Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be | Journey to the Justice Brennan award

June 5, 2015 · 20:58

In reference to the router

Is this a case of Mythopoeia? Am I the JRR Tolkien of bloggers (I wish) and writer of facts by a non-journalist? It might be. You see, this is all about a mythological theme that is constant as war is, because war never changes! Its concept and construct is as old as the first ‘soldier’ who combined a flint and a stick and started to spear people. In this mindset it is all about the other person, an archaic approach to the issue that does not lie beneath, it’s in front of the person not seeing what is right in front of him/her.

It is also the first evidence that we consider the concept ‘old soldier never die, they simply fade away’ to be no longer a genuine consideration. In this day and age, the old soldier gets his/her references deleted from the database of considerations. We remain with nothing more than an old person that cannot connect or interact, the router won’t let him/her!

This is how it begins, this is about certain events that just occurred, but I will specify this momentarily, you see, it goes back to an issue that Sony remembers rather well they got hacked. It was a long and hard task to get into that place Login=BigBossKazuoHirai; Password=WhereDreamsComeTrue;

Soon thereafter no more firewall, no more routers, just the bliss of cloud servers and data, so much data! The people behind it were clever, and soon it was gone and the blame fell to the one nation that does not even have the bandwidth to get 10% past anything. Yes, North Korea got blamed and got fingered and in all that the FBI and other spokespeople gave the notion that it was North Korea. The people who understand the world of data know better, it was the only player less then least likely to get it done, the knowhow and the infrastructure just isn’t there. I did have a theory on how it was done and I published that on February 8th 2015 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/02/08/the-next-cyber-wave/) in the article called ‘The next cyber wave’. It is only a theory, but it is a lot more reliable and likely than a North Korean incursion because of a movie no one cares about.

The FBI has plenty of achievements (FIFA being the latest one), but within the FBI there is a weakness, not a failing, but a weakness. Because the US has such a niche setup for NSA, CIA and other Intel officers, their offices are for the most still archaic when it come to the digital era. They go to all the events, spend millions on courses and keep up to date, but for the most, these people are following a wave that is one generation old, they follow, they do not lead. The entire Edward Snowden issue is clear evidence. I remain to regard him a joke, not a hacker, so far he is just placed on a pedestal by the press, who have created something unreal and whatever they do not to change it, it will only cut themselves. That is the fall-back of creating an artificial hero who isn’t one.

Yet, this is not about Snowden, he is only an element. Now we get to the concept of paleo-philosophy and how it hits government structures behind IT. This all started yesterday (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/04/us-government-massive-data-breach-employee-records-security-clearances), where we see ‘OPM hack: China blamed for massive breach of US government data’. Now first of all, if one power can do this, than it is China! France, UK and a few others can do it too, but let’s just assume it is not an ally! Here is where the entire paleo-philosophy comes into play. You see, even though war remained constant, the players changed and for the most, it is no longer about governments. This is all about corporations. Even the movies are catching on, there is no true side to Russia or China as the enemy. Yes, their students might do it to impress their superiors/professors, but that would just be there defining moment. Ethan Hunt is not hunting a nation, it is now hunting conglomerates, large players who remain and require to be zero percent taxable. Those are the actual ream enemies for the UK, the US and China. You see, I am not stating it was not China, I am only questioning the reasoning and other acts. You see, I tried to get an answer from State Secretary John Kerry at +1-202-647-9572, who does not seem to be answering the phone, neither is his right hand man, Jonathan J. Finer at +1-7234 202-647-8633. This is not a secret, the State Department has the PDF with office numbers, locations and phone numbers in an open PDF and you can Google the little sucker! In the age where loads of stuff is open the right person can combine tonnes of data in a moment’s notice.

So can the larger players! The quote in the beginning is the kicker “the impact of a massive data breach involving the agency that handles security clearances and US government employee records“, you see loads of this information is already with intelligence parts and counter parts. I reckon Beijing and Moscow had updated the records within the hour that the next record keeper moved into the office. Yet, now in 2015, as the engine starts up for the presidential elections of 2016, that data is important to plenty of non-governments, that part is not seen anywhere is it?

Then we get “A US law enforcement source told the Reuters news agency on Thursday night that a ‘foreign entity or government’ was believed to be behind the attack“, which is fair enough, so how was the jump made to China? You see, only 5 weeks ago, the Financial Review gave us “US Treasury pressures Tony Abbott to drop ‘Google tax’” (at http://www.afr.com/news/policy/tax/us-treasury-pressures-tony-abbott-to-drop-google-tax-20150428-1mu2sg). So as the Obama administration ‘vowed’ to crackdown on Tax avoidance, they are really not the player who wants to do anything to upset those luscious donators of pieces of currency paper (loads of currency paper), so a mere 6 months later the US, is trying to undo what they promised, whilst still trying to push the TPP papers through the throats of consumers everywhere, what an interesting web we weave!

You see, for the large corporation that list of who has access to papers, and his/her situation is worth gold today, for the Chinese a lot less so. Yet, I am not writing China off as a possible culprit! Let’s face it, they are not North Korea, which means that they do not need to power their router with a Philips 7424 Generator! So at this point, I would tend to agree with Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei who branded the accusations “irresponsible and unscientific” at a news briefing on Friday.

Now we get to the quote that is central to the entire paleo-philosophy matters: “DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion”, first of all, I am not having a go at the DHS. I have done so in the past with good reason, but this is not that case. I think that in many areas government in not just falling behind, it started to fall behind in 2005 and has been falling behind ever since. Not just them though, organised large corporations like Sony, CVS Health, Valero Energy and Express Scripts Holding are only a few of the corporations that do not even realise the predicament they are in. The Deep Web is not just a place or a community, some of the players there have been organising and have been sharing and evolving that what they know. A massive pool of information, because Data is money, governments know it, corporation know it and THE HACKERS know it too. For them it is all relative easy, they have been living and walking the cloud data with the greatest of ease they can conflict data points and flood certain shared data hosts, only to achieve to get behind the corridor and remain invisible whilst the data is available at their leisure. In that environment the intelligence community is still trying to catch up with the basics (compared to where the hackers are). You see, whilst people in corporations and government are all about politics, those hackers were bout mayhem and anarchy, now they are figuring out that these skills get them a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle and they like the idea of not having a degree whilst owning most of Malibu Drive, a 21^st century Point Break, where the funds allow them to party all the time. Corporations got them into that thinking mode. So were the culprits ‘merely’ hackers or was it a foreign government? That is the question I am unable to answer with facts, but to point at China being likely is event less assuring. Consider who gains power with that data? This much data can be up for sale, it can be utilised. In the premise of both, China is not unlikely, but what is ‘more likely than not’ is also a matter, even though that question is less easily answered and without evidence (I have none) any answer should not be regarded as reliable!

Now we get to the quote “Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said China had made great efforts to combat cyberattacks and that tracking such events conducted across borders was difficult” it is correct, it matters and it is to the point. In addition, we must accept that trackers can also be set on the wrong path, it is not easy, but it can be done, both the hackers and China have skills there, as do the NSA and GCHQ. Yet, in all that, with the Sony hack still fresh in memory, who did it, which is the interesting question, but WHY is more interesting. We tend to focus on clearances here, but what else was there? What if the OPM has health details? What is the value of health risk analyses of 4 million people? At $10 a month that is a quick and easy half a billion isn’t it?

You see, the final part is seen here: “DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion”, This is to be expected, but the intruders know this too, so how did they get past it all again? That is the issue, I gave in my earlier blog one possible solution, but that could only be done through the inside person, to be clear of that, someone did a similar thing in the cloud, or in the stream of data, in a way that it does not show. Perhaps a mere pressure of data in a shared cloud point is all it took to get past the security. How many data packages are lost? what intel is gained from there, perhaps it is just a pure replication of packages job, there is no proper way to monitor data in transit, not in cloudy conditions, so as we see that more data is ‘breached’ we all must wonder what the data holders, both government and non-government are not ready for. It is the data of you and me that gets ‘sold’ who does it get sold to?

So as we see an article of a data hack and a photo of routers and wiring, which looks geeky and techy, was this in reference to the router? Or perhaps it is in reference to a reality many in charge are not ready to face any day soon, and in light of the upcoming US elections of 2016, some of these politicians definitely do not want to face it before 2017. Like the Google Tax, let the next person fix it!

A preferred political approach that will allow them to lose exclusivity of your data real fast!

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Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Military, Politics, Science

Tagged as Australian Financial Review, China, CVS Health, Deep Web, DHS, Express Scripts Holding, GCHQ, Hackers, Hong Lei, Jonathan J. Finer, North-Korea, NSA, OPM Hack, Philips 7424 Generator, reuters, Sony, Sony Hack, State Secretary John Kerry, the Guardian, TPP, Valero Energy, Zhu Haiquan

June 4, 2015 · 20:32

Working Nine to Swine

Today’s blog comes due to an article on Yahoo. It is not the likeliest place, but with the FIFA & Greece (I wonder how the FIFA in Greece is doing), and a few other misalignment of human nature, the one in Yahoo caught my eye for a few reasons.

The article ‘Working 9-to-5 becoming a less popular way to make a living‘ (at http://finance.yahoo.com/news/working-9-5-becoming-less-125244387.html) should be regarded as a flawed article. It merely looks at the positive elements, like being your own boss and the implied thought of more money and I do state implied!

There is another article (at https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/top-5-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-being-a-freelancer) which is titled ‘Top 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Being a Freelancer‘. They listed them in a nice order, I had seen them and even personally experienced them, so let’s take a look.

You have to make more than your previous salary.

Even though you think you have more deductions, you also have a lot more costs. Health insurances will have to be added issues, because you need to get your own enhanced insurance to counter paid sick leave and also the insurance for when there is no work and no income at all. When you are the ‘wage slave’ those elements are all the risk your boss takes and when you are in a workers pool of 5-20 that engine keeps on running, but when you are by yourself, you are 100% risk and that risk translates into premiums that go up sharply.

Some nations have a much better arrangements for paid vacation leave through work, that must now all fall in your own pocket and costings, so you need to get at least 5%-10% more to remain even with paid vacations, in addition, the other insurances, retirement plans, and a few other insurances will add up to a lot. Did you consider that in your mental costing?

You have to be a lot more versatile!

This is not just about you designing, or you doing the consultancy. You need to master acquisition (the next job around the corner) and that is just the obvious part, you become the office manager, the scheduler, the accountant’s abuser and bookkeeper and the legal ‘go between’ when billing goes southwards, this list goes on a lot further and each moment of versatility comes with its own mindset, you will need to have them all!

You have to deal with inconsistent cash flow
You are responsible for finding your own work

I already mentioned them, but issues 2, 3 and 4 are intertwined. The versatility of being the salesperson, the bookkeeper and the consultancy person are three jobs all rolled into one, when you miss out, cash flow becomes irregular, which is also dependent on you scoring new jobs. The proactive forecasted ‘sales pipeline’ is all you and you alone, there is no one to blame but you when it goes wrong! This is the first moment when you are confronted with the power of teamwork and a team of 1 is as old as the Romans (I).

The coin stops with you!

Yes the blame game is no more (if you ever did it), you can blame the CFO, the scheduler, the consultant and distribution, but they are all at one and the same phone extension, which is you and you alone!

This list was done by Belle Wong in November 2014. She did a fine job. I skipped over the positive parts for a reason, which will be clear soon enough. You see, Freelance is not for everyone, many of those who do it are usually thrust in that position outside of their own volition. There are scores who do it, I cannot deny that, but many of them tend to be in a niche market where it is really fine dining as there is no equal competition. That part is seen in places where incomes spike, which is usually a good deal, but the downside is that if you are not an established person like Sir Kenneth Robinson you better remain top dog or your income will dwindle rather fast.

You see, this is why I have an issue with the Yahoo article. When we see quotes like “Henry W. Brown ditched his fledging advertising career 11 years ago, sick of spending 15 hours a day at work and having ‘no life’. Now he works 30 hours a week, juggling about four projects a year and earns a salary in the six figures designing websites and apps“. This quote is very surreal and I even doubt the correctness of it. 4 projects a year also implies 4 deadlines and 4 final deliveries. What happens when they overlap, what happens when in three months that next job does not come through, or complications with that current job? This might be a top dog, but in mobile apps, the new (read next) top dogs are usually one development update away.

