October 3, 2014 · 22:09

The orchestration has engaged

It is nice when the world falls apart, when you look at the abyss in front of you softly stating: ‘It cannot get any worse!’, then you feel a foot pressing against the lower spine of your back as you lose your balance and fall down. The last thing you hear is ‘Guess again!’

This is how certain news events felt the last few days. I am not referring to the McCain family, who states that the press has not learned anything, post-Leveson. Was anyone surprised?

My issue is with Andy Street at the John Lewis department store (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/03/john-lewis-boss-andy-street-says-france-finished). In light of Tesco, I wonder what drives this person. Yes, we all know that John Lewis is upper class shopping, yet is that reason for whatever you think? Apart from your freedom of speech, which I will not hinder, my question becomes, in light of your remark “He told the gathering of entrepreneurs that the award was “made of plastic and is frankly revolting”“, so not only are you a snob, the element grace is just not within you. Fair enough! Yet, consider that as you got recognised with an award, you should consider the 3 G’s, “Be Gracious, Be grateful, Get off!” (Thanks Paul Hogan for that jewel!)

I am all for freedom of speech, but I am also in favour of accountability. So when I read this: “Street advised his audience: “If you’ve got investments in French businesses, get them out quickly.” The eurozone’s second largest economy is struggling for growth under President François Hollande and the country’s finance minister admitted last month that it will overshoot the EU’s 3% budget deficit target this year. The French economy has been hampered by low growth and poor tax receipts in recent years“, I wonder how often Mr Street got hit with the silly stick in the hours before he spoke these words.

The second issue I see is also from the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/02/warren-buffet-tesco-huge-mistake), this is an entirely different matter. We all make mistakes, so when a billionaire admits to this with the headline ‘Warren Buffett: ‘Tesco was a huge mistake’‘, it is not that big a deal initially, but then I went to think it through. Why is there such a massive overreaction in regards to Tesco? Yes, the profit was overstated; however, Tesco made over ONE BILLION! Can we please wake up now? In a year where most nations are doing worse than zero per cent, in a time when the straps are on so that we recheck every dime we spend. Tesco made over a Billion. Yes, I saw the statements ‘too big to fail‘, but in this instance I do not agree. In the case of the Dutch SNS Reaal, that place LOST a Billion, Tesco MADE a billion, so can we please wake up and not overreact?

So, when the response comes, ‘Well Lawrence, you seem to be overreacting here a little above average’, my response would be ‘darn right!’

You see, the initial events, of Blackrock moving out, whilst this is a drop on a plate, is what I personally see as a form of orchestration, a few big wigs who seem to be hoping on massive write offs for Tesco. There is something so darkly unethical about such actions, that these greed driven profiteers would endanger the incomes of tens of thousands just to get a nice dividend. This is what it looks like, am I right?

That remains to be seen, but overall the fight is not done yet. Tesco is not sitting still and the new Tablet as it launched just now could be another incentive, especially if we consider where Tesco could also be active. If this is the budget option, with Tesco Mobile in the Netherlands, This gem could find many happy homes during the Dutch Sain Nicholas feast (which is on December 5th), in additional to the Christmas celebrations, as many Dutch do both instances. Tesco is not done by a long shot and the activities that we see give me the impression that several actions do not seem to be about ‘cutting losses’, but as stated on many occasions that I am not an economist.

So, when I see this article http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/billionaire-mike-ashley-bets-on-tesco-bounce-back-30616710.html, where Mike Ashley, who owns Newcastle United takes a 43 million pound share believing that Tesco Shares will bounce back, I say “well done Mate!”, two thumbs up for this man. Now, let’s be honest, as this man seems to be a millionaire a thousand times over, 43 million will not seem like a big dent in his wallet, but the fact that this man is willing to enter more cash then I will ever make (even if I grow to the ripe old age of 14645), the entered amount will boggle my mind for some time to come.

This is one of the two parts where disbelieve is still on the front of my mind. Let’s be clear, I get the entire write off, loss of share value, yet the actual occurrence, especially with a billion in profits is too strong to be just a jittery action from the market. The fact that Blackrock moved out to this extent is still an issue. It left me with two options, either they know something Dave Lewis has not been told yet, or they wanted a curve so that they can make a sweet deal down the track. Let’s not forget that the value write off is just on paper, it is like a virtual event. Blackrock did not hand over these billions in gold or actual cash; we are seeing the fallout of virtual value (as I see it). And this all gets me to the final quote, which was also in the Warren Buffet article and had been mentioned in earlier articles. “UK fund manager Neil Woodford – who decided to sell his stake in Tesco in 2012 after its first profit warning – said last week it could be a long time before any of the British supermarkets became good investment prospects again“. Why?

You see, if he sold his shares earlier, fair enough. Yes, we see that Sainsbury is lowering expectations and shares have fallen there too. I think that all supermarkets will have to change their entire approach. We see that places like Aldi and Lidl are growing, especially in Australia where Aldi is now more and more a common sight, yet over here Woolworths and Coles remain. The same applies to England, in the end people need food, so these places will remain locations where food is bought and yes, as Tesco mobile remains competitive, people will come for that options too. All that is a given, so why such a massive overreaction?

This is at the heart of my foundation for suspected orchestration. If you are in the UK, then take a look at the papers and the degree that they are looking at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. They did the auditing for Tesco, so why is not every reporter looking at PwC and seeing what links might be there, which is not an accusation, but consider all the redigesting we see on several papers, they all mention PwC in a casual way, when they have been auditing Tesco for some time. Only the Times (at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/banking/article4214689.ece) had done so, yet the full article is not available to me as I am not a subscriber (one of the reasons why I stick to the Guardian).

There are two more quotes the first is “Shorting Tesco has been a profitable bet” and “Traders gamble on falling share prices by borrowing equities from other investors and selling them in the hope of later buying them back cheaper – known as shorting” The latter quote comes from http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2772107/Dont-shred-thing-new-Tesco-chief-warns-staff.html, so it is a way to make money, even though it seems unethical, the act is not, but one could call it questionable. This is the one moment where I need to ask the one question in regards to the given scenario. Let me first add the following quote “Lewis’s ‘no shredding’ order will be seen as a sign that he is determined to get to the bottom of the problem.  It also indicates that the group fears the errors – whether or not deliberate – may extend deep into the company“, as well as “Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Mike Dennis said: ‘A discrepancy of this size suggests this is not just the behaviour of a few individuals, but behaviour instilled by the senior management team“, which is where I was all along. Is this the case and if that part was known to 1-2 insiders, could this be the reason for certain action? What if Blackrock dumped its part to cause a stronger downfall, so that they can buy it again later with a much more interesting profit curve, which makes up for a lot more than the small loss they had, what happens then?

All valid questions, I just wonder if those who have actual answers are willing to give them, because it looks like a slippery slope of massive proportions. As this happens to the one place that feeds a nation, how will the people react should evidence of intentional tampering ever be shown?

Then how angry will the people get?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 3, 2014 · 11:38

Selling Israel

The papers are having another go at selling another version of an idea that has been said so often that I worry that those going towards it are dim or desperate, I honestly cannot tell which of the two they are. Now, before we continue let me frank. I have nothing against Iranians, several were in University with me, I met some in Sweden and in Europe, but these Iranians are the ones who left, they wanted a happy future, a future Iran could not offer. There is the issue, the Iran we seem to see are those who do not want to be in Iran. So why are those able to change, are doing so whilst flushing the futures of many whilst they enjoy the age of fornication. This is at the premise when we look at the Guardian Article ‘Iran nuclear talks: why Tehran must be brought in from the cold’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/02/nuclear-talks-why-tehran-must-come-in-from-cold). Here lies the heart of the problem in several ways. You see, it was all easy and clear in the time that Ahmadinejad was in power, we could smell crazy 25000 miles away. Now we have an issue we haven’t had before, you see, now that President Rouhani is in office things are changing. President Rouhani is by all standards, as far as I have been able to tell a decent person, he is a moderate, what would be seen as a good Muslim in pretty much any sense of the word and as I see it devoted to his country and his family, a man any man or corporation would happily do business with. If there is one flaw, then it is the fact that he went to the Glasgow Caledonian University, so he might not cheer for Australian cricket, but we can let that slide.

My issue is not with President Rouhani, it is with the person who follows. I know it, many know it and for a massive amount, the intelligence branch at large knows it, so why do we see more and more sounds on a nuclear deal? I will tell you why, it is because the parties willing to do business will not ever be in danger. No matter what happens when the deal is made, it is extremely unlikely that there will be any danger to the US or the Commonwealth. So, those involved parties are all willing to talk, mainly because of the massive amounts of money it could bring. Add to that the oil and gas reserves that Iran has and we have the makings of a greed driven agreement.

There is just one problem, if this happens, these people will directly endanger the status of Israel. I hope that they remember that Israel is an ally?

So why is this issue? What is the danger?

