Tag Archives: Media

March 20, 2025 · 17:50

A letter from Hugh

Yup, it happened to me, Hugh Grant send me a letter (a modern message in Email).

You know, the man who was made famous through the movie “Four startups and a Bankruptcy”. And behold, this morning there was a letter in my mailbox, stating:

Dear Lawrence,

For over ten years in opposition the Labour Party promised to implement the Leveson reforms.  These reforms would raise standards in the media and protect the public from intrusions into grief, blatant falsehoods, and other abuses. 

Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, talked a big game about ending corruption in politics and putting the public first.
Yet since his election as Prime Minister, Sir Keir has done nothing to keep his party’s promises and end the scandal of press abuse.

In his failure to act, he is protecting the status quo and putting newspaper owners ahead of the public.

We need to remind him: his Government is accountable to the British public, not newspaper owners.  And his Party’s promises – to ordinary people affected by press abuse, and the wider public – must be kept.

And here is the link to write to your MP (at https://www.hackedoff.org/campaign-actions/britains-press-power-without-responsibility-demand-real-press-accountability-now?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Hugh follow-up&utm_medium=email&utm_id=38)

You will get to enter your UK Postcode and as I as a test enter a post code of Birmingham (as a test)  The system replies with 

Dear Shabana Mahmood,

Despite reaching over 70% of the public every month national newspapers are unregulated – allowing them to spread lies, disinformation, and to commit intrusions with impunity.

Every issue facing the country – from human trafficking to climate change to domestic violence – is affected by the ability of newspapers and their websites to cover them inaccurately and unethically.

The Government’s inaction on press regulation is holding Britain back from meeting these challenges – as well as leaving newspapers able to cause extraordinary damage to individuals’ lives through harassment and intrusion into grief.

You merely have to add your Name, Address and Email address details and the letter is ready. Easy, peasy, Chicken easy.

It will be a rough reminder for the Labour Party and his fellow minions to do something about the outstanding promise to set the Leveson papers in action. The media has become too much of a clear and present danger to the people, and many people in the UK have had enough. So this is a rather large remembrance page with the automation for the people to add their details and do something about it.

It gave me pause to think of hat the UK media is facing. It is already facing irrelevancy and a loss of readers on a global scale. No matter what our faith is, papers like New Arab, Arab News, Khaleej Times and several other newspapers are making string insides into the world population. And that is not all that is happening. In support we see that Dubai Media (the first recipient of my film script “How to assassinate a Politician”) is making rather larger visibility moves. Mostly in Bangladesh , Egypt and Indonesia, but it is a start). In this Al Saudiya (part of the SBA) is doing the same, but I am unaware how large their foot print is becoming. Mostly due to my lack of Arabic I cannot see the complete setting of the Saudi Broadcasting Authority. A Saudi TV group meant for 33 million is reaching out to a population of over half a billion (the Dubai Media group (UAE) as well). They are diminishing the channels that were until recently the targets of Reuters, AP News and the BBC. The people are through with these false prophets and are now giving these two a chance. After the track of the late eighties and 90’s that CNN had, they are given a green light by the people in many ways a similar setting.

