Tag Archives: India

December 20, 2020 · 18:40

The rest of our lives

Yes, we all look towards the rest of our lives, yet how much of it is left? There is every indication that is is a little less than we expect it to be. I was looking forward to write more on the TV series my mind created (Keno Diastima), I was adding a little more science to it all, science makes fiction easier to swallow for the sceptical among us and I like plenty of science with my fiction, so there.

Yet, as I was brooding on this, I saw the Coronavirus messages from all Directions. The Netherlands is banning all flights from the UK, a part of Sydney now has a larger problem and the news keeps on coming in, I especially ‘liked’ ‘Covid: WHO in ‘close contact’ with UK over new variant’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-55382212), there we see “The new variant is spreading more rapidly than the original version, but is not believed to be more deadly”, it is the application of ‘is not believed’, which basically implies that they do not know and that is fine, we accept that not all answers are available at point zero. Yet, who considered the impact on these to approved vaccines? Is vaccine one good enough to fight off and prevent version 2? What will happen when there are more mutations? And the largest issue the media and most people ignore is the 1% speculation. In June (6 months ago) we could see a global increase of 1% over 3 million cases, which is 30,000. In September the number was 7 million, in three months, the number had doubled, as such we come to a stage of 70,000 new cases. Day (globally), now the total number number is 76,635,408, 10 times of what there was three months ago and it is time to button down the hatches, because the 1% rule gives us 766,000 cases a day (globally) and all whilst some sources make claim that in India there is a 60% setting of people with the Coronavirus, 60% of 1.35 billion, a number we do not see anywhere, making optionally the source unreliable, yet I have had my concerns with the Indian numbers for the longest time. You merely need to see actual footage on the population pressure in the Mumbai region alone to see that question mark. The reported figure are present is at 10,031,659, When w apply the 1% rule we see 13,500,000 a day, and so far that number has been exceeded on a global stage by nearly every country, so not in India? Consider the population:

If even one person in this crowd has the Coronavirus, how many will have it tomorrow? That is the ignored part, partially because most non-Indian people have no idea just how populated India is and that is the larger danger, we tend to ignore what we do not know and in this case it is a dangerous setting to have. And this is not some sought special picture, Google Search can give you well over 100 images like it, all from different areas of India. 

As such, when you contemplate the rest of your life, did you consider your life (if you have any left) after the coronavirus? The numbers are in my favour here. The 1% rule was surpassed by a lot over the last 6 months. We might lockdown everything, but it takes one stupid person to ignore this and quickly visit a friend, and the scared ones do it more quickly than any other. 

At present the BBC (at best) give us “There is no clear-cut evidence the new variant of coronavirus – which has been detected in south-east England – is able to transmit more easily, cause more serious symptoms or render the vaccine useless”, which is fair enough, more importantly, we also do not know what we do not know, this sounds complex, but variants are tricky bastards and there are no real answers until a laboratory have positively analysed the mutations, this is fair (at https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55312505), but the number one scare for governments is “or render the vaccine useless”, several players paid billions for the vaccine, so the term ‘useless’ is one they do not need to hear, but in the end, we simply do not know. Neither do we know whether the vaccine to strain one will also lower the power of strain 2, 3 and optionally 4. Anyone who believes that this ends today is paving the road to hell, all on their own.

In this the West Australian had the funniest setting for all this, they give us today “Coronavirus crisis: WA Premier Mark McGowan says hard border with NSW needed to ‘save our Christmas’”, yes because saving Christmas trumps the need to keep our lives safe, that made perfect sense and if you are forced to self-isolate celebrating Christmas is really topping your chart, isn’t it?

Well, whatever you do, you will have the rest of your life contemplating it, and should you die tomorrow, then I hope you resolved whatever you were brooding about. #Oversimplification

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December 19, 2020 · 04:26

After the fact

We have all heard the setting, when we set the new premise after the fact. Most will remember the average male response to the option of sex before marriage “Maybe I’ll marry you tomorrow”, and we then congratulate ourselves, as we got some. Some have a slightly altered versions and especially in the Netherlands no one has forgotten some of the songs from the era of the VoC, especially when sharks were thwarted and the other vessel had silver. But that one too did not end nicely for the sailor, he was also promised the daughter of the captain, the other vessel was sunk, but the sailor never made it. After the fact is in some cases brilliant, but is it? That is the question we see when we consider ‘Urgently Waive Intellectual Property Rules for Vaccine’, (at  https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/10/urgently-waive-intellectual-property-rules-vaccine), yes it might be a week old, but the vaccine search started a year ago, and now, some want to avoid the IP rules. That is not fair on the makers of the vaccine. Their motives might have ben greed driven, but over half a dozen firms started to look for a solution. That solution is not a cheap one and in this the firms took that investment, because the vaccine sales would set them right. It is a fair setting, the governments were not able to step in to make it themselves and they bought the vaccines, as such I might not like the approach, but I get the setting that is being met. As such seeing “help boost global access to Covid-19 vaccines, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said ahead of a key World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Geneva on December 10, 2020”, is as I personally see it utter bullshit. How loud were these two (on every channel) fighting for this a year ago? Why was there nothing to be seen in the mass of newspapers and digital news bringers? 

Yes, after the fact is nice, but AI and HRW do get get to sulk like little bitches a year later. There could be a case if the bulk of the newspapers and media had mentioned that setting over the last year, but they did not, did they? 

I get it, it is not completely fair on some places, but what options were given to these locations by the UN buying vaccines for these regions? 

