Tag Archives: Canada

March 4, 2022 · 07:47

Call of the brain

Weird, I am not done with one idea and another one pops to mind. I started this in the article ‘The setting of what might be’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/27/the-setting-of-what-might-be/) which I wrote on the 27th of February 2022. I had an idea for a torpedo that incapacitates submarines. Yet for some reason the stage of the why eluded me. So in comes a simple marine biologist, a simple devoted husband who gets into the middle of a crossfire with his wife and you guessed it, the lady does not make it and she was pregnant too (for dramatic moments). So out goes the timid loveable husband and future father and in comes Mr Hyde, a man with no sense of normal. As the officials (one side of the equation) are in all kinds of denials and the need to classify so that they can continue being dicks is thrown at him, he man loses it completely and decides to get even. It is later (not stated why) and we see the peaceful village of Saint-Jérôme in Quebec Canada. We see the same man and he has grown a beard. He seems driven and weirdly enough he has stacks of pucks and as we see him working on a torpedo we see he has something planned, but not what is planned. We see more moments of him, practicing shooting (with a silencer), knives and a blackjack. An older man (his father) is training him, day after day whilst he spends several evening hours each day tinkering on his torpedo. 

We then get a moment shot in some hospital, one of the people in the shootout is there. Guarded by what seems to be federal officers. It is clear the man is not happy, he is not a guest. Then on one side of the hospital our ‘hero’ comes back into play. Now with a goatee, his hair coloured grey walking careful with a cane. He walks into the elevator and his demure changes to active. He takes the elevator to the third floor, walks through the corridors to the part he needs to be. He is one floor too high and that was planned for. He leaves a plastic bag and takes the stairs down and carefully scans for what he needs to see, then he sees what he was waiting for. A team is getting on the elevator. He keeps his distance and sees that only the agents, five of them go on board. He takes out one of the pucks presses hard in the centre and rolls the puck into the elevator just as the doors close. He walks away, there is no seemingly no sound. He then goes to the room where the man is, there are two agents, he quickly shoots them and walks in. He looks upon the man who is clearly scared aims and pulls the trigger, the man is dead and he goes back exactly the way he came in, picks up the plastic bag and goes to the other end now revealing the flowers he is carrying. He stops short to get into a bathroom and washes out the grey, he is almost his self again.

This is merely the start, you see we need to get to the story, but how to go about it? There is a need to get the action in the beginning and the crossfire is that, yet from there we need a different stage, a memento stage if I was to give it a name. It is a similar stage that the movie Anna uses and it makes sense to do so. It is not to ‘reveal’ the twist, it is because if the movie plays chronological the sizzle falls flat, a soufflé without the captured air and the air would be part of the story. So how to continue. You see, the ‘simple’ solution is to set the story to some ‘corrupt’ official, but I think it is too easy and it has been done too often. There could be connected issues with industrials (the expected way), yet the larger stage is not any of them. Sometimes shit happens, it is merely that simple. They were merely ‘in the way’ and to set that stage we can use it as an explanation, or we can see it as a twist. That part I am still working on, but I got most of this in less than 12 hours. I wonder if I can get that same range of $130,000-$600,000. We can all dream and so can I. Anyway, with all the shit in the world, I thought I remain creative for a little while. We can always write the gunk of spunk that goes to the junk after all the hostilities are gone. In that setting (just sidestepping it all), has anyone figured out why EA removed all the Russian teams from FIFA? I reckon it is to save their loot-boxes and microtransactions. I reckon that America is pushing towards a new McCarthy era and in that stage an American paying money to get a Denis Cheryshev card will get rather upset. I reckon EA is scared their cash cow needs an overhaul. It is merely speculation, but I might be on the money there. What do you think?

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February 22, 2022 · 02:20

Paranoia helps

This is a case, you might be paranoid, that does not mean that people are not out to hack your life. We seem to forget that, and the second part we forget is that big corporations do not care, it is the cost of doing business and that is what insurance is for. But the stage is growing and with full national 5G insurance companies will not take that stance, they would want assurances and that is when the consumer gets to pay for it all. One small slip up, one error and the consumer pays. That is where we are heading. 

This all started when I saw ‘Walmart ships fraudulent order to hacker’s address then leaves customer to recoup cost’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/walmart-fraudulent-order-online-account-hacked-1.6353016). The story gives us all kinds of information and in some cases the consumer made the easy choice, the ‘this is so much easier’ path and hackers tend to rely on that. But it is not all bad news (well mostly it is), so let’s start.