The other two quotes are “Affordable health insurance plans, which kept many workers shackled to traditional jobs, are more accessible because of the Affordable Care Act” and “companies are increasingly open to hiring freelancers and independent contractors. Many say independent workers bring fresh ideas without the long-term commitment“. In the US there is an affordable care act, but that is the only thing. That care act does not get you an income when you became a hit and run victim, or if you slip on icy pavement and you are recuperating. Even though some insurances can be made, these insurances are very expensive. They are usually not that expensive for a boss who insures all his staff, that means that the slack from you gets taken on by co-worker 1, 2 or 3. Which means the company goes on. In your freelance space it is ONLY YOU. Which means 100% drop out, at which moment premiums go up faster than you can blink your eyes at.

The second one is the part I have the greatest issue with. You see, we all work hard for a firm, we put in the hours and we get it done. So in the case of a decent boss, when there is a lull, you get to relax half a day. As you deliver, he/she will not object. But when you relax in your own firm, the equation changes as relax equals non-paid moment. When you have a busy schedule this is nice, when one job did not get through, any lull will become aggravating, because the next bills are always less than a month away. So for corporations to rely on freelancers is nice, but when too many freelancers remain, the price gets pushed down, now, when you have a family it will upset the life balance, which means that this boss gets a sweet deal, it is sweet because the social and fiscal responsibility is no longer there as they are freelancers. In that world no work means no pay at all.

There are a few other issues that neither article looked upon. You see, when I was a Freelancer, I worked at home, if you are a rich person with a separate work room, there is a small degree of separation, when it is not, your work and home life become indistinguishable. This means that the expression ‘home is where the office is’ becomes a serious reason for depression. Freelancers, when they are not working a pure sales job are at additional risk of becoming socially isolated. The danger here is not just the isolation, it is that freelancer will usually be in denial of it, making matters worse.

In the end, being a freelance is not all bad, but it is usually in the beginning of your career. My Freelance days were for the most decent, because in 1990 there was a lack of Clipper programmers, there were loads of jobs and I was able to do it on the side. There was an additional benefit that my rent in those days was then set at $195 a month for a 1-bedroom apartment. Now, the average rent is above $400 a week, that makes for really bad overhead and that is when there is no family to worry about, when junior gets sick and mommy is of working too, healthcare comes directly out of your income and your deadline flies off to never never land. I never had those complication, but in today’s world, many freelancers are 30+ and if the partner does not have a full time job, whether he/she freelances or not the pressure of missed deadlines/complications usually translates into no rent/mortgage.

These are realities you face in the world of Freelance!

So when you see these options of $2500 a day, you better believe that this is for people who are beyond flexible. I am not just talking about the decades of experience. They better have a setup that exceeds the usual corporate standards, or they will lose more time than they are comfortable with! In all this, who considered the cost of hardware and software for that matter, because the job had it for you and it is tax deductable, but you better have the goods beforehand and software can be extremely pricey!

So when you consider the article by Joseph Pisani you better keep a realistic eye on the negative and the unmentioned parts of being a Freelancer, for many bosses it is great as monthly costs are gone. The freelancer gets those costs added, and the end result is a lot less fun that the article implied it to be.

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Tagged as Belle Wong, Freelance, Joseph Pisani, www.legalzoom.com, Yahoo, yahoo.com

June 3, 2015 · 19:18

Dr Temp MD

It did not take too long for things to get outspoken, the elections are gone, Greece is against the wall making all kinds of claims regarding Blackmail and creditors and the NHS issues are also waking up. Actually, it is the Health Secretary that is waking up. Actually, that is a little too unkind. Jeremy Hunt was not asleep, let’s just state that the elections slowed issues until the ‘after’ election moment. That moment is now!

I have kept my eye on the NHS issues that play. The NHS IT, which partially collapsed the NHS due to 11.2 billion under labour, which impacted all sides of the NHS, yet it is not all political, the NHS has many sides that do need addressing. It was not their fault, I am not laying blame here, but the pressure that the NHS gets from binge drinking must stop!

If we go by the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32418122), we might see that a detox centre is saving millions, which sounds nice in theory, yet the problem is not the saved millions, it is the £3.8bn a year that is a concern, a worry and the NHS can no longer afford it. So we can go two ways, we can shift the problem with drunk tanks like in ‘the good old days‘, which suits me just fine, and if you have enough money to pay for private treatment, that that is fine too, yet here we see a debatable injustice, should the rich be non-accountable? Do we approach this from a ‘if you can afford it, fine!‘ which amounts to the same. When we see statistics that 1 in 3 for A&E is alcohol related, than there is a clear issue, if there is the additional pressure that the weekend gives up to 70% of the cases which are alcohol based, we have an issue.

There are of course other means, three strikes in the weekend and your academic options are forfeit, it is an option, but will it actually make a difference? The article also has a worrying side, the quote “as much as 50% of the patients [that we see], were not open to any services and some of them had never been seen by alcohol services before“, in that quote Dr Chris Daly is illustrating that the drinking population is changing, which makes for an uncomfortable truth, is it truly alcoholism, or escapism from austerity and bad economy? It makes all the difference, but the NHS is still getting hit, so it is time to seek alternative solutions, but where to go? You see, many solutions is about shifting blame and responsibility. In my case it is about shifting responsibility and in my view, the responsibility is given to he/she who drinks! They get the bill or go into the drunk tank. My view has not unique, I did not know this last year when I championed the idea, it seems that in 2013, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO for short) coined that same idea, those who get thrown in are fined and that pays for the upkeep. The ACPO is now getting replaced by the NPCC (National Police Chiefs’ Council).

I know that there are issues and it is not the best solution, but in a perfect world, the large corporations would not be ‘screwing over’ the nations it is draining of income and as such, the tax coffers could have paid for it all, but that is not the case at present. When a trillion in commerce is taxed at less than 1%, any government comes up short and that is exactly where the UK is now and changes, drastic ones will need to be made. If the pressure of 1,000,000 patients goes away, staff will be under less pressure, £3,500 per shift doctors become less on an issue, which saves additional coin and the NHS can than better be reassessed. The problems of the NHS will not be gone, but the £2Bn gap it faced as was stated on the BBC in June 2014 would suddenly drop to almost zero. How is that for a good idea? Now if we can find a few options for generic medicine by cooperating stronger with India and the NHS will suddenly show signs of life again. Now, there is every chance that people will object. They will mention that there are medical risks and I agree, but guess what, the ‘adult’ who thought he could quickly have 15 pints was supposed to be an adult, now he/she gets to see the consequence of this choice. Should the patient ‘pass away’ than we could also see a drop in rental pressure, which helps more people, and possibly another job opens up, lowering unemployment rates further. Now, if you think that this is over the top, than I will not disagree, but my side states, ‘well, stop them from binge drinking!’ It might seem hard, but dying solves everything!

Hey, that could make for a nice health care advertisement.

The doctor walks into the waiting room, states “I apologise, your … passed away”, “I have a cousin who is very interested in the apartment, and we gave his job details to our janitor, he thought it was a cool job, I heard he starts on Monday!”

Then it fades out and we see the slogan “Alcohol kills!” and under it we see “your apartment and job were filled quite quickly! Only your mother/spouse will possibly miss you”, is that not a killer advertisement?

No, it is not! But it seems that being soft around this subject is not solving anything either, that part has been proven for some time now. I think I know what you will state next. ‘It will be about the alcoholics and their mental health!’ This could be valid, yet some studies show that binge drinking is for over 70% associated with the premise that it is ‘really fun’. Most doctors and nurses disagree and they are NOT laughing!

So, even though I feel that it is not fair on the population at large, the NHS can no longer facilitate any of it. There is a small shimmer of hope, consider that the drunk tank comes with a £150 fee to get out, that invoice should be scary enough, because there will be no more money for food, rent and a few other things, which will reset the focus of such a person. Perhaps once is all they need to get a grip on the consequences, apart from looking like ‘road kill’ and smell like nothing anyone want to be next to, so that person will hopefully sober up, has to walk home and will have no other options for a little while. I personally am not convinced it would work, but if the binge drinking group is lowered by a mere 5%, we would see massive savings, deep into the millions, which opens up the debate, is it worth the risk? I would say: “look at Greece, inaction has now pretty much made them slaves to the creditors for the next 5 generations”, as binge drinking is self-inflicted, I would go for the yes vote, but in all this there is another side, how are they able to get into the binge drinking habit? There are a few options that comes to mind, but this is not about binge drinking, this is about the NHS.

Alcoholism and drugs are only a few factors, the NHS has a massive problem which for one part was addressed in the article.

We now get to the issue that is hard to oppose (but I will try). The quote “Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association, said the NHS’s greater reliance on agency staff “is a sign of stress on the system and the result of poor workforce planning by government”“. Is that entirely true? I think that there is a hidden non-mentioned fact here. The NHS stresses have been an issue for a longer time and yes, there are issues, but let’s go over all this. Simon Stevens is the government CEO now (that title never stops making me chuckle), before that it was David Nicholson and before that it was Lord Nigel Crisp. I want to step over all the scandals as they are just getting in the way of the issues. You see, the entire chuckling bit is an issue. It is hilarious to see a political appointed CEO, I personally believe that it is a recipe for disaster with a 100% chance of leaving a sour taste in the mouth, one way or another! It needs to get a more commercial appointment with a new board, a board of executive advisors, one political, one financial and a few medical advisors. It would be great if the CEO is a medic, but the UK is short of them already, pushing them to a governing desk is not really a solution, which of course is a little shoulder thump to Dr Mark Porter (with the friendliest intention). Of course, the quote by Shadow minister Andy Burnham is equally entertaining “mistakes by the Conservatives had led to the expanded use of agency staff“, which sounds a little over the top as the staff issues would be resolved by an IT overhaul, which Labour fumbled whilst spending over 11 billion, so that solution did not pan out and now, the conservatives are still fixing the mess. In addition, the statistics show a sheer increase of costs. In the term of Labour 1997 – 2010, the costs for the NHS doubled. The earlier mentioned IT failure being a chunk of it. Before Labour the hospital services represented 4.9%, whilst by 2010 it had grown to 21%, which is like 400% more. Yet, be careful and do not just blatantly accept my numbers either! My source (at http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/wp02.pdf) has a few issues, and there is a lack of clarity on reasons here. However, pharmaceutical services went down from 43.5 to 39.8 and even in 2010 to 31.8, which is good, but the history of generic pharmaceuticals is not clear in this regard, which is reliant on the ending of patents. Dental services has a fluctuation around 5%, so there does not seem to be a lot of options here. Yet, we must give clear admittance that there are elements that Labour could not foresee. The NHS costs went from 6.6% of GDP in 1997 to 9.6% in 2010, which happens when people grow old and do not die, they require treatment. The adjusted GDP was £279Bn in Q1 1997, £373Bn in Q4 2010, which means that the shift is a lot more than 3%, it is an additional £11Bn on top of the 3% shift. That shift in this ‘greying’ population will only get stronger. I am all for giving them the best care, they did their job. Which made me look at the drunk tank for those who have not done anything yet.

Yet, there is also other evidence. One part is found in the Public expenditure on health and care services (at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhealth/651/651.pdf). On page 35 we see “The evidence presented to the Committee demonstrates that the measures currently being used to respond to the Nicholson Challenge too often represent short-term fixes rather than the long-term transformations which the service needs“. I do not disagree with that statement, yet the commercial side remains an issue. Sir David Nicholson needed to cut 20 billion, or more. The Nicholson challenge was there to (attempt to) achieve this. When we see the political side whinge left, right and decently less from the centre, we need to accept that they are not paying the bills, when was there an agreement on both sides on how much the NHS was allowed to cost? Drastic cutbacks were the challenge and I am not stating that it was a great or the right solution, but it was close to the only solution. By the way, these cutbacks got started under the previous administration, headed by none other than Andy Burnham, so as he is stating issues with agency staff, I need to voice ‘howls of deriving laughter!’ it amounts to this blogger calling MP Andy Burnham a dunsel. You signed off on the need to cut back, you now do not get to steer the conversation in that manner Mr Burnham! The additional quote in his name is “Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has further complicated the picture by suggesting a reformed NHS may need less than £8bn“, in what universe? After we dehydrate the drunks and drown the elderly? The mere increase in needed funds over the term 1997 – 2010 is an adjusted £11 billion that is just the increase, not including the required amount, which was already £18 billion in 1997. If I was a mean man I would point out to Mr Burnham that Excel does not treat the mean and the sum function in the same manner. So the sum over 4 years is not the same as the average per year per 4 year term. As stated, I am not a mean (not the same as average) person, so I will not say that to Andy Burnham MP for Liverpool. However, we need to be fair, Liverpool has its share of famous people, but perhaps no famous science people? In music there are the Beatles, in comedy there is John Bishop, there are actors, writers, but perhaps not any math people? Ah Darn, the famous John Horton, who came with the Combinatorial Game Theory (CGT) as well as revelations in Quantum mechanics. Mr Burnham, you should have known better!

