Tag Archives: France

February 27, 2023 · 05:35

On the subject of failure

Yes, it is a subject that we all face and no one (including me) is happy about it. We all face it in one form or another. I saw an event that could play out later this year, somewhere optionally between July and September and I was not happy on how I showed myself. How I responded, no matter how honest I was, at that moment, I saw something I never felt happy about, but no matter how valid the response was, it does not mean that I am happy that I responded in that way. It was not about finding another way to say it, it merely went on about something that does not matter now. It applies to some degree to what this is about, because it made me check news sources and in this I decided on the article (at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-director-bill-burns-china-russia-lethal-aid/). The CBS News article gives us ‘CIA confirms possibility of Chinese lethal aid to Russia’ and when I read it, I saw something different, it was not related to the earlier part, but it changed the way I looked at that news. We are given “In an exclusive interview with CBS News, CIA Director Bill Burns confirmed the possibility that China may send lethal aid to Russia in its war against Ukraine. “We’re confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment,” Burns told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan on Friday.” We are also given “I think the Chinese are also trying to weigh the consequences of, you know, what the concerns we’ve expressed are, you know, about providing lethal equipment”, this comes from CIA Director William Burn and that is fine. I am not debating that part, but when you consider what is behind it, it is a different stage. You see Russia is close the broke on a few levels and the only way that Russia can pay for this (as China would prefer it) is via massively reduced oil. Oil China needs and Russia cannot sell it to their former largest buyers. Yet behind all this is more. The logistics of the Russian armed forces are a mess. Their soldiers are ineffective, their hardware is failing on many levels and their supply systems are (from my point of view) broken in many ways. Russia has a problem. It needs drones, it needs missiles and it needs hardware that soldiers can use, Russia is falling short on several fronts and it is losing against the 21st largest army in the world. We all have seen Ukrainian achievement reports in several languages on several sources and they seemingly align. Russia could mobilise its armies, but the hardware issues remain and that could push the Russian armed forces in a direction it does not want to go, not in this stage. To give some slight reference. Russia lost more people in this war in one year than the UK and France combined lost in WW2 over the entirety of the war. In one year lost more soldiers than the UK and France lost over the entire world war, they are doing THAT bad. So now they need upgrades in hardware and that is what Russia is seemingly angling for. But I reckon that China is only considering a limited list and the payments are due in oil and upfront. Which would give them millions of barrels in extra oil, oil they need and I reckon they will get it for an apple and an egg. 

But when you think this through we could optionally deduce a lot more. You see that oil can then not be used to heat Russian houses, fuel power and fuel mobility. In addition it would be a first direct proof that the Russian Army has no place to go, or at least not operational. If it was merely missiles the issue would be small (except for the Ukraine), I am speculating that it is about a lot more, even if we accept that Russia is sending troops with 40 year old ammunition. 

The fact that they cannot do this with a renewed offensive is up on the wall and now we see how deployment and supply lines are on the front issues. If they cannot get supplies they will need to acquire them and China is nearly the only option and that is merely the beginning of the issue. Thee news has shown enough issues with soldiers personal gear and debatable mobile hardware (tanks and other things requiring wheels). This is not the stage of some new tanks, this is about the refurbished T-72 tanks that are almost 50 years old, implying that whatever anti tank comes their way will slice through their armour like a hot knife through butter and that is if the refurbishments were properly done, which in light of several issues is now a matter for debate. If Russia stages this war with its regular armies (if they can find them) Those armies will be ill equipped and ill prepared. A lesson France learned in 1812 the hard way and now Russia gets to learn that very same lesson. But is it all true? I am speculating, but I believe that I am in a stage of presumption because I do know how in parts this field is set. And the lesson is not over, not for the Russians and not for me either. Because there are many debates on what was real, I need to wonder how reliable the information I have is. I believe that I made enough sidesteps to alternate sources of information so that I believe that I am on the right track, but that too is not properly vetted information, so there could be gaps. Yet overall the news is still valid. If Russia needs China it means that they were never ready for any real combat and they were never prepared with the hardware they had, or they wouldn’t need China’s hardware. It could be a Russian ploy, but I do not think so, if that was the case the CIA would have come with a very different presentation, of that I am very certain.

