Tag Archives: ABC News

June 5, 2026 · 01:30

Out of nowhere

Yup, that was the setting as I see it. I was getting frustrated with the man on Pennsylvania Avenue 65000 who just doesn’t get it and now we get tariffs in Australia too. Gone are the days when we discussed a real solution. But for now we can rely on the Commonwealth to come together and make the United States the pariah. According to ABC News we are facing  “Australia is among 45 countries facing the higher 12.5 per cent rate, alongside China, Japan, India, South Korea, Brazil and Switzerland. Another group, including Canada, Britain, the European Union and Mexico, would face a lower 10 per cent duty.” And I suddenly realised that this was not about forced labour laws and according to legal insiders, Australia has world-leading laws to combat forced labour. So what is this about? These are merely bully tactics to create a gap within the Commonwealth, because as I see it, the Commonwealth has likeminded laws, they are not identical, but likeminded. So this is another bully tactic from the intellectually challenged person in the White House. I reckon that there will be some kind of blunt call where Australia surrenders rare earth minerals, the man is blatantly transparent. He merely want to force settings and he needs the EU a lot more, so Australia gets dealt the ace of spades (I think that was a proper use of that expression). From the wielder who has no morality at all. But as I see it, the commonwealth can come together and sell to the EU, Canada, UK and Middle East for what was meant for the United States. We all still sell, but we merely sell it to someone else. How long will it take the United States to realise that they are setting themselves up for Self-flagellation?

Still, there is more to come, but I suddenly had a thought in the gaming IP selection. You see I decided to replay the first Nordic God of War, because I had not played that game since it came out, so basically I played it into 2019 and that was before I had a 4K TV and it was glorious, now in 4K, the graphics are even more amazing after 7 years and it feels so amazing to play that game. But it also made me consider a few things. You see I have always been a great fan of Dungeon Keeper (1+2) and I also loved Black and White, but what happens when you play a god game and you do not get to wield the players? Merely influence them? So I started to think and as such the game ‘Worship’ was born. You are a deity, a slightly less than mortal person (aka a god) and the first setting are the nordic gods. But here is the kicker. You get the first few games where you learn the game and as such you start playing all the gods, so you can learn the mechanics. You start playing Odin, Thor, Freya and Loki I decided on four gods, because as the game goes deep, you can get 3 other gods involved, the other two tribes get one of the other gods. The game will let you play all the gods so that you learn the mechanics. These tribes are always at each others throat and there is the rub, the game starts with someone praying for mercy at the shrine and that is how you start and the mechanics (even in the learning phase) is about randomization, so you do not know what god you are and there are three tiers of powers, tier 1 is direct and give the least delay for your powers to restore. Tier 2 has a medium cooldown and tier 3 a long cooldown. And the powers you wield will realist in a person, or a small group in a Vé (shrine) you can affect more people and the cooldown is reduced. But beyond that you can not influence the game, the people in the game are like little computer people, all doing their own thing. But part of the settings that as you influence the people in ‘your’ village, you need to see how this is interpreted and how it affects how they face the other village. And through that whatever god ‘aids’ them, they will have both a direct and indirect effect on the interactions. 

I am still working out some of the settings, but in my mind, it shows promise and when the settings are finished the real game begins and you are taken through the stages with the Nordic gods. I thought that after that you get the Greek gods and Egyptian gods. I reckon that after that it will become a mix and match, so village 2 might be one of those pesky Greeks with a sneaky Martian playing Odysseus. You know the kind. And village 3 might be devoted to Sobek. A setting that might turn out to be highly addictive. I am now contemplating how any of the gods could affect the other villages with something like a curse. It is interesting, but the cooldown for the god is also rather nasty, so you want to do that sparingly and only when it becomes essential.

The fun part is how to create the DML engines for the villagers. And as I see it, it requires a separate engine for each village. The computing power is already there, but then I would like this to become a PS5/Switch2 game. This idea of a novel gaming IP is rather invigorating, because there is too much franchise gaming going on. No matter how original and novel Lara now looks. It is still a new version of robbing a tomb (no disrespect meant or intended), Lara got me through some rough times in 1996. But the idea to put something out there that is totally new is rather fun. And even now as I am looking at the game in my mind, I am also setting the interface to a new look for the Nordic/Greek/Egyptian gods. Not merely something that looks fresh, but completely different in the way it looks. You see, the interaction would also be strange (for the player). But this setting leaves me with the randomizers and the choices available to the player. When it ids all nordic, it seems simple. Even as these gods all have different options. How to get the villagers to come to terms with the new equation (to coin a phrase) it is something to consider. That opens up a whole new stage. As the Nordics get into the UK (before they had tea) they had their settings of druids and a few other settings, So there could be a lot more to this game as I see it. Still there is more to do and it is more enjoyable then to look at what other stages the new hands us, because in the end I am not a journalist, I am an IT person and gaming is in my blood and the leads to a lot more interesting puzzles than Washington DC is able to hand us. But that might merely be me. Oh, I just realised that the powers they hand to the villagers could be active or passive, so  wielder of weapons or a thinker of new weapons. That also gets us to the old equation in martial arts, attacking without defense is pointless and defending without attack is useless. So there is more on this game coming to a blog close to you (read: my blog) 

Have a great day, it is Friday here for me now.

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May 30, 2026 · 04:07

The setting of the engineer

That is where I am at present. I have been knowing my brain around on designing games that can be used for reaching linguistic skills, but with a difference. As such I have been focusing on Latin, which was one of the languages that this solution would traverse, then from these we get to Italian and considering that people like Gaius Marius created the Italian army. There is a thought to create a few games (heavily based on MB games) to aid in the setting of this. So here I was (here I still am) converting the 1975 Tank Battle into a game with Chariots, the game play is almost the same and whilst they have no flags on the tanks they could gain a archer when they get tot he end. And the game is played by instructing (in latin) to move a chariot and as such you get linguistic training. Then we get to ‘Conquest of the Empire’ which is now called ‘securing the empire’ where we get to play a tactical game. These additions put the gamer in a linguistic mode, they will breath late in no time and no matter how limited this is and there were more games, Dice games were massively popular, so introducing them would aid this. Then there was a Dutch invention called ‘Leesplankje’ a Dutch 19th century invention that could aid here (and in other language models)

And the setting would be to use Latin phrases to aid in pronouncing certain Latin words. The idea is that these games would also be used to propel French, English, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Arabic and a few other languages. So even as the setting is based on other stages, the games could be introduced simultaneously, So here I am considering what games to add to that setting. So there is no need to add certain games, but several might be used in a different way. 