Back to the NHS issue we go!

You see, it is in its most basic concept a simple equation BUDGET = SUM(COST1,COST2,,,COSTn); budget is known and for a while budget had to go down, which implies (using the word ‘means’ here might be confusing) that costs MUST go down. The biggest ones are usually location, maintenance and personnel. Location can usually not be tempered with, maintenance can be looked at, but with too much specialist equipment in NHS locations, there is not too much you can do and these devices usually come with a servicing fee that is not the cheapest one and with 20 devices you are usually looking at 15+ contracts. There are more devices and parts that fall under maintenance, yet there tends to be minimal movement here, so personnel remains. It is not fair, I completely agree, yet the list tends to be not that large and staff is usually the first cut (or not replaced). We all agree that it is short sighted, which The Health Committee agreed with. By the way, how many committees are there in the NHS and how much do those events cost? I’ll bet you that they are not playing for the cat’s violin, so there are costings there too. So as we see the following “As set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, each CCG must have a governing body. This body must have an audit committee and a remuneration committee“, now what will that part cost?

So you see, the list goes on and on. Some costings are a given, some are not and the needed funds increase every single year. In 10 years, the percentage increase over the GDP growth amounted to those eleven billions alone. We would like to do it better, more intelligent and cheaper, but how? If healthcare depends on high quality, there was never that much leeway to begin with. So are we left with the inhumane choices? I refuse to believe that, but to start to be less pampering to the binge drinkers seems in my humble opinion to be an acceptable first step.

I also believe that Jeremy Hunt is on track with the agency staff cuts, which is outrageous, but where to get the people then? I mentioned to him that he should consider opening the door to Australian medical graduates. Even though there is a rural shortage (no one wants to go there) the urban shortage is less true shortage. Perhaps Canada has that same option? What if these graduates work in the UK for a few year, for a decent income and an annual percentage payment to their study debt? It is usually easier to find graduates willing to be a little adventurous for a few years. It could work (at least lessen the pressures) and it will be a lot cheaper than £3,500 per doctor per shift, that will be an absolute given. If this solution works in getting the issues of the boil, the agencies will have no other option but to lower prices, their prices are linked to demand plain and simple. The NHS is literally experiencing the pounding the CIA got in 2003-2010, analysts went external as their income went up by 250%-400%, which was all the rage back there! So as the NHS HR literally knows how a CIA HR representative feels, we giggle a little more. But it is no laughing matter, analysts are 13 a dozen, Medical practitioners and nurses are an entirely different ball of wax and that equation is not easily solved.

So as the pressure of shortage remains, so will the existence of Dr Temp MD, it could even shift further into the temp direction, which spells bad times for the NHS. There is however one final part. In that Dr Mark Porter has a role to play too. The British Medical Association (BMA) is the trade union and professional body for doctors in the UK and has always ‘pushed’ for the highest standards, this was done to such an extent (before Porters time) that willing graduates from several nations were unable to get a VISA and rebuild their life in the UK, there is something to say for that ruling, but by keeping the ‘projected’ level of care so unobtainable high, the UK now faces a shortage issue. I think that these rules of immigration need to be looked at and additional solutions should be tapped into. I cannot guarantee that this will be THE solution, but it seems clear that not looking at this possibility will leave the NHS in the near death state it is now!

It is only one step, but any solution for the NHS should only be taken step by step, which is always better than no action at all.

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June 1, 2015 · 23:33

Redo from start?

I have been considering the games that are, that are soon to come and those we wish to see again. I feel that I am not unique, I am one of many who feels the same way many gamers feel. It all started with a simple pre-order notice I saw at JB-Hifi. The order was not for Mass Effect 4, but for Mass Effect, which seemed a little odd. Soon I found a few less reliable mentions of a possible upcoming re-release of Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 for Nextgen (Xbox One and PS4). I got excited, because overall the Mass Effect series are nothing short of a marvellous achievement. Consider that Mass Effect is one of the earliest Xbox360 releases, it still hold a storyline that was amazing to play. Yes, we will replay and we will know certain key parts, but that is still not an issue for those who love Mass Effect.

The revamped version of the last of us seemed to have instilled a desire for games on Nextgen that should make developers happy. Is that because the lack of good games or is that because the new games are leaving us cold? I think it is a little bit of both. As studios tried to play the ‘marketing game’ they are now learning harshly that playing that game on gamers is a sure way to see your product get smashed. The outrage that Assassins Creed Unity brought is only one of the elements. I will go one step further, a relaunch with upgrades to the story of Assassins Creed 1, 2 and brotherhood would very likely be more successful than the next Assassins Creed. This for the simple reason that the makers seem to have lost their way (the fact that Unity is regarded by many as the worst Nextgen release does not help any).

Even a relaunch of System Shock (1+2) is likely to draw in a much larger crowd than the likely disappointments new PS4 RPG’s are going to bring. The added issues is not just the game, the problem is for the most the marketing division for these developers; a decent example is the Division by Ubisoft. My issue is that so far the game might look good and could even become great, but in their approach to feed the hungry hordes of journalists and to remain ‘visible’, the people at E3 2014 got to see something that is now not coming until 2016, even the Q1 part here is currently under debate, so as the gamer is promised a game that is now 19 months from its initial ‘presentation’ the people are wondering whether to trust the game because of the mental link we all make between presentation and delivery. It leaves many of us with the thought ‘how many bugs do they need to fix‘? Now, that thought might not be the correct one, but when 10,000+ people think it, some outspoken nitwit will scream it on YouTube, which results in many players moving away from what could be a good game. An example here is Elder Scrolls online, which is a marketing disaster, yet when we see the review from ChaosD1 (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2082&v=csY7RYF4rKQ), which is excellent and might change the minds of those who walked away from Elder Scrolls Online.

We the players now want to move to games we know, we trust and believe in, which gives added weight to relaunched games. Let’s not forget that Borderlands, The Last of Us and God of War 3 were excellent games. There is however another form of relaunch, one that is not actually a relaunch, but a new evolution of the game. Elite, the legendary game from the BBC Micro B, might have made its fame on the CBM64, it is the upcoming console version which left some parts intact that is now the talk of many towns and even more gamer communities. It shows a new air and an approach to a ‘sandbox’ world many are eager to get onto. As Elite upped the game by mapping the galaxy, with the added wink to legendary science fiction moments, which they did by adding Vulcan and the Leonard Nimoy Space Station as well as Pratchett’s Disc Starport. It is still many years away (as he is in good health), but the moment will come when we will get a place like Badger’s station or the President Lampkin’s station of justice as Mark Sheppard joins the legendary ranks in Elite: Dangerous. You might wonder what does it matter, but it does! You see, as the gamer identifies with moments of his own ‘reality’, the things he/she is passionate about! The game becomes more fun and we will see that people connect more to a game. The danger is that when the threshold lowers and too many ‘legends’ are added, it could drive down the sentiment overall, but the sentiment remains! This will not hinder the upcoming No Man’s sky and both titles will very likely appeal to many players. In that same air we should see the upcoming Shadow of the Beast. What was a scrolling game with slashing on the Amiga/Atari ST, is showing itself to be a Nextgen blood dripping slice and dice extravaganza. This is a new group where the makers can relaunch their original idea and many gamers will love them. So, as the ‘new’ games don’t hack it, the gamers will get treated to a game that did and will do so again. The benefit here is that game makers will need to up their game by a lot to get out there. In the end the gamer wins no matter what! (Don’t you just love that?)

So they will pray at the ‘shrine of Pong‘ to replay System Shock, which does not hinder others either. When we consider Paradroid, or even some games for a chosen crowd like Sierra Entertainment’s games called Manhunter New York and Manhunter 2: San Francisco. They were well above average games then and could now get vamped into truly awesome games tomorrow. Perhaps we will actually live to see the conclusion of part 3 in London. It will be up to Activision to decide and as I see it, it just takes one visionary view within Activision to unlock that revenue! That same feeling is there for the Ultima series. Even though game 10 was an experience released too soon, the idea of an ‘Elder scrolls World’ that is Britannia could be massive. The fact that a developed ‘world’ is scanned and transferred to a first person environment complete with quests, side quests and upgraded storyline could give way to a new generation of gamers, let’s not forget that those who played the original are now regarded to be in the ‘old’ section (yes, that includes me), whilst the young section will experience something completely original in a new jacket. A world where you get Ultima 4, 5 and 6 in one game on the same world with the challenges to master is not only new and novel, pulling it off would raise the bar of gaming considerably. Something all gamers desire!

We became complacent in gaming as we played the Assassins Creed series, which for the most was just ‘more’ (specifically 2, Brotherhood and Revelations). Shadow of the Beast and Elite: Dangerous are now showing that ‘more’ can be an entire new range in evolution, a part many gamers (and developers) have not truly contemplated. As those behind the developers, learn to look behind them on what was and what can be great again, we learn, actually as I see it, it is the gamer taught the developer that games can be recycled.

Yet, we must also consider that it is not about the open world part, a trap I myself tend to fall into. The immersing part of being trapped in a house and surviving it, or as some will call it Alien: Isolation is basically redoing what was great and leaving the player with a replayable challenge. Which is the holy grail of gaming! I believe that more could be coming. I still regard Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 (GameCube games) as one of the most amazing games Nintendo ever released, they did on 3” DVD what many developers could not achieve on a 4.7” Blu-ray, which is truly amazing.

On the other side we see the failures, the hype that was Watchdogs is regarded by some as a failure and a joke. I do not completely agree, but overall the game is not the titan it was heralded to be, but it could be the introduction to a second game that is really awesome (Assassins Creed 1 + 2 are evidence of that), I am just willing to see the glass half full in the case of Watchdogs and I am willing to give Ubisoft a little slack in this game, especially as they do not deserve any slack for butchering the Assassins Creed series (yes, I am slightly obsessed with that). On that same line I tend to set Thief! It was not great, but decent, I do not regret getting the game when I did.

What will come next? Well, that is the question, so as many stare at the horizon for Fallout 4 and Mass Effect 4, we should not hesitate to look behind us to see new (and hopefully improved versions) of Tenchu and Mega-lo-Mania. In my view as all the developers are focussing on multi-player and micro transactions, they forget that the bulk of ALL gamers need moments of escapism, where they need not weigh anything, but focus on just having fun. This is why Minecraft is so bloody addictive. Diablo again shows levels of fulfilment. It is basically why people on Facebook keep a game like Zombie Slayer around. It has no mental need (minimal) it has decent graphics (images) and it shows progress. I will take it one step further, especially as I am not that much of a zombie fan. It is in my view one of the reasons why some of these games will always survive, when we add Pokémon to the mix we see that part even further. It is only because of the technological flaw that Sapphire and Ruby could no longer be played, yet now, with the 3DS editions, we see the power of that formula. Those who played before still love what can be played again, so as some stare forward to the horizon of new games due to technology, do not forget about the treasures behind us. Now some do not feel that ‘vigour’ when they play Colonization, a Sid Meier masterpiece, because it is board like and turn based, but what happens when the mastery of Colonization gets blended with the freedom of play that Seven Cities of Gold on the CBM-64 brought? Evolution, re-playability and challenge all in one go! I would really be curious to see such a result. I believe that within 95% of all gamers is a casual gamer that just wants to have fun, which is why Diablo and Minecraft will survive forever, we will do the multi thing in Mass Effect 3 for periods of time (best multi player experience EVER!), yet we will always return to the games that mentally satisfy, the part that scripted games cannot deliver, a niche market with long term gaming fun many developers seem to ignore.

Let the games begin!