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February 11, 2023 · 19:17

History, repetition mode

This is a little harder to write about. It actually started in 2017 when I wrote ‘The finality of French freedom’, the story (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/) makes a few accusations as I personally saw them. We got some kind of a warped excuse towards ‘we made a mistake’ a year later, but I reported it as I saw it, fear mongering by the IMF. Yes, all those people filling their pockets on the Credit Card of the United Kingdom were missing out on exquisite lunches. This was (as I personally saw it) starting to happen again on February 1st when I wrote ‘Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers (IMF)’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/02/01/insecure-masturbation-fraternisers-imf/), there we were given via the BBC (no allegations towards them), that the ‘UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023’, ‘expected’ and ‘major’ being key elements there. Now we see “53% of business leaders in France said they expect a recession in 2023”, it is important to note that this does not make that true. All this whilst Reuters reports ‘Meloni: Italy could be in recession in 2023, faces tough times’, here too we see ‘could’ and that is important, but that gives us that there is a case that the IMF is nothing more than a stupid political tool, fear mongering yet again. So we return to the January 31st BBC story where we see “The IMF said the economy will contract by 0.6% in 2023, rather than grow slightly as previously predicted”, now it is time to look at the story now 17 hours old. Here we see (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64584295) ‘UK economy avoids recession but not out of woods – Hunt’, where we are given “the ONS revised up its figures for the July to September quarter, to show that the economy shrank by 0.2% instead of the previous estimate of a 0.3% fall”, as well as “some think the UK will avoid a technical recession completely”, as such I also admit that what some admit does not constitute evidence. Yet the fact that the IMF (yet again) makes an error of 0.6% which amounts to almost 23 billion. It is hard to put a number on anything and the flaw seems small, but the 0.6% seems more dangerous than that. The problem is, who is right. One cannot be regarded as wrong because of the negativity, the other cannot be regarded as wrong because of the lessened negative setting. But I can tell you this. The EU credit card is tapped out, the only way to get a handhold on that is by adding the UK back to it, there is no care on how the UK does, it is that if the UK rejoins the EU (after all that bullying) that the EU credit card is back in business and that (especially after the Mario Draghi fiasco’s) should not be allowed. I always stated that things would get worse before they get better and when they get better it becomes a lot better in a hurry, there aren’t 21 countries dragging the UK economy down, as well as their budgets. 

There is a much larger field and serious questions might have to be asked about the seeming incompetent acts of the IMF. I would state that a player like the BBC needs to clearly show sources regarding some of their reports, but I get that this might not be possible, yet the time for questions grow ever larger, especially after I showed issues on at least three events. In the end it might be me, but I was right the first time, I have questions the second time and we need to ask questions, especially when the Bremain bullies are out in force and there are indications (not evidence)  that the IMF is aiding them. But that is merely my point of view on the matter.

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February 1, 2023 · 14:02

Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers (IMF)

Yup, that is the slogan and to get there we need to take a little trip down memory lane before we get to the article that jogged my memories. You see, it all started on October 10th 2013 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/10/10/economic-management-through-newscasts/) where I gave the readers “The same day I get the news on a diplomatic escalation in the Netherlands, sky News UK comes with an entirely different matter. Two elements seemed to be in play. The IMF suddenly lifted the economic growth for the UK by 1.4% for 2013 and for 1.9% for 2014. Those are numbers that are beyond remarkable. Sky News showed Olivier Blanchard the Chief economist of the IMF to make this statement. It was interesting that the IMF calls on Christine Lagarde to give the bad news and Olivier gets to give the good news. There was a shimmer of hope for realism as Ed Conway, economic Editor at Sky News was happy to not reject the notion that the IMF have been lousy forecasters in the past to say the least”, as well as “‘Suddenly’ there was good news, a week before the debt ceiling needs to be raided, whilst the US is still in shutdown mode. Let us not forget that Greece, who also suddenly had ‘good’ news last week is still beyond broke, in addition France and Italy are still not in good shape. The biggest issue is that the UK forecast, which was +0.6%, which was a pretty good achievement to +1.4%. That boils down to a miscalculation of almost $18 Billion! That is a massive miscalculation. There is no indication that such errors were made. Consider that the IMF had high criticism towards the tactics by Chancellor George Osborne, UK’s faithful exchequer.” Are you clued in at present. There is now an indicator that the IMF is nothing more than a political presentation tool to hand out lollies for others to look away as credit limits are increased. It is one of the reasons I went towards Brexit. After the speech by Marky Mark of the British bank (aka Mark Carney, a Canadian no less), I saw the dangers of staying in the EU. Mario Draghi was using a Credit card for trillions after the first trillion was a miss. Now, that happens, solutions are selected hoping it will set the outcome to another stage. There is no fault there, but then he does it again for another 2 trillion. Wasn’t it Albert Einstein that stated that only a lunatic will do the same thing twice hoping for a different outcome? And it wasn’t just me, others had reservations too. There was no outcry when Mario Draghi was shown to be a member of an exclusive bank group. So how much did his friends end up with catering to that debt. Consider that bank bonds have a registration fee and commission. So how much commission did these two dozen people get over three trillion? I can tell you that is would be up to 2%, implying that two dozen people ended up with $600,000,000, not a bad run. So why should the UK pay for that?

