Tag Archives: France

September 20, 2023 · 02:19

Chapter 13

This is not economy (Chapter 11), or procreation (Chapter 17). This is about a very different stage. And this starts with the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-66835995) where we are given ‘Biden urges UN leaders to stand together against Russia’. I agree with the sentiment. Apart from the fact that Russia has become a terrorist nation attacking unarmed civilians (and getting bitch slapped by Paddington bear), there is a much larger setting and the people are mostly in the dark here.

Russia has created a spy network on a global level and it is hindering any actions. The US is clearly in a stage of catering to Russia where its own Republican Party is trying to stop any aid to Ukraine. In addition to this there is still a large amount of American companies doing business in Russia. As such it is nice for President Biden to ask what he is and many support this, but America has to clean out its own front yard and that has not been happening for well over a year. It gives a two sided story to others.

Then we get ‘Dutch defence ministry official arrested for evasion of Russia sanctions’ (at https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/dutch-defence-ministry-official-arrested-for-evasion-of-russia-sanctions/) where we see “The Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) arrested a Defence Ministry official accused of having evaded EU sanctions against Russia by exporting spare aircraft parts to Russia via third countries, the government agency announced on Friday.” This is a defence ministry official. On top of all this there are NATO links, but the concrete level and levels of access are unknown to me.

From there we get to ‘Germany charges intelligence ‘mole’ with treason in Russia spying case’ which was handed to us in the beginning of September by the BBC. The story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66727785) is where we are given “Prosecutors believe Carsten L shared intelligence about the war in Ukraine and the Wagner mercenary group and received roughly €400,000 (£340,000), according to German reports.” To make matters worse, Carsten L is a high ranking officer in German intelligence. 

These are merely a few stories in a vast collection of events. It affects The Netherlands, the US, Germany, France and a few more nations. You see, Chapter 13 is the chapter on Espionage in the Art of War (Sun Tzu). That chapter gives us that there are 5 types of spies.

Local spies
Inward spies
Converted spies
Doomed spies
Surviving spies

And Russia has all 5 types all over Europe and the US, as such the comment by Stoltenberg “Nobody knows how long this war will last, he says, but with the support of NATO and the international community, Ukraine has been able to push Russia back.” Goes wrong. The intent is nice, but as long as you do not clean your house, too many political and wannabe players will destroy whatever you are trying to achieve. It is perhaps the one part I agree on with Joseph McCarthy, until your house is clean you are headed for disaster. To be honest I never expected to EVER quote McCarthy, but the anti Ukrainian setting in the US and these fake peace proclaimers are showing him to be correct. And until the cleaning is done, matter will only get worse and I believe that some realise this, but the rest is pushed to sleep it through (until too late) which will end up being the start of a disaster. 

Sun Tzu is merely one example There is also Carl von Clausewitz (On war), yet the Art of War is (as I personally see it) much better, more generic and more versatile. The problem (for the Netherlands and Germany) is to see what kind of spy their spy was. A converted or a doomed spy. To act for money makes a person a doomed spy, but it is unclear how long this had been going on, especially when someone parks funds at the behest of a mother in laws maiden name and when that account is in a place like Saudi Arabia, finding these funds will be near impossible, making the foundation of what kind of adversary harder. 

In the case of Germany there is even more. Many parts of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) support Russia, its foreign policy, and its allies. For example, AfD members and activists were listed as keeping close ties with Russian politicians and receiving financial benefits in an OCCRP investigation of Russia’s International Agency for Current Policy. And these people are part of what is said to be the AfD pro-Russia movement. Two nations and several to find. France is cleaning house and they made progress, but they are only finding those who weren’t clever enough to mask their actions and there are plenty in many nations who were that clever making progress an issue. That is what we see now, but what we do not see (and most will not know) is how the FSB (and optionally the GRU) are working in India and Pakistan. It is clear that they are there, but the level of access and how deep they are rooted in those political climates is (as far as I know) unknown and speculating is useless. No matter how you slice and dice this, until there is some proper cleaning there will be a larger problem and it is not going away any day soon.

Enjoy the mid week that is about to come (I’m already there).

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September 15, 2023 · 06:58

Lining

That is the setting. You see, you might not be aware. You might merely see one negative article and dismiss it. That is fair enough, for the most I would have dismissed it too. Yet when you start using Google Search on topics like (for example) “Neom” the negativity list starts adding up and they all have something negative to say. 

A long time ago
So lets take a small sidestep towards the young days of your grandfather. It’s 1886 and plans are made for the world fair 1889. An architect named Gustave Eiffel ends up constructing the Eiffel Tower. It was met with ridicule, criticism and a fair amount of hatred. It is now the most recognised building in the world drawing almost 6 million visitors last year, and they all have to pay. The prices vary, but it amounts to about $75 per person. Do that 6 million times over. I reckon that that so called ugly building has earned its investment back a few dozen times over. 

So back to today and this time I am not using the media. This time I am relying on Popular Mechanics (at https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a44966174/saudi-arabia-line-city/) where we are given ‘Saudi Arabia Is Building an Entire City in a Straight Line. It Makes Zero Sense.’ I wonder why it makes zero sense. You see the start gives us “mathematicians broke down the numbers and calculated what the typical commutes in such a city would look like, discovering that it’d be better the built the city in a circle rather than a straight line” and there I am wonder for whom it would make sense to have a circle?

For the inhabitants of the Apple frisbee? For the Pentagon? Consider the life of most of us. We start at home (point A) and we go to work (point B) we travel from A to B to A and in between on that route we get our shopping done. A straight line makes perfect sense to some, not to all, but to some and the most important part in all of this. This has never been done before, just like the Eiffel Tower. I reckon that by 2050 any web satellite camera will have zoomed in on the line a thousand times a day, because as webcams and YouTube satisfies our needs now, a camera version of Starlink will most likely satisfy the curiosity of our grandchildren. 

