Tag Archives: Al Jazeera

December 23, 2021 · 23:16

Getting a mute to lead the blind

Confused? Good! It has been going on for a little while, but Al Jazeera heads the setting of others with ‘Is the US crackdown on spyware firms just getting started?’, the article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/12/22/is-the-us-crackdown-on-spyware-firms-just-getting-started) gives us “The Biden administration blacklisted Israeli spyware firm NSO in November, but experts say more needs to be done.” Well, that might b e nice, yet the absence of evidence means that they take to the streets with the stupid and flammable people. It becomes even worse with “a collaboration by Amnesty International and a coalition of media outlets – revealed that NSO’s software was sold to authoritarian governments that used it to spy on political leaders, journalists, executives and human rights activists, including people close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” As I personally see it, it was a collection of wannabe’s and fakes. They are that because evidence was not ever presented. And now the plot thickens, you think it does not? Well hold on, we are about to really up the throttle on this.

You see Bloomberg hands over the evidence I claimed all along. I wrote in several articles that if that list of 10,000 numbers was real the NSO Group would have a $400,000,000 piggy bank. But Bloomberg gives us ‘Pegasus Spyware Maker NSO Group Throws Cash at New Ventures to Survive’, where we are treated to “Israeli spyware firm NSO Group burned through most of its cash this year in a desperate bid to move past the scandal surrounding its phone-hacking tool Pegasus, according to a person with knowledge of the matter and private financial documents seen by Bloomberg News”, this could be seen as implied evidence that the money was never there, as such the list has to be (to a larger) part fake. Something I saw in less than 5 minutes, but all these wannabe essay writers You know, the one the Guardian has in Washington DC, as well as a wannabe essay writer at the United Nations with an outspoken hatred of Saudi Arabia. All going on flames and friends, but not a lot of evidence. Last Week at Wired we also get ‘Google Warns That NSO Hacking Is On Par With Elite Nation-State Spies’, but I will get back to that. You see the Bloomberg article (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-21/nso-group-burned-up-most-of-its-cash-to-shift-away-from-pegasus) also gives us “Two American funds have expressed interest in NSO’s Eclipse technology — which can detect, commandeer and land drones — and in its new big-data analytics platform, for which the company signed its first contract this quarter, the person said. Pegasus would either be shut down or brought under the same umbrella as the other businesses in a bet that U.S. ownership would improve its standing, according to the same person.” In this I personally think that these American Funds can go and get fucked (apologies for the language), you see if the NSO is on a blacklist, the Americans can go try and make it run on a kite. 

Although, there is every chance that China, Russia and optionally Saudi Arabia might want these technologies. So as we consider Wired giving us “The exploit mounts a zero-click, or interaction-less, attack, meaning that victims don’t need to click a link or grant a permission for the hack to move forward. Project Zero found that ForcedEntry used a series of shrewd tactics to target Apple’s iMessage platform, bypass protections the company added in recent years to make such attacks more difficult, and adroitly take over devices to install NSO’s flagship spyware implant Pegasus.” You see what Google (Apple too) isn’t telling you is that the transgression was possible to begin with. This is not some nerd in his mothers basement. This is the kind of person that can equal if not surpass both the NSA and GCHQ. More importantly both Google and Apple were not prepared, so just how many gaps are there in mobile phones? You want to complain about Huawei and their security dangers? Google and Apple are doing that all by themselves, just like Cisco did, but you probably missed those articles. Credit to Cisco of alerting everyone to this, but the media was eager to ignore it, much sexier to accuse Huawei without evidence.

So whilst the White House idiot gave the people a blacklisting, we get:  “NSO issued a statement at the time saying it was “dismayed” by the Biden administration’s decision and that its technologies “support US national security interests and policies by preventing terrorism and crime”” So now the parts are here, we get to my use of ‘White House Idiot’, fair enough! You see, as the finances show that members of the media have been lying (optionally by not vetting information). We also see that the members of the NSO Group might sell to anyone BUT the Americans. A stage that will cost America greatly, especially if China acquires this technology. So after they squandered weapons sales to Saudi Arabia (I am still hoping for my 3.75% bonus on sales to China), the setting is now that one of the most sophisticated pieces of intrusion software might end up where no one wanted it to go, it reminds me of the old saying regarding ‘A cornered cat’, and it serves the mother goose brigade as I personally see it and you can see it too, you merely need to look at the actual claims and the fact that we see words like ‘alleged’, we see ‘might be infected’ and we see no clear number system. No dashboard that gives optional validity to the claims by wannabe essay writers. 

You know what? I am slightly too angry. First the yanks go all out on Huawei whilst evidence was never presented, now we see that the 5G networks are AT BEST a mere 50% of what Saudi Arabia has and in case of the US it is a mere 1.4% of 1%, it is THAT slow. Now we see the same exercise and it will be anyones guess who ends up with the NSO group software. It will be up to the NSO group to decide, yet I feel strongly that it should never end up in American hands. A person should not be allowed to be THIS stupid and being given a slice of cake, if it does happen, it better be valued at several billions. If you are THIS stupid, you cannot be much of a software maker, so pay you will, optionally Google could buy it to make their hardware more secure. It is a stretch and it is a steep price, but it could mean that the Apple supremacy ends and that might be worth a bag of coins to Google. 

Yet the best moment was when I saw that the media nailed their own coffin (the finance bit), so whilst Wired and the Washington Post did the right thing, the others can take a long walk of a short pier as far as I see it. Oh yes, the Wired article was at https://www.wired.com/story/nso-group-forcedentry-pegasus-spyware-analysis/ 

One day until Christmas, I reckon it is that time of the year when we take a little more time to see what weapon systems are out for sale. I need a new hobby!

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December 11, 2021 · 23:53

Cross here to die

Yup it happens, there is a point in our lives when someone points at a road and states that death comes to those who cross here. I (with an uncanny sense of humour) would state that you cannot cross here, but that is me.