Now that we are all caught up (to some extent) it is time to look at the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64452995) giving us ‘UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF’. Now I am not stating that this is not the case, it could be. Yet when we look to 2013 and later, the IMF has played the wrong spades in this game. So when I see words like ‘expected’ and ‘only major economy’ after it took the IMF and Creepy LaStrange (I think that was her name) a year to admit that they made an error of well over $18,000,000,000 I have issues with anything they claim. And when I see “The IMF said the economy will contract by 0.6% in 2023, rather than grow slightly as previously predicted” without clarity I have issues. The numbers could be true, but with the Russian clambake in the Ukraine, the Covid issues (especially in China), the labour shortages and a few other elements that influences the issues, we merely see  “Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the UK outperformed many forecasts last year. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the figures showed the UK “lagging behind our peers”” and charts and numbers how bad the UK is doing, but the problem is that the IMF (or Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers) have been too much like a political tool. They proclaim that Russia is getting a positive boost this year but we do not see that it might be mainly woodworkers to create the  126,650 coffins for lost troops, so their economy is up, but who pays that bill? And in the stage of presentation my issue is that these people are all about ‘forcing’ the UK back into the EU so that their GDP can be added to their credit limit. The EU is running out of credit card space, it has been for a year and the UK revenue is essential to turn that about and people need to wake up to the unaccountable overspending the EU is doing. At present the EU debt is well over €12 trillion  with several nations having too much debt. We all know about Greece with over 193% of GDP, Italy surpassed 150% of GDP and Portugal surpassed 125%, Spain is almost at 120%, and France is at almost 115%. The credit limits have been reached and it does not bode well, so all hands on deck forcing the UK back into the EU, but the truth is that once the hardship is passed (which will take some time), the UK will become the power player and the EU will be reduced to a third world nation. So basically at present (a personal view) the German debt of 80% of GDP is the only economy keeping the EU standing. That is not enough and I spoke about that in the past (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/) in ‘The finality of French freedom’ on the 7th of March 2017 where I wrote “Which is why France is a big deal, that whilst they represent one of four anchors keeping the Euro in place. With the British anchor removed, the stress on the three is intense, the Euro cannot continue with the remaining two anchors that is the desperate game Draghi is facing now. Weakness and non-decisions from 2012 onwards have caused this mess, and of course he is not done yet. As we see in Reuters, last Monday he stated “If non-high-tech companies adopt more innovative technology, that would provide a boost for European productivity“, speaking as the European Central Bank President last Monday, it that so? With what funds? Innovations requires money, such steps have a cost” here I compared the economy with a floating platform kept in place by 4 anchors. It used to be the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Now that the UK is gone, the platform is now in trouble as only the German anchor has any strength left. The economic sea is in turmoil and I already saw this in 2017. Then we got Covid and that stupid bear named Russia and now the economy is a problem, especially for the EU and when that breaks up, the US (Japan also) have no way to go but down and that is what they all fear, they can prolong this if they can bully the UK, but we have seen enough bullies. We all have had enough and that is why I chose Brexit. I could not predict Covid or Russia, but a next economic disaster is alway just past the horizon, there is always a next fire to put out and now the IMF wants to make matters look worse. As I see it, they need a whole range of better and more descriptive numbers. As it stands, at present I do not trust the IMF. Yes the UK could face another recession, but it will be nowhere as bad as the one the EU faces. In the end the UK is part of a Commonwealth and we all (Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) need to united to face the headwinds of the coming storm, we owe it to each other with the acts of irresponsibility we do not owe the EU and we do not owe the US. The US has had over a quarter of a century to overhaul their tax laws. I made mention on this as early as in the age of President George H. W. Bush (1998) now 25 years ago. I say enough is enough and the IMF better give us a lot more and a lot clearer numbers than what we see in the BBC article. That is my personal point of view on the matter.