There are many. Consider the moment that Iran has nuclear capabilities. How long until a nuke or a dirty bomb makes it into Israel? Less than two weeks ago we saw high ranking Iranian officers acknowledge that they are giving missile technology to Hamas, do you think that Hamas will not fire such a rocket? How dim do we need to be? Hamas and Iran are both filled with more than a share of extremists. Even if the bomb does not hit Tel Aviv, there are half a dozen places where the state of Israel will collapse if one went off. Even more dangerous is the issue when it goes off in the Mediterranean, when the rads get into the water there, tourism for Greece and Spain will collapse overnight, it is also likely that irreparable damage will be given to both Italy and France at that point. How will you live then without a Euro coin that is still around?

So, is there any doubt? Ahmadinejad: “World forces must annihilate Israel” (Aug 2nd 21012) as well as “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury“. So our issue is not with President Rouhani, it is with whoever follows. Because when that person is not a moderate, one who wants to ‘score’ a name for himself in the eyes of all Muslim nations not willing to recognise the state of Israel.

The article does extent on several other sides. One of them is “many Iranians agree that, for the moment, the president’s priorities should be economic and diplomatic“, this is exactly what President Rouhani seems to be doing, trying to increase the living standard for Iranians. He seems to be successful because of the man he is, many are willing to talk to him and take economic steps. Who would not want to do business with the prospective customer who is moderate, respected and likely relaxed. As such certain dangers are ignored, you see, Iran has rules and regulations, they are clear and precise, so any Iranian Muslim can become president, however that also includes extreme elements like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, because the consequences of a ‘democratic’ system of election is that anyone can raise his voice, where the issues start. When Iran becomes a nuclear nation, we need to take a look at… but then it will be too late.

There is more than just a few articles from the average Journalist. When we look at Alon Paz, an officer of the IDF, we see that Lt. Col. Alon Paz, Israel Defence Forces, is a Visiting Military Fellow at The Washington Institute. If we take a look at his article in the Business Insider (at http://www.businessinsider.com/israeli-colonel-we-must-examine-hamas-strategy-2014-7?IR=T) we see that Iran is having more than just one influence and these actions are taken with President Rouhani in office. The question is how Iran moves forward, however, we need to keep it as an essential first step that it does so not as a nuclear enabled power, because that will change our futures in the most negative way imaginable.

The fact that Hamas has received missile technology from Iran is perhaps one of the strongest pieces of evidence against Iran becoming Nuclear, not because of those in charge, but because of select groups of officers who are propagating the need for Israel to be removed, once one of them gets into office, the lifespan of Israel will be measurable in mere hours, so as Israel starts glowing in the dark, what will America say then? “I’ll take that goat off your hands for 2 zuzim”, where will it leave the rest?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 2, 2014 · 23:13

Vision, Budgets and Gaming

What makes a game? Whoever has played a game, and perhaps still plays one, has at times asked themselves this question. Even if you think you are not a gamer, you might be one in disguise.

How does that work?

Well, let’s not get to the controllers just yet; let us take a look at the options.

Is it a puzzle?

On many systems, whether PC’s with or without Facebook, on a tablet or on your mobile. It is possible that you have played Sudoku! I have seen a truckload of them and two stand out. First for the iPad there is Finger Arts Sudoku, which is a massive piece of fun and it is all for free. The game is pretty much a perfect version. The second one to mention is Platinum Sudoku on the Nintendo DS. The game went cheap for around $20 and has hundreds of Sudoku’s per level and as you go along, you unlock sounds, backgrounds and so on. Once all have been done, you unlock a few million additional puzzles, Sudoku heaven in two titles.

Is it Nostalgia?

Again, tablets, PC’s and Consoles have a host of games that are revamps from older computers. Ascendancy, Railroad tycoon, X-Com, the list goes on and many are free through Abandoneware some cost just a few dollars through the Apple store or Google play. They can free your mind from several places and some parts can keep you busy for a while. It is as simple as eating pancakes.

So why these jumps?

Well, I had to make a few changes in my life and as such I missed out on a few games as my consoles remain off line for a few months, which means, no Destiny for little poor old me. Yet, is that the case? I got a link to the ‘Angry Joe Show’ who had his vision on Destiny, the 500 million budgeted cash cow for Bungie. The reviews were ranging from 60%-80%, with one overly high one. This is not good, for a game implied to be budgeted at half a billion; you would expect a 90% plus rating.

So what did Angry Joe state?

  1. Lack of competent story telling
  2. Repetitive mission design
  3. Frustrating random loot

Important is that many critics have said similar things on the game. So how come it is such a success?

Well, there are two parts, the first, the marketing was top notch, they created interest and they kept interest levels high, without overhyping, which is reason that the interest stayed. Another side is that if grinding multiplayer games are your thing, then you are fine. Yet, how are these things any good?

They are not!

It seems that we are confronted with a new level of revenue based marketed games, however the overall quality of the games is going down fast, as well as the overall amount of gaming hours. Some state that the Unity main mission can be completed in 15 hours. I finished Infamous Second son in a little over 12 hours, this comes down to a one weekend of gaming, how can that be a decent investment of gaming fun for anyone? I stated issues with Black Flag, now Destiny seems to up the ante, which gives us pause to what comes next. That can be seen in several ways.

The truly big games for Next Gen, like Destiny and Elder Scrolls online are now falling because the outrage is getting stronger fast. So is making games so hard? No! it is not, for the right person, because a real visionary can create something that is desired for decades, like for example the Diablo series, and even though Elder Scrolls Online are getting a fair share of the winds of contempt, their previous games (Oblivion and Skyrim) are still regarded as top notch, even with the glitches.

When we see houses throwing a massive amount of money into something, the image is growing that things are becoming dubious. There is however an issue with that statement. Although GTA-V is not my game, it is a massive success; the game even broke the billion dollar record, which is as far as I know the only game to ever achieve that within the first week of release. There are other independent successes like Minecraft, yet we see now that Destiny made the revenue and the profit by remaining mediocre. So is it the games, or the players?

To be honest, I am not sure that the answer is that easy, for one, Destiny is almost unique on Nextgen. Xbox one has Titanfall, but the PS4 did not have anything like that (referring to multiplayer slaughtering). This skews the interest of the people. Elder Scrolls Online is also feeling the brunt in another direction. When the overall consensus is “I wish this game would’ve turned out better, but everything I read so far has told me to not even bother“, as one player stated it to be, you know that you a looking at a possible 200 million fiasco. This is in itself odd, because Oblivion and Skyrim redefined RPG gaming in a massive way. True, Skyrim is loaded with ‘glitches’ but the storylines can be played and the main story is great too. It is only when you decide to stay in Skyrim and make your character your lives work; it is then that the issues start piling up. However, as I have stated it before, Skyrim is a massive step forwards from Oblivion, which was a large leap from Morrowind, So the makers have given us more in a large way. This gives us the worry, why did they go MMORPG, when the single player games are so fulfilling.

The Angry Joe show also stated some issues on ESO. It is not unlike issues we see in several games. On top of that, one race is only there available if you buy the limited edition; in addition, it is monthly based, so the $100 comes with an additional $15 a month, with an additional $15 for a month zero payment (to set up your monthly payments). So in NextGen consoles, you will lose out on $120 before you got the first hour in. Now, let’s be fair, we need to pay, as we do with every game, but the reviews from several sources show an average game. For example you could be watching a group of 15 men try to charge whilst watching the game crash as the ESO server went down. These things happen in MMO games, yet we don’t see this with Blizzard games. And as money gets, you get 1 gold piece per kill and 2 gold pieces per boss. It seems entirely weird as a horse costs well over 17,000 gold pieces. You do get a horse with the limited edition that is $20 more expensive. So as we see the greed factor creep into the new games, we should worry on how gaming goes. Angry Joe talks a good story, brings the issues nicely with a few theatrics, so seek his views out in YouTube (seek: ‘angry Joe review’), he has published several interesting reviews.

There is trend that we now see growing, which could end gaming as the joy it has been for over 30 years.

What will come next? This is at the core of the issues we face, some (me included to some degree), as Microsoft bought Minecraft for 2.5 billion, I am worried about what they will do to it next. There is no indication of what they have in mind, but Microsoft tends to be revenue driven, which means that Minecraft will be ‘upgraded’ to ensure no less than 5 billion in revenue, which makes me slightly worried on how they will do this.

Yet, things are not truly covered in darkness yet, however, that revelations will also come with another revelation that will not make you happy. I have spoken to some degree on an upcoming game that seems to be the next real game we all need to look for. The title ‘No Man’s Sky’ is all about newness, originality and sandbox gaming, all rolled into one massive achievement. The important part of all this is the worrying part. You see, like Minecraft, this game is also an achievement by an independent developer.

So as we look at the set developers like EA and Ubisoft, we see that they have not improved their gameplay for some time now. One review on NHL15 wrote “NHL 15 is a disappointment. It lays a good foundation for the future with enhanced physics and an improved presentation, but it’s still mostly potential“, I saw FIFA15 which looks nice, but I am not a soccer fan. Games Radar stated this on FIFA15: “This year FIFA 15 pulls off a difficult trick. Not only is the game closer to a TV-style broadcast than ever, but the experience is better than FIFA’s been in years“, so it seems that there is goodness coming from EA, yet is that enough? Sports games have their own following and as such for THEM there should be a decent quality game to keep them happy, whether it is NBA, NFL, NHL or FIFA. EA is bigger than just the sports section, however in that regard; EA has remained quiet (and as such avoided ugly hypes).

