Tag Archives: Fox News

Honey and ladders

Yup, it sounds and is a Childs game. It is based on the old original Snakes and ladders, which I haven’t played since the 70’s I reckon. I saw this Childs game in a larger version in a place called Burwood. Where the honey is the decline and the ladders go up. It is a simple game and this game only has 36 squares. A simple game with a roof in the open as such parents gets to have fun with their children, or even children playing together. A small 30 minutes of joy I reckon.

Still a game with a few natural settings. There is joy and less joy and it takes you on the rollercoaster of high and low. A setting that the American Administration has never apparently seen as the Independent (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-tourism-decline-trump-policies-b2782820.html) gives us ‘US is the only country facing tourism decline as Trump policies to cost $29 billion in visitor revenue: study’, although I don’t completely agree with the setting as America is the only country facing a tsunami of abandonment   and as such I reckon the the word ‘decline’ is not incorrect, it is merely highly misleading when we look at the ‘decline’. I wrote about it earlier, but the numbers have drastically increased and a country that has so little going for it needs all the marbles they can muster. As such we might stop at “Amid the president’s immigration crackdown, travel bans and sweeping global tariffs, the U.S. is expected to be the only one out of 184 countries to see foreign visitor spending fall in 2025, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.” With the addition of “The study suggests that the U.S. economy is on track to lose $12.5 billion in international spending this year alone – but the actual shortfall might be much greater.” This implies that the amount of small businesses that go down is vastly understated and America will be on route of the largest unemployment wave they have seen in decades. It does not help that Microsoft is laying of another 9000 people, IBM laid of 8000, just to rehire them (I reckon that they have new contract stipulations), Meta gets rid to up to 20% for teams over 150 men, so the total isn’t visible to me, but when you add the numbers. TechCrunch gives us that 2025 will be at the expense of over 22,000 jobs. So, I reckon that Aramco might be shopping for willing people as it is massively expanding. So in this new settling atmosphere the decline of 29 billion is more than bad news and in the meantime the wannabe influencers on YouTube are exploding that bad news through the same story edited in new ways with different examples making the impact seem wore than it is. Don’t get me wrong, 29 billion is plenty bad, but you don’t need to exploit it twice over. I reckon this is done to get more followers. Not a game I am willing to play mind you.

Still the bad news is apparently taken in strides with the America Administration at this point. As such whilst the Guardian gives us “US adds 147,000 jobs in June, surpassing expectations amid Trump trade war”, so was this including the 8,000 jobs that IBM added whilst firing them in the first place? A setting that the byline hands us with “Economists anticipated drop, but 8,000 new positions were added in June compared with May, with unemployment rate down to 4.1%” what a coincidence, did IBM just rehire these people? Is it therefor a new job or a rehired job? I actually don’t know and that is the ‘enigma’ of black bookkeeping based on ‘active’ souls. I will have to ask Mephisto when I see him again. 

In other news, there is a growing concern for the economy, the news comes from Fox, so take this in stride as they have shown a few times to butter the bacon. The news ‘Americans trapped in side hustle economy as 9-to-5 jobs no longer pay the bills’ and I personally feel that the setting that players like Uber Eats bring. I reckon that this is the kind of side hustle that comes with hidden traps (they say they don’t but I reckon that people assume a few matters, while these players leave them in the dark for a reason. As such, things like Fuel, insurance and a few other settings are not (as I personally see them) clearly defined. There is the setting of “account hacking and unauthorized orders.” As such I get that one such an issue and your day income is pretty much gone. As such (and Uber Eats is not the only player in town) there are a few settings where the danger to side-hustles is the larger danger to the income over all. This will come to blows soon enough. I reckon that before the end of summer a few situations will get out of hand and this will mean that there is another down wind hitting the industries. Because these restaurants will depend on deliveries. And without deliveries, you are a food place in the middle of nowhere with no place to go. 

Adding these elements together and you do not have great news. More like a tragedy of unbridled proportions. And whilst this morning the Financial Review gives us ‘Trump plans to start notifying countries of US tariffs of up to 70pc’, I reckon the bloc of nations that will set new borders towards normalizing the stage they have with nations that were previously seen as ‘hostile as per American notice’, there is even a larger concern that some of these nations might enter the bloc with China, lets face it, they have nothing more to lose and as such America loses a lot more than they bargained for a educational step that honey and ladders bring. The steps you need to take to get to the next ladder to cross. And this game is rigged by governments themself. A setting we rarely see, but now with the EU, in disarray, the chance is more likely then not that China gets to call EU ministers and offer ‘a helping hand’, this implies the losses of a lot more billions and actually bring hardship to the American tech as these people will now consider change. Consider Huawei, TikTok, Tencent and Alibaba. How much damage can they do to the American economy? And when the EU and the United Kingdom are convinced. How much effort does China need to make to get Australia and New Zealand on board? At that point the only ‘ally’ America has is the one they pissed of the most (yes, it is Canada). Is this scenario beyond realism? I don’t think so and the setting that America with Tariffs and Tourism gave us was a mere start of more and the setting that we were ‘sullied’ into a complacent setting of what democracy is.

As such the EU and others are now seeing America as the big evil, not the liberator, but the bully that stops democracy. In this, this morning I was given an image as to what America is. It is a strong view of what the ‘anti-Americans’ see America developing in. I am not on their level. I am merely anti-stupid and I am seeing way too much of that too.