When we consider the setting we see in the first “At the WTO meeting, the governments will discuss a proposal by India and South Africa to temporarily waive some provisions of the Trade Related Aspects of the Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. The proposal would facilitate technology transfers so that Covid-19 medical products, including vaccines, could be produced quickly and affordably by manufacturers around the world”, and in the second “Higher-income countries have already made deals to buy up the vast majority of the world’s potential vaccine supplies for 2021, so the move would help scale up access for people in lower-income countries”, the question is what will the pharmaceutical companies do? 

We see the Washington Post give us ‘Coronavirus vaccinations have started. But people in Africa face a much longer wait’, and before we start screaming foul, remember, that so far only 1.6 million on 75 million people died and these numbers show is that 23% of ALL the deaths are in America. This leaves us with a mortality rate of 2.13% (which is not a really fair setting), yet what is also given is that 70% makes a full recovery, we seem to forget bout those parts. In this the survival part is more accurate than the non-living part on a few issues, we see that basically, 27% of those who contracted the disease are not out of the woods yet. As such, n this setting we see over reaction and opportunity seekers, opportunity seekers is that this is happening AFTER THE FACT. I get it, they didn’t want to do it ahead of time, because the pharmaceuticals have no intentions to make something for free, which makes sense too. So when we see “Kenya, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Pakistan have joined India and South Africa to co-sponsor the waiver proposal. The proposal was welcomed or supported by 100 countries, most of them low- or middle-income. But a small group of high-income countries and their trading partners have opposed it; including Brazil, the European Union, Canada, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom”, we get that the low income nations need a solution and it will come, but the overreaction in light of the numbers we see are a bit out there and even as I have been against a whole range of pharmaceutical issues in the past, they do have their rights too, and TRIPS was there to enforce rights and duties. So to abolish it to deal with fear is just a bit of a no-no as I personally see it.

Is it fair on India and South Africa? Well that remains to be seen, but I do not see why, in India 144,914 died of the disease whilst India has well over 1.35 billion people, implying that their national mortality rate for Covid-19 is 1% of 1%, so what are they needing a vaccine for? The fact that 9,530,530 recovered from the 9,987,949 cases is also debatable, but that gives them that 95.4% fully recovered, as such why is India so up in arms on this? Perhaps the fact that for well over a year the numbers never made sense, perhaps India has a much larger problem, yet their pride got in the way of it all, so if they cannot properly inform us, why should they receive special consideration? I know, you might not agree and that I fair, but that is the setting. That is what we think plays. The Print (at https://theprint.in/health/india-is-missing-about-90-infections-for-every-covid-case-latest-govt-analysis-shows/567898/) gives us “Latest analysis by DST panel, that predicted end of Covid pandemic in India in February 2021, finds that about 60 per cent Indians have been infected so far”, that in light of the reported 9,987,949 total Covid cases, whilst the population of India is 1.35 billion makes less sense when those numbers were reported, all whilst they give us now (well three days ago) that 60%, implying that 810 million people in India have Covid-19, so what happened to the 800 million Indians in the numbers? 

At some point the ego of governments need to be held to account and I see no reason why they get to take the pharmaceutical players for a ride. In this I wrote this on October 31st “Even as India has well over 3 times the population of the US, there is no way that the numbers add up, with the US having over 9 million cases and India barely passing 8 million, the stage is not completely seen”, almost 2 months ago I questioned the Indian setting, the numbers never added up. I did that in ‘As jobs become available’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/31/as-jobs-become-available/), but no one (in the media) asked serious questions regarding that stage, why not? 

As such, as I personally see it, India has nothing to complain about, perhaps they need to elect officials that will give them the actual setting, not some story by Mother Goose. It is the stage they set themselves, as such the ‘After the Fact’ premise that we see given now is as I personally see it, a cold spud in space.

And the 100 supporters need to consider their own numbers. India might be the most visible one, but it is not the only one and this Covid-19 stage was a serious one and another one will come, there is no doubt about that part, as such these governments better start playing nice, better start giving the others the numbers that are true, a much larger stage could have been prepared by the world as India hd been upfront about the 800 million missing infections, perhaps the lesson they are handed now will improve their view of what matters, their ego or reality. 

Yes, it almost sounds inhumane, but we accepted responsibility of certain choices, like laws, trade laws and IP Laws, we cannot switch them off when it pleases us, because we might as well throw all laws overboard in that game, a stage that bodes a lot of harsh stages when this happens.

There is of course the conversation that India and South Africa can have on what to do the next time around and that is fair, that is just and yes, it is a stage we must acknowledge, yet it is not after the fact and that is the proper stage to play and perhaps it will result in an adaptation to TRIPS, I cannot deny of oppose that setting, the question is what the pharmaceutical players will set at that point. We can all accept that their IP, is just that, it is theirs. It does not mean that a deal cannot be worked out, but it is done in advance, it is a set stage where they can decide how to act and at that point the HRW can be all dog and less humane, what happens then? Time will tell, for now we have this issue in play and we still have no real view on how many distribution point there are and how 4,000,000,000-6,500,000,000 vaccines will get to their destination. Because that too is a stage we forgot to look at, that many vaccines will imply that mutations are almost a certainty, yet how many we will see is not clear, when that happens, global travel as we know it will change forever. 

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November 15, 2020 · 23:06

Dead on arrival?