However 2015 should see the light of a new Mass Effect, even though loathed by a fair share of fans, Mass Effect 3 had several good sides, amongst them the best multi player side I have ever played. Mass Effect could be the next big thing, but time will tell, so I will not add to the ‘gossip’ and ‘rumour’ fire at present.

Ubisoft has a few options, but is in my view lacking as Watchdogs became a hyped success. It was graphically amazing, yet in the core a mundane game like AC1 was. This does not make it a bad game, but it could be the mind blowing start not unlike AC2 became, yet Watchdogs one started from a much better place than AC1, so that future could be promising. If you wonder how it helps speculating on this, then I have no real answer to that. Yet, consider that these are also the questions asked in Forbes magazine as gaming is now truly big business with projected revenues in 2014 surpassing 81 billion.

So, what is the issue?

It is vision!

Gaming is about vision; those who have it bring us all the greatest games. In an age where we need to turn around every dollar, we tend to focus on the true innovation. The even nicer thing is that fun and quality gaming does not need to cost $100-$150. Finger Arts and Abandoneware have proven that. There is a clear indication that the larger developers lack vision to a growing extent, which makes for several issues down the track. The Nextgen systems are still lacking a decent pool of really good games almost a year after its initial release. This should currently regarded as a disappointment compared to the previous versions of consoles, especially as we saw Sony announce ‘This is for the players!’ and Microsoft with ‘Everything you can imagine, Plus a few things you can’t’, neither have delivered so far. So, is my view that there are issues and it is my personal opinion that this feels like a marketing machine in overdrive whilst the rest of these companies cannot keep up, my evidence? Look at the initial Nextgen Top 10 as it was published on June 17th 2013, on average 22 weeks before the consoles were released.

  1. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
  2. Quantum Break
  3. Final Fantasy XV
  4. The Crew
  5. Destiny
  6. Knack
  7. Titanfall
  8. Watch Dogs
  9. Project Spark.
  10. Tom Clancy’s The Division

Out of these 10, 2 made the release date, one was 6 months late, the rest has not been released at present and they will not come until 2015, so we see an announcement that is off by 75% (they get 5% penalty for Watchdogs). Something this far off is pretty unheard of. It views as the hype from Microsoft and Sony to get console sales high and then end up skipping out on the games (to some extent). I must state that those with PlayStation Plus were given a barrage of games, free to download. Some were decent, 1-2 were really nice, which means that some was done, but was it an acceptable step?

What will happen next?

I think that we need re-evaluate the way we look at the gaming industry and more important on how those within it market their customers. In their defence, these gamers are like a group of hungry hyenas, so feeding them any news is at times the only way for marketeers to stay alive. Yet all of this is not done yet and we must all take a long hard look at what was, what is and what should be.

Budgets

There is no denying that games will be bigger and bigger budgeted, yet consider that these games, offering less than 20 hours are closing on the quester billion to develop. Yet, we see in Minecraft that it can be done in other ways, there are more games. Elite, remade from the 1984 edition, originally created to fit a 48Kb home computer. Good games are not expensive and true vision is priceless! That part is what we have seen more than once, if we take a few of the older really good games and their cost we see Ultima VII: The Black Gate – $US1 million (1992), System Shock 2 – $US1.7 million (1999), Resident Evil 2 $US1 million (1999), Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter – $US18 million (2006), BioShock – $US15 million (2007), God of War III – $US44 million (2010). So when we see Unity, Infamous: Second Son with their massive budgets, we see the trade off, where the larger players throw money to hide vision and to some extent they are getting more than just an even payment. It is there where my issue with Gamespot and their ‘closeness’ to Ubisoft becomes an issue. How can we get honest reviews whilst the makers of games are stacking the deck for mere profit? Independent review is the only way to see what is good, what is worth the money and what is bad. How can the consumer get the right information?

This is at the heart of the matter, I would like to solve the lack of vision problem, but that lies with the makers of games. They have options, yet are they willing to learn? Even if they are willing to accept that they are no longer visionaries, not unlike Steve Jobs, there is a chance that they can spot it when they see it. The question then becomes will they protect the future of gaming.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 2, 2014 · 11:51

Advice from the press?

So, as we look at the Guardian, we see someone stating that we need an independent monitor. So, what is going on? To be quite honest, at first I thought I was reading a cartoon. The fact that the spokespersons name is Julian Disney did not help matters (and I so love my Disney movies).

Yet, this is not me having a go at a respectable person. I do not know Prof Julian Disney AO; he is a professor of Law at UNSW. Even though those from UTS will always happily have a go at their academic brethren (Australian graduates regard the rivalry between Oxford vs. Cambridge and Harvard vs. Yale to be mere child’s play), we do keep all professors in high regard!

Yet, that does not mean that we will not oppose them when needed and this is as I see it such a moment!

I have been very vocal in the past in regards to the press, their actions and their flaws, their massive flaws. It seems that the press all about ‘self-regulating’ and beyond that it is all about public advocates (so that they will have access to materials. Yet, the intelligence field does not operate in this way. I had a few concerns, which I addressed as “I would have preferred that a clear location would be there to alert someone, even if it was a special appointed judge“, which allows for whistle blowers to the smallest extent, but not one that is open to all. I want to be certain that the information is properly vetted for ‘misuse’ (read: whinge to promote one’s self agenda and career).

So yes, I have issues with the article (at http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/02/australian-press-council-spy-powers-independent-monitor). My first issue is “The Greens senator Scott Ludlam announced on Wednesday the Greens would not be supporting the next tranche of legislation, which will force telecommunications companies to keep the personal details of Australians for two years“. We have two options here, either the DSD (Australian version of GCHQ) gets all the data, or they get access to the data when properly needed. They opted for option two, which means that telecoms need to hold on to data. Listen up people, this means that your data is safe until there is a direct known threat, which will allow for a ‘data warrant’. So if you did nothing, you will never show up in their lists. To be clear, in America, the NSA opted for solution one, which gives them all your actions and as such you were ‘mined’ for flags. This means that in 99.999657% likelihood (roughly), they never saw you, they mined you with processes, but no person ever saw your actions.

The second quote is “He added that it was critical for the inspector general of intelligence and security, journalists and the community to continue to monitor how the new laws were implemented“, I agree with most of this view, but let’s change ‘, journalists and the community‘ into ‘a special appointed and security cleared judge‘. I have nothing against the proper person monitoring what happens and as I am still in favour of a legal approach, it should be a special appointed judge and let’s keep the journo’s out of that part, for several reasons. Let’s not forget that the Sunday Mirror entrapment sting is less than a week old and we have seen our share of issues, especially when there was some free for all against Julia Gillard, with the questions aimed at Tim Mathieson to be the ‘Ruddy’ cake, the icing and the candles. There are several more issues. I admit we are not as bad as that island on the other side of the planet, but when it comes to trusting the press, we should all have issues, especially as the Sony issue was ignored by ALL!

So, as it stands, at present I will oppose the Australian Press Council on this.

There is however something in the quote “This will affect every man, woman and child and every device in the country. Now the government has rammed the Asio laws through the Parliament today it is now turning its sights on every internet user in the country“, this statement is not incorrect, yet the people (read the press and politicians) are both dancing around one issue, whilst another issue is the real threat. It is not that the Intelligence community has access. They are merely there to stop the dangers of terrorism. My issue from the very beginning has been ‘who else gets to have access‘. Here we see the real danger, which the press seems to be unwilling to voice. Why? Is a company like Telstra too able to ‘uproot’ your careers? That fear was voiced by me in the blog ‘For our spies only!‘ which I wrote on the 26th of September, the issue is not what should get access, but what will end up having access too that is to a larger degree a concern. I am still convinced that if data retention becomes a larger issue, the intelligence community will be lacking in hardware, knowledge and staff to deal with these massive amounts of data, which leaves us open to other issues, yet this is just my view!

Now consider the impact!

What impact could there have been? Well, to understand that, we have to take a look at yesterday’s news (at http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/jihadist-sponsor-accused-may-have-made-one-fatal-error-that-led-to-his-arrest/story-fni0fee2-1227075746698). The issue here is not how they got him, but how they almost did not get him. The issue was luck, if the FBI did not have a record on all 12 Americans in Syria, we would not know. Hassan El Sabsabi was allegedly funding people to join Islamic State. He would still be in business, and your money on pizza would have gone to support Islamic State. What a lovely meal you would be having then. Was it perhaps the peperoni supreme?

If ASIO had the data and the scripts would have been running, it is likely that he would have been known earlier, more important, who else is doing this? If they funded a non-American they could still be in business and perhaps they still are. There is no evidence that there was only one person doing this, there is evidence that he is unlikely to be the only one. Did you sign up for your Pizza, your Salad or your Sushi to be the foundation for another terrorist? No! So let ASIO do their job! In this case the press will only advice on the things that further their OWN cause, which tends to be circulation and advertisement. That part has been in the foreground in such a blatant way, that I feel no other option then to oppose the view Professor Disney is offering. Possible we will see more information on what happens next and perhaps the Professor will sway my view. I do not think so, but ignoring voices of wisdom tends to be silly and polarising, which serves no one, not even me, myself and I.

