release of the PS4. In regards to the list, these are supposed to be the more respectable choices for news; the list of absent news giving sources is a lot larger.

Whilst the IT news magazines gave the broader setting (as well as Cisco on their own site), we see that the media is seemingly playing a game of: ‘Let’s rent a hotel room on an hourly rate‘.

When we see Tara Seals in Threatpost giving us: “A critical vulnerability in Cisco’s software-defined networking (SDN) software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to connect to a vulnerable data-center switch and take it over, with the privileges of the root user” (at https://threatpost.com/cisco-critical-nexus-9000-flaw/144290/), I suddenly realise that there is an inner demon with a pitchfork stabbing into my brain telling me that I am a pussy, I disagree! So here it is: “A message for the Pentagon IT department; Do you still have the password ‘Cisco123‘ on some of your routers? If so would it not be a great idea to change it before the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (SVR RF) decides to download your servers at their earliest convenience?”

I know it is an annoyance, but with Cisco flaws the way they were it is merely a small consideration, and let’s not forget that at this stage no Huawei device was required to acquire the information on your servers. I personally believe that it is time to reward those who do not apply common cyber sense to be rewarded with limelight. I have had to clean up the mess of others for well over a decade and now it is time to give those people the exposure they deserve (my findings regarding Credit Agricole will have to wait for a few more days). When you consider that the flaw also hits the Nexus 9000 Data Centre Switch, a device that is according to their own site ‘Built for scale, industry-leading automation, programmability, and real-time visibility‘, as well as “operate in Cisco NX-OS Software or Cisco ACI modes with ground-breaking Cloud Scale ASIC technology“, and lets be fair, there will always be an issue, a device on such scale cannot be flawless, yet when such a flaw is clearly reported on a level this big and the media merely looks at accusations against Huawei and leaves actual dangers unreported, the integrity of the media has become too large an issue on a global scale.

The issue is twofold for me, the first is that Huawei was never a risk and even as I disagree with the dumb headed approach that the US had, I am very much on the side of Alex Younger (the apparent fearless leader of MI-6), he is merely stating that non-British equipment (in this case Chinese) could be an optional threat in the future. His issue is that this level of infrastructure must be British and he is not wrong, no nation is wrong to have high level infrastructure equipment (whether it is 4G or 5G) in national hands. That is the application of common sense (yet realistically speaking not always pragmatic or achievable). so when he stated last February ‘It’s more complicated than in or out,‘ he is actually spot on, no one denies that. Yet the Americans had their big boots, brainless and started accusations that cannot be proven, that is an issue! For the US it was all about the money and American technology is losing more and more headway, they are literally falling further behind on a daily basis. As I personally see it the direct consequence on iteration versus innovation technology. When the best innovative step is Samsung giving the consumer the ability to share power wireless (which is awesome), even me as an anti-Samsung person will admit that they hit the jackpot with that one. How sad have players like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, INTEL et al really become?

How much of a Scott Pilgrim must we become fighting all the tech companies in the world before we get told the direct truth by the media? How much shaming must we do to make the media make us the number one directive, not the number four option? and as I have been considering more and more to put my IP vision valued at $2 billion public domain and let them fight it out among themselves, basically I am just too tired to engage in another round of bullshit with these so called executives and VP’s who (with the exception of Huawei and Google) do not have a clue on what they are doing in technology in the first place.

The larger problem is not Cisco; it is security and identity management. Most corporations are close to 5 years late into implementing an actual non-repudiation system and that is partially because there is no real good system or good way to ensure non-repudiation, an issue that should have been addressed almost 10 years ago, but never was, I personally tend to blame complacency there. I personally believe that a drive to iteration prevented innovation to get us there, but that is merely my view on the matter and I am perfectly happy to be proven wrong on this specific part.

Dozens of options (I actually had another idea towards a new solution to applied solar technology) all having larger impacts in larger cities and pilot places like Neom City, what does it take for some of these players to wake up and smell the dangers of corporate death through marketing set towards iterative release?