The question
What I do not get is the massive amount of negativity around this. Neom and the line are two places that have never been done before and has never been contemplated in history. Neom might become the first megacity that writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra erected in the comic book Dredd in 1977. A city 22 times the size of New York and Saudi Arabia (not America) is making it a reality. And they are doing it all whilst they have the fastest and most complete 5G network on the planet. As such I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. I have to because in my young days I studied ships engineering, not civil engineering (long before my IT and law degrees). In California a circle makes sense, a circle surrounding a park, but Saudi Arabia has a very different eco system and it is a fir bit longer too. 

Then we are given “The city—stretching from the Red City to the city of Tabuk 110 miles away—along with its estimated 9 million inhabitants would be entirely car-less, and instead be tied together by a high-speed rail system that could travel from one end of The Line to the other in just 20 minutes.” Another thing pops up. America and Europe have entire micro economies based on cars and transportation, they would not exist in the Line. Then the train system. A 20 minute ride from end to end. Consider that this line is 170Km long. In the Netherlands that covers Groningen to Utrecht and it takes that train 2 hours to get there. 600% longer and OK, they stop a few times, and it isn’t high speed, but that is what there is and you cannot make high speed trains work there under those conditions. 

The one part we are missing is that the line is 500 metres high. As such the building is significantly higher than Central Park Tower (longer and wider too). It raises even more questions, questions I can merely grasp at, but the others are merely coming with negativity. I wonder why. What I like about it is that no one has ever done this before and here Saudi Arabia is leading the way. If they pull this off (and I hope they do), the west needs to take a long hard look at itself. We might see all the experts talking the BS they do, but when this is done we get to see the excuses, the blame game, the lack of insight and the media would be regarded as culprit number one. 

Popular mechanics also had a few good idea’s as they tend to do. They give us “Although the paper mostly focuses on the mathematical shortcomings of The Line’s design, it also brings up some good practical problems. If the city’s main train line malfunctions for any reason, for example, it could effectively cut off residents from millions of people—an idea that’s unthinkable in today’s modern metropolises.” And that matters how? I have two best friends. I haven’t seen them in decades as they live on another continent. I have video chat, phone and email to keep in touch. Beyond that my connections over the last two decades have been work and social events around me. I never had the need to meet up with millions and the train is a realistic idea, but things break and things get fixed. Perhaps the train line will have a spare line? Just a thought. In todays world people have become self isolating, it is a result of all kinds of reasons, perhaps the line will offer an alternative?

If there is my need for realism, it becomes the setting of the 500 metres height. There might be all kinds of reasons why it is that high, but on what levels will people be? And then the idea that this one line will house 9,000,000 people. The largest three cities are Tokyo, Delhi an Shanghai, still a fair bit larger than this line, but what area do they cover, what pollution do they create and how much of the ecological side are getting destroyed in the process? This is the consequence of old day thinking. As such the line is starting to make more sense, but it is also a place with more questions. I reckon time will take care of most of them, just like in the days of Gustave Eiffel. Evolution will take care of itself and when one is done the next will come and then one more and for now Neom, the line and Mukaab (which will be 400 by 400 by 400 metres). All in Saudi Arabia and all dwarfing most other architectural achievements. Three places clearly visible from space. So why the negativity? Perhaps the EU and US are realising that they are done for, but who instigated that part? Was it their lack of evidence (small 5G reference), their inability to create because they are now too broke to get anything done? You tell me, I am not sure of any of it. But no matter how these three are completed, it seems to me that Saudi Arabia has its focal point towards the future, all whilst America in true Excel style merely looks at the next quarter, a time frame that does not allow for projects that we are currently seeing in Saudi Arabia. 

There was one final thought that hit me at the end of all this. The article gives us “If its 9 million inhabitants are homogeneously distributed in the city, each kilometre will have roughly 53,000 people” from that point of view it is denser than Manilla, the most dense city in the world with 43,064 people per kilometre. You see, it isn’t the fact that Manilla isn’t the densest city, it is that these metrics would no longer matter because based on the EIU’s Global Liveability Index for 2023, Manila placed 136th among 173 cities. Then we get that the current metro area population of Delhi in 2023 is 32,941,000 almost 400% higher than the Line. Certain metrics would become obsolete and I reckon that there is every chance that a place like the Line would grace the top 10 of the EIU’s Global Liveability Index from the very start. Did anyone consider those metrics?

Enjoy the upcoming last workday of the week.

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September 13, 2023 · 01:19

The rivers Wept, Wimper and Whine

So this is a story with an edge and with a side that I am ill suited to respond to. Yet, when I saw the Guardian with ‘Megacities in the desert: the human cost of Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s bold new projects’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/11/egypt-saudi-arabia-megacity-human-cost) I just had to respond. You see, we might give weight to “In their rush to claim the future and concrete over the past, these vast rebrands are demolishing people’s homes and their heritage” but did anyone remember the people and the heritage demolished around London, around Paris, Im most of the United States, parts of Canada, massive parts of Australia and we could go on for a long time to come. How much consideration were they given? So now as Saudi Arabia is pushing borders in unimaginable directions, now we complain? Go whine me a river (pretty please).

