Tag Archives: Denmark

March 1, 2025 · 05:38

What was that about London Town?

There is a setting that we see and for some reason the media is ‘unable’ to highlight. It reminded me of a setting we saw in Love Actually, the masterpiece by Richard Curtis which included Keira Knightly as the newly created bride, Denise Richards as the pretty one of the family, Claudia Schiffer as the new girlfriend of Liam Neeson. Yet they are not the setting. It is the interaction of Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister and Billy Bob Thornton as the US president. You see, that part reflects on now when we hear Hugh Grant (as Prime Minister of the UK) say “A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger.” Words that have been unlikely to come from Keir Starmer. On the side of President Trump it was a good tactic. Divide and conquer. An age old tradition to take the UK out of the race to support Canada. That is my first concern. Our Commonwealth brother is in a tough spot and they need our help. I for one was all about setting the stage of the Commonwealth and it has merit. If Whatever is exported to the USA, should now (for as much as possible) set among us, the Commonwealth nations. Moreover, the tariffs need to include all exported energy to America. The said 25%, fine, Canada can do that too. But the larger requirements are to set exports from America to Commonwealth and Europe. The first setting is oil, Crude Petroleum ($107B), Petroleum Gas ($15.7B) and Refined Petroleum ($15.1B). Then we get to deal with the rest. And as far as I can see, either Australia and New Zealand aren’t on their list, or their parts are too small. So lets ramp up what these two nations can deal with. The benefit there is that Vancouver will get a boost of income through shipping and optionally jobs too. After that there is the option how much can we shift towards Europe, as well as how much more can Canada sell to the United Kingdom. It only takes care of 40% of the current needs, but with America losing the 40% of that, especially oil, America has created their own problem. As far as I am concerned we all need to take America off the shopping lists. Australia has its own settings. Two weeks ago we saw “It came after comments on Tuesday from the US president that there would be no exceptions or exemptions on the tariffs, which will start on 12 March unless Anthony Albanese can secure an exemption.” So was there an exemption? And March 12th is less than two weeks away. For Australia the ‘loss’ is a ‘mere’ 51 billion all whilst we import from America $34.6 billion in goods and services. So what happens if we decide to drop the bigger part of $34 billion and get that from Canada and India? I don’t know if it completely balances its out, but two nations dampening America for half a trillion dollars will have an effect. As such we can state that ‘America first’ could become an essential ‘America first to the sewer’. I like it when life balances the bully into desperation. I don’t know that much about New Zealand but that has its own margins, and when that falls down for America as well, and their goods find another destination, we will have been much stronger against the so called ‘bully’.

In the other side there is nothing against America phrasing ‘America first’ it is a nationalistic setting I never opposed it. Not for Denmark, not for Germany, not for France of any other nation. National pride is essential for any nation. But the larger issue isn’t that America has a Fentanyl problem. It is related to the quote “Since 2013, the illegally manufactured fentanyl problem in the United States has become more deadly and more diverse.” The other side is that federal data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show Canada plays almost no role in the smuggling of fentanyl or other deadly street drugs into the U.S. Despite that fact, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised in December to step up efforts to secure the northern border. (Source: NPR) so how is “Canada plays almost no role” the setting for the tariffs? It does not. As I personally see it America is now so broke that they have to cut every corner and alleviate every spending that they can dismiss. That is the setting I see and I have been watching this for some years. It might help, but at the most a few months and as we cull the needy Americans from resources they need, that setting will expedite matters against President Trump. And we have a duty to our Commonwealth brothers and now we must unite, because when the Wall Street boat sinks, we need to be ready for what comes next. If you want to guess what comes next. Wait until you see, social funding goes to zero. Veterans, healthcare, pensions, unemployment it all falls down. I reckon that this mess will be ten times worse than the Great Depression, which was a global economic crisis that began in 1929 and lasted until the 1930s. It was caused by the Wall Street stock market crash in the United States. And it will do so again, but this time the stakes are higher. Europe and Japan are directly impacted this time too and what comes next will fuel movies for a decade or two. Perhaps Richard Curtis will create his next gem called ‘Funds Actually’ and its release will be under 5 years after this point is reached. Perhaps a more international cast like the stock broker in Tokyo (played by Hiroyuki Sanada) who sees his wealth and family life dissolve as he trusted the words of Wall Street. And for rockers, the role of Donald Trump played by Alec Baldwin, dropping in on 10 Downing Street asking “Can I have some more please?” I actually doubt that President Trump ever used the phrase ‘please’ but it makes for a better Oliver Twist reference. 