So have a great day and consider what you stand with and what you remain silent about. For me it is easy, as a Commonwealthian I am massively pro-Canada. It is really that simple. So any move America makes against Canada, I see it personal as all those in the Commonwealth need to see this (Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and of course Canada self). So when your intelligence apparatus pisses off 4 of the 5 parties in your intelligence system. How much of a system do you really have left? That is the setting China was hoping for and when you consider the acts that America did in its pro-Russia views, the line is cast and China realizes that it can continue without Russia, as it now has a clear stage where it might get the Commonwealth and the EU align with them. A setting that gets too many benefits and ends the dollar as a currency. Did you think I forgot about that? The EU is set to 450 million people, the full Commonwealth is set to 2.5 Billion. As such that becomes 36% of the global population, the Arabic nations is already switching away from America (to a degree), so when American tech is holding onto their version of AI, the setting seems to be one of desperation, when this comes to blows, they need to be out of the realm of victimisation and that is where we are. A comedy that turned to tragedy yesterday and the people are hoping for a nice twist so they can laugh again and I am not sure if that is a possibility. You think I was trying to sell my IP to the Arabian countries on a whim? I reckon that the setting soon will be that this is the only place that might be able to buy it. As I see it American companies will soon deal in swap trades and IOU invoices. When that happens you better believe that the last stage is on route to your point of view. That is merely how I see it and I have been trying to make strides in that direction. I might be a millionaire, but when 9800 millionaires move to the UAE, you better believe that the gig is about to be up.

Have a great day this Saturday, Vancouver will catch up with us in under 170 minutes.

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And Canada is the first to do so

Well, that might be the case. It is CBC that gives us (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/fox-news-crtc-ban-canada-1.6875894) ’LGBTQ rights group argues Fox News shouldn’t air in Canada’, to be honest, not the worst step to take. It is the funny response by Fox Channel “Fox’s argument that the application to remove its news network from Canadian cable TV packages is “moot” in the wake of prime-time host Tucker Carlson’s ousting in late April.” Are you effing kidding me? Egale Canada wrote an open letter to the regulator in early April, asking it to consult the public on the removal of Fox News from the list of non-Canadian programming authorised for distribution in Canada. And when there is a larger stage with a lot more channels than there are space for, the BS that Fox News gives us should have no place in any Democratic nation. That news was reenforced when we were given (see below)

Even as ABC gives us that “A longtime producer for Tucker Carlson is out of a job after being deemed responsible for the onscreen message this week that referred to President Joe Biden as a “wannabe dictator.”” It should not matter. These levels of unacceptable airing of thoughts gives rise to the thought that whatever Fox airs is no longer acceptable for human digestion. The idea to openly call any clear Democratic person as a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ is beyond humour, at least what the average man calls acceptable.

There will be a need soon to sanitise the airwaves of those airing the need of populist voices, the fact that Canada dropped nine channels implies that Canada and other nations are depreciating the value of media people (I am avoiding the term journalists). A massive change is required and the ousting of Fox Channel might give rise to these people bettering themselves instead of copying the wrong people. In addition, their way of pushing Republican voices is not out of law, but the way this is done. The Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/78826749-892b-42b6-9053-ef613016ae93) gave us in April ‘Fox News and the marketing of lies’, there we see “Donald Trump and his conservative backers have done more than anyone to popularise the term “fake news”, rebuffing criticism of him by opponents and “mainstream” media as deliberate falsehood.” In addition the fact that Fox settled the Dominion case for well over a billion does not help. There is a massive flaw at Fox and its board of directors hiding behind ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘entertainment’ is not the way to go and as such I reckon that Egale Canada might have a case. I enjoyed Fox News years ago, but they set a tone that I found beyond offensive and the departure of people like Bill O’Reilly is setting a different tone. The Financial Times also gave us “It is regrettable that the settlement spared Fox News executives and presenters, and the Fox Corporation chair Rupert Murdoch, from testifying in weeks of hearings that would have shone more light on to the affair.” It shines the light on just how wrong Fox News has become. I would also add to the argue that someone naming its channel ‘News’ has no business reporting it as entertainment, some issues are just too serious at present. I would add to that that there is no visible vetting of that news channel and whilst that might be acceptable in the US, I think that a larger case for the Commonwealth nations could be made to scrap them. And face it, if this is about a republican side, they can stick that to the US and keep it there (and there alone).

I reckon that the moment a second nation adds to Canada and Egale Canada panic gets a grip on its board of directors and Rupert Murdoch. No matter how that evolves, the first pebble is cast and even as the outcome is not certain, there is a larger stage where the people should consider how long they are willing to openly deceive themselves. We don’t mind getting lied to at times, but 24:7 by a news channel? Who is willing to sign up for that? 

As such I feel that not only does have Egale Canada a case, they might end up setting a larger wave among nations that have had enough of this kind of ‘presentation’ of fake news. 

Enjoy the weekend.

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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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The story not told

This is how it started, but then I realised that there are two stories that are not told. The western media does not want you to know any of it. It makes them simple red light debutantes. Whoring for digital dollars and all at the expense of not informing you. So how are you feeling now?

The story that started this was given to us by Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2258916/saudi-arabia) where we are given ‘Saudi project clears 882 Houthi mines in Yemen’ in addition we are given “Overseen by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, special teams destroyed five anti-personnel, 195 anti-tank mines, 681 unexploded ordinances and one explosive device” as well as “A total of 388,433 mines have been cleared since the start of the project” but in all this did you consider the larger stage of the issue?