Yes, we get the at times, not when the ambulance is racing to get to the ER with a guy wearing 10 knives in his chest, but a setting the is less obvious, almost like the movie dead on arrival, I saw the Dennis Quaid version (1988), I never saw the original from 1950. Yet in this version the victim (USA) does not yet know that it is carrying a deadly toxin, it was the benefit Dennis Quaid had in the movie. So as we see the USA in a stage of what they think matters, we see a larger stage, the stage Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) gives the people, with a still open invitation to India, it is the first time we get an economic bloc of this size where the USA is no longer a consideration, their 300 million consumers are in a stage where they can afford less and less. So as we get (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54949260) “President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) shortly after taking office. The deal was to involve 12 countries and was supported by Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama as a way to counter China’s surging power in the region”, we need to see the partial truth that was a problem, a global one. Some give us (in regard to the TPP “Most of the gains in income would have gone to workers making more than $87,000 a year. Free trade agreements contribute to income inequality in high-wage countries. They promote cheaper goods from low-wage countries”, in addition we get “The agreement regarding patents would have reduced the availability of cheap generics. That could have raised the cost of many drugs. Competitive business pressures would have reduced the incentives in Asia to protect the environment. Last but not least, the trade agreement could have superseded financial regulations”, and there was more, so now we see the RCEP, optionally with similar issues, yet with India optionally joining we see a severe blow to patents (not good for me), but generic medication gets better protection (really good for me), and as we now get “The RCEP is expected to eliminate a range of tariffs on imports within 20 years. It also includes provisions on intellectual property, telecommunications, financial services, e-commerce and professional services”, so if that pact grows any further, we see a larger stage, one where the US and the EU see their cushy incomes diminish by well over 25%, yet it might take a decade, but it also means that the stage cannot be continued, as such their economies will need a vast overhaul in the next 5 years or living there in 2030 might not be a nice ideal in several places. So whilst the players are all about their financial services, we see a field that will vastly adjust in the next 5 years. And as I personally see it, it means that the death clock on Wall Street is pushing towards midnight. This is the consequence of catering to the greed stricken, this is what happens when ego takes over and in this case the ego of the USA and the EU are limiting their options, but the EU can always cater to Iran. And as I see it, a third of the global population is holding on to its 29% of the global gross domestic product. A stage that is a little new for a lot of us. As I see it, in 2030 when the national budgets become reality, I wonder how many people will herald the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, remember these grannies holding up the banner, stopping the arms trade against those bad bad Saudi’s? So when their pension goes down another 20% (if it still exists then), who will they blame? Will they call for Jeremy Corbyn? Will he still be alive? The same for the USA, yet here it will be president elect Biden calling the shots (he is entitled to that), but. Can they foresee the impact that the RCEP will have on their economy? I very much doubt it, yet endangering the $8,500,000,000 deal out there tends to be a really bad call, so as the RCEP will deliver to a larger population, we see a slow push take the USA from the pool of those who matter. As I personally see it, hypocritical high morals are nice, that is until the invoices come in, and these always come in.

Today the largest trade agreement in history was signed and the USA was no longer part of the big things happening, it might be a first, but it is no longer a last, that is the impact of close to 15 years of stupidity, short sightedness and ego, all set in a near package, it is efficient, I merely wonder for who it was an efficient setting, not for the USA, not for the EU, that much is certain. 

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November 13, 2020 · 02:27

The call was made

OK, I have been outspoken on more than one occasion, and as such, I also feel partially connected to make the call when it was made. And the call was made towards President-elect Biden. Even as a republican, I have no issue with this, this is how it is, the votes decide. It is not over yet, team Trump will trump (or rump) what is can, and the numbers are there for automated recounts. Arizona, Biden won by 0.3%, a difference of less than 12,000. Georgia has Biden by 0.3% and that amounts to 14,000 votes. I do not believe that these numbers are overcome and a win of 1 vote is all President elect Biden will need, then there is Wisconsin where Biden won, there is no automatic recount, but team Trump might push for it, they need to overcome 20,610 which amounts to 0.7%. It is a really tall order to overthrow all three and not a real realistic one at that, but that was the game and President-elect Biden seemingly won.

After 10 days of counting the calls are officially made (perhaps pre-official), which was the game. We can wait for the election lawyers to step in, but the numbers are too large to overcome, There is no way the this many ballots are invalid, they can look, but I am not holding my breath on that, yet for me, there is a sunny side (see previous blog), the scare they gave Saudi-Arabia will have larger consequences and with 5G operational there, the response is not going to be a happy one for American entrepreneurs, not when Chinese developers have a much larger app development pol to look at with options in Egypt as well, with nearly 100 million people, it is a stage China really wants and the talks we see between Egypt and Saudi Arabia and given with ‘Vodafone may reconsider price of Egypt sale to Saudi Telecom’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/1733206/business-economy) two months ago, were already in the pipeline. I warned for this situation and it seems the Saudi Arabia sees the technology light, pushing out not merely Vodafone, but the sale to Saudi Telecom (STC) is set to $2.4B, which is almost a steal at twice the price. You see, with the Saudi 5G (thanks to Huawei) a lot more services will soon opt via Saudi Arabia and that setting will grow over the next 2 years. A setting the EU and the US have never faced before, and would you believe it, team president-elect has not made friends in the KSA, they can reassess all they want, but the market shares are moving away from those who had it, as will that linked data and Huawei is sitting on the side smirking and nodding in appreciation. What I predicted in my blogs as early s 2018 is now coming to pass, soon Apple and Google want their data centres to run larger services and that is when the US will lose even more. Decentralisation is the worst the could happen here and the timing is even less inviting to the US. In 2019 we saw ‘Google still pursuing Saudi Arabian data centers’, with Egypt in the setting their need increases dramatically, and what else will Vodafail lose? I doubt it is merely Egypt. Last week we were given ‘Vodafone Idea’s inadequate network investments to further accelerate subscriber loss: Analysts’, a stage the might not aid the KSA too much, but the losses will go somewhere and whatever partnership comes from there, in the end Huawei will profit, so there goes the setting we hd towards a setting the US never wanted in the first place and as we see it, we will also see that the EU will need to make a call, especially as they lose out again and again. What path they will walk is still unknown, but it seems decently clear that the path they are on now tends to lead towards self-destruction, the is seen in the Euro reporter, who gives us ‘EU and member states risk a possible WTO challenge for unfair actions against Huawei’ a mere two days ago. Even though it is not on the same setting I had, theirs will do jut as well. As we see: “US actions against Huawei based mainly on its Chinese origins simply will not stand up to a legal challenge before the World Trade Organization. This is because of international treaty obligations that Romania, Poland and Sweden as both EU Member States and WTO members are all bound by, precluding them from discriminating against or between the products of another WTO member” is not merely a costly stage, it is the setting the the path (poorly) chosen could cost the EU a lot more than it bargained for.

