Tag Archives: Al Jazeera

October 3, 2020 · 04:14

To decide in anger

We know it, we do it, even though our inner voice screams not to do that, we still at times do it. I had such a moment hours ago on a few settings, in the first there is WordPress pushing their Gothenburg editor fiasco on their users. I would think that 2/3 of the ratings being a 1 star for the new editor would be a clear message to not enforce an editor the is not ready, but there is no fighting stupidity that is linked to the ego of others, so as such we see a group of people now looking to Wix as an option, I wonder how long it takes for WordPress to catch on.

The second issue was quite the opposite, I just learned that La Famiglia Trump has the Coronavirus, I got pinged by over a dozen papers, so there is for some the small satisfaction that the coronavirus could kill him before the election does, some will be thankful, I merely see it as an option where people can consider taking the day off, stay at home and not vote, time will tell. Yet the final two were the larger anger settings. Here it is important to set a few things straight. I am a christian (Catholic), I tend to be neutral on religious matters (for the most), but the utter stupidity that we see (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/2/macron-announces-new-plan-to-regulate-islam-in-france), where we are given ‘Macron says Islam ‘in crisis’’, so how stupid does a person need to be, especially when he is a non-Muslim to make a statement like that? There is the additional “‘Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today’, says Macron, as he unveils plan to defend secularism”, which only makes things worse. As I see it secularism is a form of ego driven faith in nothing but self and your own greed (or hunger for power). In a world where well over 80% believes in something more (even the agnostic adhere to that), we get an atheist thing towards us the there is nothing more, well, he is allowed to believe this, yet in a nation that is Catholic driven, why does he not state that towards the Vatican? Afraid the there is little boy movie that he might be interrupting? #JustAsking

In addition as we are given a little repetitive quote by Al Jazeera “President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a plan to defend France’s secular values against what he termed as “Islamist radicalism”, saying the religion was “in crisis” all over the world”, we need to take notice that apart from Christianity, he also does not push the setting towards India (Hindu), which is another billion people. As such we could flag the statement as discriminatory. So why is he isolating the Muslim voice here? When we look at the issues in play in India, there is a lot we could say, President Marcron isn’t doing that, so what is his game? It is a fair question, he seems to be aware of the world issues in some way, so the question is relevant.

The last piece is from Al Jazeera as well (Qatar is in rare form today), here it is another attack on Saudi Arabia, the story (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/10/2/mbs-why-the-world-may-be-stuck-with-the-ceo-of-saudi-inc), gives us ‘MBS: Why the world may be stuck with the ‘CEO of Saudi Inc’’, well as I see it stuck is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps we forget that MBS stands for Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. This means that when his father Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the current King of Saudi Arabia relinquishes the crown, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud becomes King of Saudi Arabia. When? We do not know, yet as his father is 84 years, so there is a decent expectation that this will happen within the next 20 years. In addition, the nation of Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, so this setting was never a surprise, as such the entire ‘stuck with’ falls under the stage of what I call BS. In addition there is “Two years after the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit squad” we seem to ignore that never any reliable evidence was delivered. We could go on with the setting the Jamal Khashoggi is merely missing. OK, I do not believe that either, but if the media ignores vital facts, I can do the same thing, fair? And I will give Al Jazeera that they do give light to the with ‘Two years on, Khashoggi murder unresolved, body still missing’, yes, the murder remains unresolved. As such I could accept that Khashoggi is most likely killed, yet murder sets a level of intent that cannot be proven, and without a body a manslaughter conviction is a fairy tale in any Common Law court.  Anyone accused would most likely walk away, no verdict given. In the end the article is exactly what I expected, a mere written form of advertisement towards the newly released book ‘Blood and Oil’, it also gives us (on the cover), the sub-line ‘Mohammed Bin Salman’s Ruthless Quest for Global Power’, here I take a little bit of a distance. In the first I haven’t read the book, so the stage of ‘Quest for Global Power’ is optionally a stretch, in this American presidents are more easily accused of that. Yet, let’s not forget that the King and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia have (optionally) a sworn duty to do what is best for Saudi Arabia, I wonder if the book touches on that. And in Muslims terms there is another side to the Al Said family. They are (the king is) Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, one could argue that the responsibility of the King (and optionally) the Crown Prince is larger than life. Consider that ALL Muslims accept that these two places are the heart of their faith, in this 24% of the entire population of the planet, 1.85 billion are Muslim and their faith is centred on Masjid al-Haram (the Great Mosque of Mecca) and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (the Prophets Mosque of Medina), 

That is some responsibility, it is one that the royal family accepted and it has been the centre of their actions. I wonder how much consideration was given to these parts of the larger equation by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck. If we look distant and fair to actions in play, we can argue the most nations are looking for Global Power. The UK, the US, Russia, China, all players seeking global power, it has been like that for decades. Yet now there is a new stage, as Saudi Arabia embraced 5G, they are no in a stage to get ahead in the game, r better stated, they could end up with a decent slice of the 5G environment, mostly because others were stupid and made accusations that had no evidence creating a vacuum, and Saudi Arabia, especially in the Neom sage has embraced whatever they could get and that is now optionally a much larger slice of a cake they never vied for. Yet the article gave me one part that was actually insightful. It was given to us by Patricia Sabga. She states: “The Saudi royal family is something of a black box. It’s largely impenetrable to outsiders, including people who have spent decades visiting and studying in Saudi Arabia. How do you go about carving a window into that black box?” There are two sides, in the first the this is optionally true, but how many royal families will allow carving a window in their private lives? And second to that, why would the Al Said family allow it, no matter whether other royal families have done so? Privacy is an expensive commodity and it seems to me that privacy should not be given away, but that is merely my take on that.

