August 8, 2013 · 13:32

The Jay-Z talk

Today’s inspiration comes from a source, slightly right of the middle. It was an interview that aired on Bill O’Reilly which he (or his team) placed on Facebook. Jay-Z was warning for the dangers of escalating violence as the gap between haves and have not’s increases. This is a viewpoint I agree with, especially as I had come to the same conclusion many months ago. More important, that is a reality that is in play in both the US and Europe.

What is to blame? Well, the Financial Institutions started it all and as such they need to be mentioned. I reckon you have all read enough of this, but down the track, this will issue will pop up again. More important are the issues that have been more and more visible over several months. The Obama administration might claim that they have added 175,000 jobs, yet as you would see, this level of misrepresentation will get an ironic side soon enough. The massive spin at present is coming from the industrials. If we see the Dow index, then we look at 30 companies who ‘seem’ to be setting the trend, especially my American readers, have you noticed how 1 out of 6 in America lost their house and an even larger population lost their savings? So, if the economy is so high, then how is it that the damage remains so severe? Well, I am about to answer that.

Those 175,000 jobs, well the bulk of them are only part-time and they are mostly minimum wage options only. To be honest in such a bad economy that could not be the worst, but from my viewpoint there is more, which makes this a lot worse.

It was a little while ago on how some expert spoke with a level of pride that the Dow was so strong, and remained growing due to an increase productivity managed by a declined workforce. So basically, a 90% workforce was achieving 110% result and no one questioned it? The fact that even though these companies are getting record results, no long term hiring has commenced?

Well, here it is. The view I have is that the banks allowed for a shift of policies, which has pretty much introduced a legalised form of slave labour (a harsh reality, but not false). It is a nice irony that this has occurred during the time of an African American president. The first question I should answer whether this assessment is fair. Yes it is!

The reason is that neither President Obama nor President Bush did ANYTHING truly successful to hold these Financial Institutions accountable for the damage they bestowed on the American population and the rest of the world. The fact that even today in most nations strong bank regulations are still not a fact means that this can all happen again. So, when we get to 2020 and we all think that we are back on track, these players could play the same game all over again and we go back to nothing overnight. We might not even have to wait that long as banks all over the EU are now trying to loosen up ties with those controlling pensions of people all over the world.

So Jay-Z is correct. The gap of those who have and ‘the others’ is widening and it is widening a lot faster than you all realise. Consider the enormous debt that the American people got stuck with, with the due compliments of companies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Do you remember on how ‘something’ was going to get done? Well consider the house resolutions

H.R.1227 Latest Title: GSE Risk and Activities Limitation Act of 2011
H.R.1225 Latest Title: GSE Debt Issuance Approval Act of 2011
H.R.1223 Latest Title: GSE Credit Risk Equitable Treatment Act of 2011
H.R.1221 Latest Title: Equity in Government Compensation Act of 2011
H.R.1182 Latest Title: GSE Bailout Elimination and Taxpayer Protection Act

All these bills have been left untouched since 2011. The story does get a little worse when we consider the article from Bloomberg as published on May 8th at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-07/new-regulations-are-strangling-community-banks.html

The starting quote: “The wave of new banking regulations that Congress created to deter and punish Wall Street’s misdeeds is landing with much greater impact on the U.S.’s almost 7,000 community banks than on the too-big-to-fail lenders.”

This gives us the question whether there is a foul stench coming from the big boy enabling group, which is supported by the quote “Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. show that large banks have both the lowest credit quality and the lowest cost of funds in the industry.” If the American people depend on their day to day issues on those community banks, then why are these regulations pushed out in this way? Well, in my view the banks ‘own’ the politicians and the banks decided a let them all suffer until regulations are dropped again, so we can do this one more time approach. This is how I see it.

Yes, banks definitely need regulation and not only in America. However, the need to strangle certain services that caused the bulk of all the grief could be choked more efficiently without placing these community banks in a vice. That would make sense, unless those community banks go the wrong direction of course, so better options could have been found, which makes us wonder where political levels of competency currently are.

Supporting evidence can be found in this article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-20/bank-of-america-and-the-tragedy-of-foreclosure.html

It is as analysed as a he said/she said situation. I think it is a ‘they said’ and ‘it claimed’ situation, but let us not revert to a black letter wishy washy job.

Where the bank claimed “These allegations are absurd, patently false and contrary to Bank of America’s long-standing policy only to foreclose as a last resort when other available options to help keep people in their home have been exhausted,” can be read as true, but that does not give way that this tactic has likely been used and to include the tactic as quoted “stall applications for loan modifications“. One does not exclude the other and as such it seems to me that as more facts become visible, the failed regulations and more important a wrongful push to pressure the entirety of banking, instead of certain services and strangling certain monetary reward schemes (read bonus structures).

So again, Jay-Z has a point!

This goes beyond America. The Dutch SNS Reaal bank is still in levels of turmoil, as can be read at http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/06/06/sns-reaal-verliest-netto-972-miljoen-in-2012-16-miljard-in-eerste-kwartaal-2013  (Dutch source), it boils down to the last paragraph [translated] “The Netherlands must submit a plan within 6 months for restructuring the SNS. The real estate branch must be placed in a separate organisation. On these submissions the commission will take a final decision“. This was in February and the final decisions are due this month whilst political Netherlands is on vacation.

My prediction is that these politicians will make an 11th hour decision with the humble stance that includes ‘alas’ and ‘we are forced’ and ‘this is by far the best solution’ and they will then push the real estate branch into a bad bank, which basically mean that (please pardon my French) ‘Banking Wankers’ high and low got away with it again and the Dutch tax payers will end up coughing up another 2.4 billion Euro, which comes down to every Dutch tax paying citizen paying a 175 Euro each for a mess that politicians are unwilling to control on several levels. So, these politicians are allowed a vacation whilst there is such a mess? My vacations got cut short twice by two previous employers and these politicians go on vacation making twice as much? Talk about dedication (or lack thereof).

This all boils down to Financial Institutions and Industrials are given the leeway to widen the gap of ‘those-who-have’ and the others, yet politicians remain silently in the background showing the spine of a paperback, not one hardcover amongst them.