 

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May 22, 2019 · 12:25

Questions on coming events

I have spoken out in favour of Saudi Arabia and the issues that were thrown at them. Yet, I too look at issues from all optional sides (or at least try to do so). So when I saw Al Jazeera give us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/saudi-arabia-execute-scholars-ramadan-report-190521165816192.html) ‘Saudi Arabia to execute three scholars after Ramadan: report‘ I started to wonder what was going on. You see, I am a Christian (Catholic), as such I am currently trying to comprehend the Muslim state of mind to a much greater degree as I refuse to give in to Islamophobia.

And as I see: “Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, Awad al-Qarni and Ali al-Omari to be sentenced to death by Riyadh” I wonder why this is, as such my first issue was to look at who these people are.

Sheikh Salman al-Awdah

NBC News (at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/saudi-cleric-salman-al-awda-called-reform-now-he-s-n840916) gives us ‘Saudi cleric Salman al-Awda called for reform. Now he’s in solitary confinement‘, and I will get back to that. It is YouTube blogger NasirAlHanbali who gives us: “Look ant take into consideration that it is permissible for the Muslim ruler to incarcerate specific people or individuals if he sees that they are corrupting the lands and the Muslims“, yet that is not what NBS News gives us. they give us: “He has since called for greater democracy and social reform, and publicly denounced extremist violence. He has also been quoted as saying that gay people should not be punished — a remarkable statement for a Muslim cleric in a country where homosexuality is still punishable by death.” in this instance we see that Muslim law is not accepting homosexuality and as such it could be seen as ‘corrupting the Muslims‘, I am not stating that this is so, I am merely extrapolating the voices that publish and trying to understand the situation. So as I read (my Arabic knowledge is absolute nil) “it is permissible for the ruler to halt them or punish them with any type of punishment that has come in the book and the Sunnah. so then this ruling has come in the book of Allah and the Sunnah of his prophet“, in first 41 seconds NasirAlHanbali gave insight and some clarity on how things seemingly are (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOo9T1a0UqY), for all its good and decent reporting, the NBC gave a view on events that never explained the actions that lead to the implied death penalty as Al Jazeera gave the readers.

We can fight Islamophobia in two ways, through grandiose actions on how great Islam is, yet if we do not comprehend the actions as many grew up not being Muslim, we fall short because the media is not explaining matters, merely fitting what we call ‘Christian humanitarian values‘ in a setting that is not Christian. Sun Tzu taught the proper reader ‘Understand your enemy‘, this applies to many settings when we use Sun Tzu (and optionally The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli into ‘Comprehend the other party‘ (read: the other person). We always seem to tell others to adjust, but when was the last time that YOU adjusted your views and standards to understand the actions of other people? The video of NasirAlHanbali gives a lot more, most of it towards the interpretation of ‘Speech of falsehood‘, it is a trip into secularism, which goes too deep for me at this point, but for some it is an interesting view into learning more of a Muslim way of thinking. I particularly liked that he speaker was not merely droning Islam verses. The man gives view on what happened, what is stated as events and explains to the audience on why this should be regarded as wrong. We might not agree as non-Muslims, but it is their right to have their point of view and he brings the view in decent clarity (as I personally see it). The speaker also speaks out to the partnership with Sufi Islamic preacher Habib Ali al-Jifri, a man who seemingly polarises some views. I have even seen a Facebook comment stating: “I genuinely feel embarrassed for Habib Ali Jifri and his followers“, I did not understand the reason and that is part of the issue. There is a lot we do not understand and still we judge others by our ‘rules and values’ on how wrong ‘their view’ is.

