Tag Archives: Arab News

March 6, 2023 · 01:36

The wicked chaser

This all started on February 26th when I wrote ‘Surprise, surprise’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/02/26/surprise-surprise-3/). To be honest, I thought that this would be the end of it, but to my disgust there are more issues and it is with western sport reporters. Especially the wanker at the Guardian, BBC, Australian and New Zealand media. They are so all up in arms about Cricket and we accepted that notion, but that was not the real deal was it? It was only when national interests are at stake, thats when these losers wake up.

It is strict, direct and it is unforgivable. 

You see, it was a few hours ago when the Arab News alerted me to ‘Saudi Arabia overcome Bahrain to win ACC Men’s Challenger Cup 2023’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2262701/sport) and there we are told “Dominant 10-wicket victory in final means Kingdom’s team maintained perfect record of 5 wins from 5 matches”. Now we can spin this any way we like, but the Saudi Team played 5 matches and won all five of them. This matters, it makes Saudi Arabia a contender on the larger cricket field. This does not mean that they are about to defeat Australia or New Zealand (England possibly), but they should matter. If cricket is to grow its pool of nations in there, it very much matters. And we are given “Saudi Arabian Cricket Federation Chairman Prince Saud bin Mishal told Arab News from Thailand: “I’d like to congratulate our leadership for the endless support we’ve always received, and the board of directors, the managerial team and especially the players. They’ve played excellent cricket, resulting in winning the cup.”” Now, I never watched the match, so I merely see what is printed in Arab News, but as I see it the bulk of the Western papers ignored the entire event. I saw one Australian media on page 2 of the Google search and it merely gave a score. I think that you can find a sport journo to wrote a few lines when the game is won, but that might merely be me. 

You see, we are also given “Saudi Arabia will now enter the ACC Premier Cup, to be played in Nepal next month, full of confidence as bigger challenges loom on the horizon”, as such what are the chances that the western media ignores that cup too? I reckon that we need to consider that we are on the wrong side of a losing track, when sports are trivialised like this it really matters, we need to do some soul searching to say the least.

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February 28, 2023 · 02:05

The story not told

This is how it started, but then I realised that there are two stories that are not told. The western media does not want you to know any of it. It makes them simple red light debutantes. Whoring for digital dollars and all at the expense of not informing you. So how are you feeling now?

The story that started this was given to us by Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2258916/saudi-arabia) where we are given ‘Saudi project clears 882 Houthi mines in Yemen’ in addition we are given “Overseen by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, special teams destroyed five anti-personnel, 195 anti-tank mines, 681 unexploded ordinances and one explosive device” as well as “A total of 388,433 mines have been cleared since the start of the project” but in all this did you consider the larger stage of the issue?

(Photo by Saleh Al-OBEIDI / AFP)

There are two sides. The one side is that Iran was instrumental in delivering over a million mines to Houthi terrorists. The second side is that Saudi Arabia is trying to clear Yemen from these horrific devices, there is of course the third side where we see that the large wining media solutions (The Times, The Guardian, NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and LA Times) as far as I can tell never makes mention of ANY of it. Not the Iranian side of delivering mines. Not the Saudi side of stopping Yemeni casualties. Why is that? There is even an additional side, you see if these media jokes do not change their way, they will soon be less reliable than Arab News and Al Jazeera. And we can add Fox News to the list of useless sources. There is also an upside, these two sources can already be captured with their apps and give you the ACTUAL news regarding the middle east. The photo placed earlier was intentional. It came from Arab News but the source is the AFP, so why is this photo not all over the western news? Why are we kept in the dark on what Iran has been doing? You see Houthi terrorists do not have the means, the materials or the logistics to create a million mines. In the mean time we are given “In June 2022, the project’s contract was extended for another year at a cost of $33.29 million” whilst everyone is ignoring what Iran has been doing. We failed the Yemeni’s in many fronts. We are only partially able to stop weapon smuggle from Iran, We are unable to stop Houthi terrorists and the people doing something about it and that is merely the top of the list. And there is an overbearing other reason. With the claims out there made by 6,047 journalists in the US and over 320,000 journalists in the EU and I, a non-journalists am informing you? Where are these digital dollar seekers? Why is this Arab News not global news informing you on what Iran is part of? How about Houthi terrorists placing over a million mines? Who informed you? There is a decent chance that the western media did not, as far as I can tell, the only active western (French) player is the AFP at present. 