Western people have had enough of the lies and innuendo that Western media gives us. As such the term sports-washing, meaning “Sportswashing is the use of sport to redirect public attention away from unethical conduct. The intended effect is to improve the reputation of the offending entity, by using the immense popularity of sport to ‘wash’ away poor publicity.” A term as I see it invented by the western media and nearly always used to describe Saudi involvement. But as I see it, the Western media should be using the same term (although not always involving sports) to strengthen their innuendo for digital dollars. They do, but to hide the actions of involved people like Sony (TPP policy 2016) and a few others. It was the first clear setting where I saw media ‘protecting’ big tech. I wrote (rather clumsily) about that in ‘Lessening the consumer?’ On April 27th 2016 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/27/lessening-the-consumer/) after that I saw the actions by Microsoft and others and the media was holding the hands over the heads of Big Tech (speculatively to score advertisement money) and that was how I started to keep my eyes of the media until now and see how the media today has less value than the average porn magazine, they might reflect on ‘Sex Sells’ but the value of their contribution has lost its value and then some. As media largely goes into the same direction, not giving us news, but referring to out as entertainment and as I see it, the ABC News Channel is the only news channel giving Australia actual news, the rest is flaccid entertainment. This is the same all over the western world hiding behind the term “A news and current affairs show”, where the emphasis is set to ‘current affairs show’ and the ‘insiders’ referring to that being the same. The world is waking up to the setting of being lulled asleep by the media and the Leveson papers was the first stage to getting the people awake. That was the first step for the media to wake up and that so far The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. The result were 4 documents giving us over 2000 pages of wake up medicine for the media regulations. So far it hasn’t happened, for reference the Lord Of the Rings is a novel a mere 1077 pages, so there is that too, one is fiction , the other is a rude awakening of what the media is up to. The News of the world owned by Rupert Murdoch shut down in 2011 when the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty, and public citizens. Murdoch faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption by the British government and FBI investigations in the US. He got out when he was no longer able to hide the actions of some. But not all is lost, the Arabian versions of the news are now shown all over the world mainly the three I mentioned in the beginning. And now we see the growth of Saudi and UAE media and they now have solid systems that can reach the whole western world too. Now we might not get all the shows the 1st gives us, but that is merely one step away from coming. The fires in California have settles the people in optionally leaving California and the UAE and Saudi stations could give them a new beginning, many to Canada, but with the promise of decent incomes Saudi Arabia and the UAE could collect on the cream of American Script writers. I saw this option opening up and (even though magnificently unsuccessful)  , I decided to attempt to sell my first script in the UAE (Dubai media). There is an inkling of faith that it was merely my lack of skills, and it was my first script, but I have three more on route. As such other (a lot more successful than me) could open the road to more scripts and that is what Hollywood fears, the drain of knowledge. They thought they were on top of the world with their setting, yet as Covid hit, followed by the strikes and the California fires, the Hollywood setting is to some degree now an empty shell and that leaves Canada, the UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE open to wildly grown in all directions. The Guardian gives us “The entertainment industry is estimated to create $43bn in wages every year for the Californian economy and recent events have not only forced a pause in the short term but also raised concerns over long-term recovery.” These incomes have been impacted from 2020 onwards. We were given “Many blockbusters originally scheduled to be released by mid-March 2020 were postponed or canceled around the world, with film productions also being halted.” Then we got the strikes in 2023 which stopped it all again and the fires on January 7th 2025, the impact has roasted the core of Hollywood with burning down what was left. Consider the setting that the people in Hollywood were given $43 billion annually and that their incomes have been impeded with a near 80% lacking of a total of over $200 billion. The quality of life is setting the massive options for the other nations and as the Hollywood moguls are happy to pay the others as little as possible, they and up having no recourse for themselves. 

And now we get yet again the Leveson inquiry hitting the UK shores. The mess is now near complete and the media will have to surrender market shares to the Arabian nations and see where they end up being, because the events in Saudi Arabia (2030) and the UAE will likely have all the Arabian journalists and very little other ones, especially with vloggers all over the place and YouTube (and TikTok) having the new fields all to themselves and their creators. That is what I see happening al up to late 2027 and that is long before Hollywood becomes a shadow of itself.

That is the reality of exploitation at some point the people give up and seek richer grounds, Hollywood is now becoming largely without cohesion to itself, so where do you go then? You all have a productive day.

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January 21, 2025 · 02:38

Openings to your fortune

That was the thought I had. Well, it was part of this. You see last week I saw news in the Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/saudi-arabia-nears-deal-to-take-big-stake-in-foxtel-s-new-owner-dazn-20250115-p5l4gr) and people will think “You and how many more?” And that is a fair view. But think of this “When you are competing with an increasing amount of contenders and when that levy comes crashing down, do you care?” When we see the fires in California, can you afford to be coy or emotionally vested in the needs of others? Good business is where you find it, an old expressions that the crime lord Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) threw in our faces in the movie Robocop (1987), but what you mis is that there is a lot of truth in that. When you are trying to make ends meet, does it matter how you got into a place? Does it yield more favor with anyone when the front door seems close and there are people waiting in line, is it that important to ‘join’ them when there is an open patio door to the same location? An entrance is an entrance. So as we see “Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is in discussions to take a stake of up to 10 per cent in global streaming business DAZN, a deal that would hand the Persian Gulf kingdom an influential voice in Australian broadcaster Foxtel.” With the added “DAZN, which specialises in sports streaming, is controlled by British businessman Len Blavatnik and last month agreed to buy Foxtel from News Corp and Telstra in a deal it said valued the local group at $3.4 billion.” Now I can be certain that Len Blavatnik might not be interested in my script, but he knows people and the small herring you throw in the pool might get the attention of the big fish you want to come to your side, either as a supporting player, or even in opposition. The price? Optionally a lousy payday for the first script. But if that gives a decent guarantee that scripts 2,3, and 4 come with a (hopefully) decent payday. And now as California is a cinderblock, it also stands to reason that the pool of scripts suddenly falls (close to) dry. Bares thinking doesn’t it? Because as you are trying to make up your mind Canadians in movies are seeing their option clear to now harvest whatever can be harvested.