When you see the elements stack up, I see that this is the most prevalent setting and when the numbers are counted, can anyone give rise to the Fox statement “The massive GOP bill would also direct $4 trillion toward raising the debt limit” I think America is about to surpass its debt limit with exceeding arrogance and that is never good, because like gamblers going all in again and again disregarding the issue in front of them just as long as they get one win, that setting is one of the most dangerous. Not only because the current administration is ignorant of the setting of now, but they let the bet it hoping they get some too. When you take approach to the budgets, how does this ever help anyone?

Have a lovely weekend. 

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January 9, 2025 · 02:13

When insanity is like desperation

There is always the setting of misjudging ones opponent. That happens of course, but what happens when the opponent is an ally? That is the premise of the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg9gvg3452o) where we are given ‘Europe will not allow attacks, says France, after Trump Greenland threat’. This is not the first setting. It started with the setting that America (President-elect Trump) stated that it was a great idea if Canada became the 51st state of America and we see the news handing us the setting that Kevin O’Leary gives us that it was a great idea if that would happen. Now at that point I had two issues. The first is that O’leary is a Canadian, and no less a multi millionaire to the amount of somewhere in the near half a billion range. He is known to be clever so my hairs in the back of my went up. You see, I am a commonwealthian and handing over land that is ‘ours’ to America is a big no no in my book. 

The issue however went from bad to worse. We now see that Trump has his eyes set on Greenland and the lands around the Panama Canal. As such I am in doubt of what s going on. I refuse to believe that it is the simple ramblings of a madman. I understand that he is merely throwing ideas around, but we are given (in that story) “Asked if he would rule out using military or economic force in order to take over Greenland or the Panama Canal, Trump said: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two. “But I can say this, we need them for economic security.”” And then an idea hit me in the head (it did hurt). So what if America is so bankrupt that America (President-elect Trump) sees that this could be the final presidency of the United States? There is a lose thought that there is correlation between ‘expansion need’ and economic security. And America has $36.22 trillion debt. Even at a mere 2% that amounts to $722 billion in annual interest (the interest is higher than 2%) and that is the kind of anchor that ends any economy. To set this into other sights, if Greenland and Canada become part of the United States, the look and feel of debt goes down, or in better words, 40 million more taxpayers and the resources of Canada (and Greenland) become American resources. I just bet that Kevin O’Leary has his ideas on how to exploit that setting, no sharks required. 

There is every chance that Trump will voice in two weeks that he was just throwing ideas around, but that is not a given. Now that he realizes that the EU will go to war and the UK, NewZealand and Australia will stand next to the leader of the Canada against Trump that setting becomes dodgy to say the least. We will see an entirely new setting. And in that setting China will see it’s own needed promise of gaining economic strength on the global stage. So as we are given “Trump suggested the island was crucial to military efforts to track Chinese and Russian ships, which he said are “all over the place”.” He seemingly forgets that in that instance Europe will invite China for ‘support’ and in that setting the US military will have to vacate all European base settings. The problem is that this could invite Russia to expand to the west, unless China has already been invited and that is a new stage of poker for territory. Is that what will happen? I honestly don’t know. Yet, we also never saw the setting that America would seek expansion into their north and west, so all bets are off as I see it. 

How this plays out is anyones guess and for the most of it all, many see President elect Trump as a clown, so we tend to downplay his rhetoric, but in seriousness, he might be pushed due to the debts and the fact that America has close to no way of paying that debt in the coming three years. So in his presidency America is highly likely to go bankrupt. As I personally see it, that is good news for me, because when that hits all IP will gain value, especially if it is IP outside of America. Still, we need to see what the American administration does when the new president is in office. As I see how this evolves people like Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot and current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are giving their view on the ramblings of a elected president and that spells bad news for America. The question becomes how will China react? In other news, there is an upside for Saudi Arabia, as it seemingly is Lockheed Martin would come for sale and Saudi Arabia is willing to pay top dollar, as such the question becomes ‘Did James D. Taiclet consider relocating to Riyadh?’ Not the weirdest question to throw into the rink.

We will know within two weeks whether we will get some ‘Just kidding’ news article or whether we see countries in Europe sharpen their axes to start another conflict. 

Have a great day.