Even now Saudi Arabia has the fastest 5G network, compared to the US 752% faster, when Egypt is added to this, the stage changes, two nations with willing and tech hungry developers, all with a 2 year advantage over both the EU and the US, the damage they can install by having faster apps and faster infrastructure is going to cost the other two a bundle, perhaps more. Consider that the UK and US are trailing Egypt and the KSA by such a large difference, the mere humiliation of being second to Egypt and Saudi Arabia is just what the flaccid western technologists required, relying on politicians to fight for them, all whilst their technology could not keep up and that damage will continue until at least 2022. It seems to me that this is only the beginning. When the profit fall away, the real damage comes and both players (EU and US) are nowhere near ready to deal with that, as I see it, President-elect Biden inherited a leaky boat names USA, I reckon he better play nice with whatever ally he still has, the game will change and the US no longer has the lead position for choices, that much is I hope been made clear. 

Have a great Friday, especially those calling in sick so the they can test their new PS5.

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October 31, 2020 · 21:37

As jobs become available

Yup, there is always good news if we know where to look, even as we see a setting where over 50% of all coronavirus cases are in the USA, India and Brazil, we need to think hard of what numbers are not shown. Even as India has well over 3 times the population of the US, there is no way that the numbers add up, with the US having over 9 million cases and India barely passing 8 million, the stage is not completely seen. The population pressure and environment should give India a lot more than the US, so the stage is not clearly seen. I have less doubts (but some) with Brazil, there are over 5 million there and that number seems off (I am emphasising on seems), when we consider the 211 million people there, the pressures in Rio and Sao Paolo, the number seems low, more important, the mortality rate on Brazil merely seems high, in my personal view, either there are a lot more cases, or the mortality rate is skewed, optionally from connected complications. So as more people die, more jobs open up (one would hope). In this stage we could say that every silver lining is the foundation for a new dark cloud.

These numbers are important, especially as the EU goes into a new lockdown. There is the larger issue. We see Spain and France being at 1.2 and 1.3 million. Nothing wrong with that, but a similar setting of populations is seen in Germany with only 510K sick, these numbers do not add up, especially hen you consider that Germany has 83 million, France has 65 million and Spain has 46 million. The German numbers are as I see them off. This matters, because if the numbers are too surreal, the lockdown will merely be a pro forma exercise that does close to nothing in too many places. The problem is that I can see that these lockdowns are the best we can get until there is an actual vaccine, and there is not date on that. One source gives us “On Tuesday, front-runner Pfizer revealed in an earnings call that the first interim analysis in its Phase 3 clinical trial has not yet occurred. That means there hadn’t yet been enough Covid infections among the trial participants to take a first stab at analysing whether the people randomly assigned to receive vaccine were infected at a lower rate than people who were assigned to get a placebo injection”, so consider that phase three is not done and this needs to come and be confirmed before we have a setting where manufacturing can begin. And it is even earlier ‘the first interim analysis in its Phase 3 clinical trial has not yet occurred’, that implies that we get to a stage where any solution would not be here before January 2021, and that is if the second analyses of clinical trials those who precede towards ‘a vaccine is working’ is well over 8 weeks away, making the earliest stage of manufacturing would start on January 2nd, if a solution if found by coming Monday. Are you feeling frisky yet? And all this before the realisation starts that 2 billion doses will take more than a few days. I got (from Vaccine Europe) “On average, it takes between 12-36 months to manufacture a vaccine before it is ready for distribution” and on top of that Sanofi is one source stating that they can make 2.5 million doses a day. This gets us to the 2 billion shots, taking 800 days to make and that is if everything goes right the first time. So there will be a waiting list that is well over 2 years and that is WHEN a vaccine is a reality. Now consider it takes another 12 months before a vaccine is a reality, implying that Covid-19 will be around until January 2024 at the very least. At what stage will we learn that masks are a good idea, and I am happy to set the stage that lockdowns are some proof, but what proof remains the issue, do you still think those Swedes were nuts? 

And in this, consider the news that CNBC gave us in June ‘AstraZeneca is aiming to produce 2 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine — and it could be ready by September’, do you still think that I was crazy saying that the media is a much larger cause of all the fake news we get?

I am not stating that I know when there is a solution, I am not proclaiming that I have all the answers, yet the numbers are clear and they tell a few stories, and in all those stories we see that some of the reflections offered to us are incorrect, incomplete and dazzled with issues. On the upside, my 5G IP has benefits under Covid (and lockdowns) but they were not designed as such, it is merely an upside to it all. And when we look on, we might see the corporate needs, but they are merely in it to keep their heads above water, and I do not begrudge them that, but a lot of the actions are made on incomplete views and more incomplete data, that much is certain. 

