Tag Archives: BBC

The tainted media

Yes, we have all seen it, I wrote about it numerous times, but have you made a tally? In google search for ‘Hamas’, we get ‘Israeli forces destroy media outlets’ Gaza base, says it housed ‘Hamas military intelligence’’, ‘Israeli strikes destroy Gaza tower housing media outlets, and home of Hamas leader’, as well as ‘Israel’s deceptive ‘surprise attack’ an ‘absolute body blow’ to Hamas’. This seems fine, the word ‘Hamas’ is there, yet the third article also gives us “Retired British Army colonel Richard Kemp says in his entire military career he’s never known of such an “extraordinary” surprise attack triggered by “deception” like the Israelis conducted in Gaza by duping the world.” It seems to me that Hamas is very much up to speed on how to use digital media, moreover there is a lack of reporting on the 2,000 missiles fired into Israel. When it is done it is made trivial, even the Miami Herald gives us ‘Some Latin American countries endorse Hamas’ violence against Israel. It’s shameful’ (at https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article251425363.html), these missiles were there, ready to be used at any excuse and the media is not asking questions, questions that matter, why is that? And as we go into that, why are we seeing ‘by duping the world’? All whilst this retired military officer should realise that 2,000 missiles will take 10 forty foot containers, if not more to house all that, and questions on that pat remain absent. Missiles that were clearly designed to target civilians, that too is omitted by the media on nearly all levels. Why is that?

We see the media milk the collapse of ‘a building housing various international media, including The Associated Press’ for every bit of milk possible and that is fine, these journo’s can be an emotional lot but to set view on one side but not the other shows the media to be biased. I too have questions, I asked them, the larger extend of the media did not. The BBC was pretty spot-on (even though they missed two spots) but the rest had close to nothing, merely copy and pasting what Reuters had, that is not journalism as I see it.

In that setting we one more example, when you search “Hamas attacks”, Google search, the news has not one of the large newspapers on the first two pages, not one! That is how you should see bias, I am not claiming that Israel is innocent, I am stating that no one is asking Hamas the hard questions, why is that? And whilst you ponder that, have you considered the price of 2000 missiles? As far as I can tell it should have put Hamas out of pocket for anything between $2,000,000 and $11,000,000, so where did that money come from? That is not including smuggle, transport, fuel and a few more options, oh and getting 10 containers smuggles is quite an ordeal, all things out in the open, the media is not touching that one either, why not?

This might be a global affair and we see ego’s all over the place, but no one is asking the media the questions on them being tainted in more than one way, why is that?

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Military, Politics

An Insane Retard Awful Nuisance situation

There is no way that you have not heard about the issue on Hamas versus Israel, and there are a lot who will blame one or the other, yet the BBC article giving us 6 reasons is quite good the article (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9bUhCGXvTY) gives us a lot, it gives us 6 reasons and they are good reasons, yet you might notice the quick jump we see when reason one is given. The 6 evictions on Sheikh Jarrah. This was an Israeli legal ruling, I am not judging it, not really, I am wondering why everyone is jumping that specific fence. Al Jazeera was one of the few who did not, and they give us “a request to the court to invite Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandleblit to explain an anomaly in which the land’s ownership had apparently been transferred to a settler group in 1972, allowing the settlers to illegally register the land in their names”, a setting that matters, ‘illegally register the land in their names’, which is bad enough, the setting that no one took notice for 49 years gives me the feeling that the land was not very valuable. I see it in a simple way. It I go to a certain place and I fuck Ivanka Trump there is a chance that a man named Jared Kushner takes (great) offence and optionally becomes violent, that is fair and she looks good enough to take that risk, yet when I get to do the horizontal lambada with her for 49 years straight, we can assume that he might not care too much. I know it sounds crude and not entirely civil, but that is the setting we seen here and the media avoided that part for too long. No matter the stage where we see ‘illegally register the land in their names’, the stage that is was allowed and the anomaly was not acted on by a whole truckload of people on the Israeli side matters. In my specific case there is one man who optionally sees offence, in the Israeli case a dozen people should have acted a decade ago and in this situation, I myself have serious questions for the Israeli government, questions that the media is not asking. 

Turning back the clock
There are a few issues that play, you see the BBC gave us 6 reasons and I personally feel that they left a seventh reason out of the list. Now, we should understand that there are many more reasons, but as I personally see it, the seventh reason is important. Yet to get there we need to see a few items.

In July 2019 I wrote “The devil you know beats the devil you do not and in Iran there will always be another Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waiting to take the highest seat of Iranian office. One would have hoped that the yellow-back politician was an extinct breed, but that is not the case and I fear that their damage will be visible for decades to come, no matter where that damage is.” It was in ‘The Yellowback politician’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/03/the-yellowback-politician/), I warned about the dangers, and guess what. Yesterday the hardliner Mahmout Ahmedinejad registered for another two terms as Iranian president, the person who wants to wipe Israel from the map, the man who pushed for Nuclear options is about to become president of Iran again, and that person has the full backing of the IRGC. He will be the first one to do this in Iran (as far as I know) and he will do whatever he can to get his nuclear arsenal. The Yellow-back politicians in the west are facing the hardship they could have avoided long ago, but they didn’t their ego would not let them.

There have been all kind of messages regarding Iran and Hamas, yet in all this, who remembers seeing Hamas fire dozens of rockets in the last two days? The Washington Post gave us “Under a rain of more than 1,700 rockets fired from Gaza in recent days, Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, the country’s main link to the outside world, closed indefinitely to incoming flights on Thursday”, who wants to do the math? 1700 times $25,000 is still $42,500,000, so where did that money come from? More important how did these 1700 missiles get into Gaza? Yes there are all kinds of whisk-it-away answers, but the larger issues is that Iran is giving massive support to Hamas. Perhaps certain yellow-back politicians would want to wait for another case of “Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Thursday thanked Iran for providing his terror group the rockets it used to strike deep into Israel and warned the Jewish state that Tel Aviv would be struck again in response to any offensive against the Gaza Strip”, they did not do anything in 2019, so why expect action now?