Legality
Legality is on the forefront of my mind because this is based on IP that is not mine. I feel decently secure that a game like Tank Battle has its IP protection shedded as they are unlikely to continue the legal protections, there is however the foundational protection a game designer has and the question becomes how much do you need to change a game for it to no longer to have certain levels and it might not be seen as illegal. Making a 10 by 10 field into a 15 by 15 field and making tanks Chariots might be enough, but I am not certain. Also it is a game within a game/simulation. I reckon the law was not ready for that, because there is no physical version (yet) but that is a worry for another day and for now I say ‘currum unum promove’ and ‘Da huic currui sagittarium’ and worry about tomorrow things tomorrow, because first the idea is to advance certain settings and create the elements to give this beast mass and power, because that is what makes great IP in the end. The idea is nice and essential, but when it remains and idea that is the foundation of it, when we add substance to the idea it means we seemingly worked out certain settings and it pays me too, because my mind can concoct all the things in the universe, but I have seen time and time again that I can move at speeds that most quantum computers see as madness (caressing my ego here). Still the setting when completed will be decent and the idea is not to replace language teachers, but it is to offer these services to millions of people that are out of reach of such teachers and there is a rather nice stage that these teachers will embrace that setting to educate more students in languages than currently is possible and quite soon is no longer possible, because that is also the impact of global recessions. So whilst we get sources like ABC News claiming that “The global economy is currently avoiding a worldwide recession”, but the thought has become “is it though?” Because there are too many elements in play and something has to give and education is the usual first victim in an economical war and it will be trivialized through “We are keeping our finger on the pulse and there is going to be an adjustment soon” but they are talking in styles that is leaving at least one generation partially uneducated on a near global stage. And I saw this at least 2-3 years ago, because this setting of languages was seen be me at least that long ago and I saw the business sense that a player like Ubisoft could employ, they had at least 75% ready before they ever started and that is a nice setting for a software solution maker, because that is what this will become. I think I have worked on this from 2025 onwards, but the idea to advance certain matters to all languages is decently new. 

Anyway, as we are told (13 minutes ago by the Guardian) that ‘Trump claims to be on verge of approving peace deal with major Iranian concessions’ I wonder how this was possible whilst we heard on March 15th 2026 that “Militarily, “we’ve essentially defeated Iran,” though he stopped just short of an official final victory declaration because he maintained the U.S. was still involved in delicate diplomatic talks”, yes, tell me another one. But all this is hitting the United States economically and even though it is only impacting 70 million students, the fact that the US debt surpasses their GDP is setting a strong need for a software solution and optionally not claiming a fake AI field and this is the benefit that Ubisoft could wield because there is a certain amount of certainty that the business branch of the world might not see an uneducated workforce as beneficial to them and for others to see a solution that takes away a workforce pressure in teachers that aren’t to be found gives a certain solace to the soul of these captains of industry. 

So you tell me how exactly  “the global economy is currently avoiding a worldwide recession” and I will show you where they are failing you because education and infrastructure are the first victims in a recession. 

So you all have a great day, it Saturday here now and whilst Toronto is enjoying its Friday happy feelings, I can tell them that this is overrated, because I have already seen that. 

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April 25, 2026 · 14:21

How many?

ABC just told me that an hour ago ‘US boosts Iran war assets with third aircraft carrier USS George HW Bush’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-25/uss-george-hw-bush-arrives-middle-east-military-assets-boost/106601060) with “About 5,000 troops and dozens of fighter jets are aboard USS George HW Bush.” The additional “The USS George HW Bush entered waters near Iran after a week of chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, with no sign of peace talks resuming.” The setting we have been given “We won, Iran is lost” should be casually dismissed. We are given “The USS George HW Bush strike group is comprised of nearly 5,000 sailors, the US Navy said. It includes the flagship carrier, which comes with nine aircraft squadrons. The George HW Bush is also accompanied by the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Ross, USS Donald Cook and USS Mason. The US describes Arleigh Burke-class destroyers as the “backbone” of the navy’s surface fleet, designed to provide mission capabilities such as anti-aircraft, anti-surface, and anti-submarine warfare.” All whilst we now see that The Bush is joining the carriers USS Gerald R Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln. It is a little off putting that there are three carriers there now. I am not the most tactical person you have ever met, but when you consider that the IRGC would consider an aircraft carrier to be a nice trophy, why do you think they consider three of these bad boys are? But, they have nothing to fear, as President Trump stated that they had already defeated Iran, they were bombed into the stone age (I am paraphrasing here), so those three carriers have nothing to fear, do they?

We also get a list of deployed units, from ships to drones and I realised that the IRGC needs but a spare to unite this in a full blown war. One visionary act and it could be anything, a tanker rigged as a kamikaze item, a modern version of the fire ships of 1588. Now ships are more defended against fires, but what about acid probes on the keel of the boat? You can defend all you want, but the idea that was overlooked can scuttle a fleet and that is the setting that the United States is overlooking. The IRGC is for all intent and purposes desperate they will try anything. Ad in this strait, this small patch of water, the United States deployed 24 vessels, all on that small patch of water. It takes merely a spark to ignite it all. I personally belief that this is the latest folly in a whole range of bad decisions. 

So whilst some give us ‘US envoy and Trump’s son-in-law to travel to Pakistan amid hopes for renewed Iran peace talks’ the delays and denials of issues makes me think that Iran is not done plotting yet, it is not done scheming and no matter how desperate they are, the desperate will make unpredictable jumps and here we have a unique setting with three aircraft carriers in one patch of water. I have no idea what Iran will do, but they would want to send a signal heard all over the world and as I see it, the United States is currently ‘fueling’ that. In addition we get words from Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City giving us ‘The Ponzi Economy Is Breaking’, yesterday on April 24th we are given “Is another financial crisis brewing in the US economy? Economist Michael Hudson explains the dangers.” Reports suggest the US economy may be on the verge of another financial crisis, with major problems in the $3 trillion private credit market. Economist Michael Hudson explains the dangers of Wall Street’s Ponzi schemes.” This is funny, because on April 2nd in ‘The idea is not novel’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2026/04/02/the-idea-is-not-novel/) I gave the world “That is what I feel at present. CNBC gave us all 12 hour ago the ominous title ‘Trump is paying TSA agents — but where is the money coming from?’” Where I raised “Where does the money Trump is using come from? How much is available? How long can Trump continue to pay TSA agents if Congress doesn’t soon come to a deal?” You think they are unrelated, yes they are unrelated, but there is cause and effect. If the IRGC ignites that spark, what do you think happens next? 3 carriers and 5000 troops bring a while’s range of bad media to the surface. It would be a range of “United States doomed” to “Iran beats United States” and every media will be howling for digital dollars attention.

And most likely I am wrong, remember? Iran lost the war weeks ago, they have nothing to bring to the table. But what happens if I am proven right? Think about that and think on the United States economy when that Ponzi scheme setting blows up in the faces of Wall Street. Just something to think about. Have a great day.

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November 21, 2025 · 21:23

Amalgamation anyone?