I get it when some state that there is an overreaction, yet some setting (like face masks) are never a bad idea, it makes sense that some lockdown measures are essential, yet how will that ever work in Mumbai, which is 4% the size of Sydney, but has close to 300% of the population, and people under why I doubt the Indian numbers? They test 500 a day, even as they had until recently 100,000 new cases a day. That it’s why the numbers make no sense. And this is merely getting worse, as economic barriers collapse, the setting will continue to degrade. I believe that India is in a much worse state, but that does not absolve Europe (or the US), this will get worse and those governing will be seeing the inside of courts, defending the stage, the setting and their actions. The media (even those with ludicrous headlines) they all want their digital media coin, so they will rely on hardline after headline and it will be about creating flames, not information. That is how I see it and feel free to disagree.

And as November is a mere 2 hours away, consider the time line I gave. Then consider the headline that the Guardian relied on yesterday ‘‘It’s possible’: the race to approve a Covid vaccine by Christmas’, unless the vaccine is properly tested by Friday, that deadline cannot be kept. So when you see “Kate Bingham, who heads the UK’s vaccine taskforce, said the UK was in “a very good place”. But there are still hurdles to clear in the coming weeks” (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/30/its-possible-the-race-to-approve-a-covid-vaccine-by-christmas), and when we see “It could be Oxford University, partnered with drug company AstraZeneca. It could be Moderna in the US. Or it could be Pfizer and the German company BioNTech. All three have either recruited the last of the tens of thousands of volunteers they need for the critical final trials or will shortly do so”, in this I merely wonder whose trumpet she is blowing. I am not blaming her or the three, they have a hard job, yet unrealistic time lines are hard on us and they are facilitating for those trying to manage bad news and that is not right, not in this case (well, most often not in any case).

So if you are hoping or relying on a vaccine, think again. The numbers do not add up, on several sides and the media is not asking questions, so I am.

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October 3, 2020 · 04:14

To decide in anger

We know it, we do it, even though our inner voice screams not to do that, we still at times do it. I had such a moment hours ago on a few settings, in the first there is WordPress pushing their Gothenburg editor fiasco on their users. I would think that 2/3 of the ratings being a 1 star for the new editor would be a clear message to not enforce an editor the is not ready, but there is no fighting stupidity that is linked to the ego of others, so as such we see a group of people now looking to Wix as an option, I wonder how long it takes for WordPress to catch on.

The second issue was quite the opposite, I just learned that La Famiglia Trump has the Coronavirus, I got pinged by over a dozen papers, so there is for some the small satisfaction that the coronavirus could kill him before the election does, some will be thankful, I merely see it as an option where people can consider taking the day off, stay at home and not vote, time will tell. Yet the final two were the larger anger settings. Here it is important to set a few things straight. I am a christian (Catholic), I tend to be neutral on religious matters (for the most), but the utter stupidity that we see (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/2/macron-announces-new-plan-to-regulate-islam-in-france), where we are given ‘Macron says Islam ‘in crisis’’, so how stupid does a person need to be, especially when he is a non-Muslim to make a statement like that? There is the additional “‘Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today’, says Macron, as he unveils plan to defend secularism”, which only makes things worse. As I see it secularism is a form of ego driven faith in nothing but self and your own greed (or hunger for power). In a world where well over 80% believes in something more (even the agnostic adhere to that), we get an atheist thing towards us the there is nothing more, well, he is allowed to believe this, yet in a nation that is Catholic driven, why does he not state that towards the Vatican? Afraid the there is little boy movie that he might be interrupting? #JustAsking

In addition as we are given a little repetitive quote by Al Jazeera “President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a plan to defend France’s secular values against what he termed as “Islamist radicalism”, saying the religion was “in crisis” all over the world”, we need to take notice that apart from Christianity, he also does not push the setting towards India (Hindu), which is another billion people. As such we could flag the statement as discriminatory. So why is he isolating the Muslim voice here? When we look at the issues in play in India, there is a lot we could say, President Marcron isn’t doing that, so what is his game? It is a fair question, he seems to be aware of the world issues in some way, so the question is relevant.

The last piece is from Al Jazeera as well (Qatar is in rare form today), here it is another attack on Saudi Arabia, the story (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/10/2/mbs-why-the-world-may-be-stuck-with-the-ceo-of-saudi-inc), gives us ‘MBS: Why the world may be stuck with the ‘CEO of Saudi Inc’’, well as I see it stuck is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps we forget that MBS stands for Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. This means that when his father Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the current King of Saudi Arabia relinquishes the crown, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud becomes King of Saudi Arabia. When? We do not know, yet as his father is 84 years, so there is a decent expectation that this will happen within the next 20 years. In addition, the nation of Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, so this setting was never a surprise, as such the entire ‘stuck with’ falls under the stage of what I call BS. In addition there is “Two years after the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit squad” we seem to ignore that never any reliable evidence was delivered. We could go on with the setting the Jamal Khashoggi is merely missing. OK, I do not believe that either, but if the media ignores vital facts, I can do the same thing, fair? And I will give Al Jazeera that they do give light to the with ‘Two years on, Khashoggi murder unresolved, body still missing’, yes, the murder remains unresolved. As such I could accept that Khashoggi is most likely killed, yet murder sets a level of intent that cannot be proven, and without a body a manslaughter conviction is a fairy tale in any Common Law court.  Anyone accused would most likely walk away, no verdict given. In the end the article is exactly what I expected, a mere written form of advertisement towards the newly released book ‘Blood and Oil’, it also gives us (on the cover), the sub-line ‘Mohammed Bin Salman’s Ruthless Quest for Global Power’, here I take a little bit of a distance. In the first I haven’t read the book, so the stage of ‘Quest for Global Power’ is optionally a stretch, in this American presidents are more easily accused of that. Yet, let’s not forget that the King and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia have (optionally) a sworn duty to do what is best for Saudi Arabia, I wonder if the book touches on that. And in Muslims terms there is another side to the Al Said family. They are (the king is) Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, one could argue that the responsibility of the King (and optionally) the Crown Prince is larger than life. Consider that ALL Muslims accept that these two places are the heart of their faith, in this 24% of the entire population of the planet, 1.85 billion are Muslim and their faith is centred on Masjid al-Haram (the Great Mosque of Mecca) and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (the Prophets Mosque of Medina), 