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October 1, 2020 · 04:30

Gaming on a serious level

Yup, one sees a game, the other sees an application and the third sees a solution, that is how it is, how it, for the most has always been. I got introduced to Palantir in 1998 or 1999, I got access and took a look at it. At the time I was working for other parties and I noticed that Palantir government had a setup the was nice, it was not what we now call IBM Miner, but it had potential. So when I got introduced to the news giving me ‘Secret and unprofitable Palantir goes public’ I took notice. You see, I started to wonder what was happening, the quote “Seventeen years after it was born with the help of the CIA seed money, data-mining outfit Palantir Technologies is finally going public in the biggest Wall Street tech offering since last year’s debut of Slack and Uber”, it gets to be a little worse when we consider “Never profitable and dogged by ethical objections for assisting in the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown, Palantir has forged ahead with a direct listing of its stock, which is set to begin trading on Wednesday”. You see the setting is not great for Palantir and as I see it, over 17 years they made their own bed, this is seen with “The company has just 125 customers in 150 countries”. Now, I can claim that I am not the brightest person (even though I passed the Mensa requirements), but the stage of 125 customers in 150 countries is not manageable. Even as they ‘hide’ behind “Our software is used to target terrorists and to keep soldiers safe”, you see, the software has a foundation and a base. Even as one foundation part is to hunt terrorists, the base is to analyse data. I can hunt terrorists with IBM Statistics, IBM Miner and Mapping software, it might not be fast, but it will get me there (well, mostly anyway), so in the setting we see with Palantir, we see a larger failing, especially over 17 years. They had well over a decade to extent the bae and create an additional foundation, optionally getting another 125 customers, yet that was not what they did, is it? So when we see “Palantir paints a dark picture of faltering government agencies and institutions in danger of collapse and ripe for rescue by a “central operating system” forged under Thiel’s auspices”, I merely see an excuse. You see Palantir has no need or reason to rely on a station with ‘faltering government agencies’, by extending the base and creating another foundation they would not need to rely on the side and add an optional third foundation called reporting. The need for washboarding and sliceable presentations have been a larger requirement for close to a decade, these options are required in the intelligence world as well, leaving it up to others means the the slippery slope of business intelligence becomes smaller and less pronounced, a place that relies on long term vision has been lacking that a lot, has it not?

Even as Scott Galloway from New York University gives us “They’re massively unprofitable and they’ve never been able to figure it out”, the obvious question becomes, were they unfocussed, uncaring or just lazy? The vendor the relies on government jobs can’t rely on them for more than 2 years, if the program is not showing forward movement, there is no long term justification and when we see “Palantir has accumulated $3.8bn in losses, raised about $3bn and listed $200m in outstanding debt as of July 31”, we see the faltering position that Palantir is in. It cannot rely on the customer base it has, because well over a third has extended its credit card too much, as such they need to adapt to a form of Business Intelligence gathering, data mining, slicing and washboarding and set a new stage in long term reporting. As I see it, Banks and financial institutions will have extended Business intelligence needs and additional needs as well. If you think that financial fraud is big now, wait until banks automate under 5G, it will be a tidal wave 5-10 times the one the banks face now and they will need to have additional ways to find the transgressors, relying on the police will be a monumental waste of time, which is not the flaw of the police, it is the consequence of the times and their needs. I state financial institutions, because it is not merely the banks, it is the credit crunch seekers that will need to find the people with outlandish debts and as the laws will adjust because the banks will no longer accept that the wife gets the house so that they can live in luxury of what they could not afford, the game ends soon enough, the credit drive will force change and there would be a market for Palantir if they adjust. They need to adjust faster the they are ready for, but the current agenda does not allow sleeping at the helm. As I personally see it (on small and debatable data), Peter Thiel took too long and even as we are being told “winning a modest contract early in the COVID-19 pandemic for helping the White House gather data on the coronavirus’s impact”, I wonder how the data collection part was achieved, in light of all the places where no data gathering correctly existed, the stage of the gathered data becomes debatable. 

The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/30/palantir-goes-public-in-biggest-wall-street-tech-offering-of-2020) as a lot more debatable parts, in all they are tracks that could have been highlighted by adding a few commercial data gatherers to the fold from day one. There is the other need for a setting of adjustment and weighing of origin data, all whilst all the data is scrutinised. I reckon that this would set a stage where the findings of Sarah Brayne would be considered in house and not after certain stages went live (or perhaps they were merely ignored). She found “the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of Gotham, found the software could lead to a proliferation of unregulated personal data collected by police from commercial and law enforcement database”, I will add to this, the setting that the software was designed to people employing trade craft, they would be outliers on the entire board, a setting that rates questions on people who seek cheap solutions because of budget, seek evasion because of divorce and outstanding bills, the acts are similar but not terrorist in nature.

OK, I admit, I do not know the exact setting in LA (other that Lucifer is their consultant), but the setting of outlier data came to mind in the first 10 seconds, and the finding of Sarah Brayne and ‘proliferation of unregulated personal data’ supports that, apart from the fact that unregulated data tends to be debatable and optionally in part or completely incorrect, data mining gives us the option to clean if the sources are known, unregulated personal data takes the out of the equation because the origin of the data (the person adding and manipulating data) is unknown and as such the data becomes unreliable. 

That is a lesson that banks would have told them quickly, if not them, then players like Equifax, because Palantir will end up in their fairway, the odds would not be even for Palantir. Yet Palantir needs to grow if they are to exist in a stage after tomorrow, to the there is no doubt, the US, UK and most EU nations cannot continue on the intelligence data foundations that they currently are. So as we see that, how many customers could Palantir lose? Growth is as I see it the only path that remains, banks are the most visible needling of more intelligence gathering, but they are not alone and Palantir needs to gird their loins.

 

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September 29, 2020 · 20:42

Using the limelight

It all started a few days ago and for the most I kept you all informed. The latest news was in my possession for well over an hour. I waited because I wanted to see how the others were reacting. And I was not disappointed, they did exactly what I expected, basically, they did nothing.