And when we consider the amount of people who ‘lose’ a part in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which I am happy to consider is true. Let’s put them against lists of people in the UK, France and the United States, who had to give it up for progress. There is also a chance that Japan unsettled scores of people building through their industrial age, so that list might dwarf the events in Egypt and Saudi Arabia to almost nothing, almost I said. When you consider that NEOM and the Line are projects never undertaken ever before. When you consider that NEOM will be 22 times the size of New York, making it the biggest city on the planet. We need to consider that this has never been done before and it dwarves the achievements of the USA, Russia and china to several degrees. Yet, the Guardian gives us “Hussein Omar’s mother, as well as some eight generations of his family, are buried there, and he hoped one day to lie next to them. He tells me that for years his family has been in deadlock with the state over what rights they have to visit, but that has now escalated, as the graves themselves have come under threat of removal” As such one source gave me the 10 Cemeteries that were relocated to make way for human progress. So how much thought did the Guardian give for these events? How many in the UK, how many in France. You get the idea. And the fact that Saudi Arabia has 36 million souls (living), the UK has 68 million souls (sort of living) and in this case Saudi Arabia is (roughly) 782% larger. As such, how many people are really being ‘dislocated’ and how many were dislocated when the UK decided to put in the train tracks, the subways and we can go on a little while longer. The same could be said for France and a lot can be said against the US who made a whole lot of native Americans extinct in the name of progress. 

Progress has been the handle to use by many, as such it will be handled by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well. But who is giving us a clear top-line of numbers and areas as each nation is affected, yet we do not get that will we? It pushes the story of Hussein Omar and its writer Nesrine Malik in a different category. I am not stating that the story is wrong, or should not be given, but should we not get the real picture? Should we not get the real impact and optionally the amount of jobs created, the amount of economy served to better the setting for that nation? Just a question, feel free to give it a swing to your own liking. I am merely trying to keep it real, did I succeed?

Have a great day.

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July 26, 2023 · 14:41

Conscription Calamity

I heard of the notion, armies have had issues with getting meat for the grinder for as long as I remember. There were the crusades and the lords of the land beckoned with the option of wealth and the avoidance of utter poverty. And that was the feeding frenzy for those grinders. Almost 5 million people were lost over these numerous squabbles. From Accra to Jerusalem, millions were lost and the loss of people in those days implied that the shortage of manpower almost ensured the end of poverty and non-stop hunger. There was the Russian Revolution as well as WW1. By 2016 Russia was down 10 million souls and that was not the end of it all. WW1 took another 10 million souls (approximate losses both sides) and that was almost the end of it. There was of course WW2, there we have around 23 million military deaths and well over 50 million civilian losses. Yes, we have all made a mess of the setting. Yet all that fades to comparison to the Russian setting we see now. First I saw one article (see article three), then the article from the BBC giving us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66304522) ‘Russia expands pool of men eligible for call-up’, which gives us “Russia is raising the maximum age at which men can be conscripted from 27 to 30, making more of them liable to serve in the armed forces”, which was not in line with the first article, as such I looked what I saw earlier, I did not see it, but I got the Express (at https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1794927/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-conscription) giving us ‘Panicked Vladimir Putin rushes through new law allowing Russia to conscript pensioners’ with the added text (the one I saw earlier) “Vladimir Putin has ushered in new legislation which will enable him to conscript men over the age of 60 in an apparent bid to shore up his armed forces 18 months after his invasion of Ukraine.” As such, even the pensioners aren’t safe anymore. How desperate do you need to be to take such precautions? Consider that Russia has a population of well over 134 million, I reckon that 25% is of an eligible nature, which is well over 30 million and they have to resort to pensioners? The math is wrong on a few levels. I showed you all how 4 settings of the Russian Army has failed them (Artillery, Logistics, Supplies and Medic) and now we are given that the army themselves is falling apart. This has got to be the biggest defeat and humiliation of Vladimir Putin. When we look at the history of war (Crusades, Russian Revolution, WW1 and WW2) we never saw a failing of this degree and it is seemingly getting worse. The strongest part of them is a group of mercenaries (the Wagner group) that must feel downright wrong to the Kremlin. A place where they were vying for supremacy with America and they cannot hold up against the 20th strongest army on the planet (aka the Ukrainian army). And that is all whilst the Ukrainian army is depending on other sources for supplies. 

A clambake fest that should have been over in a week and so far the Ukrainians are holding out for well over 510 days and I reckon they aren’t done yet. There will be payback for all the intentional bombing of civilian targets, not sure how, but Russia might face a much tougher setting than the Germans did in the treaty of Versailles. On 28 June 1919 it was said that these reparations was assessed at 132 billion gold marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US$442 billion or UK£284 billion in 2023). I reckon that this amount will by higher by 200%-300%, this implies that all the oligarchs need to hide whatever they had, because global organisations will come for them and when they do organisations like the Dutch Heineken company (who apparently are still doing business in Russia) and numerous American and European companies will be a similar state. It will be a mess that will not stop any day soon. Those who were pro-Russian will hide behind miscommunications and they have the option to run for their lives to Russia or become the centre-point of ridicule both them and their children alike. The Dutch have some experience with their NSB people in 1945. I reckon this might be worse. The French had the Vichy France collaborators. Neither ended well, the Dutch collaborator Pieter Menten got off (after 8 months) in 1945, but the setting changed in 1976. He fled to Switzerland but was arrested soon thereafter. He died with dementia, he never escaped his fate. I wonder what will happen to certain Dutch pro-Russian people like Thierry Baudet and Wierd Duk? I have absolutely no idea, but they banked on the wrong player and there will be consequences there too. That is all in addition to the Americans supporting and going soft on pro-Russian players. And in all this the Russian army is now relying on pensioners and setting them up against Ukrainian fighters who are by now all veterans. They pretty much made short work of the Wagner group. As such I do not give the Russian pensioners much of a chance. Meat for the grinders and the Russian grinders are low on meat a setting where 5 out of 5 of the land forces are failing. That has not been the case since before the Crusades. In that meantime defence forces had Sun Tzu (the Art of war) as well as Carl von Clausewitz (On War) these two books had basic information that Russia could have used to avoid the setting that they are in now. The weird part is that Amazon dot com offers both books for a total that is less than $50. So when you look at the list of losses, how stupid was the Russian setting to begin with?

I will let you decide, the middle of the week has begun, the stroll towards the weekend is now in effect.