Several settings came across my eyes. First there is the big hit that Prime Minister Carney made in the UAE, some say it comes down to a $3 trillion dollar investment, which is great for Canada. I reckon the northern pipeline that makes America obsolete in this instance has something to do with it. Then there was the rating of 2.3 (out of 5) that Epic Universe scored and I thought that was weird, but the personal ratings with over 250 giving it a 1 rating does not lie, but there was a person who looked into this and made a solid case. The person Andrew Platt gave a good rundown, which made me wonder how Epic Universe was designed. Who was the so called ‘manager of bad times’ The rundown (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4wgErXyV14) should be watched by anyone who want to go there. And he looked at stuff I never would have, because (until President Trump took over) I was on that bulk of people wanting to see that place. So at this time, it will be another persons problem and there will be lots of finger pointing into this mess, considering that when the weather is bad, 60% is unavailable is a rather large setting. As such Abu Dhabi and their Warner Brothers theme park upcoming will have a great time adjusting for the thousands of Europeans, Canadians and even Americans. It is the consequence of bad management and a few other matters. But these issues keep on coming. Ill be honest, I never considered these factors, but Universal management should have seen the coming before they poured in 7 billion dollars. The idea of a few hundred million to put it under a roof doesn’t seem to ridiculous now, does it? News dot com dot au gave us in April ‘$13 billion Universal Epic Universe theme park is the biggest, most expensive theme park ever’, as such I never considered what Andrew Platt reported on. So check out his video before you book an expensive hotel in Orlando. 

Then ABC News gave us a mere 5 hours ago ‘‘Buying the dip has become a dangerous sport’ as nervous global share markets dive’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-21/tech-bubble-asx-nasdaq-dow-jones-sell-off-japanese-bonds/106036078) this gives us “Markets are nervous because more than $US2 trillion ($3.1 trillion) was wiped off Wall Street last night in a matter of hours. Where did the money go? Some went to Japan. Indeed, enough money took flight for some to ask whether the multi-trillion-dollar US tech bubble has now popped.” In addition we see “Bitcoin moved further into bear market territory overnight, plunging a further 5 per cent to under $US88,000 ($136,000) — down roughly 28 per cent from its all-time high.

IG market analyst Tony Sycamore recently questioned whether Bitcoin was the “canary in the coal mine” for overall sentiment in global financial markets.” I cannot argue the ‘canary in the coal mine’ because I am not that deep into anything economically related, but 18 hours ago, Marketwatch (at https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-sugar-daddy-just-went-broke-and-youre-stuck-with-the-bill-a74b35c9) we see ‘America’s ‘sugar daddy’ just went broke — and you’re stuck with the bill’ it, reflects my story Yesterday ‘Big in Japan’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/11/21/big-in-japan/) but with a few more angles. With “Because Japan owns $1.2 trillion in U.S. government debt — more than your weird uncle owns in grievances — and when your biggest lender suddenly discovers it can make money at home, it tends to stop financing your lifestyle. It’s like your friend finally realizing he’s been picking up every bar bill since 1985.” That setting and the others are showing the cracks in the ‘fabulous armour’ called America. Dip after dip after disaster is hitting those shores at present. And Marketwatch gives us ‘Wall Street finally catches on’ with “For months, the market was too busy pricing AI stocks and parsing Elon Musk’s latest proclamation to notice Japan’s bond yields climbing.” And as I see it, they should have been on top of all of it. They wanted their golden throne, but that implies you better keep everything under sight and that is their responsibility. So when the markets panic in the next 96 hours, it will also be on them. All by themselves it all seems manageable, but as a collected setting of bad news for America, there is a larger concern, the seams are breaking and as such the money-tub called America is fumbling in the hands of those who were managing the outcome of that revenue. 

When you come to think of it, I made a presumptuous statement that Americans would ‘invade’ Canada just to get away from America and that setting is a lot more real at this time, because when we see the Financial Review giving us ‘Major super funds count exposure to billion-dollar US solar collapse’ where we see “AustralianSuper, HESTA and the Queensland government’s investment arm, QIC, have an indirect exposure to the prominent bankruptcy case due to substantial interests in one of its biggest backers – Generate Capital. One of Generate’s directors is QIC’s head of global infrastructure, Ross Israel” a mere 4 days ago. In addition we are seeing “Pine Gate has raised more than $US7 billion ($10.7 billion) since it was founded in 2016 and owes creditors including Brookfield and Carlyle around $US6 billion. The company blamed growing uncertainty for overseas investment in the United States and hostility toward green energy since the return of Donald Trump to the White House as reasons for its collapse, along with the revocation of tax credits for solar projects.”And this is only one of many and that is before we consider the AI Bubble (which is denied to exist by Forbes) but the impact on retirement funds will be massive, in nearly any place that has put their money in this. So when the retirement funds collapse, where do you think these people will go? Where do the people go when there is no future in where they are? They go the places that has a future and at present that is Canada (Mexico too). Is this the future? 

You see Amalgamation comes with a danger. You cannot add a bucket of oranges to a bucket of apples and set the stage that you now have 2 buckets of fruit, because the analyses of fruit has different properties, but it can be done to get a little better view in the overall stage, as long as you consider that it is a flawed view and I get that. The Epic Universe stage showed me that I knew too little about that side of the flaw on the matter and me trying to explain it one way is no resolution on any other way. 

I knew that Abu Dhabi was a great vacation destination because I had done my homework on a number of things as such I knew that the UAE was a great place to see (or move to) but the larger impacts are not given, the impact can only be seen where we have all the data and some of the data is kept from us, other data cannot be verified, as such it is a terrible mess. And in this Amalgamation is not really the solution either, but it is all I have to show the dangers of some places. 

In this I bid you a great day and try to enjoy the upcoming weekend, so let’s make it a great weekend.

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September 18, 2025 · 06:59

The setting changes

That is at times a rule, but to call it the massive rule to measure things to is not the greatest rule to live by (you might have to think that sentence over a little while before it makes sense). You see, there is a story that bugs me and I was almost willing to let it go. But Yesterday in ‘Name Calling’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/09/17/name-calling/) I started down a rabbit hole, a hole that smothers and makes it hard to breath. You see the press to a much larger degree has become a populist media, they do not check sources (as shown yesterday) The media is losing credibility in massive waves. The problem is that I thought I was alone. When you are the only one shouting at a wall, is there a case that you yourself might have lost the focus? 

That was my premise (at first).

So when you start looking at the wall, not being a wall, but a sea the dimension changes. It is no longer the height, but the amount of water that becomes an issue (it makes sense after a little while) and when you start looking into the water and you realise that water is transparent, you start looking for things. As such I found several sources (I already had a few) and these sources are a lot more focussed on the sham that is the International Association of Genocide Scholars. There was the simplest setting that “a member in good standing—a status achieved simply by paying an annual fee of 30 dollars. No academic credentials are required” and this comes with the added quote “Dr. Sara Brown, regional director of the American Jewish Committee in San Diego and a scholar who has served on the IAGS advisory board, told The Media Line: “I was silenced. And the resolution was forced through. What really troubled me was the way that it was presented to mainstream media, that 86 percent of the association had unanimously agreed to condemn Israel for genocide. That’s inaccurate. And to be perfectly honest, it lacks academic integrity, basic integrity to falsely represent the association and falsely cite statistics.”” (source: the media line) The France24 news (added in yesterday’s blog) had a few other settings that were weird, but the overbearing setting was that the media didn’t care, they preferred to not do their job. They became (as I personally see it) as courtesans towards the digital dollar. 