So why this path? 
Well for me there is a clear option, but there is more you see, as Foxtel changes hands to British businessman Len Blavatnik, we see more than a mere change, we also see opportunity. As Saudi Arabia is setting their hands to the sport section of Foxtel, there will be people who will look at whatever is there?

And now more eyes will be hopefully looking at my script ‘How to assassinate a politician’ (aka Essay), which was written for an Islamic population and now we are off to the races. How many Islamic laced scripts has Hollywood ever delivered? And now that Hollywood s partially out of business, we can hold our heads high and allow the opportunity to make a few coins.

Is it a guarantee? 
Of course it’s not, but until this happened there were little options outside of Dubai Media and Al Saudiya for me and now there is another doorway, hence the patio door will have to do for me (at present). The simplest setting that Kurtwood Smith was offering us, becomes a doorway where the optional coins reside for us. We found business by going via the side door and it might not work. Yet I feel certain that hungry revenue people will get to see it and that is exactly the door I needed. I might have to sacrifice one script for little to get the visibility to offer the other scripts for a nice fee. And the fun part is that Saudi Arabia has its media channels, but with Hollywood (partially) out of commission, they too needs their channels to produce and now they are handed another option to look at, will it work? Does it match the quality they need? Those are questions for tomorrow. Today we (or I) at least got my way onto the premises. And that was the direction of business I needed. 

And with the quote “DAZN has been expanded aggressively, not only agreeing to acquire Foxtel – along with its streaming platforms Binge and Kayo – but also paying $US1 billion to broadcast FIFA’s inaugural Club World Cup competition.” This is not my field, but they will need to fill up spaces and that will be done with reduced options and a cheap script will be exactly what they need, especially as they will need to fill time gaps for Al Saudiya. And if you think that the last paragraph was a negative one, you would be wrong. The article gives us “But Brian Han, an analyst at Morningstar, said he was not optimistic about Foxtel’s prospects. In a note to his clients last month, he said the broadcaster was “burdened with expensive sports rights and mired in the ever-competitive streaming space against the global digital behemoths”.” You see, he has a point if you think of the way everything has worked all this time. It might have BEEN about “expensive sports rights” but Saudi Arabia has between now and 2030 a massive caliber of options, and that is all Saudi terrain. Trojena will have its own ski slopes, skating rings and so much more, all Saudi. Then there is Sindalah for the water sports. And I cannot even begin to fill the idea of The Line and all will have thousands of people who need to be entertained. I think that a lot of people haven’t even begun to consider how big the transition to Saudi Arabia will be. As such getting in there first has an enormous amount of options for the eager person seeking transition. And for the ones who missed it, when you get access to one it should open up to both (via Saudi Arabia). And that is before you consider that Bangladesh has 150.36 million muslims. That is 4 times the size of the Saudi population. Do you think that Saudi Arabia isn’t looking to service their shows in Bengali? I saw that option years ago, now it is time to seek if it has options for me as well.

So whilst the rest of the world is seeking to unwind their hatred for President Trump, I’ll be seeking the options I can see for good business.

Have a sunny and wonderful day.

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December 13, 2024 · 06:18

Demands from the people

That is what buzzed through my mind when I was confronted with ‘Australia wants to make digital platforms pay for news — even if they block it, like Meta did here’ a mere hour ago (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/australia-social-media-ban-1.7408426) You see, the media (and politics) are so willing to make social media the bad apple. It must come at a price. 

Example:
I see something on Google Search (as I usually do) and I think “This might be interesting” and I take a look only to be confronted by a paywall. It is the media advertising habit. As such, if Australian politics want to make the social media pay, it comes at a price. All pay blocks are forbidden by Australian news and Australian media. You do not get to call yourself ‘entertainment’ and use the news as a advertisement campaign. An example of this is the Queensland Courier Mail. And there are many who use this method (some do not). When you charge others for your triviality, you do not get to set your bar to ‘private’, you must offer it to all without a paywall. 

I have more issues with “The Australian government said Thursday it will tax large digital platforms and search engines unless they agree to share revenue with Australian news media organisations.” You see, soon others (like game makers) will rely on other means to get revenue and this is a handle that allows them to get a slice of it. Of course there are all kinds of ways that these are monitored and that will open even more doors. To be honest I look at Australian media less then a dozen times a year at present. They are that much trivialised by themselves. 