Let us to get back to Bill O’Reilly where today’s blog all started. Many do not agree, but I admire the man. He can be right, he can be wrong and I have not always agreed with him, but he has always shown clarity of what he thinks was right. No half-baked answers! The issue with him is that he is another item of proof on the US failing levels. You see, he has a website, a talk show and he has a good (read very good) income. He donates all the profits of those website sales to what he sees as worthy causes, mostly Veteran and serving military and I am all for that. Now, as stated, his income is really good, yet nowhere near what some get. This is clearly shown as annual bonuses on Wall Street rose to a total of $20,000,000,000 (20 Billion) in 2012. So the challenge for Bill O’Reilly is to find 100 people donating to the community on that level, whilst they are not allowed to make over 15 million a year to be allowed on that list, in a population of over 325 million he will fail. So basically he makes less than a mid-level banker and donates a truckload. This man stands almost alone!

That is the evidence, that even though one can be found, many are destitute beyond their control and the people in financial institutions keep on being enabled by the very people who should be protecting those in such an economic state of destitution.

Jay-Z spoke a true word!

When we see what people like Jay-Z, Will.i.am and Bill O’Reilly contribute to communities in such a degree there is evidence that there is still a level of humanity in this world. It would however be nice if the politicians in many nations step up to the plate to make their places a lot better without enabling greed.

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August 2, 2013 · 04:22

Fighters to Syria

The Dutch have started a trial against an Iraqi citizen who has been living in the Netherlands for 13 years. Now he is joining the rebels to fight in Syria. In this case the trial seems to be focussing on the mental health status of the individual.

It is an interesting view. In this case it is about people who will become militant, more extreme and the fear is that these people might return to the Netherlands in a more militant and extreme state with additional fear that these events might start a wave of extreme actions.

There is a case that seems to hold water, yet will it hold water in a legal way?

1. The person has not yet left the Netherlands and as such the issues are not proven (at present).
2. If we look back to WW2, Americans moved to the UK to fight against Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Is this a similar view?

In the second case there are additional issues. These people are joining the fight against Assad. This is an internal civil war. In the WW2 case England was under direct attack by Germany. So there were other issues in play. In addition, these people all joined military fighting units that were part of a sovereign state. That is not the case with the Syrian rebels.

The issue that does not seem to be (overly) illustrated by the news at present, is that in this specific case (in case of Syria) that no matter how good the goal, these people are joining a non-aligned, combatant army. It could be seen as a group of people that are joining a terrorist organisation (from the viewpoint of Syrian government). There is supporting evidence in this case to some extent.

If we consider Humanitarian Law, then we must also accept the laws of war, which limits attacks to “military objectives.” Military objectives are personnel and objects that are making an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction, capture, or neutralization offers a definite military advantage. There is ample evidence that civilian targets have been fired upon. When we take that into consideration, then a government has a clear directive to stop this. It could send its own army to police and structure the events, yet, they cannot engage in war on targets that are prohibited by Humanitarian law. From that point, not only must these recruitment drives be stopped, they also have some level of evidence that recruiting for these tasks should be seen as criminal.

I must keep a little space for the chance that my information is not complete, or even worse, is to some degree incorrect (newscasts from all over the world tend to lower reliability a little). The spreader of the information that we see on the news might not be completely correct, or from a reliable source (not claiming that this is the case, but I must allow for this fact to be the case).

If we consider that then the statements of both David Cameron and William Hague are more than just dangerous. I am referring to a batch of statements that these two honourable gentlemen have made over the last 2-3 months. In that light, it is the statement by the Lord Mayor of London Boris Johnson that seems to be the correct one. (He stated “Britain could not end the conflict by ‘pressing weapons into the hands of maniacs.’“) Even though Humanitarian Law does not speak on the delivery of weapons, the fact that it is known that their weapons are used in transgression of Humanitarian law, even before these weapons had been delivered could bite any nation that delivers these weapons down the road.

The transgressions that are currently allegedly occurring are not from some obscure part of the Customary International Humanitarian Law. No, we are only at rule 1 when we find the collision with the occurring transgressions. So by allowing and not outspoken opposition of these transgressions, we are not giving support to regime of Assad, we are actually flushing our own standards down the drain. If the convoy that was attacked last week by the rebels contained goods as well as people then there is also the transgression of rule 55 of humanitarian law. Furthermore, there is every chance that these foreign supporters, as not being a national from Syria, could be seen, if arrested, as a spy, a mercenary or a terrorist by Syria’s sovereign ruling party. That would complicate matters in several ways and its unlikely that the end solution that the Syrian courts would offer is one that the supporter will be able to live with (like the firing squad).

Whatever choices the UK makes, they should be clear and outspoken on the transgressions of humanitarian law. The Dutch face a similar act to follow. In regard to the court case, it seems to me that in the British Nationality Act 1981 in section 40 it states:

The Secretary of State –
(a) shall not deprive a person of British citizenship under this section unless he is satisfied that it is not conducive to the public good that that person should continue to be a British citizen

This means that, even though it is decently bad Humanitarian law, that if the Secretary of state can place the fact that militants returning to the UK are not in the interest of Public good, they would lose their UK passport before they even make it past UK customs at the airport. The Dutch are less lenient here. In their case you would only lose your nationality is you are convicted for a crime against the Dutch state. It would be very conceivable that the transgressions of Humanitarian law would constitute enough transgression at this point. That part is not yet a given as the current case in the Netherlands is the first one of its kind ever in Europe.

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July 31, 2013 · 11:18

Equality should not be a concept

Today my inspiration comes from Sky News and the social media. The issue at play is one I took offense to two days ago. I learned that a Miss Perez had started something that led to the new 10 pound note to be dedicated to Jane Austen. A brilliant step! I had not thought of it. I have the books, I have seen movies from her books and a movie on the life of Jane Austen. She is and should be regarded as the good side of England. Even as a spokesperson for the British Empire she would be a good choice. So, my first thought was to say ‘Well done Miss Perez!’

So when I learned that she was harassed by THOUSANDS of trolls and abusers on twitter, I took offense and I wrote her a congratulatory message. I do not care for some excuses that the socialite media figures take on that these people are doing it out of boredom. It is abuse plain and simple; there is no excuse in my view.

I am a little on the fence when we go out of our ways to blame twitter in this matter. Yes, we should be able to report abuse and spam and with ease. I do however stand behind the person who stated (sorry, forgot to write down the name) that Twitter is a tool; you cannot hold them accountable for abuse of it. To some extent I agree with that view. When a person’s skull gets bashed by a criminal with a wrench, you do not sue the company making the wrench. People kill people, plain and simple.

So women like Lucy-Anne Holmes should have all options and freedom to advocate their cause. Most people (especially male teenagers in the UK) would feel less happy, when ‘aspiring’ models promote themselves on page 3 of the Sun are removed, but equally fair is that others are not drawn to this and will not cry if that space is changed for other information. It was her right to speak out and she did. We might not agree, we are justified to speak out against her viewpoint, but we are not allowed, or should be allowed to threaten her in any way. Let’s face it, she is not the head of <some major social media company> selling our private details. Interesting how no one cares about that!