(Photo by Saleh Al-OBEIDI / AFP)

There are two sides. The one side is that Iran was instrumental in delivering over a million mines to Houthi terrorists. The second side is that Saudi Arabia is trying to clear Yemen from these horrific devices, there is of course the third side where we see that the large wining media solutions (The Times, The Guardian, NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and LA Times) as far as I can tell never makes mention of ANY of it. Not the Iranian side of delivering mines. Not the Saudi side of stopping Yemeni casualties. Why is that? There is even an additional side, you see if these media jokes do not change their way, they will soon be less reliable than Arab News and Al Jazeera. And we can add Fox News to the list of useless sources. There is also an upside, these two sources can already be captured with their apps and give you the ACTUAL news regarding the middle east. The photo placed earlier was intentional. It came from Arab News but the source is the AFP, so why is this photo not all over the western news? Why are we kept in the dark on what Iran has been doing? You see Houthi terrorists do not have the means, the materials or the logistics to create a million mines. In the mean time we are given “In June 2022, the project’s contract was extended for another year at a cost of $33.29 million” whilst everyone is ignoring what Iran has been doing. We failed the Yemeni’s in many fronts. We are only partially able to stop weapon smuggle from Iran, We are unable to stop Houthi terrorists and the people doing something about it and that is merely the top of the list. And there is an overbearing other reason. With the claims out there made by 6,047 journalists in the US and over 320,000 journalists in the EU and I, a non-journalists am informing you? Where are these digital dollar seekers? Why is this Arab News not global news informing you on what Iran is part of? How about Houthi terrorists placing over a million mines? Who informed you? There is a decent chance that the western media did not, as far as I can tell, the only active western (French) player is the AFP at present. 

It is time we ask the hard questions from the media and do it in the limelight, preferably asking the stakeholders for their assistance in all this, but that is my sense of humour in action.

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Dangerous ally

That happens, we have enemies, impartial parties, friends and allies. This is how it has been for the longest of times. Yet what happens when an ally becomes a danger? That is what the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/national-security-us-fox-news-threat-report-1.6459660) gives us with: ‘Canada should rethink relationship with U.S. as democratic ‘backsliding’ worsens: security experts’. In this article we are given ““The United States is and will remain our closest ally, but it could also become a source of threat and instability,” says a newly published report written by a task force of former national security advisers, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) directors, ex-deputy ministers, former ambassadors and academics. Members of the group have advised both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former prime minister Stephen Harper.” That at least is one side. Yet the stage we see here is a little larger than we think it is. You see, we are given “There are growing transnational ties between right-wing extremists here and in the U.S., the movement of funds, the movement of people, the movement of ideas, the encouragement, the support by media, such as Fox News and other conservative media,” I believe that they are missing a few bolts in that equation. As I personally see it, the media is a lot more guilty from my point of view. At present the media is desperate for digital dollars and we see this on a global level. The best way to get this is to get clicks, as such more and more flammable materials are published, just to get clicks. No matter what the consequences are. In this I give you the guardian who gave us (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/22/rightwing-us-pundit-candace-owens-compares-australian-government-to-the-taliban-calling-it-a-tyrannical-police-state-) last October. There we are given “Rightwing US pundit Candace Owens compares Australian government to the Taliban, calling it a ‘tyrannical police state’” In that article we are given “Outspoken conservative political commentator Candace Owens has suggested the US military invade Australia in order to free its people “suffering under a totalitarian regime” while drawing comparisons to Hitler, Stalin and the Taliban.” As such, lets relabel Candace Owens as ‘Black Putin’, with her telling the people “When do we deploy troops to Australia? When do we invade Australia and free an oppressed people who are suffering under a totalitarian regime? When do we spend trillions of dollars to spread democracy in Australia?” Wasn’t that the setting Vladimir Putin used to go into the Ukraine? How is that going?

A Commonwealth nation that has shown it has Freedom of speech, freedom of religion (a lot more than the US has), it has democratic elections and so far after decades, I have yet to see a police state in action in Australia. So which media asked this Black Putin for evidence of a police state? Which media asked this Black Putin for evidence of oppression in Australia and what evidence is there of a totalitarian regime? She is ‘tolerated’ by the media as she flames stuff, she brings in the digital dollars. That is how I personally see it.

So in the report (see below) we are also given “Yet Canadians and their governments rarely take national security seriously. Taking shelter under the American umbrella has worked well for us. This has made us complacent and paved the way for our neglect of national security.” This is true and as the US falters the pressure on Canada increases. I did make mention of something similar to this, but not to this degree and it was a while back. Yet the danger station remains, when the US collapses (which is still possible) the people will try to find a safe haven, and Canada will top their list. Consider the idea that Canada suddenly needs to deal with 5-15 million Americans trying the collapse in their own country, Canada is not ready, more important. Canadian National security is nowhere near ready for that nightmare scenario. In addition, as I personally see it, the Putin’s of America (black or not) will gladly throw oil on that fire to get more digital dollars out of all of it. 