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August 11, 2024 · 19:40

Setting of the day

On a good day
The Khaleej Times Jost informed me on how a good day comes to pass. Here (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/meet-the-uae-police-officer-who-uncovered-183-money-laundering-cases-in-15-years) we are introduced to Major Saad Ahmed Al Marzooqi. 

The headline ‘Meet the UAE police officer who uncovered 183 money laundering cases in 15 years’. We are also given “He was recently appointed as the first Emirati member of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) International Cooperation Review Team” and we can be mesmerised, or brag about his abilities, but the numbers imply that he slightly uncovered more than one case a month. There are plenty of police forces all over the world where half of these numbers would imply a stellar career. As we gawk over “exposed 183 money laundering cases that are related to drugs and financial embezzlement. He had also created a database of incidents, which contributed to an increase in convictions from a monthly average of 3 to 14” we need to realise that the increase of 3 to 14 implies that this one person achieved more than any average police station in Europe. 

This is the kind of man the world needs and that will be explained in the next article, because the universe relies on balance and the imbalance we are about to see takes the cake and changes an optional day to night.

On a bad day
Yes like any hero that needs a antagonist to make things interesting, we have Microsoft in two mentions. Now this isn’t directly involving anyone at Microsoft, but the follies are a setting that makes things a lot worse.

First we get Wired (at https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-copilot-phishing-data-extraction/) who gives us ‘Microsoft’s AI Can Be Turned Into an Automated Phishing Machine’ we get to see “Attacks on Microsoft’s Copilot AI allow for answers to be manipulated, data extracted, and security protections bypassed, new research shows” which is not good, but anything positive can me mauled into a criminal jester for organised crime. The additional “Microsoft raced to put generative AI at the heart of its systems. Ask a question about an upcoming meeting and the company’s Copilot AI system can pull answers from your emails, Teams chats, and files—a potential productivity boon. But these exact processes can also be abused by hackers.

Today at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, researcher Michael Bargury is demonstrating five proof-of-concept ways that Copilot, which runs on its Microsoft 365 apps, such as Word, can be manipulated by malicious attackers, including using it to provide false references to files, exfiltrate some private data, and dodge Microsoft’s security protections.” Now, I haven’t seen this, but Wired has a solid enough level of credibility to not ignore this. And that isn’t all. Bargury gives the world “the ability to turn the AI into an automatic spear-phishing machine. Dubbed LOLCopilot, the red-teaming code Bargury created can—crucially, once a hacker has access to someone’s work email” as I speculatively see it a mediocrity solution to turn the Internet of Things into a machine serving organised crime, optionally the NSA too, well done Microsoft. As I see it, the workload of Major Al Marzooqi would increase fivefold when this hits the open world, actually it already has if I understood the words from Michael Bargury correctly. In this, we optionally an even bigger problem, or at least a lot of corporations will.

You see there is a second message, in this case from Cyber Security News (at https://cybersecuritynews.com/microsoft-entra-id-vulnerability/). They give us ‘Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) Vulnerability Let Attackers Gain Global Admin Access’ with the subtext “Security researchers have uncovered vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) dubbed “UnOAuthorized” which could allow unauthorised actions beyond expected controls” Now take these two parts together and the phishing expedition could hit every R&D system on the planet using Azure. I am certain that Microsoft will have some patch coming soon, but in the meantime the bulk of R&D (under Azure) will be vulnerable and approachable by many hacker and especially organised crime, because selling secrets to competitors tends to be a lucrative setting and most corporations aren’t that finicky in acquiring something that raises (and assures) the bonuses of the members of their boardroom. OK, this is speculative on my side, but wonder what some will do to get the upper hand in business, especially if there is a bonus raise involved. 

I wish I had a solution, but my personal feeling is that Microsoft has too many holes, loops and a whole rage of other issues and switching to either AWS, IBM cloud or Google Cloud tends to be an essential first step coming to my mind. Now, if there are sceptics who think that I am anti-Microsoft here, they are probably right. Therefor the Links to the two articles were added letting you look at the stories yourself. In the meantime I remember a story in April and it should be my ‘duty’ to inform SAMI that ‘BAE Systems and Microsoft join forces to equip defence programmes with innovative cloud technology’ had a nice article and with the two articles mentioned, SAMI could lay its hands on a truckload of BAE IP. Not sure how far they will get, but free IP is the way to go I say. So when you realise that a large corporation like British Aerospace with all the civilian and military hardware can be accessed, what chances do you think that Novo Nordisk (Denmark), LVMH (France), ASML (Netherlands), SAP (Germany), Hermez (France), L’Oreal (France) have? I do not know if any uses Azure, but it is a good moment for them to select one of the other companies. They could after the event sue Microsoft for damages, but Delta Airlines is already suing CrowdStrike and I am not sure how that will go. In the end it is my personal opinion that this could potentially bite Microsoft hard and it is one of the reasons I do not let them near my IP.