It all started with ‘Saudi Arabia says it took down ‘terrorist cell’ trained by Iran’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/29/saudi-arabia-says-it-took-down-terrorist-cell-trained-by-iran), so should we say it is real or not? It is a fair question to have, yet the quote “Saudi Arabia says it has taken down a “terrorist cell” that had received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, arresting 10 people and seizing weapons and explosives”, leaves me with the setting that this is factual. We are also given “Among the items seized were improvised explosive devices (IEDs), dozens of stun guns, kilos of gunpowder and a variety of rifles and pistols, according to the statement. It did not say where last week’s raid or arrests were carried out”, yet the western media has nothing. Not the BBC, not Reuters, not European news offices, and not FoxNews. It seems to me that Iran is given an option to get away with any action that is not set in America or Europe. And this is where we get the larger issue, the news is filtering what they think we need to know, as such we see a totally destabilised view of what is going on. 

This news matters because it gives strength to something else I stated, which was speculative at the time. I speculated that someone was painting the Aramco targets so that the drones would be more effective. These 10 men could have done just that. The arrest off the 10 men does not make my setting any less speculative. It does however open a larger stage, the news was avoiding a lot of what happened, eager to use ‘speculative’ and ‘alleged’, which is not unacceptable, yet it sets the stage that the western media is optionally complicit is setting a stage that is not part of what happened (like the Khashoggi disappearance). We see even the UN side with Turkey (where the most incarcerated journalists in history are), blatant statements even as there is no evidence is supporting any of it. 

So in this we have a much larger guilt, we are part of the problem, the media is filtering what is happening and no excuse makes up for that. It goes beyond the media, there is some indication that Google and the social media are part of this. Google calls them omitted results, social media merely hides the events on the timeline altering most results and chronological results, the last part is speculative, but the seems to be happening.

Why does this matter?

The UK, US and EU have been throwing the ‘terrorist’ word at us for the longest time, and we merely had to swallow it, now that there are additional indications that Iran is part of the problem we are left in the dark. The Saudi government gives us ““The competent authorities will conduct investigations with all those arrested to find out more information about their activities and the persons connected to them in the kingdom and abroad,” the statement read”, yet I wonder if the is enough, I wonder how much shielding Iran is receiving, Yemen and the Houthi actions made it clear that this was happening, now we are set in a stage where shielding is a lot larger making the media less reliable, I wonder who they are working for, because as I personally see it, it is not the advertisers. This all does not make the 10 men guilty, but it sets a stage of questions that most do not want to entertain, what is Iran actually up to?

 

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September 26, 2020 · 21:34

About that news

Yup, we always have news, news we agree with and news we disagree with, this is not new, this is a mainstream setting. Yet this is not about news that is fake or false. Even if news is completely true, we might disagree because we do not like the subject, or because we differ on the facts that we know and accept. News becomes subjective and optionally not wrong, incorrect or false. It is a setting we all to some degree battle with. Pretty much all sport fans are in the setting when they read the news on Monday morning. So I had to consider a few things when I saw ‘Canada charges man for lying about joining ISIL’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/26/canada-mounties-charge-man-with-falsely-claiming-extremism). Now I have no real setting towards it, I do not understand why you would only join ISIL in the mind, but there you have it. On one side we can argue the only the truly unbalanced minds will join a terrorist organisation, implying that any person making it as a false claim is an optional mental health patient. One source, Isabella Frances Teti in 2016 via the presidential leadership academy at Penn State, gives us “ISIL’s ideology represents radical Salafi Islam, a strict, puritanical form of Sunni Islam” 

I do not judge, because I am not islamic, yet I feel that any person who truly believes in Sunni Islam would join the armies of either Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Syria and from there protect Sunni Islam, I left Turkey out of the equation in light of the fact that they seem to side with Iran (a Shia nation) all the time. In addition, the I personally do not understand the stage of ‘radical Salafi Islam’, as such I feel a little lost, but I do know that going the path of terrorism is not a solution, so there is my view on the stage, yet was a news article and there are other considerations, the more important one comes next

In light of the data

Consider the we see “Police said the criminal charge against Chaudhry stems from ‘numerous’ media interviews in which he described travelling to Syria in 2016 to join ISIL”, so not only did it a little while for the police and intelligence players a while to catch on, this farce had been going on since 2016, so for 4 years we see that the players were not in the know, their intelligence is that flawed the they could not see through the lies? When we see “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement on Friday the criminal charge against Shehroze Chaudhry stems from “numerous” media interviews in which he described travelling to Syria in 2016 to join the armed group and committing acts of “terrorism”” OK, I agree the there is another way to read this and it had not taken 4 years, yet the setting of ‘“numerous” media interviews’ makes me wonder how many interviews there were and how the information was vetted. From my point of view there is the stage on where Shehroze Chaundry joined, if it included travel from Canada, how was this investigated? So how should we read “charged with a criminal code offence of perpetrating a hoax related to terrorist activity”, as such can I be charged by virtually knocking up a desirable woman? (sorry Natascha McElhone) 

Now, I am not making light of the situation (my desire for Natasha McElhone is real), yet when we see how much is spend on terrorist intelligence and data gathering from 2001 onward, how come it took so long to get a complete picture? 

I understand why there is a charge, especially when I see “the RCMP takes these allegations very seriously, particularly when individuals, by their actions, cause the police to enter into investigations in which human and financial resources are invested and diverted from other ongoing priorities,″ said deGale, commander of an RCMP security enforcement team”, that makes sense, but the stage I see is the timeline between the claim and the discovery. As the article ‘hides’ behind ‘numerous’ as the stage of amount of interviews, which is merely a part in al this. A larger part is the fact that the boy is 25, if this started in 2016, it implies he was 21 at the point, so what travel papers, what modes of transportation and what settings of smuggle were used? How can any person be so in the know that 2-3 interviews would not have brought serious doubt into the mix? And even as I agree with the setting of “The RCMP said it collaborated with several other agencies during its investigation”, which is a proper setting for any investigation, I wonder at what point did Commander deGale become aware that this was not a blood soaking terrorist, but someone with a vivid imagination (which got me to Natasha McElhone), I admit there is nothing wrong with my imagination, other that in some spectral views (the intimate kind), it is massively disconnected from reality, and who does not have that at times?