This all started with keeping the press accountable with what the Guardian gives us. It is (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/11/omicron-covid-variant-could-cause-75000-deaths-in-england-by-end-of-april-say-scientists) and is called ‘Omicron could cause 75,000 deaths in England by end of April, say scientists’. Let’s start by setting the proper page that the Guardian has done nothing wrong (as far as I can tell). In the second part, let’s look at the non-living rates that I see. One source gives us that at present 146,255 people in the UK stopped breathing (due to COVID). Then we see that this would up the ante by 50% and so far we are told that Omicron is a mild version, so someone is lying to us and the press should be all over this. 

The full text states “prevent Omicron causing anywhere between 25,000 to 75,000 deaths in England over the next five months, according to scientists advising the government”, My issue is that the current numbers are set to Feb 2020 – Dec 2021, so how could a mild version create up to 50% more non-living? OK, we see that it is 25K-75K, but that still does not make sense. This is fear mongering, or this is fear mongering as I personally see it. 

And there is more we get to see “a wave of infection is projected that could lead to a peak of more than 2,000 daily hospital admissions, with 175,000 hospital admissions and 24,700 deaths between 1 December this year and 30 April 2022.” And it is natural that these people hide behind ‘could lead to’, Yet the stage does not match. 175,000 admissions leading to 24,700, deaths. It goes against the numbers I have so far over a lot of nations and Omicron is stated (several sources) that it is a mild version that is more easily transmitted, yet not more deadly, so the numbers do not add up.

Why is the Guardian not all over this, why do we merely see “More follows …” at the end? I get that more will follow, but I think there is a large gap on the numbers the UK people have and saw and what this is now telling them, someone is spiking the drinks (not vetting speculative numbers). Now, I could miss something, I will happily agree to that, but the numbers do not make sense and I have been around intelligence numbers for decades. This does not add up. 

So I get it that some ‘covering’ is needed, but the ‘could lead to’ and ’could cause’ is like me stating “Cross here to die” I did remove the Warning Mines here! sign, but that negatively impacted a lovely photographic stretch of road. And let’s be honest, that sign might have been there too long in the first place, WW2 ended in 1945, a lifetime ago, almost two lifetimes ago.

On the other side, I get it, we might not know all about Omicron, but is informing us not the duty of the newspapers?  So what gives, because this setting is too surreal for words and after we got a lecture from a Nobel winner who states to us all “when lies become facts”, I reckon the news beacons better get there A game on, especially as Al Jazeera also gives us (just now) “Pegasus, the Israeli spyware tool exposed by journalists early this year, is now in trouble with  American authorities and big tech”. In the first, I do not think that the NSO group is innocent, yet no proper evidence has been presented and some newspapers have given us facts that are debatable in the very least on a few fronts (one of those newspapers was the Guardian), And in all this, the infector is yet to be proven and the NSO group is not the only player in that town and if a pervious quote applies that 34 out of 76 might have been infected (might is the operative word), we need to see a lot more and especially a lot better from the newspapers.

Getting people to cross a mine field is relatively easy when you remove the warning signs. And that is what we almost face, we are told that there is a minefield to the left and we need to cross to the right, that sounds nice, until you realise that the signs were moved and now we all get to stride through the boom boom field. 

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November 13, 2021 · 11:06

A COP26 truth

Yes, it is time to slam down, slam dunk and slam punk some people. The Evening Standard gives us ‘New draft deal appears to water down curb on fossil fuels’. The article (at https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/cop26-latest-news-glasgow-last-day-climate-change-talks-outcomes-so-far-alok-sharma-boris-johnson-b965809.html) is not even a surprise to me. So in the end, the only true thing of the COP26 was an 18 year old girl named Greta Thunberg. The rest was full of shit. And do not take my word for it. Mark Rober (former NASA) started in 2019 #TeamTrees with MrBeast (his name apparently) and so far they planted 23 million trees. How many did the UK plant? How many did the US plant? How many did the EU plant? Do the math and you will see how right I am. Two people (with drones and donations) did more in a year than the better part of 30 governments with billions. So you tell me.

In other news, there was a decent form of objections to my article ‘1095 minus one’ two days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/11/1095-minus-one/). The opposition was that my example was nice, but that the balloon would have been massively larger. That is fair enough. And that person would be right. But the setting is not merely that there are 8 billion in need of oxygen (without the CO2), the larger issue is that over the last 15 years 15,000,000 additional flights were added. That amounts to 41,000 flights a day, every single day. So how much CO2 do these flights create? More people and more flights, not the flights from the uber rich, no normal airline flights. I am willing to take a bet that at least 25% of those flights are useless and could be scrapped. 

So whilst we look at media outlets like Al Jazeera giving us “Analysts question the text of COP26’s final agreement citing ‘watered down’ language on hydrocarbon eradication and missing commitments on emission cuts” (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/12/watered-down-new-cop26-draft-deal-moves-away-from-hard-targets) we see the truth. Greta Thunberg was right, the COP26 was all blah-blah-blah. No real deal is in the works and as Indonesia and there are questions on the real deal with Brazil. Even now as we are shown “Data from the national space research agency shows deforestation increased by 5 percent from October 2020”, yes Brazil could end deforestation by 2030 because there will be no forest left. So my prediction that we have wiped out 50% of all forests by 2030 is getting awfully close. Now reconsider the Montgolfier principle I gave two days ago and consider the balloon going up with only 50% burner power (the trees), we will be adding CO2 quicker than oxygen and that means the end of the balloon (we all get to die). I get it, it is not fair on Brazil or Indonesia. There are also Papua New Guinea. They have a grievous matter to settle, which is the claim Gordon Brown (former UK PM) made in 2009 on funds for the stricken nations, that money never came, and this government does not have the funds. So the setting of blah-blah-blah goes from bad to worse. 

And that does not beat all yesterday I saw some news pass buy that they have a replacement for plastic bags, this is good! Thy have a new wood based bag, which is debatable… at this point at least. So you still doubt my estimate of 50-80 million trees in three years? I might be wrong, it will need to be higher if Brazil and Indonesia are any indication and so far the governments are all talk and no result. 