As such Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland created a new problem (as I see it). How to police the media, because that is the second hurdle. There is at that point no longer “the people have a right to know”, it becomes all the people should get to know. The difference seems trivial, but it is not. And as a third base, it is no longer an option to filter the news. Stakeholders and share holders do not get to tell the audience that it is in their best interest. No, no, it all becomes available to everyone at that point. I wonder how long it will take for political parties to see that they tied their own shoelaces together. 

As such it will (I speculate) too long for the media to seek another path to managing their own news. And the bar will be set massively low when other parties hide behind ‘right to express yourself’ into a setting not unlike ‘we communicate our news to the world’ and that is merely the beginning. Soon thereafter every cause will have a ‘news’ cycle because they are given free money by the Australian government. I think that Meta, Google and TikTok are already aware of that danger. It seems like the media will soon see the demand from the people and some will see this as ‘newsworthy’ demanding a few coins from Google (et al) in the process. 

As I see it, there will soon be a rush for coins from nearly every location. Have a great Friday, I am about to gander to the breakfast table.

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December 5, 2024 · 17:07

The price of debt.

That is what I am looking at, the price of debt. You see, they are all hailing that the US economy is strong. One voice (Goldman Sachs), the one that lost it all in 2007 told the world that America would be strong at 2.5% (somewhere I read it). To all it sounds nice and I like nice, but I also query a system that is to my (non-economic view) is rigged. As we see images all over the place on how good things are supposed to be, consider:

We see the setting as tax collected. For 2023 is was “The US government collected nearly $4.7 trillion in gross taxes during the 2023 fiscal year, which is a 15.5% decrease from 2022. The IRS collected taxes from a variety of sources”, now for some it is a little more then milk money. And that sounds nice, but the other side has “As of October 2024, the United States government’s monthly interest rate on its debt is 3.3%. The average interest rate for 2024 is 3.32%, and the total debt is $35.46 trillion.” Consider the simple setting of 3.32% of $35.46 trillion. This gives us $1,170,180,000,000 dollar annually. Which would be ‘liveable’ were it not for the simple fact that this is ONLY interest. The debt remains. And now we have a problem. You see the interest is is a simple 24.89% of the entire taxable revenue and it was 15.5% less from 2022. Do you now see the problem? 25% of all taxable revenue goes to the banks that carry the debt. The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in FY 2022. This means that they spend over 30% to much, more than they had and if there was no debt we could argue, but at this setting we are faced with the simple fact that $6.75 trillion was spent over an available amount of $3.5 trillion, which is getting worse and worse. As such we could surmise that the debt will increase with a little over 3 trillion over spending over last year alone. As I see it America is done for. And the setting worsens with the optional crushing of Google in 2025 (by breaking up that firm) which give Huawei their first global win. Then the defence industry is losing more and more revenue to China and this sets a larger premise. In that setting we see on one hand “The A&D industry generated $425 billion in economic value, representing 1.6 percent of the 2023 nominal GDP in the U.S.”, yet in this we already seeing revenue shifting to China in this year alone and more revenue goes to Europe. For Saudi Arabia alone this sets the bar at “In 2024, the Saudi Arabian defense budget is worth $71.7 billion and will grow at a CAGR of more than 8% during 2025-2029.” Yet other sources give us that “Saudi Arabia estimates military spending will be 15 percent lower than budgeted this year” as such we could surmise that this implies that Saudi Arabia by itself would spend $10 billion less. Not a biggie you say, but the other side is that China now has a little over 10% on that slice of delicious gunpowder baked pie. Making the loss for America more. As such we see an annual loss of $16 billion in one year alone from one customer. As such, what would be the books on India, Japan, Taiwan, Pakistan and Indonesia? If we see these picture, we see a dangerous escalation towards some fictive nil revenue for America. Fictive because that will never happen, but as the largest players seek economic stability they will spend less and take other jobs ‘in-house’ as the expression goes and America has been too reluctant to appease to that state of mind. And now China will step in to offer just that. As I see it, the question on the dollar setting was wrong. We are given “As of March 2024, over half (52.9%) of Chinese payments were settled in RMB while 42.8% were settled in USD” against the tariffs threat by president elect Trump. The actual question would become “How long could the US Dollar keep standing?” You see, as the debt becomes a millstone around the neck of the US administration, we need to consider that some nations will seek shelter from the fallout that this setting. In 2017, on March 17th I wrote ‘The finality of French freedom’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/), I set the comparison of the Euro like a barge kept in balance by 4 strong economies. UK, France, Germany and a combined economic anchor. The UK was lost and there was a setting when the French anchor would be lost too. The Euro could not survive a setting with two anchors. A simple equation. Now with the Dollar under attack the Euro could face near certain scuttling. As such the Dollar has an influence there. China seemingly doesn’t care, but the other players who make up a combined anchor might switch sides when they merely look at their own currency. And the debt? They will not care. And as such the dollar faces a lot more than the bully tactics of choice. They will need to up the game by a lot, because when one goes, so will the other and that puts the livelihood and liveability of 784 million people at the markers. 100,000 of them will do fine, but that represents a simple 0.01275348% of people who are likely to make it (outside of the EU and USA), so when were that good statistics? 