As I personally see it, the companies racing the be the first to launch their (fake) AI will now have a much larger impact. There were already fake data issues, but now the phishing options that are mentioned and when that gets linked to what Cyber Security News calls “UnOAuthorized” the entire IT game changes dramatically and I have no idea how that will play out. 

As my Sunday is almost over and Vancouver only just started there’s a chance we postulate that the next 72 hours will be an interesting one. Have a lovely day (when you are not on Azure).

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July 31, 2023 · 04:41

Escalation time

We see it, we ignore it and we shout issues of disbelieve. I am no different, I have ignored a few elements at times, even as the writing was on the wall (ceiling and floor too). I thought that politicians would wise up. I considered that the people would take the intelligent path, but a lot of them are not. As such I saw a wake up call. The call came from the Kashmir Observer giving us (at https://kashmirobserver.net/2023/07/29/the-burning-of-the-quran-represent-an-act-in-desperation/) ‘The Burning of the Quran Represents an Act in Desperation?’ It comes with a question mark, but I think that the question is a lot closer to the truth setting than anything I have seen so far. We are also given “West’s far right still live in their invincible, racial, never-ending civilisational supremacy.  However, the rise and fall of civilisations represents a universal fact. None of the dominant civilisations lasted forever. What is consistent in the fall of civilisations is arrogance and delusional belief of never-ending dominance, looking down in disdain at other people and values dear to them. The same arrogance that West demonstrated had been the feature of prior dominant civilisation that is Islamic golden age. That also saw barbarians among the other non-Muslim communities till savage barbarians in the form of Mongols descended on them from nowhere decimating Islam’s golden age, and palaces of tyranny, precious literature that had origin in Quran’s teachings.” I can get behind the sentiment, but there is an issue. I wonder if you can spot it. It is the use of ‘civilisation’. As we look at the settings of governments in the west, there is a claim of civilisation, but I feel that that semi tank left the building some time ago. I reckon that the setting was vacated with the departure of President Bill Clinton. He left the office with Wall Street in too much power and any setting that is greed driven will undo civilisation every single time. Civilisation does not compute to the bottom dollar and we have seen the impacts that followed. Now as the US is one step away from being a third world nation we are seeing the impact that christianity bends to the powerful players and in this case it was Wall Street. Ethicality went out the window and any secular power that enforces the bottom dollar gets to call shots and guess what, it opposes civilisation every single time. 

Then in comes Saudi Arabia, they were mostly quiet during the initial Quran burnings, but there would be a response and the Saudi Gazette (at https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/634563) gives us ‘Prince Faisal renews to his Swedish counterpart Saudi Arabia’s rejection for all attempts to offend Qur’an’, where we are given “Prince Faisal noted to Billström Saudi Arabia’s demand on taking immediate procedures to stop these extremist acts that are trying to undermine the holy books, and provoke the feelings of Muslims around the world.” An essential diplomatic step, but I personally fear it was not strong enough. I get that politically speaking as an Islamic nation Saudi Arabia is cautious on how to proceed, it makes sense, but the lack of actions and the strife of secular governments (in this case Nordic nations) make the lack of push an issue. You see, I wrote in several stories over the last few weeks that there is an issue with Freedom of speech versus discrimination, the burning of Islamic holy scriptures makes that a clear case. I am for freedom of speech, but not at the cost of accountability. That is the larger station. People think that freedom of speech is one anchor without any sides, but accountability gives weight to that freedom and that is what people forgot. To be honest at times I forget that too. Now my transgressions seem small and insignificant, but when you think of it, it matters to the value of freedom of speech and Sweden clearly forgot that part of the equation.