Awad al-Qarni

The second name is one of controversy in a few ways. As we learn that he published several books, one is stated to be very similar to a 1948 publication of “Dale Carnegie,’How to Stop Worrying and Start Living‘, 1948“, as well as “Don’t despair” published in 2011 and is found to be a 90% copy of “Salwa Al-Ódaidan,’Thus overcame despair‘,2007“, he was found guilty of plagiarism and the book was withdrawn, in addition he had to pay for compensation to the original writer (at https://www.aljazeera.net/news/politics/2019/5/10/%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%88%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B6%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%B6-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B1%D9%86%D9%8A). In light of plagiarism, it is odd to see him lecturing at Western Mindanao State University on March 1st 2016 when he got injured. And as Gulf News gave us only this month: “he says that after reading interpretations of the Qur’an by classical scholars, after travelling to “40 countries” and having “read thousands of books“, as well as meeting intellectuals, religious scholars and poets, he now embraces the reformist Islam of crown-prince Mohammad bin Salman“, this now interacts with the previous part. We can do the 40 countries trip easily enough, yet the thousands of books take a lifetime, we see a scholar approaching western ’embossing’ of values, or perhaps better states, we optionally see the application of ‘Speech of falsehood‘ in another way. When we realise that his hard-line views were televised a mere 9 years ago (at https://www.memri.org/tv/saudi-cleric-awadh-al-qarni-fighting-jews-religious-islamic-duty) on Al-Resala TV. Also in light of what had transpired, to see Al Jazeera refer to Awad al-Qarni as a ‘academic and author‘ whilst we see at least one convicted case of plagiarism is also cause for debate on what sets him as an academic and more debatable an author here.

Ali al-Omari

There is very little I have at present; from all sources he is a popular Sunni cleric. Even as we see: “a famous Saudi public figure and cleric whose TV shows have called for more rights for women and campaigned against violent extremism. His TV and social media appearances, particularly on Snapchat, have gained him a large following among young Muslims across the Arab world“, it calls towards the initial YouTube part, it calls towards what some call the ‘speech of falsehood’, this is pure speculation on my side (I happily admit to that), Ali al-Omari is also a member of an organisation that the Saudi government labels ‘a terrorist organisation’, I cannot tell whether that is true or not, but in light of all the American actions against who they call ‘terrorists’ I would like to see more evidence before I cast my vote one way or another.

Even as the Saudi Public Prosecutor brought more than 30 charges against him, there is no way to tell how these stack up (I have no access to these papers), still 30 charges is a lot and even as the US convicted Huawei without evidence, I think we need to see the charges and evidence before we give a non-Muslim view to a sovereign state. The Middle East eye (at https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-seeks-death-penalty-cleric-ali-al-omari) gave me most information, yet it is not my only source.

In the end there is a lot we do not get, but in the NBC article we see one part that does strike a chord for our way of thinking. It comes from Michael Stephens, research fellow for the Middle East at London’s RUSI think tank. As we see: “It is an assertion of power”, as well as “It is only reform if it is reform in MBS’s image“, is that not a truth and when we realise that MBS, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, is indeed the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and future ruler of Saudi Arabia when his uncle Salman of Saudi Arabia, the current King of Saudi Arabia passes away.

We see the truth. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, it is ruled by the Royal Al Saud family and the future of Saudi Arabia is theirs to guide, is any opposition not treason? Saudi Arabia is not a republic with 10,000 voices; it is a monarchy with a family in charge, not unlike the Monarchy of Great Britain, the Monarchy of the Netherlands or the Monarchy of Sweden. The big difference between one and the others is that Saudi Arabia has set their rule not to their family needs (partially debatable), but to the Quran and Islam, they even state that on their flag: ‘There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of God‘, it is there plain and simple, it was never ever hidden, we tend to forget these parts of the equation a little too often.

I wonder why!

 