That is some responsibility, it is one that the royal family accepted and it has been the centre of their actions. I wonder how much consideration was given to these parts of the larger equation by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck. If we look distant and fair to actions in play, we can argue the most nations are looking for Global Power. The UK, the US, Russia, China, all players seeking global power, it has been like that for decades. Yet now there is a new stage, as Saudi Arabia embraced 5G, they are no in a stage to get ahead in the game, r better stated, they could end up with a decent slice of the 5G environment, mostly because others were stupid and made accusations that had no evidence creating a vacuum, and Saudi Arabia, especially in the Neom sage has embraced whatever they could get and that is now optionally a much larger slice of a cake they never vied for. Yet the article gave me one part that was actually insightful. It was given to us by Patricia Sabga. She states: “The Saudi royal family is something of a black box. It’s largely impenetrable to outsiders, including people who have spent decades visiting and studying in Saudi Arabia. How do you go about carving a window into that black box?” There are two sides, in the first the this is optionally true, but how many royal families will allow carving a window in their private lives? And second to that, why would the Al Said family allow it, no matter whether other royal families have done so? Privacy is an expensive commodity and it seems to me that privacy should not be given away, but that is merely my take on that.

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September 28, 2020 · 00:33

Exit stage right

Yup, I am back. In the first there is the Swiss issue I discussed earlier today, as set the free movement ending is not reached, 68% rejected that part. So in this the larger stage were (as I personally saw it) the fear mongering side, but that is merely my view on one part. The election was on a few items and the Swiss have spoken, they rejected the ending free movement part and I am fine with it, yet I do feel that the term of all those benefits, I wonder if we ever get to see a list on that. But no matter what it was up to the Swiss and they rejected the notion.

Then there is the corona issue (not the beer), as per now we have 33 million infected and one million are dead. I believe that this number is actually higher, but I cannot prove it, the top three are USA, India and Brazil. In this I partially reject it because I believe that Indian infected is most likely a lot higher and those who died are cremated rather fast, so even as the numbers are too low, I cannot say that there is intent here, consider that in India the alleged personal need for ignorance is high, a nation where the Mumbai region alone has 55 million people, so 6 million over all India and only 95,000 deaths does not add up. When we apply the global mortality rate, the death count in India is close to 50% too low, a nation where population pressure is through the roof. I get it, not every person gets tested, there are not enough test packages to get even close to the testings required, there is no blame, no one is at fault, but we need to realise the setting and in a lot more places than India, the setting does not add up. 

And in the third setting, we see that there is every indication that President Trump will be exiting the stage on the right side. There is an overwhelming amount of push on places like Twitter where we see the Rock, George Takei, Billy Baldwin, David Cross and numerous others are giving their voice to Joe Biden, there is even a growing amount of Republicans on that list (including me) and the stage that President Trump has set is for the bulk of all the people no longer acceptable. I reckon that if the voting amount is raised from 55% to 65% it will be over for President Trump. As far as I can tell, at no time in history have Americans united against an elected president ever before. These events are making the anti Vietnam and anti Lyndon B. Johnson events fade. Even as Joe Biden has presently a 10% lead, it is a dangerous setting. Some people will fall asleep and will not bother voting, but the is the danger that got President Trump into the Oval Office in the first place. I would hazard a guess that if only 65% votes, one could argue that the USA does not deserve saving, not t this stage. The active people seem to realise that and their voice is simple “please vote”, they do not say who to vote for, they seem to think that this will be enough to get them to vote and hopefully not for President Trump. People like Dwayne Johnson are more eloquent in this, they name the people they endorse and give additional information. Still, I am to some extent in awe, I have never seen such a level of unison coming from America since WW2 (the Hitler is bad group) and perhaps it is important to pause at this notion. Yes, I remember my last piece, yet that was not about being pro-Trump. That was about the law and the constitution, little pesky things all kind of people want to avoid, I do not. 

What else is on the table? 

Well, games would be my guess and even as we are all still reeling from the Bethesda, now Microsoft decision, PC Gamer gives us a past overview (at https://www.pcgamer.com/au/what-happened-to-12-of-gamings-biggest-studios-after-they-were-sold/). I understand what they bring and I do not oppose it, but what stands out is that Bethesda is bought for more than the amount spend on 12 other acquisitions (not all Microsoft), there we see the the purchase of Mojang by Microsoft implies that all is not lost for Sony, yet this close to release of a new console makes it a question mark at best. In this there is also the thought that EA has options for Mass Effect and even the original trilogy, yet that is for another time. For the most the countdown clocks are running for Cyberpunk 2077 and the PS5/Xbox series X. November 19th 2020 for Cyberpunk and the consoles will come at November 12th (PS5) and November 10th (Xbox). The mayhem starts in 43 days 6 hours and 34.2 minutes.

