Tag Archives: BBC

July 3, 2023 · 06:16

The change of stages

That is what my mind is wondering about. You see we are given one thing, but is that thing correct? In this day and age where the media is less and less trusted, we are in a stage of alteration. We are seeing one thing and we are wondering another. For this I look at the BBC (one of many) and we are given (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-66073728) ‘Macron to meet with top ministers amid fears of further unrest’ which is now coming after days of unrest, massive parts of France reduced to war zones. We are given “The page claims the officer “has done his job and is now paying a high price”” with emphases on the word ‘claims’ we are also given “They say they wanted people to participate in a peaceful march, to remember Nahel, but did not want people to become violent.” We see many clips on YouTube, many from news agencies (example at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqOL9VSoOXE) but the overwhelming questions that matter are missing.

ABC gives us a little more but not much more, they do give us “Tuesday’s killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023, down from a record 13 last year, a spokesperson for the national police said.” This is an important number (I won’t call this a statistic). 13 people got fatally shot in 2022, now in 2023 the number stands at 3. So if it rises to 6 as a 2023 total, it still implies a 50% reduction in fatal shootings, which is pretty impressive. You see, what we do not see is what started this. Why exactly did the police officer grab his gun and shoot? No one has a clear report on that and overall the reaction is immensely out of proportions, but they did have time to print the T-shirts and offer them for sale, yes commerce also works in France. There is little information on the officer and why things escalated into a shooting. Isn’t that interesting that the cause of all this is not given to us, or at least missing in too many reports?

For me it is a different stage. I think that this is the impact of delusion on national scales and not just France. The reality that jobs are faltering, that polarisation is coming to every nation. In America we see MAGA and Karen’s, now we see this in France and I reckon that Italy, Germany and Spain will have their own problems soon enough. Well, Germany perhaps less. Yet I do believe that socialised systems are up for grabs and the youth is acting out in anger, frustration and rage. I personally see this as the failing of tax systems against big corporations. Corporations who reset tax systems to allow for legalised slave labour wherever they can find it and the youth is angry. It is about to get worse and also in more places. 

These are the two settings that are pushing for more revolt and many of it is non peaceful. We see the ‘just stop oil’ losers disrupting London Pride march and we need to learn that all these things are somehow connected. Some people are very willing to upset certain settings, the people behind the curtains are setting more and more revolt settings and I personally believe that the French sitting is an example. Consider that a person in Paris is shot, we do not get to see the ACTUAL stage where people ask the police how did this happen. I get it things escalate and can escalate in a nasty way. But Nahel was 17, I have no idea what escalated this. Yet in all this I refuse to believe that some policeman grabbed his gun and merely blew him away out of spite. Even then the reaction that goes on all the way to Marseille is completely out of proportions, something is escalating this. For London I had the solution. Merely reduce their storage by 500,000 barrels of oil per day less and soon the price of petrol goes from 175.9p per litre to 325.9p per litre. That should wake the people up and there is no resetting that for as long as the Just stop oil movement is still in existence. France has its own demons and it requires a different handle, but someone (or something) is pushing this agenda and until people realise that they are being used, that their anger is invoked for other reasons this will not end and it will get worse. 

It isn’t that these things happen, they will always happen, but here the media is falling short. I looked to several newspapers and not one gave me a clear recollection on how this started. How EXACTLY did Nahel get shot? ABC gives me “The teen failed to comply with an order to stop his car, to which the officer fired his gun.” So, in short a teenager refused a directive from the police and it cost him his life. Does it matter that this was a traffic violation? We see all these TV series where people carjack, speed and more things ignoring the police because it looks like fun and now they see the impact, you can get yourself killed this way. This is GTA5 with a hardcore mode, you get one life and how far will you get in that game? Interesting isn’t it? No cheating and merely one life. How far will you get? Did you consider that option? It is the way I used to play Diablo 3. One life is all you get and I did it for every character class (it took a lot longer for me as a barbarian to get to the end). 

I am not loosely comparing France to a game. Something is pushing this and it isn’t simple anger it is the driving force but not the directing force. I think France needs to investigate who is pushing these people, because what I learned in France in the 80’s, to see someone in Marseille giving a damn about a Parisian is new to me, but here we see (source: BBC) giving us “There were fewer arrests compared to previous nights – 719 – with the worst clashes in the southern city Marseille.” This (and other data) made me wonder who (or what) is pushing this. This is seemingly not (or never was) about Nahel. Yet that is my personal take on the matter and I agree that I might be wrong. Yet consider the reaction to one fatality, a fatality caused by someone refusing to stop. Yes I agree that it seems like an overreaction, but I never saw the exact setting that caused this and the media is not focussing on this, or focussing on this much too little. I will let you decide on that matter. 