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May 21, 2019 · 12:55

That’s the way the money flows

The Independent had an interesting article 2 hours ago. The article (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/china-drones-spy-us-dhs-security-data-alert-a8922706.html). The title leaves little to the imagination with: ‘Chinese drones may be stealing sensitive information, DHS warns‘, after the Trump google play, after his refusal to submit to subpoena’s, after the anti Huawei activities that so far has never yielded any active evidence (the 8 year old case was settled within months are done with). Now we see: “Chinese-made drones in America may be sending sensitive data to their manufacturers back home where it can be accessed by the government, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned“, which might be a nightmare if it was not so hilarious. You see the next quote: “CNN, which obtained the internal alert, reported that the DHS fears drones will offer Chinese intelligence unfettered access to American data“, it comes across like we have a case where a CNN reporter has been hit by a silly stick and never recovered. Consider the drones we see, there is no space to have a dedicated hack system on board. Yes some can be done with a mobile, and there is plenty of space in that device, now consider the ‘sensitive’ data that needs to be found, the data needs to be connected to (and with all these faulty Cisco routers that is relatively easy at present), then a selection needs to be downloaded and that is merely for one place, one device. All this stops when any person uses common cyber sense. It is the revelation that we see next, that is the one that matters. With: “Though the alert didn’t name specific companies, the vast majority of drones used in the US and Canada are made by the Shenzen based Company, DJI, CNN reported” we see the part that matters. As drone services are up on an almost exponential growth as we see the push that got there. The news from November 2016 gave us: “Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Limited (Domino’s) and drone delivery partner Flirtey delivered the first order, a Peri-Peri Chicken Pizza, and a Chicken and Cranberry Pizza“. Consider the option to avoid traffic in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Pittsburgh, all places with massive congestion. Drones are the optionally the newest quick way to deliver food, Amazon needs, Walmart needs, all in growing need due to the events where retailers and shippers combine forces to avoid a few items, and with congestion set to zero, people will flock to that consideration. Now the operational part, it seems that DJI is ahead of the curve, another Chinese company decided to truly innovate and now that the push is there and America is bankrupt (as I personally see it) anything possible to avoid money going to China, America is taking a pot shot at that. So when we are also treated to: “A spokesman for DJI denied that any information was being transmitted to it from its drones, adding that the security of its technology has been independently verified by the US government.” I start wondering if DHS was able to do its job properly. Now let’s be clear, there is no doubt that ANY drone can be used for espionage, especially if it is quiet enough. Yet is that the issue for DJI, or is that an issue with the spy that utilises drone technology? Yet that is actually not the only side, on the other side we see mentioned: “Those concerns apply with equal force to certain Chinese-made (unmanned aircraft systems)-connected devices capable of collecting and transferring potentially revealing data about their operations and the individuals and entities operating them, as China imposes unusually stringent obligations on its citizens to support national intelligence activities,” Now, this part does make sense. It is the same as the Apple Fitbit, that due to its global nature started to hand out the jogging patterns of Special forces in the Middle East, so within 3 days several members of the two dozen operatives had a check on their calorie burning and health, whilst the mapping data showed the world where the CIA black site was (oh apologies, I meant to say a military specialist endeavouring location of an undetermined nature). The question becomes how was the ‘the security of its technology has been independently verified by the US government‘ achieved? Was that verification process competent, or perhaps slightly less so?

I am not stating my verdict in either direction; yet the entire Huawei mess, as well as the DJI setting implies that the growth industries are shunned from America, mainly because it is not an American industry. Yet in all this, the forget that places like the EU and India are large enough to go forward with both players and truly grow further, whilst the downturn and the economic lag that the US is creating will merely grow the loss of momentum and the recession it will fuel in other ways. I would consider that the setback that Google is trying to create will have larger repercussions down the road. As larger Data vendors will now optionally choose the Chinese side, they will grow market share. You see no matter how it is sliced, all this is data based and data can only grow if there is usage. So when people remain with Huawei as their phone keeps on working, we see that there is a larger concern soon enough. At some point people will stop trusting Samsung, Google and Apple phones, which works out nicely for several players (Microsoft actually more than most), what do you think happens when the larger share of 14.7% of a global market changes to player three and not use Google apps to some degree? Google momentum relies on non-stop data and usage, when a third of the 60% that these three cover stops, do you think that this has no impact for Google?