And the Ukraine adds to that setting with “Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, with its deliberate targeting of civilians and underlying threat of nuclear war, has jolted even the most sanguine of western democracies into thinking anew about security. Ahead lies a period of escalating tensions with no clear end in sight” as such the Commonwealth needs to take steps, serious steps towards keeping its territories safe, any way they can. Canada has of course the largest problem. It has 8890km of border with the US and there is no way that this can ever be kept safe or untrodden, so other means will be needed to keep Canada safe. What they are, your guess is as good as mine. But this will come to blows there is no doubt in my mind. Even now we see more and more stories and articles about the decline of the US, but they are trivialised, even the ones from the Pentagon. The power players are all in the believe that it will not happen, but they have their millions safely in a zero tax haven like Dubai, Bahama’s, Monaco or Cayman Islands. When things go south fast they take personal leave get to where they need to be and resign their posts with loads of cash safely tucked away. When that escalated the people will start running and those without cash will try to get anywhere they can and that group is a lot larger than you think. Last year all these people who got into Bitcoin, because it was such a safe bet, what they bought at 87K is now a mere 41K, they lost over 50% and when it goes from bad to worse the US will become close to unliveable. And that is what Canada needs to fear, almost more than any lone wolf terrorist. In all this, with all the things we see 2022 is the first year where several players need to consider that America has become a dangerous ally. It is not the military that Canada needs to fear, it is a senseless 329,000,000 people all trying to find some safe haven and the group that is in poverty and the elderly pushed into poverty is large and growing larger by the day. When we consider “The official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 percent, up 1.0 percentage point from 10.5 percent in 2019.” We think it is not that serious, but the last two years destroyed savings due to the cost of living under Covid and Bitcoins value for millions of people. There is no way that they US has accurate data at present and that is not on them, but I reckon (speculated estimation) that it is closer to 13.5% at present. As such there is a chance that as per tomorrow 4.4 million Americans will seek shelter any place they can and a sizeable chunk of those 4.4 million will no longer believe that the US can offer that. Even now with unemployment numbers at a global all time low, too many will consider the ‘get out now’ routine. Because if the US has worker issues, than Canada might have them too. Not the worst thought to have, but when millions have that thought at the same time, Canada will face a larger problem and that is before the actual national security problems stir their ugly head. I believe that the Commonwealth nations need to unite and we need to do this now, not tomorrow. Things might get pretty hairy soon enough and not being ready just doesn’t slice the cake, not in this day and age.

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Covering one another

In light of yesterday, it is equally important that other information is given to you. Remember headlines like ‘South Africa slams ‘unjustified’ reaction as Omicron continues to spread across the globe’? We saw the ‘unjust’ approach and even as we accept that some nations (the Netherlands) apparently have data showing that they had a case before South Africa reported it, the source of that case is still unconfirmed. That does not mean that South Africa is too blame for this issue. And as we are now given (by Reuters) that “the Omicron coronavirus variant detected in southern Africa could be the most likely candidate to displace the highly contagious Delta variant, the director of South Africa’s communicable disease institute said on Tuesday”, do you still think that it is a bad idea to close borders? All borders no less. There is still a lot that the scientists do not know and we get that, but leaving the borders open in a stage where a disease has now killed over 5 million people, that is a stage that should worry everyone and when we see that 263 million have had the disease, we do get that the mortality rate is low. Yet how do you feel when your parents and grandparents are the dead ones? Still think that closing the borders is the wrong move? Mine are all dead, so I do not care, but you might. 

13 people on a flight from South Africa had that variant, so it is being spread and that might not be the South Africans that are at fault. For all we know (I do not know) the people infected were Dutch people visiting South Africa (for whatever reason). We can guess all we want, but the data is limited and it has too many gaps. We also do not know what causes the mutation, so there is a lot that the scientists do not know. And to help them it seems (to me) important to lockdown as much as possible. Am I right? I do not know, but the politicians are seemingly helping one another out and that is an actual flaw we cannot afford. And as some papers (the SMH in this case) gives us ‘Infections in Europe pre-date Omicron’s identification in South Africa’, we still cannot tell where that version came from, or what made it mutate. And before some people want to use the brush containing the blame paint on South Africa. Consider that Germany gives us “German authorities said they had an Omicron infection in a man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who had been”, as I have a few issues with ‘nor had contact with anyone who had been’, there is too much we do not know, as such the traveller might have sat next to him on a bench, in a mall, behind him in a coffeeshop and so on. But the fact that he had not been abroad still matters. Either this version is massively infective, or there is an element the scientists are still in the dark about. 

The larger problem is that this entire equation has too many captains and not enough crew, which is a generic failing in the EU. As I personally see it, this will cause more and more gaps and less standardisation of data, as well as reporting over the European nations. We get it that there is a global issue, but this issue should not exist in the EU and I saw just how largely this failing tends to be from my (trying) approach to getting some form of clear data. And now, as the amount of nations with Omicron rises, so will the uncertainty, the fear and the economic drawbacks. A stage we all saw coming (to some degree) yet we never thought it would come this fast, or this completely. So as we view the news of more people ignoring lockdowns, ignoring safety and considering that bleach is a much better anti covid solution than a vaccine is, also consider that now with Omicron we might relax as it will be the death of them. Some might argue that the benefit of these actions is that in California 117 jobs a day open up. I get it, it is crude, but that is the setting. Do you think for one moment that Wall Street cares about you (or me for that matter), it sees the revenue needs, and unemployment numbers drive that down, so they are (silently) happy. And this is not some USA push, the UK is in a worse shape, with only 20% the population it has twice the amount of deceased people, and now we all get Omicron and a larger unknown of how effective our vaccine is, because that is unknown, we hear speculations, all lacking evidence at present. 

So as politicians are covering each other on points of view, we see a larger lack of support of the scientific and medical staff. The media is in part to blame, they are all about flames. Yet I personally believe that EVERY newspaper on the planet has a responsibility to make sure that the views of Dr Fauci (and medical experts like him) are shown everywhere and the absolute idiot at Fox who caused ‘Outrage as Fox News commentator likens Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor’ should be taken off the job, and optionally get treatment from Dr Mengele, so he can feel firsthand how wrong his view was. 

Lets make one thing sure, we need the medical people and its experts. They can wait for us to die and take over all the good mansions on a global setting. We need them, they do not need us to be a risk for them and their family members. Take that consideration to heart. So if you see a medical professional today and tomorrow, buy him (or her) a coffee, a tea and say ‘Thank you!’ We owe them a lot more, but this gesture might take away some of the stress they face on a daily basis and I would like it if politicians take that message to heart, they should be championing that resolve all over the world.