And in comes Iran. The funny part is that I tend to shy away from anything Iranian, yet in this case (at https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2023/07/29/2932699/muslim-nations-urged-to-cut-ties-with-countries-allowing-quran-desecration) they might actually have a more important case to bring. It starts with ‘Muslim Nations Urged to Cut Ties with Countries Allowing Quran Desecration’, not only are they correct there is a larger truth here. This is a setting that should have been championed by Saudi Arabia or even the United Arab Emirates, but it is Iran that gives us “Over the past month, the Holy Quran has been subject to acts of sacrilege by extremist elements in separate incidents in Sweden and Denmark, where authorities gave a green light to the desecration.” I do not completely agree, but I can see how Muslims would see it that way and they have every right to be angry. The larger truth was not anti Islam, it was pro ‘Freedom of speech’ and when you see coins on any table, you merely see one side (the clever people see two sides) but both forget for an instance that there was another side to that coin and it is the side we do not see, we realise that it is there, we merely ignore it and accountability would have taken care of it, but our minds crossed out the other side. And now we have a problem and it is a large one. If the Islamic nations rekindle with the Iranian sentiment and not with the cautious approach that the KSA and the UAE hold we end up with quite the problem. 

Another view is seen (at https://www.worldreligionnews.com/religion-news/quran-burnings-prompt-u-n-human-rights-body-to-urge-increased-action-against-religious-hatred/) where we are given ‘Quran Burnings Prompt U.N. Human Rights Body to Urge Increased Action Against Religious Hatred’, this sounds nice, but it is a little too late for this.

More importantly too many newspapers and media shunned this setting and it is Al Jazeera that showed us two weeks ago (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/12/un-bodys-motion-on-quran-burning-how-did-your-country-vote) the part that matters. The people against this increased action on Islamaphobia include the UK, the EU, and the US. They revere their freedom of expression and are refusing to let accountability take a center seat. A stage that they are intent on pushing, a place where there is freedom of religion as long as it is under the direction of christian based elected aficionados. Sounds familiar?

And I think it is about to get a lot worse. Personally I think it is time for the Kingdom Holding Company to take a serious look at my IP as it pushes a lot more than accountability, it unifies muslims and that could open a lot more doors, especially as it pushes western media out of the way. The fact that I had to rely on an Iranian source all whilst the western media is setting a stage that is no longer reliable or accurate is cause for concern. And this is not really the end of it all, a mere 15 minutes ago we were given ‘Denmark to put legal limits on protests involving Quran burnings’ and the setting there is “Denmark’s government on Sunday released a statement saying that it would put legal limitations in order to stop the demonstrations involving the burning of the holy book Quran in certain circumstances, citing security concerns”. Really? How about the EU charter where we are given “Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.” The burning of a Quran is a clear act of discrimination, it is time for the EU to own up to that reality and act accordingly. The cornerstone of all this is accountability, I have stated this for 13 years and now that it all comes to pass the setting becomes an accelerator for a lot of things. I saw the power that one point eight billion people have, I saw the impact and how quickly the sands of opportunity will decimate for the EU and US if they do not wisen up and that is about to happen. The three new BRICS members is one, but if they push for a ban of Nordic products is merely the first step, it could mean a lot more bans that the middle east could push for in the near future. So what happens when over 400 million people in the Middle East decide to ban products from the EU? Don’t think it will not happen because Sweden and Denmark are merely the first steps. When Asia (India and China) steps up to replace items that enrages people there will be a sudden drain of revenues all over the EU (US too). 400,000,000 people needing a new alternative for products. So what happens when these places ban all Cadbury and Nestle items and Amul items take their place? What happens when Paneer (Indian cheese) replaces European cheeses. I bet the Dutch, Swedes, French and Italians will not be happy and that is merely two out of hundreds of examples. The Middle East has buying power and what happens when that is pointed in another direction? 

That is the larger setting that we need to be aware of. Do you really think that you can have freedom of expression without accountability? We are about to enter a phase of escalations and it does not bode well for the EU (or US for that matter). Feel free to disagree, but when the clock rings and you see how in August / September revenues are down all across the board the EU finds itself in a stage that is merely less than an inch for another recession, no matter how much it is labelled an economic downturn, because that is always how it starts, but this time around it could last well over a year pushing a massive amount of businesses out of circulation. Then what?

And it is just the start of the week, have fun.

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April 30, 2023 · 17:12

You wanna be this stupid?