When we see all these events and we see the impact of Iran, why did the BBC not mention Iran as the seventh reason? There is enough evidence and enough events out there to do so, these parties had no issues to push for a guilty party in the case of Jamal Khashoggi WITHOUT evidence, so why wait now when the evidence is there?

We see a lot of sabre rattling on both sides of the fence and we get it, both sides have its version of extremism to bait the other one in acting and Iran is seemingly happy to oblige. All this in a case when most of us are given ‘Hamas Calls for Iran-Saudi Unity, some might not see that this is the stage Iran is hoping for, ‘a case to embrace’ not to hold accountable, a stage Iran dreaded for too long and the media is offering a helping hand, yet in all this we need to realise that Iran is about to rain on the parade of Saudi Arabia and Israel, when that happens we will have no further options. Iran gave us less than a day ago ‘Iran To Saudi Arabia: Sell Our Oil And We Will Reduce Houthi Attacks’ and no one in the west is asking questions? I wonder how much some people are filling their pockets, because in this, a 1% day marker, even an Iranian one is still a lot of money and it is all happening at the same time, I am speculating that there is a new Iranian orchestrator in town and whomever it is, he is setting a larger premise that also revolves around Mahmout Ahmedinejad returning to power. A danger I warned about a few times, to be honest, I warned about someone like him returning. He himself becoming President again is something I had not expected. 

So whilst the media is embracing ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ the larger stage is behind these screens and no one is seemingly looking there, why not?

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Military, Politics

The shame ride

We all have these moments, we feel ashamed for choices made, even though we know it is not our fault, even as we see that proper examples of our choices and believes are out in the open. The larger stage is as shown a corrupting view of disbelief and exaggerated view that cannot be fact checked, and when they are shown to be not true, the people paint over that setting with a brush as fast as possible.

I am a Republican, I have for the most always been proud of that. The Democrats want some version of a nanny state, they want to tax the rich, but they are really adamant on NOT rewriting tax laws so that we all pay a decent amount. Any law in that direction will be crushed by lobbyists and other options and it comes from BOTH sides of the isle, both Democrats and Republicans make noise in the tax direction and never resolve anything. Yet now, the stage becomes dangerous and there are two tiers of changes on their way, two that have massive repercussions for the American economy 2023-2030. 

It all started with Mitt Romney and Liz Chaney opposing the lies that former president Trump keeps on voicing. The BBC gives us ‘Liz Cheney: Republican ousted from leadership for challenging Trump election claims’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57090202). It has her statement on video, it also gives us “her party could not stand for truth if it upheld Mr Trump’s false claims he won the 2020 election. House Republicans will probably replace her this month with a Trump loyalist.” It is a much larger problem than anyone realises. Even as we see again and again that he stops Tax inquiries (I am speculating that he probably need to hide that he has less than 25% of what he claims he has), we also see the larger stage that the Republicans are now willing to embrace a lie, even if that ends their economy. 

Even as we see “Ms Cheney’s fate was decided in less than 20 minutes by House Republicans behind closed doors on Wednesday morning”, the larger problem is seen with “The ballot was not recorded but lawmakers cast an overwhelming voice vote in favour of removing Ms Cheney from her post”, the lawmakers are too scared for the names to get out, and it matters. 

So what will happen?
Even is those people like Kevin McCarthy make claims that they had it with her. The truth is that soon enough the Republicans will show how much they are done with him and a few others. If Mitt Romney and Liz Chaney Crete an independent true Republican Party, the GOP will be done for. They will clean house and then the little weasels will come running and they need some votes to be unregistered.

There is actually a much larger issue. This is PURE speculation, but I have seen some messages going back and forth and I feel the same way. In the setting that a GOP is based on lies and even worse Trump claims, the makers of new IP will optionally only do business with these American firms if the IP will be registered in Canada, Australia or the United Kingdom. Consider 2,000-6,0000 IP and patents to be filed OUTSIDE of the US. It will change the valuation of the US in a dark way and not a good one. The fact that some will embrace the lie makes a lot of indie developers very very nervous. I personally hope that Google (or Amazon) are two of 4 players that can buy my IP, yet at present I hope that it goes to Canada or the UK. I might pay more taxation, but I feel that my IP will be a lot safer, if innovation is an essential need for IP, there is every chance that the US cannot meet that innovation curve and the GOP is making it worse. 

So even as Democrats are laughing at the tweets by Gaetz and Cawthorn, the larger stage is about to be set and if even just a thousand IP owners register outside of the US, the valuation that goes deep into the billions will have larger repercussions all over the field. Even as sources like Business News gave us in 2017 ‘Yes, IP is the currency of the 21st century’, now consider the 2020 news “IP industries account for 38.2% of the total GDP of the U.S. and for almost ¾ of the U.S.’s exports; America’s intellectual property accounts for $6.6 trillion in added value”, now watch that GDP part fall from 38.2% to 20% or less, do you have any idea the panic that Wall Street will see because they allowed lies to continue? When the added value falls by a third to a half, the US will not be able to pay for the interest of outstanding debt, does it now become clear? The UK, Canada and Australia will have their great days, but when the US falls over, Japan will too, one keeps the other up and even if the US can survive a collapse of Japan, the other way round will not work for a lot of people. 

So as people are taking in the larger stage and hide behind “It started with a lie”, the plain truth is that the US did this to themselves, first by electing that bully in the first place, then allowing him to continue when fact checks again and again showed his claims to be not true. This is not merely me, a lot of judges, judges HE put forward are saying the same thing, the election was never stolen and now the larger plays come into view and it spells a lot of bad new for the GOP and because of that America will see larger downfalls again and again. And the entire Chinese hatred in America does not help either, most IP registered has a 60% chance that Asians are involved, do you think that they want their IP registered in a nation that hates them? And as more and more US Asians are moving to Canada, there is every chance that the IP moves too, or will be completely registered in Canada. 

I wonder how long it will take the government to realise that former President Donald Trump is starting to become a clear and present danger for the nation and its residents. This will be a first for America, no President has ever been such a source of anti Americanism. As such I hope that people like Mitt Romney and Liz Chaney will be able to take charge in whatever form it is. 