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May 31, 2015 · 00:52

Losing Blatter control

I initially dreaded today, not just because I had heard earlier that FIFA will get a few more years of bladder control, but because of the news waves that would come after. The first one that came to view was the Guardian (of course). So this is what the Guardian had to say: “The re-elected FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, has said he was “shocked” at the way US authorities targeted football’s world body and slammed what he called a “hate” campaign by Europe’s football leaders“.

Dear Mr. Blatter, are you (allegedly) insane? This is not a little get together, this is a structural failing of an organisation, where over 150 million went to personal gains. All this whilst you were in control! I suggest you wake up and consider the fact that possible events calling for criminal negligence with Sepp Blatter in the next indictment has not been ruled out yet! As for the statement “arrests were timed to interfere with Zurich congress” could be regarded as misdirection, when you send in the ferrets, you send them into the hole when all the rabbits are together!

Let’s re-attach the original indictment: fifa-indictment-webb-etal

Then we see the comment: “The FIFA president condemned comments made by US officials including the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who said corruption in football was “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted, both abroad and here in the United States”” Is that the fact Mr Blatter? The indictment specifies 13 criminal schemes, so if you want to condemn anything, it should be your choice of organisation and your inability to prevent any of this. The articles have not even looked at the implications on the overturned appeal to release Michael Garcia’s original full report. Consider the votes who blocked this and the people who are now indicted for corruption. How many influence was there?

Consider the appeal response by FIFA (at FIFA.com) “The FIFA Appeal Committee, chaired by Larry Mussenden, has concluded that the appeal lodged by the chairman of the investigatory chamber, Michael J. Garcia, against the statement of the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee, Hans-Joachim Eckert, is not admissible“, the people want to know what actually was found. So, in all this, with this much money involved the three top dogs: Larry Mussenden, Hans-Joachim Eckert and Sepp Blatter. They are all in awe and shock that there was corruption? I mentioned it yesterday Andrew Jennings with ‘The Beautiful Bung: Corruption and the World Cup’, consider that this was 2006, we get two parts “A few days later we encountered Warner at Trinidad’s international airport and tried again to ask him about his ticket rackets and the fact that he steers lucrative FIFA contracts to his two sons Daryll and Daryan. After the World Cup Andrew obtained two confidential Ernst & Young reports from FIFA sources revealing that Warner had illicitly obtained 5,400 ticket for Germany and sold them to package tour companies in Japan, Mexico and Britain” as well as “FIFA vice president Jack Warner makes threatening gestures to Andrew’s cameraman“. Now we see that the sons have been arrested, Jack Warner proclaims his innocence and now we see reports that in the statements from the sons that their father is mentioned as being involved.

I think that Mr Blatter needs to take a long hard look at his own indignation and consider what he will do next, because his legacy has been burned down, it happened on his watch. In my view he has no one to blame but himself. Not because this unfolds now, but because there has been a decade of clear indications that things were amiss and no corrective steps had been made (as far as I can tell).

So when we see the Guardian part where we see the Defence of Blatter, which is shown at “But Blatter also appeared to discount his own responsibility for the scandal. “We can’t constantly supervise everyone in football,” he insisted. “You can’t just ask people to behave ethically just like that.”“, is that so? So, when we see the events from 2006 onwards, what did you do Mr Blatter?

Now, before people start overreacting, or trivialising on how large FIFA is, let’s not forget that amongst the arrested people were Jeffrey Webb and Eugenio Figueredo, both Vice Presidents of FIFA, so the list takes us to one step from the very top, which gives additional weight to both the inactions from Sep Blatter as well as the overturned appeal from Michael Garcia. Not to mention the fear they NOW have as they are fighting extradition, it does not matter what rank you have in FIFA, once you are a member of the State Penal League, those ‘rich’ boys will end up becoming somebodies bitch, how will that feel?

A side fact to mention is that I talked to dozens of people today regarding the FIFA corruption, not one person, I say again, not one person was surprised. So Mr Blatter, how truly undignified can you be, when there is almost a decade of presented evidence, as well as the press coverage over the years. It seems that in my humble view, Mr. Blatter should currently be presented with an Oscar for best theatrics, 2015!

Now let’s take a look at the part that matters, not just the press, not the ‘opinions’ from people (or from me for that matter), let’s look at the allegations in the indictment.

The enterprise is set as FIFA. It only has a written Code of Ethics in October 2004, revised in 2006 and 2009, it states that ‘that soccer officials were prohibited from accepting bribes or cash gifts and from otherwise abusing their positions for personal gain‘. On page 32 we see: ‘The Initial Corruption of the Enterprise’, here we see “WARNER worked closely thereafter with Co-Conspirator #1, whose fortunes rose with WARNER’s and who was appointed to be WARNER’s general secretary at CONCACAF. Following his appointment, Co-Conspirator #1 transferred CONCACAF’s administrative headquarters to New York, New York. WARNER established the president’s office in his home country of Trinidad and Tobago“, in addition we see “the defendant JACK WARNER established and controlled numerous bank accounts and corporate entities in which he mingled his personal assets and those of CONCACAF, CFU, and TTFF. Beginning in the early 1990s, WARNER, often with the assistance of Co-Conspirator #1, began to leverage his influence and exploit his official positions for personal gain. Among other things, WARNER began to solicit and accept bribes in connection with his official duties, including the selection of the host nation for the World Cups held in 1998 and 2010, which he participated in as a member of the FIFA executive committee“. Even though we can all understand that these people are making a nice amount of coinage. The growth in real estate by ‘family members‘ should have spurted questions on a few levels. the fact that the indictment states “with money drawn from an account held in the name of a soccer facility that was ostensibly affiliated with CONCACAF and was supported in part through FAP funds” gives voice to additional questions on how the books were kept, who was keeping the books and how can a FIFA president remain ignorant of these situations as they are now being documented?

I keep on going back to the work of Andrew Jennings ‘The Beautiful Bung: Corruption and the World Cup’. You see, Jennings is an investigative reporter, he worked for the Sunday Times and BBC Radio 4. He is not some glossy wannabe on the Telegraph or on any Murdoch shouting-wannabe-outrageous press view. This man did a decent job, looked at the issues and this all is reasonably nothing compared to ‘FIFA’s Dirty Secrets’ (November 2010). These are several clear-cut allegations that should have been points of action into investigation and adaption of rules and regulations within FIFA, yet all indications are that nothing was done, which makes the position of Sep Blatter a lot more worrying. Now we get to the one defence Blatter gave that does make sense “At the end of my term I will be able to hand over a strong FIFA – one that is integrated and will have enough safeguards to not need political interventions” (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32925227). In my view, the only way to do this is to be open and strict investigative. So, that did not include, or should it have allowed for the statement “the way US authorities targeted football’s world body and slammed what he called a “hate” campaign by Europe’s football leaders“.

In my view Sep Blatter is off to a negatively rocky start.

Additional evidence for questions on how finances are managed. Even FIFA.com is massively unclear on all of it. It that not strange for a multi-billion dollar industry? The fact that there is one president and then there are committee members, no clear CFO, of head of Finances, at least not clearly stated on their website. That does not raise any questions? Something this widespread should have a clear list of names and functions, especially financial ones. So when you see the Governance part of FIFA and we see “According to article 69, paragraph 2 of the FIFA Statutes, FIFA’s revenue and expenditure “shall be managed so that they balance out over the financial period”. Furthermore, “FIFA’s major duties in the future shall be guaranteed through the creation of reserves”“, when we see that line and we should all wonder on how some of these operations are in play. Consider the representation (at http://www.martingrandjean.ch/data-visualization-the-fifa-budget-2015-2018/), I cannot attest to the accuracy of it all, but it shows something interesting. With 5 billion coming in and when we look at the massive amounts of projects in funds going out, whilst leaving 100 million in profit, now consider posts like ‘competitive management‘, ‘Football governance‘, ‘Human resources‘ so many involved projects, linked people and other elements, can we now see that Sep Blatter should have acted in many regards a lot sooner, especially when we see the allegations thrown at the members of governance of FIFA?

This graph might be debatable for the amounts, but what is clearly shown are the amount of venues linked in all this and I feel decently certain, that considering where the 500,000 dollar from the Football Federation Australia went. If that went to ‘a stadium upgrade in Trinidad and Tobago’, if so, where is the accounting? Apart from the payment calling in to all kinds of questions, there are logistic issues. Something this big, this complex requires accountants and oversight. Can anyone explain why we see a second Tesco evolve? If you think that this is an exaggeration, then consider the data visualisation and all those projects costing millions, some totalling hundreds of millions out of a cash flow of 5 billion. You still think I am exaggerating?

When you look at these ‘facts’, I state facts loosely, because the source and quality of the data visualisation cannot be validated/verified (even though the source ‘FIFA Financial Report 2013’ is mentioned). But overall it shows several paths and many of them are known entities, so when we ignore the amount except for the two elements adding to 5 billion, which are publicly known. Can you even imagine how weird and unacceptable the ignorance of Sep Blatter is, how totally out of place of is for a president of an organisation the size of FIFA?

I let you decide, but consider the stories we see, the information we are not seeing and how the FBI was the one acting at present. In addition, as I requoted the 500,000, which was according to sources for a ‘stadium upgrade in 2010’. The information I found was that it was to upgrade the Marvin Lee Stadium. In 2007, the Stadium became the first in the Caribbean to have an artificial playing surface, costing TT$8 million, which was made possible through a FIFA development grant. This comes to AU$ 1.6 million, or £824,000. So where did the 2.4 million TT$ go to in 2010? And why did a stadium needed that much for an upgrade? Interesting on http://stadiumdb.com/stadiums/tri/marvin_lee_stadium is the fact that we see there that renovations were made in 2007, there is no mention of the 2010 upgrade as was stated. I am certain that some upgrades were made, but for how much? In addition we see all the artificial turf, but who costs it and is it competitively costed (especially when it sets someone 1.6 million back)? I do not know the answer, I am asking, I wonder who else if any are asking these questions in plight of the corruption allegations as well as the arrests made.

There is one final part. It puzzles me, hence I mention it. Especially in light of what is now visibly passing. The indictment, criminal counts three and four involve two wire transfers totalling 13 million in name of CONMEBOL at Banco do Brasil in Asunción, Paraguay. In light of the financial hardship Paraguay has had, with the crises of 1995, reforms demanded by the IMF due to corruption, with the banks having a long time history of laundering. Why would FIFA act in such a naive way? It is a fact that the HQ of CONMEBOL is in Paraguay, so there is a valid reason for the transfer, In 2013 Chile had one of the 50 safest banks, and Paraguay does not get mentioned on that list at all. Even if we accept the validity of the bank transfer (which seems to be the case), but what happened to the money after that? You see, that becomes the question. In addition, we see that apart from the Australian ‘donation’ counts 10 and 11 where additional donations went to the CFU Trinidad. Again, it seems valid, but what happened after that? The indictment is now 11 days old. Any quality CFO could have gone public stating where the money had gone to, in effect blowing the entire indictment out of the water. The fact that we see that certain FIFA members are fighting the extradition, in addition to the fact that conference and election or not, clarity on several points could have been able to give (read: should) in matters of hours give added question to what is going on.

My issue is not the ‘what next’ part, it is the ‘what did they not yet find’ part.

You see the indictments are on the transfers and payments, in the first degree. we see over time that CFU got two payments of a little over half a million, which should not be a blip on a 5 billion dollar radar, but for the indictment, it is, so what information is not shown at present (the trial will bring that out)? You see, are counts 10 and 11 a clear indication that they have certain evidence, or are these counts the crowbar to open up other issues, issues that could come up in ‘operational expenses and services‘ which the data visualisation sets at 990 million. I reckon that true digging into ‘building and maintenance’, ‘human resources’, ‘other’ and one element not even named could be the field where the FBI knows the issues are, the question now, does FIFA have a correct and precise account, if not, why not? If so then the comparison will leave a few highlighted fish, which will put Jeffrey Web in an uncertain location. The CFU will get into other waters as well as this is all British terrain (artificially grassed or not), the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will soon get additional work, because they will now have their own investigation as well and as I see it, it will go a lot further than just a few banks.

FIFA might be all about the ball, but it seems that Sep Blatter has not been on it, not for a while now.

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May 29, 2015 · 23:09

Condoning corruption!

There is no escaping the news, FIFA is currently getting smeared all over the place, but before we start painting the roses red, the question we must ask is who are we trying to appease?

