Tag Archives: BBC

When Congress becomes something more

So as I stated in ‘The Fantastic Four and the Bully’, the four getting grilled are not the bad guys. Well, there is some debate, but the foundation is that these four tech entrepreneurs are getting grilled by people who are clueless on tech matters. So as some read the BBC part “At issue is the fact that Apple doesn’t allow apps to be installed onto iOS devices from alternative marketplaces, and that it enforces tough rules over the way subscriptions and other digital items can be sold.” The issue soon becomes, will congress be responsible for any bad app and data gathering app that Congress would want to allow for? Even as an android user, I see that there are very few bad apples around, as such most apps are safe. There are a lot more dangerous apps on Android. This is not the fault of Google, there are several ways that a personal device gets to be the victim, there are a lot less issues on Apple, as such and as Congress might demand third party options, will they not be responsible for the damage that they put on Apple and its users? There is another side, a these tech giants come under fire, the chances of Chinese hardware makers making it bigger only increases by 35%-55%, how is that of use to congress? We might see Fitbit mentions and other mentions, but these products are closely followed by Asian alternatives, the entire setting does not add up. Then we get the advertisements, until Google Ads was here, we had DoubleClick, there were versions that equal Epom, with price tags that started at $250 a month, then $1000 a month, $2500 a month and higher. So, can the US Congress give us a list of all the small business and small startups that had that kind of cash? Google Ads was one of the first AFFORDABLE solutions for small business units, the fact that the bulk all switched should be a larger consideration, in addition, Google Ads was one of the first to truly die a larger rise to localisation and languages. Usually one or the other was missing, as such, is the growth of Goole Ads to be blamed on Google, or on all the others who could not be bothered? Not everything is perfect at Google, we all know that, but we also know that the ignorance in congress is a little too large to wonder who they are serving, they claim the people, but in reality? I am actually wondering who they are setting the stage for, I see it as a different stage that the one they tell us we are on.

And even as we accept Sundar’s optional defence of “Today’s competitive landscape looks nothing like it did five years ago, let alone 21 years ago, when Google launched its first product, Google Search”, we need to see that this landscape is largely influenced on the upcoming 5G and as it is now, especially as well over 50% of all searches are done via mobile, the only thing I see coming is that China gets a much larger share of it all and Congress intervening on matters that they do not comprehend is a much larger danger to that happening. I have always been favour of Huawei technology, that does not mean that I want China to have the bulk of all the business. The White House wants us to think it is the same, but it is not. They have set the stage that unites Huawei in a political tool for China to set a much larger field, they were pushed by US stupidity, not Huawei needs. The US took it away and now we see a very different stage, one where Huawei is still independent, but taking the customers that China is pointing at. The stage is changing and Congress is adding fuel to that fire by chastising the big four tech makers, each entrepreneurs. Each understanding the digital landscape. I had no clue in the early 90’s when Amazon started, I thought it was mad to continue when the losses were so great, now the owner has is worth in excess of $35,000,000,000, a personal value that exceeds a lot of nations. I am not saying that all is kind and kosher with each of the four, I am stating that when we are getting told changes, we are properly getting told by people who understand that business and in Congress, I doubt that they can rub together 2 one dollar coins on the subject on digital advertising. The more ‘diplomatic’ answer comes from Facebook’s own Zuckerberg. With “Our story would not have been possible without US laws that encourage competition and innovation. I believe that strong and consistent competition policy is vital because it ensures that the playing field is level for all. At Facebook, we compete hard, because we’re up against other smart and innovative companies that are determined to win” and some of them are Chinese. Some are Russian and others are all over the place, yet Facebook has other problems too, privacy and marketing do not go hand in hand, not in their granular market and that is where part of the problem lies. We could decide that from the four, they are the bad apple in this, but that would be wrong. I worked for people who had no idea how to dress a Facebook market when it was offered to them, their bullet point presentations could not deal with that unknown side of business, that was the strength for growth for Facebook, it was so new, there were no defining borders and there is where we see part of that problem, a lot never caught on, not to the degree that Facebook represents and there I see the dangers of the US Congress, they are not that clued in (as I personally see it). So as we get to one of the topics ‘One of the matters concerning the committee is the degree to which three of the tech companies now control the market for online adverts’ we need to recognise that these players made it affordable for a lot of businesses, the old way was dictatorial and something only rich companies could afford, they refused to give way and when Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon gobbled up the small fry, the large fry moved positions because their provider was no longer the bee’s knees. Three never ruled it, the grew it changing the rulers and the old stage should never return. And finally, according to numbers one in three uses Bing and Microsoft search and are therefor exposed to Bing Ads, so why is Microsoft not in that stage? There are 4 players and one has well over 20%, so why is Microsoft not in the meeting? Is that asking for too much?

Those who have read my articles over the year have seen that I have chastised each and every one of these four (5 if you include Microsoft), but here I see no blame, not from any of the 5, the stage was set, the rules were followed and when the opportunity was there 20 years ago, most would not wonder there, I was a personal witness when some stated that there was no future for a business form of Facebook in 1997, as such what is the US Congress bitching about? And as we look at the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-53582909) we see the graph by eMarketer, yet Microsoft and their Bing is absent, why is that? So whilst they claim it is merely about the smaller rivals, it is about something more and something different, I wonder if we will ever be told the truth. As I personally see it, the members of congress have a different set of needs and I wonder what they are.