There is time between now and 2023, but as things go with 5G, I reckon that the first changes might be visible in 2022, and we are a mere 6 months and 18 days away from that point. As these matters expand, I wonder what a player like Amazon will do, they cannot continue to the degree that they are now when the US economy tanks, it made a lot or profit, it will not accept that it has to trim the fat in all places whilst the US government is allowing a bad situation grow worse, they will have alternatives and that makes for a much larger problem for the US at present. Yet, I am not asking you to believe me, I can wait, and in March 2022 when the signs are becoming clear and the newspapers write the setting, I can point back to this article stating: ‘Told you so!

Well that is it for me, I will await the call from one of the four players, it will be a long wait but it took Rome a few years to build, but I will not wait that long, when the markers are matched, my IP becomes Public Domain, and I will watch the greed driven go nuts because they were willing to put their personal needs before their companies need and that will be nice and visible when my IP becomes Public Domain. Such is life!

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Politics, Science

Change and debate

We accept these two words, they are part of our lives. Yet when do we debate change, or change the debate we are having? Think about it, debate instills the option for change, in the same way change causes debates to start. It is a double loop, as you see below, there are numerous examples, they are all set to the same issue, A affects both, it is the start of one and the end of another. And the loop works in both directions. Blue affects red, red affects blue. We can add all the fancy labels, but in either side there are adjustments, shifts, experience, generalisations, correction, results and learnings. What we need to understand is that this is a much larger field, and to that extent I am looking at two examples.

Holy Yemeni Cricket!
On November 3rd 2018 I wrote ‘Media, call it as it is!’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/11/03/media-call-it-as-it-is/), there I added “we have seen an utter lack of larger political activities by many nations other than the USA against Iran and Hezbollah, exactly how does that add up?”, consider that this was WELL OVER two years ago, and now (11 hours ago), the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57065894) ‘US warship seizes huge weapons shipment in Arabian Sea’, the article also gives us a total lack of where and direction, isn’t that interesting? OK, I get it, and I accept “the source and intended destination of the weapons were under investigation”, yet the amount of weapons is clearly enough to start WW3, it is actually better and more powerful weapons than several nations in the EU have, so you do understand that this governmental joke has gone far enough? And in all this, I reported (and some others added evidence) well over two years ago. It took THAT LONG for the media to take a larger stance, why is that? So when I see “After all the illicit cargo was removed, the dhow’s crew was questioned, provided with food and water and released” I wonder how they get better treatment than some of the victims all over the world, they were intentionally carrying truckloads of weapons, so what gives? 

Chicken Vindaloo Flambee
Yup, it is not the most eloquent title, yet consider that I have been trying to inform the people for a long time that the numbers did not add up in India. The article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/20/the-rest-of-our-lives/) was called ‘The rest of our lives’, which I wrote in December 20th 2020, and even before that, and I got some abuse from others (which will always happen) and they were all in denial, they all stated that this would never happen. So now, with pride (and joy) I see that the BBC FINALLY caught up, and with ‘India’s Covid crisis: The newsroom counting the uncounted deaths’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56969086) we get to see “On the night of 16 April, the journalists drove 150km (93 miles) around Ahmedabad and visited 21 cremation grounds. There they counted body bags and pyres, examined registers, spoke to cremation workers, looked at “slips” which assigned the cause of death, and took photographs and recorded videos. They found that most of the deaths were attributed to “illness”, although the bodies were being handled under rigorous protocols. At the end of the night the team had counted more than 200 bodies. But the next day, Ahmedabad counted only 25 deaths”, it had become that bad, scientifically we can see that less than 10% is reported, so how bad had it all become? Before we go all sentimental on those poor poor politicians, remember that this level of cooperation can only happen when governments are pushing buttons. staff members in hospitals and crematoriums, the people transporting, the goods for protection, full, the list goes on and on and this scale of governmental cover up had to be massive, yet some journo’s were willing to take the hard road, yet I have always admitted that there were a few good ones. 

source: BBC

Two issues are now, less than a day ago proven that I was on the ball, that I was correct and that my insight was red flagging a lot more than anyone comprehended, even the data analysts that doubted and opposed me are not in the limelight, so if they catered to the needs of stakeholders, I am about to have a field day and I feel a large level of joy on all this. You see it also proves something I have claimed since around 1995. When those catering to the political game adjust weights and numbers so that the results match the questions, we can safely assume that someone has kept a backup just to cover themselves. I merely have to find that weak link now and I will have a great great Christmas, it might just come early this year. Over the last 8 years I compiled a nice list, I wonder how many will be found out. It will take some time, but time is one element I have currently an abundance of. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Military, Politics

The tweets that flame

Yes, it seems harsh, and it is not meant to be. You see, this might be the tweet of today, but the setting has never changed not for three decades. Even as political windbags are all claiming that they are doing their bit, they are actually relying on emotional events to keep the flames going, especially when they do not resolve anything. My blog has covered it for almost a decade, and I have been stating it for another two decades. And this tweet is bringing it to the surface yet again.

People are all about ‘taxing billionaires’, ‘taxing corporations’, and ‘taxing churches’, the last one is nice, I hardly ever see that one. So let’s take a jab at this (yet again).

Taxing Billionaires
Yes, it is all about discrimination, taxing the billionaires. I still hope to become one, that is if Papa Smurf (Sergey Brin), Clever Smurf (Larry Page) and optionally Tracker Smurf (Sundar Pichai) wake up and take notice. OK, wake up is incorrect and uncalled for, they are likely awake 18 hours a day and they optionally take notice of a dozen matters every hour of every day, but so far they are not noticing my 5G IP (darn).  So at what point will we ‘tax’ the billionaires? Will we check their bank accounts and levy it for 20%? At what point do you think will these 614 billionaires move to Canada, or Europe and leave the US completely bankrupt? What do you think happens when $5,000,000,000,000 moves to another nation? I have another issue, these people made money in whatever way, and not all are a Lawrence Elliot, Mark Zuckerberg or Google top. As such do you really want the creative top of the world to vacate to another place?