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And so it begins

We all have sides, and we all have sides we tend to look less at. There is no exclusion, no even me. I try to always take the bigger picture in view, but at times I too fail to do that and today might be such a time. So if you have objections, you might be right. It all started a little over an hour ago when I took notice of ‘CNN denies Australians access to its Facebook pages, cites defamation risk’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/cnn-quits-facebook-australia-citing-defamation-risk-2021-09-29/), on one side I am in a state of ‘Who the fuck cares?’, on the other side I am wondering why someone would take the stage to this degree? You see, we take notice of “after a court ruled that publishers can be liable for defamation in public comment sections and the social media firm refused to help it disable comments in the country”, so what happens when the public comments commence in http://www.cnn.com? The newsagent does have a website and lets face it, social media is not a place for news, it is a place for flames to bolster engagement, as such the part of “the social media firm refused to help it disable comments in the country” makes perfect sense. News leads to flames, flames leads to engagement and engagement leads to additional advertisement revenue which is the bread and butter of Facebook. I for one do not consider Facebook any kind of place for news, and if there is any, it is not place to comment there, I have a blog that does that and if there is a real reason to directly offer issues, they have an editorial and they have an email address (which tends to lead to the circular archive system). Flames are not now and mostly not ever useful, it only propagates the limelight of ones own ego.

So as we take notice of “defamation lawyers accusing Australia of not keeping up with technological change and noting the contrast with the United States and Britain where laws largely protect publishers from any fallout from comments posted online”, my issue here is that the posters of comments are also absent of accountability and there is a problem there. With “Australia is currently reviewing its defamation laws but in the meantime, other global news organisations, especially those that feel they can easily live without an Australian Facebook audience” we do see a truth, there is no need for ANY newsagent to be on Facebook, but that stifles the revenue of Facebook, does it not? And it is true, the world does not need the 25,000,000 people in Australia. Facebook has close to 3,000,000,000 members (read; near active accounts), so 25 million are not much of a dent, but it is a beginning. There is an upside for all newspapers to move away from Facebook, there is a downside as well. You see one place to flame all is a setting that rarely ever will lead to anything positive, but the newsagents all tend to think that it leads to revenue and for a few at times it might but there is a reason why I check WWW.BBC.CO.UK, theguardian.com, www.ft.com, www.reuters.com, www.aljazeera.com on a nearly daily basis and there are a few more (ABC, SBS, Arab News), you see the papers are still in levels of problems, the papers have to deal with bias, political siding, stakeholders and a few more and as I see the same article on a few sites I get a better view of the issue (that is when they do not directly copy and paste from Reuters). But I digress, it is about CNN and here we see that Reuters have two more gems to offer. The first is “We are disappointed that Facebook, once again, has failed to ensure its platform is a place for credible journalism and productive dialogue around current events among its users,” this from my point of view two issues, one is that Facebook is not a place for credible journalism, no matter how you slice it. Too many are in a stage to get traction and visitor revenue through flaming and through the incitement of flaming. And the second part is ‘productive dialogue’, there is no way in my mind that ANYTHING on Facebook will lead to that unless it is a closed circle of personal friends and family. The second gem is “defamation lawyers accusing Australia of not keeping up with technological change and noting the contrast with the United States and Britain”. It is a gem because it raises a few issues. It is not about technological change, it is about accountability. And we see close to nothing on that front from either the USA or the UK for that matter. There is also a larger stage that adhering to this on a much larger stage is a problem. Even though I will oppose the news mummy (Rupert Murdoch) on nearly every front, because I believe that he lost the plot on news and he is too much about flames and revenue (which is not entirely wrong for him). In this, the danger of flames depending issues and people, the danger becomes the house catches fire and that is not a good thing (newspapers burn really well). 

Until there is a real stage where the people on social media get hauled towards accountability this stage will not change and Facebook does not want change. The newspapers are close to zero in their consideration. It is about engagement to sell advertisement and so far Facebook has the upper hand. This is not meant good or bad, it is their business model and it works for them, yet over the years we see media look at places like Facebook and they all wonder if they can tap into this, First Google search, now Facebook and soon they will move beyond Twitter. Where next? Who can tell. Yet the Murdochs and Murdoch wannabe’s will continue because their newspapers are founded on the need to entice the people to flame, they have been at it for a long time in many places. So when Australia held Facebook liable Facebook closed the tap and they are entitled doing so. As such it is not “Facebook, once again, has failed to ensure its platform is a place for credible journalism and productive dialogue”, it is “Posters need to be held accountable for what they post, including posters of comments” and the law in many many nations are not ready or prepared to do that. Too many places rely on flames of all kinds. It is time to recognise that part of the equation.

In this consider a UK setting. In the first we see a statement (wiki) “The Daily Mirror, founded in 1903, is a British national daily tabloid-sized newspaper that is considered to be engaged in tabloid-style journalism”, here we see two parts ‘newspaper’, as well as ‘engaged in tabloid-style journalism’. Yet in another source we see “largely sensationalist journalism (usually dramatised and sometimes unverifiable or even blatantly false)” and it is a stage we see far too often. So in addition we have an image.

With the text “Big Brother’s Grace and Mikey expecting fourth child and say people think they are mad”, so it is a story about people, a woman who willingly received a penis into her vagina with a long term gift (36 weeks later). Now, I am happy for her, but is it news? This is not royalty, or people with global impact. And this is on the FRONT PAGE of the Daily Mirror (website), this is news? And here the problem starts, we agree that CNN is real news but the ledge that separates them from a place like the Daily Mirror is too small, moreover on places like Facebook too many people cannot tell the difference. In all this the one element (not) overlooked is the need for (actual) Newspapers to find ways to grow revenue, I do not oppose that, the problem is that other ways need to be found and in This they will find a better venue talking to places like Google then Facebook and that is before we see a new social media side in Amazon, because that option is mere inches away. 