Enjoy the day, Monday is about to start.

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July 2, 2023 · 22:14

One plus one makes 256

I got struck by two things today. The first was given to me by the BBC. There (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66021325) we are given something that should not be allowed to happen. We are given ‘Shell still trading Russian gas despite pledge to stop’ this has one part that offends me. You see it is the Royal Dutch Shell. The Dutch Royal family has a majority stake in this and we all agree that we do not under any circumstance support the Russians in their endeavour. In addition, Royal Dutch Shell is not alone. Dozens of American firms are still making money from Russia and allowing them to continue their acts of terror against civilian targets. I am all royalist, yet when something wrong is done I speak out, the fact that the BBC is extremely willing to drop the ‘Royal Dutch’ part in this equation speaks out against the BBC and their setting of informing the public (yet again). In addition to this we are given. “Shell said the trades were the result of “long-term contractual commitments” and do not violate laws or sanctions.” And when was war a reason not to break a contract? How long have certain corporations been doing business with Idi Amin Dada Oumee in the timeframe of 1971-1979? Do they not learn? I think this is the first time I ever speak out against the Dutch Royal family, but this time I see no other option but to speak out. And when we get to “Oleg Ustenko, an adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, accused Shell of accepting “blood money”” I personally would agree with Oleg Ustenko. And with “Last year Shell accounted for 12% of Russia’s seaborne LNG trade, Global Witness calculates, and was among the top five traders of Russian-originated LNG that year” we see just how deep Royal Dutch Shell is connected to all this. 

Yet what you just read is not correct, and I did that intentionally. You see we also have “In January 2022, the firm merged the A and B shares, moved its headquarters to London, and changed its legal name to Shell plc.” So what is the UK doing? You see, Shell is seen as the 15th largest company in the world. You do not give up that position lightly or cheap. So whatever happened in January 2022 has had a massive impact and for some reason no one really knows what was going on (I have no clue), but me separating with ownership of a firm that big is a ‘no no’, so something does not add up to me, would you just shed a company that makes $20 billion a year? I have issues with all this and yes the BBC did nothing wrong, but the fact that this was once the Royal Dutch Shell and there is no indication (does not mean it did not happen) that the Dutch Royal family might still have a large stake in all this is upsetting to me and it would be to anyone having Dutch links. 

So as we say goodbye to that part, we get to the interesting dream I had. I dozed off whilst watching the Rookie (season 4). My dream (or nightmare) took me to Los Angeles and an interesting Terrorist plot to create and unsurmountable amount of chaos to that city. You see, with all the connected and interacting systems someone created an interesting virus/worm/program (not sure which one). This work was pretty ingenious. You see, instead of debilitating IT systems, they did something different. They infected data parsers. In my dream I was hit as I wanted to find places that had in part the term “vectium” and suddenly it all stopped. Systems worked by they were no longer able to give the full details sudden intelligent settings in Google Search, Bing (yes that one too), and all other engines failed because certain subsystems were deactivated and for some reason some version of ChatGPT was merely making matters worse and spreading the problem across the US and hitting the other continents merely hours later. Because certain detection matters were limited to certain main parts and not subparts that damage continued. The weird part was that anyone with IT knowledge and the ability to give complete correct search terms could still work, but well over 200,000,000 people suddenly had mobiles and IT systems that would no longer connect or hand over correct information, like some kind of aphasia. The dream is now fading and I can no longer see the specifics, but at the beginning it had something to do with search terms ‘like’, which then infected more and more systems. After a short time terms like ‘containing’ would stop working and even as the complete old version SQL string would work, it was about the only thing that did and it crippled the metropolitan areas of the US (and Canada shortly thereafter). The more I think about it, the more interesting it would be to set an episode of the Rookie where infrastructures collapse. You see, people are nice when they have their coffee and their hamburger (or cheeseburger), when that stops the niceties do too.

Well that is it for me, for all you others, the end of the weekend is now no more than 19 hours away, make them count and have a lovely day.