The price of debt was always there, but the media has been eager and willing to hide those facts through BS and spin and soon when the people catch on (the other 99.987% of people), the live of playing the media courtesan will be one of the most dangerous of them all. People remember. And it was a simple equation for the media. “You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time but you can never fool all of the people all of the time” A simple setting I knew to be true as early as the early 80’s. So how long did they have at most? Some are already falling in the bad light and when the people realise that they weren’t eating potatoes, but turnips. They will become massively enraged. 

A simple setting I have known to become reality at some point. So when are we given the goods? When the interest of the debt of America is shown as a setting against the budget and at this time it is around 25%, Americans need to realise that budgets need to diminish by at least 30%, so at what point do the people realise that the simplicity of the matter is that their money is about to be gone?

Have a lovely day.

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December 1, 2024 · 06:26

When the media uses the media

Yesterday I saw a message that threw me (at first). The BBC gave us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7747l84xp1o) and we are given ‘Hitman offered $71,000 for Canadian reporter’s assassination’. As I see it, it doesn’t matter who or where, but anyone paying more than $25K for shortening the life-wire of the reporter in question is over-inflating the problem. We are given “Convicted killer Frédérick Silva confessed to La Presse that he had offered the contract to anyone willing to carry out the hit on Daniel Renaud, who was covering his trial for three murders and an attempted murder in 2021.” The first thought I had was how people could fall for this. A convicted killer handing out the job to anyone for $71K? As I personally see it who is Frédérick Silva trying to escape from? Then we get “The “contract” was in place for roughly two months, but was never carried out, La Presse reported. Silva eventually cancelled the order, he said, because he had “more important issues to deal with”.” As I see it, when a person sets up a contract, it tends to be ‘fulfilled’ within a few days. So I am weirded out by a $71K contract that stays open for about 2 months and then withdrawn? The setting does not fit as some would say. Consider the premise of anyone in the lower security tier. Day one, scope where he lives, or where he frequents. Set the stage and set up a sniping position on day two. Wait for day 3-5 for the mark to show up and end his career (with a 7.62mm prop). In case of ‘dubio’ you could set it up in week 2 as well. So all the effort in two weeks explained and a convicted killer can’t do it and no one wants a $71K job? America with its problems and everyone in that setting passes up on a $71K job? And no one sees this? I had all these doubts, so I decided to take a look at the Canadian side of things and the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/hit-man-wanted-to-kill-journalist-1.7397281) gave me ‘Notorious Quebec hit man wanted to have La Presse journalist killed for $100K’ with the byline “a threat recently made public revealed there could have been a third attempt three years ago, when a contract was put on the head of La Presse crime reporter Daniel Renaud. “I was shaken,” Renaud was quoted saying in La Presse. “I am always careful about what I write. For me, the best guarantee for my protection is my writing.”” I read two articles and the only thing dripping off the writing is ‘how considerate’ he pretended to be seen. You see, we get one additional thing. We are given “Quebec provincial police informed Renaud in the fall of 2022 that notorious hit man Frédérick Silva, whose trial Renaud covered the year before, had put out a $100,000 contract to have the journalist killed.” If that was true the journalist either had something no one has seen yet, or there is another personal setting. So when Radio Canada gives us “Frédérick Silva was arrested in 2019 after spending months in hiding. Three years later, he decided to become a police informant and was airlifted to a secure location from jail.” So he was in hiding for months? And decided to become a police informant? What a disgrace (to some). So consider that “notorious hit man” forks out a contract. I get it, that would be needed to create an alibi and if he was so notorious some would take the contract to gain favour and fame in certain circles. And it came with a $71K bonus? I have issues with this all and I am surprised that I might be the only one. It is not the person. I wonder if anyone outside of Canada knows Daniel Renaud? That is not an attack on Daniel Renaud, he might be very famous in Canada, perhaps even more famous in Quebec. But I (and many more) have never heard of him and that is fine in this world where there are more journalists than there are pools. If you add the self proclaimed journalists we get a pool of so many people that they can replace the population of a medium sized country. So when you realise these items in the equation. Consider what these articles were all about. About a failed attempt on a life where the slightly above average precision shooter could gain an easy $71K, or a reporter that has suddenly be pushed into the limelight. 