There is a larger issue, there actually are two, one on each side of the equation. Brown gold on one side is essential for the economy of several economies, not merely Indonesia and Brazil, but Canada, India ad the US as well. The US being the largest timber producing nation on the planet. As we see, the solution from #TeamTrees seems to work, so why are they not reforesting what is lost? I know it is not always possible, yet we are now in a stage where we either get more trees or teach our grandkids to live by breathing carbonised oxygen (CO2). We are that close to suffocating. On the other side, we have seen clear reports that 50% of the damage comes from 147 plants, the media ignored it, I wrote about it and placed the documents of UNEP and the EEA for you to read, they had graphics too. Yet the media is largely ignoring those 147 plants, where they are and why they are allowed to continue (there might be a real reason, I do not know) yet the media remains silent, they are all about the flames of COP26, but in three weeks time the will move on, why is that?

We allow the wrong players to continue their destructive plans and it costs us dearly, if we are lucky enough to avoid that, our kids will not, they will live through it and curse us for not actively solving the problems they inherited. I leave you to figure it out. 

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November 9, 2021 · 04:27

There is doubt

We have doubt, we all do and there is no denying it. I have had my reservations from the press for the longest of time. Today we see another article and this time by Al Jazeera. They give us ‘Palestinian activists hacked by Israeli firm NSO spyware’, I will agree that there are people that we should monitor, this happens. So what makes these Palestinians so special? Consider that in the past we were given that the price of a hack is $100,000. This means that someone lashed out $600,000 on these six Palestinian rights activists. They are not called terrorists (whether they are or not), they are labeled as rights activists. Then Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/8/palestinian-rights-activists-hacked-by-israeli-firm-nso-group) gives us “Spyware from the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group was detected on the mobile phones of six Palestinian human rights activists, in the first known instance of Palestinian activists being targeted by the military-grade Pegasus spyware”, so the paragraph mentions Israel, then the ‘NSO group’, ‘Military-grade’ and ‘Pegasus spyware’. With the added settings that matter. The first is “It is not clear who placed the NSO spyware” which is fair enough, so what gives certainty that it was Pegasus? It is a fair enough question and where is that report? Then we get “Three of the hacked Palestinians work for civil society groups. The others do not, and wish to remain anonymous, Frontline Defenders says” which countermands the earlier statement of ‘six Palestinian human rights activists’, just three and what are the other ones? Terrorists? Yes, I’ll bet they want THEIR anonymity. It is the odd setting we get next “Frontline Defenders is “not absolutely alleging that Israel is behind this,” but that the “timing of all this is very interesting””, yes so is the IRA coming to the rescue of Hezbollah, but I will not judge. Wasn’t it the Times who gave us on September 13th 2020 that gave us ‘New IRA forges links with Hezbollah’, also interesting isn’t it?

So where is the evidence? And whilst we give Andrew Anderson, executive director at Frontline Defenders the benefit of the doubt with “the NSO Group cannot be trusted to ensure its spyware is not used illegally by its customers and says Israel should face international reproach if it does not bring the company to heel”, well, one could argue that no one is bringing Hezbollah to heel, the other part is that the reports have not been given the visibility that they deserve. When did a media outlet like the verge get that full report? Why is that report not out in the open for scrutiny? In my mind the girl stating that that she is the greatest whore in the world whilst we cannot find any man substantiating that, is nothing more than a wannabe women hoping to get rid of her virginity. 

Any equation can be turned on its head and whatever falls out either supports the claim or accelerates the doubt we have. In this case I have doubt, I have way too much doubt. For one it is the lack of a timeline. 

When we see “The non-profit Frontline Defenders disclosed its findings on Monday in a joint technical report together with Amnesty International and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which independently confirmed the results” It is the only date I see, so when were they infected, when were the suspicions voiced? How long did either party investigate? All parts that are missing and no one hands over the report to any of us. I have doubts, I have a lot of doubts and they are growing. The entire setting of the media being the whoring little chihuahua against the NSO group, optionally on American orders. The US does not need to spy on us, they have the media doing it for them. And as far as I can tell, no one is asking real questions, why is that?

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October 31, 2021 · 23:33

When politicians lie

This is a setting that is out in the open. What happens when politicians lie? When does a lie become a lie? That is the question I was pondering on when the BBC gave us ‘Saudi Arabia expels Lebanon ambassador amid Yemen row’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-59096578). Here we are given “Mr Kordahi, who was speaking in August before he became a minister, called the conflict “futile” and said the Houthis were acting in “self-defence”” Is it a lie? Does a terrorist organisation have the right to rely on ‘self-defence’? For those who had forgotten the origins of the disagreement, let’s go back to September 2014 when Houthi forces took over the capital city Sanaa, which was followed by a rapid Houthi takeover of the government, a legitimate government no less. Houthi forces started a more and more brutal offensive against all they saw as enemies and did not stop there, they led drone attacks on civil Saudi targets, an act that was only possible through direct funding and equipment from Iran. I reckon that this is the price of Iranian fuel for Lebanon. 

Then we get to “The Lebanese government said Mr Kordahi’s remarks did not reflect its position – but relations between the two countries have worsened in recent years. The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, which also backs the Houthi rebels in Yemen, has grown in strength in Lebanon”, yet in all this, we need to look at the larger picture. In Al-Arabiya we see “Lebanon’s Information Minister George Kordahi said on Wednesday his country “cannot remain subject to blackmail” in response to calls for his resignation after his statements about Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s involvement in the Yemen war.” So blackmail from who? It seems that there was a price for all that Iranian oil. There have been claims in the past from different parties that Hezbollah had been active in Yemen (no clear evidence was seen by me), and in this stage his claim to ‘self-defence’ is as empty as a peace offering from Hezbollah towards Israel. 