I cannot even fathom the abuse and threats some use in regards to people speaking their mind or standing up to something they believe in. I do however feel strongly about freedom of speech and they have a right to speak their belief, even if it is not a view I hold. I will even make a stronger case. I reckon that in support to Miss Perez, I would vote that a woman should be depicted on 2 of the 4 notes at any given time. If we truly believe that we are in an age of equality, then should that not be visible in all fields, including monetary? And in this case, in my humble opinion, the picture of Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth does not count towards this number. The question then becomes ‘are there famous women?’

Yes there are! (And plenty of them too) Even beyond the art of writing there are scientists like Elsie Widdowson and Kathleen Lonsdale. We could start an argument on the undervalued acts by Rosalind Franklin as well.

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July 30, 2013 · 14:21

A call centre heart attack

The news has been visible and intense. For the last month the news, to some extent internationally is growing stronger and stronger into the crashed and clashed NHS. The National Health Service is as seems to be described, as a system that has buckled. It is an infrastructure that can no longer deal with the population size of the UK, where more people and less money are two direct causes of collapse to a system that cannot sustain itself.

In this regard I will only look at the 111 helpline. I am not an MD or a member of the Medici family; I do however have the knowledge of call centres and technology. So, I will go with my strengths.

If you want to read some additional material (quality information), then take a look at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jul/29/nhs-direct-pullout-111-helpline, where most information is available. There was additional information on TV; however as Channel 4 chose not to transmit their service to Sydney, I cannot tell the content of that special.

When we look at another Guardian article we read “Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, NHS Undercover, found the non-emergency 111 system had staff shortages, long waits for callers, and in some cases ambulances were being called out unnecessarily.”

The second quoted from the initial mentioned article is “NHS Direct had worked on the assumption that it would cost on average £13 per call to cover salaries and other expenses for employees, but then found the actual payment it was receiving for its services was closer to £8, leaving it far short.”

The last quote comes from the NHS site itself (at http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/Emergencyandurgentcareservices/Pages/NHS-111.aspx)

You should use the NHS 111 service if you urgently need medical help or advice but it’s not a life-threatening situation.
Call 111 if:
you need medical help fast but it’s not a 999 emergency
you think you need to go to A&E or need another NHS urgent care service
you don’t know who to call or you don’t have a GP to call
you need health information or reassurance about what to do next
For less urgent health needs, contact your GP or local pharmacist in the usual way.

When we look at this in a clinical way, then we should look at this with the cold IT heart we need to have when running a call centre.

1. Staff shortages.
This is plain and simple a management issue. How many calls were expected, how many came, what staff is available and what needs to be added. This in the best of terms is nothing less than a mere exercise in Excel. Even if there was a shortage, then we see there are two sides. On one side we need more people which mean there is a budget part; on the other side we see the expectation of quicker times, again all part of a budget.

2. Long waiting time.
When you go to the hospital, when you are NOT in a life threatening situation, then how long until you receive medical assistance? Would more staff solve this (would that actually solve it)?

There is a Dutch expression which boils down to mopping the floor next to a running tap. Basically it means that the floor will never get dry. That seems to apply to the situation people face with the 111 helpline.

In addition, this quote “its reporters found many patients were left waiting for longer than the 10-minute target for a call-back from a clinician”. Is that truly a bad thing? Let us not forget that this line was not for REAL emergencies. I have been to a hospital after a heart attack, and even though I got excellent care and they saved my life, the doctor was more than 10 minutes away. It happens! I am not the only one in need, and the hospital has excellent nurses. I wonder whether some expectations, as set for the 111 helpline, really are realistic.

3. Time and money.
When looking at the second quote earlier, we see that between £13 and £8, there is a definite discrepancy. When you get the needed and actual target wrong by 40%, management either did not do their homework, or they have not ample dealt with all the elements in play.

One of the clear signs as was mentioned by Sky News is that calls took much longer. When we consider call centre etiquette, not unlike what physicians do, we need to get to the crux of things. We need structured questions and we need to keep control of the conversation. This all leads to reduced times. Letting the patient (or customer) ‘waffle on’ is just a waste of time for all parties. So it boiled down to asking the right open and then closed questions to get the show on the high speed road. Here there is a slight problem. Nurses (Doctors too) rely on what they see and what they smell, these factors are now lost to them. This means that any assessment will take longer then they think, yet call centre protocol approach would limit these losses to some extent. This is a skill that nurses might not have. They can get trained in this and over time they will get good at it, but are they given the time needed? In the end this could also reduce the amount of ambulances getting called out unnecessarily.

The last part in this matter comes from the 111 site itself. “You don’t know who to call or you don’t have a GP to call” & “you need health information or reassurance about what to do next“.

Are those truly the right expressions? In that regard the 17 year old girl dealing with the statements to tell her dad “I had sex” and “you’re going to be a grandfather“. They fit the description, yet, let us be fair whether this is an emergency? (To the girl it really is!)

The generic description gives way that all in need of more than a band aid might call. This even includes mental health issues. Is that what the 111 number is for? If so, was the budget aim correct? These are all raised issues that I could have told them before the service launched. So the question becomes were they raised at all? Perhaps they were which takes us right back to the issue of 40% budget offset. What was missed?

In addition the following quote gives way to another question in the Guardian article “was replaced by a new system in which private providers and NHS Direct bid against each other to win regional contracts“. Really? So the cheapest won? Perhaps the indication is there on how the 40% difference of income is set. How is that a solution? I get the idea behind it. The NHS must find a cheaper solution to get part of their pressure removed and as such the solution of a call-centre makes sense. However, as the human element will remain in the system, we see the need that the problem could be managerial not systematic. In addition, we need to realise that coaching the health care teams is a necessity that usually takes 20% longer than most expect. That is not bad expectations, but when those in their field move to other mediums, they need to reset the scope of their skills. (Like the loss of information by not being face to face with the patient in person). That is just a reality.

This all is visible before additional factors are added. If you think work in a hospital is intense, wait until these people get to the patients who will scream into a phone because they feel that the connection is too un personal. It will happen. Take a person under pressure and a situation where that person cannot vent, then your goose is cooked. This will result in burnouts and spiking stress levels. Were these factors included in the costs of this project? If not, then you will see further escalations of costs and shortages.