Now this comes from a place of frustration, optionally leaning to anger. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65409971) gives us ‘What Europe’s royals could teach King Charles’ by Katty Kay. Now she could do all kinds of things (like taking care of 4 kids), she could focus on pumps, on corsages and on many things. But the idea that a yank is telling the UK what its king ‘could’ do is definitely no on with me. You see, His royal highness King Charles III has an example. A role model if you wish. His mother was Queen Elisabeth II, from 1952 until 2022, one of the longest reigning monarchs in history and perhaps the greatest monarch in human history. But the rather stupid person forgot about that part. What was this a simple article to get some money? With examples from Norway, Denmark and Belgium, so what about the Netherlands? What about Spain? Not good enough examples? So how about “After 21 years at the BBC, Kay left in May 2021 to join Ozy Media as its senior editor and executive producer. However, she resigned six months later from the digital media company following a New York Times report from Ben Smith alleging Ozy executives committed securities fraud”? What happened after that? Tail between your legs back to the BBC? This is a script by someone who made her own mistakes and that is fine, we all do. Yet this article without a mention of his mother who by a lot of people is regarded as the greatest monarch in history is one article too far. If only she had included her in this whatever you want to call it. The UK monarchy has had its share of issues, including a deceptive BBC journalist, who by my assessment is guilty of enabling the death of the Princes of Wales, formerly known as Diana Frances Spencer until her untimely demise in 1997. And it was that BBC shit Martin Bashir who had a hand in her death, you should have considered that before you opened your stupid mouth and decided to start writing silly articles. Katty might have gone further in her career writing about the latest style of pumps. 

Personally I see that it becomes more and more important to sanitise the BBC and see what other stupid people are there. It is turning into a second Fox News and we should prevent that whenever possible. 

Wow! I don’t think I have been this angry in a while, it feels good to let loose and we should. No matter how we see the coming reign of King Charles III and the challenges ahead of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, but the greatest role model was the greatest monarch in human history, his mother. I think we can just sit back and relax whilst he gets a handle on matters. His family has earned that much (and much more).

So you all enjoy Sunday. I am going to see what more I can find. 

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January 31, 2023 · 17:01

One issue, more to come

The first issue is known. I wrote about it on January 23rd (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/23/a-national-consequence/) it was ‘A national consequence’ where we see the events unfold between Turkey and Sweden. I want to side with Sweden, but this time they broke their own windows and now we see (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64457233) ‘Swedish flag burnt in Jakarta amid Turkey Nato row’ it took a few days but now the anti-Sweden issues start rising and that is before Egypt and Pakistan wake up to the issues that Sweden allowed to be mainstream issues. As I personally see it Rasmus Paludan started this and is not only cause to Sweden being halted from entering NATO, Swedish tourists will do well to stay out of Islamic nations for a while. You all it freedom of expression, most others will call it targeted racism, but the Swedes will get all time to ponder that stage. As we get “Other anti-Sweden protests have also taken place in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Lebanon this month.” We see that Pakistan is awake, not sure about Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but that cannot be far away. Even as we are given “We urge the Indonesian government to not just condemn this, but to also join in boycotting everything Swedish,” said one protester in Jakarta, Wati Salam. What they [the Swedes] did was an insult to our holy scripture,” said another, Junaedi Abdilla.” We recognise the Swedish defence with “the burning does not reflect the government’s opinion” which came from their embassy in Djakarta, but the truth is that they allowed the extremist to start the fire and now it is an international problem. Rasmus Paludan played you and you let it escalate. For me it does not matter, at some point one of the Arabic nations will consider my script ‘How to assassinate a politician’ and that works well or me. It was designed with the Dutch politician Geert Wilders in mind, but it can be easily reset to Denmark (or Sweden) with Rasmus Paludan being the target. There is a consequence of insulting Islam and we need to accept that these consequences have far reaching consequences. Drawing the image of Muhammad, burning Qurans. These are mere two events and the far right keeps on going to these two places. They have been doing it for years and at some point something will have to give. So what happens when Iran and Saudi Arabia stops delivering oil? Will Europe pay premium for American oil, or will they consider Venezuela as a supplier? Something has to give and in this day and age, the available options are not out there in numbers. You did realise that, did you not?

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January 23, 2023 · 00:08

A national consequence

I saw the news earlier, but I had to consider a few things, one of them not so really pro-Turkey, another set to the stage of me wondering what was going on. It all started with the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64360528) where we are given ‘Turkey condemns ‘vile’ Sweden Quran-burning protest’, and as I was wondering what was going on I saw “Rasmus Paludan, a politician from the far-right Stram Kurs”, it made me wonder what was needed. And then it occurred to me, why was Turkey the only one protesting? What if Egypt, the UAE, Iraq, optionally Iran, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Turkey all combined their protest? What if the EU had to deal with retributions from the OPEC nations closing the oil tap a little (500K barrels a day less for the EU), the other nations stopping import of Danish and Swedish goods? Would that wake them up? We might think that a person like Rasmus Paludan can insult islam again and again, but why allow it? We have rules and laws on religious prosecution, religious discrimination and should it end there? What if we make anti religious protests that continue to insult a religion (like burning a Quran) as well. Perhaps we need to state that they need to burn bibles as well, how does that go over?