Taxing Churches
There is a larger stage here and I am not against taxing the churches. The Catholic church has pillaged in their own way the planet for centuries. So will you tax one (discrimination) or tax all? It is a slippery slope, and ever as it is not the worst idea, it is a trap waiting t explode in all our faces, we just do not know how. 

Taxing corporations
They are getting taxed, it is the degree of required taxation that is the issue. 

The point is not taxing them, it is overhauling the tax laws and on both sides, both democratic and republican presidents, they all failed. From 1993 onwards the USA has had two democrats, two republicans and now another democrat President, the last 4 all failed to overhaul the tax laws.  As such, blame Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump for this failure. In April 2019 we saw “Amazon, Netflix, IBM, and General Motors are among the 60 big companies paying $0 in federal income taxes in 2018”, not one, not two, not three, but 60 big companies all avoiding taxation, avoiding not evading. Evading taxation is illegal, avoiding it is only paying what the letter of the law tells you to pay and that is how it should be, as such tax laws need an overhaul and this has been clear for 30 years, so why is it not done?

Because we see flames, we react to flames and no one is considering (intentional or not) to push legislation to overhaul the tax laws. It is the same joke again and again. Tax and gun laws are trodden on, we see all the crocodile tears, but people die and die again and until gun laws are truly overhauled, starting by giving the ATF the teeth they need to take a chunk out of guns, this will continue. And the media knows this too, but they cater to their shareholders, their stake holders and their advertisers and none of those three are happy about overhauling tax laws. 

And until the people unite complaining to the media nothing will change. It is funny that a valid objection by a journalist regarding an Oprah Winfrey interview, where we see a reported “Over 57,000 complaints have been delivered to Ofcom” regarding the point of view of a reporter, yet I am willing to bet that NONE of those 57,000 people ever complained on the need to overhaul tax laws. And we notice people complaining that nothing gets done, well, does this not start with you? A person can tweet to high heaven, but that does not change things. Getting hundreds even thousands complain to electable officials never happens (and the politicians, as well as corporations are happy about this), they need the rich to pay for their reelections and that will not happen when tax laws are overhauled.  

This is also not limited to the US, it is a global issue and if people really want poverty to go away, you need to demand an overhaul of the tax laws. It is really that simple. But beware, when you push corporations away it has other impacts. California is now learning that the hard way as more and more corporations are moving to Texas. So this is a much larger slippery scale and their will be consequences, no matter how we slice that tax cake.

But I am not against taxation, but I too will take the tax avoidance route when called on, it is not because I am against paying taxation, I am against paying too much taxation, that is why tax laws were created. A paper in 2014 gave us “‘Tax avoidance is a taxpayer’s course of action in line with the letter but contrary to the spirit of the law’. Definitions phrased along these lines can be found in many policy statements and legal provisions. They are common, but nonetheless problematic. It is the ‘spirit of the law’ part which poses problems. These difficulties not only have theoretical import; they also cast doubt on the legitimacy of efforts to combat tax avoidance. And the skeptics – ‘non-believers’ in the spirit of the law – are many.” The paper by Hanna Filipczyk gives us a lot in that regard, on the problems and on the 27 references that show that this has been going on for a long time, and until politicians stop wanking about the spirit of tax law and do something about the letter of tax law, this will continue, and its continuation will never cease. And the media is making it easy for them as they cater to part of that group. Should you doubt that, then wonder when the media told you to that to achieve a proper level of taxing, tax laws need to change. Do not take my word, check what THEY said, you will see I was right and I have been correct in this case for well over a quarter of a century. 

It was never hard, it was never complex, it merely needed to be done and the previous 4 presidents did not achieve it, why not? I will let you ponder that part for a little part longer.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media

The Kipling manouver

Yes, it is about India, and at this moment a certain counter is at 39,887. So whilst I am telling you this story, based on all kinds of data, I will be preparing the next setting and let havoc rule. The Indian stage is set to Rudyard Kipling, in this that I look at Mine Own People, is that not the Indian station they face? Whilst the BBC gives us ‘India passes 20 million cases amid oxygen shortage’, we will be confronted with all kinds of data and we do get part of the goods with “testing numbers have dipped as well, sparking fears that India’s true caseload is far higher. Case numbers, however, have been consistently falling in Maharashtra state, which had driven the second wave since early April”, I personally believe that the second wave is getting too much credit and the first wave was ignored to a too large a degree. As we see here ‘fears that India’s true caseload is far higher’, I believe that to be a much larger truth. Even as we are given “fuelled by lax safety protocols and massive public festivals and election rallies, has also overwhelmed its hospitals” we only see a partial truth. The image that world-o-meter gives us might spark your view.

There is no real data proving my thoughts, but I find the data from January 1st to March 31st debatable. I added pictures of Indian market places from last October and other images as well are not encouraging. There is in my mind no acceptable version that this data is correct, I believe and accept that the second wave is more contagious, but the curve we see here does not match any acceptable infection curve. The weird part is that the media blatantly accepts whatever is handed to them and why is that? 

Could I be wrong?
Yes, off course I can be wrong, I am also debating whether I am right, but consider the curve we see, consider the images we saw, consider the numbers that some gave us, they do not add up. Whilst we saw the numbers in Germany, Spain, UK and US, no one is questioning them from a place with 1.3 billion people. No one is wondering how these numbers whilst there is no lockdown stayed in check. Well, if you do not measure, if you have no data, you basically have nothing to report. We now see “But experts say India’s Covid death toll is vastly under-reported as official tallies don’t appear to match what people are witnessing on the ground”, a setting I expected already 6 months ago and now governments are all ‘rising’ to the underreported occasion. So as we get “Many states have introduced restrictions, from full lockdowns to night curfews. The northern state of Bihar, which has been adding about 13,000 daily cases in recent days, is the latest to announce a full lockdown”, is anyone noticing ‘introduced restrictions’? A setting the rest of the world pushed towards a year ago, on the other hand, those American idiots that are all making ‘anti-lockdown’ complaint, they can look at India and die the same way. They can look at the death numbers and see what is possible in the US, on the positive side, if the US gets another 200K fatalities there would be less unemployment, the US would have a better fitting budget and the people might overall end up being a lot more clever, not good news for the Republicans, but there is always one party crying, that is the way to donut rolls.