The Chief Operations Officer Dame Barbara Hakin has her work cut out for her. I reckon that this is a system that could work. I personally belief that it has a future, yet, a system that is spread over a large area, with 45-50 contractors involved means that there are additional issues to content with. Is it true that this is just about taking over and restoring confidence (as Sky News reported)? I think it needs to be about communicating realistic goals (not the golden cost reduction some politicians claimed it might be) and attending to these needs and fighting towards those goals.

It is also about looking at all of the contractors and aligning views, requirements and systems. There is for example the NHS phone App. (or website), which could help a person in determining where they need to go to, or who to call. It could be that they need to call 111, yet these few seconds of going through that path, if that is an option, might even reduce pressure to the 111 service for up to 10%. That would be a big relief for both patient and service!

 

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July 28, 2013 · 15:56

A Church of protection

Several newscasts on several fronts, they all mention it. The church is going after the loan sharks!

I think this is a good thing. We have all seen the advertisements; the ‘cash train’ is coming. It is so easy and up to $5000 can be done at the whim of a moment. The mention, that when you come up short you can get some money. The ad seems so appealing. It is however the most dangerous debt you will ever have!

The fact that it is so lucrative is shown in the amount of spam they now fester. To illustrate, my small blog gets almost a dozen of spam messages a day, all for quick loan options. They are dangerous! Before you know it, you are in deep, and soon thereafter, you will pay perhaps just a small interest amount, but in the end you would end up paying 200% of that what you borrowed. They claim to go for short term loans only. It seems however to me that they would attract the people who might not be able to make the short term payments, and then the fee’s will come.

This is dangerous!

So, as I saw and read the statements that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is trying to compete them out of business, my thoughts are “Well done!” The fact that they are also backing up the RBS with some serious cash gives me the clear picture that SOMEONE is actually doing something about this mess called ‘financial institutions’. Interesting is that politicians fumbled the ball to such a lovely large extent that we now move towards the church, giving them the power others were not ready to have. The Independent posted on July 28th the header “Church-backed bid for RBS arm could herald creation of ethical bank on high street“, that is a good thing in my mind. It is a vision ALL politicians should have had on January 1st 2009 onwards. Yet, it seems that they have constituencies to protect. The question is who were they?
The people who elected them or the businesses and financial institutions that needed him/her to cast a vote the way some wanted? Are my thoughts out of bounds? If so, then consider the choices they made and the regulations that still have not come to pass. The current situation pretty much amounts to medals going to banks for murder and Journalist for invading privacy through crimes. No one wants to be accountable and no one seems to be willing to step up to the plate. Essential changes to the law are not being made. I wrote about some of this in “The law to hunt them down“.  Prime Minister David Cameron seems to be making some small changes to Bing (and a few others) to give warnings when certain search terms are made. I shudder at the utter ineffectiveness of it all.
So now the Church of England will gain the visibility and the support from the people. As the people will regain safety through a church directed RBS, as the people feel safe by borrowing through them and pay a decent share of interest, we will quickly see that other banks will either follow or go under. That is a working strategy. I agree that the next 5 years could change the issues for the good. They will not overnight, but the start is here. Is this the start of a move to moral and decency?

If so, then the press is now on its last legs. Yes, they claim, they will discuss, they will negotiate, yet they will never give in, hence we have little left.
The banks are first! This is what the Guardian exposed yesterday in the article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/27/church-duty-payday-loan-firms.

Will it benefit the Church? Of course it will! However instead of investment firms where they get their 10%+, they will now go towards a business that might make them slightly less, overall, the people and the church will benefit by the bond it creates. Consider that we the consumers will always go back to those who treat us decent. We do not mind the shop, the bank or the individual to make money of us. We needed a service and we paid for that. It is the total unjust amount that some were making that had us all going. So when in 2015 the banks start complaining about how unfair the Church of England has moved into this field then remember today. Today you had no options, they were not willing to consider you ‘the small person’ unless you made them ‘enough’ money.

 

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July 26, 2013 · 12:28

Humanitarian Law…..the End!

We have seen a few spectacles lately that give rise to acts of a questionable nature. The Netherlands had the death of a refused refugee who after some basic checks should have passed the test of being allowed to stay with the greatest of ease. It was a black moment in Dutch affairs. Yet, this is only one case and it dwarves by a landslide when we look at the issues that Australia is facing.

In 2011 the Labour government under Julia Gillard decided that it would be a great idea to ship refugees to Malaysia, to process them there. This idea was stopped by Chief Justice Robert French right and proper. The issue is seen in ‘convention and protocol relating to the status of refugees‘ (at http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.html).

Article 33(1). No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

It was stated in the Sydney Morning Herald (21st August 2011) “The court’s full bench agreed 6-1 that Immigration Minister Chris Bowen’s declaration that Malaysia was an appropriate place to send asylum seekers was wrong“. I reckon that Mr Bowen might have forgotten about the convention Australia agreed with.

Even though I was never that active in Humanitarian Law or Refugee and Immigration laws, this event opened my eyes and I learned that the refugee issue is one that had been in long standing. Even though we can see that the Labour party bungled this play, they were not the only ones playing the game. If we step back to 2001, we see that it was former Prime Minister John Howard who stated On 28 October 2001, at his 2001 election campaign policy launch “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

So this is an issue that affects the political field on both sides of the isle. I reckon if we had an Australian version of UKIP, it would be a three sided spectacle. Is there an issue? Well, in all fairness I reckon there is one. As these refugees end up, or quickly move to a large city (yes, we have 5 large cities in Australia) then the infrastructure could collapse as these refugees who have limits on work skills and language skills would not be able to get ahead (a realistic view, not a demeaning one). This does not mean that I am against refugees; I am only stating that a solution should be found, preferably an urban/rural one. Let us not forget that Australia has 21,000 Km of beachfront space. There should be an option on the creation of villages where they can become farmers and build a life. Some will consider other options, which is fair enough. I believe that such villages would enable these people to take some time as they get used to life in Australia. If we consider the option of growing food for export, then I see some future in several Wasabi farms. The Japanese will eat all the Wasabi they can get their grips on and as Sashimi gains popularity all over the world, the need for Soy sauce and Wasabi only grows. If we need to look for other ways to grow the Australian economy, then what about a solution using Dutch greenhouses? Their innovation of a solution that allows the growth of all kinds of fruits and vegetables that normally will not survive the harsh Dutch autumn and winter is almost legend. So there are several options. In other directions we see how refugees could start building a future for themselves as they work and get schooled into the Australian way of life (one does not learn Cricket overnight).

