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What a surprise

So, before I get you to the article, I want to reiterate my position. I did this a few times and here it matters. You see, on May 31st 2025 I wrote ‘All Dressed Up’ where I gave you ““The United States could experience a loss of $21 billion in tourism-related revenue this year if current trends continue, according to estimates by the U.S. Travel Association. According to the trade group, every 1% reduction in international tourist spending represents an annual loss of $1.8 billion for the U.S. economy. Furthermore, experts indicated that a strong U.S. dollar could be driving away international visitors.” Even though only Canada is ‘sifted’ out” I had some issues, because the numbers were seemingly giving added ‘benefits’ to the economic settings of this administration. And now we see CBC giving us (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cross-border-travel-down-dramatically-research-9.7198652) ‘Travel to the U.S. is down even more dramatically than we thought, data shows’ where we are seeing “While official Statistics Canada figures show a roughly 25 per cent decline in Canadian residents returning from the U.S. last year, cellphone data compiled by researchers at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities found that the year-over-year drop in cross-border trips was closer to 42 per cent.” Which is a nice sidestep and the University of Toronto has proven themselves more than once, so I am excepting this setting. This means that the numbers were off by over 15%, which gives my settings (and decently speculative) a new wave of reliability. So whilst we ‘accept’ the numbers we are also given “They found the decline was even more dramatic in some warm weather locales that have historically been hot spots for Canadians fleeing winter weather. In Myrtle Beach, S.C., the number of trips by Canadians was down 65 per cent year-over-year, according to the cellphone data, giving it the dubious title of the metro area with the steepest drop. In the Florida cities of Panama City, Orlando, Cape Coral, Miami and Naples, the number of Canadian visitors fell by 50 per cent or more. But cratering demand wasn’t recorded only in those sunny destinations. Trips to San Francisco, New York, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, Mich., Boston and other business centres have also fallen by more than half, according to the data. In fact, of the 267 U.S. metro areas analyzed by researchers, only three — Cleveland, Portland, Ore., and Gainesville, Fla. — showed an increase in visits by Canadians last year.” What a lovely way to powder a message. Canadians kept up their promise that they were sick and tired of the 51st state setting of the United States by showing a massive decline to well over 250 U.S. metro areas? That should suck to the economy of the United States and I reckon that some people in this administration long before the Tuesday, November 3 moment has come to the calendars of all American voters and as ‘they’ say, every citizen is a voter at that point. So as the USA Today gave us yesterday (at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/07/13/trump-federal-control-midterm-elections/90840111007/) ‘Trump moves to tighten federal control of elections ahead of midterms’ there is a setting that the drop in tourism will have every citizen of the United States livid. So whilst we are given “The president says he’s trying to prevent cheating, but Democrats argue he’s actually putting his thumb on the scale for the GOP by trying to block Democrats from voting.” Which is likely to be a repeat from 2016 when ‘O’Reilly’s Proof That Voter Fraud Exists Was Debunked On His Own Show Four Years Ago’, it is all kids of mean that I figure on using the words of a dedicated Republican to whistle back the BS from a republican administration. And we were given “Fox News host Bill O’Reilly argued that Mitt Romney’s failure to receive any votes in the 2012 presidential election in 59 divisions in Philadelphia was evidence that widespread voter fraud exists presidential elections. This claim was investigated and proved false on O’Reilly’s show one week after the 2012 election. O’Reilly invited lawyers Kimberly Guilfoyle and Stacy Schneider to discuss the prevalence of voter fraud in presidential elections. While both Guilfoyle and Schneider agreed that voter fraud is extremely rare, O’Reilly pointed to “reports in Philadelphia that nobody voted for Romney” as proof that voter fraud exists and asked if these reports have been investigated. From the August 16 edition of The O’Reilly Factor: O’Reilly himself investigated and debunked these allegations in 2012. Following the election, O’Reilly hosted Fox’s Megyn Kelly to investigate the “shenanigans” and why Romney got zero votes in a number of Philadelphia divisions. Kelly explained that “the same thing happened to John McCain” in 2008 because “the divisions with the unanimous Obama votes have large black, inner-city populations.”” 