Item one ‘fraudsters were using it and his credit card on file’. This is with the consumer. Yes it is easy and most e-commerce sites use the same good encryption. Yet as I see it there are two issues. It is easy to order when the credit card is on file, so DO NOT DO THIS! Consider what you are doing every time you use your credit card. More important, when it is on file anything can happen as this consumer found out. I have two instances where a credit card is on file. One is a monthly payment of less than $10 a month, the other is even less. I enter my credit card information with every purchase. Commerce like people with credit cards on file, it is easier to make them buy, but consider that your budget is limiting and when you still have a week to go at the end of your credit card, life gets worse really fast.

Item two are two items, and they are on WalMart. We see ‘Walmart had cancelled the first three orders on its own, but Tomlinson noticed the last one for an Apple TV had just been shipped.’ In the first part why did three stop and one did not? If they are based on the same data, there is a flaw in the system, there is close to no other option. In addition we are given ‘he was not able to access the address and Walmart wouldn’t provide details’, this is clearly on Walmart. In addition, it should be in these systems that there is a permanent record of the last 10 addresses that are not linked to the credit card that paid for it, 10 is an arbitrary number, but it happens that a family member pays for another members item, or something like that. 

Now we get to the rather nasty stuff, we are given “In 2021, e-commerce retailers surveyed said they prevented about 4,860 attacks, but failed to stop about 4,800 others. The survey also suggests online and mobile fraud attacks on retailers appear to be rising since the pandemic started, up 45 per cent in Canada from 2020 to 2021.” In a full 5G network this number can go up by a 600% to 19500%, consider that 93,600 fraud cases are not stopped under 5G, do you really think that the insurances are going to sit back and let the numbers rise from 4,800 to 93,600? You have got to be kidding me and those who do will do so at horrendous premiums and the consumer gets passed on that bill. A setting I have foretold for years and people are still not waking up to Common Cyber Sense. Not all of it is the consumer. Yet look in your own home, how many use passwords like ‘QWERTY’, or something that simple? I thought I was clever in the 80’s when my password was ‘password’ and I learned quickly that there is more to safety and security. Then there are those who use the SAME password in all places and those people also have all their passwords on file. How long until deeper machine learning can make the jump from where we are, to what we are and how lazy we are? The algorithm is already out there, with 5G it gets the speed to really rake in the dollars. So whilst some might ry for big business when they give us “While Walmart says Tomlinson’s problem was caused by compromised credentials — not a cyber attack — Sutherland says companies across the board are dealing with such attacks on a regular basis.” And when we hear the sob story of covid made it worse, we need to consider that I saw issues like this in 2015, a massive overhaul of the e-commerce system is becoming essential and most of them do not want the cost, but the issue of fraud is happily passed on to the consumer. We need to accept that this is not merely Walmart, it hits e-commerce in Europe, US, and Asia. This is a much larger problem and a better system is required. Consider that we blame the NSO group for many hacks, but the basic issue is not merely the NSO group, they merely ‘Exploit Security Flaws in Phones’ Operating Systems’, so when this gets to e-commerce in the same way, we get a flaw exploiting a flaw and our goose is cooked. Hundreds of hackers hope to find that ‘Zero-Click’ flaw that makes the hacker rich whilst the hacker is sleeping and in a 5G world that will happen more often. It is not paranoia when they are all out to get your money, and there are many who want to do just that.

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February 17, 2022 · 00:29

Ka-pow pow pow pow

This is a dark piece, it is not about an idea, it is not about IP and it is not about some lame excuse called justice. This all started when I saw a CBC article named ‘4 Alberta border protesters charged with conspiring to murder RCMP officers’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/coutts-protest-charges-laid-court-appearance-bail-1.6352482). There are a few parts here, but in the first, I need to say upfront that I have nothing against the RCMP, I think that the organisation is part of the best that Canada has to offer, and that I wish them no ill will.

That being said, at least 7 of these weapons enables me to decimate a group of RCMP, there disregard for regular safety and the fact that they had at least two weapons per person gives me the feeling that these people are wannabe’s, a group of nut-jobs relying on liquid courage. The article gives us a dozen men, a dozen pussies I reckon and the fact that they face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, mischief (of all things) and possession of a weapon and all that at a blockade gives pause to who is talking to these people, this is not a blockade, this is optionally an attempt at armed insurrection against the RCMP. My first thought was “Can’t we just feed them to the bears?” I know, not the thing a law abiding citizen does, but mischief? Really? 