I myself, would have started by looking into Shehroze Chaudhry’s religious past, talk to his imam on the views that Shehroze Chaudhry might have and if the imam could explain the stage of Chaundry moving towards a strict, puritanical form of Sunni Islam. Let’s be honest, this might hold water in the US, but Canada? The is the place where boys are born wearing hockey skates and where we hear “Darn, I forgot to close the kitchen door, everyone, there is a bear in the kitchen, lets get a pizza, dinner and the bear will be gone in 5 minutes”, I am not stating that strict Sunni Islam is out of the question, but there seemingly would not be any reason to join ISIL (as I personally see it). There was Islamic places of worship all over Canada, it does not mean that there is a strict Sunny Islam all over the place, but as I see it there are a few options before someone go’s towards ISIL, I got all this in 30 minutes, it is not that some results and data would not be shared, yet the timeline seems off (by a lot). 

Still, the stage of perpetrating a hoax towards being a terrorist could only happen in Canada, in the US that person would most likely be in a Black site until December 2037. I reckon Canada saved itself a few bills.

 

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September 19, 2020 · 23:31

Blaming the wrong party

Yup, we’ve all done that. The blame game is notorious in two aspects. The first is the party blamed, the second is the reason for blaming. So it is not just on how blame is designed, it is the intended and actual party of blaming the comes to mind. We tend to get both wrong when it is an emotional setting. There is one elements that we tend to forget, detachment is the drive that tends to set the matters of the mind straight. So I went through all the stages of the blame game when I saw ‘World’s richest urged to do more to keep millions from starving’ in Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/world-richest-millions-starving-wfp-200918090724645.html). In this:

  1. Why is that up to the world’s richest?
  2. When millions are starving, why are individuals called upon, why are governments flaccid?
  3. Who created this situation in the first place?

These three elements are important. Because the article gives us “He cited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where violence has increased and instability has already forced 15.5 million people near starvation. He also said a lack of funding has forced cutbacks in assistance to feed people in war-ravaged Yemen”, with the additional quote ““Worldwide, there are over 2,000 billionaires with a net worth of $8 trillion,” the former South Carolina governor said, noting reports that some of the wealthiest Americans have made “billions upon billions” during the pandemic”

So here is where the blame game comes into effect. As I personally see it, David Beasley has his heart in the right place, but not his brain. In the first, governments have been playing credit card jockey for well over a decade, this is the result. In the second, places like Yemen are in a stage of committed non-action by both NATO and commonwealth forces. They simply didn’t care and for close to 5 years nothing happened and this is the result. In the third, it was essential for tax laws to be overhauled for well over a decade in the US, Japan and EU nations, none of that happened. I offered an optional solution in 1998, yet is was thrown out, remarks like ‘too complex’ and ‘hindrance of free trading’, well these things come at a price. In the setting of “some of the wealthiest Americans have made “billions upon billions” during the pandemic” we see a cheap shot at Jeff Bezos and a few others. Now, I have no real interest in Jeff, but he (his company) made that revenue fair and square. If the blame game parties had acted over the last 10 years, the situation might not be as dire as it is now. We seem to forget that part.

In case of Jeff, there might be plenty to blame him for, but this is not one of these things, this is not the station to make a reference to Jeff Bezos and his Amazon, but to the governments and their greed driven short sightedness.

This is the price of capitalism, this is the consequence of free trading. Everything has a price and now that you are seeing the consequences, you do not get to be the blamer, you all went along with the setting for far too long and most governments set the station of revenue and the lack of options for well over the next decade is the consequence of choices made between 1998 and 2020. And in all this, it might blow over, you see, the media gives us again and again “a potential “hunger pandemic”” the media has been giving us ‘potential’ in Yemen, so when will it actually happen? 

Fair question is it not?

We need to set the record straight, we need to demand that our governments ACT, that they adjust tax laws the way they should have been from the start, but every time dome politicians will oppose, as such set these opposes in the limelight, let them explain it. Let’s not blame the people who merely used the system handed to them.  The system that we all voted into the place it is and we need to ac sept that we are all to blame by letting the elected people continue the way they did.

That is all before we get to Mark Lowcock some UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, who gives us “who have a particular responsibility, which they have discharged in recent years – have so far given nothing”, on one side he is not completely wrong, yet n the other side, the acts and hindrances by Houthi forces as well as the support given to the Houthi forces by Iran are left out of the equation, are they not? So while we are given “Continuing to hold back money from the humanitarian response now will be a death sentence for many families”, all whilst he remains silent on the acts of the Houthi forces intervening is just a big no-no. The blame game is taking a serous turn towards the people who might be partially blamed, whilst the parties who need to be fully blamed are left out of the equation. So is this how we are given the truth? Partial truths baked in larger non-truths and all whilst we see the pictures of those in need, but not the pictures of those who were actually responsible for the mess we are given nowadays. It is so nice to blame a person like Jeff Bezos, all whilst his company was able to provide to a little over 800 million in lockdown for months. Yup, it got him a few thousand million extra, but is that his fault? He merely supplied towards an outstanding demand, that is how capitalism works and he got to keep a lot of it because the laws of taxation allowed him to do that. 

There is of course the station where some very rich people are not as innocent, but are they guilty? Guilty of what? They became rich as they had the clever accountants who used the laws of taxation to the maximum, is that the fault of the wealthy, the accountant, or is this mess the fault of governments not overhauling the laws of taxation? An overhaul that had creamy be needed in 2 decades. And the lack of humanitarian acts, is that because that there is no-one to hand out humanitarian aid, or is that because the governments who did that are so deep in debt that they no longer have the ability to do that, which gets us to the laws of taxation again.

Well over a dozen governments have painted themselves into corners and we end up blaming the paint for not being dry, how does that make any kind of sense? We can blame all we like, but in the end we merely did this ourselves by elating the people who set the stage by doing almost nothing, that is the stage we need to look at and in this we need to realise that this is not a nanny state verdict, this is the stage of non-accountability and that is the part we forgot about. 