 

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He/She said, she/he said

There is a much larger issue, a much larger problem and for a while a lot of people have been ignoring it, not really on purpose, but as long as it does not hits them, they ignore it, and I will admit that for the longest time, I was very much on that same horse. Even if I did it away as a joke, it was my way of acknowledging that it is here. For example as a Sony fan I would say ‘I hate discrimination and Xbox users’, in all honesty, I do not really hate them, but it was a way to getting the point across, a joke tends to do that, but discrimination is not a joke, so as the BBC and other sources give us ‘Wiley: Rapper deleted from Facebook and Instagram after abuse of Jewish critics’ with the quote “The latest comments were shared on Wiley’s personal Facebook profile, and not his official fan page, which has also been taken down. Although they had relatively little engagement – less than 100 likes and comments each – they were visible to the public”, my issue is not the actions, but the speed at which this is happening, at this speed it will take decades to get a real result and that is where we need to take heed. It seems that cutting the head of a journalist gets results a lot faster than calling a person discriminatory names. It seems that the stops get pulled out by a lot when it ‘matters’ to them, and that is the rather large issue we are confronted with. Even as there are plenty of celebrities and a lot of others setting the stage to fight it, and as the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/25/antisemitism-labour-warns-of-cash-crisis-as-cases-grow) gives us “Labour will this week be formally notified of a batch of potentially costly new legal actions over antisemitism – days after a warning was issued to the shadow cabinet about the devastating toll the crisis is taking on the party’s finances”, we need to recognise that the inactions for years are adding up and this is more than merely a social media problem, the inactions by government as it ignores scores of discrimination issues (on a global scale mind you), and the media has been lagging (not lacking) in this and it is time for a larger global sounding and working initiative against discrimination. In the USA things are going from bad to worse, especially in the economic light of COVID-19, we see sources giving us all kinds of titles, titles like ‘A new study found fine-dining restaurants in Seattle told white applicants to start immediately, while telling Black jobseekers they’re ‘not hiring’’ are not the exception, they are apparently the norm in the US and they are not alone, whilst we see screams and demands for equality, the opposite is happening, and it is happening right now. Now, I have always been about realism, and the reality of the situation and the economy is that discrimination is too much of a problem, not merely in the long run, in the short run we see the direct station of hurting well over 31% of the global population, and yes that is not the issue for governments, but in their own backyard it is an issue, in the US alone the issue of discrimination is well over 35%, that implies that one in three will face discrimination and that is on race alone, when we add gender and religion, the picture becomes a lot less charming. In this the UK and Australia are not far behind. Many countries in the EU face similar issues. And as some are ignoring the dangers ahead, in this economy we need to create an air of inclusion, we need to move from inclusion to phases of opportunity. These happen not overnight, but they need to happen a lot faster than whatever solution social media comes with. You see, at the core of inequality is the inability to live like a person, to live like a human being and as that is taken care of, we can create time and create other means to stop discrimination. Anyone who gives you a 5 step plan is plainly a loon, this cannot be done overnight, it cannot be done in 5 steps, and at the core is clear education on just how wrong discrimination is. There is a quote, a quote I locked inside of me in the 80’s, “Change is valuable, it lets the oppressed be tyrants” I believe that this phrase is more important than you might imagine. I did not know it at the time, but the phrase is from Jenny Holzer’s ‘Truisms’, consider the option that the oppressed become the tyrants, where would you be? We need change, but one that does not include oppressed and tyrants, it requires equality and we are running out of time, if you doubt that, consider what happens in the US, when we first get to see that the USA has to admit that they are no longer a superpower, then we get consumerism collapse and in this we get to see that those so called captains of industry are left with lagging incomes more and more, what do you think happens next? And make no mistake, this is not about the USA, the Commonwealth (with minimum impact in Canada) and the EU face the same predicament, the only bad thing happening in the near future if they all get hit at the same time, a scary prospect, no? In all this we need change, we need it fast and we need it by making any setting of discrimination ‘actionable perse’, we have little other options at present. It was never that clear before but the entire Covid-19 issue brought it to the surface more and more, and if the US want to do more than merely become a police state, they actually have no options left, they might be the first, but they are not the only ones, the UK and the EU are ripe and ready for a lot more. The problem is not can we fix it (it should be) the problem in the immediate future is to lower the inequality curve, from the range it is now, towards a 25%-30% lowering curve within a year, with an additional 30%-35% lowering in the year after. These are seemingly achievable numbers, but it will not be easy, anyone claiming that it will be is at the very least insane and optionally delusional as well. We can look at a whole range of options, but in the end government after government will have to decide what is the best way for their nation. I do understand that each nation has its own priorities and its own way of dealing with matters, that was never in question, but they need to realise fast that they no longer have leeway in doing it later, that option past about a decade ago.  

 

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Baa baa who?

I got alerted, OK, alerted is slightly too strong an expression to a BBC article by Elisabeth Mahy. The article was published two days ago and I probably overlooked it. Yet, it is a shame I did, so better late than never. The article called ‘Sheep wool ‘barely worth selling any more’’ is a weird one, well, it is not really weird, but it comes across weird. Wool is an essential fabric in our lives and has been for generation. Suits are made of it, Tweed has its foundation in wool, as do many other forms of clothing and the idea that 8 billion re quire clothing gives a rather noticeable rise in the required availability of wool. It reminded me of Ghandi (Ben Kingsley) giving us the state of India and that setting “thus Mahatma Gandhi started spinning himself and encouraging others to do so. He made it obligatory for all members of the Indian National Congress to spin cotton themselves and to pay their dues in yarn. He further made the chakri (spinning wheel) the symbol of the Nationalist movement.” I remember seeing it in the cinema, I would state that I preferred to see it with my own eyes, but I am not THAT old, this happened a long time ago and the movie made it stick for me. So why are we all in the Commonwealth not in a state of supporting the need for wool? As I become aware of: “Wool’s popularity has been in decline since the 1950s – and this year, coronavirus has added problems that businesses can ill afford. The global wool market closed in February. This has led to vast volumes of wool lying unsold in depots and has pushed prices down.” I see the impact of the exploitation and pressures of big business. Why is wool under such scrutiny? I still hope that I will be able to afford myself and actual Tweed, although, in Australia there is merely the midwinter when that stuff is functional (it is really too warm here for Tweed), but that situation is less of an issue in the UK and Canada (Commonwealth) or Scandinavia for example. Why are we not looking into pushing the need for wool? If my memory serves me, clothing is required almost everywhere and pretty much all the time, so why is wool ‘out of favour’? I get that wool at times is slightly too warm in places, but we also require blankets (most of the time), high end carpets are often made from wool, so I feel that there is a cog missing. Now, I might miss the cog because I do not have wool on the brains all the time, but when I read “Farmers used to be able to pay a year’s rent from the price of wool, but it’s barely worth selling anymore.” I feel the misalignment. When I look around I see “wool carpets can range from $140 to $500”, as well as the idea the suits still cost a few pennies, with a population at the size it is, my mind is still wondering why wool is under such pressure. 