Then we get to the ‘young roommates’ part. It does not make sense, roommate of what? University? Expel them! A dorm? Expel them! And the blockade/ Well, it seems to be dispersing, but it has me worried. You see, a blockade has two functions. In the first to be a blockade, but it is also a decent distraction of letting people nearby cross the borders whilst the eyes are on the blockade. A trialled and tested method for a long time. So for the dozen or so arrested, their plight is merely beginning, whilst their barrister, or appointed barrister is gunning for mischief, I seeing some of these weapons see an armed militia trying to get a foot in the door and I would take mischief of the table and set them up for attempted murder. The difference between murder and manslaughter is intent and in that setting the ammo box with ammo, the additional magazines and  the armour implies and would be evidence of intent. So I say give these people a pickaxe so that they can spend their lives chiselling the tunnel in Banff National Park for the road between Calgary and Kamloops (who claimed I had no sense of humour?) Between the insanity in the UK, Netherlands, France, US, Australia, New Zealand and a few other places it is time to change the tune too many have been playing and treat these symptoms like any other bully. Let that bully do hard labour, all whilst that bully knows it is a waste of time and it will last a lifetime. Let’s sober the population up a bit. And all that firepower for the RCMP? Screw that notion, we have all seen a year of that BS and I say enough is enough.

Whose with me?

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February 13, 2022 · 19:21

How did the cow catch the hare?

Yes, that has been a question for the ages and that question popped to mind when I saw ‘How did Saudi Arabia make it to the Winter Olympics?’ (at https://www.dw.com/en/how-did-saudi-arabia-make-it-to-the-winter-olympics/a-60736077). Weirdly enough it is not the weirdest question and it had been asked before. There was the Jamaican bobsled team (1988), the event could also be seen in Cool Runnings. Then there was Michael David Edwards (also 1988), a British man doing Ski Jumping and coming from a place where the highest hill is a trashcan, seen in the Movie Eddie the Eagle with Hugh Jackman as the bad as coach. So there have been examples in the past. As such there is plenty of material and I do not know the man, but if Fayik Abdi comes from decently wealthy parents he could have spend his youth skiing the slopes of Canada, Switzerland, Austria or France to get his skills up. And for any man it would be an honour to represent his nation in any olympic event. I would be happy to be the Hockey Goalie for Australia. Oh shocks we do not have a Hockey team (not the real one on ice anyway). So another dream squashed. But for Fayik Abdi it was not a squashed dream, he gets to be there. It does not matter how good he is, how far he gets, he got there making him one in 34,810,000 Saudi’s. And the quote “The 24-year-old found his passion for skiing in Lebanon, where his mother taught him how to ski when he was 4. During his childhood, skiing was just a hobby. But when Abdi got older, he wanted to take the sport seriously. He started traveling to the Swiss Alps in search of slopes, as he didn’t have the access to the sport living in his country.”

Shows us the story that matters. OK, I never would have guessed Lebanon, but I got the second part right and after 20 years he is ready to represent his nation. Yet in all this, I believe that the quote “The Saudi’s first participation in the Winter Games brings back memories of the nation’s first Olympic appearance in Munich’s Summer Games in 1972. The purported vision of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is to explore new industries and encourage people in Saudi to be more active. He believes participation in Beijing will help achieve that goal” is equally important. Exploring new industries is always good, yet it does at times require nationalistic people with another brand of representation and there Olympians could set the larger stage. It does not matter if they do not get the first three position, participation is everything here and I believe that Fayik Abdi is doing more than representing his nation, he is cementing a different path that will bring honour to his family. As any person would be proud to do. If there is a side I have some issues with then it is “The Saudi Winter Sports Federation has had royal backing from the beginning. But it is still searching for business investors to build a planned indoor ski resort, which would help provide vital training access.” It is a natural setting against ‘indoor’ winter-sports, for the most the real feeling of that sport is the outdoors. It could be made for Curling, Bobsled, Figure skating and Hockey (the real one on ice). Curling and bobsled are out in the open, yet the other two would find all kinds of Islamic opposition in one case and with Hockey, there are two that might be surpassed over years, but that leaves Saudi Arabia 12th out of 12 and that is not a good place to be in, apart from the years of funds required. Making Curling with more nations and representation in men and women a much better option. Yes we see skiing, and that makes sense but how many people make that passion, that expensive passion a realistic option? Fayik Abdi should be seen as one in a million (35 million to be slightly more exact). And even if there is a larger need for its nation, it does not take away the achievement that Fayik Abdi reached, he became an Olympian. Just like Michael David Edwards and a few rare people who got into the stage against all odds. I remember how I could not make any Fencing team, no sponsor and no options, but that too is a sport Saudi Arabia could engage in, and they did. Lubna Al-Omair got into the 2016 Olympics, she might have lost, but she got saddled with Taís Rochel, a Brazilian who was number 80 on the world list, talk about bad luck. There are all kinds of sports and Saudi Arabia could be in many of them, yet my mind keeps on nagging towards the ‘planned indoor ski resort’, it does not sit well with me. You see, I have seen my share of snowboards on dunes and if Saudi Arabia has one thing more than oil, it would be dunes. So why not exploit that? Why not set up a station where snowboarders can board in near tropical heat? It will be a setting that requires a different bottom to keep the board intact, but that too is something that Saudi Arabia can ‘push’ for. And as we get a new stage of dune boards and  optional new kind of tracks, we will be introduced to (optional) indoor boarding. Anyway I digress, you see, the article touches on all subjects, but no one is taking that time to consider the achievement that Fayik Abdi got. He ended #51 in the first run, defeating 38 others which is a lot better than the (roughly) 38,433 people who did not get into the Olympics in the first place. Today is run 2, he might make it, he might not, yet at present he is on the short list of becoming one of the 50 best Olympians in the Giant Slalom and for a nation that never sees solid forms of water, that is quite the achievement. You see, Canada has plenty of snow (hills too) and only one made it to that list. So I think that we should make a little more noise on the achievement we see here. Because it is one I never saw coming. But then for me Jamaica was never a bobsled nation, so there is that.
Oh, and how the cow caught the hare? With a fishing rod (of course). 