Our own sense of morality perhaps?

My first writing on all this started on March 19^th 2014 in ‘Any sport implies corruption!‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/03/19/any-sport-implies-corruption/), There I looked at the first allegations against Qatar. The evidence presented was highly debatable. It took me to a response Lord Denning gave in the trial Miller v. Minister of Pensions [1947] 2 All ER 372. The statement was “more probable than not”. In the end, I had reservations on whether Qatar was guilty of bribes. I finalised my view with “it is more likely than not that three people were falsely set in an illegal light so that several unnamed persons could walk away with many hundreds of millions of Euros“. My view was apparently a lot more optimistic!

Now we get to the news of the last few days.

On May 27^th FIFA officials get arrested on corruption charges. (06:00)
On May 27^th Criminal investigation into 2018 and 2022 World Cup awards opened (09:30)
On May 27^th FIFA presidential election to go ahead, no 2018 and 2022 World Cup revotes (10:30) (source: http://www.espnfc.com.au/)

At 14:30 4 members, Chuck Blazer, Jose Hawilla, Daryan Warner and Daryll Warner plead guilty. So, even as daddy Warner proclaims his innocence, it seems that he was able to instil values of corruption in his boys. However just now in the Wall Street Journal (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/three-men-with-ties-to-former-fifa-official-aided-probe-1432859617) gives us the quote “businessmen who have been involved in ventures…including ventures involving their father”, which gives way to daddy Warner being in water a lot warmer than he might find comfortable. But in all this, the disturbing part is not the fact that FIFA seems to be corrupt through and through, it is odd in my view that this has been going on under the watchful eye of police forces all over Europe, as well as Interpol. These events were all brought to light by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (of FBI for short). Is that not puzzling? I was not the only one thinking this. A similar thought came from Chris Bryant MP (at http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-32925653)

When we consider certain facts.

From USA Today we get “Blazer was a member of the FIFA Executive Committee from 1996 to 2013, when he was replaced by Sunil Gulati. That same year Blazer was accused of taking over $15 million in payments from FIFA over the course of his tenure and was suspended“, so now suddenly he is regarded as a ‘Report: Former FIFA executive-turned-informant‘ and he had a $6000 apartment for his cats! So, basically he had a pussy place for that cash? Yet the part that is linked here is “CONCACAF’s offices took up the entire 17th floor, but Blazer often worked from two apartments where he lived on the 49th floor“. It seems to me that there is a lot more going on here. Is it perhaps (mere speculation) that certain meetings were to be taken in a deniable setting? More important, I get it that the FBI caught on, but why did the Police forces all over Europe remain blind to all this? In addition, this also brings the entire Michael Garcia debacle again into focus. The fact that this level of corruption had been going on, and as far as we can tell, it happened under the nose of Michael Garcia. When we consider he had been digging into the entire corruption issues for both 2018 and 2022, it seems odd that no flags were raised when we consider the lavish lifestyle of some members. The fact that his appeal to publish the entire document he worked on was overthrown, now these people will get to explain a lot as the corruption scandal spins out of control and anyone now trying to withhold information could end up painted black by the ‘corruption brush’!

It is Attorney General Loretta Lynch who says it best: “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks”, so over two generations, decades in activities and the President Sep Blatter remains blind to it all? I am not stating whether he was involved, that is up to the FBI and they did not find anything, the fact that he should have been aware something was wrong is ample evidence that Sep Blatter is nowhere near fit to preside over FIFA. Not when something like this goes on for decades under his presidency.

If we accept the view from the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/28/fifa-expose-british-press-andrew-jennings-sunday-times-corruption-fa), where we see: “Andrew Jennings, 71, who has traced Sepp Blatter’s footsteps for more than a decade. Jennings worked for the Sunday Times and BBC’s Panorama. His BBC film about FIFA corruption, The Beautiful Bung, appeared as long ago as 2006“, so as we consider these facts and the fact that this happened, for a large extent under the eyes of Sep Blatter, as we see that he had made no moves since the 2006 film, which should have been an eye opener for him, Scotland Yard and Interpol, but it was the FBI in 2015 who got it done!

Is there no blame? With this level of negligence? I hardly think that is the case and as I see the presidency of Sep Blatter should be cut immediately. In addition, if FIFA wants to regain any level of credibility, it has in my view, no other option but to publish the full report by Michael Garcia. You see, what is in there will be revealing, but I feel certain that what is not in there might be worth even more. Because all this happened, because certain steps were not done and even the tail coat of Michael Garcia is very likely to get smudged. Now let me be clear, I do not believe that Michael Garcia did anything wrong, yet as he started his role in July 2012, he must have had a few thoughts on how he can remain so isolated from the entire pack, as it was devouring the better part of 150 million. Red flags should have been raised in the corner of his eyes, but that might be just me speculating!

The other part hit me when I read the article “Chuck Blazer: FIFA ‘supergrass’” (at http://www.bbc.com/news/32913599), when we consider the quote “it was at this time that Blazer signed a contract with Concacaf that entitled him to 10% commissions on all sponsorship and TV rights deals through his company Sportvertising, giving rise to his nickname of ‘Mr Ten Percent’“, so he gets 10% and still he gets on the Trans Corruption Express? In 2011 he gets the option to become the inside man, the informer. It seems to me that this person has been given a way to lavish life, with 2 repayments. The first one of 1.9 million and another one still to come. I reckon his attorney will use the ‘colon cancer card’ for maximum effect.

I reckon, the FBI did in light of the inaction by so many others, a great job!

The question on everyone’s mind will be regarding the future of FIFA, because without a complete overhaul and without a complete rewriting of the rules, there is every chance that FIFA might not be tolerated any further. There is one more matter, which was set at http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/28/australian-police-asked-to-investigate-500000-payment-to-fifas-jack-warner. Here we see ‘Australian police asked to investigate $500,000 payment to FIFA’s Jack Warner‘. So this is another ball game. My question is in the first degree, what was the payment for? Was there a receipt? The Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting part: “The $500,000 payment by the FFA to a football association bank account controlled by Warner – a payment ostensibly made to redevelop a stadium in Trinidad and Tobago“, so why was the Football Federation Australia paying to redevelop a stadium there? The second quote “The FFA on Thursday defended its failure to report the matter to Australian or US police on the basis that FIFA – the organisation now at the centre of an international corruption storm – asked them not to” is even further troubling. Basically, FIFA officials seem to get away with it, the moment the word ‘FIFA’ and ‘request’ are mentioned together, the simple application of Common Sense went straight out of the window.

Even though there will be no resetting of 2018 and 2022, issues still need to be addressed. There is now an additional side to all this. Editors seem to forget at times what they do, but let me remind you regarding the article I wrote on November 14^th 2014 called ‘Sacking the editor?‘, in there Martin Ivens is quoted by Reuters: “Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported that some of the “millions of documents” it had seen linked payments by former FIFA executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam to officials to win backing for Qatar’s World Cup bid”, is that not interesting? So, did the police act on any of that? Is it perhaps possible that the allegations from a newspaper actually hindered a criminal investigation? It is hard to say as the direct facts are murky (and my view on UK Criminal law is murky too), but it all gives way to a hidden stream of events under the FIFA tsunami that is now hitting the press. Has the press shouted ‘wolf’ so often that certain officials stopped acting? That is the direct question here, because the indignation that Chris Bryant MP voiced (Labour) is very real. Why did the FBI solve that what should have been squarely in the corner of Scotland Yard and Interpol. Andrew Jennings is only one of many sources that seem to have been ignored by many people and players on numerous levels.

So, are we condoning corruption? Before you say ‘no’ consider how long this issue was unattended and the fact that the FIFA president, who remained oblivious to the entire matter is at this point likely to be re-elected calls for even more questions. The last part was released half an hour ago. We must give option to refer to the Serious Fraud Office with some laughter as it is now assessing the ‘materials’ which give voice to the fact that Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank were used to transfer cash. Didn’t we see two of those banks in other ‘issues’ involving cash?

Is anyone else finally waking up?

The Original Indictment: fifa-indictment-webb-etal

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May 27, 2015 · 20:17

The sexualised animal house

I just stumbled upon an article that got published a week ago. It is video by Laura Pintur and was produced by Bill code (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/may/21/lads-mags-sexist-zoo-magazine-supermarkets-collective-shout-video). The article is decently made, although one could wonder how something this serious would be brought with such a smile, but that is beside the point. She has started an offensive against Zoo Magazine. Now for the most, I stay away from these magazines. Zoo is just the bottom of the barrel and it competes with a score of magazines that are slightly better (Maxim and FHM) for example. I have read a few in the past and I personally preferred the UK editions as they were more playful in wordplay and were overall slightly better written.

But back to Zoo magazine. The first thing I noticed was the tag ‘Feminism’ at the bottom. Now, I need you to take that word and stamp it in your brain!

Now let’s look at the video!

She quotes a few things, yet the part at 00:19 puzzled me “cut your ex’s face, than nobody will want her”. It is part of a response in the ‘Ask Danny!’ column. So now we get to the part where we revise the word ‘feminism’. You see article 33 of the NSW Crimes act will categorise the act of slicing a face as ‘Wounding or grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm’. Wounding any person in such a way is a crime and comes with a maximum of ‘Imprisonment for 25 years’, so is it feminism, or just plain criminal?

Now we get the other side. This is not last week, Laura Pintur is grabbing back to an event that happened (was published) on the 5th of May 2010. There were all kinds of apologies and the quote “Zoo and Danny Dyer condemn any violence against women. A donation will be made to Women’s Aid” was published. Danny Dyer stated “This is totally out of order, I am totally devastated. I have been completely misquoted. This is not the advice I would give any member of the public I do not condone violence against women“, yet what was exactly quoted? That remains a question.

In addition to Laura Pintur I need to add, why did you not do your homework? If you need to grasp back to events 5 years old, what did you not find in Zoo magazine? I am much more on hand of Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, who said: “It is appalling that a writer thought this acceptable and that the editor let it through“, which makes me wonder how the editor (and if) it was read to begin with!

What is much more recent is the ANZAC day issue with the girl in the red bikini and a poppy, which got labelled “gross, disgusting and idiotic” on social media. I will agree on Gross and idiotic, less disgusted. My grandfather was in WW1 (not in Gallipoli), so I feel my view is valid. I will assume, she was pretty through Photoshop, which makes her an unreal and virtual individual!

I did very much like the response on Twitter by a man called Richard Bright, his view: “@sallywhyte @BernardKeane Exploit women for $, exploit diggers for $. It’s almost as if the mag is dedicated to unprincipled pursuit of $“, and this is a surprise….how?

When we go to the Zoo Weekly page we see: “So it’s little wonder we reach almost 500,000 Aussie men every issue. They turn to us to see the hottest Australian women, have a laugh and stay ahead of the pack when it comes to what’s hot in the worlds of sport, gaming, entertainment and gadgets“. So a weekly magazine that hits 500K readers on a weekly base is not something that is going away any day soon.

Then we see the comparison between the Zoo comments and rapists. So, did you do any work on this Laura? You see, this was shown in the article by Anna North, an article found on Jezebel.com, which has the ample title ‘Can You Tell the Difference between a Men’s Magazine and a Rapist?‘ (at http://jezebel.com/5866602/can-you-tell-the-difference-between-a-mens-magazine-and-a-rapist), which was published in September 2011. This does not invalidate Laura’s view at all, but the smiling face in her video is a lot less mysterious now. What she did not elaborate on is the part that Jezebel (Anna North) did have a decent handle on, and takes time to properly go over the materials in her article.

“The men didn’t want to agree with rapists”, is a quote that makes perfect sense, in addition, Dr Miranda Horvath and Dr Peter Hegarty found the results disturbing. The powerful addition is: “There is a fundamental concern that the content of such magazines normalises the treatment of women as sexual objects. We are not killjoys or prudes who think that there should be no sexual information and media for young people. But are teenage boys and young men best prepared for fulfilling love and sex when they normalise views about women that are disturbingly close to those mirrored in the language of sexual offenders?”

The article shows 16 quotes, with at the bottom a list whether the quote came from a magazine or a rapist. I found the list disturbing because it was hard to tell which was which, this in addition gets me back to the issue how the editor let the Danny Dyer quote get by in the first place?