When the people start realising that Facebook lost the edge is had, when they realise that true social media comes from places like https://cocoon.com Facebook will get hit after hit and there the people will be able to set a stage for what some spokespeople call ‘productive dialogue’, Google might have shut down its plus side, but it opens the realm for Amazon 

So it begins and it did not start in Australia, it did not start in censorship it started with the realisation that there is nothing to be gotten from flaming, there almost never was and that realisation will cause the loss of revenue in plenty of places.

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More darkness behind the lights

I have been twisting and turning on this one, there is the case that you should not give an audience to crazy people,  because that is what it initially seemed like. Yet, I decided to take a deeper look and even as I do not agree with the Vlogger, he does put forward a decent argument and I can not pass up a decent argument. The argument (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo-ub56O2Vw) starts right off the bat and the man (Decoy Voice) brings a good argument, yet there too we see issues and I am not blaming him, he brings the facts. Yet how far did he dig?

The Healthcare systems are buckling, not in the first in COVID, but on stupid patients making some freedom chant against vaccines and we see  again and again these people dying in some ICU on how wrong they were. Well, in the first they had no medical degree, they listened to other people who had no medical degree so there! 

Then we get the Horse Goo side of the story consider several sources giving us ‘Poisoning Caused By Horse Dewormer Up 168% Amid Right-Wing Propaganda’, so how wrong is this? Well there is a horse dewormer that was approved for human use, Ivermectin is a drug that is specific for intestinal problems and even then a few very specific ones. As such I wonder who prescribed that? It is not for the flu and it has no flu diminishing options, the scientific world at large warns about this. Yet I still fall short for calling these people nuts, some sources give us that none other than Fox News have made statements making claim that it was an option, I am merely repeating what other sources (Washington Post) claim and we have always seen Fox News as a news group, so people will fall for it. 

Then the Vlogger goes on pretty much attacking Jimmy Kimmel and there he misses the boat. Yes he is making these statements, so the Vlogger is not lying, but it is a comedy and his point of view is shared by me and many others. In a stage where healthcare is buckling you want to give priority on the patients who did everything right. The COVID part is not a fab, we have (at present) well over 4,638,546 cadavers and over 20,000,000 still being treated. This is not a US thing, it is global and I do not mind, when the stupid people die their jobs go to others lowering unemployment. 

Stupid People?
So why am I calling these people stupid? Medication is only one part, there are the anti vaccine people, the anti lockdown and the anti social distancing. In the first, there are reasons why people are anti vaccine and I accept that, but in all these cases (some religious) I accept that they want to live by the faith rule, but then the faith rule it is and you need not rely on doctors. The others are what I personally see a group of anti social people who seemingly want whatever they want at the expense of anyone else. Consider the image below, if only 5 people had it on that day, by the end of that day 50-100 more will have it on that day spreading the disease like wildfire. Now, I hate the lockdown just like anyone else, but this disease kills, it kills 2% and that was in the old setting, the new setting (the Delta variant) spreads faster and gives additional long term issues. 

How do I know this?
I listen to ACTUAL experts on the matter of infectious diseases. Dr. Anthony Fauci did not make the claim. He worked in this field from before 1983 in that time he gained the Maxwell Finland Award (1989), Ernst Jung Prize (1995), Lasker Award (2007), Robert Koch Prize (Gold, 2013) and a few others. So this man was working actively in the field of infectious diseases before some of the self proclaimed false prophets wielding their ‘cure’ were born. And there is no stage where I find it acceptable that healthcare people have to take the insult, the abuse and the loudly voiced claims, in this I support Jimmy Kimmel ‘Let them die’, we could do with fewer people on this world I say. 

I get it, it is not fair on those who did everything right and they got it all done (including vaccinations) and there is a small group who will still not make it and age is a factor. Yes, I agree in some cases it is not fair, but so is the stage given by USA Today when we saw (Yesterday) ‘Alabama man dies of cardiac event after 43 hospitals with full ICUs turned him away, so can you take that in for a second? Around Alabama 43 hospitals had no beds in ICU to treat this man. As such, my personal feelings were that the anti vaccine people taking up those beds had to be thrown out of the hospitals to take care of actual sick people and here is the rub. Those who self inflict disease on themselves, they should not be allowed to take the bed of those who work according to the rules of the game. Here is where I go up against Decoy voice. Jimmy Kimmel gave his view and he is allowed this, we see the first attack on Jimmy at 00:38. As I see it Jimmy was not the arbiter of truth, he gave his point of view and I agree with him, so will many others. But in this I do not attack Decoy Voice his point of view. I might not completely agree yet at 5:12 his point of view comes out and he does make valid points. When NBC Today (seemingly) tweets that the head of the CDC stated that the third one was based on hope not data, that is an issue and Decoy Voice should bring that in his Vlog. 

In opposition
In opposition we need to consider a few items, the first is that this disease is still evolving. There is now a Delta variant, the initial vaccines have an impact, people who get the Delta variant will get sick but their system will get over it faster and better. If any vaccine will take 15-18 months, we will not see a proper vaccine for the Delta variant until January 2023, so how many people will die in the mean time? The fact that Pfizer and Moderna were able to produce a vaccine 6 months ahead of schedule is nothing short of a miracle, but the media does not really wonder about that side, do they? Should we take a vaccine based on hope? That is the hard question and I would listen to the point of view of Dr Fauci, the ACTUAL expert. 