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January 30, 2022 · 17:56

The Ronald McDonald factor

This is a hard article to write. It is not about my IP, it is not about gaming, it is in part about me and you show me a person who will honestly look into a mirror and describe what they see with happiness, and I will introduce you to a likely liar.

To start, I have for the longest time been a Republican, I believe in the Republican values, I believe that Make America Great Again is a nationalist right for Americans. National values are important, national values are a nations right and it tends to drive national interests. Take any nation. Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Canada, USA, France they all have nationalists, people devoted to THEIR nation. It is not a shame, it is not negative, it merely is, so when I saw the hats with MAGA, I merely shrugged, it was bound to happen. What was not bound to happen is that a clown like Donald Trump would set the stage to ridiculous values, fake values and hidden personal needs. So when you today ABC ‘MAGA’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ have turned on Donald Trump and are now spilling his secrets’, Another media with ‘Donald Trump says he would pardon Jan 6 rioters if he runs and wins’, as well as the most despicable one ‘Donald Trump should not lead the country again, says the Republican leader of the National Governors Association’

So, why despicable?
You see, when we see the headlines, the inactions against Trump and his machine and more over, what I personally see as Republican rats, coming out of the woodwork, I see a party that is shaken to it foundations, destroyed by the Trump quake and they are all seeking shelter anyway they can. Not one of them gave light and support to Liz Cheney who was right all along. In her corner is Mitt Romney and that is pretty much it. How can I remain in support of a party that disgraces itself, that destroys its own values. With at present seemingly only Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney as honourable Republicans. The least said about Mitch McConnell the better, he stayed on the Trump side for too long, now that he is showing to stop (to some degree) Trump for office (again) he is showing himself to be disingenuous at the least and a turncoat in the nominal setting, and since that turncoat Benedict, who would have thought that to be a good idea. Which takes me to the article ‘Donald Trump should not lead the country again, says the Republican leader of the National Governors Association’ (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/donald-trump-shouldnt-run-in-2024-national-governors-asa-hutchinson-2022-1) which aired hours ago and whilst Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson gives us all kinds of settings that is pretty much highlighted with “And, you know, the Republican Party has many different voices,” Hutchinson said. “And it’s important in this time to have those voices and they should be concentrating on this election cycle” this political entity was very clear in not giving the people that Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney were correct from the start and that lack of recognition needs to be seen as a setting with a sinking ship and one rat thinking he has a chance to get to the big piece of cheese, all whilst his chances were better with a smaller chunk when he acknowledged that Romney and Cheney should get the largest chunk of cheese. Even now, I see all signs that Fox is using Cheney and Romney in the smallest setting, all whilst these two deserve the limelight. It seems that Fox has a side which hopes that Trump pulls of a trick, and these people are now relying on tricks, they are willing to depend on tricks to set the democratic agenda of the United States. So what does that tell you? How can anyone have faith in the Republican setting when its party has close to two honourable players? If I were a betting man, I would hope that the Republican ticket would be Cheney-Romney, with that ticket the Republican Party could clean out its isles with wannabe’s and incompetent politicians and put them to the sewage they are entitled. And this is a Republican minded person speaking.