Why being blunt?
That is easy to answer, we tried diplomacy and euphemisms for way too long and the world I running out of time, nature would love it if the population declines at least another 23%, but they might not get that part either. In all this we might take notice of “it’s also true that daily cases have fallen, on average, in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, all hotspot states”, yet I wonder how those numbers could be trusted. Even as SBS reported with ‘Calls for nationwide lockdown as India surpasses 20 million COVID-19 cases’, we need to wonder why a national lockdown has not been in place for a long time. And even as the media is making ‘grim’ callings, now, we see that there are 20,000,000 infections and it might seem lower than the US, yet with a population 500% of the US and only 50% of the infections that the US has, the numbers do not add up, especially when you consider that (regardless of those opposing lockdowns) the US at least had some and had some social distancing demands, a side that India is pretty much unable to do, the population pressure is that high. 

The quote “The other issue, experts say, is insufficient testing. While Uttar Pradesh, one of the worst-affected states, has recorded no drop in testing figures, it’s testing far less than other states” is pretty much on the nose, the ‘insufficient testing’ is an issue for pretty much all India and that was pretty visible 6 months ago, so why is everyone pussyfooting around India? 

People all screaming the need for responsibility and no one seems to be taking it. And even as we are told that shortages will last for months, without a proper lockdown scenario the numbers will continue to rise and even when it slows down the numbers will continue for a long time to come. As I see it, no matter how it turns, until India receives well over 2.5 billion doses of a vaccine, there is every chance that Covid-19 will be present in India when we are well into 2023, a setting the Indian government will loudly deny and when that evidence comes out in 2023, one person takes the blame, falls onto their sword and the Indian government will make new arrangements. 

What a nice speculated prediction, isn’t it?

Have a great day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics, Science

What did they not see?

You think it is simple, but if you have been in photography like me (1975), that question becomes easier to comprehend, but explaining that becomes harder, I get that. Distractions, obstructions, light and focus are 4 basic elements of missing a detail, optionally several details. Yet the professional photographer learned not to be hindered by obstructions and to adjust for focus and light, which leaves the focussed photographer and the photographer. So the focussed photographer can make the ‘snatch’ shot and the photographer merely looks for a tissue. Seems bland and crude but this example matters.

To see one application, we need to turn to ‘Telstra, NATO and the USA’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/06/20/telstra-nato-and-the-usa/), an article I wrote in 2018 “unless you work for the right part of Palantir inc, at which point your income could double between now and 2021”, the shares were at $9.69 and ended last night at $23.18, basically I saw that coming a mile away. And that is not all, there are several avenues where their value should at the very least double within the next 19 months. It is the flaws we set ourselves up for and when the stupid people (loud mouthed politicians) realise that their loud mouths will require data, Palantir is close to the only option they have.

That article has a few more connections to what is to come, the most important part if 5G and there is a lot going on (at https://www.gadgetguy.com.au/australian-5g-speeds-truth-revealed/) in Australia. Gadget Guy gave us last week one take (not the highest quality source), but they do give us  “There are two issues for Australian 5G speeds. The primary is that despite Telstra insistence that it covers 50% of Australians and 75% of the population by the end of June, it does not! nPerf (based on real 5G user’s) shows minimal reception. The second is real download and upload speed. While the average is 240.9/15.5Mbps Mbps, it is well short of Telstra’s hype – so fanciful we won’t embarrass it by mentioning it’s up to 20Gbps claim debacle when first introduced”, oh hold on, did I not give you “The problem is that even as some say that Telstra is beginning to roll out 5G now, we am afraid that those people are about to be less happy soon thereafter. You see, Telstra did this before with 4G, which was basically 3.5G” with a reference to ABC in 2011 on how Telstra was BS’ing the population on the 28th of September 2011. So thats two elements where we see that their ‘photographers’ ignored obstacles, blamed the lens makers for focal points, the sun for shining to brightly and they all went running for their tissues. They audience got distracted (as I personally see it) by all the baubles that they were offering. It worked in 1700, so why not in 2021? Yet CMO gives us 2 days ago (at https://www.cmo.com.au/article/688024/tourism-australia-7-eleven-telstra-balancing-data-driven-engagement-consumer-consent/) “Panel of digital executives share the role of first-party data and personalisation in their customer experience approaches against consumer consent and control of their privacy”, a setting where we might see that a panel of 5 are slicing the new currency (data) cake in a way that THEY are happy with, all whilst we are told “the key is to balance data sophistication as a business with consumer controls and transparency. He also noted the varying levels of control and regulation around using data across geographies such as Europe versus the US, which the tourism bureau is operating in”, yet the answer which was not really an answer is about ‘balance data sophistication’, all whilst ‘consumer controls’ (for the consumer) will be as nonexistent as possible. We might not get that when we see “invest in first-party identifiers as well as a unified ID for the tourism industry that can be leveraged”, yes but to what extend it is leveraged is never stated, merely implied, the additional ‘unified ID’ would have a much larger impact, but that too is never stated, they all want as large a slice of that data pie and Cambridge Analytica has made them very very cautious. 

These two elements are merely that, elements. Yet the underlying data there will require analyses and whilst some will claim that they can, Palantir is close to the only source that actually can analyse the whole lot and that is what I saw coming a mile away. 

A linked small digression
You see it takes a massively large level of stupid (and greed) to cater to this, but I believe that the EU (Margrethe Vestager) is trying and optionally succeeding in pulling this off. She is all about “European Commission anti-trust regulator Margrethe Vestager tweeted that “consumers are losing out”. It relates to charges brought two years ago by music streaming app Spotify which claimed that Apple was stifling innovation in that industry”, you might think that, but I do not. You see the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56941173) gives us “It relates to charges brought two years ago by music streaming app Spotify which claimed that Apple was stifling innovation in that industry”, no it had set a premise to all (which it does not), all 23,000,000 Apple developers. It set a premise where they could develop whatever they want whilst having zero deployment cost and they would be charged as they gained incomes, so not the $75,000 upfront to get started, but after the fact and with no time limit. As such wannabe innovators flourished. It never stifled innovation, it limited greed. So whilst we see the painting of bad bad evil Apple, no one is looking at the fact that Spotify is paying artists HALF of what Apple and Google pays them, it amounts to $0.0032 per stream, so to make 1 cent, the song needs to be requested 3 times. This is why I still buy music, at least the artists I care about will get a much better slice. 