What other issues are there?

Well for me that is pretty much it. I believe that access needs to be monitored and no one beside the Intelligence community should have access and that will, at present not be a given. However, I am very much in favour of the press not getting access at all. Yet, the article by Paul Farrell seems to be written with the ‘intent’ to instil fear. A fear we should not get into, for the very reason that it is fear that they are trying to remove and is achieved by people not looking over their shoulder, especially a group of journalists who seem to give into appeasing advertisers, the one group we do not want to see anywhere near these amounts of data.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 30, 2014 · 22:57

Thriving Team Tesco?

Another day, and another moment where we see the Guardian (amongst others) giving us more news on the corporation Tesco. I will be honest, I have a soft spot for Tesco, the moment issues became visible both the CEO and CLO went all out keeping everyone in the loop. It started exactly a week ago, someone miscounted 250 million to coin a phrase. People were removed and all kinds of actions were started. A few days ago in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/28/tesco-crisis-doesnt-add-up) we see additional information.

So what can be done?

First of all, we need to take one additional look at a few items. You see, as stated more than once, I am not an economist. Now I know that minus 250 million is not a small amount, yet, the article states “its profits for the first six months of the year would be some £250m lower than the £1.1bn previously indicated“, which means that they are still getting 750 million in profits, which is a lot. So why is Blackrock ‘suddenly’ pulling out like that? The shares will bounce back! That is at the heart, the fact that the shares took such a tumble, whilst making a decent profit. Let us also keep in mind that the investigation is still ongoing. I touch on one side in ‘Double Jeopardy!‘ on September 27th, less than a day before this Guardian article. In there I ask the question “I stated before, what if this was not about the event, but about the orchestration?” Is that what is going on? It is a sincere question, I do not know, yet for a company to have a lesser profit, there would be consequences, yet would it be to the extent we are seeing here? Seems like a massive overreaction in my view.

Now let us get back to the article.

“The chairman has been the leader of this organisation that seems to have failed at every turn, was the assessment of David Herro, chief executive of US fund manager Harris Associates“, perhaps this is true, yet he is not there alone, why are the other members of the board not speaking out? This is not a boys club where you wash my back and I wash yours….real hard!

So, there seems to be a few issues, yet, this is at the top, so this means we are looking into several layers before we get to lower management. Either they have no clue, or they do not care. I am actually puzzled by the thought on what might be worse. What is a given is that Tesco is bleeding. Unlike those paperback investors, I like a puzzle and I want to solve it. How can this be turned around? First of all, to create places of peace, certain issues need to change, with the unemployment numbers, these people can either get on board, or leave the company. Greed will be stricken. Which means that this quote “The list includes disputing or delaying payment of invoices for more than 120 days; cutting a product’s price and then demanding compensation to maintain the profit margin; and demanding upfront payments in exchange for hitting sales targets that do not materialise” this can no longer be a method of operation. To get Tesco safe, the board will need to change methodology and remove anyone who is not on board; in addition, payment delays should be trimmed back to no more than 60 days. It is just absurd to get payments settled outside of the quarter to that extent. To truly become a contender, why not revamp Tesco Mobile? iiNet went from ‘seems to exist‘ to the number two in the Australian market by offering ACTUAL deals they left the rest behind them almost overnight, this means a mobile, not unlike the current offers, but with 1Gb data at £19.90 a month, Now we are starting to build a customer group! As I look at the different business groups, Dave Lewis might want to change a massive option, if they allow for the iiNet approach in the UK, Tesco Mobile could become more than a contender. Some might say that at this point it is not a good idea to make large changes. I disagree, this is the best time! As some of the rats are leaving the ship, why not upgrade the ship from cargo vessel with passengers, into a ferry with a large cargo hold. As you grow the passenger, all needing your cargo, you will offer a massive footprint with a loyal based cloud transporter. London is one of the largest mobile workforces on the planet. Use this as consumer strength!

There are a few more Australian approaches that could rock the foundation and make the future a stronger reality. It starts by changing the entire premise on how business is done. The Tesco bank seems to have overlooked options for both funeral insurance as well as the Wester Union approach, which many banks are overlooking, yet such a presence to such a service makes perfect sense in a shopping mall/supermarket. Consider that Western Union made over 5 billion in the last year, this gets us a net profit of around 14%. In the end good business is where you find it!

There are a few other options, but overall. There are several things Tesco can do, even if it was for the sheer fun of seeing Blackrock lose out on a good deal. If profits were lower than now this presently seems to be a likely fact. The reaction that some have now pushed for seems too much overkill, especially when you realise that they are measuring events and Tesco is in trouble, but not in the size and scope that Neil Woodford and Blackrock seem to imply it to be. Consider that Blackrock has over 4.5 trillion dollars in Assets under management. 250 million seems like a mere drop in the ocean. So, that there is no misunderstanding! The assets under managements represent 4,500 billion, the adjustment for Tesco is 0.25 billion,

Yet, instead of whinging about that part, why can we not do something to strengthen the Tesco position? It is all good and fine to be the sideline quarterback and comment on every aspect of the game, but what can be done to get the game going and to improve the game? One idea is to see if the Australian iiNet solution could work in the UK. It is only one of the options and that would lower mobile expense tensions by a roughly stated 57%, so the numbers are all on a level where the top 6 mobile and broadband providers will feel a new level of pain as they see their people run towards the upgraded Tesco Mobile provider.

It would be a start, but will it be enough?

No matter what we do and the amount of ‘more’ we create, there are fundamental issues that need to be addressed. How a company decided to run without a CFO for that long will be cause for questions, and perhaps even cause for investigations into criminal negligence. Consider that a company is set to structure, order and reporting pressures, how can a firm be without a CFO for six months? This is not at the heart of the matter, yet there is an overall level of concern in that mere part of the entire mess. In addition the quote “Although the investigation into Tesco has only just begun, analysts think the Albert Heijn scandal, which had woeful corporate governance and aggressive earnings management at its heart, provides an interesting history lesson, if nothing else.” Is that enough? There is an overly eagerness to appease shareholders and stakeholders far beyond the point of acceptability. If you consider opposing that (which might be valid), then consider how the numbers had been inflated by 29% just to keep the wealthy masses happy.

So, improving Tesco will require another level of changes. That part is seen in the Guardian article by Aditya Chakrabortty (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/29/tesco-accountants-auditors). It is quite a witty style of writing and well worth the read. One of the more interesting quotes was “He found a bunch of men well aware of the boredom of the audit and of the shortcuts they were forced to make“, so how does that work when we consider “Tesco paid PwC £10.4m in the last financial year – plus another £3.6m for other consultancy work“. Was that not enough? You see, this reminds me of some conversations I had in the 90’s. How short sighted Americans truly believed how business can grow, with the same staff, by 20% annually. Prices had to remain the same, to remain competitive. But as short sighted as they were (being sales people); they forgot that the time of a consultant is finite. It is measured in time (you know, that pesky 60 minutes in an hour scale), so as they are set at 90% billable, it means that by year three you’ll have to work an average of 57 hours a week (whilst getting paid 40 hours). It seems that there are levels of short cuts set into place to get results completed, whilst there is no proper investigation on the amount of work that needs to be covered. It is only one cog in the entire failing machine and if Tesco is to stand up from this, illustrating and changing the entire approach to how accountancy is done seems like a logical next step, especially considering that the PWC pass never spotted 29% of inflation somehow.

It is my opinion that the entire system has been duct taped for far too long. This now falls back onto the desk of the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

You might ask why.

It is clear that Tesco is the most visible one, but I feel 99.5336% certain (roughly) that they are not the only one. As the British Cabinet minister responsible for all economic and financial matters, it stands to reason that if the economic recovery is to be preserved and maintained, we will need to make certain that not too many sheep fall of the paddock. This means taking a look into these regulations and more important, if (according to the article) 90% of all audits is done by the big four, seeing 25% fall of the reservation should be ample reason to forego sleep for the foreseeable future (sorry, Mr Osborne, that is why they pay you the extra £26.90 a week!).

It is clear that actions need to be taken, but it is also pretty curious how there is a massive amount of bashing on Tesco, whilst PWC is not getting the spotlight as much, can anyone explain that? Let’s be clear here, it is very possible that this is all due whilst PWC has not been involved at all, so this is not about their optional guilt, it is however valid to ask how some involved thought of pulling this off, it seems that a whistle-blower started all this, yet did no one else notice, did PWC (Price Waterhouse Coopers) have ZERO visibility that something was going on? And, let me be clear, it is very possible that nothing was visible at their last audit, which means that these systems had to be orchestrated and specifically edited to not raise flags, mainly because 250,000,000 is just too much, it would require over 5 billion rounding issues for this to be validly invisible, I reckon we can ignore the likelihood of the latter scenario.

Can Tesco become a team again? Yes, but it requires a massive sanitation of the board of directors as well as the higher managers. One final thought here, they were without a CFO for 6 months, was number two in that hierarchy (whomever reported to the CFO) not on the list, the longer I consider the facts and the numbers, the more I feel that this has been going on for some time to inflate something to this amount, did previous audits not pick anything up?