 

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September 16, 2020 · 19:21

The anger of driven injustice

We all have that, at times it is injustice that drives us, it is one thing to set a marker in one direction, yet the anger hits us what those same greed driven fucks (read: journalists) get stupid people (read: Ambassadors and politicians) to be the joy toy of the public, which journalism an then flame and exploit. Now, we all accept that there are good journalists and bad journalists, so we have two locations to hang them. Do you think this is funny? Read on and I’ll give you a gasser.

Many journalists do not stack up to too much, in my personal view they are currently on the same level as drug pushers. It is not all their fault; to some extent their producers and editors set the tone on how they are perceived. For me the realisation came in 2012, the media was so up in arms to get Sony advertisement, that they ignored issues that would optionally hit well over 30 million gamers and they ignored the facts and the settings given to them, some went out to trivialise this as ‘there was a board meeting, there is a memo and it is not as bad as it seems’, but the setting was given, they chose a memo that could be made null and void at any board meeting  against the terms of agreement, a legally binding document between the consumer and Sony. In the end nothing happened because the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) did not go through and that was the moment gamers would be (almost) squeezed to death. It was perhaps the first clear sign that media hands over control to Share holders, stake holders and advertisers. They will not call it that way, they would set to ‘specific filtering of what our viewers want’ and it is an arbitrary filter that seemingly aligns near perfectly to their share holders, stake holders and advertisers needs, this is how I personally see it.

So when I see ‘Saudi Arabia rebuked at UN over Jamal Khashoggi killing, abuses’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/saudi-arabia-rebuked-jamal-khashoggi-killing-abuses-200915161217960.html) with the optional heated thought “who the fuck does Ambassador Carsten Staur think he is?”, I have made mention on several blogs on the fact that there is no evidence. This does not make Saudi Arabia innocent, yet it also shows no evidence of guilt. And to add to this, this happened in the nation with the most incarcerated journalists in the world. So when we see this event, I tend to get a little angry. For your consideration, where was Staur in the matter of Lydia Cacho (1.2 million results), Erick Kabendera (126,000 results) and Roberto Jesús Quiñones (4.43 million results). Yet when we look for Jamal Khashoggi we get well over 7 million search results and this was a lot higher. In November 2018 I gave the readers “Jamal Khashoggi got 60 million hits in Google Search this morning”, this was at ‘Two Issues in play’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/11/20/two-issues-in-play/) so all these search results that suddenly went somewhere else, the exploitation of some journalist that most will not give a fuck about (apologies for rudeness). I will do you one better, for the most the world had no idea who Jamal Khashoggi was 2 years ago. This is not about his visibility, it is about those pushing for visibility and someone is buttering someones bread rather thickly. 

So when I am given “The Saudi journalist was lured into the Saudi consulate to handle marriage paperwork. Within minutes, the one-time royal insider turned critic was strangled and his body dismembered, according to Turkish and US officials” I demand that these idiots show acceptable evidence or are forced in to abdicating their positions. Where is the evidence he was strangled, where is the evidence he was dismembered (optionally to fit into a dog food tin). And the journalists forget, ever since the Leveson enquiry, you do not have any level of trust, you cannot and will not police yourself and as such, you are tainted by tabloid tactics, most journalists are part of a digital age trying to flame people into becoming click bitches on articles, in that they are adhering to soft calls into the ears of producers (as I personally see it) and set the articles to a larger stage of non-trust.

As such the stage of “In the third joint statement to the council targeting Riyadh since the killing, the mainly European countries renewed a call for “transparency and holding all those responsible accountable”” I get to be angry. Do I think the Saudi Arabia is innocent? I doubt that thy are on several given issues, yet the stage of condemning on non evidence all whilst we are supposed to be nations of law is just a little too fucked up for me to accept. And in all this the actual guilty party (as I personally see it) is the pool of journalists who are for the most the bitches of share holders, stake holders and advertisers, they made their own bed, so now they get to enjoy the shit they shuffle in. 

And consider that the stage is now that a journalist is not ever believed, only by those requiring flamed articles to be alive, so as such the profession of journalist is no longer something to write home about, neither is that of Ambassador (if Carsten Staur is to be believed), so when the people rely on any kind of news, are we even surprised that they rely on Facebook? 

This is the stage manipulators of news created, now that there is no way back, we see a settling stage of those merely agreeing to the needs of corporations. How did we sign on for that?

So if you feel angry, make yourself a list of the elements and the why and then start looking on who is keeping you actually informed on the matters that anger you. I am not asking you to agree with me, I am merely telling you to investigate the evidence that some claim to have and investigate the claim, when you see language that is evasive in nature and we see the supporting statement ‘It is a complex issue’ you know that you are being misdirected.

 

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September 10, 2020 · 23:22

Squid rings of theatrics

I was about to enter the relaxing side of Thursday pushing towards Friday. It was to be an uneventful setting towards the weekend, yet there Al Jazeera comes with the setting of “UN special rapporteur tells Al Jazeera the Saudi trial over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi made a ‘mockery of justice’”, in my personal setting, the UN Essay writer has an issue, so lets recap the issue.

A lot of it was given in ‘Demanding Dismissal’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), I even added the report there. Yet one thing I left alone (until now), in the article I referred to “The Saudi officials we are sanctioning were involved in the abhorrent killing of Jamal Khashoggi. These individuals who targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States must face consequences for their actions”, as such I ask ‘What abhorrent killing?’ Let me explain this. Abhorrent is repulsive, disgusting or horrifying. So is there a grade in killing? It also implies that someone witnessed it, if not how can it be abhorrent? So let’s get back to the report.

[92] Turkish Intelligence assessed that he may have been dead within ten minutes after entering the Consulate. Here we are treated to ‘he may have been dead’, ‘may’ refers to speculation, not fact, the footnote gives us “The ten minutes reference is based on the fact that after ten minutes, Mr. Khashoggi voice was not heard”, this implies that Turkish Intelligence has 100% of the embassy bugged and wired, that is extremely doubtful on several levels. 