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January 13, 2023 · 11:54

Inactivity by the overpaid

The Dutch NOS is opening a storm-gate with the article (at https://nos.nl/l/2459559) stating that there will be a power shortage by 2030. Personally I think that he is overly optimistic. I would reckon that clear shortages will be visible no later than 2027 in the Netherlands. The UK will start showing these shortages no later than Q3 2024 and there are several nations in that same setting. The US was already showing them last year, not to a large degree, but enough to get noticed in California and Texas. It will get worse soon enough. I reckon that it will be horrid to live in these places the coming summer. With millions of AC units draining whatever power there is, the stage for these two places will not be a joyous one. I stated that danger in ‘Time as a factor’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/05/15/time-as-a-factor/) in may last year and several other articles over the two years preceding that. There was (optionally is) a solution and for that they all needed Elon Musk, but governments are not that intelligent. Instead of catering to Elon Musk, they catered to his anger and now the solution will come at premium price. His battery would have been able to decrease the pressure by well over 10%-20% in 2018 when I first made mention of it. But the overpaid civil servants kept on being inactive and that saving is now lost to them. 

There still is an option for several places, but it will take immediate action, places like Texas and California, as well as the UK, France and Italy will have to act NOW to get something done, because Elon is not storing these batteries and when they have to produce 15-35 million batteries, they can sell at a premium but that will set you back so many billions, that the loss of Twitter is nothing more than a little blip on the radar. And there was a solution, but you all had to make fun of him, cater to fake news and cater to BS settings all whilst Jack Dorsey was given a ‘do not touch’ voucher. So how much can Jack Dorsey add? I’ll tell you nothing and now that you need Elon Musk, what will you do? Bully him a bit more? Consider that when these batteries go to India, Saudi Arabia, UAE and a few other places BEFORE they go to Texas and California. And when you realise that a place like Texas will need close to 1,000,000 Power walls at $17,000 each, the math becomes increasingly easy and it might not be enough. In that California would need in access of 3,000,000 walls. And that is before the added wind and solar collectors are added. One simple setting to overcome the loss of Twitter. And lets be clear, he has no obligation to any of you. He can charge premium prices, it is HIS right to do so. Sucks to be you now, does it not?

And in that setting Texans might still forgo power for 16% of the day when they need power for their AC, a stage that was clear in play since BEFORE 2018. All this before some might realise that a place like London will need well over 1,000,000 power-walls. The numbers start adding up and Tesla has the IP everyone needs. So how will you cater to that? Like a bully or will you realise that some people were overpaid by a fair amount and they did NOTHING. If I saw this almost 5 years ago, they should have been on that hobby horse a lot longer, but they were not. Why was that? 

And the shortage will get worse for the UK soon enough. You see, Sweden (Vattenfal) is already showing shortages for winter, as such less and less can be delivered to the UK who will now feel the brunt a lot sooner and the solution I offered in ‘Will you feel frisky?’ On June 28th 2022  (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/28/will-you-feel-frisky/) now feels a lot more on point, does it not? So how many documents can the UK produce of efforts they made from 2018 onwards to cater to this need? And that is the setting now, but this pressure keeps on growing, so the worm that hesitates will get eaten in this setting, because the shortage is global and now that the pressures are showing will some ask, why did we do nothing? People have been BS’ing on power independence since the 90’s and when the moment comes, we see inaction. Don’t take my word, check and you will see I am right. The overpaid were inactive for far too long, let them explain why. Oh, and they come with something like ‘It was a complex issue’ feel free to dock their pay for over 40%, it was why they were there and even if that doesn’t solve the issue, it will feel good to see the worm squirm for his lost 40%. Do it, you’ll see you’ll feel better. 