I cannot claim that I have any solution here, but the levels of inactions that I see against Rasmus Paludan are getting out of hand. As such I think inaction becomes a larger issue and there is actually no real option, so what happens when the EU gets a 10% fuel rise, does that wake them up? I do not care what religion you like, and what religion you hate, but if you go as far as openly insulting that religion things get out of hand and it becomes time to act, inaction is no longer acceptable. If you allow a chaos and hatred seeder like Rasmus Paludan to continue, I reckon you get whatever is coming to you. I personally believe that when civility goes missing to this degree nations have failed on several levels. That whilst we need to realise that Sweden has 5%-10% Muslims, that is up to a million, Denmark has roughly the same percentage size, in numbers it is about half that size, but the population of Denmark is about 50% smaller. When you go out to insult that size of a population there needs to be consequences and even as people like Rasmus Paludan think that it is merely up to 10%, so that they can easily win such fights, they need to consider that there is a larger consequence and that needs to be shown to that kind of people and I reckon that Turkey alone cannot do that, it might block NATO access for Sweden, but a larger lesson needs to be taught and that is where OPEC comes in, where the bulk of its population is Muslim, so what happens when the tap is closed even just a little? For Sweden with its shortages it might become disastrous quickly, I am not sure about Denmark at present. 

Do we need to act? Yes, we all need to act. We cannot let people like Rasmus Paludan to spread hatred to the degree they do, the consequences are too dire to consider, as such I reckon it is time to fight such hatred by letting these nations be overwhelmed by shortages and make sure that everyone knows WHY this was done. You see if you hate muslims THAT much, you can get the oil from Russia or Venezuela or America. But that gets you into other deep waters, does it not? No matter how it plays out, we are too far beyond the levels of inaction we see now and consider that OPEC could close the tap by 1 million barrels of oil a day, or more. What does that give you? Not much and until summer that impact might end up being disastrous.

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December 2, 2022 · 19:04

Would you like some sugar with that?

I got a message yesterday which I initially ignored. Nothing wrong with the message, but I can only go to so many places in an hour and this message stretched me too thin, as such I let it be. Yet this morning I had a few moments so I checked out the message from Defense One. It gave me ‘US Trying to Persuade More Allies to Send NASAMS Missiles to Ukraine, Raytheon CEO Says’ (at https://www.defenseone.com/business/2022/12/exclusive-us-trying-persuade-more-allies-send-nasams-missiles-ukraine-raytheon-ceo-says/380382/) the thing triggered something, but I did not exactly know what was triggered. I thought I knew, but it was too far into the past for that to make sense. Yet the article set me straight. Initially we might see “U.S. officials are working to broker a deal with NATO and Middle Eastern nations to send some of their NASAMS interceptors to Ukraine, Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes said Thursday”, it did not help me much and “the Pentagon awarded Raytheon a contract for the first two NASAMS batteries. The company delivered the interceptors within six weeks, Hayes said, because it had many parts on hand and because Doug Bush, the Army’s top weapons buyer, helped speed things along.” So I had to seek out more information and there the other cog fell to the floor. NASAMS or Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System is the child of the Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) and there the cog felt. It is a system from 1980. Kongsberg is led by Eirik Lie (weird name for an honest person). And there my defence knowledge partially kicked in. I knew of it, but that is about all I had. The Norwegians had designed the system to replace two Nike Hercules facilities in defending Norway’s southern air bases, where it would act in conjunction with F-16s in providing a layered defence, and that it did very well. I reckon that the engineers are proud as peacocks that this system can go to town on Russian missile systems 42 years later, there is no replacement for true innovation. I always said it and here you see it. OK, it was upgraded to a third version in 2019, but still it was tailored to a good design. And now we see Raytheon seeking assistance (of a sort). Here is also the problem I see. If manufacturing is a hard part, there are two sides to helping out now. What if this was Russias plan all along? What happens when Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Oman, and Chile ship what they can ‘spare’ and a week later Spain and the Netherlands feel the brunt of running low on stock? I am not saying that this will happen, but the steps of Russia have to a larger extent not made sense and the pro-Russian coalition of the Dutch FvD will use that setting to every extent and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