The medicine also gives us “Only 28 percent of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) cast a ballot in the resolution declaring Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza. Of those who voted, 108 supported the measure—less than a quarter of the association’s total membership. Yet international outlets, including The Guardian, AP, Reuters, The Washington Post, and the Financial Times reported the outcome as if it were a sweeping consensus of the world’s foremost genocide experts. Critics inside and outside the association now argue that the process was unrepresentative and that the coverage misled the public into believing in unanimity where none existed.” Now I wanted to have a setting that if people like Amal Clooney (a revered British lawyer and human rights activist) was part of that list, you get a mixed setting, but that is as I see it less of a case. The doughty street chambers adds this to her name “Amal Clooney is a barrister who specializes in international law and human rights. She is ranked in the legal directories Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners  as a leading barrister in international human rights law, public international law, and international criminal law. She is described as ‘a brilliant legal mind’ who is ‘in a league of her own at the Bar’. The directories spotlight her ‘commanding presence before courts’ and describe her as ‘a dream performer before international tribunals’ with ‘superb advocacy’ that is ‘crystal clear in focus and highly persuasive’. The rankings emphasize her ability to galvanize ‘heads of state, foreign ministers and business … in a way that is very effective’ for victims of human rights abuses.” That would be a legal mind to say ‘wow’ to, but when you see the feedback from the IAGS (in the France24 story) stating that it goes through a “rigorous peer reviewing process” and that it went through three separate committees. Now here is the crunch, there are 500 members, did they came from that pool? Where is the paperwork on that? And that happens before the vote. So how was the voting set? What was the minimum amount of votes? Only 28% voted as other sources gave its (the France24 article never brought that out) the article also ‘pressed’ of those who voted. As I see it, Melanie O’Brien never gave the details and more over France24 never pushed anything on this. And she skipped over the report being a three page document. That alone should have halted the press. They didn’t. The joke about the journalist no one cares about was 106 pages (the UN document). One person, so how come that the ‘genocide’ setting that players like Hamas feed us can be summarized in three pages? So how is ‘extensive’ research done in three pages? And who are these reliable and extensive sources? That entire sham (about 4 minutes of it) was swallowed whole by the audience.

So, here I am digesting several matters. As such it is time to call in some assistance and (at https://www.thefp.com/p/another-reason-not-to-trust-the-experts) wee see that the Free Press gives us ‘Another Reason Not to Trust the ‘Experts’’ and it starts by giving us “The International Association of Genocide Scholars calls itself a body of experts, but joining requires only a form and a fee. Members include parody accounts like ‘Mo Cookie’ and ‘Emperor Palpatine.’” And the story start of in a most interesting way. “This week, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) voted on a resolution that accused Israel of committing genocide in its war against Hamas. Like moths to a flame, the mainstream press ran wild with the story of the organization’s declaration. “Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, Leading Scholars’ Association Says,” ran the headline in The Washington Post.”

And in continuation we get “The Guardian quoted the president of the association, Melanie O’Brien, declaring that the resolution represented “a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide.” In another interview with ABC News Australia, O’Brien boasted that the resolution passed with nearly 90 percent support. The BBC’s headline read: “Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza, World’s Leading Experts Say.” The problem for these publications is that if you kick the tires—even slightly—it becomes obvious that the resolution is a sham, top to bottom.” And the press is not waking up? You have gotta be joking me. With the source that according to most started the wave of looking into this setting we are given “On Tuesday evening, Salo Aizenberg, a board member of HonestReporting and contributor to NGO Monitor, tested that proposition. After exploring the IAGS website, he found that he could become a member of the organization with just a $30 contribution. “This organization that purports to be a leading organization of scholars is open to anyone who is interested,” he told The Free Press.” I got alerted to this setting by the Javier Bardem (who told us all on the red carpet in the Emmy event) and someone who went to town on this in LinkedIn. That was my trigger to give you yesterday’s blog and I found out most of what I know in under an hour of investigation. As such what did the Guardian, the Washington Post and ABC News Australia do? Is it weird that I call the ‘Courtesans of the digital dollar’? (I considered that calling them greed driven whores was too crass a statement to make). We then get “IAGS’s open membership is important because as Aizenberg learned in his research on the website, 80 of the 500 members of IAGS all claim to be based in Iraq—a country not known for universities with robust genocide scholarship. But it’s even worse than that. Only 108 out of the organization’s 500 members actually voted for the resolution. So contra O’Brien, only 21.6 percent of the IAGS supported it, not nearly 90 percent. That figure represents 108 out of the 129 people who bothered voting for the resolution at all.” As well as “One IAGS member, Sara Brown, the author of Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, posted on X that the leadership of the organization prevented members from filing comments criticizing the resolution before the vote. “We were promised a town hall, which is a common practice for controversial resolutions,” she wrote, “but the president of the association reversed that. The association has also refused to disclose who were the authors of the resolution.” After reading through the resolution, it’s easy to understand why the identities of the authors were shielded from the other members of the group. It’s riddled with inaccuracies and deceptive language. For example, the first paragraph asserts that Israel has killed “59,000 adults and children in Gaza,” without distinguishing between civilians and Hamas fighters.” You need to read the rest in the Free Press article (link above) And there is more to ‘convict’ the IAGS of, they make a sham of several settings and the press has no other recourse but to convict them as well, because if they do not, the press will have proven themselves to be biased and unworthy to call themselves news media. There is of course the funny setting that all these papers will have to be charged VAT from now on as most hide behind the zero VAT setting for being news sources. When that stops their advertisers go the way of the Dodo really fast.

The media line also gave us “For her, the flaws went beyond procedure. “They cite U.N. sources … and if you look at the citation, it says data that has not yet been verified by the United Nations, and then in footnote five it says Ministry of Health Gaza—the Hamas-run Ministry of Health,” she pointed out. “The fact that those are the statistics that they had to cite and it’s in the first paragraph immediately speaks to a lack of academic integrity … It’s not even academically lazy. It’s reckless. And the harm is real.””

The article can be seen (at https://themedialine.org/top-stories/only-28-of-scholars-associations-members-voted-on-gaza-genocide-resolution-but-global-media-missed-the-story/) and that part gives us that The Media line as ‘trusted news’ is a lot more trustworthy than the mainstream media at present. 

Darn, I forgot to shine the limelight on Microsoft again (my personal behemoth) and in that same setting I now wish you a good day and consider trusting the news media a lot less than before. So to all of you, have a great day today and don’t forget to question your news vendor at some point.

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September 9, 2021 · 05:53

Lemon of the Century

Yes, you have seen it, we have all seen it in some form, but when was the last time you saw a genuine Lemon? Not to mention a Lemon of the century. You would think it is a near impossible task, but Lockheed Martin, an American company pulled it off. In thee cases it is so much sweeter if the accomplishment is American.