Can Tesco be a team again? Yes, but compartmentalisation needs to be removed, there needs to be overlap of high directors as well as a fundamental change in communications.

Can Tesco thrive again? I would think so if the previous two points are dealt with and adding the iiNet solution to Tesco might be needed sooner rather than later.

By the way, Mr Lewis, if you read this, consider that this mess came about whilst Philip Clarke made £1,171,000 a year, I reckon that my good insights and ideas are worth a mere 20%, especially if my Tesco mobile solution helps you gain more momentum in the mobile field.

 

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 29, 2014 · 22:50

Vindication

Today is turning out to be a nice day after all. I have made mention on more than one occasion that I am not an economist, I am an analyst and for some time now, the numbers have not been adding up. Certain action had been taken and they never made sense. The issue I had is that because the press seemed not to dig into this gave a decent amount of persuasion that I might have been wrong, which would have been fair enough, yet I know data, I lived data for decades and the numbers just did not add up.

Yesterday I saw a first glimpse, and today there is now a clear indication that I had been right all along. Goldman Sachs had been a part of a lot more than many can fathom. So whilst Cuppa Joe and the press at large has all been about the ‘naughty’ intelligence branch, they all ignored the trap behind it and let the banks do whatever they damn well liked.

One step back

The first inkling was Goldman Sachs directly in my blog ‘Banks, eunuchs of a new congregation‘ of February 7th 2013, more than 1.5 years ago! In there I gave this quote: “It is almost that there is a voice whispering in the ear of Dutch Finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. The whispers seem to be about the Bad Bank and the whispers could involve Goldman Sachs” and “This thought was also mentioned by Rolfe Winkler at the New York Daily News. How is it even possible that a company that seems to have been one of the major reasons for the financial meltdown be regarded, or even ALLOWED to make any continued presence?“, this would get followed by my blog ‘The Italian menace?‘ on February 10th, 3 days later. “Berlusconi, who said he won’t seek the executive position but rather prefers to become Finance Minister, has seduced the masses saying he will repeal a property tax imposed by Monti, returning about €4 billion“. These elements are all in league with one massive step. As these members are directly linked to Goldman Sachs. Not just Berlusconi, it is also Mario Monti who has direct links to Goldman Sachs (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html). The independent article shows even more, steps that I had not looked at (for various reasons). Yet, overall Goldman Sachs has been keeping their fingers in all these pies.

In the near past

As we look at the events in the near past I wrote ‘Two deadly sins‘. It was November 27th 2013. There we see the following quote “After the issues we had seen in the last 3 years, I started to doubt the correctness of the Dow (and I reported on that in past blogs). It goes up and up, but with JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, VISA, American Express putting pressures on those numbers, the three big boys (drugs) could rock the boat in a massive way, which scares Wall Street to no extent. Greed and Treason, it is all connected and it hits us all critically hard sooner rather than later!” I had no idea that I was so much closer to it all then I thought. That part has just been made clear!

Now

The Huffington post (at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/28/elizabeth-warren-new-york-fed_n_5896778.html), has just release this article stating that “Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are both calling for Congress to investigate the New York Federal Reserve Bank after recently released secret recordings show the central bank allegedly going light on firms it was supposed to regulate“, but there is more, like a bad infomercial from TV we see the added flavours that would silence Dante Alighieri and reduce Niccolo Machiavelli to a mere checkers player when we consider the additional quote “Segarra says that she was fired from her job in 2012 for refusing to overlook Goldman’s lack of a conflict of interest policy and other questionable practices that should have brought tougher regulatory scrutiny“. So, this was NOT just the banks, this seems to imply that the US government themselves have been linked to the massive degrees of freedom that Goldman Sachs has been enjoying. So that leaves us with the thought that the EEC is not enjoying any freedoms at all, it is enjoying the allowance to decide on how much they all are in debt to Goldman Sachs and whatever is behind them. Because, a choice of one is not a choice, it is a directive and now we see the amount of people that have been involved in orchestrating all this.

I wonder if the mentioned 48 hours of taped conversations will ever make it into the daylight, chances are that this will get locked up real fast. As the American people were so smitten with a joke called Snowden, they all got played into the side where the banks were given freedom of movement through all this and the press at large did NOTHING to truly look into the dangers their populations faced, it is the ultimate Machiavellian play.

I particularly liked this quote “In one instance, she said she alerted a colleague that a senior compliance officer at Goldman had said that the bank’s view was that “once clients became wealthy enough, certain consumer laws didn’t apply to them.” Segarra claims that her New York Fed colleagues asked her to ignore the remark and change meeting minutes she had taken, which contained evidence of what the Goldman executive said“, which basically means that the rich do not just get a free play in the game, they remain unaccountable beyond a certain point. Did we who will never be rich sign up for that? I have no issue with people becoming rich, providing it is through non-criminal ways, yet the fact that this also implies non-accountability to the law is an entirely different matter. If you think that this is not an issue, then wonder what a firm like Microsoft is getting away with or Goldman Sachs for that matter. It is easy to remain unaccountable when the lawmakers are in your pockets.

Recently

Now this all links to another party, who only recently got visible thanks to a ‘dubious’ ideologist as he exposed the Swedish left winged system. I am talking about Natixis! Its assets exceeds well over half a trillion dollars, not bad for a French bank! Why are they here? You see, I always saw that there was more to Goldman Sachs, yet as my stories were never explicitly about Goldman Sachs, but about events that involved them, Goldman Sachs was clearly on my radar. Natixis until the Swedish election was not, nor needed it to be. Yet when we look at their Portfolio of Investments – as of December 31, 2013, we see that they are linked to the bulk of large corporations and their financial needs. They also have a nice little chunk of Goldman Sachs. Now we have a race, because together they hold over 1.5 trillion in assets. Are we all awake now?

Two corporations with the power to shift, change and pressure government oversight in America and pretty much the entire European Economic Community, is more than just a nuisance. Remember how Goldman Sachs promised (read threatened) to transfer a substantial part of their European business from London to a Eurozone location – the most obvious contenders being Paris and Frankfurt. It was a statement by Michael Sherwood, co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs International (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/04/goldman-sachs-warns-london-exit-britain-eu), at this point we get to wonder whether it was a business decision, or whether it was a phone call from a person with direct access to the ear of the President of the United States (yes the last part is an assumption on my side, but is it such a wild one?), if any of this is ever confirmed, I reckon that this is the one straw that breaks parliaments back and results in a shift of power to Ukip so fast it will make all the heads in Whitehall spin.

This is just the parts I got a hold on, I feel certain that a REAL investigative journalist (if one still exists) would have been able to find a lot more, yet nothing has made the papers in this regards for close to two years. You should really start to ask the question why!

Because, when we see the press entrap MP’s with fake profiles, whilst ignoring these levels of power, then the press has failed on so many levels it is not even funny anymore.

Tomorrow

Today is the start to plan for the questions that many should be asking government and the press tomorrow, the press because they seem to be asleep at the wheel, asleep that two companies have so much power that they can set the entire political tone. Freedom has never been about this. Freedom lost, because of what I regard to be cowardly (and possibly greed driven) politicians who are enabling a group to be flaccid economists to empower wealth and greed and condemn us to consumer based slavery until our numbers are no longer balanced as profitable.

How can we ever attain a better life, or in regards to the links that I recently discovered any form of a healthy life at all? Will be see vindication, but who in the end gets vindicated is an entirely different discussion.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 29, 2014 · 19:53

How to (un)screw an MP

We have seen a fair collection of choices and changes that adds up towards the life and makings of a situation. If diplomacy fails, you extend it into war. If the statistical answer does not match, you change the question and when you are unable to remain a journalist, you create it through entrapment.

This is what we are confronted with today as we see the header “Sunday Mirror under pressure to reveal details of Tory minister ‘sexting’ sting” (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/28/sunday-mirror-pressure-reveal-details-tory-minister-sexting-sting-brooks-newmark). So as labour sees their political chances fall further and further, we see a labour based paper having a go at the Tories. Now, to be fair, having a go at Tories from a newspaper point of view is not wrong (I am one for the most myself), conservative publications have a go at labour, so I reckon when it is news, then we can state that all is fair in love and political envy. Yet, when the Lloyd Embley machine starts creating it through entrapment, we get another thing entirely.

So what happened?

“The reporter, who is not on the staff of the Sunday Mirror, created a fictional account of ‘Sophie Wittams’ on Twitter, which has since been deleted, and appears to have contacted at least six Conservative MPs including the latest Ukip defector, Mark Reckless“. So the Lloyd Embley machine seems to have played a game involving an exchange of explicit photographs. The quote “Newmark, who owns the investment firm Telesis Management and whose wealth was estimated at £3.2m in 2009, was contacted by ‘Sophie’, before engaging in a series of flirtatious messages and photograph exchanges“, so if this is exchange, whose photos were used?