You see, my view in all this is entirely different. I do not hide behind feminism and I find the quotes equally if not more disturbing. You see, you the reader (no matter which gender) are just consumer, product to purchase ‘a’ magazine. There is one for the He’s of the planet and one for the She’s of the planet. The younger male group is all about sex (and cars and footie). They say that the younger male thinks of sex at least five times a minute every single day (even more when he has his eyes closed), apparently women think of sex with regularity too, but I have no true source that can be regarded as ‘reliable’ here. You see, the issue people forget is that magazines are not about making sex objects, or building the world of misogyny, magazines are about one thing only, they are about profit!

There was a study years ago that gave the notion that single man and single women are 35% more likely to buy a glossy magazine. 35% is a lot! So we see that those male editions would focus on the sex premise of threesomes and other artistically tantalising events of a carnal nature. There are loads of articles written not with the scientific notion of accuracy, but with the scientific eye of keeping people reading and nudging them towards a path where the man makes his ‘perfect’ choice, which is a woman that is so unlikely to exist, which will allow for him to remain single for a lot longer, which of course is good for magazine revenue.

The ladies might have read articles in the air of: ‘wait for that right one, that Brad Pitt, so suave and so good looking, so fashionable’. I am phrasing this in my own way, but that is what some of these articles add up to. Guess what, if he looks like Brad Pitt and is Suave and sophisticated like Brad Pitt, then it is either Brad Pitt or George Clooney and both are taken! Whilst you wait on that impossible guy, going out with the girls, scoping the field for that man, 5-10 years passed by and soon you are out of options and your biological clock will soon be shutting down! Do not fret ladies, the men are in a similar position. The magazines like Zoo, Loaded, Maxim and similar magazines, give that raunchy woman, boobs with a matching thigh region like a porn star, they are about naughty dances, dressing up and bringing their girlfriend to rile you both up with lap dances and then they get the night of their life! It is all innuendo, but the men are getting deceived just as much (perhaps even more). Photo shopped women in cheerleader outfits, or in their high school skirt with transparent top. All fake image to prevent both sides to actually look around and get talking to that decent woman who looks nothing like a porn star, but is likely warm, well-articulated and passionate (once you get to know her). You ladies are ignoring these men at bar because they look slightly clumsy (they are just nervous because you do look a lot better than they bargained for) and whilst these two wars of confusion are going on, each on their own lawn, neither party will receive any feedback on the attempt to communicate! Now if you (that man or woman) are remaining single on purpose than that is just fine! It is your choice! No one will think less of you!

Back to the initial issue. I think Laura Pintur’s video is debatable, not because of her approach, but the fact that she comes with 5 year old material (which was used by other sources), including a fair bit based on an article by Anna North (Jezebel.com). I do not oppose her goals and if Zoo is lost from all the shelves I will not lose a moments sleep on it. However, she did not do her research in a proper way and she should have mentioned her sources, as the video is quite close to Plagiarism (as I see it). In addition, Zoo was not that original on that Boob job raffle, which made the news in 2005 (at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4377968.stm), yet now we see the interesting part. When we look in the Sydney Morning Herald (at http://www.smh.com.au/national/boob-job-competition-outrages-experts-20070813-t2o.html), we see that Zoo is doing it again, only not in the UK, now they are trying it in Australia. Here we have ourselves an issue. The Sydney Morning Herald one quote states “A publicist for the magazine said the surgeon was still yet to be confirmed. Asked if she was aware that such a competition may be illegal, she said ‘that may be the case but that’s something the winner can sort out directly’“, so the spokesperson was asked regarding the legality of the issue. Now I wonder, if sales are gained by advertising something illegal, should there not be harsh consequences?

So Perhaps Laura Pintur might have added to her article that the magazine has possibly engaged into illegal activities, is that not an excellent additional reason to bar Zoo Weekly from the shelves of Supermarkets?

My issue remains that the bulk of these examples are years old, which definitely dulls the ‘bang’ of the article.

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Tagged as Anna North, Ceri Goddard, Danny Dyer, Dr Miranda Horvath, Dr Peter Hegarty, Fawcett Society, FHM, Jezebel.com, Laura Pintur, Maxim, SMH, Zoo, Zoo Magazine

May 26, 2015 · 23:46

An Olympic steeplechase

Greece is at it again (or still might be a better word)! Let’s turn back the clock a mere month! On April 28^th we get the following news (via several sources): “Greece has decided to pull Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis back from bailout negotiations, a move it describes as ‘clipping Varoufakis’ wings’ and ‘reining him in’ after three months of debt talks failed to produce an agreement”.

That move made perfect sense, several people (including me) saw him in some rock star presentation which was good for his ego and not too good for the Greek people. Of course, reining in does not mean ‘keeping him quiet‘, which I would not do (for the shear entertainment value alone), but also because he is the selected spokesperson of the Greek economy. So when we see the news in the Guardian a few hours ago stating: “Greek bond weaken after Varoufakis blames creditors“, my first thought was ‘can’t the man shut up?’

The quote given is “The problem is simple: Greece’s creditors insist on even greater austerity for this year and beyond – an approach that would impede recovery, obstruct growth, worsen the debt-deflationary cycle, and, in the end, erode Greeks’ willingness and ability to see through the reform agenda that the country so desperately needs. Our government cannot – and will not – accept a cure that has proven itself over five long years to be worse than the disease”

In my own view I state that he squandered 95% of the time he had with posturing, he forfeited the game buy thinking that Greece is too big to be ‘Grexitted’. Guess what Yanis! The Dutch SNS bank thought that very same notion! It did not pan out too well for them either!

Now we get the second quote, this one from Dimitris Stratoulis. He states “If we decide that there is no money left for the IMF, we have repeatedly said that our priority is to pay salaries, pensions, health, and education”. To be honest, I cannot completely oppose that! Although my priority should state Pension, Salary and Health, with a question mark to what salaries are to be paid, but I understand that the people should normally go first. I do not oppose this! Yet Syriza has been playing what I regard to be a pissing contest with people who did not need to play that game and had no interesting in playing that game. There is additional evidence. Perhaps you remember the case of Leonidas Bobolas, who got arrested in April 2015 for 1.2 million in tax evasion? That short term theatrical play just as the ‘negotiations’ were going on. I reported it in my blog on April 27^th in the article ‘Finding inspiration‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/04/27/finding-inspiration/).

How many arrests since then?

The news is awfully quiet around it. There has also been zero visibility on praising Kostas Vaxevanis on his findings and his reports. It seems to me that the members of Syriza have absolutely no intent of doing anything constructive at all towards their creditors. So when we see the statements “Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has apparently pledged that Greece will meet its €305m repayment to the International Monetary Fund” by Yanis Varoufakis as well as “Tsipras instructed officials to act speedily as his government sought to defuse tensions saying it would do its best to honour its debts – even if it failed to reveal how, exactly, it would find the money to pay €1.6bn in loans to the International Monetary Fund next month” (Helena Smith, the Guardian).

Yet these two parts are already ignoring the 750 million pushed forward because the invoice of May 12^th was not ‘paid’! It was settled using the IMF emergency funds, which means that this money is also due. In addition on May 12^th, 16^th and 19^th are the amounts of 348, 581 and 348 million due. That is just the IMF, the maturing bonds as well as the ECB have not been taking into account in this matter. In addition, more bailouts are already known to be needed, so as Varoufakis is boasting, threatening and claiming, I notice that many are ignoring the observation some made “the creditors’ insistence on even more austerity, even at the expense of the reform agenda that our government is eager to pursue“. This is at the heart of the matter, because Greece is facing a 22 billion annual interest invoice, which it has no way of paying. A fact many are simply ignoring. So as non-actual payment of three quarters of a billion were made, we must wonder where that comes from. Let’s not forget that on June 12^th 3.6 billion in T-bills mature!

Another non-reality comes from that same Guardian when we see: “Traders are also blaming Klaus Regling, the head of the European Stability Mechanism, for today’s euro selloff“, which is specified in “There is little time left… That’s why we’re working day and night for an agreement. Without an agreement with the creditors, Greece will not get any new loans. Then there’s a threat of insolvency. There are a lot of risks contained in that”, which is a reality I have pleaded for, for some time now. The funny part is that the New Democracy HAD it for the most sorted and the Greek people were suffering, no one denies that! Yet the courts have not made any attempt to hold previous administrations accountable, the tax evasion schemes had one trial so far and 1.2 million does not go far.

There is one final part that is an additional danger. It is not reported on, because in all honesty, the actual danger is not known yet. But did you consider how tourism will do this year? How many thousands of tourists will consider avoiding Greece (the Germans being a first nation that comes to mind)? You see, no matter how we regard the Germans, they for the most had jobs, had incomes and will desire a warm vacation. The Greek approach will work out nicely for Spain, Portugal and Italy I reckon, but with the acts of alienation Greece is cutting itself in the fingers. In addition, the dangers of drying ‘wells’, like the fear of empty ATM’s and other means not operational give added fear to the tourist population. Even though Crete should remain reasonably safe, the reality is that no part of Greece might be safe if clear progress is not booked within 2 weeks. I do hope that it will not pan out to be too bad for Crete, Stavros Arnaoutakis has been an active fighter for the prosperity of Crete for a long time and it was his birthday yesterday, so: “Happy belated birthday Stavros!” He was born in Archanes, due South of Iraklion. You might wonder why I bring this up. I will repeat the issue I voiced well over a year ago. It is becoming more and more visible that the power of Crete might reside in its independence. Crete has a founded tourist base, it has a functioning harbour for commerce and functioning airports for commercial ends too. This independence would not break their Union with Greece, but unlike the independence of Scotland, Greece has a much better chance to setup its independence at present, without too many nasty negative sides. Whatever options Syriza is currently destroying, Crete could set up a working base of minimal credit and continue for now. It will be hard, no one will deny that, but if Crete can sway a few services towards the Cretan island, it would for the better part be decently self-reliant.

This is a much better position than the position Greece had in the past, which team Tsipras/Varoufakis efficiently destroyed as I personally see it.

I also believe that the dedication Stavros Arnaoutakis has shown for a strong Crete could go a long way with whatever creditor conversation might be needed. As Crete moves straight into the Drachma, which would then be called the Cretan Drachma, would start to build on a future for both social enhancements (within Crete) as well as built on the decent foundations that Cretan housing has as well as a shift towards a services oriented future. Consider the mild climate Crete offers with water views all around that island, how long until 2-3 retirement villages would rake in jobs, commerce and income from retirees who would like their last few years in decent sunshine?

It is not enough to warrant full independence, but it is a start, if only to make the reliance on tourism 10%-20% smaller. Consider call centres that could work in that time zone and the better weather conditions. Before too long, students from all over Europe will seek a call centre all day and party all night vacation. I admit it is not the business call that matters here, but good commerce is where you built it!

Now, this might not be a great idea (perhaps not even a good idea), but I am trying to find a solution! I hope that there will be options for the Greek people, because Syriza is quickly and as I see it possibly intentional discarding whatever solution is left for the Greek people. If you doubt this, then consider the following facts:

* Less than an hour ago, I see in the Guardian, the following release: “Mujtaba Rahman, analyst at Eurasia Group, reckons that Greece will probably reach a deal with the Eurozone in time” (I am not convinced), in addition we see “We continue to believe Tsipras will lose around 5-10 lawmakers from his coalition when the package is presented to parliament (potentially attached to a vote of confidence). But we suspect he will lose less than 12 MP’s allowing him to keep his parliamentary majority“. As I see it, this should be about protecting the Greek people, now we see the cold reality (not an invalid one) that this seems to be more about playing with votes and keeping a ‘parliamentary majority‘!

This is why I felt that Antonis Samaras was the better option. He was trying to find solutions, not be ‘the popular guy’! You think Antonis Samaras was making friends when he was in office? No! He inherited a 400 billion invoice (very rough estimate) with no way to pay for it. With floating the credit ceiling and pushing non actions, Tsipras in his short time (with of course support by Varoufakis) has added close to 20% to that total debt. Now, in all honesty, he did not cause that 20% directly, but by sitting on his hands and playing theatrics he has not helped resolve any of it.