The same applies to drones. You see intelligence makes the drone and as it grows its market share and the collected data of drone usage is set, the innovation of DJI grows faster. It is the difference between generation now and generation 2022, DJI will grow and can grow in several directions, yet the entire the setting of ‘data theft’ we see that there is a lack of ‘what’ data. What data is collected, the flight path? Well, I think we all need to know in 2023 what flight path was taken for the delivery of 342,450 pizza’s delivered per hour, is it not? It is not that Google Map has that data, and within a building in New York, is there truly a clear sign in the drone itself who exactly the merchandise was for, or was that on the box (instead of the drone). Now, there is no denying that some of that data would optionally be accessible to the Chinese government? Yet what data, what level of data? Do you think that they have time for the hundreds of drones and the data whilst they can monitor 20,000 times that data with a spy satellite (and an additional truckload of data that the drone never had in the first place?

It is when I see ‘unfettered access to American data‘ where the questions become pressing. It is like watching Colin Powell coming into a non-disclosed location with his silver briefcase and in the end the lack of WMD’s, are we going in that direction again? when I see ‘unfettered access to American data‘, it is at that moment I see the optional comparison (an extreme lose comparison mind you) with the innocent preachers daughter who did the naughty thing to 30% of the boys coming to Sunday sermon, having attempted things I cannot even rent on adult video. It is the CNN article (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/20/politics/dhs-chinese-drone-warning/index.html) that gives additional rise to concerns. When you see: “Users are warned to “be cautious when purchasing” drones from China, and to take precautionary steps like turning off the device’s internet connection and removing secure digital cards. The alert also warns users to “understand how to properly operate and limit your device’s access to networks” to avoid “theft of information.”” It seems to me that there are dozens of ways to get this data, a drone seems like an expensive long way round-trip to get to that data, whilst more can be accessed in several other ways and it is the speculation through ‘device’s internet connection‘, so when we see one of these devices (at https://www.dji.com/au/phantom-4-pro-v2/info#specs), we are treated to: “The new Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 features an OcuSync HD transmission system, which supports automatic dual-frequency band switching and connects to DJI Goggles wirelessly“, where did the internet come in? Yes there is an app, to get a live view from the drone, so what ‘unfettered access to American data‘ could there be that Google Maps at present does not have in more detail?

It is the next part that is the actual ace. When we see: “DJI, which reported $2.7 billion in revenue in 2017, is best known for its popular Phantom drone. Introduced in 2013, the drone is the top-selling commercial drone on the market“, information the Independent did not give us, that is the actual stage as I personally see it. It was $2.7 billion in 2017, there is no doubt that when drone delivery truly takes off, at that point revenue that sits between $15 and $27 billion is not unrealistic, the dire need to avoid congestion on a global scale will drive it and that is before you realise the non-US benefits in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Moscow. At that point you will see stronger growth and I haven’t even looked at the opportunities in a place like Mumbai, Tokyo, Delhi, Bangkok, Rio, Buenos Aires and Sydney yet. Everything leaves me with the impression that this is not about security, it is about money. That fact can be proven when you realise that everyone remains silent on the 29 new vulnerabilities that Cisco reported merely a month ago. How many Cisco router stories have come from that non-technologically refined White House, where they are currently optionally limited by “Cisco routers, including ones that can be found in malls, large companies or government institutions, are flawed in a way that allows hackers to steal all of the data flowing through them“, the cybersecurity company Red Baron handed out that issue to the media last week, so who picked up on that danger to ‘unfettered access to American data‘? And when you consider ‘it allows potential malicious actors to bypass the router’s security feature, Trust Anchor. This feature has been standard in Cisco’s routers since 2013‘, when we realise that Cisco is a household name on a global scale (especially when connected to the internet), the entire Cisco matter seems to be at least 15,000 times worse than any DJI drone ever could be, and the fact that DHS remains silent on that gives (again, as I personally see it) is added proof that this is merely about the money and the fact that US companies are losing markets on a global scale.

I could set the stage by singing ‘All ‘Bout the money‘ by Meja and ‘That’s the way the money goes‘ by M, but then, I realise that people would most likely pay me serious money not to sing (my voice is actually that bad).

That’s the way the money flows, specifically at present in a direction that the US is for the foreseeable future most displeased about.