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July 1, 2023 · 22:35

Son of Kristallnacht

This happens, things happen again. Things are reprised and even the stupid parts are redone over and over again. I never understood the act of book burning. It does not matter what is burned. The acts of November 9th 1938 were short sighted and stupid and they reminded me of the events that led to the Bonfires of the Vanities. This event was on February 7th 1497 instigated by Girolamo Savonarola. Two events started by stupid christians (Savonarola and Hitler) as such it is a setting of a stupid event that led to the burning of Qurans. The second event was covered by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66052670) here we learn “Salwan Momika, said to be an Iraqi living in Sweden, set fire to a copy of Islam’s holy book outside Stockholm’s central mosque on Wednesday. The Quran burning was condemned by many Muslim-majority countries.” This set of a few thoughts in my mind. The first was ‘who on earth is Salman Momika?’ You see, Iraq has up to 10% that is not Muslim. This happens in many nations that has a muslim majority. So why would this person to set fire to a Quran? I am not trying to decipher it, but the irony is that the Iraqi people overtaking a Swedish Embassy whilst it was one of their own civilians to set fire to it in the first place is pretty ironic. There is a second setting that is less impressive. This is the second event that Sweden has and now if Turkey obstructs NATO entry, that is all on Sweden. They have the option to prosecute those who knowingly burn religious texts (any religious texts), they have the option to make Salwan Momika persona non grata, sending that person BACK to Iraq. At that moment Salwan’s goose is cooked, thoroughly. Something needs to be done. This is not about freedom of expression, this is about intentionally causing grief. I know that the matter is more pressing and more complex. Yet the larger station is that this was intentional, this is about someone pushing the buttons of Salwan Momika, the question is who and why. Is it Russia trying to set delays, it is a third party to create chaos? So many directions to go into and so many options to consider. The fact that someone OK’ed this is also an issue. They knew what would happen, there is no way that they did not. In the meantime Deutsche Welle informs us “Morocco has withdrawn its ambassador in protest”, which is not entirely unexpected. Sweden should expect a few more Muslim nations to be upset about the actions that were cause of them. This is not about freedom of expression, this is about creating mayhem and Sweden is letting this all happen threatening their ascendancy into NATO. There is no other way to see this. How this evolves is beyond me but Sweden is in for a few hard months and perhaps even more. But there is a larger station here and until we see a much more clear picture whatever I see is based on mostly speculation. 

On the upside, my mind came up with another game and another piece of IP, too early to tell where either will go, but the mind is firing on most thrusters.

Enjoy the weekend.

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June 27, 2023 · 13:24

Greed driven goblins

It is nice to see that places like PwC are avoiding prison time whilst other people without an accountancy degree do not. This all started when I saw the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66016270) called ‘PwC Australia sells division for 50p after tax leak scandal’ here we are told “The accounting giant has also announced the appointment of a new chief executive in the country. The move will allow the firm “to move forward with predictability and focus,” PwC Australia said in a statement.” Which reads like a little party line. We aren’t given the more realistic “In this day and age, we tried different approaches to cater to our overly rich clients and corporations to cater to their need for greed so that we can enjoy slices of Greed filled Lasagna as well. As we need our ground forces, we have decided on switching out our Chief Executive whose bonus will sustain him for the next decade.” So is my view flawed? Consider The Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/97dcb050-49df-11e7-919a-1e14ce4af89b) alas behind a paywall, which gives us ‘PwC escapes censure over Tesco accounting scandal’, other sources gives us “Tesco has been found to have overstated it profits by £263m after revenue recognition irregularities were spotted in its half-year results, with regulators including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) set to decide on a suitable punishment.” The reason for this is that the Tesco Scandal (the accounting one) was in 2014, in almost 10 years they (and the courts) never learned and never achieved (nearly) anything. That conclusion comes from the fact that you do not become Chief Executive overnight and Tesco was 8 years ago. This is not some case of being creative, this is bending black letter law to the maximum effect. It is about what a company can get away with and that is a failure on a few levels. 

So when we see “The ex-partner, who was advising the Australian government, had shared drafts of corporate tax avoidance laws with colleagues, who used it to pitch to potential clients. The leaks occurred between 2014 and 2017.” We will be given a new stage. You see, for three years PwC enjoyed a stage where they could go beyond simple advantage for THEIR customers all whilst courting the government for having a ground zero in corporation tax avoidance laws. This is not a small problem. With “Earlier this month, PwC Australia said it had identified 76 current and former partners linked to the scandal and handed their names to Australian lawmakers.” As I personally see it this is not small small group, it is a large cluster of people connected to the PwC and I am willing to bet the house that the size of this group allowed certain people to remain insulated from the fallout. I agree it is speculative, but in light of of the activities by PwC since 2008 I feel that I might be spot on. We see a whole barrage of articles by Accountancy firms making accusations, but we see an amazing lack of action. As such the ‘punishment’ of “sell its government business for A$1 (50p) after a scandal over the misuse of confidential government tax plans” reads like a bloody joke. It leaves the orchestrators free form prosecution, it leaves them with their income, their bonus and a rich life to come. It is perhaps the clearest piece of evidence that in this day and age Crime Pays, even more than an honest day work.