And when we see the image where they are now CHARGING for algorithms, all whilst they made a brute gross profit of $575,000,000 in Q4 2020, I think that the EU commissioner is massively loopy. You see, this is about consolidating greed plain and simple and in the process it will endanger consumers (the ones she claimed to protect). 

The image is merely one element of greed, it goes further. That part is not directly seen, but the BBC does give the goods with ‘The ransomware surge ruining lives’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56933733), there we see “Ransomware gangs are now routinely targeting schools and hospitals. Hackers use malicious software to scramble and steal an organisation’s computer data”, in this the larger stage is not merely the theft, it is how they use larger systems to spread across all the internet and with 5G that danger becomes 5,000%. You see people like Spotify, Epic Games et all want to be outside the Google and Apple store, but they will limit protection (they will call it something else) and when the consumer ends up paying for that, we will get to see all kinds of apologies, but it was not entirely THEIR fault. As such I say, when you get hit (and you will) make sure that as you sue Spotify for damages, you add Daniel Ek and Margrethe Vestager to the culprits of your damages. Organised crime is getting better and better in walking away and as such their greed must be addressed in courts and their approach towards a ‘too big to fail’ setting must be answered, the data will be out there and s such players like Palantir will make even more money, it will be all about the data from 2022 onwards, in this the OCCRP their 2021 serious organised crime threat assessment where we see “The threat from cyber-dependent crimes is set to further increase in volume and sophistication over the coming years”, and in this stage Margrethe Vestager is willing to open the floodgates towards greed driven idiots setting the stage for organised crime getting more? You think that will ever be a great idea? I think not. 

And it does not stop there. The fact that the exchange hack was hard to detect for a long time, some hacks were out in the field for years and now we see greed driven idiots scale away the two decent bastions of protection that consumers have (Apple and Google) and let others skate around them? How long until we see some corrupted Amazon like app via a phishing spree be offered to millions. By the time some will have a clue billions will have been shifted and who pays for that? Insurers?  I very much doubt that. As such these two will be required to sit in the dock explaining their catering to greed. You see if Margrethe Vestager was really about the consumers, she would also be about protecting the artists and where is it acceptable that they get one third of a cent for a song? Is there more? Yes, but I will admit that this is part speculation. The BBC article gives us “The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, also a member of the Ransomware Task Force says it handled more than three times as many ransomware incidents in 2020 than in the previous year”, you see paying a bitcoin is only one part, the data can still be shared with others and as data become currency the damage setting goes up by a lot. The dangerous part is that commissioner Vestager knows that the law and policing are not up to the task and she is catering to someone with dubious greed needs? One that underpays artists by what I consider to be as close as criminal levels of renumeration? And in my mind, some excuse ‘If we get this they get more’ does not float, in that setting their business model was wrong from day one, in addition, the entire algorithm setting shows a larger exploitation to kindle greed and leave an artist with less. So how accomodating to EU consumers do you think Margrethe Vestager actually is, that in opposition to catering to greed driven players? Apple and Google might not be god, not great but they agreed on a format to keep their consumers safe all whilst giving an option for starting developers to score big, the fact that these players were not as good as they hoped they would be and as they relied on advertisement to push the players is a mere side effect, but without these store protection, the mess will be close to unimaginable and players like Palantir will have the data  and the greed driven players (as well as some not too bright politicians) get to defend themselves in the dock against lawyers with massive class actions. When that happens, be sure that you have  stocked up on popcorn, because it will be worth watching. It will be reality TV with lots of fake tears and CEO’s claiming that they did not know certain things and watch their fortunes dwindle. It will be a much better class of reality TV for some time to watch.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Politics, Science

The French way

We all accept it, but at times we are blind to the setting. The French do things different, it is as basic as rain is wet. There are parts I do not agree with. French secularism is deeply overboard. We get it, there is history there. Hugh Jackman sang about it in the Incredibles 2 (the miserables). Centuries of deep cultural impact is not wiped away and I believe that is not needed. Yet the BBC gives us ‘Anger as ex-generals warn of civil war in France’. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56899765) also gives us “Two immutable principles guide the action of members of the military with regard to politics: neutrality and loyalty,” tweeted the minister in charge of the armed forces, Florence Parly”, yet the power players are forgetting that there is a problem and the military are not willing to stand by, you see these same power players will use the military as canon fodder just for them to look good, and which soldier ever signed up for the function of ‘cannon fodder’? France faced the Hedbo event, the November 2015 Paris attacks, and now ‘Killer of French Police Officer Was a Radicalised Islamist, Prosecutor Says’ (source: New York Times). There we see “The attacker watched videos ‘glorifying martyrs and jihad’ immediately before the stabbing, the official said”. France has a problem, one from the past (secularism) one from the present (political indifference and pussyfooting around the issues that are too serious). It results in a military system that is not willing to see their country to go to waste and in all this they are getting political support from Marine Le Pen. The situation for Emmanuel Macron is turning from not so good to deeply dire in in swipe and the political grounds are shifting. So as other newspapers give us “French President Emmanuel Macron’s government reacted furiously to an open letter from 20 retired generals warning of a possible military takeover and bloody civil war in response to what they characterised as the disintegration of a country under Islamist extremism”, you see we tend to wipe aside the soldiers complaining, because the political power players will make claims like ‘You do not understand this, or my favourite ‘This is a complex situations and we are walking the best path as the party sees it’, yet a general, or 20 generals in this case is a different matter, generals know what goes on in their nation and 20 of them is a powerful voice and now the dire part starts making sense. You see some will adhere to government created flames regarding ‘discrimination’, yet when we see “Members of the French military, whether actively serving or reservists, are forbidden from expressing public opinions on religion and politics, and Ms Parly has called for those who signed the letter to be punished” and we realise that these 20 are retired, we see a military consensus and that is bad breakfast, which will be followed by lamebrain lunch and dreaded diner. I am not judging the military, a consensus of 20 retired generals is a big thing. So when we get back to ‘Ms Parly has called for those who signed the letter to be punished’, Ms Parly needs to realise that the matter is a lot larger than she is making it out to be. The stabbed police officer might also draw in the police services, even as they will not openly revolt, they are in a stage where they feel that the present French government is no longer to be trusted. It opens all kinds of avenues for Marine Le Pen and in a setting that she did not have before, the larger parts of the police and military on HER side, how many votes is that? Do you think that these 20 generals stay quiet? That is 370,000 military votes, optionally taking family and friends with them and Emmanuel Macron was not in a safe political position in the first place. As such, when the police joins that group his retirement from the Élysée Palace will be close to certain.