It is time we ask the hard questions from the media and do it in the limelight, preferably asking the stakeholders for their assistance in all this, but that is my sense of humour in action.

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February 26, 2023 · 20:58

Surprise, surprise

That is how I felt an hour ago when Arab News gave me (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2257936/sport) ‘Saudi Arabia beat Indonesia by 8 wickets at 2023 ACC Men’s Challenger Cup’ I honestly did not know that Saudi Arabia has a Cricket Team. That is not even close to the end of it. 

You see, Saudi Arabia has 11 associations. They are Western Province Cricket Association, Jeddah Cricket Association, Riyadh Cricket Association, Riyadh Cricket League, Eastern Province Cricket Association, Yanbu Al Sinayiah Cricket Association, Aseer Cricket League, Jizan Premier Cricket League, Jizan Region Cricket Association, Madina Cricket League, and the Madina Cricket Association. I will do you one wilder, Saudi Arabia is playing Thailand tomorrow and when you search “Saudi Arabia Cricket” in Google, we see the match come up and in the whole first page of News Nine’s Wide World of Sports is the only one in the entire page who mentions it. The first three pages go back to August 2022, BBC sports never shows up and neither do most of the Australian papers. And Cricket is their bread and butter? How about giving possible opponents in the world a fair mention? You still think that Australian news is about sports and facts? Where were these facts filtered out? The fact that I never knew that Saudi Arabia did not have a Cricket team is on me, but I had help, for the most the sports world of Australia and England went out of their way not to mention it, nothing at all. That part is seen in the top three pages in Google Search. You tell me why the media ignores it, I have no idea.

So what else are we not being told? This is a simple setting, this you can look up and there you see how western newspapers treat other teams, especially the ones that are filtered out. Is this a storm in a teacup? Yes, I will admit that it is, there should not be so much focus on one element, but what is the element that we should ignore, that Saudi and Indonesian cricket events do not make the news, or the fact that neither show up at all? Because a few days ago the news was full of Women Cricket (and I am fine with that), but nothing at all on other events? I honestly cannot tell what the filtering was all about, but when one party comes with the BS excuse that they ran out of space all whilst the BBC app is rehashing news from Feb 4th, I will throw a tantrum. 

That is the news that the west gives us, all unbiased and honest, too bad it does not give us the additional “Filtered for the need of shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers” because I personally reckon that was part of that deal.

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February 15, 2023 · 01:12

When we see a hustle

This is the idea that came to my mind when I saw ‘US-GCC meetings in Riyadh seek to counter Iranian threats’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2250361/middle-east). Thee we see “A senior US delegation led by Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley is participating in meetings in Riyadh this week focused on confronting the increasing threats posed by Tehran in the region.” My initial response would be “Oh, whoop di do”, you see, I was on that horse long before I wrote ‘The Iranian play’, which was in August 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/30/the-iranian-play/)  as such, is this a covert hustle for cheap oil? Is this a fake mention to be seen as an ally to Saudi Arabia? I honestly do not know, but you can read up on Iran (try Google with “Lawlordtobe + Iran”) you’ll see articles that go back to even before July 2020 when I wrote ‘A pawn in nuclearity’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/07/22/a-pawn-in-nuclearity/), it’s not rocket science (or nuclear missile science), It is all out there, with media links and all. As such when we see “US forces in Iraq and Syria “are under constant threat from Iranian allied militia groups that seek to constantly harass our forces,” which “undermines” their ability to combat Daesh.” We get to see a hollow statement. Saudi Forces have been under drone attack for some time. Perhaps Rob Malley needs to have a real conversation with Saudi Colonel Turki Al-Maliki. He has a lot more usable goods on the acts of Iran, as such the US is again late to the party, well over two years late to the party and as such I see a hustle plain and simple, what the target is is unsure, but the grasp for cheap oil seems likely. 