But we must also adhere to reality. The following we get from Bloomberg if Greece misses a payment: “A missed payment date starts the clock ticking. Two weeks after the initial due date and a cable from Washington urging immediate payment, the fund sends another cable stressing the “seriousness of the failure to meet obligations” and again urges prompt settlement. Two weeks after that, the managing director informs the Executive Board that an obligation is overdue. For Greece, that’s when the serious consequences kick in. These are known as cross-default and cross-acceleration“. This is a true reality, yet is that per payment?

Consider that this happen on June 5^th and we get to June 19^th? At that point two T-bills will have matured for the total amount of 5.2 billion, the second one of 1.6 billion on the 19^th itself. When the 5^th is missed, what will the markets do then? In addition, on June 19^th a total of 910 million will be due too (16^th and 19^th of June IMF payments). In addition, what will happen to the interest levels when the two week term passes?

No one denies that the payment pressure is too unreal, but the Greek government themselves was cause to all of this (not Syriza)! That is at the heart of the ignored facts (read: unmentioned). These facts are exactly why Crete should consider protecting the Cretan population if at all possible. In addition, the separation could give additional credit to the Greeks on Crete and it might (not a guarantee) instil a lesser negative impact on tourism, which would be a massive plus. A few extra options could be set up there, but that would be up to Stavros Arnaoutakis and his peers to decide.

So how will we see this steeplechase unfold?

The ‘die hard’ positive proclaimers are singing the same song again and again, the doomsayers are hammering on what cannot be and both are interestingly avoiding key issues. Whether they feel repetitive on them is beside the point. I try to remain on the fence (which is hard with Syriza), yet I do try to find solutions. Will they be useful? Not for me to decide, but at least as a non-Greek, I might be one of the few trying to find a non-exploitative solution, which puts me ethically, morally and spiritually ahead of the pack.

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May 25, 2015 · 00:03

Dark side of the moon

The Guardian ended up with an interesting article on Friday. The title ‘Malware is not only about viruses – companies preinstall it all the time‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/22/malware-viruses-companies-preinstall), it is a good article and Richard Stallman is a great man, but there are parts in this article that I have an issue with. Mind you, the man is not telling stories or lying, but he is showing one side of the coin. He is also reinforcing other sides to the software industry that are a definite issue.

The first part is a part I am completely in agreement with “In 1983, the software field had become dominated by proprietary (i.e. non-free) programs, and users were forbidden to change or redistribute them“, a side which I do not oppose. In addition there is “But proprietary developers in the 1980s still had some ethical standards: they sincerely tried to make programs serve their users, even while denying users control over how they would be served“, I have a partial issue with the last bit ‘denying users control over how they would be served‘. I disagree for two reasons.

The first is based on resources. In those days, an IBM PC was a massive behemoth, it had 256Kb memory and if you were really really rich, you also had a 10Mb hard drive. So, yes, the expensive personal computer had less resources then the cheapest $39 Non-smart Nokia phone. Go figure! By the way, that 10Mb hard drive was priced at $1499 in those days. So, user control was an issue, because resources did not allow for them, but soon thereafter, the 512Kb PC was released and there was so much we could do then! No sarcasm here, it was true! In those days I learned and mastered Lotus Symphony an excellent program! This was also a time when we started to get some choices in control, control remained limited, but some control was gained.

Next we see the first part that is an issue, even though he makes a nice point on End User License Agreements. I would like to add the Terms of service as a clear point here, but overall there is a part that is too coloured. The quote “So many cases of proprietary malware have been reported, that we must consider any proprietary program suspect and dangerous. In the 21st century, proprietary software is computing for suckers“.

I cannot completely disagree that Microsoft soured the market by a lot, it has done so in several directions, yet Corporate Earth is at times too stupid to consider growing a brain, which is also part of the problem. It is an element that is shown all over the place. The Netherlands, Sweden, UK, France, Germany, Denmark and even Australia (I worked in all those countries). Instead of sitting down and considering a switch to LINUX with open office, the IT and other elements are just too lazy and too under resourced to push for a change, so the users are no longer people, they are for the most mere meek sheep following the ‘corporate standard‘, which means that they too use windows and Office.

Another direction is the hardware world. Windows comes preinstalled, more important, Windows and Microsoft have been a driving force, forcing people to buy stronger and more expensive computers. Even though many users have not needed any need for more powerful and stronger hardware, Windows forced them to upgrade again and again. Anyone not into gaming and using their computer merely for office activities and browsing mail on the internet should not have needed to upgrade their computer for the better part of 10 years, but that is not the reality, go to any computer shop for windows hardware and we see how the ‘old’ ASUS, ACER, Lenovo, HP or Toshiba no longer hacks it. Which is actually weird, because if you reinstall your old laptop with LINUX and Apache Open Office there is a high chance that you will work in 90% of the time just as fast as with that new $2000 laptop on Windows 7. Setback? You have to install and configure it yourself. Upside? LINUX and Open Office are both free software, no costs and no fees!

Is it not interesting how companies are not jumping on that free horse? Why is that you think? In addition, with all the needs for government costs to go down, why are they not more pro-active to push for a shift towards LINUX? Is it security? This is also odd, because with the massive amount of non-stop security patches, Windows is not that secure to begin with.

So where do I disagree? Well the first clear quote is “Some are designed to shackle users, such as Digital Rights Management (DRM)“, I believe that if a firm makes software, it has every right to prevent illegal use, for a long time, how many people do you know that have a LEGAL version of Adobe? Even when the stars are in your favour. In many Universities, Adobe offers the entire master collection (all their software) for $400, which is an amazing deal! I got my legal versions of both Windows 7 and Microsoft Office Ultimate for an additional $199. Why not buy it? No many just find a download place and get the software for free, in addition you can get the codes. It goes even further that I stumbled on a place in Germany some years ago where they were offering the OEM stickers for PC complete with license key for 20 Mark. I could not tell the difference from the original sticker in the software box I had bought. Do you think that DRM would have been such a push if people just bought their software? I will take it one step further, I feel certain that if every person was charged $275 a year, we all would have the complete Adobe, Windows and Office programs free to download, with no need to illegally copy anything.

But there is still that other side. You see, I still believe that Microsoft and hardware providers have been forcing a technological armistice race upon the consumers, which now adds up to us all wasting resources on iterative junk we should not need. So even though I do not completely agree with Richard Stallman here, he does have a point.

Now we get to an issue that I actually faced without knowing it “Even Android contains malware in a non-free component: a back door for remote forcible installation or deinstallation of any app“, you see, I thought I was bonkers (which I actually are) but for some reason one of my apps had suddenly be removed and not by me. It was not something I needed. I had just downloaded it from Google play out of curiosity, but suddenly it was gone! In addition, on more than one occasion it just decided to update my apps, without my permission. When you have bandwidth issues, seeing a force upgrade which could cost you is not that nice a moment.

Yet, for the most, I remain a loyal fan towards Android, even though at times programs use background resources for reasons unknown, or are they unknown?

We get the next part from the quote “Even humble flashlight apps for phones were found to be reporting data to companies. A recent study found that QR code scanner apps also snoop“, there is a lot more at http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/ejsmith/scan.this.or.scan.me.2015.pdf; now we have ourselves a massive issue, although the paper shows that there is a prompt for GPS and the sending of GPS, none of them has the situation where they do not prompt for GPS and still send it. Eric Smith and Dr Nina A. Kollars who wrote the paper give us another consideration on page 8. There we see “Moreover, contemporary privacy norms are increasingly threatened as what initially appears to be signals of consumer preference slide further into determining bigger-picture life patterns and behavior. The term most commonly used to address this creeping phenomenon is the literature on consumer panopticism“, which now refers to ‘Gandy, Oscar H. The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information‘. Before getting the book (which is worth the purchase), you might want to take a look at a paper by Adam Arvidsson, from the Department of Film and Media Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (at http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles1(4)/prehistory.pdf), you see, my partial issue with the article by Richard Stallman becomes slowly visible now. He is right in his view and his vision as he sees this, but you the user did this to yourself! You think that Facebook is ‘free’, that these apps are there merely for amusement (some actually are), their goal is income! Some work the Freemium game market, where games like ‘Book of Heroes‘ gives you a free game, but if you want to grow faster and better in the game, you will have to invest. For the most, these games will rely on the investment from $10-$25 to truly open up, which is, if you consider the amount of hours played still great value. Freemium games also come with that ‘try before you buy’ approach, as you can play the game, but to enjoy it, to get more moves and more joy a few dollars will be essential. The other part that relies on ‘captured data’ did they inform you? If not, there is an issue, but the app programmer will get his pound of flesh, either by cash of by data!

Yet the other side is also true, you see, as Richard mentions and as Adam Arvidsson report on, there are places like Red Sheriff, that rely on hidden script, which is more advanced/intrusive as it keeps track of ALL your online movements. You get this script as a ‘present’ when you visit one of its affiliated sites. Did you the internet user sign up for that? When we see the reference on who pushes this. We see “since most major commercial sites use Redsheriff“, which means that nearly all will somehow be tracked. I for one do not really care that much, but I never signed up for any of it, so should we see this as an invasion to our privacy?

This is where we see that freeware is almost never free.

Yet Richard also alerts us to another state of freedom, or lack thereof! In the quote “If the car itself does not report everywhere you drive, an insurance company may charge you extra to go without a separate tracker“. Can anyone explain to me why it is ANY business of the insurer where we are?

In the end, Richard states three parts, which are fair enough, but overall the issue is missed. The issues reported are:

“Individually, by rejecting proprietary software and web services that snoop or track“, here I do not completely agree! I used Adobe as an example for a reason, there is simply no viable alternative, it only became worse when Macromedia bought Adobe (I know it is the other way round, but I will remain a faithful Macromedia fan until the day I die!), there is in addition, no tracking done by Adobe, other than keeping track whether you have a valid license, which I never opposed.

“Collectively, by organising to develop free/libre replacement systems and web services that don’t track who uses them“, which I whole heartedly agree with, I am even willing to devote time to this worthy cause (not sure how I could ever size up to the hundreds of Richard Stallman’s, but I am willing to give it a go!

And last there is “Democratically, by legislation to criminalise various sorts of malware practices. This presupposes democracy, and democracy requires defeating treaties such as the TPP and TTIP that give companies the power to suppress democracy“, this is the big one. The political branches all over Europe and the Commonwealth have sold us short and have not done anything to properly enforce the rights to privacy. In addition, Google and Apple remains in a state of non-clarity on what data these apps capture and what they convey. In that regard Facebook is equally guilty. Facebook goes further that it does not even proper police those who claim to give a free app, only to no longer work, but when you went to the install the data is as I see it already captured by the app provider, which gives wonder to where that data went.

In regards to suppressing democracy, which is perhaps partially overstated, there is an issue with the TPP that seems to empower large corporations and nullify the protection to smaller innovators and even governments as the TTP wants to enforce “where foreign firms can ‘sue’ states and obtain taxpayer compensation for ‘expected future profits’”, how long until we get an invoice for overinflated ego’s? Especially from those people in the entertainment industry claiming the loss of so many billions in an era when the bulk of the population can hardly pay their rent!

I regard Graham Burke of Village Roadshow to be one of the greater jokes this era has brought forth. Consider who he is supposed to ‘protect’, he goes on regarding “‘crazies’ whose hidden agenda is the ‘theft of movies’“, which is not that far-fetched a statement, because movies will be downloaded and not bought, it happens, yet not to the degree Graham Burke claims it is! So we get him soon enough to claim billions from losses due to the massive download of ‘the LEGO movie’ perhaps? Yet in the public forum on copyright infringement, we did not hear him utter a word on bandwidth, perhaps the response from Telstra’s Jane Van Beelen would likely have been a little too uncomfortable Mr Burke?

You see, in my view it is less about the democracy as Richard Stallman sees it. The legal protection seems to be massively delayed as bandwidth is income, and when piracy is truly stopped bandwidth will simmer down. If we accept the word of Village Roadshow with global revenue of 13 billion since 1997. Yet, I wrote about movie piracy in ‘The real issue here!‘ on June 17^th 2014 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/06/17/the-real-issue-here/), in the calculation, which I kept very conservative, Telstra could lose up to 320 million a month in revenue, due to diminished bandwidth, which gets us 4 billion a year. Consider that Village Roadshow is global, which means that Australian revenue is a mere fraction of that, how soon until they see that Village roadshow might only get 5-10 million a year more, against the 320 million a month loss for Telstra? So Mr. Burke is not regarded as a serious party as I see it (yet he is not an invalid party), Telstra would have too much to lose, not to mention the loss Optus and iiNet could face. However, if the TPP changes that with ‘expected future profits’, whilst there is absolutely no quality data to prove that the loss is nothing more than there ego’s talking.