So how will this end?
That is unclear. Ever since 1961 (Algiers) when President de Gaulle faced a coup d’état. It failed but that was 60 years ago, now it is not a civil war, 20 retired generals will have the ability to change the minds of millions of French people, which will start to favour the path of Marine Le Pen. From my point of view, the stage of secularism and islamic insults due to secularism is a stage that cannot be won, France will have to make choices and none of the paths are nice to observe, but is there an alternative? Emmanuel Macron will have to make choices and having a serious conversation with these retired generals might be the path of least resistance for now. head banging would result in Marine Le Pen becoming President of France and I am decently certain (roughly  99.54476%) that the path trodden then will be a lot less enjoyable. 

Can it be avoided?
I am not sure if this is possible, the power players sat on their hands for too long, the fact that 20 retired generals in a stage where they embraced neutrality and loyalty their entire life is not to be underestimated. How much did this political group let things waiver? That is the question, and it is not about 1 or 2 generals that have issues, 20 of them have issues and that is a group that represented the French defence forces for well over a decade, that matters, these people know things, they see things and they are objecting. Something that has not happened in 60 years and as I see it Florence Parly and Emmanuel Macron need to take this seriously, as I see it that signal is a sign that time has run out. As I see it having immediate consults with Directeur-Général Général d’Armée Christian Rodriguez (CEO of the French Gendarmerie) might be a first step, optionally seeing if he might be able to start a conversation with the 20 members. If the military in France is in distrust of politicians to the degree that this globally plays (exception Myanmar), it might be one of the few steps he has left, but at this point neither of these two can afford to sit on their hands. And the claim by Florence Parly to “those who signed the letter to be punished”, she could better forget about that part. If this goes any further she will have a mere one year until she is out of a job and you better believe that there is no place for her in a Le Pen cabinet. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Military, Politics

Consider the question

We always have questions, we all do. Some are based upon curiosity, some are based on acquisition and some on compilation. The people tend to have questions in the range of one and three, businesses on two and three, with an optional need for the first group to see if a creation towards awareness is required. And in this we need to see ‘Facebook v Apple: The ad tracking row heats up’, the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56831241) gives us “The IDFA can also be paired with other tech, such as Facebook’s tracking pixels or tracking cookies, which follow users around the web, to learn even more about you”, yet the question no one seems to be asking is how much is an advertiser entitled to get? I have no issue that Facebook, within Facebook measures and ‘collects’ it is the price of a free service, but did we sign up for a larger stake (or is that steak) at the expense of the consumer? Even as we tend to agree and accept “Apple co-founder Steve Jobs acknowledged that some people didn’t care about how much data they shared, but said they should always be informed of how it was being used”, in this the question takes a few steps and has a few exits in where to go next and we tend to remain in the dark about our needs, and what we are comfortable with. This is not new, but digital marketing is new, we have never faced it before. Even as we accept the quote by Tim Cook, the setting given with “If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform”, we forget that this is not merely misusing, it is a much larger stake. I some time ago refused to play a game because it collected my religion. Since when is a game’s requirement the religion I have? So (its Catholic by the way), even as we decide to not use an application, consider the price we pay and it goes further as app’s and their advertisements strategy on nearly EVERY device is set to showing us advertisements (to further the financial setting of the maker), in this I have no real problem, but what information is collected by the advertiser? And we all like the steps Apple seems to be making and as we ‘revere’ “Apple is baking privacy into its systems. Its browser Safari already blocks third-party cookies by default, and last year Apple forced app providers in iOS to spell out in the App Store listings what data they collect” we are forgetting what all advertisers are collecting and no less the issue becomes what happens when 5-7 games collectively are collecting and for the most we have no idea where this will end and it is important to take that in mind. It is there where Facebook is getting the largest negative wave. With “And it argues that sharing data with advertisers is key to giving users “better experiences””, precisely what is that ‘better experience’? And in what setting should ANY data be shared with an advertiser? We get that the advertiser wants to segment WHO gets to see their advertisement, we get that and I reckon no one will object. Yet why share our details? How is that priced and why are we not informed? OK, we are not told that Facebook is getting money of us, it is after-all a free service and as Mark Zuckerberg told the senate in a hearing “We sell ad’s”, yet he did not say “We sell ad’s and user data”, you all do understand that there is a fundamental difference between the two, you do get that, do you? And we see that given in the BBC article when we are given “Facebook appeared to accept the changes and promised “new advertiser experiences and measurement protocols”. It admitted that the ways digital advertisers collect and use information needed to “evolve” to one that will rely on “less data””, but that now gives us a much larger problem (optionally), when we see ‘new advertiser experiences’ we should be concerned on what it will cost, in pricing, in experience and in data segments. It does not make Facebook evil or bad, but when we are given “Technology consultant Max Kalmykov wrote in Medium that advertisers had to “prepare for the next, privacy-focused era of digital advertising””we accept change, we accept evolution, but in the stage of digital marketing most can be achieved WITHOUT sharing data of any individual level with the advertiser, the setting we see come might be good, yet I am concerned with their view of ‘new advertiser experiences and measurement protocols’, a setting for sales, not the consumers and optional victims, because to some degree that matters. Do I care when I see another advertisement by MWAVE.com.au? No, I do not, and for the most I do not care about that part, it is basically the cost of a free service, but no one accepted sharing data and that I what Apple is bringing to the surface even more than Cambridge Analytica brought. 