You see, most of us (and I at times too) see one stage, but the reality is that the stage contains dozens of stages, all with their own settings. US diplomacy, Wall Street, US congress, the seem the same, but that is not the case. They are often alike and they all have their own goals and their destination is at times anyones guess, because we are not given a clear view, we only see parts of that view and until you see the list of views and a proclaimed set of goals (if they are honest) we remain mostly in the dark and as such the arrival of Rob Malley well over two years late comes across as insincere and as such it is seen as a hustle. If the US wants to sound sincere, they need to come across with ACTUAL actions. But there is every chance that these steps come with a large fine (optionally payable in oil) and in no clear steps will we see any actions against the nuclear acts that Iran is pushing. So what do you call something like that? A hustle, or the acts of a sincere ally, because I feel certain that the Saudi government will report the acts by Rob Malley as insincere, I would too. But perhaps we will see some real actions soon enough, I am just not holding my breath on that event, I might suffocate long before the US actually acts against Iran. In part that makes sense with the Ukrainian issues in play, if only they had acted well over two years ago, that would have been nice too.

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October 23, 2022 · 20:56

Silence is sewage

Yes, that is quite the difference from the original ‘silence is golden’ isn’t it? But that thought started recently when I was given ‘UN, international community condemn Houthi drone attack on Yemeni oil terminal’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2186011/middle-east). The idea started when I had a look and not entirely to my surprise I could not find anything from the BBC, the Guardian, the NOS, and that list goes on. Houthi terrorist actions continue, using Iranian materials and the west ignores it, how quaint. They did mention that Iran is delivering its drones to Russia, but the political parties are all about a hands off regarding Iran. I did make mention of an optional solution to take care of Iranian and Russian nuclear plants, perhaps I need to make that public domain. Perhaps they will wake up then. But back to the events at hand. The Arab News gives us “The UN on Saturday condemned an armed drone attack launched By Yemen’s Houthi militia on a southern oil terminal in Hadramout province a day earlier, saying it was a “deeply worrying” military escalation”, well it isn’t in most newspaper, so I reckon it is not that Important or that critical. And we also get a name with “I condemn the aerial attack claimed by Ansar Allah yesterday”, we also see very little regarding that terrorist and the BBC or the Guardian. One could speculate that the Iranian stakeholders in the UK have a lot more sway than anyone is willing to acknowledge, yet that is mere speculation from me. In addition we are given “Bin Mubarak said he also held a call with the US ambassador to Yemen, Steven Fagin, to discuss the consequences of the attacks on civilian facilities and commercial ports, and how it would worsen the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, adding he “demanded strong measures to put an end to Houthi terrorism.”” It sounds nice, but if the media shuns it to this degree, there is every chance that the Americans will not do too much in the end. They have so far not done anything successful in reigning in Iranian events, so I would not hold my breath on this either. 

The larger problem is not the these events are happening, it is that the powerful voices are lulling the people to sleep, ignoring what Houthi terrorists are up to in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia, all funded by Iran and we need to wake up, we need to see that Iran is becoming a much larger danger than we could ever be comfortable with. For China it is yet another option to spread its influence in the middle east. Consider cardinal Richelieu (Alexander Dumas, the 4 musketeers) stating “who will do something about these blasphemers?” The informative path is open, and those doing something will end with a lot more than the silent ones, but the US and UK could enjoy a further restriction of a million barrels a day. Do you think they will not buy them? The US has had an option to do something for well over 2 years and they did not. It was all about the pariah Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, but what happened when the US needed cheap oil (for whatever reason, they sell most of theirs). Yes, and now the ante is upped because no one is doing anything about Iran, no one is acting when inaction is no longer acceptable. 

When the Yemeni port is hit, when that port becomes inoperable, we will see some tea granny (CAAT) make claims that this was all the fault of Saudi Arabia, all whilst it is the western world that is in part to blame as they are hiding behind ‘Silence is sewage’ and they are fine with that, t least their stakeholders are, are you? This war has been going on for well over 8 years. Not in any point in time did terrorists have such a hold in disturbing a population and several nations. 

The fun part (for me) is that if China makes a stand, when it actually does something about the terrorists by supplying the Yemeni and Saudi governments what they need, what will the west do? For them it will then be too late. There is now a larger area that is in the mix and it could cost the EU and the US a lot more than they ever imagined and the papers will prove me right. Which paper had anything on the attack on  the harbour in Hadramout province? So far I found France24 with a decent piece, the rest? As far as I can tell, not a word. Why is that?