I made a case to sell (as a corporate individual) to sell the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia either the British BAE Typhoon, or the somewhat better match the Chinese Chengdu J-20. Now, this is not on principles, but the US making Saudi embargo after embargo, all whilst it is mere puppet play and there was no direct need to stop the sales, especially as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was under direct attack by Houthi forces directly sponsored from Iran and the people were eager to ignore that fact. So there I was taking a stab at a 3.75% sales commission, and in light of a $11,000,000,000 sales ticket could bank me $412,500,000 over a few years. Now, I know, am I greed driven? Nope! But I am not walking away from such a massive mealticket! 

All that happened and was mentioned before, but now there are more reasons as ABC news gives us. The article ‘F-35 program’s future uncertain owing to design flaws, parts shortages and cost blowouts’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-08/f35-program-design-flaws-part-shortages-costs-opinions-divided/100431664) there we see “He said the combat jet currently had almost 900 design flaws, with seven considered critical.” This is given to us via Former US Marine Corps Captain Dan Grazier. So this is not out of thin air, this comes to us by decently informed people and at what point is anyone accepting a lemon with 900 design flaws? We get it, a plane with a current whole of life cost estimate of $2.3 trillion we need to consider that there is a massive flaw in the entire process. It becomes worse when you see and consider the Naval failure called Zumwalt class destroyers. That is two out of three, so now we merely need to add an army failure and the US forces will be 3 for 3. So how often do major projects on these scales fail? There is optionally the second stage where both China and Russia are not afraid for a war with the US, because the US is lacking in functional equipment. They have functioning 5th generation planes. I cannot tell if they are better, merely that they are. And I am am the mouse who loves that 412 million dollar cheese wheel, whether I retire or eat myself to death is all equally similar and there is a customer base who would want something that actually works so overall there is more than one seller and there is a definite buyer, so I am game.

Yet the article also gives us “It said that would grow to 40 per cent of jets grounded by 2030, if the repair backlog didn’t improve” this implies that the US airforce needs to grow by 250% to keep the effectiveness numbers of 2017, that is one hell of an investment. I am not denying what the pilots are saying, that it is a game changer that it will be effective, we get that, but it has 900 flaws, and there are a lot of questions in the background when we consider the seven critical problems. So when we consider the claim “Mr Grazier said the cost per flight hour in the United States was around $36,000” and the math man in me consider that at present there are (unverified numbers) “1,763 F-35As for the USAF, 353 F-35Bs and 67 F-35Cs for the USMC, and 273 F-35Cs for the USN” it would require the DoD $88,416,000 an hour to get it all in the air, in light of the Afghanistan clambake, which lasted 2 decades, count your losses today. Is someone doing the math here (apart from me)? This is a plane with 900 design flaws. So if China (or the United Kingdom) can beat these costs they have a real chance in getting a new customer in their arsenal and it is one that has money, so that part will be the smallest of concerns.

We could go all (overly) marketing and say:

Chinese
Hellbringing
Equalising
Negotiating
Goalseeking
Defence
Unit

But that might be slightly over the top, what matters is that the US has a real problem and, oh, that reminds me. Is that why they pulled out of Afghanistan? 40% of their flying capabilities wasn’t up to it? I know, it is grasping and it is speculation, but I am trying to get my hands on that 3.75% and that makes me a little giddy. With the Zumwalt it was the principle that it didn’t meet its need, it was too expensive and it was ugly as hell. I still hope to test my new stealth anti naval weapon on it, merely because it is just too ugly to see and congress never approved the shells needed to fire these guns, and a stealth ship with a Raytheon solution is just not a stealth ship. And as a $22,500,000,000 failure it is too expensive for such a failure be allowed. Consider that ABC ends the article with “To respect that dependency, we remain laser-focused on continuing to enhance the capability, affordability and availability of the F-35. With the help of partners and customers, I have no doubt we will succeed.” Which is all fair enough. Now consider that 12 nations have committed to ordering, now consider that if 3 leave that group (Singapore being the most interesting one) and China gets Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE on board as well, the stage changes on a global scale at that point. Now reconsider the military power play where we accept “There are developmental issues that come up because it is a very high technology advanced aircraft. Over time, these issues are resolved.” Yet 900 flaws imply that this will not be resolved until 2029, with spare parts and shortages of equipment lasting until an expected 2036. That implies that these players will not have a real effective airforce for well over a decade, so how many nations will get nervous on that premise and how many will consider a change (please do not change to Russian option, as they give me nothing). So in that light is there really nothing to worry about? And that is before we see the other 9 nations with billions invested all for… what for? 

So whilst I have nothing against Lockheed Martin (I really do not), being in the stage where they are now with 900 design flaws is just too weird. Yes we accept that it is a developing project, but design flaws imply that it is not developing, it was wrongly developed and as such the F-35 should still be in an earlier stage, that is until well over 600 flaws (and the 7 critical ones) were resolved ahead of where they are now. 

So here I am, just a man, a (really) poor man, hoping for his 3.75% before he retires and retirement is not that far away. And in all this, I remain optimistic, because I have things to smile at, especially if I get to test my creative sinking idea on the USS Zumwalt. Yes, it is a gasser (in more ways than one). So feel free to agree (or disagree) but when you see something that should be the lemon of the century, would you not shout that from the tallest building? Especially if it was your neighbour who bought the Ford Edsel. So Ford can now relax, Lockheed Martin surpassed their failure with an impressive larger one.

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September 7, 2021 · 18:41

As banks cut corners

There was news on ABC news, it was not really news, this was a stage that I saw coming a mile away and that was 5 years ago, yet the speed at which this is procreating is cause for concern. The article ‘Protecting yourself from phone porting and SIM card scams’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/protecting-yourself-from-phone-porting-and-sim-card-scams/100421586) is not just this, the entire COVID registration issues are making things worse. When we take notice of ““At 5:55pm, I got a text message from my telco. It said, ‘Hi, received your port out request for this service,'” he says. “By the time I tried to call them, my phone already went to SOS only. Before I could even react, my number was gone.””, you might think that this is an isolated case, but it is not, when we add ““They had my customer ID [for online banking], and you can do a password reset if you have the customer ID and mobile number,” he explains. “It was really professional. I had daily limit of $10,000, so they sent $10,000. They bypassed that limit by opening another account inside my account, which you can do online, and then they transferred another $10,000.”” There is. massive flaw, the banks refer to this as being customer friendly, I personally see it criminal friendly. All kinds of level of checks and balances are left out of the equation and for now we see banking party-lines that these matters are seldom, the people are protected and it can be reversed. Yet in 5G, within the next 2-3 years the costs will go beyond what the banks find reasonable and we are left with the costs, we are left with the impact and we are left outside in the cold. That is an almost given and matters are merely getting worse. 

The banks (to cut corners) are setting up more and more to be done online, all whilst proper security is lagging and there is a whole range of actions that will not and should not be allowed. I had to check and make sure that online banking was DISABLED, it makes a few issues a bit more hassle, but compared to the damage I could face 2-5 times a year it is a no-brainer. This is a mere beginning when we consider “If I want to change providers, before the [new] standard was put in place, I just had to give my name, my date of birth and my address,”, all whilst the increased made “scammers ask a victim’s existing telco to switch the number to a new SIM”, the effect is the same and because some players are cutting corners the consumer is left with the hardship. There is no easy way here and I get that, yet there is a larger stage of checks and balances missing all whilst cost cutting parties make ‘customer friendly’ needs, whilst parses of verification needs to be at the centre of this all and it is getting worse. 