The indirect factors

As I stated there is no direct need for my IP, yet indirectly it matters to me how the US does its business, because no matter how it plays out, the larger tech players will soon have no option but to register all new IP in the Commonwealth and/or EU. As I feel the setting change, the political players are enabling a massive brain drain, the January 6th events not properly dealt with are a first, but the larger setting is the political upheaval that tech and engineering firms face and in that uncertainty all their new IP will be a decent lot safer in Commonwealth/EU settings. When that happens the US stands to lose a power value no less than 10% and optionally up to 31%, it is a wide field but in one setting the IP value of pharmaceuticals in Ireland went from €37.5B in 2018 to €105B in 2019. I was unable to see the growth in 2020, but that value has gone up and it will go up again in 2021. So consider that ONE industry has cause a brain drain towards Ireland (EU) of well over 300% over three years, I will let you ponder who lost out on those coins. There is no clear shift in the papers, but I feel certain that the US lost a lot and the tech firms are starting to do the same thing. So when I stated (well over 6 months ago) that I preferred to see my IP in Commonwealth hands, I did know what I was talking about and happy for me both Google and Amazon have global filings, so I am still up for that race and with two new IP’s coming (I will write about them soon to some degree) I feel certain that my time is still optionally to come (wishful thinking).

Yet if any political players are crying like little chihuahuas show them that they had this coming. They accepted Ronald McDonald as a president, the people will seek their fun in places where politics are not set to a clown but to a serious person and that is the view of a simple Republican, not a democrat and not an independent.

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January 12, 2022 · 22:43

Commencing Crazy

This all started before ‘Call for change!’ Which I wrote on October 25th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/25/call-for-change/), I saw the numbers and the idiocy of non-vaccination. I do not care what they call it, it is their life, but in that it is their life and they also need to accept the consequences. So as I wrote “The first port is that anti-vaxxers and those not vaccinated with a good provable reason will have to pay UPFRONT for any hospital admittance for COVID. So there are no stories about “Anti-vaxxer Kristen Lowery”, or those radio hosts and stories on how sorry they were lying in a comfortable hospital bed. They can tough it out at home and optionally die there.” I saw a station we were all heading to and today (11 hours ago) the BBC gives us ‘Quebec to impose health tax on unvaccinated Canadians’, the story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59960689) is not the first one, others have reported on similar settings, we also see some of these facts here. Singapore took my advice (seemingly) which requires Covid patients to pay for their own medical bills if they are not vaccinated. Greece imposes a fine and others will follow, when their national health care systems collapse due to those non vaccinated, this is a result and it was always heading this way. I do like the response that Premier Francois Legault gives. He states “I think right now it’s a question of fairness for the 90% of the population who made some sacrifices,” Mr Legault said. “I think we owe them this kind of measure” and I agree with him. Even as some news agencies are hiding behind positive flames like ‘Omicron may be set for rapid dip in US, UK’, I merely wonder how stupid these people are. They are (clinically speaking) telling a truth, but behind that facade we see numbers that globally went from 1.7M cases on January 1st to 2.4M cases on January 9th, All whilst the cases were 50% to 65% lower a week before. This is not going away soon or quietly. It has become a numbers game and in that game the numbers are overwhelming a stretched health care system on a global stage. All this whilst one source gave us 20 hours ago ‘Intensive care doctor reveals EVERY critically ill Covid patient being treated at his hospital is unvaccinated’, that is the reality and it is not the vaccinated people who are the larger danger, they do get sick but their symptoms are seemingly mild to really mild. And in the UK with so many unvaccinated people the dip as some might call it will not matter, a lot of them will die (which brings down housing prices), so there will always be a silver lining. Just not the one the media or anti-vaxxers rely on. And still the the issue is not as good as you think it is. The numbers from India with 1.3B people does not add up, so there will be a lot more coming all our ways. So whilst CNBC gives us ‘U.S. sets fresh records for Covid hospitalisations and cases with 1.5 million new infections’ today, we see the need to vet the journo’s who give us ‘Omicron may be set for rapid dip in US, UK’, as the data show us it was not directly a lie, yet the underlying issues we are already seeing, the people catering to that article are out of their minds. And in all this I reckon that the US and UK will soon follow the path Canada is taking and it will happen to people who cannot afford to pay, so they are denied access to hospital health care. It is one way to cull the herd, but it is not one that comes from choice, it is one grown through necessity and that is a much harder lesson to face. When the systems buckle, when the systems that gave us the protection we expected, when they collapse the real crazy starts and it will be some sight to behold, that much is an absolute given. 

So, as I personally see it. Things are about to get worse and it will come with populist claims, it will come with the blame game and when the reality pulls through and we say the unvaccinated people do not get a voice in all this, that is when matters get worse fast. People are all about complaining and not about taking responsibility of their acts and their life. It is the nanny state on steroids and now we will see just how strong the nanny state vibe will be in several nations. I reckon the next two weeks will be decently exciting ones.