And as we get exposed to ““I am now part of an integrate government, and I cannot take a decision alone, it must be the government’s [decision] as a whole… I place the interests of Lebanon above all interests. And we cannot be in Lebanon exposed to blackmail by anyone, not by countries, or ambassadors or individuals,” Kordahi said in a press conference.” So when we put  ‘The Lebanese government said Mr Kordahi’s remarks did not reflect its position’ next to ‘I am now part of an integrate government’ it seems that someone here is not being truthful, so is it the Lebanese government, or is it Mr Kordahi. The fact that He was appointed on September 10th 2021, as the Lebanon’s Minister of Information. Is a larger problem. To me it implies that the Lebanese government has taken the Iranian route and when that implodes (as any agreement with Iran tends to do), the Lebanese people have nowhere to turn to and nowhere to run to. 

So now that Al Jazeera gives us ‘Lebanese president says he wants ‘best relations’ with Saudis’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/30/lebanese-president-says-he-wants-best-relations-with-saudis) and (optionally) hides behind “Lebanese politicians are scrambling to resolve a diplomatic spat with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) followed Riyadh with measures against Beirut to protest against comments by a cabinet minister about the war in Yemen” and whilst we see mentions of “maintain good communication”, I reckon that President Michel Aoun seemingly learns the cost of catering to Iranian needs and ignoring real facts. On the other hand they have a harbour full of evidence of what happens when Hezbollah calls the shots. And the setting Al Jazeera gave us three weeks ago “Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says Tehran willing to rebuild Beirut port and construct two power plants in Lebanon” seem to set the larger confines of the Lebanese problem and in all this Hezbollah remains part of the problem, not the solution. The problem is that a lot more people know this. They all hide behind the simple part of “The explosion resulted from the detonation of tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a combustible chemical compound commonly used in agriculture as a high nitrate fertilizer, but which can also be used to manufacture explosives. The cargo of ammonium nitrate had entered Beirut’s port on a Moldovan-flagged ship, the Rhosus, in November 2013, and had been offloaded into hangar 12 in Beirut’s port on October 23 and 24, 2014” You see, clear scientific evidence gives us “Compared to most combustible materials, ammonium nitrate itself is not exceptionally explosive. But the compound can contribute to explosions because it belongs to a chemical class known as oxidisers” It needed something more and that is the part that Hezbollah fears. When the people learn of Hezbollah stupidity too many people there will demand larger changes, that is what Hezbollah fears and for now they are willing to dance to Iranian music and there is where we see George Kordahi, no longer presenting who wants to be a millionaire, he is now catering to the millionaires Lebanon needs and we get it. But with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and Bahrain severing ties, Lebanon is now left to the mercy and resources of Iran and when that runs out (or gets weird delays) the setting changes even more. 

So, How wrong am I?
Consider the facts, consider what happens from September 2014 onwards, it clearly shows Houthi forces as a terrorist antagonist, we see conflicting information from Lebanese spokespeople and there is the larger stage where FOUR nations have cut ties with Lebanon. In a stage where Lebanon needs all the friends they could find. A stage of segregation and separation, the first two stages or eliminating any source.

Yet in all this, There is a clear lack of critical analyses on the acts by George Kordahi, which in light of the Iranian settings is weird. Wouldn’t it be the first that the US would do and the first thing that (overly quick) gets leaked to the NY Times or the Washington Post?

OK, that previous point is somewhere between assumption and presumption, but the setting in light of all we have seen so far makes sense. 

In all, I get the stance of Saudi Arabia here, I get the stance of the other Arabian nations here, yet in all this the acts of George Kordahi and President Michel Aoun are seemingly weird. In a stage where Lebanon desperately needs Saudi Arabia, the setting of a flaccid response towards the actions of George Kordahi are off, especially as three other nations took sides with Saudi Arabia. One might think that Lebanon has no idea how to deal with the requests by Iran and that too matters. If communication lines there are presently so convoluted, Lebanon faces a lot more hardships soon enough and they are only weeks away from the December cold. December to March gives them 11 to 13 degrees on average. November and April are not far off from that and with the winter stage and without power, or 1-2 hours a day at best Lebanon is looking to one of its worst winters in decades. In all this the promised Iranian power centres sound nice, but they will not get there before late autumn 2022, so it will be a hard time for the 7 million Lebanese, that much seems a given at present. 

Were the politicians involved lying? That remains the part that is unclear, no matter how they slice it, they were stretching facts and truths far beyond points of breaking (which does not make it a lie), but it sets the premise that catering to the wrong people now comes at a price that Lebanon never considered having to pay ever before and that too matters, because that stage could determine the degrees of freedom that Iran will have in Lebanon, optionally as part of Hezbollah.

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September 17, 2021 · 03:36

How stupid are we?

Yes, let’s come with a question that optionally offends us all straight from the barn, because we deserve to be asked the hard questions. I have been accused of being ‘all’ pro Saudi, all ‘pro’ China and why? You see, two players (US and UK) have a product, OK the USA less so, if you ignore 900 flaws and that would be fine, but then the US gives the KSA ban after ban and for no good reason, merely a morel approach whilst the opponents of the KSA are not held to ANY standard. So, if I see an option to make 3.75% from $11,000,000,000 I will do so. Australia is not in a war with China. Now, as a commonwealth citizen I would have preferred to sell the KSA the UK solution, but here we see that the UK is as stupid as the US and they all listen to the wrong people and they are now losing out on billions, billions THEIR government coffers desperately need (the US needs them as well, but I remain a commonwealth citizen, so fuck ‘em). And China has a product and personally so does Russia, but in that equation I would prefer to ‘sell’ the Chinese solution. There are no morals, this was all about common sense (and me getting a few coins in light of an upcoming retirement event).

Now was it good, was it bad? It is neither, a buying party needs their nation safer (KSA) and the USA and UK have an issue with that, so along comes a valid alternative (China) and so I take a gander being the courier here. 