So will this be a repeat of what we saw in 2016, and with the population of 250 U.S. metro areas extremely likely to be livid, what chance does this administration have? So whilst we return to the story and visit “In an interview with CBC News, Karen Chapple, the lead researcher and director of the School of Cities, said the drop in tourism to popular destinations like Orlando, as well as border communities like Buffalo, N.Y., has been well-documented. What her cellphone data makes clear is that the Canadian boycott is affecting cities both big and small across the States — and it’s not just leisure travel that has dried up. The self-imposed travel ban has extended to high-tech, financial and industrial centres, signaling that cross-border business and trade patterns have fundamentally shifted over the last year. “I have been using the word ‘sea change,'” Chapple said of the data she and her team uncovered. “And the places most impacted by the tariffs are also the ones most affected by the loss of travel,” she said, pointing to some Michigan cities like Flint that have trade ties to Ontario’s auto sector. “These declines are really tied to the composition of the local economies.”” A setting which my (decently speculative numbers also looked at) you see, there is a lot more to the spending of an international traveling person. They often fro not know certain things, or they might see it as impolite to use certain settings and this would have impacted local businesses a lot more. Like the local B&B places (to name merely one) and none of those earlier numbers would have seen that and now we see that there is a 15% gap between what was and seemingly what is. 

It is at this point where the CBC setting matters. As we are given “The U.S. Travel Association last year said a 10 per cent drop in Canadian tourism would cost the American economy about $2.1 billion US. If Chapple’s data is an accurate reflection of what’s going on, that means Canadians holding back on U.S. travel may have cost the economy about $8.4 billion US and counting. Speaking at a progressive political conference last weekend, Prime Minister Mark Carney applauded Canadians’ efforts to stand up to the Americans as the trade dispute with Trump drags on.” And now I get to gloat (just a little) and my story given on August 30th 2025 called ‘Vindication of a sort’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/08/30/vindication-of-a-sort/) where I stated 

So my speculation was hitting reality on nearly all thrusters and whilst bankruptcies are on a high in Florida (44,496), which dwarves the previous year (which had 32,933) and these numbers are set to May 26th 2026, as such these numbers are most likely to rise and taken that the CBC gives us alternative numbers, that jump might be a lot and I speculated it over a year ago, that is before we look at California where we see ‘California personal bankruptcies up 15% in a year’ (source: East Bay Times). The story they have comes with graphics, which are (especially for Canadians, fun to behold at https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2026/06/02/california-personal-bankruptcies-up-15-in-a-year/) It gives me that Texas with its 20% is still a states to consider and considering all these families renting out part of their house on a B&B setting are likely to be all personal bankruptcies. When you add all this up, you might start seeing the settings I say in 2025 because this all was set to Canadian impact, whilst I was looking at the larger international community that had enough of Trumpisms and I also considered that the Commonwealth nations might stand with Canada and select Canada as the destination for the next few years. That speculation is seemingly holding water as well, as such the United States has a real problem until deep into 2029 and with the Middle East exploring their tourism settings (especially the UAE) that hardship is nowhere near done. 

So some might see this as ego boasting, but there is no ego in place. I merely saw the numbers behind the numbers and I saw a trend evolving and I have been doing this since 1992, so I have a few markers that have been seeing the test of time. My ego does giggle at the simple fact that I was more on the nose with these numbers than all the fake AI in the land. So that part is gloating boasting and all kinds of nearly negative settings. I don’t have to give space to fake AI, it is that kind of a day today (at it is Wednesday 01:10 here), it sometimes suck to be a Fake AI, doesn’t it?

The article has one source “Barbara Barrett, executive director of the Frontier Duty Free Association, a trade group representing the mostly family-owned stores that dot the Canadian side of the border, said the steeper drop-off figures are more believable than the StatsCan data, based on how badly sales have plummeted at some of her members’ outlets.” Yes, I never considered that, but Canadians tend to buy the Canadian articles they know, as such that group is also facing dwindling numbers. For them I do feel sorry, but it is part of the whole.