It seems that the press still cannot get a grip on accountability. I personally think that it is time for the Lloyd Embley machine to feel the brunt of their utter ignorance (or let’s just call it greed based bashing). Instead of going just for a fine, how about shutting down the paper for let’s say three weeks? This means that those with subscriptions will get an alternative paper for three weeks (paid by the Trinity Mirror group). Now let’s see when money stops in its tracks, whether the editors get a firm wake up call.

There is more to this. It seems that even after the phone hacking scandal and after some of these so called journalists claimed that they can police themselves, we see more and more evidence that they can do nothing of the sort. These transgressions just show the essential need for the entire Leveson recommendation to be passed, which makes this new event upsetting to a fair amount of people.

So how about looking at this from the other side using a series of articles that the Mirror MUST publish on page one and it has to be an independent journalist chosen by the Conservative party. That journalist will get the ENTIRE page one, so no ads anywhere on that page.

Wouldn’t that just ‘sting’ the labour paper?

It is the last quote that is actually the most upsetting “A spokesman from Ipso said: “Ipso will look into any complaint about the story concerned if any such complaint is submitted.”“. This seems to clearly indicate that IPSO is utterly toothless (as implied by me in a previous blog) and as such might end up not being of any use, which was pretty much what the people of hacked off claimed IPSO to be. Now consider that IPSO starts their own webpage with this statement “IPSO is the new independent regulator for the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK. We uphold the highest standards of journalism by monitoring and maintaining the standards set out in the Editors’ Code of Practice“. Is that so?

Consider the Crimes Act 1900 for NSW, where we see at Part 5A False and misleading information, which holds section 307b/307c.

A person is guilty of an offence if (partial extraction as these parts seems to have been proven already):

(a) the person makes a statement (whether orally, in a document or in any other way), and
(b) the person does so knowing that, or reckless as to whether, the statement:
  (i) is false or misleading, or
  (ii) omits any matter or thing without which the statement is misleading, and
(c) the statement is made in connection with an application for an authority or benefit

The result is: Maximum penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years, or a fine of 200 penalty units, or both.

So why is the so called ‘reporter’ not arrested?

What was the name of the ‘journalist’?

Is the paper now obstructing justice? All fair questions I would state. Now, I used the Australian version of the Crimes Act, yet I feel at present decently certain that the UK has similar rules.

Whilst getting creative I considered the issues of consent, even though it reflects on sexual assault, we could argue that the MP got screwed by a journalist. So was there consent? Well Section 61HA (5) tells us ‘A person does not consent‘, where ‘(a) under a mistaken belief as to the identity of the other person‘, which is proven as the woman in the images was never part of this. In addition there is subtopic c, which states ‘under any other mistaken belief about the nature of the act induced by fraudulent means‘, well fraudulent means is certainly the case here, so again the paper loses out. In reality, these parts do not apply as there was no real penetration (as described in the Crimes Act 1900), yet the MP got screwed then he got hosed, so I reckon we can be flexible here as IPSO seems to have little intent of keeping the highest standards, just me observing those who do not meet them, which we get from their own quote.

As the Criminal Act 1900 NSW talks about penetration, there are a few issues here, yet as this is the UK, they have a few other sides, as they will use the Sexual Offences Act 2003. I will not go into it, because Matthew Scott, who has the ‘Barrister Blogger’, has quite the article on it (at http://barristerblogger.com/2014/09/28/tricked-sex-fraud-sunday-mirrors-sting-brookes-newmark-criminal/)

I see news coming in regards to monitoring on how we have a right to speak, how we should have privacy, but what about accountability? If the press cannot be held accountable whilst they engage in unadulterated entrapment, should we even be allowed an internet? So, how does that relate? We seem to think that we can do whatever pleases us in a form of freedom of opinion, no matter how false the statements are. We are all de-evolving into a state of anarchy and chaos. If there is a path that leads somewhere then it might be open to debate, but that is not the case. Whilst we ‘bicker’ over how we can speak about everything, we leave big business unchecked to do what they want and leave us without anything.

I have made several observations on a failing press, whilst no one is taking notice on how we never had any rights in the first place. How these ‘holier than though‘ editors seem to regard harlotry above integrity, my evidence in this? The User agreement changes Sony pushed through a week before the release of the PS4 ‘Pricing a Sony game!‘ on November 20th 2013, the list goes on, but this is not about advertising my blog, or revisiting too many old articles.

Because as we see the events unfurl, we now have a new iteration of information as the daily mail is mulling over all that information and these photographs again. It is there where we find these two final quotes: “And criminal barrister Matthew Scott wrote on his blog yesterday: ‘What conceivable public interest was served by tricking Mr Newmark in this way?” Well in my opinion there was no public interest, it is a clear cut slam bash from a labour based paper to have a go at a conservative.

And “Lloyd Embley, editor-in-chief of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, defended the story after former BBC journalist Sue Llewellyn claimed it was ‘unethical’. He tweeted: ‘1) it wasn’t a Mirror sting 2) there’s a nailed-on public interest.’“, my response? It was a mirror sting. From the current information this came from a reporter not employed by the Mirror, which means that in my view you Lloyd Embley are directly responsible and accountable! You see, if you are not, then this means that you are not really an editor (they tend to know EVERYTHING that happens at their newspaper), which makes you redundant! In the second, there is at present direct indication that these events follow from criminal activities. In that we get a nice last issue as presented by the Press Complaints Commission “iii) Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation“.

Yes, now consider that it is the press themselves that is knowingly misleading the public in the most intentional way!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 28, 2014 · 22:29

Sane Sex and Time management

Sometimes life throws you a bone. In my case it was a little more about timing. The Guardian was nice enough to release a new article based upon the Observer sex survey 2014. The ‘main’ article (at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/28/british-sex-survey-2014-nation-lost-sexual-swagger) gives us all the nice percentages, yet what was the base. Nice that in some cases it states ‘all man’, yet is this 50,500 or 5000, and in a population of 68 million, how reliable is all this? Considering that we find 1052 UK adults at the end is also cause for alarm, because even with top quality weighting, a UK based approach with a raw file containing less than 5000 cases should not even be considered (in my humble opinion). Let’s be clear, this is not an attack, just me phrasing a few questions. I had the most fun with the infidelity chart, where they state that 83% has never been unfaithful, now consider the source (at http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/jan/28/divorce-rates-marriage-ons#data), if you take a look at the data set, there is a [tab] called ‘Cause of divorce’, by the way, consider that the UK has a massive divorce group and in some years the reason for infidelity is well over 43%, so how about them numbers now?

I knew a guy (don’t we all), who told me, a man has either been unfaithful, or at some point he will be. So far his prediction has always held up.

So, has the UK lost its sexual ‘swagger’, or are we not looking in the right way?

That is off course part of the issue. Is it an honesty issue?

I am not stating to know that part. I am very willing to assume that the data has issues (in regards to this topic there always tends to be issues). But this is not about the statistics; this is about the article by Tim Adams (at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/28/-sp-not-tonight-darling-why-britain-having-less-sex). The headline ‘Not tonight, darling: why is Britain having less sex?’ flashed in front of my eyes and I got curious, especially when the subtitle states: “should we blame the rise of internet porn or the spread of gender equality?” A lamer reason could not be found? You see, I have the following issues:

Quote: “The greater the husband’s share of masculine chores, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction“. So is this the case of the milkman always coming twice or should we revisit an article that the Guardian published on June 8th (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/08/police-fear-rise-domestic-violence-world-cup)? These numbers quite literally scared me to death. They state “The most detailed research into the links between the football World Cup and domestic abuse rates has revealed that in one force area in England and Wales, violent incidents increased by 38% when England lost – but also rose by 26% when they won“, so now consider whether the masculine chores are reasons for and ‘her’ way to not get hurt.

I will state here that my premise is on a very very slippery slope. One should never combine two statistics from different sources. It is like comparing apples with pears, yet an increase of 38% sounds massive, especially when we consider the information from http://www.womensaid.org.uk/, where in one presentation, we see the link to ‘Walby and Allen (2004)‘ who found that 54% of UK rapes are committed by a woman’s current or former partner. Again, I am comparing different statistics, which is EXTREMELY unreliable, yet overall, it brings questions to the two articles overall. Yet Tim Adams makes several interesting observations, and I put this one at the very top “In our work-obsessed, time-poor culture, it would seem that regular sex is one of the ‘luxuries’ that we are prepared to dispense with“, which makes perfect sense, as we relive the statistic where people in UK (in London particularly) end up working 6 days a week, whilst only getting paid for 5, we see a trend of exhaustion. To get by, to pay the bills, we all (gender equally) we tend to have ZERO energy left at the end of the ride, so whilst the bosses are taking us for a ride, most of us tend to not get any intimate kind of a ride any day soon, possible with exception of those in charge, getting by through living in a less premium place.