 

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September 18, 2020 · 22:27

Not merely another movie

This is not the now, previously (1-2 years ago) I came up with a new idea for a movie, it is not an action movie and it is not a documentary. In the movie a really wealthy entrepreneur (played by Chris Hemsworth) witnesses an event and it sticks with him, as he goes through the day he sees movies about lobsters, all whilst he eats one, he has half a dozen screens in his office and he is bombarded with data upon data. As this man is considering things, an event sets his mind towards seaweed, in this stage he creates a new seaweed farm outside of Chennai, where he farms seaweed, in his setting he also starts replanting seaweed to keep the balance, but it is during this stage that India gets hit with a massive tsunami, even as he has little damage, the eastern coast is hit harsh and that is when he sets up large crematoria to facilitate for the massive deaths and the people are exempt for payment, the receive the ashes in an urn. It is a few weeks later when the media is getting a breakthrough on affordable seaweed and the drying methods that allows for a setting to feed the world, in the end titles we see the presentation where he presents Soylent Green.

OK the twist is a little naughty, but who remembers Soylent Green, the movie that propelled Charlton Heston in 1973 to even greater heights than ever before. Even as it was merely loosely based on Make Room! Make Room!, the movie had a profound impact on me. And there is a precedence for this. When we consider that seaweed grew from 13.5 million tonnes in 1995 to just over 30 million tonnes in 2016. (at http://www.fao.org/3/ca0191en/ca0191en.pdf), there is more information besides the numbers on page 10, there is a larger impact that seaweed has on corals, as such farming where possible for seaweed is not the worst idea. 

We need to start looking in the outer margins not for what we want, but for what does the trick whilst we find ways to overcome other issues. To see this we need to take heed of the words by Douglas Rasher, who gives us “The important takeaway is that competition between corals and seaweeds can cause dramatic changes in seaweed physiology, both in terms of their growth and their defense”, so even as I take sides with the coral, there is both an upside and a downside. The question becomes, am I on the right side? The coral bleaching gives rise to the fact I am, but nature is a stage of balancing seesaws, you set the balance on one, the others go out of alignment pretty quickly, and messing with them all tends to be disastrous, as such the rule of torts law come into effect, small steps, small steps to the end goal and in case of nature the steps need to be smaller still. 

So as I remember the idea I had on the prequel of Soylent Green, the stage we find ourselves in is not the movie, but the original it was based upon. The book explored the consequences of unchecked population growth on society and what the book envisioned in 1966 ended up being almost here in 2020. There is a rare setting of foresight here, even as the numbers are not on the level yet, the movie played in 2022 and this is not that far away, even as the numbers are still a little off, the need to feed the world remains, the UN gives us “An estimated 821 million people in the world suffered from hunger in 2018”, so even as we need to accept the cannibalism is still way off, the idea of adding seaweed to the global food source is not, and we need to consider it in a serious way to add seaweed to every supermarket there is. Yet we also need to take heed on life in the oceans, when a billion people rely on the same plants that feeds the herbivorous fish of the ocean, something will give way and our record on accepting the consequences is not that good, but all we can do is d the best we can, yet is it enough?

Our lives, our exploitations, our shortages and our needs are not a movie, yet we tend to think it is, because our lives are easier this way, when we blame it on the silver screen, or set the watch towards a reality TV show, but reality is less sweet, has less honey and a lot more vinegar. And our sour setting will come home to roost soon enough, when the hunger facet goes beyond the 800 million mark and hits 1.2 billion, it will pour into the realms where the media actually looks, I wonder how the shortage will be introduced, or better stated how those controlling the media would like it to be explained. 

 

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September 6, 2020 · 20:01

The worst is yet to come

Have you ever watched those old ‘thats Entertainment’ shows? The ones where we see the start with old blue eyes singing ‘The best is yet to come’? Well, in these days we get the new version where the worst is yet to come. In the Coronavirus numbers we see yesterday that a new number is reached, 300,474 new cases, a new height. We are only one day away from the US with 3% of its population with the Coronavirus, 50% of all cases are in the USA, Brazil and India (based on the numbers), yet there are several indicators that we aren’t even close to knowing how many cases India actually has. Even as ABC gave us last month ‘India’s biggest slum has so far nailed coronavirus. Here’s how they did it’, I am not convinced and the data is siding with me. That is seen 4 hours ago in the Indian Express where we see ‘State crosses 20,000-mark in highest single-day spike of cases’, in this we see part, but the article (at https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/maharashtra-mumbai-pune-thane-coronavirus-live-news-updates-covid-19-cases-deaths-unlock-guidelines-6582475/) also gives us “The state on Friday reported 19,218 new cases, taking the tally to 8,63,062 while the death toll rose to 25,964. The spike in cases broke Thursday’s record of 18,105 cases” (there is in the article a typo at the 8 million mark. Yet other numbers give us “4,114,773”, the number is 50% off and that is merely the beginning. India might be the most visible one, but there is no way that they are the only one. There is yet more, it cannot be given full credibility (apart from the fact that it comes from Nine News, the headline ‘Coronavirus is the number 3 killer of all Americans’, I find it debatable, but OK, such as it is they did give me a part that was interesting the article (at https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-u-s-map-where-virus-has-been-confirmed-across-n1124546) gives us the part that matters. The first is the death rate; for California it is 1.8%, for Arizona it is 2.5%, for Texas it is 2%, for Florida it is 1.8%, for New York it is 7.6% and for Pennsylvania it is 5.4%. I only looked at the states with well over 100,000 cases, below that I ignored it, but the setting that the percentage is fluctuating between 1.8% and 7.6% does not add up, One of the more usual fluctuation setting (amount of cases) was circumvented by only looking at the states with well over 100,000 cases. I believe that the setting is off, I believe that these states, optionally in New York as well, is short of numbers, I believe there is a whole range of those with the Coronavirus and those who died of it are not counted for whatever reason. There is no blame here, the US and other nations had not been confronted with this situation for 100 years. The stage was never ready for this and with the bulk of all nations in a budget crunch it will not be resolved. 