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January 3, 2022 · 02:45

Can I have some more harshness?

It is 02:00 and I find myself at odds with a CBC article. Now, let’s be clear and upfront. CBC did nothing wrong, this is all me. The article ‘Canada’s English dictionary hasn’t been updated in almost 2 decades. What does that say about us?’  (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/canadian-english-dictionary-two-decades-1.6291089) set something off in me. In  world where for the most people cannot tell you clearly what is going on, the media is in a stage of deniability by using ‘could’ and ‘might’ and we see politicians spinning 7 colours from Sunday and all these elements had nothing to do with a dictionary. Even a dictionary from 1855 might have been a better setting than the one we face nowadays. So I was feeling oddly agitated by the headline. So when the article gives us “Hailed as the “maven of Canadian English” by the Washington Post and known widely as Canada’s “word lady,” Katherine Barber was renowned for researching and documenting how language works in this country. In 1991, she became the founding editor of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary — the country’s first authoritative and comprehensive reference work for Canadian English — with the first edition publishing in 1998.” I had to take a step back. As a residing non-Canadian (I reside in Australia) I get the need for identity, I get the need for what can be seen in Canada as a personalised dictionary for all Canadians. Yet why am I so agitated? A Canadian dictionary does not affect me, so why does it bother me? It was then that the words “hasn’t been updated in almost 2 decades” seem to sound like the drumming distance of change. You see, there was a work that did sound like the stuff of nightmares. It is called ‘the use of euphemisms in mass-media discourse’ and there is the rub, the last two decades has been more and more about political correctness, now I am not against political correctness, the problem is that for the most we end up saying forms of insincerities and only in part saying what is the matter. Euphemisms are to some degree part of the problem. When we look at that meaning we get “a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.” There are two issues here, the first is the mild substitution, the second part is the event of ‘too harsh or too blunt’, we end up saying something that is seemingly a form of dancing around the subject. And this has become worse and worse over the last two decades. Which is where I have a problem with the event, not with the sentiment of the article or some idea of it. The problem as I see it is that too often euphemisms are used to downplay events and that tends to have other reasons none of them about being politically correct, or less harsh. Merely more facilitating for the people telling the story and that inaccuracy is a much larger danger. I tend to grasp back at the most ridiculous of phrases “I lost my Husband”, I wonder if she checked the second drawer of her desk. Nope! He was not lost, he merely drove his car into another, the man is dead! There is no non-blunt way to say dead, we can go by non-living as: at present 5,458,856 people have joined the non-living via means of Covid. 

OK, that was not too subtle but at times that is the only way to get things across. The problem is that the act of downplaying is massive in social media, as such the mis use of euphemisms are abundant and they are continuing to muddy the waters of clarity. As I personally see it, there is no need to update the dictionary over two decades, there is however a much larger need to properly use the dictionary that we do have and that is not happening either, the new words will nit change that, we need to be clear, we need to be precise and at times that is blunt and it is not extremely PC. Sometimes the truth and the precise truth is not nice and it is harsh, it happens. Downplaying events and hiding behind euphemisms helps no one, that much has been crystal clear for many years. Yet this is merely my view, you have every right to oppose my view. 

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January 2, 2022 · 18:49

The company we keep

There is a setting that we tend to ignore, we are by the grace of our own undoing limited by the company we keep. And here is the problem, when that person is Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri it tends to be a problem (for the US). The man is allegedly a traitor (decently proven) and a thief (a little less proven). Although, when a person comes into a country with $387,000,000 questions tend to rise, especially when that person was an intelligence officer. I will be honest, to the best of my knowledge no government pays its intelligence officers THAT well. Doubt me? Ask MI5 (+4420 7930 9000) or MI6 (same number), I could give you a whole range of numbers, but after these two and the laughter you’ll experience, you will have had enough of it. Oh, I just discovered that the money Al Jabri had amounts to 50% of the entire DGSE budget, so there.