Enjoy paying most of your coin to afford a cup of coffee today.

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June 26, 2023 · 13:05

Is it the real issue?

As I was writing the previous story, the story (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65997926) arrived to my desk. As we see ‘Can we stop being tricked into subscriptions?’ My mind went back to a similar story I wrote in 2022, when someone accused Amazon of porn site approaches and we see here “‘I spent £6.99 for 18 months’ A huge range of firms now offer subscriptions ranging from food delivery to contact lenses and it is a growing market. Many offer a free trial, or discounts in exchange for people signing up. However, people the BBC has spoken to say they feel they have been locked in unintentionally because they have forgotten to cancel their subscription when their free trial period has ended.” Consider, when you forget a monthly responsibility, is that the service offerer or is it the schmuck who close that deal? And in this case Schmuck is the right word. When you have a deduction on your bank statements for 18 months, that person was not on the ball, missing the point. So when we are given “John, for example, told the BBC he had signed up to Amazon Prime video for a 30-day free period and forgot to cancel it when he had to start paying for it.” As such is that on Amazon, or on the dumbo forgetting he SIGNED for a responsibility? 

As such consider WHY are you taking a subscription? Was the reason valid, or was it a short term need? None of this is on Amazon, none of this is on the subscription offerer. That is the very first thing you need to realise. Just like those Gyms offering subscriptions by letting them be offered by ladies looking really good in D cups (or larger). It was the simple stage of sex sells, there was no sex involved, but the ego of the man never figured that out until he had been there for 2 plus years. 

Yet there is a side I cannot disagree with. It is given with “But Citizens Advice says it should go further, calling for auto-renewals to be banned altogether and making firms ask people to opt in, rather than opt out of subscriptions after a free trial.” It is not what these people want, but there is a clear stage that any offer should be by monthly, quarterly or annual opt in is fair on the consumer. As such some change is required. It is not on Amazon, but Amazon will be affected as well. As such, I can get behind ““The government has to acknowledge the pressure on consumers’ pockets. This has to be the start of reforms, not the end,” says Matthew Upton, executive director of policy and advocacy.” Matthew makes a decent case, even as people like that John might be too stupid to figure it out. There is indeed a need for reform. I cannot state that Amazon needs it, but plenty do. Netflix too has a decent cancellation option. Yet which do not? I cannot tell and as such I find the opt in continuation a decent solution. But the real issue is not the actual issue. It is a person like that John is so stupid that he paid 18 months because he forgot and the BBC picked it up as news. The headline should have stated ‘Should we adjust to the need of stupid people?’ That is merely my personal view on the matter.

Enjoy the day.

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June 20, 2023 · 00:01

He said what?

The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-65920024) gives us ‘Blinken and Xi had ‘robust conversation’ in Beijing’ and I had to take a look, if not only to see what they mean with ‘robust conversation’, that is an expression that could go in any direction and not all of them good. The BBC hands us:

“He says he has been seeking to “disabuse” China of the notion the US is “seeking to economically contain them””, sorry this started a 5 minute intermezzo to get a hold of all the laughter I have. The US has been seeking to contain China since Huawei left Nokia and all others behind them in the 5G field, it is still going on, all whilst we have never ever been given CLEAR evidence that Huawei was doing anything negative. In that same timeline we have an Airman handing out classified information, a former president has more classified materials in his toilet than the CIA has in its archive and we have several other issues. That is before we look at Cisco and its issues (which was not intentional, I know). 

And even as several statements came from Strasbourg, the manner of speaking implies a clear American hand on the shoulder of the speaker. 

Then we get “Blinken reiterates that the US does not support Taiwan’s independence – stating it does not wish to change the status quo”,which is a harder issue. You see ‘The first agreement under the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade was signed on June 1, 2023.’ Might be seen as a declaration towards support for its independence. And that is debatable, I get that. It seems to me that America hopes it will go good, but at the same time it is afraid to anger China too much, so I can see how this plays and this is NOT against America. It is to acknowledge that some diplomatic strains are strained as far as they can get. 