There is a larger setting in all this and we optionally see that with “Device fingerprinting combines certain attributes of a device – such as the operating system it uses, the type and version of web browser and the device’s IP address to identify it uniquely. It is an imperfect art, but one that is gaining traction in the advertising world”. You see I made the personal choice not to link devices, not to link services of any kind, it will not stop aggregation, it will merely slow it down, yet most of the people did not have the foresight I had a decade ago, as such the apps that have a identifier of hardware, they will get a lot more information on non-Apple devices in the near future. When the people realise that all others will take a backstage, it is a powerful advantage that Apple is creating, I wonder what Google will do next, because their market is in the middle of Apple and Facebook, they need to side one way or the other and it will have deeper repercussions in the long game. As such we see that Apple made its choice, it is one the consumers will embrace, some will accept the scenario that Facebook offers, and laughingly they oppose the data governments have and give it to whomever else wants it. In this Google has an opportunity (or a burden), but only if they change the game they are playing. When the consumers see this, they will wonder where to go next and they are all about flames and biased options through the media. 

It started last year and got to be serious in December 2020 when we were given (at https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/17/22180102/facebook-new-newspaper-ad-apple-ios-14-privacy-prompt) ‘Facebook hits back at Apple with second critical newspaper ad’, in one form we are given “Forty-four percent of small to medium businesses started or increased their usage of personalised ads on social media during the pandemic, according to a new Deloitte study. Without personalised ads, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend”, is that true? When you pick up the newspaper, how much is personalised? There will remain a level of personalised ads within Facebook, but the following outside of Facebook (within Apple products) stops and that might be a relief to a lot of consumers. As such I have a much larger issue with “the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend”, I would be interested to investigate the data that brought the statement, and I have some reservations on the application of the data used. We could optionally say that the digital marketing that relies on such a 100% application is also to some degree unfair on printed media, but that is a very different conversation. 

And in all this the question will soon become “What should you (be allowed to) collect from me?” And now with the upgrades Apple has created a massive advantage, Google will need time to define an answer and direction, because Google will need to make a choice, and this is not a simple one, their business profile will alter accordingly and as Facebook is setting its premise, we see a larger stage, one with the option where Google Plus might be re-introduced in a much larger application of personal and non personal data, you see they are all about the personal data all whilst the hardware fingerprints in 5G will be a much larger setting then it ever was and there a much larger gain could be made by the proper makers in all this.

Did you see the new world where your mobile, tablets, laptop and domotics are linked? I can see it and the application of one of my mobile devices, yet the stage that it offers (or not) is still open to a lot of the players, so as I see it the next year will see a rapid evolution of digital marketing. Those who adjust will see 2023, those who do not ‘Goodbye!

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Science

The Chicken Vindaloo paradox

Yes, it might be seen as a paradox, or it could be seen as a setting that created itself, it created itself through the lack of checks and reports. On October 31st 2020 I wrote in ‘As jobs become available’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/31/as-jobs-become-available/) “Even as India has well over 3 times the population of the US, there is no way that the numbers add up, with the US having over 9 million cases and India barely passing 8 million, the stage is not completely seen. The population pressure and environment should give India a lot more than the US, so the stage is not clearly seen”, it is that short sightedness that is taking the cakes and the lives of those in the middle.

I saw this situation coming a mile away half a year ago, so when we now see “India has recorded nearly a million infections in three days, with 346,786 new cases overnight into Saturday. At the Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi, 20 people died overnight because of a lack of oxygen, an official said. The government says it is deploying trains and the air force to transport supplies to hard-hit areas”, in this, if the Indian government did not care, why should we? Is that not a fair (yet inhumane) question? The numbers were not adding up 6 months ago, even before that I made a few mentions, but it seems that the Indian government like many other politicians know the expressions ‘be an ostrich’ and ‘play possum’ with the best of them. So it is not ‘recorded nearly a million infections in three days’ it is a stage that the Indians let evolve over a setting of 6 months. It is one way to stop the exploding population in ones country, it might not be the solution I would have deployed, but I applaud their ingenuity.
So as we now see “They will die. Within minutes, they will die. You can see these patients: they’re on ventilators, they require high-flow oxygen. If the oxygen stops, most of them will die”, this disease was not and was never on its final legs (as apparently stated by Harsh Vardhan), it was not monitored correctly in the areas where population pressure is the largest, now there is no oxygen, the vaccine will come months too late and the pressures of civil unrest will grow by the hour. And do not take my word for it, check the numbers that were reported and compare them to the US and European numbers. In a nation with 1.3 billion people these numbers never added up, especially when you se some of the Indian images. It was a fester ground for Covid on a 24:7 foundation. Yet I reckon that the governmental people (and their family) have now been inoculated (a small assumption from my side). So the time is now to go as public as possible to get all the bleeding hearts to donate the oxygen, extra vaccine and other materials depriving that government of a few more bills. Well, that is how the political game is played if you are heartless enough.

So when we see “A virologist at the Christian Medical College in the city of Vellore in southern India, Gagandeep Kang, told the BBC more action was needed to stop the spread of the virus” we interestingly do not get to see “A virologist at the Christian Medical College in the city of Vellore in southern India, Gagandeep Kang, told the BBC more action was needed by the Indian government to identify and slow the spread of the virus”, a message that would have been essential no later than the first week of November 2020, now 6 month, or 26 weeks, or 262,080 minutes later, it is too late for thousands of them. Plain and simple, these people will die. 

It was not my choice, but it was someones choice, I merely wonder if the family members of these thousands of needless victims will take the rage to their government. That would be equally fair too.

So as the BBC is now crying out of the SOS emergency (not an ABBA hit), they too need to realise that the numbers were right in front of them for 6 months, so why did not more media officials ask the right questions in the right areas? It was not brain surgery, it was the simple analytical approach to numbers that have not been making sense for too long, especially in a nation with the population pressure that India has. 

If you think I am heartless, you might be right. Yet the investigation into these numbers take common sense and distance, both elements the larger group of media players have been lacking to a way too large degree. It is the mere application of cause (not reporting) and effect (dying people), it is not that hard a formula is it?

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics, Science