I can understand that the covid situation makes selling temporary harder, but the article seems to press on a much larger station, and it partially baffles me. Yes, we know that it is about what the market demands, but there is a growing concern that wool is kept off the consideration list for other reasons. We can point fingers and make claims left, right and centre, but I am not sure if there is a clear reason, or one that I am not aware of. From my personal side I have suits (or had them), and I never looked down on wool, at times aware that it is not the cheapest stuff, but whatever you buy in wool tends to last, so you have something worth buying, so when I read “it’s barely worth selling anymore”, I personally remain puzzled. So when I read “Each farmer’s costs are different, but in Gerallt’s case, it doesn’t make financial sense selling the wool this year.” I wonder how we failed to this degree and “I’m not going to spend 30p on packing [a fleece] to get 24p back” really does not help. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53421546) leaves me with a lot of questions. And that is long before you consider that the packing material is valued higher than the wool, how could we fail an industry producing a needed substance like wool to this degree? And overall the statement “British Wool is currently storing 14 million kg of wool in its depots” does not help any, as I personally see it, this is not due to the Coronavirus (it will have an impact, but not to this degree), so what are the players in all this ad why can we not increase the need for wool, so that one industry is not a lamb chop away from existence? 

It is a stretch from the state we had in our childhood (well, mine at least)

Which was 

And has become:
Baa, baa, black sheep

Have you any wool?

Yes, sir, yes, sir

Three bags full

One for the master

And one for the dame

One for the little boy

Who lives down the lane

Baa, baa, black sheep

Have you any wool?

Yes, sir, yes, sir

Thousands of tonnes

the master and the dame

Want none to claim 

And the boy down the lane

Wants cotton that is plain

I personally believe that as we looked and listened to those telling us what was fashion, the view on wool moved to rear, we can state that this is how the world turns, and that remains true, I merely wonder how an industry was pushed out of existence, not that fact that it happened, but that it happened under my own view and I never realised it. So what else did we miss? What did we lose without taking notice? My mind wanders around the room, on what might be added when we add wool, and apart from a plaid on the sofa and a new blanket I honestly do not see it, on the other hand, why are we not pursuing new fashions with wool? We can twist and turn in any direction, but the fact remains, when the material that never stopped being useful is no longer needed and that it is worth less than its packing material, that is not a good thing. We might want to blame ourselves, but is that fair? Can we blame anyone? Let’s be honest, when was the last time you went out to buy gramophone needles? Some articles are deleted due to evolution, I get that, but on the whole side of it, I never expected that wool would get there and that is weird, apart from the small issue that it is worth less than packing materials. 

It will take some time to get over an invoice that reads 1 wool fleece $0.02, packing $0.25, postage $4.99 total due $5.26.

 

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Can’t stop the message

That is the name of the game, at times, no matter the source, we cannot stop the message, we can optionally reduce the impact, that is as good as it gets and that has been the centre stage, not for a day, a month, a year, a decade, but for several centuries. The message will get across, history is filled with examples of that all over the world.

So when I wrote “the same model could optionally be used to misinform (or disinform) the person through links that have ‘altered headlines’ One party could use it to flame to larger base of the other party and no matter what claims Facebook makes, the PDF report shows that they are seemingly clueless on how to stop it.” In ‘Presidents are us’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/07/11/presidents-are-us/) I knew what I was talking about, as such it gives me great pleasure to see the BBC give us ‘ISIS ‘still evading detection on Facebook’, report says’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53389657) with the added text “One network’s tactics included mixing its material with content from real news outlets, such as recorded TV news output and the BBC News theme music. It also hijacked Facebook accounts, and posted tutorial videos to teach other Jihadists how to do it. Facebook said it had “no tolerance for terrorist propaganda”.”” They are basically all stages we have seen before and stages we will see again. History has shown that you can not stop the message, you can merely delay the spread and optionally the impact. That is as good as it can get and the fact that we still see: “The researchers believe that at the centre of the network was one user who managed around a third (90 out of 288) of the Facebook profiles. At times, this user would boast of holding 100 ‘war spoils’ accounts, saying: “They delete one account, and I replace it with 10 others.”” People basically never learn. 

And it is not better, not gets to be worse, I wrote in 2013 “This technology should also include Microsoft services including their search engine Bing. Tracking in mobile devices remains a key point. The big advantage of Microsoft’s emerging technology is that it could track a user across a platform.” In the article ‘Patrons of Al-Qaeda’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/10/22/patrons-of-al-qaeda/) that was more than 6.5 years ago, do you think that these people sit on their laurels?  So if big-tech can be flaccid and automated to keep track of nearly anyone, what do you think that Trolls and Terrorists will use to get their message across and this is not new, it is not news, it is the situation that has been out in the open for years. As the BBC gives us “another key to the survival of ISIS content on the platform was the way in which ISIS supporters have learned to modify their content to evade controls.” Yes! And that is news how? Consider that the top 10 technical universities graduate close to 15,000 every semester, so 3 teams a year. Now consider that these parts can only persuade 0.1% (which is massively low), that implies that these players gain 15 tech savvy experts every 4 months and that is before we add those who cater to organised crime, in that numbers game we see that the government’s involved are not in a place to compete, their infrastructure had been downplayed for close to a decade and as salespeople from big-tech come around on the ease of automation we see that the mess merely gets worse and that INCLUDES several defence departments in Europe, the Commonwealth and America. That is the situation and there will be no release any day soon (except for the tech person on the help desk relying on his right hand, plenty of release there). So when you consider that I was merely looking at 10 schools, and the mess is actually a lot larger, how much of a joke is the entire ‘dealing with election bias’? If players like Facebook cannot stop or largely diminish a group that nearly all want gone, how about a situation where a larger group is in doubt of acting? How many backdoors will be given to the Cambridge Analytica minded people? That question becomes a lot more important when we consider the LA Times giving us less than 5 hours ago ‘How Facebook keeps its biggest advertisers happy’ with the quote “The social media company made nearly all of last year’s $71 billion in revenue from advertising and has worked hard to build relationships with both brands and advertising companies through a clubby network of invitation-only groups called client councils”, do you think that people spending $71 billion are kept happy with “offering everything from birthday cakes to ski trips, and dinners at the Silicon Valley home of its chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg.” Do you think that is all it takes? So the people ending up having dinner at that place will also get access and that is where some will be looking, the people with access and that is why the message cannot be stopped, that is why some will persevere and that is before my 5G IP hits the markets. I honestly have no idea to stop some, because some will not be stopped, I can only minimise the dangers, but I am also at the mercy of some Telecom minimisers (or was that mini-misers). Anyway, if Trolls and Terrorists get through 0.5% of the time, those with election needs and other message needs are likely to get through 20-40 times as often and any of the Big-Tech players will remain unable to stop them, unless we employ the bullet through the back of the head solution, this will not ever stop, history has proven me right and the fact that I saw this well over 6 years ago and the BBC got up to speed just now (OK, that was an exaggeration) gives wind to a much larger problem. 