[97] Around 15:00, CCTV cameras captured a consular van and another vehicle leaving the Consulate’s garage and arrive at the Consular General’s Residence at 15:02. The cameras recorded three men enter the Residence with what seem like plastic trash bags, and at least one rolling suitcase. Turkish Investigators have not been able to identify the size, the shape or the type of bags that the three Saudis carried into the Residence or where they may have purchased them. OK, we accept the footnote on contradictory parts, yet there is no evidence that Khashoggi, or him in parts was anywhere there, there is no evidence. 

The report mentions ‘interrogation’ 4 times, yet these so called tapes on the torture/interrogation of Jamal Khashoggi. Who heard them? How were they forensically tested and who tested and seconded any report of these findings and optional facts? 

I even added “It is these two events alone that requires the United Nations to consider your dismissal, it gets to be even worse when you called “Donald Trump’s administration has to share its findings into the murder with the international community“, please explain to me how the United States has any actual evidence regarding the events in a foreign nation on a consulate that is another nations grounds? How was this evidence collected? Creating a mountain of non-substantial evidence is not really evidence, even as circumstantial evidence that is founded on probability will not hold water, even if the statement “officials have said they have high confidence“, they lost the credibility they had with a silver briefcase holding evidence on WMD in Iraq, you do remember that part, don’t you? (It was roughly 16 years ago)”, the larger issues I have here are ‘has to share its findings into the murder’, so ‘findings’ and still unproven ‘murder’ is a setting that we need to accept and realise, there is negligent homicide, homicide, manslaughter, murder and capital murder. They have different settings towards intent that must be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, there are the actions of the reasonable person and they all require a body to show the evidence, the body was never recovered. Now, I am not stating that Jamal Khashoggi is alive, it is more likely than not that he is no longer alive, but I cannot prove it, as far as I can tell no one can. 

I ended the article with “The consulate is Saudi territory, Turkish territory (the grounds around the Consulate) was implied to be monitored and there too a lot of errors were made, judgment calls that were basically colossal blunders. The realisation of any journalist getting so much attention with the dozens and dozens of incarcerated journalist in Turkish prisons calls for another venue and all these so called venues give rise that there are plenty of others with an optional issue with Jamal Khashoggi and you calling out HRH Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud should be regarded as stupid, the lack of evidence and the amount of circumstantial evidence alone calls you out.”

I still believe in the law and a person is innocent until proven guilty. Now, I understand that there is a lack of evidence, it makes a person not guilty. In this I accept that ‘not guilty’ and ‘innocent’ are different dimensions, yet the lack of evidence still counts, there is nothing to go on and the puppet theatre that Turkey engaged with is part to blame, the fact that they have the most incarcerated journalists on the planet counts, the report never makes mention of it. The report gives us “In killing a journalist, the State of Saudi Arabia also committed an act inconsistent with a core tenet of the United Nations”, yet the lack of evidence shows that it cannot be proven that any act was done by the State of Saudi Arabia, even if evidence shows that Jamal Khashoggi that he was killed with intent, there would still need to be evidence that the State of Saudi Arabia did this or ordered this, and that is where the problem lies. Even as the report states on page 4 “From the perspective of international human rights law, State responsibility is not a question of, for example, which of the State officials ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s death; whether one or more ordered a kidnapping that was botched and then became an accidental killing; or whether the officers acted on their own initiative or ultra vires.” Actually it does, there needs to be evidence (it is a pesky thing that evidence)  that there were actions and orders by the State of Saudi Arabia they do not exist, they are at best implied. I am actually bewildered that there is no report that goes over every media on the fact that Turkey has its own history with journalists “The killings of journalists in Turkey since 1995 are more or less individual cases. Most prominent among the victims is Hrant Dink, killed in 2007, but the death of Metin Göktepe also raised great concern, since police officers beat him to death. Since 2014, several Syrian journalists who were working from Turkey and reporting on the rise of Daesh have been assassinated. The death of Metin Alataş in 2010 is also a source of disagreement – while the autopsy claimed it was suicide, his family and colleagues demanded an investigation. He had formerly received death threats and had been violently assaulted”, so where are these reports? I hope that the UN Special Rapporteur is something more than a mere UN Essay writer. I am certain that the world is eager to see what happened to these people. The media tainting setting has been extraordinary, in 2019 Google search gave well over 32,000,000 links to ‘Jamal Khashoggi’, especially as ‘Hrant Dink’ only has 1.4 million links, and ‘Metin Alataş’ has less than 850,000, so where is the visibility there? It matters because this all has been happening in Turkey, the puppet of Iran and its consort in the proxy war against Saudi Arabia, an established fact that the reports did not make mention of, the setting of Turkey is left out of consideration, which is odd as it is the nation that surrounds that setting and there is no consideration that this was not a Saudi operation, but a Turkish one. It is far fetched, I completely agree, but it was never investigated, especially when the weeks of the issue had all these contradictive issues and the media gobbled it up, but they were not investigated. Why not?

My view is supported in the report at [108], here we see “the Turkish authorities opened an investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi on the evening of 2 October, after Ms. Cengiz called the local police about Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance. The police then contacted the prosecutor on call who in turn wrote instructions on how to proceed with the case. That same evening, Turkish Intelligence began reviewing what they say were seven hours of raw recordings from the Consulate that they had in their possession. In their own words, the assessment of the raw footage was complex and it took them several days to reach a firm conclusion regarding the fate of Mr. Khashoggi. Their initial assessment of the recordings led them to believe that Mr. Khashoggi had been injected with something, passed out, and taken alive from the Consulate in some box or container.” I have issues with “Turkish Intelligence began reviewing” and “seven hours of raw recordings from the Consulate that they had in their possession”, now the fact that governments keep tabs on embassies and consulates is not that much of a surprise, yet when we see “Mr. Khashoggi had been injected with something, passed out, and taken alive from the Consulate in some box or container” is weird, especially as there is no evidence on any of it. 