The age of Silence is golden is over, it was never a real golden era to begin with, it only supported greed driven entities and it supported them well. We need to change the book of tactics before it is too late for too many, but that is merely my view on the matter.

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September 12, 2022 · 20:59

Goodwill has implications

Yes, it is always an interesting wash when people make claims towards the setting of goodwill. So when Reuters gives its readers ‘Iran urges Saudi Arabia to show goodwill in talks to revive ties’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-urges-saudi-arabia-show-goodwill-talks-revive-ties-2022-09-12/). I have certain questions. We are given “Iran has no preconditions in its talks with Saudi Arabia, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Monday, calling on Riyadh to adopt a “constructive approach” to improve ties” yet the statement by Nasser Kanaani is dripping in falsehood. 

  1. Arming Houthi terrorists that enabled Houthi forces to attack Saudi civilian targets
  2. The drone attacks on Aramco on 14 September 2019 could NOT have been done by Houthi forces. 

In addition, the CSIS reported on December 21st 2021 “The number of Houthi attacks against predominantly civilian targets in Saudi Arabia doubled over the first nine months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020, according to new CSIS analysis. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force and Lebanese Hezbollah have played a critical role in providing weapons, technology, training, and other assistance to the Yemen-based Houthis” and that is merely the tip of the ice berg. So why does Saudi Arabia need to show goodwill?

The fact that most western media has been one-sided in its reporting and attacking Saudi points of view at nearly every step does not mean we all accept the statements of Iran. In this the media should take time to listen to the findings from Colonel Turki Al-Maliki, but Reuters and a few others are not willing to do that, are they?

This is again some play to listen to poor poor Iran, so that western egocentric politicians can make a case of progress even though all sides know that they are getting played by Iran. So whilst we are given “Iran will respond proportionately to any constructive action by Saudi Arabia”, Iran will continue to support Houthi forces to attack Saudi civilian targets. In all this when we realise the larger game, what goodwill should be shown and who of the two has a much larger need to show any goodwill? And it was only 4 days ago when we were given ‘42 killed in Houthi attacks in Taiz during truce’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2158346/middle-east) did you think that this was possible if Iranian military support was not there? Iran has been pushing for Middle Eastern instability for the longest time and it is time that we took a much harder look at that. And with that part we see the setting of falsehood given by Nasser Kanaani and it was not hard to see the evidence, people like Colonel Turki Al-Maliki have been showing the blind and deaf western media this evidence for well over three years now, but it does not fit well with the needs of egocentric politicians. Their mind is set on the title of evangelists of peace, even though they are willing to fit the robes of a false prophet to get there, because the media is aiding them in this effort. It is time to get the whole story and I fear it will be too late when the delay games of Iran pays off with damage that no one can overcome for many years to come. 

But I might be wrong and exaggerate it all. Read up from more sources and form your own opinion. 

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September 8, 2022 · 17:39

Weasels in the limelight

Yes, this is about some weasels, others call them members of media. As such, I am only handing you the Arab News link, the western media DOES NOT DESERVE any consideration at present. The article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2158496/media) giving us ‘Disney found ‘substantial portion’ of Twitter users fake in 2016: former CEO’ is the larger setting. So as I have given you all my point of view in several articles in the past months, even accusing the media to be nothing more than creators of click bitches. We now get the fact that the evidence that Elon Musk was right all along in this article (and several in Western Media). They are now at the end of what they can exploit, so NOW we get the real deal? The fact that the Disney setting was that a situation existed since 2016 gives us the true setting of western media. For a large extent they have less credibility than a crack whore high on cocaine. Filtered information that meets with the approval of their stakeholders. That is what we have been exposed to. So now as we get to see “Iger did not specify what he meant by “substantial.” Twitter has consistently reported that fewer than 5 percent of its “monetizable” daily users are bot or spam accounts. Iger’s comments come amid a legal battle between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and Twitter over Musk’s deal to buy the social media company for $44 billion. Musk, who is trying to walk away from the deal, has claimed that Twitter has misrepresented the prevalence of spam or bot accounts on the platform.” And the media was aware since 2016 and now when we look back to the articles in western media, we see no mention of the Disney deal whatsoever, the media is THAT corrupt towards digital dollars and stakeholders. And you wonder why I do not trust the media? Well, this is about to get a lot more interesting over the next few weeks when I give notice of a much larger setting. The stage we see now is one where the media is sucking up to whomever they can to not be disregarded as obsolete. They did this to themselves and I have no pity or mercy for them.