Why the doubt?
I remain to some degree in doubt. You see I have no idea how the entire Ivermectin got started, it got started somehow and I wonder how it was, but it is for the FBI to investigate and prosecute the people behind that part. You see this is not about freedom of speech, this is about causing the reckless death and dangerous health conditions, I reckon that the headline ‘Poisoning Caused By Horse Dewormer Up 168%’ takes care of that and now the FBI will need to investigate Fox News as well, if they voiced that than they will have to show proof publicly or be denied the airwaves. I reckon that we will get all kinds of crying executives when FoxNews gets a 120 day shutdown order on all digital media sources. The media blatantly shows information without proper vetting and that needs to end, people are dying here. 

I missed a few items, but you can watch the video, because he does bring decent point of argument, I do not agree with several of his points but perhaps you do. In the end I am all for freedom of speech and in this the threshold for a Vlogger is lower than a news media, he is merely opinionated  and he uses plenty of sources. He merely got on my bad side when he attacked Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy is funny as hell nearly all of the time (Matt Damon seemingly disagrees).

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When perception is the brand

Yes, this sounds confusing, but it actually is not. It started with a simple article on the BBC, the article ‘Chloe Khan and Jodie Marsh rapped by watchdog’ caught me by surprise. The idea was given to me “The Advertising Standards Authority has named and shamed four influencers it said repeatedly failed to disclose when their Instagram posts were actually advertisements”, now I do not are about influencers, I tend to stay away from them and I do not use instagram. But the people that do follow these influencer tend to do so for very specific reasons. It comes to blows (to coin a phrase) when we compare this to Twitter. So when we see these two tweets, we do see the ‘promoted’ mention at the VERY bottom and these pages go towards photo’s and text surrounded by massive amounts of advertisement, some of these providers will try to get one photo per page with a next mention and the next page will show you even more advertisements. So is this not deceptive? What is the setting of the Advertising Standards Authority at that point? Is the creation of what I call ‘click bitches’ not deceptive? This has been going on for years, the in game advertisements on Android, and iOS devices have all kinds of deceptions, what have they achieved there? 

And now we get to the first part, when is perception the brand. What is the perception? Are the tweets safe? Is the word ‘promoted’ enough? When we look at “Promoted Tweets are ideal when you want to increase your Twitter audience reach and engagement. When you have a big announcement, a new blog post, a marketing campaign, or an upcoming event you’d like to reach more people than you would organically, Promoted Tweets is the better strategy. This is because your Promoted Tweets will appear in users’ live feeds and search results” we see and accept that, yet when we see promotion emphasised by large breasts, is it advertisement, or deceptive conduct? Some people might not be able to tell the difference, and I believe that it becomes more and more about the ambiguity of perception. So, as such is the ‘shaming of people like Chloe Khan and Jodie Marsh warranted? As the Advertising Standards Authority is failing people, millions of people on Twitter, on iOS and Android games, is going after smaller players not merely hypocritical? As such, is the advertisement of 23 camping pictures deceptive? Perhaps the overload of advertisements is merely a side effect? As such, does the inability to act against Twitter, Facebook and Mobiles games not merely make the act against the influencers slightly overkill? And all this is before we take notice of “The ASA was responding to the #filterdrop campaign that called for it to be compulsory for influencers to state when they use a beauty filter to promote skincare or cosmetics”, this is what magazines have been doing for years, where was the Advertising Standards Authority then? 

It all takes another turn when we take a look at the freedom of speech, this is shown in the last tweet. 

First of all, the person gives the names and they are seemingly correct, but it is “Given that anti-rationality, anti civil rights (anti-woke) channel GB News is losing major advertisers already, due to the crap they are peddling, suggest some alternative advertisers” that makes me wonder. You see filtered information is handed to us by the bulk of the news channels. The evasion of news regarding Houthi missile and drone attacks against Saudi civilian targets is the most visible one, but not the only one. If the left filters to the left, is the right not allowed to filter to the right? And so far I saw three GB news articles on Youtube there was a view I might not agree with, but should they be attacked as such? So when we are given “I’m excited to tackle difficult subjects with voices you haven’t heard before”, so what is the problem here? And GB News matters, you see perception comes in two sizes, the perception we see and detect and the one that sneaks up unnoticed, but they are both filter forms that aid the perception that the transmitter wants to give us, so where these advertisers leaving through peer pressure, or is there a case of actual evidence? Consider that Andrew Neil has been working as a journalist since 1973, meaning he optionally has more experience than the sum of some news channel cast members. In addition, when we see “due to the crap they are peddling”, do you think that other breakfast TV shows are not peddling crap? Is one side better than the other? No, I do not think so, but there is a chance that if both exist I might get a decent balanced central view. In the end this is not merely about the news, you see if it was about the news, people would simply not watch it and if no one watches it the channel dies, but there is a larger need, the need for advertisers and there is the crux, saturation demands that advertisers choose where they are and they are wherever the masses are, the Express gives us “Despite the complaints from some viewers regarding the sound, the show pulled in thousands of viewers as according to BARB data, 164,500 people tuned in to watch between 7pm and 11pm on Sunday night”, which accompanies ‘Launch show beats BBC and Sky despite ‘technical difficulties’’ and that would scare any news channel, the fact that there might be a market for GB News and that is where these advertisers are soon to be, where do I get the best reach? It is a business decision and that decision is what other media fear, Fox grew to greatness and the news channels are scared of that, and whilst they TOO adhere to shareholders, stake holders and advertisers. The bulk of the advertisers can only afford one place, not all places and that is the fear of filtered information. The news is too much on shareholders and stake holders, all whilst the advertisers play (at times) a dubious role in this setup. Am I a fan of GB News? I do not know, I have not been able to make up my mind yet. I get it, a 24 hour channel needs it human interest stories, but when I see news of a cremated cat, I wonder who will cover the Yemen events. Consider that the BBC gave us on the 8th of March “The UN says the war has caused created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and caused an estimated 233,000 deaths”, yet the UN gave us on December 1st 2020 “UN humanitarian office puts Yemen war dead at 233,000”, so do you think that in 4 months in slaughterhouse Yemen ZERO deaths occurred over a period of 4 months, or is someone not doing their job? And when we realise the answer to that, do you really think I give a toss on the premise of a cremated cat from either GB News, Fox News, CNN, BBC, Channel 7, Channel 9, Sky News, ITV, CNN, Euronews, or CNBC? You have got to be joking. Does it make GB News bad, lousy or useless? No, but they are slightly to the right and the left does not tolerate any channel on that side of the aisle, they thought that Fox News was enough, but if Andrew Neil gets his way, the European channels will get nervous soon enough and no matter what the advertisers do, when someone bails ship others will try to get a slightly sweeter deal, when that comes out GB News will get its share of advertisers, I have no doubt, what remains is the perception created and it takes a little more time to see how GB News will fare and how the people will perceive it.