That does not mean that others are not to be held by standards and that is where we are. You see Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/9/15/what-could-an-evergrande-debt-default-mean-for-china-and-beyond) is giving us the stage where we see ‘What could an Evergrande debt default mean for China and beyond?’ And the stage is not a small one, the debt is now at $300,000,000,000. It is larger than the national budget for quite a few nations. I am wondering, was no one awake when we were confronted with the utter stupidity of a place called Interserve Plc? Oh, and only earlier this year we were fed ‘Interserve Construction suffers £108m loss’, and that was not even the worst. In March we get ‘Losses from Interserve’s energy-from-waste disaster top £300m’, did no one catch on and after we had the Lehman brothers, the Dutch SNS bank who relied on ‘We are too big to fail’, we now see Ever Grande and the risk of running short on $300,000,000,000 which looks like a thousand times worse than Interserve, now Tilbury Douglas and the hard times are nowhere near over. Yes, the board of directors will fill their pockets on the way out and I reckon that Hui Ka Yan and his $11,000,000,000 plus fortune will not face the danger of hunger any day soon. Now, whatever China does is up to China, yet I believe that the setting of “Evergrande currently has 1,300 real estate projects in 280 cities in China” shows that there is a larger need for governments to step in, especially when we are confronted with “the real estate developer may not be able to make the interest payments on some of its $300bn in liabilities next week and could also miss a principal payment on at least one of its loans”, I personally never believed that there is anything like ‘Too big to fail’, just offer some of these contracts and the payments to their competitors and see what happens. So even as Hui Ka Yan believed in the alternative Tom Cruise with “I feel the need, the need for greed” there is a larger station, we do know that governments tend to be a lot more stupid then people, but there are well over half a dozen examples of stupidity, did no one catch on? And here we need to take notice that people are on average as stupid as the average of the total amount of stupid people. Yet governments and companies doe not share that. They are as stupid as the sum of all the people working for them and that tends to be a lot worse. According to Deutsche Welle it is already there. With “Some 1.5 million people have put deposits on new homes that have yet to be built” (at https://www.dw.com/en/evergrande-why-the-chinese-property-giant-is-close-to-collapse/a-59175953) we see a setting where a place like San Diego, California where every person in that city loses ALL of their lifetime savings, it is that bad and we tend to wonder what will any government do, I wonder how these people will not lose everything. This is not some collection of shareholders, this is a stage where 1,500,000 people become optionally homeless overnight, it is a lot worse and it could hit the Chinese economy in a few ways and as some people sit hiding behind their dark shades, nodding and state “We feel the need, the need for greed”, all whilst the cadavers of circumstance pile up. When will governments learn that there is a need for oversight, especially when the impact is THAT big. So whilst we take notice of “Evergrande has expanded into other areas of the economy, including food, life insurance, tv/film and leisure”, can anyone explain to me why a property giant was even allowed in food and life insurance? Never mind the bollocks (aka: the 122nd largest group in the world by revenue, according to the 2021 Fortune Global 500 List), too many are heralding and applauding stupidity and greed. As such I feel perfectly fine trying to be the courier between two parties grabbing a decent coin in the process. Oh, and as the Chinese government is seeing what is rolling their way, the KSA deal might be one that diminishes the impact of Evergrande, so whilst we see three people (Biden, Johnson and Morrison) plot to become a new world power by handing nuclear submarines to Australia, all whilst we know that this is merely setting a stage to strut around like peacocks, no one is looking how much more Australian defence budgets will get with nuclear submarines in the mix, all whilst they still need to realise the impact of the F-35 folly. As such I wonder who is aware of what will be left to other people past 2035 when the defence budget will require a 45%-61% top up. I believe in defence as much as the next person, so whilst we accept “Last month the Australian government signed a $50 billion contract with the French company DCNS to build 12 new submarines”, do you think that such a contract will not come without cost? Yet here too (source: ABC News) we are told that “that program has come with delays and blowouts, and would have delivered conventional diesel-electric submarines, like the Collins Class”, so at least there is a decent reason and it makes sense, but still, there is a larger concern, not the coming of nuclear subs, but the realisation that Australia has an antiquated submarine stage and it does need to take care of 2,137,000 meters of beach front property, something needs to be done and that is good, I do not object.

Australian Navy too small

I merely wonder (at times) why it took this long in the first place. When we dig deeper we see why the US wants it because the foundation of nuclear submarines need to be build there, which makes me a bit hesitant after the failures that the F-35 (with 900 design flaws) as well as the failure that the Zumwalt class represents (at $21,000,000,000), the US wants to shout that this will be a success, but I have concerns and fortunately I do have a degree in ships engineering (which I never used). The larger stage is seen but so far governments are seemingly deaf as their irresponsible teenagers (aka politicians) are living off someone else’s credit card and there is the rub, there is the danger. They all live by the rule “We are too big to fail” and China is seemingly no different, its corporate greed is just like all the other greed driven players. So whilst a few players are trying to push the borders, we need to consider what happens when someone in that pool of overspending delusional players panics, because that will be the ball game when things escalate and explode in all our faces. 

How stupid are we to not loudly protest as corporations and governments remain absent in actions, especially when there is a $300,000,000,000 issue? Why was there no action when the danger was a mere $5,000,000,000? Even for China 300 billion is too much and when did we see a positive outcome when that much money was lost? I do not remember any positive impact. Not in 2004, not in 2007 and this time around it will be no different. Yet when the amount is that big it will impact a lot more people, all over the globe. 