Why is it getting worse?
Well, There were 5 attempts to scam me in the last 8 weeks, 2 of them were so good that I could not find anything wrong with the information and sources given, more importantly in one case I had to make a separate call to PayPal to make checks to make sure, they had become that good and I know what to look for, yet I have an ace up my sleeve (which I will not reveal here), it stopped numerous scams from being completed.

The first is that YOU NEVER EVER USE A LINK GIVEN! You find the number, the generic number of for example PayPal and you reference the numbers that you write down, they were ready to tell me that no such activity exists. If you click on any link you are causing damage to yourself. But the two (including PayPal) were so well done that finding the differences were close to impossible and I know what to look for. A consumer will have little to no chance at all. 

And matters are getting worse, because 5G will enable the scammers to approach well over 500% in the same time, their revenue goes up and at some point it will cost us, insurances will soon stop paying out and then it will become a much larger problem. You either pay an annual fee, or lose your money. I feel that this is where it is going. 

So whilst we see “to enable to SIM port or swap, scammers will need personal information, like your name, address, and date of birth” COVID give them the name and phone number, the phone number can in some cases link to an address and then only the date of birth is missing and with all these transgressed data bases. Now consider all these places that got hacked, which have a birthdate? Which have a phone number? And the image below completes the picture. 

We see three sources required to get all the data they need and they keep on adding data, data you freely give away in apps, data they captured, data from hacks on the dark web and it is BIG BUSINESS, in the example it is one person with the $10,000 target, now consider 750,000 in the UK alone, 500,000 in Australia, 35,000,000 in the US and consider that $10,000 was a small jab, even smaller would work for them, like a mere $500, with these numbers these criminals become billionaires within a month and these actions need to be done fast. They have per nation 3-4 days at the most, so within 2 weeks they are looking at millions and with 5G they can get more and they can get there faster. Do you still think I am kidding? Take a good look at what data you entered in ANY app or any website, now consider that these people are doing nothing more but to add data as much as they can, at some point (within a dozen sources) they have enough data to port you, to capture your bank accounts and to make changes to your life. They merely needed some time, a $2500 computer and a decent internet connection, the pay off would be a 7 figure number and with the speed they are tracked they would be living large in another country with nothing attached to them. That is the current reality and the level of checks and balances that are missing is just too unbelievable for words.

Enjoy your bank account (for as long as you still have it)

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May 24, 2021 · 22:20

The limits of an intellect

We all have them, we all see we have them, but do we realise the limitations we have? I am confronted by this, confronted in me. We all want to see the BBC as the big evil one, yet they are not evil. The issue that Martin Bashir brought to the forefront in not the evil in the BBC, yet I wonder how strong the needs and the facilitation of the Shareholders and stakeholders are in the larger setting of the BBC. I know that data leads to information, which leads to knowledge, leading to insight and optionally to wisdom. Yet we seem to forget that the lines of wisdom are really thin at times and some lead to shape a dragon of the conspiracy theorists. Any person not on the setting there is lost. Consider a cloud, you are looking at the clouds in the sky, then you see one shaped as the island of Crete, one is shaped like a sheep and one is a face. Is it real? Is the likeness a coincidence, or is it shaped due to your imagination, and the connections it makes? If all clouds are randomly shaped (well within the limits of liquid particles), there is every chance that one cloud will look just like Crete, so what (optional missing) part did the brain fill in? 

That is the stage we face, or better it is the stage I face. I get it, Martin Bashir has made me more angry than anything else. I personally always believed that the BBC was above certain matters and now I see this is a kitten, in the dark just as grey as all the other kittens. And it matters here.

Consider the BBC middle East page, we see all kinds of information, on ‘Princess Latifa: Dubai photo appears to show missing woman’, a day old. So who cares? I do not mean this in any negative way, there is news that is 5 days old, news from the 16th of May, yet the news from Yemen, news like the Arab News gave us 16 hours ago ‘Saudi project clears 2,500 more mines in Yemen’ and Reuters, who reported 4 hours ago ‘Saudi-led coalition in Yemen foils Houthi attack south of Red Sea’ we are shown news that the BBC should have been on top of, but they were not, why not? Or perhaps what ABC News gave us 11 hours ago ‘US military presence has deterred Iranian aggression on Saudi Arabia’, where we see statements by US general McKenzie. Why is the BBC not all over that? Why do we see a setting of limitations, limited exposure to what is happening, as I personally see it, the Martin Bashir setting is one that has larger ramifications. And here we see the problem, and I see the problem optionally within me, do I see lines of knowledge leading to wisdom, or are they showing me the lines that will form a unicorn, an Afreet or a dragon? Some roads will feed the conspiracy theorist, some will feed the wise and the nance is at times not visible, too small to spot the difference, and what we see is not always a given, or as Freud would say, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but we are here now and we will be in this stage for some time, it will be this way because the BBC now correlates to the CIA, two organisation that decided to wash away their credibility and we are all a little more paranoid and largely distrusting because of it all.

That is the road  the BBC faces, so when we get “أنا سائح مرتبك أحاول فهم إشارة الطريق”, will we know what to do? And is this any better? “المهرجون إلى اليسار حيث توجد المناجم ، يمزحون إلى اليمين حيث توجد الثعابين”, it is limited to what we know, what we understand, the Vatican does understand “laqueis mortis sinistra dextrorsum anguis mortem”, so what will they chose? Perhaps they will wait for option three or four to open up and that is the problem, we do not know what drives the BBC at present, and we might never know, yet we need to act, we want to act but is any act by those who do not know what is the situation bare value, or bear recognition? (Sorry, I could not resist that pun), yet in intelligence analysts, business analysis and geologic, we do not always know and it is the fate of missing data, the recognition of data that I not there and more important, some decisions are arbitrary, not valid, not invalid, merely arbitrary, and in this we merely ignore the shareholders and stake holders. Is it right, is it wrong? I cannot tell, it depends on the data and there is none, recognising that is a first in the difference towards the lines making insight and the lines showing a unicorn, we need to accept and understand that, or we are lost.

We would like to blame the BBC for all kind of things, let’s make sure that the reason of blame is a valid one.

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June 13, 2019 · 11:28

The 11th hour of Chapter 11

It was around 01:00 this morning when a ‘recommended video’ made it to my stream. Now, I am known to have a sense of humour, a flaky one at best and to see the name Jon Stewart (yes the comedian) to be on that ‘recommended stream’ regarding a PBS News hour was something new to me, but I was a little curious and I took a look.

What I was confronted with did not merely blow my socks off; it gave the impression that America is currently in such a bad state that it makes me wonder why at present this issue does not grace the front page in EVERY NEWSPAPER on the planet.