 

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May 20, 2019 · 12:32

War and its monger

You might have heard the expression ‘drumroll please’, it is not new and often it is done to emphasize a twist a good thing or something unexpected. This is not the case here, this is the drumroll to emphasize that my ‘I told you so’ and ‘for the love of all bullies’. A stage that is anything but positive. A stage that Iran has pushed again and again and now that the pot is getting to the boiling pot, we see: “Iran is not seeking war, the leader of the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards said Sunday“, to which the proper western response is: ‘In a pigs eye perhaps!‘. In addition we see: “The difference between us and them is that they are afraid of war and don’t have the will for it,” Major General Hossein Salami said, as quoted by local news agency Fars.” Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? There has been overwhelming evidence that Iran directly and indirectly (via Hezbollah) equipped Houthi forces with missiles that were fired into Saudi Arabia; missiles that, according to several experts, could not have been made by known Yemeni manufacturing locations. We have the will for war and ending Iran as a nation is actually what we are hoping for, but as the Iranian forces acted like the Jackal forces that they are as they hid behind the skirts of Hezbollah, that is the impact of a proxy war and we need to consider that we need to stand with Saudi Arabia, and we need to be fast and clear about it.

Turkey

Iran’s largest and perhaps only true ally is Turkey. This is an issue on two fronts. Turkey is messing with EU settings and trying to grease the Gravy train wheels to get a more positive response on their actions (presumed). What is actually more pressing is that Turkey is showing to be the turncoat that they have been for close to 16 years. The evidence for that (apart from the 9/11 blackmail attempt) is that the Deutsche Welle (at https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-to-produce-new-s-500-missile-system-with-russia/a-48792240) is one of several sources confirming ‘Turkey to produce new S-500 missile system with Russia‘, so the recipient of the new F-35, is building Russian missiles? This is (on the side) evidence that the stupid Americans are not about national security and that the entire Google-Huawei issue is only about money and economic fear (aka their Blacklist, my ass).

The fact that the quote merely is seen as: “The move is likely to further strain Turkey’s relations with the United States“, merely strained? If it was an actual issue, the US would have broken off all connection with turkey months ago, this is about a bankrupt nation trying to influence the limits of loss against China and as Turkey and Iran are tightening bonds, these S-500 become a direct threat to the safety and security of Saudi Arabia, implying that it would optionally need to place a huge Patriot missile defence order as soon as possible, it also implies that any act from the Houthi forces means that a powerful military act is required. No matter what the size of Saudi Arabia is, a war on two fronts is not a good thing. Not with the Size of the Saudi forces are at present. So they should try and test the Naval sinking solution I designed whilst having a sandwich some months ago, and sing “لقد رأيت سفينة جميلة تقع في قاع البحر ، وسهند اسمها” (translated: ‘I saw a pretty ship lying at the bottom of the sea, and its name is Sahand‘) when the task is done (preferably whilst the Sahand is sinking). It is time that the bully tactics of Iran meet the resolve of all others to tell them that there is only so much BS that we accept from some of these non-politicians. I intentionally added the word ‘جميلة‘ (pretty) as this is the one word that does not apply to the the USS Zumwalt (fair is fair).

So even as (long term implied) the F-35 equipment is halted form the US for now, the US in in a financial caper where they might not be able to afford not to deliver, whether they get paid is off course another matter, and even if they get paid, it is not a given that the FSB is funding part of that deal, it is just too easy a way to get your fingers on non developed nextgen technology.

Back to the Saudi Arabia – Iran match

Even as we see: “The attack came two days after four vessels, including two Saudi oil tankers, were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Iran has denied it was behind the attacks which come as Washington and the Islamic republic spar over sanctions and the US military presence in the region, raising concerns about a potential US-Iran conflict“, I remain in doubt. Yes, Iran is the most likely perpetrator, but it is not a given, Iran has played its proxy war with decent competency, as such it is not a given that it is Iran directly, yet I do believe that Iran has its fingers in this indirectly. Hezbollah has had access to the Iranian-made Shahed-129 UAV for almost two years now, as such whether it is Hezbollah, or Houthi trained forces, these two are Iranian driven proxy parties and even if the evidence is found that either of these two were directly involved, the fingers of Iran and most likely the fingers of Major General Hossein Salami, the fact that he is the Aerospace Force of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution is likely to be written off as a coincidence by a few newspapers.