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January 5, 2023 · 22:16

Growth

Growth, we all seek it, in mind, in business, and in setting and there is a stage that is evolving at present. The Guardian reported early this morning ‘Record warm winter in parts of Europe forces closure of ski slopes’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/04/warmest-january-ever-forces-ski-slopes-across-europe-to-close). Now there is the expression that one swallow is no identification of Summer. Yet there is no guarantee that next year will be better. Consider the stages France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. That is a stage that gives them a pool over well over 2 million people who do want snow, who want to taste the slopes. They will soon need to seek or at least consider other venues. In the Northern Hemisphere that gives them Norway, Canada and China. Finland has a lack of mountains, as does Sweden. Norway can grow as can Canada. I reckon that there are too many anti-China sentiments at present. Norway and Canada have good vibes on the slopes and I reckon it is time for them to consider new settings. Some places in Norway can grow, but they will need at least one more place for now, as does Canada. Yes Whistler is a great destination, but it is overcrowded. The 2022/2023 movies are mostly ab out the horrendous waiting times, the amount of people trying to get up. Whistler is full and Canada either creates an additional place where the people now going to Whistler can g, or bleed tourists to other nations. I reckon that they will see that another Canadian field (most likely in British Columbia) makes sense. There have been abandoned places (near Calgary) that offer a good setting, yet that stage need work as well as anything new. Every field will grow, but only if all the amenities are there. The same for Norway, who is seen as an excellent place to visit, but the call of Whistler is strong. So, as I see it They both have good chances, but the one with a better option and a cheaper one (Whistler is really expensive) will get that cluster of people. So there is risk. If a strong winter gets back in the next year, their issues are saved (France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy), if not the early bird will get the collection of worms and it will be a lot more than mere thousands. Thi will affect plane travel as well as accomodations. There is of course a lot more and even as I cannot give you all the answers, there is clear place to grow, not merely to get the overrun to Whistler, the failing of places we never expected to fail will call for more answers, some we might never get. But the overwhelming stage is that snow is lacking in places where it should not and the places that could benefit might never have seen this coming.

That is not on them, but next year will be and there they need to find ways to either take the risk that they miss out, or see what they could get because a group of millions of tourists in this day and age is a strong call. Personally I have no interest, but there is a second stage, one that is not a given. We can get that Paris and Milan–Cortina d’Ampezzo are places currently set for the Olympics. I hope it goes well, but if this bad winter stage continues, someone has to step in. Who? That is anybodies guess. But there is room to grow for several reasons and several places will have the option to grow, will they take it? I cannot tell, but even if there is added revenue, it comes with a decent amount of risk. No one denies that, but no one saw the really bad snow weather of this season come, especially when places like Canada is drowning in the stuff. 

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December 2, 2022 · 19:04

Would you like some sugar with that?

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

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

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November 26, 2022 · 01:54

What is real?

Some things we know are real, some are part real and some are neither. But for the most I have relied and believed, in a few instances I learned much later that I was deceived. The Catholic Church influenced my education giving me false information. Later that same church did everything to ‘protect’ their paedophilic priests. Now the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63636641) where we see ‘Gold coin proves ‘fake’ Roman emperor was real’ there we learn “The final blow came in 1863 when Henry Cohen, the leading coin expert of the time at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, considered the problem for his great catalogue of Roman coins. He said that they were not only ‘modern’ fakes, but poorly made and “ridiculously imagined”. Other specialists agreed and to this day Sponsian has been dismissed in scholarly catalogues.” As such the ‘experts’ dismissed Sponsian who ruled in a time line where 11 others ruled, so there are issues. But in all this we wonder what is real. We get it, there were issues with the ‘evidence’ there were rejections, but the coins could not have been the only evidence. More evidence was destroyed or suppressed and we do not know when that happened.  There is every chance that some evidence was mislabelled, as such are all the facts of these 11 other rulers correct? Perhaps it is, but forensic research on 1600 years old data and collections is not easily verified of checked. It will take new technology to do this, adjusted technology. 

The first thing we see is the Tibetan library, there we see that only 5% has been translated. Players like Google can make a huge difference. It will not answer the Italian issue, but as our libraries become more and more complete, we can identify a lot more. We have been lucky to some extent, but that luck is running out. If we are to make any kind of lasting impression, it will be the need to get as much information ready for long term storage and long term recollection. But this is overly simplified. We would rely on experts, but these experts trivialised Sponsian and experts tend to be more stubborn than politicians believing in Jedi’s. And there are political issues in play as well, and that setting transfers to Tibet (China being an issue), and a few more. The issue becomes interesting, it is more than a data puzzle, it is a puzzle of verification which is not the same. Yet, I am intrigued with the speculative process of reverifying 1800 years of data, we might merely have lost a step, but there is every indication that dozens of steps were wrongly assigned and there the stage that these steps require verification as well. More importantly, were some of them every assigned correctly? A puzzle that is enticing, very very enticing.