I have seen my fill of political windbags, their past acts gave Chicago the name ‘the windy city’, it gave the impression that a cocaine dealer has seemingly a higher regard for ‘their word’ than most members of the US Congress. Still, there was no stopping Jon Stewart as he gave his view in congress.

The story (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT5FTrIZN-E) shows that Jon Stewart is not merely a person with a sense of humour, the man talks up a storm, not a windy one, but a perfect storm. You need to hear it to believe what America and American politics is doing to the first line of defence of the city of New York, what has been done to those running into the area where the World Trade Centre, to give aid and to save as many people as possible. In a room that was filled with first responders, a room that is filled with the pain and agony of what they had gone through and the members of US Congress (the bulk of them) are not there, not there to stand protecting the first responders of America, not there to protect the first responders of America and not there for those putting their lives on the line for the annual amount that is less than 0.1% of what an average Wall Street banker takes home on an average month.

The headline pretty much states it with: ‘Congress ‘should be ashamed’ over inaction on helping 9/11 first responders‘, but that would be a disservice, US Congress failed on a much larger scale than that. The members of congress did not even have the respect and courtesy to show up. And during all this is the voice of Jon Stewart advocating for these people intentionally forgotten. Stated is that one member got there as he is up for a 69th round of chemo. I cannot even fathom anyone living past 2 dozen treatments, let alone an additional 45 treatments past that point. I personally have never felt such pride in being a witness to a person like Jon Stewart, what some would call merely a comedian standing up and advocating for a group that should have been protected by 320 million Americans calling and shouting at their senators, their congress representatives, their governors and their alderman to fix this immediately. Is America this broke, this bankrupt that denial of an essential and required need for first responders to be given at any given time? As Jon states, they were there in 5 seconds, the first responders were actively aiding and assisting the fallen and the wounded in 5 seconds. And it gets to be worse!

FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority, EMS responded they all did and Congress is now holding the implied ‘were out to lunch’, ‘we are currently unavailable, have a nice day’ signs, in my view every American should stand shoulder to shoulder with Jon Stewart making their voices heard making sure that first responders get better service and better protection than any member of congress every could hope to get. We are after this exposed to details that I have (to the best of my knowledge not seen anywhere, not to the degree it should be exposed to). The never ending waves of denial from those who should have been a circle of protection is not merely baffling, it should be beyond shameful. Anyone on that track should be barred from public office. that is how it should be, but it is not. It merely shows that government is not in charge, Wall Street seemingly is and these people have become too expensive to the American way of life.

Consider this

Even in the wildest time when the US was merely known as part of the British Empire, these people had a better standing and better protection than they now have in American society. Can you imagine the shame where rescue services as a member of the British colonies, serving the British Empire and the King of England in 1760 would have been treated better than those of the United States of America in 2001-2019?

Can anyone imagine the shame of it all?

Then optionally making an attack on America a New York issue, I wonder how congress would have treated this if the jets had flown into Mount Rushmore, would that have been an unfortunate collision with a shaped hill? The fact that the ‘pile’ had such dire issues to the health of first responders is also a much larger concern. Evan as ABC news gave us (at https://abcnews.go.com/US/911-toll-growsl-16000-ground-responders-sick-found/story?id=57669657) “Twenty-three NYPD officers were killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. In the 17 years since, the department says another 156 have died of illnesses contracted from their time on what was then known as “the pile,” the mountain of toxic debris from the fallen towers.” the fact that there is every indication that the number of people dying of disease directly due to the toxic elements of the WTC debris is staggering, the fact that 23 NYPD members died on the day and 156 died of health related issues, directly related to the WTC toxicity events since is a much larger concern. How did all that toxicity be part of that building in the first place?

Last august to total tally was a mere 28 people difference, there is every indication that the total deaths since 9/11 will surpass the first responders casualties on the day it happened in early 2020 and they did not go direct, instantly and gently, they were hollowed to nothing by toxicity and left to their own devices. How can any nation stand by and let this happen?

And when Jon Stewart mentions the hundred, nay thousands of tweets by officials giving us ‘Never forget the heroes of 9/11‘ and we now see that they are shunned and ignored, we see the anger that every American should have, because who will you count on when this happens again? Do you think that under these conditions first responders have any actual responsibility when their government, their congress abandons them?

It is hard to not be hit by the directness of Jon Stewart, I is hard to ignore that what Jon Stewart brings, but for the most, the media was silent, but not anymore, only a few hours ago I learn that ‘House panel unanimously passes 9/11 victims fund bill after Jon Stewart bashing‘, this is great in some respect, but why was the international media silent for so many years, and why did it take so long for this bill to pass? I reckon that the success that Jon Stewart booked will be reason enough that the global media picks up on this story, but as I personally see it, that act is a decade late and for the world of me, I cannot fathom why the media stayed silent on the plight of first responders for to the degree it did for such a long time, can you?

The only remaining part is now, why was action absent for that long, is America truly broke? If so should catering towards large corporations not end, or better stated has facilitation to this degree and for this long not been one of the most shameful acts? Who is to blame for such levels of denial and facilitation? Just image the reality of what I say and what I just proved. In one month we got close to 70,000,000 articles filled with speculations (often absent of actual facts) on what happened to one reporter no one cares about (harsh but true), yet how much awareness and articles were created since 9/11 2001 on the plight and hardship of first responders? When we realise this, how big was the failure to American first responders from 9/11 2002 onwards?

 

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June 1, 2019 · 12:19

Minus eleven

This is not for the faint of heart, neither is this a story for those with a weak disposition towards directness. Early this morning 11 jobs became available, and several apartments are ready to find a new tenant. This all happened by the acts of a man, according to the news outlets it was the act of a disgruntled man.

I am not blaming guns or gun laws. Guns do not kill people, people kill people; it is that plain and simple. The question becomes why? I have been disgruntled, I have been angry. I decided not to kill anyone, I merely relaxed at home with a game of Minecraft, which can be very therapeutical, let me tell you that. We all have ways of dealing with it and one player (American Express) even has a 5 step program on how to deal with a disgruntled worker (at https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/trends-and-insights/articles/the-5-steps-to-managing-a-disgruntled-employee/).

I particularly like part 4, where we see: “The best policy is to document everything that is taking place. Whatever the disgruntled employee has done that needed to be corrected should be documented, as should how you addressed it. Documenting everything, from warnings and discussions to termination of employment, if you have to go that far, will help to protect you and your company.” and at the core of the article is the matter: ‘It was never your fault!‘, the biggest flaw on it all, the ostrich (or the possum) that is at the heart of the matter. The exact reason why a person became disgruntled in the first place is a lot more important to learn. We all know it is an essential part, but no one wants to address it, not even when dead people are part of the equation.