Consider (speculatively) that nations are all going towards the 7.6% stage, it is not impossible, as Melbourne Australia is going forward in a new lockdown, the opposite is achieved with the anti-lockdown protests in several countries, they will get more people killed, it is a good way to drop the unemployment numbers and optionally making housing cheaper. The stage is propagated at the highest level, we see this with “They ranged in size from a few hundred people to several thousand, and spread on social media with encouragement from U.S. president Donald Trump” (Source: the Washington Post), and in all this we see the stage go forward with more and more Coronavirus cases popping up. Even as some lines are in decline, I reckon that the entire Labour day celebrations will chance it to a much larger degree. And it does not end there, the CDC is giving us that there are no numbers for the state of New York, merely a total, with no confirmed number, which w2e can understand, but if there is a larger hole in confirmations, there will be every chance that the number is incorrect and definitely incomplete. (at https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases)

There are too many markers out there and they all give us the same message: ‘The worst is yet to come’, when you see what is reported on, what is seen as missing and what is not reported on gives that larger stage and the people are so ready to have ‘anti-lockdown’ protests, how stupid is that?

 

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August 31, 2020 · 20:17

The Pakistani seesaw

I took an interest 2 days ago when the news of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia came across the screen. Yet that is not the part that got to me, it felt like an element, not the main beef and I was proven right with ‘Pakistan’s balancing act may be failing’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/pakistan-balancing-act-failing-200828164701825.html), which gives us in the by-line “Pakistan’s strategy to keep good relations with everyone is no longer working in an increasingly polarised Muslim world”, that makes sense, polarisation is found almost everywhere. Pakistan is in an almost impossible situation, I want to blame Pakistan for their own situation and I would likely be right, but there is no real evidence of it, merely a long line of political choices that Pakistan went with and that makes sense from a Pakistani point of view. Yet we are also given “Qureshi said Islamabad expects the Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to convene a meeting on Kashmir. Otherwise, he said, Pakistan would be “compelled” to “call a meeting of the Islamic countries that are ready to stand with us on the issue of Kashmir”. Qureshi’s comments have widely been viewed as a veiled threat to create a new bloc that would rival the Saudi-dominated OIC”, Saudi Arabia responded and it was not good for Pakistan, but they did this to themselves. From my (limited) point of view, we need to acknowledge that Kashmir is a much larger issue and it makes sense for Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to not rush to conclusions ahead of time, because it either leads to the alienation of Pakistan or India and I reckon that the Islamic countries do not want to alienate an optional consumer base of 1.3 billion people. This does not mean that the Islamic nations are against the Pakistani stance in the Kashmir region, but that situation is a lot larger than we imagine, no matter how we turn it, it is either an Indian choice or a Pakistani choice, yet I wonder what the Kashmiri choice is, the media tends to report little on that (or so it seems to me). 

So when we get to “Soon after General Bajwa landed in Pakistan, Qureshi left for China, sending a clear message to the kingdom that Islamabad is diversifying its alliances and re-evaluating the value of its strategic partnership with Riyadh”, we see that Pakistani wants options, it felt threatened by the pressure on Saudi Arabia that backfired, and in this China was not a solution, merely a trade opportunity as long as China allowed for it, because China has too much to gain from deals with India, they too see 1.3 billion consumers and China wants them, 221 million Pakistani does not add up, especially as the poverty line in Pakistan is 25%, India is at 22%, but with a population base that is almost 6 times larger, China sees a larger interest in India, which doesn’t help Pakistan much. 

There is more, the article also gives us “Today, Saudi Arabia has several reasons to value its deepening partnership with India more than its historic ties to Pakistan. While the annual trade between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia stands at around $3.6bn, Saudi-India bilateral trade is worth more than $30bn. This trade differential partially explains, despite persistent Pakistani requests, why Riyadh has avoided raising the Kashmir issue beyond mere tokenism. Unlike Pakistan, Saudis do not take a zero-sum view of their growing economic cooperation with India. In fact, economic overtures towards India are part of MBS’s post-oil economic diversification efforts”, it is like I stated, India is increasingly important, the diversification efforts are increasing in Riyadh and that is seen all over the globe and China is part of that, all whilst India is already a larger part of it. You do not toss overboard 900% of trade so settle one issue, an issue that is increasingly difficult to set, one might argue that both Saudi Arabia and China might prosper even more if Kashmir became an independent nation. 

Whatever happens next, Pakistan has a much larger issue in play, if we are to believe Al Jazeera with “Pakistan’s criticism of Saudi-led Muslim bloc OIC for its inaction on the Kashmir issue has threatened their ties” (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/pakistan-saudi-rift-happened-200827175219872.html), where we see “Pakistan accused the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 57 Muslim-majority countries that is led by Saudi Arabia, of inaction over the Kashmir issue – a key policy issue for Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan”, there is of course the idea to get all 57 views on Kashmir, but that is merely me considering the larger field. 

So in all this, the larger Seesaw is not Pakistan on one side and Kashmir on the other side, it is a stage where we see the needs of Pakistan one one side and the other side we see the needs of either Saudi Arabia or China, with Kashmir at the centre setting the stage of balance, optionally their inaction. Pakistan is not in a good place and it will get worse, as they alienate more Islamic nations, we will become witness of some sort of isolation of Pakistan, that might not be the best diagnosis, but it is the best I can do for now. No matter how I phrase it, it seems to me that the setting in the Middle East will partially be represented by the views of the OIC and their views towards Kashmir might be more important than we realise. 

 

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