So why does this matter?
Well normally I do not give a hoot, no matter how it plays, but when the Middle East Eye gives us ‘US court dismisses Saudi case against former intelligence officer Saad al-Jabri’ (at https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-saad-aljabri-us-court-dismisses-case) it does matter. For one, the man is and lives in Canada, so why is the US involved? The quote “US government intervened to stop classified documents being used in the case as it would ‘harm national security’” if there was a real national security issue it might sway people and it does make sense to protect national security. And when we are given “As a top spy, Jabri worked with the CIA on counter-terrorism projects. He was a close aide to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the former Saudi interior minister ousted by Mohammed bin Salman as heir to the throne in a 2017 palace coup, which prompted Jabri to flee to Canada.” In this is no one wondering why he did not move to the US? So when we are given “Sakab accused Jabri of embezzling state funds while working under Mohammed bin Nayef, which Jabri denies” question need to be asked and they are not being asked. Why is that? Then we get another setting that was reported on earlier and we see with the quote “Jabri filed a lawsuit in the US saying that Canadian authorities foiled a plot by a 50-strong “hit squad” sent by Mohammed bin Salman to kill him in Canada. The alleged incident is said to have occurred less than two weeks after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.” So pardon my directness. If someone needs Al Jabri dead, one person might fit the bill, 50 do not. This was about something else and in this there is a case that the US is looking away. So whilst there is no claim on the Canadian side, all this goes to court in the US (yet again) and no one is asking questions. 

As for the imagination, depending on the security he has, a mere one person job with a drone carrying a claymore will most likely do the trick, the other 49 were overkill and useless. If the hit is done properly, the pilot is 4-6 blocks away, has a near direct line of sight, flies in boom! Problem solved. Yet in all this I am not afraid to ask questions from the other side either. When we see the quote “a lawsuit filed by a Saudi state-owned firm, Sakab Saudi Holding, which accused Jabri of embezzling state funds.” What evidence does Sakab Saudi Holding have and if it is enough, why not hand it to the press? At this point no one is getting anywhere and as far as Bazooka Joe knows, Al Jabri is a mere CIA operative working on counter-terrorism projects. So why does he have to do that from Canada? It is a simple enough question. 

The Americans made. Choice, which is fair enough, but why is Al Jabri hiding in Canada? And in all this we see case after case and no one is looking into the matter how Al Jabri got his fortune, or why exactly he has access to billions? Then we see Al Jabri pleading to the US to get his kids out of Saudi Arabia, so why not ask Canada? He is hiding there, is he not? There is however an upside to all this, at some point if the US would like to hold onto the weapons sales with Saudi Arabia, they might have to retracts all protection from Al Jabri, should be fun seeing exactly what protection Canada will offer, and particularly where the alleged stolen fortune from Saudi Arabia becomes a national security issue for the US, perhaps the CIA was involved in that heist. I actually  do not know, I am merely speculating but the more I read on these events the less any of it makes sense, from any side. 

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December 30, 2021 · 22:34

Lest we forget

This is not some Marilyn Mason album (which was really good), this is not some WW1 reference. This is in part an accusation of the media, in this specific case the Canadian media. I stumbled upon this by mere coincidence. In the age of lockdowns I tend to watch a lot more walk video’s, the more extreme (location) the more I want to see it. I have seen a fair bit of them and there are several really good ones, so in the age of lockdown I have seen the streets of San Francisco (I had to go there), Monaco, London, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto and several others. So this evening I saw (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRuRPszR0-8) a Canadian style Christmas market in Monaco and it looked awesome. So why did the Canadian media not put this out as a human interest story? There was an ice rink, a sled hill (no real snow), stalls on Quebec, Ontario, generic Canadian and it was awesome to see in quality. I reckon that when your nation gets a cultural boost in a place like Monaco a single page on CBC or even Global One is not overly weird, but I did not see any of that. 

I reckon that if the subject was Australia, the UK or the Netherlands their media would go all out on it (an assumption on my side). So why are the human stories neglected when it is not the brassiere of some celebrity the story goes to the ‘horse no show’ category? You think I am kidding, but seek events that are international that impact your nation, who gives it any kind of visibility? And lets face it, Monaco is not any place, it is the place where the richest of the rich live (help me out here Jeff ;-)) it is subtropical and the temperature is around 23.4 degrees Celsius warmer than it is in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec or Ottawa, so the idea of watching people in a winter stall in summer outfit will work well on anyone. So why are these events missed? This might be the one I noticed, but I feel certain that it is nowhere near the only one.

So you take a look at that video (especially if your Canadian) and consider why it was missed, a Christmas stall is a Christmas stall and it will always pique the interest of someone, especially if it involves a group of people eating Poutine right next to a Louis Vuitton shop, don’t you agree?

And let’s face it, seeing the locals there having a go at Canadian Bacon will be worth the watch too, but that is merely my sense of giggles turning a frown upside down.