Yet these ideas are all nice do face another onslaught of ‘limitations’. This was shown yesterday in the Australian Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/25/abbott-png-operation-sovereign-borders. Here we see the mention of Operation Sovereign Border. Yes, this time it is the Liberal side that comes with the ‘new’ ideas. There is the mention of “a military-led response” to combat people smuggling. The policy is published at http://lpaweb-static.s3.amazonaws.com/Policies/OperationSovereignBorders_Policy.pdf

They do waste a little space to illustrate the plans from Labour that failed, yet I am more interested in the idea that works. You see, people smuggling will ALWAYS work. People smuggling is all about paying it forward. The refugee pays upfront, and then they might make it (however usually they never do). The issue is that these events need to be stopped at the start. How can they do that? Advertising on TV in the nations of departure? Most of those will never be seen. Leaflets get thrown out and so forth. So this is about stopping people with NO options left. So however these plans are presented by Tony Abbott, there is a chance that they will fail almost completely. I especially liked the idea to turn back boats if it is safe to do so (slight voice of sarcasm). How long until less secure ships will ‘accidently’ start to sink when the ADF gets too close? Then what? Let us not forget that the refugees have paid up front, so sinking a $5000 junk dinghy whilst $50,000 has been collected is an excellent ROI for smugglers. This is why people smuggle ALWAYS works. The idea to push these responsibilities towards the ADF is equally less desired. Yes, the ADF (Navy) will patrol the shores of Australia to keep us safe, yet they are people and as such they will not (and should not) act hostile against unarmed refugees. Yes, the Navy has a job to do, there is however the danger that comes with the mission when it becomes about blocking boats. It is not unlikely that any escalation will result in the world press slamming Australia for armed intervention against non-combatants, a story, which at that point could turn nasty quite quickly. The navy is likely to end up looking bad no matter what, and the refugees, who are already victims, would just end up in the middle, a place they were already in. How is this any kind of solution?

Mr Abbott quite correctly countered labours next idea on off shore processing using Papua New Guinea. It is indeed an Australian issue to solve. There are also issues with the same charter former PM Gillard overlooked. PNG currently has 7 reservations on issues that are stated to be a clear right to a refugee. It does not matter whether PNG will remove these reservations, as these reservations are presently in effect; PNG remains an unlikely solution until these reservations have been removed. So the issues should be solved within the Australian territory. The added message is that the PNG solution will cost! At http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/54587 we read:
“The government is yet to release the cost of the PNG plan, but using the Immigration Department’s own contracts, estimates of operating processing centres suggest the expansion of Manus Island from 600 detainees to 3000 would incur an initial cost of $600 million.”
Are we not better off spending that money on locations here in Australia? If we want to start new communities, creating a small town might even be cheaper and it will grow local economy, housing and solve part of the refugee issues. I agree that my view might be lightly unrealistically skewed, yet I cannot stop wondering how deep the experts actually investigated possible local solutions.
We should all consider that as we see ‘blown-out’ spending running into the billions.

So what to do?

First there is the claim that the report Operation Sovereign Borders Policy held. “The total cost to Australian taxpayers for managing illegal boat arrivals has increased from $85 million in 2007-08 to $3 billion in 2013-14. Between 2007-08 and 2013-14, the budget for managing illegal boat arrivals has blown-out by $10.3 billion.”

I agree that this is a massive cost. I would like to see a run-down of these costs. Not generic, but specific. I believe that we should find a solution to the issues, I am however not certain that the blockade approach will work to any degree, so why press for such levels of spending? Let’s also realise that unless the navy gets a fleet twice the current size, our seafront is just too large to patrol for boat refugees. It amounts to a solution no less expensive than a very high fence over the total stretch of Texas bordering Mexico. Thoughts that were matched by former chief of the defence force Admiral Chris Barrie who said in the Canberra Times: “I can’t see this making more than an incremental difference at best.”

 

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July 25, 2013 · 19:14

The Telco is on the wall

The Dutch giant KPN is in the market to stay alive. As the message is now that they are selling E-plus to Telefonica. Consider that the sale of this company is sold for 8 billion, which might seem good. It was however bought a decade ago for 20 billion. So that means a loss of 1.2 billion a year.

So this seems not that good an investment, when you look at it. Is this turning into a moment of selling the family silver cutlery, or is it about more? KPN is not the only one in this regard. Nuon (a Dutch energy provider) is also surfing the red waves of tremendous debt. So much so that its mother company Vattenfal is now putting the Dutch energy giant up for sale. Experts have stated that some of these problems are due to the company holding on to old methods for too long. Considering that they require gas, and the price of gas is up, means that their energy is more expansive then most others.

Back to the Telecoms! In Australia, Vodafone has a multitude of problems. Due to less reliable connection issues they had, over 550 thousand customers left Vodafone Australia for other providers. That is a shift of customers that started only 6 months ago. That means that Vodafone is facing a loss of revenue approaching 20 million a month. So we are talking about a decent amount of revenue. It amounts to a loss of almost 8% of their customer base. That is not even close to the end for Vodafone Australia. They currently have a class action running against them, so that is likely to be a none too small bill, and linked to the loss of customers (at http://www.zdnet.com/au/vodafone-australia-reports-customer-losses-of-551k-7000018290/) we also see that there are currently some legal threats coming from Telstra. That can be read at http://www.zdnet.com/au/telstra-ramps-up-4g-rollout-as-3g-scales-down-7000018225/.

The quote that matters is “Riley also took aim at recent claims from Vodafone that it has better spectrum holdings than Telstra in the capital cities, allowing the company to offer faster 4G services.”

Perhaps Telstra needs to consider a few things!

First there is the article that ABC published in 2011 (at: http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2011/09/28/3327530.htm).

Yes, I got to hear all about it in Uni when I was doing my mobile technologies subject (party of my IT degree), so if this is about ‘marketing’ claims, then Telstra might revoice the words stated in the claim. They could read the following: “Riley also took aim at recent claims from Vodafone that it has better spectrum holdings than Telstra in the capital cities, allowing the company to offer faster 4G services” in the air of “Riley is also aiming at the mention that Vodafone is more colourful then Telstra when offering a mobile service labelled as 4G in the capital cities“. Have you seen those BORING 4G posters all over Sydney? Yup, making legal threats against opinions, that makes perfect sense to me…..NOT!

OK, it is 2013 now and there are true 4G providers now, but what is important?