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July 21, 2023 · 19:21

The writing is on the floor

Yes, it is the case here, never mind what the walls say. I have made mention of this again and again. The US had a piss poor approach to their innovation lack. First they tried to make Huawei their bitch and accuse Huawei of all sorts of things, whilst setting a backstabbing approach to remove Huawei from revenue streams. They did this in the worst possible way and they did it without any corroborating evidence. Then we get the setting that the media is painting China as the big evil. Yet America is not held to any standards. This is an issue for me and for most people relying on evidence. As such the article ‘Xi Jinping meets Henry Kissinger as US seeks to defrost China ties’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-66106076) comes over as hollow. In this the BBC has its own share of issues here too. As such when we see ‘US needs Kissinger’s diplomatic wisdom’ I would state “How about some simple wisdom?” Today Al Jazeera gives us ‘Australia blocks acquisition of lithium mine by China-linked firm’. I am not commenting on the events because I know too little, yet it is again some event involving China. Now, there might be all kinds of circumstances that could show it to be a valid block, but the fact that this started in January implies that a block this late has other attached reasons too. The issue is that the media is adhering to the US needs to paint China negatively in many ways and there is only s much you can get away with. At present Huawei is rocking the telecom industry all over Asia, the Middle East and soon enough Africa and Europe too. That will increase and accelerate with the release of 5.5G years ahead of Nokia and others, as such China, Asia and the Middle East are about to get a huge advantage. I reckon that the United Arab Emirates are about to become a larger technology hub in the Middle East and this one will stretch wherever the STC (Saudi Telecommunication Company) reaches. I reckon that before the end of 2025 it will connect Asia, the Middle East, parts of Africa and southern Europe making it pretty much the largest telecom company around. That was what I tried to warn you all for, it opens up all kinds of doors and with the release of 5.5G, my IP now has a shining new setting. One that the US and EU cannot match. They do not have the IP, they have shown consistent cluelessness and even Google and Amazon could fall short here. So what do you think all that will cost these players in revenue? So when I see ‘US seeks to defrost China ties’ I merely laugh. This was a joke and a mistake that was years in the making, now that the events are coming to a close (as the Conversation gives us) with ‘China is playing the long game in the Pacific. Here’s why its efforts are beginning to pay off’ (at https://theconversation.com/china-is-playing-the-long-game-in-the-pacific-heres-why-its-efforts-are-beginning-to-pay-off-209960) where we are given “Other appointments suggest China is appointing higher-calibre diplomats to the region. These include Li Ming, the current ambassador to the Solomon Islands, and Xue Bing, the former ambassador to Papua New Guinea who now holds the challenging post of special envoy to the Horn of Africa. With experience in the region and good language skills, these diplomats have been more able to engage with Pacific communities than their predecessors, who largely focused on sending good news back to Beijing. More serious representatives suggest more serious intent.” A setting I never saw (because I was looking elsewhere) and when you add this all up it becomes a much larger issue (especially for America). There are unconfirmed rumours that Saudi Arabia will join BRICS in August. There is every chance that the UAE will either join at the same time or shortly after. Now with China and Saudi Arabia (STC) having a united telecom front with 5.5G years ahead of all the other players, the setting for global telecom will shine well before the end of 2023. I made mention that I had found something in the last two days and here it is. It is not merely what they are doing. Players like Amazon and Google have the option to create service centres in the UAE (Dubai or Abu Dhabi) most likely and ride that tidal wave, or whomever gets there first will have the option to take market share away from these two players. Huawei is ready to start there, but they cannot do it alone, the waves will be too high. Google is already there (I checked), but unless they get the infrastructure ready others will pass them by left and right and there is the option for billions. Whomever is there first will be able to set the score, not adhere to it and that setting will go from Shanghai in the east to Croatia in the west all whilst these networks will include China, Bangla Dash, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, from there it all goes into Europe via TAWAL. A setting no telecom company has had to THAT degree and what do we get from Washington? ‘US seeks to defrost China ties’ I think it is a bit late or that and it is about to get worse, especially if the 5.5G is launched in Q4. Those ready to upgrade will show the rest what a massive lag in streaming technology looks like. It is like watching Wall Street people deal in stocks whilst having a system that is 3-4 milliseconds slower than the other system and it takes less than 50 trades to see a decent profit be reduced to a massive loss. I haven’t even taken the lack of labour force in the US at present, which makes their $42 billion overhaul plan an Edsel to say the least. All this was visible several days ago, but go right ahead, consider that China will defrost, they have been playing the long game and now that will turn into a near total victory. The setting I never clearly looked at was the pacific region, I saw the plans for Indonesia, but not the other parts and these are all about to come into focus. As I see it, by late 2024 Germany will chose solutions for their services and Huawei will have them, others do not. The moment that happens (I made mention of that before) France will adhere to the need of economic stability and that is where the EU either overturns the US directive, or be made (close to) obsolete. And all that happens whilst Tencent Technologies is about to launch a few products as well. My IP is in a different direction and I was (sort of) testing that premise beyond the Dubai Mall. I equally looked at the settings for the Mall of the Emirates, Nakheel Mall, tourist settings as well as the Real Estate setting which was a $20 billion market in the UAE (I did not initially know that), so I looked at my Canadian ‘solution’ to the UAE, and now we are vying for the big bucks (I am allowed to dream, am I not). Whatever YOU think, these elements are out in the open and some of them were out in the open since the first Covid lockdown (2020), so players like Amazon, Apple and Google had 3 years to wake up, as far as I can tell they never did.

So the writing was on the floor (the walls too) and these players were all watching the sky to see how their revenue streams were set up and doing. The media was full of it and with the shortage of people and pretty much dumping thousands of people, they had to look at the Middle East and see if these people would be willing to move to a new shore and that is where others will soon have a larger advantage. That I how I personally see it. 