And now as we see “In his memoir, “The Ride of a Lifetime,” Iger wrote that he had second thoughts about a deal with Twitter because of the “nastiness” of the discourse on Twitter that he feared would become a distraction.” So the media (and their book sections) and many other parts have had the information for years and we got to see nothing of it, now it does not matter. I had my evidence, Trollrensics had evidence and Elon Musk had evidence. The media is now obsolete, a voice for stakeholders. They no longer deserve their 0% tax group as they are mere digital dollar marketeers. But the politicians are unwilling to hold the media to any level of accountability. 

As I see it, I hope that Elon Musk gets whatever he wants and should he be forced to buy Twitter, it should be no more than a maximum of 6 cents to the dollar. As such Jack Dorsey ends up with a 2.7 billion dollar payday and that is overvaluing Twitter by a lot. And after that, when the media is thrown OFF Twitter, I wonder how long they can hold on. It would irritate me that Elon Musk might lose 2.7 billion, but I reckon he could afford that and more important, when Twitter goes the way of the Dodo (just like the media) I get to introduce a new part of social media to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, just like the initial part I offered to the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Sydney this week. If that goes right a new market will open and now the media will have no say over the matter, they are as obsolete as possible and not welcome at what comes next. They clearly cannot police themselves, that much is shown all over the field. Even if I only get 3%, that over $17,000,000,000 is a lot more than I ever made before. The game is set, the orchestra engaged and now we see if the media (as well as their political and stakeholder friends) can dance. Out there in the limelight. Like weasels trying to hide away from the light beams, not realising that the grass is flat, the lights are high and every bit of grass is exposed. We all get to see the weasels jump and run in every direction hoping to find shade to vanish in, but not this time. This time they really went to far (as I personally see it).

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July 21, 2022 · 22:47

Stunting into stupidity

It started with an article in the Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/20/israeli-journalist-sneaks-into-mecca-triggering-online-backlash). The article gives us ‘Israeli journalist sneaks into Mecca triggering online backlash’, it gives a lot more and it gives us the man who topped the stupid bill (namely Gil Tamary) and the byline gives us “his report aired on Israel’s Channel 13 News had not intended to offend Muslim”, didn’t he? He wanted a showstopper, to be mentioned in history and he was utterly uninterested in the aftermath. He merely wanted to be first at the expense of everyone else. How did I get there? “Israel’s Channel 13 News aired a 10-minute report on Monday in which journalist Gil Tamary drove past the Grand Mosque that houses the cube-shaped Kaaba, the holiest shrine in Islam, and climbed the Mount of Mercy”, you see, the mount of mercy is a granodiorite hill about 20 km (12 mi) southeast of Mecca. This was all premeditated, and that was essential in making an article that would upset muslims, it was a stunt from beginning to end. The quote “The report was billed as a scoop and the journalist the first Jewish Israeli reporter to document the annual Muslim pilgrimage of Hajj.” Supports my point of view. You see, if the reporter was Muslim it was not that much of an issue, but Channel 13 news did not send a Muslim, did they? 