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August 30, 2021 · 02:20

The Iranian play

There were two stories out there. In this for now I am ignoring the Afghanistani part, as the BBC gave me a nice idea. They actually have a nice uncut gemstone in their possession and I need additional time (as I have only one set of eyes). So we look at the Yemeni setting where the media is happy to report on Houthi attacks, but there is a lull in this. The Yemeni do not have the required weaponry, implying that Iran is still driving this stage of concern. It is Al-Jazeera who gave us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/29/several-killed-in-houthi-attack-on-yemens-largest-base) ‘Dozens killed in Houthi attack on Yemen’s largest base’ the start is nominal, but it is “At least 30 soldiers killed and 60 wounded in rebel attacks on major military base housing Saudi-led forces” that is the concern, the base is in most SW art of Yemen in Lahij. The issue with me is “armed drones and ballistic missiles”. You see, the missiles are one thing, there are too many players who want to grease their pockets, so until forensic evidence comes through, it is anyones guess where the missiles are from, but the armed drones, they are the problem. Yemen has no infrastructure for this, Iran is the only player willing to supply Houthi forces and that is the problem. You see as Iran pushes and pushes and both the US and UK are hopelessly stuck in their ego’s Saudi Arabia stands alone against Iran. Yes, the US and UK make claims, but they have backed down at economic sanctions, even though they are aware that this step will never work and with China and Russia making deals with Iran, Iranian funds keep on going towards Houthi forces. As far as I can tell, from the western media only Reuters looked at this, the Guardian, BBC, Washington Post, LA Times and many others ignored it, isn’t it nice for the media to largely avoid having to mention Iran in a negative light? What do those take holders have to care about (apart from their wallets)? Yet that is not fair on my side either with all the Afghanistan issues, I get that, but this has happened a few times before and it is bothering me, the transgressions by Houthi forces and by Iran are passed by. In this particular instance the Houthi forces attacked a military target, and it might not be nice, but I need to stay fair. In other instances they knowingly and blatantly attacked CIVILIAN targets and that was ignored as well. 

So when we see another threat in the light of ‘Iran vows to respond in kind if Biden targets nuclear program’, I wonder if I should sell my solution to meltdown their reactor to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, seems fair enough. I reckon that suddenly the western media will be all over the KSA for this, so I need to mull this over and there is the additional issues that it is still a concept, I never felt good about people selling concepts, not in IT and not anywhere else either. I reckon it makes me a service minded person, not a sales minded person. 

Yet it also feeds another sentiment. When the people really on one side, Iran might finally consider that they no longer have option, other than end up being the courtesan to either Russia or China. If they feel happy about that, so be it. As I see it, we need to start giving open support towards the KSA (or openly hostile towards Iran), either will do. But staying on the fence is no longer acceptable. If we do not do this, we need to equally silence the voices of the UN and HRW on Yemeni issues, is that not fair? If we do nothing, we need not look at articles in the news on what happens there either, those articles seem like empty reminders of what sitting on ones hands looks like. 

I get it, some will see this as an overreaction, but so far how many Houthi attacks were there on CIVILIAN targets in the last year alone? How many were reported on? Who reported them? When you tally these elements and you see how one-sided the media has become it might dawn on you that silence was never golden and it is no longer acceptable. And I get it, some will state that they support the Houthis. I get that, but do that loudly to and when Saudi Arabia closes the oil-tap, consider that you enabled that step, and it is fair, if we need not consider our non-allies, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the same right, but I reckon that the stakeholders in certain areas are really desperate to avoid that step, it would cost them a bundle and they like feeling rich in the wallet and poor in the soul. It is a state of mind some people can live with. 

I never did and yes, I have supported the wrong people in the past, but I was always direct, people always knew where I stood, it is time to set open policies all over the middle east, we have that right, and I believe we are running out of options. 

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August 17, 2021 · 02:31

The stupidity of catering

Catering is a double sided coin, there is a plus side and there is a negative side. In this there are to problems with that equation, in the first these are not sides of the same coin, they are two coins, one is larger than the other and as such we see the reflective setting change. Consider two coins, like a dime and a dollar, or a pence and a pound. Now consider that they both have heads and tails, you can choice one or the other and you think that the biggest one is your gain, but that would be wrong, it is the smaller one and the other side of the larger coin is the headway and losses you make and they tend to be larger. It is the price of catering. Like the stupid manager with dollar shaped pupils, they see revenue, but they do not recognise cost, it is part of another branch of their company, so they sell and dump all the support to the services side, in some cases (what I personally witnessed) selling things that will not work. It was their revenue and their bonus. After which they will suddenly become helpful and let their services department solve it all, making sure that delays are set in motion so that the 90 day threshold is passed and then whatever is paid back will not affect their bonus. The stupidity of catering is always one sided. Even me, I cater to me, I admit that and I have no issues with catering to me, but I will remain fair. I will not sell what will not work, I will not cater to the impossible. And that is the setting we see today, catering to the impossible.

The news (at https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/8/16/the-us-the-taliban-and-the-stunning-defeat-in) gives us “The Taliban victory is a major humiliation for the US”, it is not a weird consideration and there have been like mind voices in the past. I myself voiced issues with inactivity as early as 2013 and 2014, yet the Americans made noise that they knew better and now we see another stage. A stage that the media is ignoring. Yes they give their ‘click bitch’ emotional setting, but the larger stage that Al Jazeera hints at with “It was expected, yes, but not so rapidly, so victoriously, so humiliatingly”. The issues is troops and material, as I voiced the Comanche approach (an American approach no less) well over half a decade ago, the Americans catered to stakeholders and set on a perch. They should have taken a page out of the book of Quanah Parker who gave them hell in the late 1800’s (around 1870), that would have been a way to deal with the Taliban, but they decided to sit on a perch and halt any action and now we see the other side of that coin, the Taliban overran nearly all of Afghanistan in less than a week, they had the troops, they had the hardware and no one had a clue.

Now as we see Kabul being overrun, we suddenly get ‘Afghan President Ashraf Ghani flees Kabul to ‘prevent bloodshed’’ (I personally think he ran for his life caring only for self, but that might be merely my thought). There is also ‘Afghans Need a Humanitarian Intervention Right Now’, yet if you believe that this will happen you are quite crazy. I find the call by Micheál Martin calling ‘calls on Taliban to respect humanitarian law’ and this is politics? The loser in a war does not get to make demands, that has been a set result long before the Americans held that clambake from 19 Apr 1775 to 3 Sept 1783. The Dutch had a picnic opposing the Spanish in the years from 1566 to 1609, as such, I have no idea what will happen in Afghanistan, but it will not be pretty, that much I feel certain about. You see ABC news gave the people 8 hours ago ‘Who are the Taliban and what do they want?’, the did not go into any part of the folly that allowed Afghanistan to be overrun so fast. And the people in the media are not asking that question, not the Democrats, not the Republicans, and as I personally see it both sides catered to stakeholders and the maximisation of war revenue which to the largest degree gave the victory to the Taliban. When you consider the projects that USAID finished in Afghanistan, when you consider the costs and who got paid? How were they paid? A group that can overthrow a nation in a week and we need to consider “USAID completed the construction of three generation plants in 2009, 2016, and 2019 and is constructing three solar power plants and a wind farm that will add 110 megawatts of power to the national power grid” and those are merely the highlights. 