Then it is time for “Blinken says some parts of the talks were “constructive”, but adds there is “work to do” in other areas”, OK a diplomatic answer if ever there was one. But in there are missing parts and there is every chance that they are not for our eyes yet. The ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia are worrying America. The new petroleum refinery that they are building in China must be a cause for concern. You see, the refinery is large enough to hand a lot more oil to China and that is where it is most likely to go, a setting America does not find comforting. They are already losing out to a million barrels a day, but with that new refinery that reduction COULD (could being the operative word) be reduced three times over to minus 3 million barrels a day. This could collapse the American economy and create a third world nation called The United Stages of Anything. For Taiwan it is not such a good stage. I reckon that China has been dipping its toe in the water to see how America would react when Taiwan is added back to China and charges Taiwan for overdue book fees and that invoice is likely to be stellar. Now, this is not a given, but that is what I would have done (if I was Chinese). In all likelihood as the EU and the US are uniting with Ukraine against Russia, China sees an opportunity because America is too broke to stop anything and that leaves Taiwan separated, segregated and all alone. A setting China would like at present and with three optional supports for Taiwan too poor to do anything (US, EU and Japan) Taiwan might not have too many options left. I reckon that a similar conversation with Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud took place almost a week ago. I reckon that at present China has all the answers it needs, but that is pure conjecture from my side. 

So as I see it, I wonder just how robust that conversation was, rejections by China does not make the conversation less robust, but that is about the only classification that conversation might have had overall. Am I wrong? Optionally yes, but the larger stage is catering to China, and with the ties with Saudi Arabia now stronger then anything, all whilst the ties with America are more and more dissolving leaves China in a much stronger position and as Saudi Arabia grows, so will the options for Huawei. It will not take long for the larger contracts with Egypt and Syria to start and when that happens, we get a triangle that covers part of Africa, towards Turkey all the way to India. It will not be overnight, but with the power core in Riyadh that setting would become one hell of a central chain for Huawei. And it is not a new setting, I saw this evolution come a little over three years ago. And with that infrastructure NEOM is not merely a small city, it will be a center piece of Saudi Arabia, uniting Africa to Saudi interests and they will all have that new Saudi news channel. It was a game well played and China is adhering to this not merely because it takes the wind out of the sails of America, it will diminish Europe in similar ways. Asia Times gave us in April ‘Huawei eyes Saudi Arabia as its regional hub’, I think it is only the beginning and it is a much larger partnership with China, who will have access to this and the Silk Road, which was never a secret. As such I wonder what expression they would replace ‘robust conversation’ with and very time that expression gets handed to us by the media, ask yourself. What did they mean with that? 

Another day, another step closer to next Friday.

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June 18, 2023 · 04:15

More Crypto shit

Yup, it is all about the digital manure as some would say. This all started last night when the BBC  gave me (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65935263) ‘Binance exits Netherlands and faces France probe’. This sounded strange because exiting one nation in the EU sounds pointless to me, so what was going on? The article gives us “It follows the announcement of the company’s departure from the Netherlands after it failed to obtain a licence from the Dutch central bank.” OK, no biggie. It was “In a statement Binance confirmed French authorities visited its offices last week and will comply accordingly. “We had an on-site visit last week by the relevant authorities. Binance, as always, was fully collaborative and we met our obligations accordingly. We continue to work closely with regulators and law enforcement agencies on all ongoing compliance requirements to uphold high standards,” a company spokesperson said.” Still, not an issue (at present) but the BBC article had me piqued, as such I started to make a search for Binance and the issues started to rise. In order of timeline, I got (at https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/16/binance-france-chief-brushed-off-concerns-days-before-police-visit.html) an article by CNBC, where we see ‘Binance France chief brushed off concerns days before police visit’, which sounds like a nice party-line, but I am not buying it. You see “the crypto exchange’s top French executive dismissed concerns about U.S. regulatory charges affecting Binance’s other operations, comparing them with the flapping of a butterfly’s wings.” Is that so? You see yesterday’s news was not wholly interesting, yet only hours ago (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/06/17/binance-escapes-asset-freeze-in-exchange-for-a-raft-of-restrictions/) we see ‘Binance Escapes Asset Freeze In Exchange For A Raft Of Restrictions’ with the added text “The U.S. subsidiary of cryptocurrency exchange Binance has avoided an asset freeze that would have made it impossible to do business, but it has agreed to burdensome terms to keep operating during a civil case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission that charged the company with evading “critical regulatory oversight.”” We now have a party. So where is that Hudie flapping? If they are referring to the SEC, it is not a butterfly, but a dragonfly hungry for substance. And lets be clear, all these accusations do not make for an issue. The SEC accuses people all the time (more often than not justified), it is the combination of the Dutch, the French and the American SEC that gives light to something going on. You see, we can make assumptions and I would too. It is “Given that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have control of the platforms’ customers’ assets and have been able to commingle customer assets or divert customer assets as they please, as we have alleged, these prohibitions are essential to protecting investor assets.” That sounds familiar. It gets too close to Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX. As such was there an issue, or was the SEC scared it had another issue potentially coming up? I cannot tell as I do not have all the numbers and data, but I was surprised that I saw in seconds hat none of the media seemed to have. Even with all the speculations, no one seems to be on that horse. I might be all wrong, but there is too much in common to ignore it. Even if it is only to follow through and find that this was NOT the case. That is what I would have done and no Fox with their wannabe dictator statements comes anywhere close to this. So what gives?