4G is the fourth generation of mobile phone mobile communication technology standards. (Quick Wiki grab). When we consider the 4th generations, we see WiMAX and we see LTE (Long Term Evolution).  The ITU (International Telecommunication Union) stated the requirements on what makes a 4G standard. So when the International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced) specification was set for the 4th generation in 2008, there was an actual next generation target to achieve. You wonder why it took so long? Well, the ITU looks forward on what the next step would be. So they set peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 megabits per second (Mbit/s) for high mobility communication (such as from trains and cars) and 1 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users). This would indeed be a massive step forward in a time when those speeds were not even close to an option. It makes perfect sense. You have seen this before. When we went from VHS to DVD, similar steps forward were made. This step was even larger as people moved from DVD to Blu-Ray.
It is technical evolution baby!

Yet, Telco’s are all about marketing, and Telstra was really clever. From the information that WAS then, they basically offered 3G+ and named it 4G, but that does not make it true 4G. That is how I personally see it! When I think of a power Telco offering 4G, I think of NTT DoCoMo and TATA (India). DoCoMo has close to 60 million customers in Japan, which is well over 45% of the mobile user population. How many Telco’s can actually make the claim that 1 in 2 connects to them in the Mobile community? In India there is the Tata Teleservices group with over 75 million customers, and NTT DoCoMo owns 25% of this.

So when we think Telco, Telstra and Vodafone Australia do not really measure up. Yet the interesting link here is that NTT DoCoMo had Billions invested all over the world, including in KPN in the Netherlands. Is it not interesting to see how these Telco’s seem to cross pollinate? This raises an issue that many people forget. If we consider the Vodafone class action, and if we consider the reasons of bad connections, then what is going on? Our little Island has 20 million people, which is less than a third of the active Japanese mobile phone users. So why are our connections failing (I am only considering the large cities)? It is clearly not about technology, but about infrastructure and implementation (in my humble view). Yes, we should not forget costing here either, as it all costs money, but consider the income in India and Japan, consider the amount of users. NTT ended up with a net income (after expenses and licenses) of roughly 5 billion dollar last year, which is almost 12% of the total revenue. So we see three things.

1. A ROI of 12% is not that bad.
2. Several nations are competing against giants with means we cannot fathom.
3. All of them seem to be writing off ‘losses’ on massive levels.

Is this about losses, about write offs or about something that is not here?

I reckon it is mostly about the not being there bit. When we look at incomes then we see that the Vodafone Europe CEO (Vittorio Colao) made 2.2 million Euro, whilst David Thodey, CEO of Telstra makes a mere 7 million dollars. So, yes they make decent coin, yet nothing more a mere mid-level banker is likely to get as an annual bonus, so the money is not draining away in that direction either.

No, I personally see the issues as a side effect of devaluation of technology. This is a side that has been ignored by most members of the public from 1997 onwards. You see, technology providers saw the benefit of the armistice race and went the same way. Every year we see a PC, laptop or tablet that is better, faster and newer, but how much faster? The impact with computers is not that big as it hits the individual. They deal with slightly larger programs, and that is pretty much it. Your text file is not that much larger. If you consider a 3000 word document, then that file remained relatively the same over the last 10 years. For electronic devices like TV’s it is also the same. We get the same signal and beyond that it only looks nicer, all this did not impact the provider.

With telecom it’s a different cattle of fish (pun intended). When we upgrade our phones we also attach to that an almost exponential growth of data needs, as such as Apple sold around 25 million mobile phones per quarter, we see that the need for an almost exponential growth of infrastructure is needed (a lesson Vodafone is learning the hard way). Even as the large Telco’s are installing the need for hardware on a continuing base, and as we see the replacement of equipment, we see that the life time of current facilitating hardware is likely less than 40% of its actual life cycle. It is either that of build more places with facilitating equipment, with a connected drain of ‘revenue left’ as well. The last level is one that is not that apparent at present, but will hit Telco company values on a massive scale soon enough. This side can be read at http://www.globallegalpost.com/blogs/global-view/registered-patents-devalued-by-outdated-ip-laws-6786253. Considering the issues at play, then the assets of Telco companies are about (read 2-4 years) to hit a certain basement value. I reckon that there will be consequences down the road. In my view it will be that the truly big boys will continue, the smaller packs will no longer be able to compete in a field where they will get charged for services needed and then some.

What is the solution? Not sure, it is in the end a business answer. Yet, voicing a 1.2 billion loss a year cannot be that good for the ego, and as the amount of players increase, these levels of ‘bad’ news will continue. It will not hit your taxes, but consider that services falter, where will you run to when your mobile phone leaves you with the message ‘searching…’ from your provider?

 

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July 21, 2013 · 23:12

The law to hunt them down

Both Sky News and the Guardian come this Sunday with stories on how Prime Minister David Cameron is calling on web companies to block certain sexual child abuse searches.

That sounds nice in theory and I am all for hunting down these groups. Yet, that request is at least 10 years late and in all honesty, I reckon it is a massive waste of time and resources. How long until these perverts come up with ‘other’ search terms? We would even be allowing for some to get away scot free as they searched for “yummier candy” or whatever other code they would be using. The Judge would have to let these people go as they were truly looking for a place to dunk their bagels in jelly?

As stated, I am all for hunting these people down. Yet perhaps other means should be (should have been is a lot better) employed. Google had been so innovative in avoiding corporate taxation, are they not aiding the police (not just in the UK) hunting down these people? They have the hardware, the software, the expertise and more options on their shelves. In addition the PM should actually stop that gap which allows Google to only pay 0.0025% in taxation (but that is a story for another time).

No matter how quick we stop this gap of non-taxation. Google has in my view and strong belief a moral duty to train the police and other units in search and track knowledge (perhaps they are). They have no issues in teaching/aiding bosses to track their employees. Yet, hunting down criminals is not in their scope? (At http://business.time.com/2012/06/27/google-maps-now-helping-your-boss-track-your-every-move/). It was stated in the article that “the cost to workplace privacy would be serious“. Is that true? If you get paid by the hour, should you not be working? In the office, one is supposed to sit at their desk. There are always reasons why we need to go somewhere, yet we should be at our desks for a certain time. So it is easy and perfectly OK to track employees and we cannot track criminals? I get the issue that there might be some level of privacy in play for an employee (for example, his lunch break is his and his alone), but finding those hurting children are allowed protection so that they can hurt children? Such methods could aid the authorities in actually getting some protection to the children that needed it for a long time.

If we relate the options to track these child abusers to the boss tracking actions, we definitely have the technology to find these people, so what Is stopping us?

In addition, the legal side is also in play. If we consider the “Protection of Children Act 1978”

If we consider: “Section 1 (c) to have in his possession such indecent photographs [or pseudo-photographs], with a view to their being distributed or transferred digitally or shown by himself or others; or”

By adding three words we now let the issue no longer fall into the issue where the responsibility was, we now give pressure on the ISP to report this immediately. If not, they become part of the chain. Now, if we look at the defamation act, then we know there are issues, especially when we consider operators of content.