You can never stop the message. Wake up! It is actually that simple.

 

 

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The image we are offered

Yup, it happens, we all have an image of a person. Not in any good or bad way, just an image of how we have seen him the most. In my case, this reflects on Eminem. The rapper has been part of my music appreciation life for around two decades. It started with the Marshall Mathers LP, which I bought because I liked the song Stan. The album brought a lot more than merely one song, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t get parts of it, I am not an American, the issues he sings about are issues I never witnessed or faced. I bought 4 albums and over the years I lost sight of his music. Not intentional, the world is filled with music and I try to learn as much as I can. So when I saw him looking like a F1 racer with beard and all, I took a step back. As I took note of ‘Eminem criticises non-mask wearers on new rap track’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/10/eminem-criticises-non-mask-wearers-on-new-rap-track-kid-cudi-covid-19) I learned of “Eminem has entered the debate about face masks in a collaboration with Kid Cudi, tackling an issue that is the subject of fierce disagreement in the US and UK”, and the lyrics are set to the spice of Eminem (read: less subtle in bringing the message) and as we see ““Bunch of halfwits up in office. Half of us walking around like a zombie apocalypse. Other half are just pissed off and don’t want to wear a mask and they’re just scoffin’. And that’s how you end up catchin’ the shit off ’em. I just used the same basket as you shoppin’, now I’m in a fuckin’ casket from you coughin’.”” Is the direct approach. They are not wrong, but the fact that this situation has been brought to rap and the Guardian voices that in another way by stating “Eminem’s lines are a long way from any that the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, would ever use but they articulate similar sentiments.” It is a global scene and in light of 200+ doctors now giving nice to the fact that Covid-19 is airborne sheds a different light on the matter. We see politicians making light (to some extent) of the situation, yet the story does not reflect the death toll. And team Eminem-Kid Cudi are alerting us to a much harder reality. So whilst we see a correlation between US and UK politics, we get to see  Downing Street has faced questions about why more cabinet ministers are not wearing masks. There have been no public sightings of Boris Johnson wearing a face covering, while the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was pictured serving food to customers at Wagamama with nothing on his face but a grin.” If presentation is key in issues, we see the failing of politicians to a much larger degree and when the population starts taking heed of team Eminem-Kid Cudi whilst removing politicians from the circle of trust and belief, we could state that the shit has truly hit the fan. 

I applaud the move that these two have made, social awareness tends to be more easily embraced through music and the issue is important. And when we see the claims some people have made, it matters.

The first is ““The United States has done far more ‘testing’ than any other nation, by far!” Mr Trump said this on 25 March, when the latest official data showed that a total of 418,810 people had been tested in the US.” 418K over a population of 235,000,000? That is a little less than 0.1%, all whilst South Korea tested 0.7% of the entire population, as such South Korea exceeded testing by 700%, not a proud moment for the White House. 

The second one is important: “Mr Trump said he thought the true death rate, based on “my hunch”, was “way under 1%”.” That in a stage where 25% of all reported cases are in the US, whilst 136,000 people in the US died, a non-living rate of well over 4%, in this the White House was wrong by well over 400%, as such the numbers matter and as such the album, The Adventures of Moon Man and Slim Shady, will matter as well. We can throw numbers at you all night long, but the reality is that we need to take notice and we need to take action. And should you disagree then I say fine, do that, and if you die my value merely increases. We can go that way too, so in light of the stage where the words of a rapper actually have direct global meaning, we need to take notice of the casual approach that politicians have shown to have. 

This is not about bashing President Trump (a mere added bonus), the global political stage is weird and irresponsible as to how they perceive the state of the global stage to be, the fact that all these political ‘heavyweights’ are shown to be largely inferior to the Prime Minister of New Zealand (Jacinda Arden), a (rather small) nation that according to the Facebook Image is not linked to the rest of the world, should shows us all just how serious matters have become. 

We have ignored at the impressions of some people, whilst the stage was serious, it was deadly and that needs to be reflected, again and again like it is a lesson from the Teletubbies, as I personally see it team Eminem-Kid Cudi might optionally be a little late, but they are there a lot faster than some of these so called ‘serious politicians’, we the people have a problem and we need to realise it a lot faster than we are, our lives actually depend on it at present.

 