Then we get the following statement: “in an attempt to be gender-neutral, we may have become gender-neutered”. Not sure if I can agree. I always saw my partners as equals and that never stopped either of us, yet the days where I worked from before sun up until way past sun down, my only desire was to imitate a sawmill and commence deforestation through snoring from Friday evening until Sunday morning. Yet the article also had a few jewels to snigger at in regards to manage my lousy sense of humour. When seeing “Is the digital commodification of sex ruining the real thing on a wider scale?“, my initial thought was, that if it fits into a USB port, then we can safely say that the need for chemical augmentation has truly arrived, yet, all humour aside (even my bad one), I always learned (read: experienced) that great sex came from communication. So, is communication not better achieved through gender equality and by both learning, does it not get better for both? Hence, how can the internet help? Let’s remember that many ‘educational’ online places are nothing less than a figment of many imaginations. It’s almost like the one place where you pay to have digital sex, only to receive a message from the ‘lady’ after payment: “not now dear, I have a headache!” There goes your $x, when a simple drink with a real person would have given you a decent drink and possibly some actual information, likely at a fraction of whatever $x was.

Perhaps I am oversimplifying matters again! Silly me!

There is one more part that I want to respond to “The sexual revolutionaries of the 1960’s and 70’s, you imagine, would be profoundly shocked by the responses to the question of whether it is possible to be in a happy relationship without sex featuring at all. Just about two-thirds of British adults apparently believe that such a relationship is perfectly feasible“. I have absolutely no idea how that part is even possible, until you consider the next part. “In 2003, the UK edition of Elle magazine featured an article warning women about the potential hazards of spending too much time with their gay male friends. Entitled “Help! I’m a Gay Man Trapped in a Woman’s Body”, the title parodies a discourse of transgender by juxtaposing a woman’s body against a supposedly gay male interior. The article problematizes the amount of time some women spend with gay male friends, suggesting this causes them to become more like gay men and to consequently become unattractive to heterosexual men, thus diverting them from the normative path of heterosexuality“. This comes from: ‘Shepperd, D., Coyle, A., & Hegarty, P. (2010). Discourses of friendship between heterosexual women and gay men: Mythical norms and an absence of desire.’

I have heard this before on more than one occasion. The ‘younger’ lady wants to be cool, be with suave men and as she sets herself up to be that desirable woman looking her best, being with the gay man looking fabulous, she is now in a stage where she is either considered Lesbian, unavailable or a tease. So, these single women are now at times complaining how they are approaching 32 with no serious man in sight. You see, that was the trade off! So these women are possibly fighting their biological alarm clock system (just coining a phrase), whilst they lose out on ‘life’ as they hoped it. At times going to bars with a few same minded girls, looking for that Brad Pitt, or Bad Boy look alike, with the suave look of their gay male friends, or looking like the model from ‘Gieves and Hawkes’. Good Luck! Which now gives us the ‘what is important in a relationship’, when 1% is about money, whilst seeing how women seem to classify ‘prospective’ options (there will always be exceptions), it gives me pause to question the reliability of that percentage.

The article is however still a good read. It is funny, witty and well written, I just have an issue with some of the thoughts, but then don’t we all?

If there is one side that needs to be illuminated, then it would be (or should be) the issue on how our work lives are ruining our life of passion. Not just because it is wrong (it really really is!), but mainly as there has been several views into the reasoning of mental health, suicide and decreased sexual activity. There is no telling whether the sexual decrease is linked to depression or the other way around, the fact remains that there is a direct correlation between sexual activity and depression as well as between depression and suicide. The question now becomes, is this ‘a view of just two items’, or are we witnessing the beginning of a chain. If we consider mental health as a generic, whether this is enough to turn prostitution into a healthcare job is definitely not on the table, but there is enough data available to take a serious look at these three factors (perhaps that has already been done). There is an additional reason for this. We have been looking and judging the events of domestic abuse and abusive relationships. I wonder whether these instances have been properly investigated for factors of depression. If we know that abusiveness leads to depression, can we ignore the possible danger that depression would lead to an abusive relationship? Consider these dangers as business in general on a global scale is setting us all up to become workaholics. Some scientists have expressed concern that the nature of the couple’s relationship in 50 shades of grey is not BDSM at all, but rather is characteristic of an abusive relationship, my question (as I have not read the book) is: are we not looking through the wrong coloured spectrum?

So is the book a success because some women identify with the abuse and try to identify the issues they face? This is not for me to say (being a guy and all), but it seems that this topic leaves me (and it should leave many) with loads of questions, whilst there is serious doubt on the answers offered through mere percentages. In the end if we compare what we read to what our lives have been like, how much is close to the given largest percentage or to the given mean. Has our lives turned grey or are we facing shades of it? Although, when I hear 50 shades of grey I think ‘Dulux’ or ‘British Paints’, but that might just be me.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 27, 2014 · 10:07

Double Jeopardy!

Let’s take this article in a different, artistic, free for all spin, where we (reader and writer) need to look at the facts and see what seems to be behind it. Now we all agree that when I say ‘what seems to be’ is of course open to some interpretation and it is JUST one view. For example, if we take Dr Who and his TARDIS, or as some know it the story of a mad man and a box, we are left with two thoughts ‘Is it bigger on the inside?’, or is it ‘Smaller on the outside?’, so: ‘Run you clever boy!’ (girls too) and get to the end of this steeple chase!

When we look at how the news was given yesterday as voiced by Sarah Butler and Sean Farrell (not related to Gerard Butler or Colin Farrell as far as I can tell), we see a strange change in pace. Now the issues we see here call in for some additional worries and considerations.

Business for £100!

“In light of the write off of 250 million, we see that a loss of 3 billion due to stock pressure has been found, whilst rating agencies like Fitch are now calling for a lot more transparency“.

“Why must Tesco Reinvent themselves?” (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/26/tesco-must-change-culture-reinvent-brand)

Yes, that was indeed the correct question. Now, we see that actions are getting taken and overall, the top dog (aka Dave Lewis, not related to Inspector Lewis of the Oxfordshire police department) has been on top of this since the earliest moments. Yet when we consider the quote “On Friday shares in Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco all fell in response to further evidence of difficulties in the market and bearish comments from one of the UK’s most influential fund managers“. I have, to a partial degree, an issue with Woodford. Yes, he made billions and yes, he has called it a few times, yet overall, this came out of the blue (or so it seems). The fact that Woodford had no money in this does not make it a case, what is the issue is the entire trip of reinventing, whilst this was all an implied accounting irregularity. So is this more, or was that an assumption by some of the players? If the four managers are gone and this is about a lot more and for a lot longer, then the question become why? I stated before, what if this was not about the event, but about the orchestration? Investigations need to be completed before we can say anything of value here, but the facts seem to bear out that this, not unlike libor was about a few people and no transparency or oversight. This calls for alterations and modifications. When we hear the quote Dave Lewis made “Turning our business around will require change in our culture, as well as in our processes and our brand proposition. We want to work in a business which is open, transparent, fair and honest. We all expect Tesco to act with integrity and transparency at all times“, then we see an implied event that points towards the fact that there was more and must be dealt with too. The question then becomes what do we not know yet?

So, now we go to International politics for £250. “The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is calling for the UNSC to set a clear deadline for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank”

“Why has Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) entered into a joint government with Hamas?” (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/26/mahmoud-abbas-un-israeli-withdrawal-occupied-territories)

Yes, that is indeed the question, although the answer is less simple, Mahmoud Abbas keeps on ‘ignoring’ the simple fact that Israel reacted to missiles fired from the west bank into Israel. This is at the core why Israel has had enough, when you get a barrage which comes down to well over 3 missiles a day for an entire year, at some point people have had enough and they come calling with a rather large piece of Willow (aka Cricketbat). When we hear Mahmoud Abbas talk about “a just peace through a negotiated solution”, I recall that man in Liverpool who claimed to have invented a game that in certain respects is a bit like cricket. What he doesn’t know is that the England team has been playing it for years. Mahmoud Abbas is so bend on getting into as many organisations within the UN as fast as possible, also calls for questions that many are not asking. My issues with all that is that at present, Hamas (or Abbas) have broken every seize fire, only when they learned that no one was interested in their insincere crying, did Hamas realise that their extinction had become an international acceptable solution, proving the target is a terrorist organisation. Now we get the speeches, yet the underlying issue of missile acquisition and delivering them through tunnels has still not been dealt with. The additional side is what has had Israel ‘upset’ for some time now. Iran who claims to be peaceful and is so ‘deserving’ of nuclear power, shows the side we knew would come. Even though they talk about Nuclear power for energy only, the fear Israel had is shown with the quote “Two senior Iranian officials told an Arabic-language television channel on Monday that Tehran has supplied missile technology to Hamas for its fight against Israel“, So as other players up the ante for Israel, the consequences for Mahmoud Abbas seems clear as well, especially after the quote “There’s a reason that Abu Mazen entered into a joint government with Hamas“, which leads me to the question Why is Mahmoud Abbas allowed into the UN building, or into America at all. Was there now a clear consequence to be labelled a terrorist? This part gets another uncomfortable side (at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4392/isis-gaza), I cannot vouch for the supplier of the news, so that part MUST be considered to be an issue. Yet, the quote “Hamas prevented local journalists from covering the ISIS rally in the Gaza Strip last month as part of its effort to deny the existence of ISIS in the Gaza Strip. But Hamas seems to be trying to cover the sun with one finger” gives ample weight to both the desperate (could just be frantic) acts by Mahmoud Abbas to get into bed with the UN as much as possible. If ISIS is indeed already active in Gaza, then the ante for Israel is now a lot higher than many thought it was (I am still having a question mark with the validity of that intelligence). I did cover the risk to some extent in ‘Puppet on a string!‘ on July 30th 2014, yet my disagreement with Lt. General Michael Flynn was not on that, the fact that he seems to have been spot on in regards to something worse is indeed coming to fruition, yet the fact that Hamas is losing to ISIS on their home turf is also a worry (one I did not see coming that fast), because we now see that changing the balance in the Middle East (or Arab Spring as some call it) seems to have had several adverse effects, changing the gameplay in a game many did not understand to begin with.