You make your own conclusions, but take the time to go through all the sources, too many media is playing a catering game and they are not serving food. The day before the weekend is underway, enjoy it.

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July 20, 2023 · 20:19

Freedom to discriminate

This is how I see it. Lets be clear, I am all for freedom of speech, but I do believe that there needs to be a level of accountability. This applies to every path of expression. Some believe that there is an innate need to speak the truth that you personally believe. I personally believe that Microsoft is beyond redemption, but I will speak truthful on the matter, also when they have scored a victory that they were entitled too, I will make mention of it. I did so in the past. Xbox is now personally seen as garbage, but Game Pass remains a treasure. People do good things and we do shady things, sometimes we do bad things. This is not always with intent, but it is driven by our believes. I grew up believing in the freedom of speech.Yet that freedom needs to be held towards accountability. As such I am massively in disapproval of book burning. I also think it is a waste of time. It is like these Karen’s in America protesting Bud-light, buying ten 6 packs and after that destroying them without drinking them. A pointless exercise, but that is up to these people. Burning a bible or Quran is another matter. As a christian I do not think that burning a Bible is sacrilege, but I know doing that to a Quran is. So I will never do that. You see past the point that buying a book just to burn it is a waste of funds, there is the setting that burning a Quran upsets any Muslim. Why do this? So I saw the BBC giving me ‘Protesters set fire to Swedish embassy in Baghdad’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-66252974). There two things stood out. The person who did the act was an Iraqi refugee. Yet this is the the biggest part in all this. It as the sentence “the country’s courts ruled the protests should be allowed to go ahead, citing free speech laws.” There I have an issue. First who are the people involved in setting this court case? Who were the lawyers? Who was the judge? All matters that are not discussed. One source gave me “Following appeals from both protest organisers, the Stockholm Administrative Court overturned the decisions, saying the cited security concerns were not enough to limit the right to demonstrate.” So exactly who were these protest organisers? Rasmus Paludan is seemingly one of the protesters, but who is the other one? There is also the new setting that this is the case that allows for discrimination. Free speech warrants discrimination, it is one of the most dangerous of all settings. Not in the first for Sweden who will see more and more objections to its membership into NATO and that might have been the reason for Rasmus Paludan acting the way he is. And when that happens and there is a problem with Russia, make sure that Rasmus is kept in captivity IN Sweden, so he could experience the accidental bombing (if it ever gets to that point). 

My issues is that we have forgotten to respect the believe of others, a setting that could work out well for me, but not that much for Sweden and a few other players. Reading “Swedish politicians have criticised the Quran burnings but have also adamantly defended the right to freedom of expression” reads to me like that same politician stating that these are very naughty people, the same people beating his (or her) child to death with a stick stating the freedom of speech of the tree that was cut down resulting in the stick. Yes, it does not make sense, but free speech to endorse discrimination never ever does. I personally believe that this will get a lot worse soon enough, how? That I anyones guess, yet the population of Swedish Muslims is at present 8.1%, as such a reaction will come forth and it will not merely be Turkey objecting to Swedish entering NATO. This is the consequence of sheltering discrimination under the roof of freedom of speech. Will other nations face the same issues? In France it is a different matter “It is difficult to know exactly how many Muslims of different nationalities live in France because the state does not collect religious or ethnic census data”, some estimation hand that in France 4% is Muslim, with a 67 million population that becomes a rather large number. In the UK this is 4.4%, as such we better start reconsidering the freedom of discrimination, because when these two groups get angry (and they will) thee two nations will be in serious trouble, both economies will grind to a halt when they cannot afford even one Euro to economic downturns. Germany has even more problems, there the Islamic population is expected to be around 7%, but no clear numbers were found by me. The three largest economies in Europe and they want to play footsie with idiotic christians like Rasmus Paludan and whatever national pitchfork wielding idiot they have as an anti-Islam champion? As I see it, it represents a new form of Hook and Cod wars, a war the Netherlands had between classes. The cods (conservative nobles) won, but the one element that is too often ignored is the fact that this was active for 140 years (1350-1490). Now consider the impact of a religious class war all over Europe that lasts for that long. What do you think will be left of Europe after that? There was a reason why people were speaking out against discrimination. The principle of that matter was not the largest one, it was greed and when that greed is drowned in these kinds of outbursts the people (all of them) tend to end up with the short straw. This is why I voted in favour of expelling that refugee back to Iraq (see what happens there) and putting Rasmus Paludan in Halden Prison and forget he ever existed after that. You see everyone is ‘relieved’ that Turkey is no longer stopping Sweden from entering NATO, but that does not make it a done deal yet. I reckon that several complications could possibly erupt and that would extent the timeline by months, of not well over a year. Still this last part is not based on any evidence I have and should be regarded as speculation. Still, Sweden’s place in the Middle East and parts of Africa will not be a good one for some time to come and it better realises that it needs both these places to make economic headway of any kind. 

In this I could be wrong, I have been wrong before.

Enjoy the day.

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July 8, 2023 · 19:05

The pot saw the black kettle

Yup, we all see that at times. We see the good, the bad and the opposite. And as such the media is all about giving us a partial story. Still this is not always on them, I get that. So when I saw Reuters giving us ‘Yellen criticises China’s ‘punitive’ actions against US companies, urges market reforms’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/yellen-urges-china-adopt-market-reforms-insists-us-not-decoupling-2023-07-07/) my very first thought was “Is she for real?” 

Thi is a setting that started years ago with the US riling up support AGAINST Huawei. We saw the dozen countries all going against Huawei. The larger station is not that they went up against Huawei, the bigger part is that NONE OF THEM ever gave us ANY evidence that Huawei was a security risk. This is not me being pro Huawei or being pro China. This is me being pro evidence and we were never given any evidence. One case (that was settled) in 2010 is all we got and all the stories were laced with ‘could/‘ and ‘might be’. Cisco was the same danger but no one spoke out, not even when Cisco had its set of security issues. These things happen. Yet the US is still operating its set of systems. There is GARLICK, LADYLOVE, MOONPENNY, JACKKNIFE, TIMBERLINE, STELLAR, IRONSAND and that list goes on for a while. Yet China is the big evil and no evidence is clearly presented. 