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Presidents are us

Yup, the fight for the White House is intensifying. The BBC gives us ‘Biden challenges Trump with ‘Buy American’ economic plan’. Well that is a step we saw coming, in a stage where any corona virus hit nations will rely not merely on the export of goods, but on the locally required spending consumer base. With the FAANG group in its own world, the US democrats have decided on ‘Buy American’. It makes sense, although the claimed $700bn plan is likely to cost close to twice that amount and will only truly be a win if US export does not collapse whilst the US population will rely on US goods instead of importing. If those two parts are met then Joe Biden does have an optional working plan. The current president says that this plan will fail, but in light of all his claims, does anyone care what he thinks? So whilst the BBC gives us “Many voters are concerned by the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic. His divisive approach to the country’s recent wave of anti-racism protests has also come under sharp scrutiny” and they are correct, even as there are a few more issues surrounding Trump, there is a larger concern on his presidency and as the foundation of the Republican group are in a stage where they are doubting his presidency can show any positive impact for the Republicans, the idea that a Democratic win for them at present is better than the current White House occupant is also a larger concern as the elections draws near. Even as we see “Analysts have urged caution in over-interpreting the polls, but Mr Biden’s lead is far greater than that of Mr Trump’s 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton at the same point in the campaign” the analysts do have to some degree a point, the American population has NEVER EVER been this polarised before and as some see it, there is a much larger white power population, Al Jazeera showed ‘An Al Jazeera investigation identified some 120 pages belonging to bands with openly white supremacist and racist views’, which adds up to another issue that Mark Zuckerberg and his book of faces has been unable to deal with. And these pages tend to flow towards Trump, not Biden. (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/exclusive-facebook-extensively-spread-neo-nazi-music-200710075507831.html) and that is merely the tip of the iceberg that is optionally the reason that the US Titanic will be sinking in unknown waters. The articles also gives us the PDF and “The 89-page report by civil rights experts heavily criticised Facebook, saying it needs to do more about anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish and other hate speech.” In this the article is important when we get to Chapter 6 (Algorithmic Bias), there we seealgorithms used to screen resumes to identify qualified candidates may only perpetuate existing gender or racial disparities if the data used to train the model on what a qualified candidate looks like is based on who chose to apply in the past and who the employer hired; in the case of Amazon the algorithm “learned” that references to being a woman (e.g., attending an all-female college, or membership in a women’s club) was a reason to downgrade the candidate.” Yet the same model could optionally be used to misinform (or disinform) the person through links that have ‘altered headlines’ One party could use it to flame to larger base of the other party and no matter what claims Facebook makes, the PDF report shows that they are seemingly clueless on how to stop it. You see, even if Facebook decides to block politics, it does not stop one account from posting an image, and even as the image might not be political, it can still impact the political base with the misinformation it spreads and Facebook would be largely unable to stop it until it was too late and as it optionally stops one side, the other side can make it worse, so here we see the application of Shareholder, Stakeholder and Sponsors, the S3 equation of big business. 

So even as the news was that the FAANG group saw $58 billion wiped after Trump slammed the ‘immense power’ of big tech (Business Insider), we seem to forget that that same group saw their stocks rise in excess of of $637 billion, so they still made decently well over half a trillion dollars. When you consider that, who do you think that the FAANG group wants as the next president? In all this the entire China matter remains an issue as the US goes towards the polling booths, yet in the end, there is absolutely no guarantee that President Trump is a one term president, yes there is the wishful thinking group, but the issues seen in the economy and the soaring profits that the FAANG group is making is a much larger concern, especially as their voices are a lot more powerful than anyone realises. In all this, the final touch is that so far I have shown again and again that the media is massively sensitive to the needs of the S3 group they dance for, in all this, do you expect to get any neutral news? Consider this week the insincerity of Fox News with ‘Fox News apologises for cropping Trump out of Epstein and Maxwell photo’ and whilst the Guardian reports on this, not many did, and when we realise the byline “Network says it mistakenly eliminated Donald Trump from photo with Maxwell and Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in February 2000” take a moment to consider the choice of words ‘mistakenly eliminated’, which is bias, it is (in my personal view) a form of censoring, which is interesting as it is the media that are all in arms on ‘censoring’ which was shown by Lord Justice Leveson through a novel that exceeds War and Peace (an apt analogy), even as the media reflected on it like it was the horror story fo the century, we see that the media has no issues to ‘mistakenly eliminate’, optionally hoping that no one will notice and there is every chance that a lot of people remained unaware. So in light of all this, there is no way to predict the winner. Even as we hope that Joe Biden will be supported to a much larger degree and that it will be a fair fight, I am not so sure about either premise in this equation.

 

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Let’s call a spade a spade

It is an old expression, lets call a spade a spade, the pot calling the kettle black and so forth. It is (when I grew up) the expressions that refer to let’s call it what it is, let’s label it directly, let’s not beat around the bush. So when the BBC gives us ‘Loot boxes: I blew my university savings gaming on Fifa’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53337020), we see the story of an idiot, an idiot named Jonathan Peniket, who basically is voicing whatever excuse he has for the simple reason that he is (as I personally see it) indeed an idiot. So when we see “Better players give you an advantage, and there is a virtual currency and market where these cards are traded. You can buy packs containing a random selection of cards. The idea that it was gambling seemed ridiculous to me at the time. I understood that the chances of ‘packing’ my favourite players were low. I spent the money, opened my packs, got lucky a couple of times, and tried to be positive, despite being left feeling slightly underwhelmed. ‘If I could just spend another £15…’, I thought. Four years followed of spending more and more money on player packs – each time seeking that buzz that would only occasionally come.” We see here the driven and almost educated response of a crack whore trying to get someone else to pay for her addiction, a little bitch looking for the 3600 cards and a person who wants the 1200 cards in month one. I know it sounds ominous and even offensive, but that is life. So when he was a teenager, like two years before his first card (at 17), he got inflicted with the Pokemon vibe (gotta have them all), that empty feeling was transferred to FIFA and when we see “How one teenager spent nearly £3,000” we see a person who is too stupid for his own good. The game is a mere £55, so how stupid do you need to be to spend 60 times that amount? The BBC writers Felicity Hannah and Jane Andrews are quick to dismiss in a short term the truth of the matter behind “They say Fifa Ultimate Team can be played without spending any money and that purchases are entirely optional”, it is a truth, I play NHL, I get 3 packs a day, free of charge, the packs add up that in a month you can save up pack points to get to specula bronze packs, two silver packs and two gold packs. In addition, every pack comes with virtual money to buy other cards online (bid for them), in the second months, I had all 30 arena’s, close to all home and away jerseys for all the NHL teams and most of the goalie masks. After 6 months, I had close to 800 hockey players, a few legendary, and several really rare cards, the game also unlocks upgraded players as you play more and reach milestones (game achievements) you unlock even more players and upgraded legendary players. I cannot answer for FIFA, but it seems that this approach has been mimicked over all the EA sport games, as such I have all that and NEVER paid a cent, showing you just how stupid this boy Jonathan Peniket really is, but the BBC writers are happy to convey “I accept responsibility for what happened. The decisions I made to spend that money were made by me”, yet the little tough guy was eager to state that he “was addicted to the buzz of chance when I bought packs” and “I was spending £30 at a time, then £40, then £50. By the time my card began to block my transactions, I was throwing £80 into the game four or five times a night”, so that the statement “video game packs and loot boxes [a general term for in-game purchases involving chance] are a form of gambling”, yes you can go that way, but when a junk is taking drugs, he isn’t really medicating is he, so what he states it is is merely a form to avoid as much guilt for his stupidity as possible. Loot boxes are not now, not ever gambling, so until we see one of these packs give us the 15 cards all stating ‘Thank You’ it can never be gambling. You get cards, there is always one rare in EVERY PACK, and you can always try to trade it. Consider that there are 3600 cards, 1200 are rare, meaning that you have a 1/1200 chance of getting Neymar, Mbappe, van Dijk, De Bruyne, Lewandowski, Ronaldo or Messi. That is the simplest top-line stage and people with the intelligence of porridge (Jonathan Peniket) decided to spend £3,000 and optionally still hasn’t learned that lesson.