As I see it there are way to many debatable issues here for comfort. I will let you make up your own mind.

Have a great day.

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November 2, 2024 · 07:04

Strangled by greed

I saw an article in the BBC last week, I took notice as it collided with something else I saw, but I could no longer find it. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6er83ene6o) gives us ‘Hollywood’s big boom has gone bust’ It is here where we see “The actor and aerial cinematographer turned his hobby of flying drones into a profitable business in 2012 just as the streaming wars were taking off. For a decade, he was flying high above film sets, creating sleek aerial shots for movies and TV shows on Netflix, Amazon and Disney. Now he’s on the verge of becoming homeless – again. He was evicted from the Huntington Beach home he shared with his wife and two young children and now is being booted from the Las Vegas apartment they moved to because they could no longer afford to live in Southern California.” As I see it, it is a much simpler equation, even as we are given “the good times ground to a halt in May 2023, when Hollywood’s writers went on strike. The strikes lasted multiple months and marked the first time since the 1960s that both writers and actors joined forces – effectively shutting down Hollywood production.” You see, some people are blaming the strike, but the strike wasn’t the reason it is a interaction drive between cinematic analysts and greed driven studio bosses. Even as we see “with layoffs at many studios – most recently at Paramount. It had a second round of layoffs this week, as the storied movie company moves to cut 15% of its workforce ahead of a merger with the production company Skydance.” And none of it is the actual reason. Hollywood has decided to rely on mediocrity and the attached collection of yes nodders towards some numbers of utterly unreliability (as I personally see it). Lets take a step back to 1966, a new youngling in Hollywood came with an idea a science fiction tainted wild western called Star Trek. Lucille Ball from Desilu Productions was one of the driving forces on pushing the success of Star Trek. In the mean time the series is the longest and most successful series in history pushing 11 spin offs and 13 movies. At the end, the cancellation of Star Trek was proclaimed In 2011 “the ranked number four on the TV Guide Network special, 25 Biggest TV Blunders” and still Hollywood will not learn. Now we see other issues in 2005 a series named Threshold was created, it lasted for one season.

The TV series was really good (my personal view) and the actors including Carla Gugino, the youthful young sprout who played the ex of Dwayne Johnson in San Andreas, Brent Spiner who played the mad scientist in Independence Day, Charles S. Dutton known for many roles, Rudy being one of them, Peter Dinklage who shined in Death at a Funeral and the game of thrones. The TV series was drenched in achieved talent, however as the TV series didn’t get the desired ratings, the series were dropped. Star Trek wasn’t enough of a lesson for Hollywood. And this wasn’t the only lesson. Defying Gravity (2009), Firefly (2002), Doll House (2009) all series dropped for the mere reason that it wasn’t bringing in the cash from day zero. As I see it Hollywood hasn’t gone bust. The audience has stopped putting their faith in Hollywood productions. An entity that doesn’t seem to comprehend Science Fiction and Fantasy is the maker of imaginary worlds? 

We see a whole range of attached reasons, but the number one reason isn’t shown. The fact that advertisements aren’t of interest to people and that is the one thing that drives players like Netflix. TV stations are fed that advertisement is the drive of all entertainment business and to some extent this is partially true. The fact that the people after 50 years still look forward to some form of Star Trek is because it is a more surreal form of escapism and that image isn’t clear to Hollywood. I see it as a reason why Canada and Australia are growing players in this field. In Hollywood every dollar needs to be spend at least twice to become valid and all that time writers are massively underpaid. I see it as the number one reason why we will soon see an overshadowing of Hollywood by Dubai Media and the MBC group. And that is before Hollywood figures out that the people demand continuation of the story. The number one issue around Threshold, Defying Gravity, Firefly and Doll House. The are regarded as not ‘profitable’ but they are represented by millions of watchers who wonder what comes next and too many of these disappointments of cancelations are getting to them and now they look at places where there is continuation. 

My initial view is that someone needs to take a hard look at how ratings are measured, because I think that is the core of the issue. I refuse to believe that some cancelations are valid. Consider the series Lucifer, it was booted at season 3, taken over by Netflix who did 3 seasons more. Now we see “In 2021, Lucifer was the most-streamed original series in the U.S., with 18.34 billion minutes viewed”, so how is that not a success and it makes us wonder what drove the cancelation by Fox? The stream data contradicts the Fox statement that is was a “ratings-based decision”. I think that this is happening too much and as such I have doubts that there is a issue with how ratings are ‘found’ and those in that area together with some analysts are setting the stage for whatever they think that matters, but that is merely my view on the matter.