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October 23, 2022 · 20:56

Silence is sewage

Yes, that is quite the difference from the original ‘silence is golden’ isn’t it? But that thought started recently when I was given ‘UN, international community condemn Houthi drone attack on Yemeni oil terminal’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2186011/middle-east). The idea started when I had a look and not entirely to my surprise I could not find anything from the BBC, the Guardian, the NOS, and that list goes on. Houthi terrorist actions continue, using Iranian materials and the west ignores it, how quaint. They did mention that Iran is delivering its drones to Russia, but the political parties are all about a hands off regarding Iran. I did make mention of an optional solution to take care of Iranian and Russian nuclear plants, perhaps I need to make that public domain. Perhaps they will wake up then. But back to the events at hand. The Arab News gives us “The UN on Saturday condemned an armed drone attack launched By Yemen’s Houthi militia on a southern oil terminal in Hadramout province a day earlier, saying it was a “deeply worrying” military escalation”, well it isn’t in most newspaper, so I reckon it is not that Important or that critical. And we also get a name with “I condemn the aerial attack claimed by Ansar Allah yesterday”, we also see very little regarding that terrorist and the BBC or the Guardian. One could speculate that the Iranian stakeholders in the UK have a lot more sway than anyone is willing to acknowledge, yet that is mere speculation from me. In addition we are given “Bin Mubarak said he also held a call with the US ambassador to Yemen, Steven Fagin, to discuss the consequences of the attacks on civilian facilities and commercial ports, and how it would worsen the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, adding he “demanded strong measures to put an end to Houthi terrorism.”” It sounds nice, but if the media shuns it to this degree, there is every chance that the Americans will not do too much in the end. They have so far not done anything successful in reigning in Iranian events, so I would not hold my breath on this either. 

The larger problem is not the these events are happening, it is that the powerful voices are lulling the people to sleep, ignoring what Houthi terrorists are up to in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia, all funded by Iran and we need to wake up, we need to see that Iran is becoming a much larger danger than we could ever be comfortable with. For China it is yet another option to spread its influence in the middle east. Consider cardinal Richelieu (Alexander Dumas, the 4 musketeers) stating “who will do something about these blasphemers?” The informative path is open, and those doing something will end with a lot more than the silent ones, but the US and UK could enjoy a further restriction of a million barrels a day. Do you think they will not buy them? The US has had an option to do something for well over 2 years and they did not. It was all about the pariah Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, but what happened when the US needed cheap oil (for whatever reason, they sell most of theirs). Yes, and now the ante is upped because no one is doing anything about Iran, no one is acting when inaction is no longer acceptable. 

When the Yemeni port is hit, when that port becomes inoperable, we will see some tea granny (CAAT) make claims that this was all the fault of Saudi Arabia, all whilst it is the western world that is in part to blame as they are hiding behind ‘Silence is sewage’ and they are fine with that, t least their stakeholders are, are you? This war has been going on for well over 8 years. Not in any point in time did terrorists have such a hold in disturbing a population and several nations. 

The fun part (for me) is that if China makes a stand, when it actually does something about the terrorists by supplying the Yemeni and Saudi governments what they need, what will the west do? For them it will then be too late. There is now a larger area that is in the mix and it could cost the EU and the US a lot more than they ever imagined and the papers will prove me right. Which paper had anything on the attack on  the harbour in Hadramout province? So far I found France24 with a decent piece, the rest? As far as I can tell, not a word. Why is that?

The age of Silence is golden is over, it was never a real golden era to begin with, it only supported greed driven entities and it supported them well. We need to change the book of tactics before it is too late for too many, but that is merely my view on the matter.

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October 9, 2022 · 23:51

Beyond the nightmare

Yes, there is always a beyond the nightmare side. I was watching two things. Earlier today I watched a dreadful video, the voices were out of synch and that was the best part of the video. Then later I rewatched the second Downton Abbey movie, yes the one with the France scenes and the camera crews. And it also took me back to the movie Singing in the rain. Then it occurred to me, there are so many silent movies, so many examples. As such I am a little surprised that Adobe and the other players do not have an assortment of training materials where any Vlogger could train precision in sound insertion. It is a simple exercise and the people would have some sound dialogue but after that it would become their own materials. It could open all kinds of new materials and with the millions of GoPro Hero 10 and now GoPro Hero 11 out there, there is a pressing need for them to up their materials, to differ from the average vlogger. And as I was seeking, I saw nothing out there, or at least way too little. So why aren’t some considering what is needed, what some need and why they aren’t covering it? I want to say ‘Do I have to do everything?’ But the reality is that I cannot be the only one thinking this. I do wonder when we will see the storm-flood of new, larger and higher quality vlogs. Now there are plenty of really good vlogs out there, but we can never have enough high quality vlogs, now can we? 