So now we get “U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on Friday for market reforms in China and criticised its recent tough actions against U.S. companies and mineral export controls, while China’s premier called on her to “meet China halfway” and put bilateral relations back on track.” I t3end to say, either stop the anti-Huawei stages or present actual and FACTUAL evidence that Huawei is a national security issue. There is close to nothing else. And as for the ‘mineral export controls’, well there might be a reason China needs them, there is also the case that stopping Huawei without evidence comes at a price and it seems that the mineral export is part of that price. So whilst the world is seeking for gallium and germanium (the second one is not found in Germany) the US needs to realise that their stance as a bully comes at a price and now that these prices are set in the open, the US doesn’t get to say “meet China halfway”. It intentionally destroyed the Huawei 5G wave because Americans were too stupid to take the lead in 5G technology and counter what was out there. Even I have 5G IP that the US (and others) do not have. All because the fat cats were lazy in an age when China became a true innovator. As such, as we are told “a technology war with the United States and potentially causing more disruption to global supply chains” the setting is not incorrect but not complete. You see these two substances are decently rare and China has the largest load. The US cannot claim the amounts from Japan or the UK (Or France, or the EU) as such they are in a bind and this is what comes with the bully tactic we have seen these last 5 years. Gallum is a different story. I have no precise numbers, but China is not the largest exporter, it apparently is Brazil with the US in second place. But I reckon that the two together will set a larger station and yes it comes from China. So as we consider “Yellen met with Premier Li Qiang on Friday during a visit to Beijing aimed at repairing fractious U.S.-Chinese economic relations, but made clear in her public remarks that Washington and its Western allies will continue to hit back at what she called China’s “unfair economic practices.”” As unfair economic practices go, 11 years ago we were given “A 2012 White House-ordered security review found no evidence that Huawei spied for China and said instead that security vulnerabilities on its products posed a greater threat to its users. The details of the leaked review came a week after a US House Intelligence Committee report which warned against letting Huawei supply critical telecommunications infrastructure in the United States.” I reckon that with leaked their own stables are in order? In addition to that, the stage is escalating and now we see that as shortages of Gallum and Germanium imply that there is a danger to US National security, with their stockpiles having no reserves left. As such I have a two set mind. Janet Yellen as the champion for bullies should not talk about “market reforms”. On the other hand, I am not claiming that China is innocent. I want to see evidence that they are not and so far going back at least 5 years, the US and the EU NEVER presented this. This is the station we face and as I personally see it Janet Yellen is the new US version of Don Quichotte and China is the next windmill. And as I see it, the stage that STC and Saudi Arabia is embarking on, the shortage that the US faces in Germanium and Gallum implies that the lag that the US faces will close to exponentially increase during late 2024. This is a setting that was to some unexpected, but the Reuters article gives us a list of people and they are all monitoring the supply. This implies to me that the setting is not as good as some make it out to be and it sets a different stage for the UK and France. As the US shortages increase it will stage a takeover of these suppliers by the US a lot stronger and faster than anyone had foreseen. This is (as I personally reckon)  a station of close to exponential danger to these nations. It might be the reason why Janet Yellen was send and not some one form the US State department. Did no one consider that question? Why was Janet Yellen send? It is pure speculation on my side, but I reckon that Premier Li Qiang is having a great time. It might be the first time he is talking from a position of great strength, but I could be wrong here.

What a weird weekend this is, enjoy yours.

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July 3, 2023 · 06:16

The change of stages

That is what my mind is wondering about. You see we are given one thing, but is that thing correct? In this day and age where the media is less and less trusted, we are in a stage of alteration. We are seeing one thing and we are wondering another. For this I look at the BBC (one of many) and we are given (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-66073728) ‘Macron to meet with top ministers amid fears of further unrest’ which is now coming after days of unrest, massive parts of France reduced to war zones. We are given “The page claims the officer “has done his job and is now paying a high price”” with emphases on the word ‘claims’ we are also given “They say they wanted people to participate in a peaceful march, to remember Nahel, but did not want people to become violent.” We see many clips on YouTube, many from news agencies (example at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqOL9VSoOXE) but the overwhelming questions that matter are missing.

ABC gives us a little more but not much more, they do give us “Tuesday’s killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023, down from a record 13 last year, a spokesperson for the national police said.” This is an important number (I won’t call this a statistic). 13 people got fatally shot in 2022, now in 2023 the number stands at 3. So if it rises to 6 as a 2023 total, it still implies a 50% reduction in fatal shootings, which is pretty impressive. You see, what we do not see is what started this. Why exactly did the police officer grab his gun and shoot? No one has a clear report on that and overall the reaction is immensely out of proportions, but they did have time to print the T-shirts and offer them for sale, yes commerce also works in France. There is little information on the officer and why things escalated into a shooting. Isn’t that interesting that the cause of all this is not given to us, or at least missing in too many reports?

For me it is a different stage. I think that this is the impact of delusion on national scales and not just France. The reality that jobs are faltering, that polarisation is coming to every nation. In America we see MAGA and Karen’s, now we see this in France and I reckon that Italy, Germany and Spain will have their own problems soon enough. Well, Germany perhaps less. Yet I do believe that socialised systems are up for grabs and the youth is acting out in anger, frustration and rage. I personally see this as the failing of tax systems against big corporations. Corporations who reset tax systems to allow for legalised slave labour wherever they can find it and the youth is angry. It is about to get worse and also in more places. 