I see it that greed driven decisions by some are strangling others from fulfilling their view. Avatar (2009) made $2,923,706,026 and I get that, but is it better than Oppenheimer (2023) $975,594,978? As I see it Wall Street wannabe’s are tainting the field of artistic achievements and I get that revenue is part of the equation, but Hollywood was the place of dreams, it has now become a nightmare for many players. Why is that? 

Enjoy the weekend.

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October 19, 2024 · 17:26

Kettle, pot and colouring

Yup, that is the setting for today. I saw the news yesterday or the day before and it angered me. The article (at https://cpj.org/2024/10/saudi-arabia-sentences-cartoonist-mohammed-al-ghamdi-to-23-years/) from the CPJ (committee to protect journalists) is as misguided as it is hypocritical. In the first instance I do not know Mohammed al-Ghamdi, I never saw his cartoons or red anything from him. As far as I am concerned as long as the CPJ does not hold its western journalists and editors up to any kind of standard, it needs to shut up. Yesterday I touched on the Politico article regarding Prince Khalid bin Bandar al Saud and it opened up some issues for me. There is more, the media neglects the interesting ‘good’ Saudi Arabia does and trivialises the harm that Saudi Arabia gets from Houthi terrorists. As such I say that the CPJ needs to shut up.

We are given that “a Saudi cartoonist for the Qatar-based Lusail newspaper, who was sentenced on an undisclosed date in 2024 to 23 years in prison on charges that his cartoons were sympathetic to Qatar and insulted the Saudi government” Saudi Arabia has laws, they might not be the laws the west heralds, but this is a Saudi event. I might not agree, but if I am in Saudi Arabia I would have to adhere to Saudi Laws and there is the chance that my articles fall in bad waters with Saudi Arabia. I do not know as I am not privy to those laws. As far as I know I never known and intentionally insulted anyone in the Saudi government (I might be wrong in this).

Countries have laws, the west (Commonwealth and Europe) for the most on the issue of freedom of speech and as such I tend to use that freedom of speech, yet in that instance I try to maintain a civil tongue. And when Charlie Hedbo was killed, I also supported France, I stood at a vigil in Sydney. I was not aware to the stage that drove someone to kill Charlie Hedbo, but I was in agreement that we had to protest this because Charlie Hedbo was not anti-Muslim. He drew on several occasions images that would have offended the church (the Vatican), as such he was equally ‘diplomatic’ on all faiths. 

Yet this is not about Charlie Hedbo, this is about the double standard the CPJ uses and until they hold western media to a serious level of account, they need to put up or shut up. 

This is pretty much it. I did not check some of the claims made and I am not saying these claims weren’t true. We get “It is time to break this longstanding pattern of imprisoning journalists. Saudi authorities must release al-Ghamdi and drop all charges against him” and I am not opposing this, but I find it interesting that numbers and reasons for imprisonment aren’t given. It this is about less then 5 journalists, it seems a trivial matter (compared to Turkey and a few other places). And lets not forget these Saudi Laws are all documented and as such these ‘journalists’ (optionally a mere one cartoonist) might have decided to leave the country, was that done? 

The CPJ gives us that 50 Journalists were killed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 2024. So, where is the stink on these 50 journalists? Oh, and why is it “Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and why do we not see the segregation between “West Bank and the Gaza Strip” and “Israel”? It was a simple setting, but the CPJ seems to use a simplistic brush for that. And between 2018 and 2024 we see merely one seemingly killed and I raised plenty of articles between 2018 and 2024 shedding doubt on that setting. Another article gives us that 10 people were imprisoned all whilst the 2023 numbers have a top 10 (Saudi Arabia wasn’t there) and the top is China with 44 imprisoned, Russia with 22, Iran with 17, and Turkey with 13 imprisoned. Yet in all of these cases, we see an absence of reasons and there is the issue. The (western) press has in the last 10 years lost pretty much all credibility, as such a reason for imprisonment is required. I have an issue with the CPJ because a population with less credibility than a drug pusher in a school yard has several issues and I do not think the CPJ is in a position to demand any kind of charge drop until the status quo of journalists is re-established with a level of credibility that most of us find acceptable. The chase for digital dollars in the last decade pretty much diminished their right for a ‘protected’ status. 

People might not like my view on the matter, but that is my preview on the matter. Perhaps the CPJ would like to rewrite the article in something more palatable?

Have a great Saturday.