So what will happen next?
That is actually the question that is harder to answer, because it depends on the Taliban and not on the politicians that make claims that there are options and that they are working on this. Because that will be something that is so far from the truth it will become laughable. And it gets to be worse than this, you see the ‘allied’ forces abandoned their translators, the world is seeing that so any encounter where translators are needed it will be on the US forces to find them and secure them beforehand, a much larger tactical advantage then they are considering. 

A stage that might seem to be evolving, but that would be wrong, the larger stage is not that they merely lost, it is that the intelligence services in that region had seemingly no clear insight into their opponents and their resolve, their size and the materials available to them. Afghanistan is 270% of the UK and it got overrun in a week, is anyone waking up to these numbers? The afghan military was useless and their weapons pointless, the same might be said for the departing allies the Afghan army had, as such we see defeat in three ways and the media is not picking up on that, how weird?

The Guardian gives us “The Taliban have 80,000 troops in comparison with a nominal 300,699 serving the Afghan government”, this now implies that the Taliban went up against an army almost 400% their size and still overtook Afghanistan in a week, a cause for alarm and a cause for concern, so when we see ‘The world must not look away as the Taliban sexually enslaves women and girls’ we see that they too forget that to the victor go the spoils, all the spoils. England learned that lesson the hard way, The Dutch taught the Spanish and the Indonesians taught the Dutch, it was an easy lesson and history is filled with examples and the biggest lesson? These winners did not sit on a perch, it never ever works. 

As such the largest station of lessons is about to unleash and it will be worse, because now the Taliban will cry for their right to vaccines, so which nation will ingratiate themselves by providing vaccines? I reckon we will know a lot more when we get to the next weekend when we can sit on our own perches again, preparing for that Monday morning game as a quarterback.

And the Afghan people? It seems to me that the stakeholders will not care, it is not part of their spreadsheet.

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August 7, 2021 · 22:08

The simple view denied

It happens, and sometimes it is for a very decent reason, but in this case I have questions. It started months ago on March 7th, when I became aware of Ghada Oueiss via the Milli Chronicle, the article had issues, bu for now lets use another source, the source (at https://cpj.org/2021/02/ghada-oueiss-hacking-harassment-jamal-khashoggi/) gives us ‘Al-Jazeera’s Ghada Oueiss on hacking, harassment, and Jamal Khashoggi’, the first thing I notice is “Lebanese Al-Jazeera broadcast journalist Ghada Oueiss described hackers stealing private photos and videos from her phone and posting them online”, the word ‘described’ in red, linking to a Washington Post article. The article laden with emotion and set on emotional markers, yet forensic evidence is missing. So when we consider “stealing private photos and videos from her phone and posting them online”, so was the phone the only source with these pictures? From her phone means that they are selfies, the descriptions give me more than that, so was it the only place they were? I am not stating that this is a must, but it raises questions. You see, the original article (at https://millichronicle.com/2021/03/opinion-ghada-oueiss-lies-about-saudi-and-american-spies/) gives a lot more. There we see a ling to https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/1-20cv25022-002.pdf. It gives us a complaint of the Al Jazeera journalist versus Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, DarkMatter, Faisal al Bannai, Saudi 24 TV, a broadcast television station owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Al Arabiya, a broadcast television station owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Abdulaziz Foundation d/b/a MiSK Foundation, Saud Al Qahtani, Bader Al-Asaker, Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, Tarek Abou Zeinab, Turki Al-Owerde, Faisal Al Menaia, Awwad Al Otaibi, Sharon Collins, Christanne Schey, Hussam Al-Jundi, Annette Smith, John Does 1-20. Yes a whole mouthful. And it continues as we see the start “This is a civil action arising out of the targeted unlawful hacking of Plaintiff, Ghada Oueiss, an international journalist who has a significant presence in the U.S. and abroad, both as a journalist for Al Jazeera Media Network (“Al Jazeera”) and as a frequent contributor to U.S. news agencies, such as The Washington Post. This unlawful hack and leak operation against Ms. Oueiss (the “Conspiracy”) was spearheaded by the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”) and their co-conspirators in the U.S. and elsewhere”

This leads me to:
1. How was it proven who did the hack, or how it was done.
For me it is more than funny, you see the plaintiff uses an article by the Verge on footnote 9 is something I debated before, and a few other mentions. There is no debate that Jeff Bezos was hacked, but the evidence on who was laughable, there is too much settings that were never answered, but for the lawyers of Ghada Oueiss it was enough, a plaintiff weight to coin a phrase. There are all kinds of mentions, but there is no real evidence.

2. At [97] we see “Upon information and belief, Defendant Zeinab began his employment with Defendant Saudi 24 TV in 2018. He has since used his Twitter accounts to personally attack and defame Ms. Oueiss in response to Ms. Oueiss’ criticism of the Saudi regime:” We see a personal opposition via Twitter, not hidden, not threatening, merely a tweet, well over a year before what they consider being the ‘event’.

3. At [100] we get “This brazen admission is significant evidence”, a response to a google translated Tweet, I cannot tell it is correct, I cannot tell there is misinterpretation and I cannot tell whether this has anything to do with Ghada Oueiss.

The list goes on and on and at no point, do we see clear evidence of hacking and any evidence that this is linked in any way to any Saudi or UAE party. 

Then we see “At the beginning of 2020, I started reading private stories about me on Twitter – saying I had an apartment in Beirut, my brother’s name. I don’t post anything about my family.” I am not dismissing the fact that she was hacked, I am merely questioning the setting who did it. There is no evidence proving any of that. In the case of Bezos, his consultant did a piss poor job in documenting evidence, even worse than the CIA did (if that was even possible). 