We can ignore September 2018 with: ‘Woman who killed 3 people at Rite Aid center was a disgruntled worker‘, we can go on February 2019 in Aurora Illinois, September 2012 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 1999 in Atlanta Georgia. This list will go on for a very long time, the issue is that there is a problem of actually dealing with a situation. Managers let issues fester, or more disastrously mislabelling it like: ‘How to Handle the Disgruntled Employee Out to Sabotage Your Business‘. These people started happy, so what made them unhappy? More importantly how did you as a boss screw up your staff members? It might not be you, it might be the bosses of your bosses, but there was a start and not knowing where it started is the first flaw. American Express goes further with: ‘Don’t empower them‘, you see, it is again not your fault! But it is, it is the fault of the manager and that evidence is seen in that they ‘did nothing or far too little to defuse the situation‘, no matter how it is applied, the rules of contract killing (aka ergonomically and silently permanently removing people from any workplace) apply in the same way here:

  1. Segregation

Get the person apart, start a dialogue. That dialogue can give loads of information, because if one person is disgruntled now, there is every chance that up to 5 people are optionally soon to be disgruntled people as well. So that first dialogue can give a truckload of information of what is happening. In addition you might learn that things are not that bad, but his/her partner walked out and the small frustrations have grown into the real mindboggling issues (for that person) and they are optionally not, they are optionally pathways to solutions

  1. Isolation

So in the good case you merely had to deal with small frustrations, like software that was never properly tested before you started to sell it, or departmental changes that now imply that people will miss out on commission that they desperately need to pay the mortgage, things you wave away with: ‘That is just how it is!‘ and you never realised that it had real crunching impact on others. There can be a whole range of options, and the dialogue gave way to defusing the issue. One straight relaxed conversation with a bottle of ware, tea or fruit juice (this is the one place where coffee tends to be no help at all).

  1. Assassination

Dealing terminally with issues is a call at times, a manager merely refers to it as ‘terminating employment‘, but the core is larger, it means optionally replacing that worker, or not. So at that point others get to do the work the ex-employee did. With additional pressure, the risk of additional new disgruntled employees is born, that is how it works and when you realise the pathway, you see how wrong the foundation of the American Express article is. Even as the article started with: ‘Disgruntled employees are something that us entrepreneurs have to deal with, more than we like‘, the failure is seen when we forget is that your workplace created the ‘disgruntled employee‘ in the first place. And it is important to go through the stage, even if it is to make sure that all the right things were done. Proving it was not you or your environment is as important as the setting of the stage of what happens after.

The matter comes to blows when we see the ABC quote: “The shooter, who was a long-term city employee, has also been killed“. The realisation that he was a long-term employee gives light to the change that has happened. Perhaps it was nothing from work, but we need to learn what changed. Guns do not kill people, people kill people and this person decided that going postal was in his case better than delivering mail. Whatever this person did before, learning the trigger is important and there are dozens of articles on how you get rid of the disgruntled worker, learning on how he/she became one is not regarded as important in many of these articles, which I consider to be the biggest flaw of all; especially, as they are about enabling you the entrepreneur on getting on with being one. The flaws seen in that part are often the size of the Grand Canyon.

USA Today (at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/31/police-shooter-opens-fire-virginia-beach-courthouse/1305277001/) is giving us: “The shooting broke out in Building No. 2 of the sprawling Virginia Beach Municipal Center, which includes several city facilities, including the police department. Building 2 houses offices for planning and public works and is adjacent to city hall.“, it is fair that most do not have too much info at present yet the largest issue is going to be the monumental one soon enough. What was the trigger of the event, and it might be that nothing could have prevented it, there was no real blame, yet learning the case is important, the fact that no one is looking at that part is already a flaw. I can understand that the people do not want to hear about ‘comprehension‘ and that is fine, yet it needs to be on the top of every agenda in that place even if it is merely to learn whether this is just one person or if pressures had been brewing in that area for a longer time, giving the risk that this is not a one off occurrence.

Not doing so is like being in bomb disposal and refusing to look at the countdown before you start. A person who goes by the setting of ‘whilst the alarm clock is not going off, there is no boom‘, even when we realise that a 2 second check would give the part that the clock is at 11:56 and the alarm will sound in 193 seconds. The difference between ‘no boom’ and ‘193 seconds’ gives light to what could be done instead of all that has not been done yet when boom time came knocking, and believe me (or not) it makes for all the difference.

It is entrepreneur that also gives light to other ways. When we look at ‘7 Steps to Defuse Workplace Tension‘ (at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/207680) we see: “Conflict is all around us, and it occurs in every office to varying degrees and with almost every employee” we get some of the goods. The problem is twofold, what one lives with will turn the other player into a pressure cooker, with all the dangers when the pressure valve is not working. I will not go too deep into this, because you should read it. This 7 step part is actually very enlightening. It is a 7 step path EVERY manager that will be confronted with disgruntled employees will get to deal with. And the fact that there is a path that diffuses the issue and optionally makes a disgruntled person happy (or way less disgruntled) also means that you achieve retention and optionally renewed loyalty that becomes the golden ticket. A disgruntled employee that got over it in a good way is more than loyal, that person will have your back when the shit really hits the fan and 2-3 of those in your company can save a company when the markets collapse around you. They optionally become your powerbrokers and brand ambassadors. In light of 11 deaths I am not making light of the situation. In this case it was too late, the question becomes: ‘Could this have been prevented?‘ and I say ‘No!’ Gun laws would not have prevented this (because the bulk will blame gun laws), because an axe can achieve up close and personal just as lethally as any gun would.

If there is one part of the article I am not entirely in agreement with than it is the part that Dr. David G. Javitch discusses at ‘5. Encourage Compromise‘, with “each person must be willing to give in a little” we need to first establish the stage. For example, if the trigger was a guy who was a former Football players and all girls in the office want to date him (with additional nightly beneficial needs), and the man blew up because his wife cheated on him (with someone else mind you). The compromise of: ‘What if your wife cheated a little less‘ is not a setting that will work. I am of course taking a ridiculous example, but the foundation of internal and external pressures (internal being the workplace) is still valid in many cases. Like the loss of commission impacting mortgage is the nightmare that many US workers have faced in their life and millions face that pressure even today, so finding out that part is crucial. The internal issues can be dealt with, but when external impact is seen (like healthcare, personal care, financial care and mental care). I would find it important towards resolving the issues that all internal pressures are to be removed (if at all possible). Perhaps (especially if this was a long term employee) an immediate 2 week paid leave so that the person can focus on the pressure could have resolved everything.

All elements that are part of resolving the pain a person faces whilst being disgruntled. And in that case it was not the office, but in that case the pressure was the straw that broke the camel’s back and as a good manager you want your whole caravan to make the journey to the end, so as a manager you optionally get to compromise close towards 100%, yet when it creates loyalty you win in the end and you could win a lot when the chips are down in reverse, it is a path that many ignore for no reason at all.

However, today Virginia Beach is at minus 11, the Mayor (Bobby Dyer), the Governor (Ralph Northam), the Police Chief (James Cervera), they are all there in their emotional states (which is fine). It will take a few days for the events to settle and at that point we will see what was really what. I just hope that the blaming of guns stop, because that too is a possum move to ignore the truth of the matter, people kill people; what triggered this person kill 11 others is a question no one can answer for now.

 

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