As such Sunday is drawing to a close (it’s 23:49), as such Monday morning is a mere 600 seconds away.

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September 25, 2022 · 00:48

Freebee for Majid

Yes, that happens. I get an idea that is not really on my plate and I hand it over. And as the Saudi Broadcasting Authority (SBA) is part of the Ministry of Media, it seems only fair that I hand it over to the man with the plan, the man in charge Majid bin Abdullah Al Qasabi. It is up to him to decide if this has any option of succeeding. If someone else takes this on, that is not up to me. I have other issues to deal with. I got this idea whilst watching the remake of Candyman. I like it, it is superior than the previous edition and even as there are a few issues with it, there was no real objections. And whilst I was thinking that through this idea came to mind. 

Riyadh
It was a warm day, the sun was warming everything it touched and in the shadows was a man, his name was Henri Cernuschi, he was a banker, but not related to the Cernuschi family from the late 18th century. He was from Javrezac France and had an economy degree from the Sorbonne in Economie du Development. When he had his degree he had issues getting a job, he had no connections, he was eager to make a mark but in the end he gave his resume to an online place for resume’s and two weeks later the SAMA (Saudi Central Bank) offered him a position in Riyadh. Off course he eagerly accepted and he got to do the things asked of him. French bank papers were scanned and he looked if they were all up to scratch and correct. In the end he was to some extent an overpaid office clerk. He was not complaining, the money was good and he had amassed a nice sum over the last three years. But as all bankers, he got greedy and it was a paper he saw in some evening where he read “they are highly associated with financial risk-taking and gambling behaviours” it took a hold of him and held him in his grasp. If he could instil a level of superstition, he might profit, profit even more. And as such he set out a plan to instil superstition. 

There was no real action in the next few months, but he started to learn as much as he could on Arab superstitions, there was quite the number, yet nothing stood out to him. It was two day later when when he stumbled upon a book regarding the Afreet.

It was not until a bank trip to Jeddah that he started to have an idea. What happened if he could summon an afreet? What happens when that superstition took hold? 

This is the start, I would like to add a lot more, but the general idea come now and not in a story. You see, he starts learning the elements of such a summoning and he does it all nearly flawless, but as he prepared the 4 anchors he accidentally steps on one of the anchors that should keep the afreet to the small space in a basement. He becomes the anchor of the summon and the second part he overlooked that only a sorcerer can hold an Afreet as such the Afreet could break the shackles at any point, yet as anchor the man cannot be harmed and thus starts a larger stage. He does not know what he invited to be attached to his soul and an ancient afreet gets free rein in Riyadh. 

It is one of the clerks that recognises some of the symptoms and soon thereafter she understands the dangers the bank is in and she warns her boss, who does not dismiss the stage. The woman is very afraid and tells him of the stories her grandmother told her. The manager sets in motion a quiet investigation and sees the danger they face and as such he grows an idea to deal with it. He spices up the man’s achievements and sends him on official business to London and sends the spiced resume to people he knows. During the event in London the man is approached by a few companies and in the end one firm takes on his business and as such they invite the afreet.

London
It is one year later, London is in a setting of failed events, failed economics and even more disastrous elements in Fintech. No one can find any relationship. And as the Afreet grows in power, it learns of the crusades, and it becomes a lot more malevolent. Diseases, old diseases start forming in the UK and the weird parts are that the medics find links to St Olave-towards-the-Tower, as well as St Giles-without-Cripplegate. Both places of worship were investigated inch by inch and no findings were found, but they were on the lookout. As the months unfolded the Afreet started to get a lay of the financial land and he wrecks upon it. Banking systems stall and money goes missing. It was an Arabic cybersecurity officer that finds links in the display and links them to the stories of old. As he digs into the data he finds 5 people who have been to the middle east, Henri Cernuschi being one of them.

That’s all I got in a few hours and if you can make more of it, good luck to the Saudi Broadcasting Authority (SBA) for making it into a new kind of horror.

A small note. What happens when the anchor dies? Perhaps it gives the Afreet freedom to go wherever he wants. Just a thought.

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