The issue is not whether people are hacked, the issue is the evidence and the way places like the Washington Post go about it, does not help, they make matter worse whilst decreasing their own credibility. I got news yesterday that the USA Defendants allegedly have just filed a rousing motion to dismiss, it seems that this might have been a ploy to keep pressure on alleged matters (the journalists no one cares about that is missing). 

I remain in the fence. On one side the press should never become the story, yet I accept that Ghada Oueiss is entitled to defence, but I also see the need for evidence against the claim. I accept that she was optionally hacked, but like Jeff Bezos, there is no evidence linking either the Saudi Government, or the government of the UAE and its governing members to this. I accept that finding evidence is hard, really hard, but evidence still matters, not unfounded accusations lacking evidence. That is the actual ballgame and in all this we see a large lacking. 

The Washington Post is also the view of clarity, as we see “In this case, the trolls were attacking Ola and I not only as journalists but as women who dared to be critical”, you see trolls imply people with high level IT skills, I personally speculate that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is lacking these skills. It means someone else did this, and if that is so, there needs to be evidence that he ordered it, not some flimsy CIA report with ‘we think it is very likely’, thinking and very likely do not make the evidence grade. Consider this and well over a dozen other articles negatively speaking on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its members and wonder who would attack on a lack of evidence, governments or the greed driven stakeholders they cater to?

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June 25, 2021 · 10:49

Blame Canada

Yes, we remember the song (some of us do), yet we never thought it would go this far, to this extent and to this degree. I thought I was angry when I wrote ‘Faith by the hypocrite’ on June 7th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/06/07/faith-by-the-hypocrite/), 215 children and now, we see ‘751 unmarked graves found at residential school’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57592243), and ‘Hundreds of unmarked graves found at Canadian indigenous school’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadian-first-nation-finds-751-unmarked-graves-former-residential-school-2021-06-24/), so where is the rage, where is the media with their unnamed sources and accusations like they did with Saudi Arabia, they had no evidence then and they are openly ignoring it now. There is no hounding of Cardinals, chasing of Bishops and a lot more is missing, but this is a stage I NEVER ever expected to happen in any Commonwealth nation, mass murder, a mass murder that involved the clergy and optionally members of the law and government as well. When I see “An indigenous group in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan on Thursday said it had found the unmarked graves of up to 751 people at a now-defunct Catholic residential school, just weeks after a similar discovery rocked the country”, I also fail to see a mass of people hunting down the Catholic church and it’s so called ‘benevolent’ actions, how benevolent was it to the hundreds of people, almost a thousand in two locations. This is not a failure, an error. This was as I see it intentional misplacing people, optionally for financial gain, optionally murdered. And at this site we also see “It is not clear how many of the remains detected belong to children, Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme told reporters, adding that oral stories mentioned adults being buried at the site”, enforcing my view of intent, children and adults do not die in an accident and as Al Jazeera even gave us “Pope Francis expresses ‘pain’ after remains of 215 Indigenous students found, but does not offer apology long sought by residential school survivors”, we see a failing, a very large failing from the Deacon at the bottom to the patriarch of paedophiles at the very top and we all just sit back and watch it happen. If our first impulse is to protect the children (any children), the waves of inaction I see is darn right unnatural and when did we ever embrace unnatural actions?

And when I see ““Canada will be known as a nation who tried to exterminate the First Nations,” said Bobby Cameron, Chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan. “This is just the beginning.””, at this time I tend to agree and the lack of arrests is just staggering, so how long until 2-3 head honchos of the Catholic Church are ‘relocated’ to a nice place in Vatican city? 

And there is also the issue with the media, I see a lack of media supporting Bobby Cameron. Yet I also see something familiar, it was 40 years ago that I saw Brubaker, it was one of the first Robert Redford movies I saw, and it had an impact, but not to the degree it should have had and now when I think back towards Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal by Tom Murton and Joe Hyams, I am hit by some of the similarities and I am massively surprised that so far I seem to be the only one making the link, the train of thought that people in ‘assumed power’ had in those days, taking coins left right and centre is baffling, how the aftermath of then seems to be similar to what we see in Canada now and the media is not all over it. How weird is that?

I also see a lack of media asking questions of the Catholic church and I see a lack of actions all over the place, but I do acknowledge “We are treating this like a crime scene”, the entire article mentions the word Crime twice, how odd is it not? I also see the political need and savvy when we see ‘Justin Trudeau fires back at China after it calls to investigate Canada’, yet the stage of almost 1000 corpses in Canada is one that no one in the Commonwealth ever saw coming, an approach to genocide, but Justin Trudeau had a beard, it might be his one upside to the Covid era. The man looks better with a beard. I do get his response, but it was the wrong one to give at this time. You see it is all well and good to give us “a Canadian truth and reconciliation commission had worked from 2008 to 2015 to address the mistreatment of the indigenous population”, yet they failed to find the two hundred and fifteen and the seven hundred and fifty one dead people in that time, so I reckon Canada has a larger issue and this becomes the this large event that involves the Catholic church, as such the gloves need to come off and the large non-accountability events for the clergy needs to stop, as well as making the church tax accountable, the cost of digging into the past is growing and the church has had enough mulligans (with or without a blessed golf club). And as I personally see it “there may have been markers for the graves at one point but that the Roman Catholic church, which oversaw the cemetery, may have removed them” that some people were aware of the criminal activities and decided to hide what they could. Yet, as I see it, the larger stage is unmentioned, the media has too much to gain by not mentioning speculated optional Catholic Criminal Events. And my evidence? Considering that Google search reveals 225,000 hits on ‘Bobby Cameron’ in all this (total of both events), and the journalistic farce called ‘Jamal Khashoggi’ with no evidence had 10 times more hits on the international stage within 2 days. Oh, that is before we get to UN essay writers (Agnes Callamard) giving us their speculated view with ‘CIA conclusions’ in all this, how active has she been in regards to the Canadian events? I will tell you “Bobby Cameron”+”Agnes Callamard” gives you ZERO hits on Google search, so what is going on with the rights of the people that are part of the Canadian First Nations group? 

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