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Is it your taste?

Taste is a peculiar thing, it is more than personal at times and sometimes it is massively selective, I for one loved to try my new girlfriend having a Chicken Vindaloo (before I went to Australia), or an Indonesian restaurant. You see, I need to know that she at least likes the dishes I love. I had an ex who hated pizza and therefore I ended up not having pizza for a year. And that setting of taste (and balance) continues over a larger field. So when the BBC gives me ‘GB News: Several brands pull advertising from news channel’, it gets me in two ways (both with happiness), the first is seen in “it has faced criticism from campaigners such as the group Stop Funding Hate, who say its launch brings highly partisan Fox News-style programming to the UK”, yes it all seems nice, but haters will be haters and the choices some channels make are at times proven to be hateful, the other media makes sure that it is hateful. And this can happen in a whole range of ways and the media is all over that part. For the largest reasons they do not want another mouth eating from the digital advertising dish. 

Andrew Neil (chairman) gives us “In an opening monologue to viewers on Sunday night, Neil said GB News would aim to “puncture the pomposity of our elites in politics, business, media and academia and expose their growing promotion of cancel culture for the threat to free speech and democracy that it is”” is not hateful, yet the part I have stated several times in the past and even yesterday is seen in “puncture the pomposity of our elites in media and expose their growing promotion of cancel culture”, I did not phrase it like that, but it does fit. Consider these two parts, the first is an alleged attack on Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist no one cares about and the media is hounding it for the longest time, more importantly the UN is helping push the media agenda on this via some essay writer called Agnes Calamard. Yet the actions of Martin Bashir, who as seen by a lot of people as a massive reason of het divorce and ultimately led to her death is pushed outside of the media limelight, moreso as an inquiry showed him to be manipulative using forged documents and he is not even arrested (not even pro forma). Andrew Neil has a point, will he have a case? Time will tell, I remain skeptical of nearly all media outlets that are not presented by trained journalists, morning entertainment channels giving us filtered information.

The second part is actually not good for Andrew Neil. We see Kopparberg and Octopus Energy cancelling what they had seemingly placed, as such even as the channel is only now on the air, these people did not do their due diligence, and even I cannot call whether GB News is actually hateful. Yet there is a place in the media for Fox News, not my favourite channel but I believe that we can only see actual news when we are not depending on Al Jazeera and Reuters. In this the other side of that coin is that Kopparberg, Open University, Ovo Energy and Ikea had made suspensions hiding behind “not knowingly booked slots on the channel”, implying that they advertise without investigation, as such, how stupid is that? I believe that there is more behind that. I would speculate that not unlike the old PS2 versus Dreamcast issue in 1999, some media outlets might have stated that if you are with them, you cannot be with us. I can never prove that, but I was a witness to the PS2-Dreamcast event. So it is not too far-fetched. 

Oh and by the way, so far there is the indication that GB News and Andrew Neil is getting more news flak from other media that Martin Bashir so far has. I wonder why that is, especially after these same sources had no issues posting whatever speculative (not evidence) based posting on the Jamal Khashoggi case. Do not take my word for that, investigate yourself! I do not care whether you watch GB News, that is your choice, I merely wonder how much of the news media has not been trustworthy for the longest of times and that includes the views of Piers Morgan. You see I avoided the interview for my own reasons, he had a point of view, and I am not judging him to be valid or invalid, it was a point of view, he is allowed HIS point of view and we see thousands of complaints on a point of view. So how many complaints did these people lodge against Martin Bashir? And that was before I saw ‘Meghan Markle’s claim ‘doesn’t add up’ – ‘Strange’ remark in Oprah interview picked apart’ from the Express (at https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1447782/meghan-markle-oprah-winfrey-interview-queen-elizabeth-II-prince-harry-lee-cohen-news-VN). There we were given “Mr Cohen pointed to a moment in the Oprah Winfrey interview where Meghan said she was unaware of needing to curtsy the Queen and did not know the words to the UK national anthem. The political writer found it “odd”, stating he was given stringent protocol training when he met the Queen and questioned whether the Duchess of Sussex was overall willing to learn the new customs”, it is a point of view, but that also gives a rather large nudge towards Piers Morgan optionally might having a case. As I avoided the interview I cannot really say, but who else had that part Mr Cohen stated? Why was the rest of the media not all over that? Was it the ‘Awwwww’ moment? Now take these elements and you will see that there might be place for someone like GB News. Will it be on my list? Not sure, I will look at it initially via YouTube (as I am on the other side of the planet for now), yet its future will not be depending on the advertisers, it will largely be depending on the quality of journalism and that part is left out of the media consideration, at least the dozen articles I saw and none mentioned that part, I wonder why that is, don’t you?

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