Well, the Federal case against Sam Bankman-Fried with “Federal prosecutors in New York said they would drop several criminal charges, at least for now, against disgraced crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried if the judge agrees to try him later on those charges.” (Source: ABC) is losing momentum, as such they aren’t willing to fail twice in a row, it makes them look bad. 

Yet is that the case? It is from my point of view and I am not disagreeing with CNBC who gives us “Prinçay insisted Binance’s US assets were separated from the international exchange, an assertion also made by the exchange’s legal team. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged Binance last week with 13 securities charges, disagrees, arguing that Binance user funds are at “significant risk” of flight due to founder Changpeng Zhao’s alleged ownership of an interlocking set of Binance-related companies.” But there are cogs within cogs and as I do not comprehend the machine, I will give different values to some cogs of that machine. The fact that the media isn’t looking too hard gives me the idea that they do not comprehend that machine either. So is there an issue with Binance? I think there is, but I cannot tell whether anything illegal or any criminal issues are actually in play, that matters as we are nations of laws and the law sets out what is to be and what is not to be done. 

The issue becomes larger when you consider Forbes giving us “In a June 6 motion asking the federal court for the District of Columbia to freeze the American subsidiary’s funds, the SEC said it was seeking to ensure the safety of customer assets at the U.S. operations given the companies’ “years of violative conduct, disregard of the laws of the United States, evasion of regulatory oversight, and open questions about various financial transfers and the custody and control of Customer Assets.”” And this is where the party (which I mentioned) started. You see the CNBC article is less than 24 hours old and Forbes mentions events from June 6th, that means that CNBC should have been on the ball and they apparently are not. In addition we see ‘years of violative conduct’ which is a BS argument. If there were violation it becomes criminal and they should not be in business at all, if not it is posturing which goes nowhere opting a movement from Binance to seek compensation for lost business, all in all some parties are not aware what the hell is going on (including me). I understand and accept that the SEC does not do things lightly, but is that because the US is broke? Or is that because they do not have a firm grip on the Crypto laws and settings on what is valid (read: legally allowed)? Your guess is as good as mine. What mattered to me is that the Dutch Central Bank refused licences and that counts, it implies that whatever Binance is doing is not all on the up and up (my speculated view) and the French visits are supporting that. Yet the media should have ben on top of this since June 6th and some were, but the rest were not. They are too busy calling an elected president a wannabe dictator. This is what the media has come to. For whose benefit? You tell me.

I will keep a lookout on this, just as I am on that FTX Bankman-Fired person, who is now facing two court cases. So, what’s next? Well, I will snore deep into the final part of the weekend, tht’s is how I roll this weekend.

Enjoy.