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December 23, 2021 · 02:19

That one scene

It was not dark, but the sun was setting. The man looked through the scope of a MTs-116M suppressed sniper rifle. The scope was not standard, the silenced MTs-116M was. The gun was important, it would lead people down the wrong path and that was the intent. He was 273 meters from the gate on a plateau. He saw the 4 men to the left of the house and the 2 on the right of the house. He saw that the men on the right were walking behind one another on a small path. He took aim and the steel round went quietly through both men. The men fell down, nicely in the dark spot of the house. In the mean time the 4 are walking behind each other, but not completely. He saw the path they walked. They were clearly untrained. The man waited another second and then fired one, quickly reloaded and took out the 4th man with the second bullet. They were all down, He saw one man moving his arm, he did not wait and used the third bullet straight through the skull. The outside of the house was now quiet. He switched to thermal, he saw that the window gave a decent view, but not completely. Two guards in the upstairs section seemed to be chatting.  He took aim and as the first one got the bullet through the chest, the second one got it in the throat, they both went down. He checked the house again with thermals. No one upstairs, three downstairs, one behind a desk, most likely the target and two man in opposite sides of the room. He set down the sniper rifle, and kept the AS Val ready. He quickly ran to the house. He had made preparations on the right, he quickly moved up, took one more look to see if there were no surprises. He then got down in moved to a door on the right, he had seen the guards come in and out from there. He looked at the door. No surprises, he quietly tried the door, it wasn’t even locked. He entered the house. It has weird smells, which was surprising. Not just tobacco, there was the smell of something he could not place. He checked the rooms with a dental mirror. No camera’s, what an amateurs. The men were still in their corners and as he got closer to the room there was no real movement. He hear the quiet voices of what was the boss, he was barking orders to the other two, there were submissive answers. He was ready, he quickly opened the door, shot the person in front of him, then turned to the left. The second man was quick, but not quick enough. He then looked at the boss. “I was clear, leave me alone or else…” He sized the boss up, a cowardly little shit. “I get it, I get it now”, clearly hoping to talk himself out of this. “Now it’s too late” and he shot the boss three times in the head. 

He methodically searched the room and the noticed that the safe door was open. He was wearing a mask, it would have taken too long to find the camera’s. He took the papers and the money. He then took one more look and he walked into the kitchen. He grabbed the newspapers and the vodka. He dropped the newspapers in small stacks in the house and covered the stacks with Vodka. He set the flames and as the papers started to burn, they would ignite more and more of the house. 6 stacks all over the lower floor of the house, the flames that would go upwards would finish the job. 

He quickly left the house the same way he came in leaving the door open and the draft would do the rest. He ran back to his sniper rifle, picked it up and left the scene. He has a 15 minute walk to the south and it would take him to his car that would take him back to Edmonton. 

It is the one scene that starts it. But what is it I want to start? The Russian hardware implies either spy story or organised crime. And in this there aren’t too many shown to play in Canada. So how will we continue? Is it Taken (Liam Neeson), Foreigner (Jackie Chan), 4th Protocol (governments) there are many options, but for the most they have been done and I like the new the novel and that is where two directions open up. The first is Industrial espionage (the 39 steps) by Alfred Hitchcock and espionage and deception (Eye of the Needle) written by Ken Follet and directed by Richard Marquand. The idea could be to unite the two into a larger story, a story that is not about protagonists and antagonists, but the man would be the antagonist, a new version of Professor Logan (Barry Jones). Whilst the professor has a larger field of view on the great operating stage, we would see that in this day and age it is no longer about governments and what they can do, but how the revenue could be spend. So what happens when the new Logan could walk in with the plans for a new jet, new missiles and the bill that could have been the ‘$768 Billion Defense Policy Bill’, now becomes the setting of ‘$259 Billion Defense Policy and IP Bill’, do you think that ANY government would walk away from such a saving? 

Yet to set that story you need a start, you need an incentive (money tends to work) and you need focal points. In Fedora it was the doctor, in I Claudius it was the narration, in too many movies it is the action offered, but the action loses focus as we go from target to target. There is a second issue. Who watched Slum dog Millionaire more than once? You see, like Ellery Queen, when the clue is up the story is merely a steeple chase on numbers. This is why story based suspense is better (like Anna). Yet to get that part we tend to refer to Life of Pi. All movies where the story carries the cast and the movies are better because of it. This gets me to another story. It is Ask me Anything. The movie is weird and prefect, the twist at the end is brilliant. Now I never read the book (still on my list), but the twist at the end made me watch the movie again.

That is the stuff we need and even as this movie does not fit the bill for this script, the setting might work. So I need to check out Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett. I wonder what else might be there. A stage setting needs to be complete. Especially when the antagonist is supposedly the good guy it reminds me (Firefox), but there is wisdom in leaving that revelation until the very end. And in all this, there is a setting that the antagonist could be a woman. I see the person as a man, because I am a guy writing a story. But the choice of antagonist is at present not set in stone

So as I go brooding off into a corner, I just realised I set the foundation of a 4th script. Lockdowns might not be nice, but it clearly keeps me creative.

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