If this is all correct, then ISIS is now confirmed in both Gaza and Sinai, which means that the next step to this scenario is Jordan, before Israel becomes a target. Here we see a possible disaster in the making, as ISIS could have access to recruitment and slaughter of up to 600,000 refugees. The question becomes, how many would they recruit and where will they then head to next?

If this is a case of Double Jeopardy, then who is getting set on trial twice? The refugees, Israel of Palestine? In this game, people can get trialled twice, almost like a bad episode of Big Brother. The danger here is that the eviction will lead to housing in the cemetery, which might look cheap but the living space truly sucks!

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 26, 2014 · 21:23

For our spies only!

It’s out in the open, apparently Australia will get its first feel of a ‘cold war’, which according to Attorney General Brandis, will be a lot worse, will it?

Let us take a look.

The first source is the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/26/spy-agencies-to-get-stronger-powers-but-what-exactly-will-they-be), as I am all about a certain level of consistency, let us add a few quotes. “Crossbench senators and many stakeholders raised their concern that, in the absence of a clear definition of a computer network, a single warrant could be used to access a wide range of computers, given the internet is a network of networks” as well as the response to the greens who wanted to add a limit of 20. “Brandis said such an amendment “would impose an arbitrary, artificial and wholly unworkable limitation that would frustrate the ability of Asio to perform its statutory functions“.

These are both fair points, in regards to the sunset clause the response was “No. Brandis rejected a call to put a 10-year expiry date on the new law related to special intelligence operations, despite agreeing to similar sorts of sunset clauses in the yet-to-be-debated foreign fighters bill“.

And the fourth quote, which we need later on is ““Freedom is not a given,” the attorney general said. “A free society is not the usual experience of mankind. Freedom must be secured, and particularly at a time when those who would destroy our freedoms are active, blatant and among us”“.

So, this sounds fine and it all sounds viable, but what about the dangers here (are there even dangers)?

For those with some insight in law, here is the bill as it currently stands (at http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/s969_first-senate/toc_pdf/1417820.pdf), which for the most is an amendment to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/series/c2004a02123).

Initially, it seemed that there was an issue on page 76, yet, when we look at the final product, the change makes perfect sense. The first change here is the approach to information; basically, we will not have a weaky leaky speaky person. So we will (hopefully) not have an issue with some person dreaming to be on team Manning, Snowden and Moronic. It was so nice of the NSA to get into ‘hot’ water, so that we can prevent it. However, not all is well; this is seen (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/sep/26/internet-threat-existence-video). Whether it was just bad form, or over generalisation, Senator Glenn Lazarus stated “The internet is a serious threat because it can be used to orchestrate and undertake criminal behaviour across the world“. He then continues how ASIO and ASIS are there to increase security. It is this slight casual quote that seems to voice the dangers, as these powers are needed to combat security threats of several shapes. Yet the senator states “orchestrate and undertake criminal behaviour“, which is a lot broader then initially implied. This does not mean that this will be used as such, and quite honestly, if it stops shady financial advisors, then I am all fine with that, but it goes further than that as it was voiced (not stating the reality will be as such). Another part of the Guardian showed the ‘grilling’ of Attorney General Brandis by Senator Scott Ludlam, yet it seems that there the kettle is off the boil too. The Senator knew that Brandis would not answer or resort to speculation. He stated “I am not going to indulge Senator Ludlam by answering hypothetical cases or cases of historical interest“, which is fair enough. The Senator should know that, when he did a similar thing on October 4th 2013.

So where is the fire and is there a fire? You see, what is happening now, is what should have been done some time ago. I oppose Brendan Molloy from Pirate Bay (a fellow student), but his heart is in the right place (top right behind the rib cage, just like mine) and all these posters we see all over the place in regards to whatever, whenever, forever and prison. It is nice that we see all these posters on dangers and so on, yet some people seem to ignore the debilitating blows the US suffered at the hands of Manning and Snowden, not to mention Jullian Assange (which I will not go into at present). This will now change. At times those who don’t know speak those who know remain silent. It is when those who know speak out, that is when the casualties really go into many digits and Australia has its own brand of security issues. America has a little over 19,000 border miles on an area occupied by 320 million people. Australia seems larger, with a 22,000 border miles coastal line, yet overall Australia only has 22 million people, so with a population less than 10% we have to play the game another way. The security measures are one way, not the only way, but it will possibly stem several issues, which gives our intelligence branches a little more time to figure it out. Let us not forget that we have an intelligence structure and a form of Signal Intelligence, but if you think that they get a serious chunk of cash, then consider that the total Australian intelligence budget is a little under 1% of what America gets, and we get to look at a similar sized chunk of land to observe and a lot less people.

This got me to two issues that are now forming, yet the bill seems to not cover it as such. I am referring to the Telecommunications (Interception and access) Act 1979. Intelligence is essential, so is data collection and analyses. What happens when new solutions are needed? What happens when we face a change? The US had this when they needed more efficiency for the buck and a system called Palantir was used in the tests. Like Deployable Ground Station (DGS), the army ended up with a version known as DCGS-A. Now we get off to the races, the initially optional new system Palantir, its software was rated as easier to use (not unlike the analytical tool IBM Modeller), but did not have the flexibility and wide number of data sources of DCGS-A, which now gets us into hot water, or what the London Chef of Sketch might classify as: ‘from the frying pan into the fire’, these changes will also impact other systems and other people. In many cases the use of a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) is used (or in many cases Positive Vetting). The entire mess (slight exaggeration), will take on new forms as we see how the changes might also have a flaw (as I see it), what happens when there is a sudden spike of collected data. Scripts, automation, production jobs and moreover the gathering, sifting and storing of data will soon take an entirely new dimension. The current intelligence framework is in my humble opinion not even close to ready for a growth in excess of 400% (800% is more realistic). You see, if we are to set up a path that gives us a possible trace of events, then we need several snapshots, now, they will not snapshot the entire nation, but the amount of data that needs to be stored so that the people who need to know can follow the trace will be a massive one. I for one, am absolutely not in the mood to allow a ‘3rd party’ (read IBM, Oracle and a few others) to set up shop, as that data could even end up in America. Even though I have no issue with my data, feel free to check my Diablo 3 save file guys! The issue is when a grey field allows other uses. For this I recall the article ‘NSA linked to corporate dangers?‘, which I wrote on September 22nd 2013 (Yes, a year ago!), where I quoted the NSA site (the open source unclassified part), “The Information Assurance Business Affairs Office (BAO) is the focal point for IA partnerships with industry. It also provides guidance to vendors and the NSA workforce in establishing IA business relationships and cultivates partnerships with commercial industry through demonstrations and technical exchanges“.

So when we see such an escalation, how long until we see an ‘evolution’ of our intelligence data to create a business space? Let’s be honest upfront, the NSA has a different charter and as such has a massive amount of additional tasks, yet in the current form, is such an evolution that far-fetched? How dishonest is the advantage when a firm like Telstra or iiNet gets their greedy little marketing claws on data so verbose that they can target 10%-20% more ‘efficient’? So we have 2 sides and as far as I see it an element that might need tweaking because of it (reference to the: Telecommunications (Interception and access) Act 1979). The entire Data mining issue is also on the table as I have not met an abundance of miners who have my levels of skill when it comes to massive data sets. When the pressure is on and they need to create a creative alternative to a missing values data set, the race will be pretty much over. Then what? Get external experts?

Now we go back to the initial fourth statement ““Freedom is not a given,” the attorney general said. “A free society is not the usual experience of mankind. Freedom must be secured, and particularly at a time when those who would destroy our freedoms are active, blatant and among us”“. I do not oppose the statement perse, yet in my view the statement is “Freedom is a given in Australia, to keep the Australian values, in a time and under conditions that were designed to remove the tranquillity of our lives, steps must be taken to safeguard the freedom we hold dear. As such we need to act according to new paths for the sole purpose of stopping these elements amongst us, who are driven to remove freedoms, we and all those who came here to enjoy our way of life“.

Freedom remains a given, we will just add a few new solutions to stop those intent on destroying our lives and our freedoms!

In the end, both the Attorney General and myself decided to make Pappas Bravas, he said potato, I said tomato, yet I remain at present cautious on who else is eating from our plate, without the balance of the whistle blower, that person might remain undetected, in that regard, I would have preferred that a clear location would be there to alert someone, even if it was a special appointed judge (who would be added in subsection “(4) The persons to whom information may be communicated under subsection (3) are the following:”

Was that such a stretch?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Law, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,