Our allegiance is essential now, it is essential to step up against Iran. Not only because it is the right thing to do, the fact that this act would scare Turkey into making some very clear life changing choices would be essential, when they learn that Russia is not paying their bills, when they realise that Russian oil is not free, at that point will they need to seek a resolution that will not end them, taking Iran out of the equation is therefore an essential push for all people concerned. So as Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/saudi-arabia-seeks-avert-war-ready-respond-force-190519055552084.html) gave us: “Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has dismissed the possibility of war erupting, saying Tehran did not want conflict and no country had the “illusion it can confront Iran”.” He better change the tone he has when the people stand firm with Saudi Arabia on this. We have to agree with Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi state minister of foreign affairs when we see: ““We want peace and stability in the region but we will not sit on our hands in light of the continuing Iranian attack,”al-Jubeir said. “The ball is in Iran’s court and it is up to Iran to determine what its fate will be.”” In light of the actions against Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has shown restrained, we can argue that there is indeed a case where Saudi Arabia is avoiding war to the largest degree because Iran is no small opponent and it will be capable of launching barrage after barrage at Riyadh, that is why getting the patriots there will be one of the most important actions.

When we look into history we see the same thing happen again, and if we sign up for Saudi Arabia we might have to, because we did not accept the Germans moving into Poland in 1939, we should equally not allow Iran to continue on the path it is currently on. There is also other news, but it is not direct or clear. The news (at https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201905201075144170-yemen-houthi-plan-attack-saudi-targets/) is only two hours old. Even as we see the headline: ‘Yemeni Houthis Plan to Attack Some 300 Targets in Saudi Arabia, UAE – Reports‘, we need to realise that Sputnik News is a Russian government held media outlet. So is this their way to support Iran? Even as we see the origin pointed at the UAE through ‘local media reported on Sunday‘, we need to be cautious on the quality of this news. When we realise the stage of the player (the Houthi forces), they lack the setting of “Yemeni Shia Houthi rebels are going to attack some 300 critical infrastructure facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates“, most of the UAE is out of their reach making part and even as I stated: “One source gives an implied presence of Hezbollah in Shinas (Oman), yet there is zero reliability as well as the fact that any attack would have required different tools as well as location does not add up” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/15/the-political-winds/) almost a week ago, I still have not seen anything reliable making that a truth, because that would put the UAE directly in harm’s way. The entire Sputnik News setting can only hold water if Houthi forces get direct access to all the Hezbollah and Iranian resources available, hence the question mark! That is perhaps the only part that gives it optional value intelligence wise and there is not level of confirmation at present. All this relies on what the actual UAE source was and Sputnik News was adamant in not giving that part up, so is the Russian government handing out support against Iran or baiting the Saudi government to act prematurely, neither option sounds good to me, no matter how we slice it, but as we see the ‘news’ I had to include it, if only to emphasize certain governments needing to set the stage and the media is still the best way to do this to us.

The Endgame (not a Marvel movie)

I personally believe that Iran is willing to skate at the edge of war, not actively seeking one. Their goal is to show how impotent (opposing important) US politics and policies have become. It partially had to as the Trump administration is tightening the pressure on Iran. As it is achieving some goals (just ask Huawei and the Chinese government) Iran is openly trying to oppose it through its two puppets Houthi forces and Hezbollah. In this Turkey is still a trump card (pun intended) but as they are becoming the buddy of Moscow, Iran realises that whatever Turkey does will be vetted by Russia for more than one reason, in this we need to see the escalations and I feel certain that Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi state minister of foreign affairs realises this too, but in the end there are a growing amount of nations that are willing to create an alliance with Saudi Arabia, it is sad that the foremost reason will be what they stand to gain through economic options with Saudi Arabia against the ethical need to oppose Iran, but that is a conversation for another day.

 

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