In all honesty, I am no fan of Electronic Arts, they made a few errors on several levels and the loot box stage is optionally too exploited, yet it is not gambling. I remain firm on that part. The fact that some are too stupid to be allowed near a Credit Card does not mean that it becomes the fault of Electronic Arts, and if someone state that Electronic Arts needs to do more to temper per person spending that I would not disagree, but it doesn’t make loot boxes gambling. Only when there is a chance that you lose all, that there is no reward at all, then it becomes gambling. 

Gambling to most is “the wagering of money or something of value on an event with an uncertain outcome, with the primary intent of winning money or material goods.” Yet the operative part in gambling is ‘uncertain outcome’, here the outcome is always the same: 1 Rare, 3 Uncommon and the rest are common cards. And when you realise just how big FIFA is, you need to realise from the start that you can never have them all. In most CCG games the games are at best 400-500 cards (without expansions). FIFA has over 6000 players, as such, your ultimate team will always be limited, you need to make the best of this and lets not forget “Better players give you an advantage”, that is true, but only in the field where both gamers are equal and with a person like Jonathan Peniket that is not a given, it is extremely doubtful. You see if he was a true gamer, then he would get the UEFA cup with West Ham United F.C. (if that was his local team) wouldn’t he? In all this posturing we forgot about the gamer involved, didn’t we? Now, I’ll be honest regarding FIFA, I (pretty much) suck at it, I do not like Soccer too much and that is fine, others love it and that is fine too. I loved the 98 edition on the N64, I played FIFA to some extent on an earlier version on the Playstation (the first one) and it was OK, yet I am not into Soccer, NHL is my game and there I see great things, I love the games, I play my dekes (and fail at times too) and I get beat a lot by kids in the US, Canada and Sweden as they live for hockey. I can live with that, they play it 6 hours a day as such, I expect to get beaten and no matter who is in my ultimate team, I am not going to win. It is simple math and the math shows the truth. I still love the game as I am a hockey man, the NHL game grew and over 18 years I have had my share of it. I loved the original version that came with my PS2, I loved NHL03 on Gamecube and so on, I still love my PS4 version of NHL19. I never had to spend $1 on any pack, so I am not complaining (not much for the Ultimate league anyway).

I have a nice collection of cards and I am happy to report that I got all the NHL jerseys and all the arena’s. Yes there is more to the game and I never stopped enjoying the game, I reckon that the same applies to those loving FIFA and apart from the few who cannot fathom limits, everyone is seemingly happy, oh and the fact that Felicity Hannah and Jane Andrews never gave you a list of all the packs you can get for free on a daily basis is also something you need to take notice of, they are all about headlining ‘EA’s response’ and the ramblings of a shopaholic junkie are equally issues that need to be seen. So as we see the article end with “Fifa was approached for comment, but has not yet responded.” We see the little nags that they reflect to be. What was that, a remark towards laying blame on FIFA for allowing for this? The fact that there is concern on what constitutes gambling should be seen as a first, all whilst there is absolutely no guarantee that under Covid-19, there is no way of telling who at FIFA are aware of this. It is seemingly an issue yet The worlds of Electronic Arts “the well-being of players is paramount – and all their games, including Fifa, have the ability to use parental controls provided by gaming platforms to cap or prohibit spend” are underplayed, so we see here that there was a option to ‘cap or prohibit spend’ and when we realise that this was a mere approach to give a vocal stage to someone who should be given lessened consideration as a junkie is setting the stage? Gimme a break!

In the end, yes EA could have optionally done a little more, but how long until we forget the initial setting that the consumer needs to accept responsibility for their actions and stop nagging like a little brat? He was there spending money on pack after pack and that was on him, not on EA. The part of the act was mentioned, yet focussed on the amounts, not the stupidity of the person spending. 

This is merely my view and you are (of course) welcome to disagree. 

 

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Casing the BS

I get it at times, as, I reckon a lot of others, the case when we read something, we are driven (whether justified or not) to the thought that we are getting fed a case of utter bullshit. Now, this comes from a BBC article and the state I am in is not reflecting on the writer of the article, or the BBC, but in light of all this, the grub smells too foul to accept.

So it all started with ‘Deutsche Bank faces $150m fine for Jeffrey Epstein ties’, So, in light of all we have seen in the last few days and in light of what CNN revealed we see “Deutsche Bank has been hit with a $150m fine for failing to properly monitor its relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein”. And it goes downhill from there. In light of the last few days we need to set a proper timeline. Joker JE died on August 10th 2019, he got planted (was buried) after that and the cases we are seeing is the one he did 13 months for in 2008 and he was arrested again on July 2019. So, when we see “the bank had suffered ‘significant compliance failures’, processing hundreds of transactions for the late financier”, we see the quote and we see the hiding of damage, but the largest failure is with the both the regulators and the people scanning all this, for the mere reason that Epstein had a cleared path for well over 10 years, the entire Maxwell situation, and her financial tracks as CNN discovered it gives rise to a lot more. I wonder who checked EVERY account and transaction here, more important, who approved the creation of these accounts and who monitored certain stages of hiding funds, when we consider that these people are optionally equally guilty of endangering of lives of hundreds of children. You missed that part did you not?