There is the crunch that politicians are too afraid to touch!

Yet, in light of many factors, legal protection (including protection for Village Roadshow) is essential, yet the large corporations seem to hold the game to the need of their bottom dollar, which is the dollar, not democracy or decent rights. If it were decent rights than telecom companies would properly monitor abuse of digital rights, because the movie is for Village Roadshow to sell, or to stream for a fee via Netflix. I do not deny this at all, I just oppose the outlandish income some of them claim that they ‘lost’!

So on the dark side of the moon we see that (actually we do not see any of that) things are not right. I do not completely adhere to the idealist view that Richard Stallman validly has (we are all entitled to our views), but he touches on several parts that definitely need change and until we see a governmental push away from Microsoft solutions, we will see that the government will spend loads of money on never-ending updates to hardware and software. We all agree that such a change is not easily made, but in light of the cost of living, the fact that nearly no one makes that change is equally worrisome.

When we stare up to the sky we always see the same side of the moon, the dark side is wild, and is covered with impact craters, impacts we never see. It is a lot more reminiscent of the chaotic wild life of malware, a side that is constantly lacking the exposure it should have, mainly because it affects the bottom dollar.

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Tagged as ACER, Adam Arvidsson, Adobe, Android, Apache Open Office, Apple, Asus, Bucknell, Department of Film and Media Studies, Digital Rights Management, Dr Nina A. Kollars, DRM, Eric Smith, google, Graham Burke, HP, iiNet, Jane Van Beelen, Lenovo, LINUX, Macromedia, Microsoft Office Ultimate, Optus, Oscar H Gandi, Redsheriff, Richard Stallman, Telstra, the Guardian, Toshiba, TPP, University of Copenhagen, Village Roadshow, Windows 7

May 23, 2015 · 20:45

The outspoken lie

This is the issue we have seen many times in the last months. The lie perpetrated by people (including journalists) to keep them in some fake shape of ethical non-prosecution. The clearest one was shown by the Guardian Yesterday (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/secret-bank-of-england-taskforce-investigates-financial-fallout-brexit), it is not the first one, it will not be the last one and until some individuals get out of their lazy chair, it will never improve. The quote “News of undercover project emerges after Bank staff accidentally email details to the Guardian including PR notes on how to deny its existence“. This is not even close to an accident, you do not ‘accidently‘ add journalists to confidential e-mails. This is almost like me going to Lucy Pinder (famous UK Presenter) stating: “Can you please stand there, now bend backwards a little and please keep your legs spread and without knickers, so I can ‘accidently’ land my penis into your vagina” (sorry about the graphical intensity Miss Pinder)! Either event does not happen accidently, only intentional or orchestrated as I see it! We will likely hear on ‘accidental’ typos, on how names were the same, but the cold reality is, is the mere fact that some people are trying to be some misguided whistle-blower yet the other group are doing that intentionally, some to warn ‘friends’, some to influence the market. And this event is nowhere near the only one. I wrote about Brexit yesterday in my article ‘Is it all Greek to you?‘ there are several issues in play. There is the link to Natixis, regarding their over half a Trillion Euro issue. Is that information not really handy to have? So in my view what is currently ‘regarded’ as an accident is possibly a simple case of either whistleblowing or corruption! The next quote is another one we need to take issue with “The revelation is likely to embarrass the bank governor, Mark Carney, who has overhauled the central bank’s operations and promised greater transparency over its decision-making“. The issue is, is that there is no issue. The Bank of England has a clear responsibility to investigate economic impacts, this means that both Brexit and Grexit are to be investigated. You see, if Brexit becomes a necessarily evil, those making the decisions would need to have all the facts, not just ask for the facts at that point. So, 30 seconds after the Guardian revelation, Natixis and all its links, Airbus, HSBC and a few other players will now be preparing their own kind of noose, threatening the UK government on the consequences of going forward on Brexit, the equations as per today will be pushed in other directions, including by the US, who would get into deep insolvent waters the moment Brexit becomes a fact. So, the accidental mailer is in my view an intentional traitor to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. That person is an even bigger traitor as this is not about where the freedom of choice for a sovereign nation lies, but the fact that it is no longer able to get the true facts ready for the people to freely make a choice on, so when the referendum does come, the people are likely to get misinformed because powerful players do not like it when their profitability is on the line. It is of course every little bit useful for the large industries who believe in keeping the status quo of exploitations high, dry and mighty. So even though Mark Carney will likely be under fire of questions as per Monday, we must also see that in this case our Canadian Marky Mark is totally innocent (in this case). He did what a responsible governor of the Bank of England did. He made sure the correct facts were collected (tried to do so without kicking a fuss), a task that is now less likely to be successful. So as we look at what happened, according to the Guardian article, we see “The email, from Cunliffe’s private secretary to four senior executives, was written on May 21^st and forwarded by mistake to a Guardian editor by the Bank’s head of press, Jeremy Harrison“, so as I see it a mail from Sir Jonathan Cunliffe went to 4 senior executives. Now we suddenly see that Jeremy Harrison had it. Was he one of the 4 recipients? It seems unlikely as the text would have stated something slightly different. It is the formulation that gives way to the notion that it is likely (read: possible) that one of those executives forwarded the mail to Jeremy Harrison and he did give it to the Guardian. So we have two issues. Who gave it to Jeremy and was the release to the press more intentional than not? That question remains an issue. Is this orchestration or blatant treason. Let’s not forget that treason means: ‘The betrayal of someone’s trust or confidence‘, in this case the trust AND confidence of the British parliament. So the people are confronted with a spokesperson who likely spoke out, against the wishes of the ruling governor. So this event will have consequences from Monday onward. The markets will react and after that we will see more events into escalations as the British people will get to see over the week how the Greek fallout will hit the markets and the European economies as a whole. The non-actions, or any act regarded too small by the people will shift political allegiances fast, yet that effect is less likely to be felt in the UK and more likely to impact France at present. And these Brexit revelations are not the first ones. That Greek tragedy called insolvency is riddled with ‘leaked’ documents all over the place. In February 2015 we had ‘Leaked documents reveal what Greece had to say at the Euro group negotiations‘, in this view, I agree with blogger Raúl Ilargi Meijer who wrote less than a week ago “Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why” (at http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/05/the-imf-leaks-greece/), but that is not what orchestration is about, is it? So are the events from the Bank of England orchestration too? If so fine (well not entirely, but that would not be my call), if not then please fire Jeremy Harrison and give me his job. I have no proper degree for the function, but at least I will not be leaking any documents. These events go a lot further then just Greece of course. The Herald Scotland gives us ‘Civil servant who issued RBS leak email links with Better Together leader‘ (at http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-civil-servant-who-issued-rbs-leak-email-links-with-better-together-leader.120666908) gives us “THE Treasury civil servant who issued an email leaking sensitive information about Royal Bank of Scotland’s plans to leave the country in the event of a yes vote had links to the head of Better Together campaign, it can be revealed“, so again the question regarded is, is this not corporate treason? Consider the quote “Now the civil servant who issued the communication can be identified as Robert Mackie, the son of Catherine MacLeod, who was a special adviser to Better Together leader Alistair Darling when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer“, was he preparing his own more comfortable future? Getting himself into the proper future setting with friends of Alistair Darling? These are questions to be asked, for sure. Of course, a valid question might be, why would the Royal Bank of Scotland, leave Scotland if it becomes independent? Is it about the lost power of image of its board members? I do not proclaim or imply to have the actual answers, but the truth is not likely to come out, which means we end up living an outspoken lie, does it not? My own little island Australia is not without its own negative merits here. The title ‘Leaked documents reveal problems within Air Warfare Destroyer program‘ should give cause for concern, because that is not a mere commercial/political issue, it is a military issue, where one might expect a little more bias into ‘disclosing’ classified information (me going out on a limb here). we see the information (at http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4232702.htm), where we get the quote “But documents obtained by Saturday AM reveal the alliance is now worried continued cost blowouts and delays are harming its shipbuilding reputation“, of course ‘cost blowout’ usually means that the leaders of those projects did not have a proper clue to begin with and the amount of 9 billion gives a lot more weight to my statement (the UK NHS IT program being a nice piece of 11 billion pounds in evidence), but that is not too unexpected. The quote “MARK THOMSON: With an alliance contract where you don’t have somebody clearly in charge, you can rapidly find yourself in a situation where things go wrong and people are looking at one another passing blame, not taking responsibility, and decisions aren’t made” is precisely to the point. Our own Marky Mark (not the one running the Bank of England) shows the major influence, a person that is clearly in charge. I would add that quality of communication tends to be a solid second one in these projects. You see, as these elements go back and forth the e-mail (read Memo) goes on and on. When someone is in charge we get that defining moment when they hear (or should hear). ‘Shut Up! This is what we have decided on!‘, yet military contractors (like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman) are very trained in encapsulating questions within answers, adding premises so that the water is murky, as this is all about their continues consultancy as those people are like lawyers, they bill by the hour per project (as I personally see it), so here again, we see the outspoken lie, now not by telling, but by omission through non-clarity. So as the article ended with “Last year problems with the AWD program prompted former defence minister David Johnston to warn he wouldn’t trust the government-owned Australian submarine corporation to build a canoe“, on one side it seems odd to bite the hand that feeds you, on the other hand the question becomes what evidence did he have access to? Was this a political move to shelter individuals or signal true issues? So now we get the news (less than 2 hours ago at http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/first-air-warfare-destroyer-launched-at-asc-osborne/story-fni6uo1m-1227366174513) ‘First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, Osborne‘, which should be a huge reason for parties as well as spoil a bottle of bubbly against the hull of that beauty. Yet, the article is not all good news. We see that in the quote “The occasion was overshadowed to a degree by Friday’s release of a Federal Government audit claiming the destroyers cost three times as much to build in South Australia as they would if they had been built overseas. It also found the total cost of the project had blown out to $9 billion“, so here are my questions in this:

Could we ever rely on our defense by getting things build overseas?
Who kept check on the expenses?
If I go over the books and If I can cut more than 20% by invalidating time wasted on drawn out lines of ‘communications’ (I mean those long winded memos from these military contractors), will I get 10% of the 20% saved? (This should amount to 180 million) not bad for a few months’ work! You know, I had a dream where I ended up with 160 million and bought a nice house on Guernsey. I am willing to settle on 20 million less!

So here we see the outspoken lies! Political, commercial and even military, lines of miscommunication drained through ‘leaked’ documents. Is it all orchestration? Is orchestration not the same as treason when we consider the allegiance those people were supposed to have (in opposition where ‘leaked’ documents are a tactical move)? It would be for a court to decide, yet we will soon learn that these matters will not make it into any court, and as the cost blowout of 9 billion is shown, this leaky path will pay handsomely into the hands of businesses like Raytheon and Natixis, and what do you know, there are links between these two as well! So is this last statement my outspoken lie? Or can we agree at least to some degree that these companies all talk to one another? So in the end are governments getting played and who is actually in charge? That would be a very valid question as the bill got pumped by 9 billion, where 10% of that 9 billion could have solved the Australian legal aid issue (as well as a few other issues), so will any investigation into that issue result in a new outspoken lie (read: carefully phrased political conclusion without further accountability by anyone)? Time will tell!

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Tagged as ABC, ABC News, adelaidenow.com.au, Airbus, Alistair Darling, Australia, Better Together, Brexit, Catherine MacLeod, Chancellor of the Exchequer, First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, France, Grexit, heraldscotland.com, HSBC, Is it all Greek to you?, Jeremy Harrison, Lucy Pinder, Mark Carney, Natixis, Northrop-Grumman, Osborne, Raúl Ilargi Meijer, Raytheon, RBS, Robert Mackie, Royal Bank of Scotland, Saturday AM, Sir Jonathan Cunliffe, the Commonwealth, the Guardian, The Herald Scotland, United Kingdom

Lawrence van Rijn – Law Lord to be

In reference to the router

Working Nine to Swine

Redo from start?

Losing Blatter control

Condoning corruption!

The sexualised animal house

An Olympic steeplechase

Dark side of the moon

The outspoken lie

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