In Australia the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) states:

32 Defence of innocent dissemination
(1) It is a defence to the publication of defamatory matter if the defendant proves that:
(a) the defendant published the matter merely in the capacity, or as an employee or agent, of a subordinate distributor, or a facilitator [or ISP] and
(b) the defendant neither knew, nor ought reasonably to have known, that the matter was defamatory, and
(c) the defendant’s lack of knowledge was not due to any negligence on the part of the defendant.

Here I added 5 words (those in bold), which could give additional levels of options to the claimants. It is nice to give certain services out for free, yet in that case, the facilitators will need to adjust their ‘terms of service’ to protect themselves and give aid in finding those using their services to further certain criminal goals. The reason to mention this is because when we look at the UK “Defamation Act 2013“, as narrated by Forbes we see the following (please read Forbes article as linked below).

The next part was in progress, when I detected this Forbes article (who had pretty much done what I was trying, at http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2013/05/09/uks-new-defamation-law-may-accelerate-the-death-of-anonymous-user-generated-content-internationally/)

It seems that the known issues of the ISP had been avoided here as well (an issue that had been in play for at least 8 years). There is a valid defence that  an ISP cannot monitor the massive flow of content, which is indeed a valid defence in my book, yet the cooperation required by the police to do their jobs is too often too slow or at times likely even completely lacking.

When we add ISP in the Australian case, then their lack of negligence would overturn their defence in court. So when we consider 32.1.d, then they will need to get active, creative and corrective really fast.

This translates to the UK defamation act by changing “5 Operators and/or facilitators of websites and/or virtual locations“; this would change the game immediately. Of course, prosecuting an ISP is not productive in the end, yet this part will give them the ‘negligence‘ label and as such, serious headway might be made in hunting down these child abusing criminals as the ISP is now seriously motivated to aid the police and find these criminals. The change would go further than those seeking materials. It would also give way to look at providers and mapping out these people far beyond the UK national borders. So as the map, with names, locations and acts will visibly grow, we might actually get the information the police needs.

I personally believe that law changes will get us a lot further then just blocking a search term.

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July 19, 2013 · 15:44

The Setting of strategies

The danger of any person trying to look through the mud that we know as political strategies related to ‘what is real’ and ‘what is unlikely’. There is no ‘non-reality’!
We know that certain steps have been staged (as a good politician would). This staging is not unlike the game ‘GO’ where we place the pebbles in such a way that entices to other to place their pebbles, completing our strategies.

This I discussed in last week’s blog involving the fading pension plans. Yes, and as suspected, whilst Dutch politicians are in vacation mode, the Dutch pension funds are now filling the Dutch with dread of a possible 10%-20% loss of retirement. That is some fear in their world of quick rising prices. (www.nos.nl)

Today is not about that, even though there are possible links! Today it is about renewed issues on telephone taps and how the powerful Murdoch gets another painted target. Yet are his words so wrong? We had the phone tap probe, we have seen the Leveson report, and instead of actually acting on the Leveson report as much as possible. Parties involved seem to be having another go at Rupert ‘the Piñata’ Murdoch. A lot or the press is getting a little sour as words are hashed and rehashed into statements of whatever they could be called.

You see, is this an ACTUAL criminal investigation, you know the one with barristers, judges and both parties taking notice of the evidence act?

Or is this another inquiry that has gone on for two years, giving more visibility to Chairman Keith Vaz and a few other political head honcho’s? Do not think that I am on Mr Murdoch’s side. I will instantly stand by the views of Hugh Grant and Lord Justice Leveson in the attack on the events that surrounded phone hacking, and not just the Sun/News of the world.

There is however the valid thought that cooperation is required and should be given. However the following quote “The committee has heard from the Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner Cressida Dick that since May ‘voluntary co-operation (with News UK) has been significantly reduced’ and that police have had to obtain court orders regards ‘requests for new material’“.

Is that the issue? This has gone on for 2 years now. Is thus the statement by Mr Murdoch “totally incompetent” when it comes to describing the acts by the Metropolitan Police entirely wrong? If this has gone on now for 2 years, then yes, I think it is time to look at the questions being asked, and asking additional relevant questions to the investigating offices.

Not doing so could turn this entire phone hacking scandal into a fair label of ‘Witch hunt’ and as such, I would see this as the premise to attack the Leveson report. This is because the two are linked. I remain in favour of implementing the entire Leveson report. Not because I am so much in the know of things, but because I have utter faith in the wisdom of Lord Justice Leveson. Those who claim to know and judge the report as invalid, whilst not in possession of a Law doctorate are required to remain very silent on the matter, unless they show actual valid documentation! I admit that this is slightly strong wording, yet having listened to a few people blatantly attacking the Leveson report in favour of unmonitored freedom of the press, after which I asked in regards to the reports footnote 417 in regards to the accuracy of information, their….. ‘emotional repartee’ in my direction gave me what I needed to know. (They had no clue, or better stated, having never read the Leveson report).

By the way, that footnote is “Clause 1(i) of the PCC Code requires the press to take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures” (page 673, Leveson report).

If we could only apply this requirement to advertisements at times! (Big Smiles).

So we must prevent that these events to ‘evolve’ into a witch hunt. I am NOT stating that this is happening, but after 2 years that image is starting to linger and that is wrong too. My issue is with the statement that was in that same Sky news article (at http://news.sky.com/story/1117618/murdoch-phone-hacking-probe-excessive)

“In his letter he set out how the company disclosed 500,000 documents after 185,000 man hours at a cost of more than £65m.” When the coffers are at minus 1 trillion and student costs are growing and growing, these costs are only excessive if the government is not able to make Mr Murdoch pay for these costs.

I personally have always been to mind that once we need to focus and stretch the actual letter of speech, we lose facts of what is the goal. Basically, in these words I am wondering whether the committee has lost the view of the Big picture. (My apologies if I am incorrect).

So where is the issue of strategy? Well, if we read the “The Leveson Report: implementation” (at http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06535), then at 6.5 (in the full PDF version) we see some additional delays in implementing the Royal charter. I quote: “Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, my briefing says that it is not appropriate for the Privy Council to consider more than one royal charter at a time on the same issue. The noble Lord may consider that the Press Standards Board of Finance has therefore been extremely clever in what it has done and may draw his conclusions from that – and that accounts for some of the delay.”