So as I go to bed with a gloat, I wish you all a great day, my Wednesday ‘officially’ starts in less than 300 minutes.

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Joke of 2019: United Nations

You might remember the article I wrote a few months ago when Eggnog Calamari (aka Ages Calamard) an essay writer at the UN wrote a piece where she used boatloads of circumstantial evidence (at best) and accused the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia of ordering the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. I looked at that part in ‘Demanding Dismissal‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), in that article I go over a number of issues and I also published the UN report in that article. Now, I am not stating that certain people are innocent, I cannot prove guilt or innocence either way, yet I get to question guilt in the UN report to a larger extent. So, if that organisation (or Joke) would have truly be consistent, they would have made similar steps in the the Saudi attacks that happened in September 2019, yet there we see “The UN has reportedly so far been unable to confirm Iran was involved in drone and cruise missile attacks on two key Saudi oil facilities in September“, you might remember the origins of the United Nations, It replaced the League of Nations as they were unable to limit the actions of the at that time active national bully Nazi Germany, so as we now see that the UN has been unable to modern day bully Iran, it has become the joke that the league of nations once were.

So when the BBC gave us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50742224) a few items, I decided to search a little further. When we look at the actions that instigated the damage in September 2019 there are a few issues that need to be looked at. 

The optional attackers

Basically that is a list of any attacker that could have been involved, let’s look at the list:

Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. This list are all the players that optionally could have instigated any attack. So let’s look at that list: Oman, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain and Jordan fall away as they have warm relationship with Saudi Arabia, in addition to this, there have not been any attacks or negative actions against either Saudi Arabia or Aramco, these elements take those players of the list. Iraq gets separate recognition, it seems that 15 agreements have become reality between the two countries and Saudi Arabia, whilst the Arab News gives us “Saudi Arabia donated $500M to support exports of Iraq and $267M to support development projects“. In addition to this, Iraq imports drones from China, none of the debris gives any indication that Chinese drones were in play. Even as Iraq has close relations to Iran, there is no indication that Iraq has any hostile intentions towards Saudi Arabia or any proxy agreement with Iran to attack Saudi Arabia. In addition to this, there is no indication that Kuwait has a trained drone group, or even the used cruise missiles are not in the arsenal of Kuwait, as far as I can tell Kuwait only has land based PAC-2 & PAC-3 Patriot missiles. For Qatar the issue is different, they are not on the friendliest terms and an attack (an airlift) from Qatar would be too visible from too many sides, in addition the Saudi Navy would be able to detect any missile launch from Qatar.

Israel has absolutely no plans to engage with Saudi Arabia ever, also, the materials used are not part of the Israeli defense forces. So at this point, Iran and Yemen remain.

Yemen

Yemen has every (self delusional) reason to attack Saudi Arabia and they made claim of this attack, yet let me give you a list why I doubt this.

Infrastructure, Yemen has no infrastructure left to create the drones, in addition, the entire arsenal gives rise to question Yemen as the guilty party, that is also seen in the UN through “the report also noted that the Houthis “have not shown to be in possession, nor been assessed to be in possession” of the drones used in the attacks“, there is another matter, when we consider the strike on Aramco locations and the hit percentage, we see that this in opposition against earlier strikes on Saudi Arabia over 6 months give a success rate that opposes this. In layman terms it translates to:  someone is playing on a slot machine (drone operator), and so far it got hits that do not register (which was fair enough) the attack on Aramco translate in that as getting on the same machine using 25 quarters 14 times the three sevens (jackpot) came up. Now we can consider that a machine gives a jackpot, yet to get it 14 times out of 25 quarters might be impossible, yet it is so unlikely that the likelihood is to be rejected. In an attack 25 drones and missiles were used, 14 hits that punctured storage tanks, three that disabled oil processing elements, it gives 17 debilitating hits and as such it cannot have been made by Yemeni forces. 