You see only Muslims are allowed to visit Mecca, while non-Muslims cannot enter. The breach of this rule can result in a fine or deportation. And that rule has been in place before I went to primary school where we learn this. Gil Tamary needed a stunt, something to brag about over dinner for all time. He is the first non-Muslim to go to Mecca, a stunt too stupid to consider the impact of insult made to Muslims. Gil Tamary is an idiot, perhaps the biggest one in Israel, so that is the other stunt he can make claim on: “I am the biggest idiot in Israel”, but he will not try that path, will he? And in all this when we reconsider “The purpose of this entire endeavour was to showcase the importance of Mecca and the beauty of the religion, and in doing so, foster more religious tolerance and inclusion”, might optionally have been true if the film team would have been Muslim, if the reporter would have been Muslim. I saw Mecca, I saw the Hajj through the camera’s of Muslims. I spoke about it in ‘The media gets it this wrong?’ days before someone decided to sneak into Mecca. I never snuck into Mecca, people had covered their trip to Mecca, the trip of their lifetime and shared it with all others. Channel 13 had that very same option, but left it to the idiot of Israel (Gil Tamary) to make a fool of Channel 13 and to upset millions of Muslims. So if we see stories of upset Muslims if will be due to Gil Tamary a.k.a. the idiot of Israel. I feel angry, I feel angry that someone would disrespect any religion to such a degree. And you know what is even worse? When I seek ‘Gil Tamary’ I get: “5 results (0.29 seconds)”, the western media was willing (read: intent) to stay clear of this, the media who in large numbers would convict the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia lacking evidence, is not willing to go near this event. The media has become this warped! And no one is asking questions. No one is demanding evidence of such levels of misrepresentation. 

So when will the media realise just how insignificant they have become? You see when other people will look at Arab News, Al Jazeera and other media and they see how misrepresented the news has become, what will they do? What excuse will they use? 

I will let you ponder that part of the equation.

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June 8, 2022 · 03:03

Vindaloo on the side

It started two days ago. I honestly do not remember who the source was, but it stuck in the back of my mind. It also stuck how the large media trivialised (BBC excepted) the matters at hand. So I decided to take a gander. I first stopped at Arab News who gave us (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2097311/saudi-arabia) ‘Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and Muslim institutions denounce Indian official’s insults against Prophet Muhammad’, so not the western news, not the Italian daily prophet (Vatican News), no merely the Gulf States and Islamic Institutions. So as we are given “Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and Muslim institutions on Sunday condemned the remarks against Prophet Muhammad by a top official in India’s ruling party, with some demanding concrete action to end such acts of Islamophobia.” So whilst the Washington Post gives us “Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science at Indiana University gives us “At home, a lynching takes place and Modi remains deafeningly silent. Now, he feels compelled to act because he realises the damage abroad could be extensive. When it comes to foreign policy, the stakes are high.”” Yes and there is the problem, an act merely because the international stakes are too high. It is time to get to part 2, that is the part given to us by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-61701908) where we see ‘Nupur Sharma: Prophet Muhammad row deepens India’s diplomatic woes’, and the power is given to us by “Ms Sharma’s – angered the country’s minority Muslim community, leading to sporadic protests in some states. The BBC is not repeating Ms Sharma’s remarks as they are offensive in nature”, the statement was SO offensive, to the degree that the BBC will not comment by quoting the statement. What we do see is “Analysts say that the top leadership of the party and the government may have to make public statements on the issue. Not doing so, they say, runs the risk of damaging India’s ties with the Arab world and Iran.” As I personally see it India has pissed off Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia all at the same time, a decent achievement if I do say so myself. And the setting of this is not whether thee are acts, the acts are too slow in a nation that has had its long term issues with Muslim communities. The lack of direct action against discrimination. I am a little on the fence. If others (christians) have to adhere to Muslim rules in Saudi Arabia, there would be the setting that Muslims have to adhere to India’s (Hindu) rules. But to allow blatant insults against ones religion is a dangerous step, not merely national, yet in this there is the international stage too and as I personally see it the (far too) slow reactions by its Indian government and Narendra Modi will have (or is that should have) repercussions and not merely in India. It is NDTV (New Delhi Television) gives an interesting view. They give us ‘PM Modi, The Djinn Is Out Of The Bottle And Out Of Control’ it shows that there is way too much support for the discriminatory views of Nupur Sharma, lets not forget here that she was until recently the spokesperson of the BJP, as such, how did she get there?

The Islamic community might be forced to dump all Indian goods and services and this now gives a massive handle to the US and the EU. If they get the $15,000,000,000 of crude oil that usually goes to India its nation will face a massive recession. India lives on cars, petrol and a mobile industry. If even over 25% falls away the Indian government will face a situation they never faced before, not to this degree. A setting where India faces more hardship as it deals in oil with Iran and Russia or see the average quality of life in India fall for well over 20%, how much it falls? I honestly cannot tell and my 20% might be overly optimistic. 