So we have more delays. Granted that they are procedural, but I wonder how many papers have reported on that delay? I reckon not many! Out of sight, out of mind is a valid strategy that has been in long standing with politicians and corporate spokes people all over the world.

So is this a strategy by Mr Murdoch to keep the focus away, or is this an investigation that is getting stretched in a very expensive way to stop your privacy from getting chartered protection? Not non-privacy by government (aka GCHQ), but by those who are making money out of side stepping commercial reasoning for ignoring privacy for the simple reasons of greed?

The issues of strategies are actually wider set then most will think. Against the Dutch pension issues, there is the view of George Osborne, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer. This is viewed in the subtitle “A majority of directors at the Washington-based International Monetary Fund disagrees with its own advice on UK fiscal policy.” which is part of the article at http://news.sky.com/story/1117069/imf-board-disagrees-over-uk-fiscal-policy.

Even though this sounds good for the Exchequer, the issues of no tax rises in the upcoming years (or after 2015 as he states it) is not just short of wrong (at http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/11/george-osborne-deficit-tax-rises) , I feel that this could only be kept if a play is made to the pension funds (like the Dutch are trying now), as well as the shale gas approach which is seen as ‘frackalicious’, yet, we should not forget the issues that the Dutch county ‘Groningen’ is going through as it has seen a rise in small earthquakes giving home owners massive costs to repair and additional losses in house values. These issues are to some extent denied/ignored as the investigation is going on, yet the damages that the people see in the news on a regular bases tells another story. At present corporations are now claiming for millions in damages from both the Dutch gas company (NAM) and the government. (at http://www.dvhn.nl/nieuws/groningen/article9972913.ece/Corporaties-claimen-miljoenen-bij-Nam) there is also the claim for compensation to be awarded for the loss of housing value, which adds up to over 10,000 houses for up to 25000 Euro. (Yet one house in the newscast has a value decrease of almost 150,000 Euro). Let us not forget that these were only test drilling, the actual drilling has not even commenced. If the exchequer is depending on these numbers then he might be in for a rough ride. In addition, even though Isla Britannia is decently larger then the Netherlands, there is enough evidence that these issues will have a serious impact on housings and the environment.

If this is all about strategy, then playing the cards close to the chest seems a debatable wisdom. Because when this all goes south, it is not about the Isle politicians are sitting on, but the issue whether there will be a nation left to serve.

Should you doubt that statement (which is fair enough), then consider on how ‘well‘ the US claims their economy is getting. The fact that Detroit is now bankrupt should be enough concern that the American way is not a solution.
We, the Commonwealth nations must stick together to stay afloat and survive, fight together to become the nations of true prosperity again.

None of these strategies are ready for that essential need!

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July 16, 2013 · 01:09

Is racism in America too alive?

When we look at the case State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman involving the murder on Trayvon Martin it seems clear to me that racism is still very much alive in America. Yet, the events involving this case give way that this could go even far beyond the issues of racism. Until today, I did not know that his father is/was a magistrate. Did you know that?

As a law student I know about Common Law and Criminal Law and as such, it is possible that a person can shoot in Self Defence. However, the fact that AGAINST specifically given information by the 911 dispatcher, that he was advised not to go after a person of POSSIBLE interest. There was absolutely NO evidence that Trayvon Martin did anything illegal or that he was breaking the Law in any way.

The fact that he continued on his track in a manner that I personally belief was a trajectory to be some lame kind of ‘hero of the neighbourhood‘ approach is beyond me that murdering a person keeps you out of jail. I would also like to add my personal view that the pictures of Trayvon shows us a kid who would not get the chance to grow up to be a man. The fact that George Zimmerman at 29 saw this kid as a threat gives additional food for thoughts on why this man should even be allowed a firearm whilst racing around as a neighbourhood watch (but that is my personal view).

Getting to the issue of firearms! I am not starting some boast on how evil they are. Guns do not kill people, people kill people (that has always been my belief) and the fact that firearms are a part of life in America is a factor we should accept at present. The fact that he ignored advice from the 911 dispatcher is also an issue. I can understand that in light of liabilities in the US, despatchers are cautious with words and directives. There is however an issue with a neighbourhood watch, going around armed on open public roads enforcing their ‘brand of Justice‘. Enforcing the laws and safety of public roads is for the police!

Whether there are issues on law and evidence was for the courts. I did not investigate all the evidence, mainly because there is way too much of it. 67 CD’s with a list of witnesses that seemed to have passed 100 seems a bit much to me, especially as no one ran outside at the time of the ‘execution’.

The (alleged) information that the father of George Zimmerman is/was a magistrate is also a fact we should not ignore. I am not stating in this that there was any perversion to the course of justice. His son likely got the best preparation any defence could ever desire! If a case could be settled for over 80% by selecting the right jury (as stated by some attorneys in the US), then correctly prepping the defendant for a trial could add another 5-10%. That means that the case was leaning heavily in favour of George Zimmerman from the start. The fact that the burden of evidence was enormously high as was presented with 13 shades, showing 12 shades resulting in not guilty should be some level of indication to the reader how hard it was from the word ‘go’ to get any conviction.

If there is a side to the blame game, then it is shown in the closing arguments. As the prosecution pictures Zimmerman as a man with a mission to take the law in his own hands, then that part seems to have shown to some degree. How Zimmerman went after Trayvon whilst being told not to do this by the 911 despatcher. It is at that same part from the defence that the closing argument falters. As was stated that Zimmerman was not guilty of anything but protecting his own life they fail, because if that was truly the case then Zimmerman would not have ignored advice from 911 and he would not have gone after Trayvon after the police was notified. He went into a place where the police should have been, not an armed neighbourhood watchmen.

The racial issues are mostly exploding now after the acquittal. The part that seems to have contained those issues to some extent is because George Zimmerman is Hispanic, not Caucasian. However, after the acquittal people have taken to the streets in massive ways. LA, Oakland, NY city and several other places. I personally do not believe it is purely a racial issue. The fact that a young unarmed African American got himself murdered by an armed neighbourhood watchmen, might be getting to people a lot more than a Hispanic/African American issue.

In defence to George Zimmerman was the statement by an African American named Tony Johnson. He stated that it is not a crime to follow anybody (Source CNN). Actually, according to the National Victims of crime, it could constitute stalking as it is quoted as “Virtually any unwanted contact between two people to directly or indirectly communicates a threat or places the victim in fear can be considered stalking“. There are unknown factors, yet, an approach of distance and carefully identifying himself George Zimmerman might not have needed to shoot Trayvon Martin. Not being there at all after he notified the police would have resulted in an actual certainty that Trayvon Martin would still be alive.

 

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