So when DB comes with the excuse “It had spend almost $1bn to improve its training and controls and expand its anti-financial crime team to more than 1,500 people”, I wonder who investigated the exact amounts that added up to $1bn, I reckon that the spin people at DB earned their keep that day. How much was exactly spend on training? How much on procedures to identify wealthy people spending money on underaged vagina’s? I reckon that we will hear that this is not the banks job, but the CNN facts giving us “Prosecutors also detailed transfers they said Maxwell made between her own accounts. Since 2016, prosecutors say, Maxwell has held more than 15 bank accounts that have totalled between several hundred thousand dollars and more than $20 million. During that time period and as recently as 2019, prosecutors allege she moved hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time between her accounts: In March 2019, $500,000 from one of her accounts to another; four months later, more than $300,000 from one account to another. As recently as last year, prosecutors say she held at least one foreign bank account containing more than $1 million.” I wonder how many accounts were created by DB, in addition, when we look at the accounts and we see who and where each and every account was made, we might see an additional picture emerge. So why were regulators so eager to get this settled for DB now, instead of when we see the court case finalise with several, questions answered, I reckon that the friends of these regulators are not that eager to see certain revelations in court, the cost could be a lot higher than $150m. Yet, that is merely my point of view of the matter. I wonder what else Shan Wu (the CNN analyst) is optionally sitting on. 

The BBC also gives us “In an internal memo, Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Sewing said it had been a “critical mistake” to accept Epstein as a client and acknowledged past lapses in the lender’s oversight. “We all have to help ensure that this kind of thing does not happen again,” he said.” So when did this happen, and when we look at the 2008 case and a few other matters, would it be inappropriate to ask whether Christian Sewing has any daughters? Is anyone else interested in the date of the internal memo #JustAsking?

Yet I digress from the one part that is revealing “We acknowledge our error of onboarding Epstein in 2013 and the weaknesses in our processes, and have learnt from our mistakes and shortcomings,” as such there were 6.5 years for damage to continue and in all this we see no revelation regarding how much shuffling was done for Ghislaine Maxwell. I do understand that the accused has rights to privacy, I get that there are laws and they should not be broken, yet the Deutsche Bank has broken compliance again and again and they can make a lot more than the $150m fine in mere hours. As such, will kids ever be safe again with banks the way they are in America, or is that the right setting? Deutsche Bank is global, so how many kids are in danger?

So I wonder, when someone investigates all these accounts that Ghislaine Maxwell was using, when we take transaction after transaction apart and check every terminal this went through, what else will we find, and if the Deutsche Bank is found in error of compliance again, will regulators set proper fines and limitations to banks involved, or will we see a half baked notification in the news with the added message ‘Oops!’ Just asking what is coming our way, and in my case it is not that drastic, yet there are plenty of mama’s and papa’s around to feel slightly different and a lot more stressed. 

 

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Presenting facts towards oblivion

There is a saying, if you shout it often enough, people will start to believe. The BBC gives us two headlines in this regard. The first is ‘Coronavirus: FDA chief refuses to back Trump’s vaccine prediction’ and the second one is ‘Indian scientists say the August vaccine deadline – set by the country’s medical council – is unrealistic’ all this, whilst a clear message was given in January 2020, a vaccine could take up to 18 months (and that if we get lucky), as such we see the unrealistic side that governments are bombastically advertising. We understand that the IQ of the man in the White House is nothing to be proud of, yet the Indian government should know better, their country has even higher problems than the US is faced with, as such they should know better and the news of an early vaccine ANYWHERE on the planet is a stretch, as such, can we even trust any government to be on par with its population? 

And this is not all, we get the following via Reuters ‘Hundreds of scientists say coronavirus is airborne, ask WHO to revise recommendations: NYT’, the article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-airborne/hundreds-of-scientists-say-coronavirus-is-airborne-ask-who-to-revise-recommendations-nyt-idUSKBN2460O7) also gives us “Hundreds of scientists say there is evidence that the novel coronavirus in smaller particles in the air can infect people and are calling for the World Health Organization to revise recommendations, the New York Times reported on Saturday” this is huge, it also gives rise to my predictions months ago (not weeks but months) should leave us wondering what the governments are about, other than the creation of discourse. I stated in ‘Vindication is like Maple Syrup’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/06/18/vindication-is-like-maple-syrup/) that the numbers did not add up, I saw that part as early as February 2020, yet the numbers became more defined in June. The setting was direct, the numbers could not be correct, there was more in play. I was not making a claim that I had the answers, but what was presented to us did not make sense and I have to admit that the part of ‘coronavirus is airborne’ is a scary part, but could be part of the explanation. As such the problems we face are a lot larger and if the airborne is proven, at that point these right-wing nuts we see in the US could optionally be prosecuted for manslaughter. So these people without masks infecting others could be seen as “the crime of killing a human being without malice aforethought, or in circumstances not amounting to murder.” yes, in this case “without malice aforethought” and “stupid ignorance” could be seen as one and the same. There is every chance that the light of vaccine time and the White House claim “We are unleashing our nation’s scientific brilliance and we’ll likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year.” Might be seen as damaging as those with the lack of foresight and deleting the need of a face mask. Consider the fact that an airborne and a non airborne vaccine might require a different track (an assumption on my side) adds to all this and now that we are given ‘China bubonic plague: Inner Mongolia takes precautions after case’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53303457) adds to all this. A deadly flue and the black death in one and the same stage? That has got to be new and certainly is news. I am not blaming anyone, I am setting the stage that we need real answers and not positively charged speculations to make the financial people happy. We seemingly have a massive problem and in all this, the evolution of our systems will take a massive hit, it is no longer about, will the economy survive, it will be will internal government systems survive what is thrown at them? Whilst some hide behind ‘German healthcare market rich with potential for app developers’ others give us ‘How Covid-19 exposed cracks in France’s cherished healthcare system’, it is not a stage of who is right and who is wrong, they are both right, but until there is an ACTUAL solution on treating patients on a global stage, every ‘potential’ stage is merely a stage that stops people from getting treatment and to be quite honest, there is no way to predict what healthcare needs in 2021 and 2022, there might not be enough people alive to consider an app, or a quick solution. At that point it will be about the quality of care, and anyone disagreeing with me on that is allowed to do so, but the facts are out and about. Even as some swallowed the corona news as it was a vitamin drink, we have now seen several examples that a larger amount of news never added up and those entering carefully phrased denials will be receiving public questions and will be demanded to answer, when they give us ‘we were wrongly informed’ they can either be punished themselves or be required to give their sources of information. 