These are the two settings that are pushing for more revolt and many of it is non peaceful. We see the ‘just stop oil’ losers disrupting London Pride march and we need to learn that all these things are somehow connected. Some people are very willing to upset certain settings, the people behind the curtains are setting more and more revolt settings and I personally believe that the French sitting is an example. Consider that a person in Paris is shot, we do not get to see the ACTUAL stage where people ask the police how did this happen. I get it things escalate and can escalate in a nasty way. But Nahel was 17, I have no idea what escalated this. Yet in all this I refuse to believe that some policeman grabbed his gun and merely blew him away out of spite. Even then the reaction that goes on all the way to Marseille is completely out of proportions, something is escalating this. For London I had the solution. Merely reduce their storage by 500,000 barrels of oil per day less and soon the price of petrol goes from 175.9p per litre to 325.9p per litre. That should wake the people up and there is no resetting that for as long as the Just stop oil movement is still in existence. France has its own demons and it requires a different handle, but someone (or something) is pushing this agenda and until people realise that they are being used, that their anger is invoked for other reasons this will not end and it will get worse. 

It isn’t that these things happen, they will always happen, but here the media is falling short. I looked to several newspapers and not one gave me a clear recollection on how this started. How EXACTLY did Nahel get shot? ABC gives me “The teen failed to comply with an order to stop his car, to which the officer fired his gun.” So, in short a teenager refused a directive from the police and it cost him his life. Does it matter that this was a traffic violation? We see all these TV series where people carjack, speed and more things ignoring the police because it looks like fun and now they see the impact, you can get yourself killed this way. This is GTA5 with a hardcore mode, you get one life and how far will you get in that game? Interesting isn’t it? No cheating and merely one life. How far will you get? Did you consider that option? It is the way I used to play Diablo 3. One life is all you get and I did it for every character class (it took a lot longer for me as a barbarian to get to the end). 

I am not loosely comparing France to a game. Something is pushing this and it isn’t simple anger it is the driving force but not the directing force. I think France needs to investigate who is pushing these people, because what I learned in France in the 80’s, to see someone in Marseille giving a damn about a Parisian is new to me, but here we see (source: BBC) giving us “There were fewer arrests compared to previous nights – 719 – with the worst clashes in the southern city Marseille.” This (and other data) made me wonder who (or what) is pushing this. This is seemingly not (or never was) about Nahel. Yet that is my personal take on the matter and I agree that I might be wrong. Yet consider the reaction to one fatality, a fatality caused by someone refusing to stop. Yes I agree that it seems like an overreaction, but I never saw the exact setting that caused this and the media is not focussing on this, or focussing on this much too little. I will let you decide on that matter. 

Enjoy the day, Monday is about to start.

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June 18, 2023 · 04:15

More Crypto shit

Yup, it is all about the digital manure as some would say. This all started last night when the BBC  gave me (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65935263) ‘Binance exits Netherlands and faces France probe’. This sounded strange because exiting one nation in the EU sounds pointless to me, so what was going on? The article gives us “It follows the announcement of the company’s departure from the Netherlands after it failed to obtain a licence from the Dutch central bank.” OK, no biggie. It was “In a statement Binance confirmed French authorities visited its offices last week and will comply accordingly. “We had an on-site visit last week by the relevant authorities. Binance, as always, was fully collaborative and we met our obligations accordingly. We continue to work closely with regulators and law enforcement agencies on all ongoing compliance requirements to uphold high standards,” a company spokesperson said.” Still, not an issue (at present) but the BBC article had me piqued, as such I started to make a search for Binance and the issues started to rise. In order of timeline, I got (at https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/16/binance-france-chief-brushed-off-concerns-days-before-police-visit.html) an article by CNBC, where we see ‘Binance France chief brushed off concerns days before police visit’, which sounds like a nice party-line, but I am not buying it. You see “the crypto exchange’s top French executive dismissed concerns about U.S. regulatory charges affecting Binance’s other operations, comparing them with the flapping of a butterfly’s wings.” Is that so? You see yesterday’s news was not wholly interesting, yet only hours ago (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/06/17/binance-escapes-asset-freeze-in-exchange-for-a-raft-of-restrictions/) we see ‘Binance Escapes Asset Freeze In Exchange For A Raft Of Restrictions’ with the added text “The U.S. subsidiary of cryptocurrency exchange Binance has avoided an asset freeze that would have made it impossible to do business, but it has agreed to burdensome terms to keep operating during a civil case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission that charged the company with evading “critical regulatory oversight.”” We now have a party. So where is that Hudie flapping? If they are referring to the SEC, it is not a butterfly, but a dragonfly hungry for substance. And lets be clear, all these accusations do not make for an issue. The SEC accuses people all the time (more often than not justified), it is the combination of the Dutch, the French and the American SEC that gives light to something going on. You see, we can make assumptions and I would too. It is “Given that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have control of the platforms’ customers’ assets and have been able to commingle customer assets or divert customer assets as they please, as we have alleged, these prohibitions are essential to protecting investor assets.” That sounds familiar. It gets too close to Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX. As such was there an issue, or was the SEC scared it had another issue potentially coming up? I cannot tell as I do not have all the numbers and data, but I was surprised that I saw in seconds hat none of the media seemed to have. Even with all the speculations, no one seems to be on that horse. I might be all wrong, but there is too much in common to ignore it. Even if it is only to follow through and find that this was NOT the case. That is what I would have done and no Fox with their wannabe dictator statements comes anywhere close to this. So what gives?

Well, the Federal case against Sam Bankman-Fried with “Federal prosecutors in New York said they would drop several criminal charges, at least for now, against disgraced crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried if the judge agrees to try him later on those charges.” (Source: ABC) is losing momentum, as such they aren’t willing to fail twice in a row, it makes them look bad. 