 

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June 14, 2023 · 01:11

There is a larger play

Something stirred in me when I saw the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/jun/13/saudi-arabia-golf-pga-tour-public-investment-fund) called ‘Saudi golf takeover is blueprint for what they want to do everywhere else’ and I had some issues with this. You see, we might give credence to “Players who had turned down eye-moistening sums of Saudi money out of what they laughably believed was a reciprocated loyalty to the PGA Tour found out, like everyone else, when their phones started pinging”, as well as “Even most of the PGA Tour board had no idea what was happening. Does this strike you as the behaviour of a regime concerned with winning hearts and minds? The brazenness, the wall of silence, the smoke and mirrors, the decision to present this deal to the world as a fait accompli: this is all part of the performance. The projection of power matters as much as the power itself. It says to the world: we bone-sawed a journalist, we bought golf and you didn’t even know anything was happening”. And there is more when you read the article. The largest stage is not set and not given. The largest set is that the US and EU are broke. They give a nice presentation, but the largest stage is that they are broke and the sports need to survive. As such the players, the teams and the largest settings are moving house. F1 is going because the middle east is almost the only one who can play jet set with money. Football is much harder, but the players that matter are moving house. They can try to be prima donna in a saturated world, or they can be the shining star in a place where they are alone. They can spread their wings and perhaps become a little better, or create the next generation of winners. Ronaldo and Messi are examples. The NHL is losing people to the UAE and the Middle East. Pakistan is becoming a more fearsome adversary in Cricket and that list goes on. The PG is merely one example and soon the NBA will see players go to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The middle east is becoming a sports contender and whilst we are all wondering why. Consider that these sports wanted inclusion and that is what the KSA and UAE did. Soon the KSA will have a new English news channel and I reckon about that time they will be casting sports to anyone interested in sports. A new conversation on topics we heard for decades and people will pay attention. Consider that we will get (in English) Arabic newscasts on sports and now the advertisers will take notice. These two players played the long game and the advertisers will come around. This is a given, they will go where the people are and the people want sports. It is a game that the Middle East plays well and they played it well now. The channels lost credibility, they lost teams and sports and now the harvest for the new channels will come in. Add to that the Vision 2030 by the KSA and you get to see a new stage, and in all that the interest in Islam will flourish too. The Christians who are hating everything will lose more and more. Doubt that? Look at Florida. People in Nazi outfits in front of Disney world parading? That is what remains of the US. A place no one wants anymore and the Middle East is enjoying every Karen and dopey video that graces TikTok and YouTube. The aversion against the US and EU is growing. Everyone is shouting and no one is speaking sense and the Middle East is cleaning house because of it. 

So how long until places like the UK and Australia will wonder how the Dubai White Bears are doing and what the scores are for the Emirates Hockey League this week. They will still watch their own teams, but there is a shift happening and it is happening all over the sports world. It is not merely Saudi Arabia, there are more. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is growing visibility and that is merely one of many. Until recent no one had heard of Fayik Abdi. In 2022 at Beijing Olympics he finished 44th out of 91 competitors. A man from a place where there is no snow is now in the top 50 best ski contenders in the world. Let that sink in. He beat a whole range of people who get to practice it every day, they are from places where there is snow most of the year and a Saudi surpassed them. Our view of the Middle East is off by a lot and we have been lied to by the church since 1094. We are set in a view that no longer applies. The Middle East can ad is becoming more and more a contender in sports we never considered was a threat to anyone from our local stages. Art Schenk (NL), Andrew Symonds (AUS), Lucas Braathen (NO) will soon see new contenders for top spots. Sports fans will cheer Fayik Abdi (KSA), Babar Azam (PAK) and Juma Al Dhaheri (UAE) that too is the consequence of inclusion. And the sooner we learn that anyone can play sports, the sooner you learn that these steps we see now are a natural next step in sports. We might focus on the money, but that is merely a sidestep. How much attention did the PGA get? Who now could afford to play golf? The media focusses on on every scandal it can, because scandals are emotion and emotions relate to clicks. So how many non-scandal related sports stories have you seen in the last week? When was it about the joy of a sport? Who remembers what the BBC reporter Andrew Jennings brought to light? 

Sports is not merely in turmoil, the fans are seeking a way to actually enjoy sports, something they get less and less of. And all the providers are charging for the ‘honour’. As I see it the Middle East has a larger advantage coming their way. But that is merely my point of view.

Enjoy today.