For some it will be a whole new day in the field of accountability. We have not choice, the people have been led astray from the facts for far too long, the media will hide behind the ‘facilitation’ option, but the people can demand that the stake holders seek another path and that the share holders dump the shares at that point the advertisers will seek safer shores. It will be a brand new day soon enough. Of course that is before we realise that the mortality rate is optionally a lot above 5%, when that becomes fact, the people will see another path and violence through stress and loss will be the handling powers. It has happened before and it will happen again. 

We can present the facts into oblivion, but at some point the people will demand straight answers,  for them loss is a massive motivator to get them and governments hiding facts will see another danger heading their way. I will let them figure that one out.

 

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The FBI Snooze button

Don’t you just love your snooze button? I do, there are these moments that I have to be up at 07:01, but not always, and the idea of the snooze button that I remain under the warm blankets just a little longer in a half awake and half not stage is pretty addictive, intoxicatingly addictive. I reckon that there are loads of people who feel that way, even the FBI, even though one could argue that their snooze button is set to an annual option.

To see this we need to take a look at the Law and Crime site (at https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/anonymous-individuals-fight-possible-unsealing-of-details-related-to-alleged-epstein-sex-ring/) where we see on March 20th 2019 the following “The Second Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether or not to unseal documents from a lawsuit against a woman accused of running a sex trafficking ring with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Judges had given parties 15 days to argue why documents in a lawsuit brought against Epstein’s former partner Ghislaine Maxwell should not be unsealed.”, you know what, it might be longer than an annual snooze. The court records indicate that the FBI could have done a hell of a lot more to do something about the Maxwell factor in paedophelia. The BBC reported (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53268218) that she was arrested with ‘Jeffrey Epstein ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell arrested by FBI’, yet the setting does not match up, I had initial questions when I saw the affidavit in January 2015 and that was 9 years later. OK, I will say now there was no link to Ghislaine Maxwell at that point, yet the stage seemed delimited. You see the affidavit shows on pages 16 and 17 6 censured names, we cannot see the names, but if you consider the affidavit, the stage was larger, and that size was already visible in 2006, almost 14 years ago, so why did it take the FBI that long to get any traction? And let’s face it, it did not happen until AFTER Epstein allegedly committed suicide. And the affidavit describes events from almost a year before that date, the issue was larger!

Now that Maxwell has been arrested, the question is not what will she get, the question becomes who else is part of all this and what remains hidden as such, because the events that are criminal and part of sealed court documents whilst others remain untouched is as I see it a new low in American jurisprudence. There is actually a lot more in the BBC article. We see “Prosecutors allege that between 1994 and 1997 Ms Maxwell helped Epstein groom girls as young as 14. The charges say she would build a rapport with them – including by taking them shopping or to the movies – and would later coax them into giving Epstein massages during which they were sexually abused.” Yet when we see the timeline we see that optionally these girls who were still in high school, some would have been exposed to Ghislaine Maxwell and there is no clear trail how. If we look at it from a distance, grooming requires identifying, prepping the stage where they will have a conversation with an unknown person like Ghislaine Maxwell, and that is after you realise that this had been going on since 1994, 26 years is a long time to create a clientele, so there is every chance that she was not merely setting the stage for Epstein. If we consider the stage of Ghislaine Maxwell, a socialite, we need to consider the stage. A socialite is (according to the dictionary “a person who is well known in fashionable society and is fond of social activities and entertainment”, it is a title that also limits her activities, one failure and she is exposed. As such we ca argue that she had a system, a system with co-conspirators. And let’s face it, how often do you see a socialite scouring high school? Especially when the socialite is well over 50 (OK, she was half her age in those days). The stage does not match the activities, she had serious help, I see no other way there.

Even if we casually dismiss “claimed that Maxwell recruited her to be a “masseuse” for Epstein when she worked at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida club owned by President Donald Trump.” We see places (one that former president Clinton visited), a stage where security is a lot larger then normal, as such others wee in the know, camera’s that would have set the stage where people too young to be allowed were let in, the stage does not add up, when you start reading the affidavits, the documents and the connected briefs, there is a much larger stage to be seen. Do you think that a place like the Mar-a-Lago gets by with below par security? Several people avoided the boat with “In return, prosecutors declined to bring federal charges.” It was not about Epstein, in that phase a lot more would be brought to light, I have absolutely zero doubt about that. That part is partially visible when we consider “The agreement, which was offered by prosecutors working under then-federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta (President Trump’s current U.S. Labor Secretary), was made without informing any of the alleged victims in the case.” In addition, we see several people now in a stage where they are at the top of the legal profession, among them Kenneth Star and Alexander Acosta. So when we see “The appellate court ruled that the district court “failed to conduct the requisite particularized review when ordering the sealing of the materials at issue.” So what else did the district court fail to conduct?

And this has been out and about for close to a decade, so do we like the FBI snooze button at present? The fact that in all this federal players were left in the dark seems completely impossible to me, as such we need to include that there is every chance that Ghislaine Maxwell is part of something much larger, involving other players too, this is not the stage of a socialite, this is the optional stage of a facilitator. If this deviant behaviour is possible in 6% of the clergy, how many rich people would optionally be driven by similar illegal needs? If we accept that there are a little over 5 million multimillionaires in the USA, the 6% mark hands us that Ghislaine Maxwell might have had access to (or being sought by) up to 300,000 very wealthy people requiring her services. Now let’s be fair, they do not all know Ghislaine Maxwell, but see might and that makes this issue a lot larger than we previously considered. And it brings forth the issue of the FBI snooze button, perhaps I am wrong and they were very awake, and it took this long to get a group of people subpoenaed, but consider what I stated and the evidence as it was out and about, and in the media no less.

How many looked away whilst some of this was happening under their very noses?

 

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