Yet is that the case? It is from my point of view and I am not disagreeing with CNBC who gives us “Prinçay insisted Binance’s US assets were separated from the international exchange, an assertion also made by the exchange’s legal team. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged Binance last week with 13 securities charges, disagrees, arguing that Binance user funds are at “significant risk” of flight due to founder Changpeng Zhao’s alleged ownership of an interlocking set of Binance-related companies.” But there are cogs within cogs and as I do not comprehend the machine, I will give different values to some cogs of that machine. The fact that the media isn’t looking too hard gives me the idea that they do not comprehend that machine either. So is there an issue with Binance? I think there is, but I cannot tell whether anything illegal or any criminal issues are actually in play, that matters as we are nations of laws and the law sets out what is to be and what is not to be done. 

The issue becomes larger when you consider Forbes giving us “In a June 6 motion asking the federal court for the District of Columbia to freeze the American subsidiary’s funds, the SEC said it was seeking to ensure the safety of customer assets at the U.S. operations given the companies’ “years of violative conduct, disregard of the laws of the United States, evasion of regulatory oversight, and open questions about various financial transfers and the custody and control of Customer Assets.”” And this is where the party (which I mentioned) started. You see the CNBC article is less than 24 hours old and Forbes mentions events from June 6th, that means that CNBC should have been on the ball and they apparently are not. In addition we see ‘years of violative conduct’ which is a BS argument. If there were violation it becomes criminal and they should not be in business at all, if not it is posturing which goes nowhere opting a movement from Binance to seek compensation for lost business, all in all some parties are not aware what the hell is going on (including me). I understand and accept that the SEC does not do things lightly, but is that because the US is broke? Or is that because they do not have a firm grip on the Crypto laws and settings on what is valid (read: legally allowed)? Your guess is as good as mine. What mattered to me is that the Dutch Central Bank refused licences and that counts, it implies that whatever Binance is doing is not all on the up and up (my speculated view) and the French visits are supporting that. Yet the media should have ben on top of this since June 6th and some were, but the rest were not. They are too busy calling an elected president a wannabe dictator. This is what the media has come to. For whose benefit? You tell me.

I will keep a lookout on this, just as I am on that FTX Bankman-Fired person, who is now facing two court cases. So, what’s next? Well, I will snore deep into the final part of the weekend, tht’s is how I roll this weekend.

Enjoy.

 

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June 5, 2023 · 21:12

Slam-dunk for the blogger

Yup, I got to call the slam-dunk in my name, on my name and for my name. Now, I am no basketball fan, not when there is the NHL. But I have to give it to the NBA, that term they got right. So this all happened in the morning as I was pondering what was next on the table. Then the BBC gave me the heads up (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65804768) with the ominous ‘Oil prices rise as Saudi Arabia pledges output cuts’. I had made mention of this danger a few times over the last month alone and now we get “Oil prices have risen after Saudi Arabia said it would make cuts of a million barrels per day (bpd) in July” and remember it is only a million barrels a day, my scenario was a little less nice. This is the exact danger that I predicted and now that it is going to pass, I wonder what the trolls will shout at me. I made mention yesterday that oil prices would be on the calendar of Blinky Tony (Anthony Blinken) and now it actually is there and it will be a rather not so nice meeting coming up, I reckon that Iran is no longer the main focus. This and the stage of BRICS implies that hard times are ahead for the US and I reckon to some extent the EU too. Because now the US is driven to make the million less be a larger setting for the EU than for the US. A stage well predicted and now it is coming to pass. 

It is Sameer Hashmi, the BBC Middle East business correspondent who gives us “it was widely expected the oil cartel would make production cuts to prop up prices. It appears most members were against the idea, as any cuts would impact oil revenues, which are crucial to keep running their economies.” He is not wrong, but the oversimplified setting is that they are going from 4 barrels at $3, to three barrels at $4. They all still get their $12 (and then some), but the larger stage  comes into play when the equation turns towards 2 barrels for $6, they will still get the same, but now their supplies will last twice as long. The larger problem for the US is that they get 50% for the same price and they still haven’t considered muzzling Brent Oil, those people export over 80% and now something will have to give and that is the stage we are coning to now. So when the UK and EU start feeling the pain of less oil there economy will impact to a much larger extent and as the Just Stop Oil people start shouting victory, the impact of people who cannot pay for heating bills, tradies that can no longer work because their prices need to keep going up, the setting of losses all over rural nations (UK, Germany, Italy and France the most) will be seeing much larger impacts. A stage that was clearly out there. The clearest recent mention I made was on April 13th (almost 2 months ago) at ‘The song remains the same’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/04/13/the-song-remains-the-same/) it was clear that reductions were in the focal point of OPEC members and in this Russia is merely sitting back, for them it works out nicely. But the larger stages of economy are not set to the drawback of oil lacks, no scenario was set to that and that is the largest political failure in the west. In this the one solution they had with Elon Musk is now slipping from their fingers. So not only did the US bite both hands that could be feeding them, whatever comes next might not be in time for the next debt ceiling, implying that default is the only thing that Americans have to look forward to. 

So in the end one player wins, the other player loses, but I get my slam-dunk. Is it fair? That is not the question, I saw this and I predicted this, so why did these high paid politicians not see this? It wasn’t rocket science (well perhaps the Musk solution was). And as options run short the west needs to rethink the political egotistical needs they had and how they will sail with a lack of vision. All that and more hardships will be coming soon and they did this all to themselves and that setting was clear long before Trump took office. A setting of cogs and the first cog will not care what the second and third cog faces. That is the oversimplified truth of the matter, so whilst we watch the news this month, also look at how much enough the people have with the ‘Just stop oil’ movement. As I personally see it, the UK got directly hurt by them and the CAAT all on moral grounds that were massively one sided and based on a fake moral high ground. So remember them when your pump price goes from 189.9p to 293.4p. Don’t blame the pump owner, blame the people who made this happen. 

Enjoy the day (consider a bicycle).

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