An alternative could be to assist Saudi Arabia with their 2030 goals and create a NASAM production facility there. If distributed manufacturing is a solution, creating an additional pool of manufacturers would become essential. In addition, the US and EU need every positive vibe they can muster as such the option has two benefits. Adding these solutions to Germany, Sweden, Denmark and France make perfect sense as well. When that happens we see five additional manufacturers, but that is not a short term solution, Ukraine needs missiles now and 2 years is too long. Yet with 5 additions, 2 years would be shrunk to 13-15 months, already a large saving. Now sending part of the needed missiles makes sense as there would be 5 additional creators. I see the simple setting that resources are required, then we see the manufacturing and after that shipping. The last part has plenty of options, the first two less so, although we can see that manufacturing is the bottleneck, Russia will soon see that if these 5 nations unite, Russia will end up having less and less options. And that is before we consider alternatives, You see Iceland has only 4% unemployment, but it might be reason to create another plant on the US base there (or next to it) which could create up to 2500 jobs. As such we see six options, is it a solution? I honestly do not know, but when the waiting list is two years something needs to give and it would be nice to see this before Russia gets to be creative with their missiles, ask Poland how that worked for them. The EU (US too) needs to act now, but merely getting others to send what they have might not be the safest path, not with current timelines. That is how I see it and if someone says I am wrong, I will not deny that my idea was completely ‘ad hoc’ and it would require scrutiny, but what would you do when you get told that anti-missile solutions are two years away? Especially when you consider what Russia is doing to the civilian population of Ukraine?

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March 6, 2022 · 03:13

The intelligence nightmare

Yes, that is how I see it. You think that you have seen it all? It is about to get worse and the BBC actually is showing us the start of it. With ‘Thousands of pro-Russia Serbs march in Belgrade’ we are merely scratching the surface. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60630351) does not give much, but it gives us “Friday’s march was a show of support for Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine. Serbia has religious, ethnic and political ties with Russia that have existed for centuries” You see it is a lot worse, Serbian arms dealers are all over Europe. Paces like Rotterdam, London and Paris come to mind, but there are more and now as we see all the pro Russian events starting, we see a stage where Serbs could destabilise most of western Europe. They can fuel lone wolves tying hands all over the place and they sit back and watch the chaos unfold. A setting Moscow really likes. So how speculative is this? Well the issues with arm dealers in these three places alone are worrisome and they have been for the longest of times seeing a lot more visibility in 2020. Now with this BBC article it is still speculative to connect the two, but I am not sure that it is merely speculation. There have been issues for the longest of times and it is merely brought to the surface and a more visible pedestal now. 

The problem is that a lot was not monitored for the longest of time and now the intelligence organisations are lacking information on too many sides. Some sources (unconfirmed ones) give rise to activities in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Luxembourg, USA, Norway, Montenegro and Austria. Do you really think it is all speculation? They have been busy under nearly everyones noses for over a decade and now that Russia is pushing the buttons, some are claiming allegiance, some are waking up and some are set to set Western Europe on fire. Which is which? I cannot tell, but there are connections on all kinds of levels. Did no one consider why Russian weaponry was relatively easy to get in Amsterdam and Rotterdam? In 2020 the Times gave us “While Serbia had a glut of Cold War-era stockpiles and a robust but underused defence industry, the Iraqi government was ill-equipped to battle an insurgency. So in late 2007 the two countries struck a £190 million deal to bring Serbian assault rifles, machine guns, anti-tank weapons, ammunition, explosives and other ordnance to Iraq”, I personally believe that these pipelines were there to also get Russian weapons into Iraq, and not merely the ones they have, to a larger degree the Russians provided hardware and that sets a new station, the station of storage. The Netherlands has been (for the longest time), a transitional port of arms, but there is also the speculation (never proven) that at times a container was ‘misplaced’ and ended on Dutch soil, a container filled with arms. So, how much of this is speculation? There is a fair amount of it, but I worked in the harbours of Rotterdam, when I was young and gullible, so anything is possible. Yet in this day and age, when serbs are ‘proclaiming loyalty’ do you want to take that chance? I will let you figure it out.

And whilst you do the Intelligence organisations of Europe will have to take a harsh look at what they have on the Serbs in their domain, because they really do not get to have a choice in that matter, not anymore.

And me? I have found a few more cogs to add to the previous story, I like to remain creative.

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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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