So even as the BBC gives us “Experts said the controversy could overshadow some of India’s recent diplomatic successes with the UAE and other nations.” I reckon it is nothing compared to the internal mess that could happen when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia decides to move the oil tap from India to the US and Europe. Their worries will be over to a much larger degree, but at that point it will suck to be in India. When 300 million cars can no longer run because fuel prices went from 96.35 ₹/L to 396.50 ₹/L that is when panic and utter chaos will rule India and I reckon Pakistan will not be overly upset about that setting either. As such the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Narendra Modi will need another option, another direction and it seems to me that they re stuck in the mud with no one around to help them. Some will state that it was her right to speak, but is open discrimination a right? Nupur Sharma might have started something that she was unable to contain or adjust for and we will see what happens next because something has to give in this equation and your guess is just as good as mine. There is too much I do not know on the interactions in India, but I do know that tapping a tiger on the balls was not the way to go, especially if there is no fence separating the tiger from the tapper, but that might just be me.

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March 20, 2022 · 21:55

A social direction

This happens, in all the stupidity, the harshness and the fatalities of war, we look in other directions, we look for the good in places, in people, in foods and in entertainment. Our bodies and our souls can only take so much negativity until we start seeking out positivity in any way we can. This is pretty much on all of us. The problem for some is that they CANNOT avoid the negativity. Through war, through social issues, through personal issues. It is a clambake of barriers that we set up and that keep us in place. We all have these moments and these time stages. We can try to avoid them, but the negativity draws in, just like positivity when it happens. So there I was sitting on the couch watching Blindspot season 4 on dvd when I saw ‘Saudi Arabia ranks 25th in UN World Happiness Report’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2045881/saudi-arabia). Of all the things I expected to see, that was not one of them. To be honest  I have no idea where they were, but they moved up one step from 26 in a year. The full report (at https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2021/WHR+22.pdf) gives us more. You see the numbers show that they are one place behind the UAE and both are really close to the scores of France, Belgium, UK and US. Yet there is also the setting that Arab News gives us “The report has been based on two key ideas: That happiness or life evaluation can be measured through opinion surveys, and that we can identify key determinants of well-being and thereby explain the patterns of life evaluation across countries,” That is a little more than I bargained for. I am not disputing the approach but how many people? The PDF does give us that. 156 countries and 1853 observations (per nation I guess). Yet if that is the case and we know Saudi Arabia has 35 million people, we might see that stage. Yet Belgium has 12 million people and the US has 330 million people, so how is there a stage of equality? How can 1853 people be a genuine stage for happiness in the US? How is the stage of opinions towards regression become a scale of happiness? How were these numbers created? Technical box 2 gives us more (page 20), but there is a larger issue. We see 2017 World Development Indicators (WDI) that came BEFORE covid. They use GDP time series from the OECD economic outlook no. 110 (edition December 2021) with the added ‘or if missing’ and there the problem lies. Statistical result connected to other statistical results. I once learned (1992) that this is a really wrong setting to work from. Apart from the stage that it could be based on very different people, there were different economic boundaries and other issues in play. But overall it took me three minutes to combine data into questions and reservations on this report. It is nice to see all these happy people pictures, but it is window dressing, and it makes me more apprehensive of the report then less. There is a feeling of orchestration. The image of a man wearing an ‘offline hustler’ t-shirt with the small caption of ‘every move won’t be posted’, it merely brings out the negativity in me. And it is ‘consistency of emotion changes across countries in the 5 weeks after the outbreak’, you see what date was used for the 5 week stage? December in China? When? It matters because covid hit us at different times, there seems to be no real explanation there. So how was Twitter used for these 1853 people? Is twitter separate, how many twitter observations per nation? The list goes on and grows. Still, it is an impressive piece of work, if there was a way to get better and more complete explanations it could work. But I hesitate when page 144 gives me “we approached the analyses by 2 interlinked hypotheses. (1) balance/harmony matter to all people; and (2) balance/harmony are dynamics at the heart of well-being. As we have seen, both hypotheses were corroborated to some extent” Really? 1853 observations out of 330 million Americans? How does that show any level of corroboration? 

The more of the report I saw, the more questions I ended up with. I wonder who else have a serious set of questions and I wonder when the media will ask Gallup more questions, Personally I doubt they will ever bother.

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