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June 12, 2023 · 11:48

Variations on an application

That is the theme that I was introduced to last night (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65855603). The BBC informs us ‘Facebook owner Meta plans to create Twitter rival’ and personally I think that this is on Elon Musk. He was given a raw deal, he was overcharged and the media REFUSED to look into the matters that Jack Dorsey pushed for. There was nothing but the flaccid reaction of ‘wannabe’ journo’s all over the planet. We then got a new twitter, a new CEO and a few knee jerk reactions. There was too much chaos, then the charging for checkmarks started, 180 degree actions and plenty of people apparently moved to Mastodon or something else. And now Meta is making its version of Twitter. The problem here is that Facebook is a really solid product, as such they can pull it off. I will prosper later on, but this is not about me. You see, the article gives us ““We’re exploring a standalone decentralised social network for sharing text updates,” they said. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”” And in light of all the waves that Twitter caused, they might actually pull it off. There will be other issues, but I will leave that for another day. So when we see “The text-based network – which has a working title of P92 – could turn out to be a greater rival to Elon Musk’s Twitter than either BlueSky or Mastodon” we need to realise that this is more than a move on Twitter, there have been noises on the weirdness of Mastodon, as such all three would lose a massive chunk to the Meta variation, add to that a separate stage for adding visibility to Facebook could imply that Meta is about to makes massive waves on the existence of Twitter, Mastodon and BlueSky. None of them wanted it, but they created that worry for themselves and in this case Elon Musk created a lot more worry overall which might have been the signal for Meta to go ahead with this new development.

Is it good, is it bad? 
I honestly cannot tell yet. Twitter did this massively to itself, even though Jack Dorsey was cause of several issues. Mastodon had a few glitches on its track and I know next to nothing of the third player, but there are more players and now that Meta is getting involved, they will most likely all lose members to the new variation, but that is how it goes. You might be one of the players, but the next innovator will change that setting right quick, this is why I know that all of them including Meta are close to losing millions of members and that writing had been on the walls as early as 2019. So when Meta comes through we will see what happens next.

Enjoy today, tomorrow is another day.

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June 4, 2023 · 22:24

Within a day

I wrote a few things regarding BRICS in the last two days and now (at https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/06/iran-saudi-arabia-uae-attend-brics-meeting-south-africa-bloc-mulls-expansion#ixzz83fKlbzuL) we see ‘Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE attend BRICS meeting in South Africa, as bloc mulls expansion’, so I admit that I didn’t see Iran to become part of that, but the UAE is a nice addition, it also changes the game. Not sure if Iran should be part of it, but that might appeal to both the KSA and the UAE. So when we see ““The world has faltered in cooperation. Developed countries have never met their commitments to the developing world and are trying to shift all responsibility to the global South,”Pandor said. Upon his departure from Tehran, Amir-Abdollahian hailed BRICS as a body that represents half of the global population and called his visit an example of Iran’s “active presence at international bodies” and a step in Iran’s “balanced” foreign policy.” We might see one thing, think another and wonder what is real. I wonder what Iran is doing there. Are they on invitation to settle Russia, or is Iran there to appease the Middle East? I have no idea, but I would consider that there are other more qualified nations than Iran, Indonesia for one. So is it about the powerpoint of oil? Your guess is as good as mine, but the idea that UAE would be coming is now a reality. The BBC did not mention that. As such are the sources of AL-Monitor better, or had the west filtered out Iran? I honestly do not know, but the photo from June 2nd implies that the BBC filtered out certain names. As such I was not aware of UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and I only aw this article a few hours ago. Yet there too we see the stage of BRICS. If the western media cannot tell us the truth, when they rely on censorship and editing to give us adjusted filtered information, who are we telling other nations what to do? We see the attacks on China, Russia and the Middle East and yes, I do not disagree, but when we do the same, is this not the media station of the pot calling the kettle black? 

So when we get “In a pre-recorded interview broadcast on state TV after his departure, Amir-Abdollahian said that a key topic on his agenda in Cape Town would be “de-dollarization” in trade with BRICS member states.” What can we object to? The US is broke, it is merely sailing from debt ceiling raise to another debt ceiling raise. It has no exit strategy and did not have any for well over a decade as it caters to political ego and the rest of the world is awaiting actual action. Well, that setting will kind of explode in our faces as China will do what is best for China and the western world does not count there. It is harsh, but we let our politicians make it that way. So what is next? That depends on how BRICS will go about it. It is dependent on how they decide to hurt or restrict the moves by the US, and no matter how that slides it will hurt Japan in massive ways (which will please China). But beyond that there is no telling what will happen. I still think it was a mistake for them to add Russia in its current shape, but that is not up to me. I reckon that the country to can keep tabs on beats the one they cannot and it is a wisdom that is beyond me, BRICS is giving Russia a stronger voice which in current settings is not good, but that is me talking. 

My mind flies over the setting of “de-dollarisation” and how it will take form. But at present I have no idea, I will need to seek out as much information as I can. 

Enjoy the last day of the weekend, Monday is coming.

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