So as I take notice in Al Jazeera of “There were Islamic scholars who debated whether this was a crime under Shariah (Islamic) law that could be pardoned. Because it was a premeditated crime, because it was so gruesome”, so how is it ‘gruesome’? A body was never found, murder is not proven, even if it ends up being manslaughter (me speculating that the killer, if there is one, did not intent the killing), the setting even lacks the foundation of a ‘premeditated crime’, this is a real stage and I wonder why Al Jazeera is keeping this alive. How many articles did they spend on all the journalists killed in Turkey? How much attention did the international media give all these incarcerated journalists in Turkey? When we consider that 231 journalists have been arrested after 15 July 2016, how much attention did Al Jazeera give them? It seems that the UN is part of a bigger play that requires Agnes Calamard to keep the Khashoggi issue alive, yet how much time did she spend on other issues? Incarcerated journalists in Turkey is only one, the actions of Houthi and Hezbollah combatants in Yemen is another one, and how much time has Agnes Calamard spend on Syrian issues? #JustAsking

The math in all this does not add up!

 

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September 3, 2020 · 12:21

Overkill anyone?

There is no going around the news that Alexey Navalny did not slip on a bar of soap in the bathroom. Yet the news ‘Nerve agent Novichok found in Russia’s Alexey Navalny: Germany’ given to us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/germany-nerve-agent-novichok-russia-navalny-200902135330447.html) and other sources needs to be evaluated on a few levels. The media is of course eager to give us “Novichok – a military grade nerve agent – was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the United Kingdom”, that event had a few issues and this one has even more. First of all, I do not really know the man, so my information on him has a few dubious sides. Consider his life in Moscow, on his walks in Moscow there are well over a dozen vantage points where his life could be snuffed out with a cyanide tipped bullet (or Ricin), two much more stable compounds than Novichok ever was. From each of these vantage points, I would be able to get to 1-2 streets over and after that simply vanish, the M24, or DVP Druganov equivalent I would leave behind, as a present for the eager beaver. As such Navalny would be dead. There are alternatives with Lithium, and several more opportunities that end life permanently, so we do have options. In this we now get another stage. This is the third known Novichok attack where the person does not immediately die, or does not die at all ‘Comatose Russian dissident Alexey Navalny arrives at Berlin hospital’ (source: CNN). And even as the media hides behind ““Only the state [FSB, GRU] can use Novichok. This is beyond any reasonable doubt,” Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on Twitter, referring to the FSB internal security and GRU military intelligence services”, I had shown in ‘Something for the Silver Screen?’ In March 2018 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/03/17/something-for-the-silver-screen/) we see that the statement ‘Only the state [FSB, GRU] can use Novichok’ is not true, there are at least two instances where reach of Novichoks are outside of state actors, that is separate from the issues shown in the OPCW papers and in this, there are more questionable acts by Vil Mirzayanov in this. And let’s be clear, if the FSB or the GRU wanted Alexey Navalny dead there are over a dozen of ways to do that. If you need to get rid of the neighbour, you don’t resort to nuclear weapons, it is a level of overkill that is apparently accepted by all the media whilst no one is looking at the larger picture. Novichok is massively unstable and way too dangerous. These are known properties and no one is looking into the matter or asking questions. 

Is that not really really weird?

And it does not end there, Al Jazeera also gives us “Sergei Nechayev, who was summoned to the foreign ministry on Wednesday, asked for evidence and received “no answer, no facts, no data, no formulae”” as such, we see the accusation, we see no facts and no real evidence, and even as I am willing to accept that there was something real here, there is still a larger car where this is not a state operation, but another setting where Russian organised crime is involved. This does not absolve the Russian government but it does show a much larger setting and optionally a case where the Russian government is not guilty. The act of one corrupt official does not make a government guilty, and is that not a nice surprise “In December 2010, Navalny announced the launch of the RosPil project, which seeks to bring to light corrupt practices in the government procurement process”, it seems that Navalny has been dipping his feet in the pool of corruption hoping to see what is swimming there and who the sharks are (a West Side Story reference). Yet the media is not looking too deep there, because someone mentioned the word Novichok. In this the very first setting in this situation is that the use of Novichok is a massive overkill, and no one is catching on, why is that?

And if the west is so about freedom and about being nations of laws, why are they all negated in several cases? 

 

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August 24, 2020 · 04:23

You are what you feed them

I have had my share of obnoxious behaviour, I have on times (when I was young) been a little too not understanding, but I have never see what the Independent (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-muslims-xinjiang-pork-alcohol-lunar-new-year-spring-festival-uighur-islam-a8767561.html) is giving us. The headline ‘China ‘forcing Muslims to eat pork and drink alcohol’ for lunar new year festival’ is alarming enough, but the text “Officials have delivered pork directly to Muslim households and insisted that traditional Chinese new year decorations are displayed outside, RFA’s report claimed” if proven is a dangerous one. The additional quote “Chinese authorities have reportedly forced Muslims in the Xinjiang region to eat pork and drink alcohol during the country’s lunar new year holiday amid an alleged crackdown on Islam” merely makes matters worse. The idea that the disrespect given to any religion has taken this form is just beyond acceptable, in what universe does the Chinese government think it has any allowed leverage? I use the setting ‘if proven’, merely because there was one source in 2019 and now we see two more sources two days ago, in this, why has the larger western media, Al Jazeera, Gulf News and a few others all forsaken this? As such ‘if proven’ is the right setting. I understand that there are places where we are not Muslim, not Jewish, or not Christian, but most of us have always allowed others to be what they are. The bible tells us ‘Judge not, that you be not judged’, the Quran states “It is they who follow the guidance from their Lord, and it is they alone who are successful in attaining their object in this life and the hereafter”, and I am certain that the Torah has its own version that is not dissimilar to the others, so why would anyone force feed pork to a Muslim? It is not secular, it is merely a form of unacceptable cruelty. Yet it does not stop there. Forbes reports (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/08/19/muslim-ice-detainees-reportedly-fed-pork-told-by-chaplain-it-is-what-it-is/#47cf78a26cc5) “Civil rights lawyers sent a letter to a Miami, Florida, detention facility run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement claiming that its Muslim detainees are being fed pork, a food prohibited by Islam, and have been given post-expiration-date meals that meet their dietary restrictions, but reportedly made them ill—and the facility’s chaplain allegedly dismissed their concerns, saying, “It is what it is.””, it is my personal view that any chaplain or priest hiding behind ‘it is what it is’ should be excommunicated on mere principle alone. We need to reflect on the rarity of this report and even as I hold Forbes in much higher view than most other media, one media does not make it true. That too is a foundation we can align towards. 