To be this good whilst there is no infrastructure to build drones is as far as I and several experts have been able to ascertain is impossible. 

In addition, do you remember how the Khashoggi report has that part from the CIA? The Calamard report gives us: “US officials expressed high confidence in the CIA assessment“, I looked at that in ‘Uber driving facts‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/11/13/uber-driving-facts/), the fact that we see (regarding the attack), “US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Iran was behind the attacks” (source Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post), yet it seems that the CIA part is not mentioned (does not come up) in the BBC article, is that not weird as well? 

In the second part, we see that Yemeni forces do not have ANYONE to fly drones to this degree, their training (mostly via Hezbollah) has been lacking for such a long flight, and all the previous attacks give rise to the fact that these drones were in the air at least 3 times longer, having to fly under the radar. After that we need to consider that to hit that many drones on that many targets could not have been done by one pilot, which makes the Yemeni claim of options and abilities almost ludicrous. Should this have been able then it could only have been with Iranian hardware usd by Iranian troops visiting, not even Hezbollah has this level of experience (as per their own history), although the likelihood that it was done by Hezbollah forces is higher than Yemeni forces, the alleged involvement of them in other Saudi raids makes the Aramco success it almost unbelievable.

From several expert sources we see that Yemen does not have the hardware, the UN even supports this view themselves, which now means that only Iran remains as the guilty party.

It is interesting that the UN dismisses any evidence to find the crown prince guilty of alleged assasination regardless of lack of evidence, yet it refuses to hold Iran to account when the list of evidence is increasingly long and showing several levels of Iranian involvement. That is just in case you were wondering why in 2019 the United Nations became a joke and a bad one at that.

The attack, whether from Yemen or from Iran would have required Iranian forces and Iranian hardware, that is the long play, the Yemenis could not have had this level of success even if they received all the hardware from Iran, their troops lack training on several fronts, the basic needs for the cruise missiles are not met by any Yemeni forces and as such the success rate of the missiles alone would have been impossible, the same can be stated for the drone operations. It is clear that it was Iran, their was too much success in this attack, if only 1-5 tanks were hit and 1-3 infrastructure buildings were hit it would be a much harder proof that Iran was guilty, they were so bound on making every hit count, that is the actual stage that sets Iran up as the guilty party, Yemen could never have succeeded to this degree, there is personally no doubt in my mind to that part in this. I also feel that several military experts share my view making the UN report, as well as the UN a joke and a bad one at that. The organisation that was created to stop the German Nazi bully now lets the Iranian bully get away with it all and as such it is my personal view that Secretary General António Guterres needs to get out whilst he can, even as the UN hides behind ‘a report that summarised the experts’ initial findings‘ (initial being the operative word, they are to be seen as the laughing stock, you see, from my point of view those people in charge have been allowing Iran to get away with too much as words like “Had we had been behind this, it would have been disastrous for Saudi Arabia“, I do not think that this is true, this was as good as it would get from Iranian forces. I agree with Saudi defence ministry spokesman Col Turki al-Malki who told reporters in Riyadh three days later (according to the BBC piece): “This attack did not originate from Yemen. Despite Iran’s best efforts to make it appear so, their collaboration with their proxy in the region to create this false narrative is clear.

The biggest issues is not the story of the UN, it is the fact that I was able to punch holes in it is, the fact that this level of consideration is given to Iran by the UN is just overwhelmingly amazing, I wonder what global event the fail to interfere in, optionally because there is a larger political need, was that why they were set up? They might hide behind “The UN was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future wars, succeeding the ineffective League of Nations“, yet what are you when you do that by ignoring the acts of a bully? It makes you a tool and a tool never prevented anything, especially wars in the long term, tools merely make sure that the systems for war are tweaked to needed perfection.

That is merely my personal view, but there have been enough wars to prove me right and regarding this situation, Sun Tzu teaches us that all war is set to deception, and in this case I personally am calling the UN a deceived party, have a great day!

 

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