When we consider an added part “This isn’t the first time ICE has been accused of giving Muslims pork in their meals; in 2019, a Pakistani-born man with a valid U.S. work permit was reportedly given nothing but pork sandwiches for six straight days” we should consider that there is a lot wrong at ICE. And there is no excuse, as far as I can tell there would be nothing wrong with Cheese or Corned beef, so what game is being played here and in this, are we even surprised that the Middle East has such hatred for christians? 

My concern is not merely that it happened, but the lack of reporting in the widespread media in this, unless it can be proven to be false, is a much larger evil in this. This is the first I hear of it and the 2019 case was completely unknown to me. So why is the larger media avoiding this? 

I can speculate until the building is done, but in the end, it will be speculation and for you the larger question will be ‘What else are they keeping from me?’ Because if the media is willing to make a deal to not report on certain matters, they will do so for a price and when you are the price, they will do the same thing. That is what you must fear, and this is not the first time this is happening, it has happened before and now it is happening again and it will happen again tomorrow, unless we hold the media accountable for their actions and their inactions. 

It is the only way to stop these unacceptable acts from re-occurring.

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August 13, 2020 · 01:03

One sided coin

When is a one-sided coin like a watchdog? That is the underlying question, and the answer is seen in this article ‘When they are shallow’. We all have needs, we all have centred targets, but what happens when that setting makes you miss the larger picture? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against watchdogs, I have nothing against the media, or politicians, but when they give a one sided brief just to please themselves, how shallow will they be? It is not the first time, but in this case it starts with ‘US watchdog report cites civilian casualties in Saudi arms deal’, now this might be correct, might being the operative word and not towards optionally pointing fingers and not towards the setting. We see “The Saudi-UAE air raids hit farms, schools, water supplies, and energy sources, triggering what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” now, I am not making a statement that they did not do that, but in all that, was it truly some civilian hit target or were there Houthi and/or Hezbollah fighters there? So whilst some focus on ‘precision-guided-munition components’, no one is looking what they were clearly firing on, because that too is an unknown. So whilst some focus on one side of “Tens of thousands of Yemenis, many of them civilians, have been killed by the Saudi-UAE air strikes – often with American-made weapons, targeting information and aerial refuelling support”, in a stage where should consider on ‘how many were civilians (and how many were not)’ in the sentence “Tens of thousands of Yemenis, many of them civilians”, yes we can hide behind ‘many of them’, but precision is essential, even if the weapons are not. In addition Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee gives us ““This obvious pre-spin of the findings reeks of an attempt to distract and mislead,” Engel said, adding that he feared the classified annex to the report would be “used to bury important or possibly incriminating information””, and I am not debating that, yet in all this, the stage where Eliot Engel is optionally helping our the Iranians, that is still up for debate, is it not? So when we check NPR and we see the question “Congress had concerns about $8 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and those concerns included how the arms might be used in the war in Yemen” and the only thing that Eliot Engel gives us is “Yeah”? By the way the interview (at https://www.npr.org/2020/08/11/901431799/engel-discusses-ig-report-on-u-s-selling-8-billion-worth-of-arms-in-middle-east) gives us nothing on ‘Iran’, ‘Houthi’ and ‘Hezbollah’, three tags that are essential in the Yemeni war, as well as the current Saudi Arabian state of affairs, so why are they missing? So whilst Engel gives us “Meaning that all the excuses that they give us, all the reasons they give us for doing what they have to do are phony and are made up. It’s just that they don’t – they want to have freedom to operate, not have the public know anything, certainly not have Congress know anything. And this is the way they’ve operated from day one. And it’s not really, you know – on the Foreign Affairs Committee, this is our jurisdiction. We’re supposed to be investigating these things, and they look at us as somehow intruding on their private purview”, a view that is his and might be valid, but the Yemeni war is larger and the three elements (Houthi, Hezbollah and Iran) are left out of it giving us an unbalanced and one sided story. Now, there is a side that accept, the US can decide on how it does business and who it does business with, and consider the hilarity we see when that $8,000,000,000 dollars goes to the Chinese or Russian treasury coffers? The US has been alienating its middle eastern partners to such an extent (all whilst ignoring to a larger degree the activities by Iran), we need to see the way that ball rolls down the hill and away from the congressional weapons sales teams. So whilst some might applaud the activity of watchdogs, the absence of the whole picture is actually rather disturbing. Not merely to the stage, but the fallout is other large. This does not reflect on Eliot Engel, but his congressional party is seemingly ignoring a much larger stage and this stage includes both Hezbollah and Iran, so why is Eliot Engel and his band of naughty congressionals ignoring that? Consider that the people for a week have been aware of ‘Saudi Arabia’s project clears 177,637 Houthi mines in Yemen’, now, we accept that some would have originated in Yemen, but not all and when we see these elements in the equation (and that is merely the beginning of that mess), we need to wonder why the US watchdog is so one sided. An investigation into the forces active in Yemen, as well as the weapons used and one side is left off the table completely. So how does your humanitarian side react to that? Oh and for desert I offer ’84.000 children in Yemen are dead, who is holding the Houthi and their methods to account?’

 

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