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October 9, 2024 · 01:07

When the credit card stops

That is the setting for the US of A. The BBC gives us ‘US debt would increase under Harris and soar under Trump – study’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce81g9593dro). We are given that there is basically no escape for America, I have articles going back to 2018 where I give sight of what is coming. Oh, and by the way at what point do you cancel someones credit card? We are given “Donald Trump’s campaign proposals would increase the US national debt by double the amount Kamala Harris’s would, according to a new analysis by a non-partisan group.” We are also given “Trump would add $7.5tn” now consider that the interest on this would be around 450 billion, just on the increase alone. Now consider that the total debt is 500% larger and now consider that the US economy needs to come up 2.25 Trillion EACH YEAR to deal with the interest alone and I saw that coming 5 years ago and the news media and these so called financial experts never saw this? I do not believe this. We were all told and presented a story. And they are about to lose whatever leeway they thought they could hang over us. The media was the tool some were able to use (with what I speculatively see) as stake holders to ‘bring’ the presentation. And the media seemingly was left in the dark, or were they?

The problem is that we cannot see or prove any of this. But consider that I saw this coming for over 5 years and I do NOT have an economic degree. What makes you think that I am more clever than these financial wizard in the media (CNN, BBC, WSJ, the Guardian) and many more? Do you really think that they made a miscalculation? They isn’t nickel and dime stuff, this is about 35 trillion dollars. How much sneaky bookkeeping is involved to put such an amount under the tables? This would require the cooperation of media, banks and governments. So when your retirement falls away, who will you blame? The media? The Banks? The Governments? Seems ludicrous, almost some crazy conspiracy. But consider the facts. Consider the evidence and the avoidance of the media to address certain economic facts. That is not some cooky setting, the evidence is out there on the internet. Consider all the media and consider what the media never gave us. I can tell you more, but it is time to consider what I am telling you here and make your own mind up. 

Now consider that the EU had six trillion euros in taxable revenue in 2022. Now we see that America is optionally about to increase its debt more that the taxable income of 27 countries and it does not raise an issue? Now we know that plenty of EU countries have a GDP that equals an apple and an egg. But together they should amount to a fair amount considering that these countries have a total population of 449.2 million, which is a lot more than America (about 34%). Now consider that people pay taxation, companies pay taxation as well. But the tax breaks are mostly for companies. As such I look at the people. There is a baseline that extremely roughly applies and when that baseline is applied the numbers do not match up as I personally see it and I have seen this setting for over 5 years and the media ignores it all. 

Could I be wrong?
Yes definitely, but overall certain numbers create levels of equilibrium and I see that these numbers aren’t here at the moment. And the media seeing these debt levels fail them could also be seen as optional evidence. So how does it work? It seems clear that the media can no longer be trusted (in my opinion). So how to get the numbers? I cannot give you my sources, so you are a little on your own in that regard.

Have a great day.

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December 31, 2023 · 07:56

Here come the drums

That is the setting I saw yesterday. In the Netherlands We hear from the General of the army, or as some would say ‘hoogedelgestrenge generaal Martin Wijnen’ In most not so Dutch linguistic settings we can suffice with General Martin Wijnen. (At https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1850033/dutch-army-war-russia-eu-nato), in the article ‘Dutch must prepare for war! Army boss BEGS nation to arm up ‘as Russia getting stronger’’ we see the clear warning. There are too many indicators that Russia has no intent on stopping with the Ukraine. I used the British Newspapers Express. They weren’t alone, but at times we need to change venue. Whilst we might not agree with “The Dutch army chief has raised the alarm that “Russia is getting stronger” and that leader Geert Wilders, and his counterparts in the EU, needs to better prepare the Netherlands for war with Putin’s forces.” The clear truth of the matter is that Russia is about to mobiles up to 2.2 million soldiers. It is the old ‘dumb marketing strategy’ throw enough resources at a problem and the problem goes away. No matter how strong the Ukraine is, with that many additional soldiers they can just throw themselves at the Ukrainian battlements until the Ukrainian bullets run out. Not really the humane approach, but we never bothered to call Vladimir Putin out on that quirky detail did we? 

We were also given “The Netherlands should not think our safety is guaranteed because we are 1,500 kilometres away [from Russians].” I tend to agree. The fact that several nations are now sending weapons to Russia is also a factor. Russian junk is about to be replaced by working materials. The Ukrainians might have sunk a boatload of drones, but that is not all that is going there, is it? 

In addition we were given “The Netherlands is one of the founding members of NATO and is a staunch backer of Ukraine. Last week, outgoing PM Mark Rutte announced that his country would be sending Volodymyr Zelensky 18 F-16 fighter jets to fight the Russians.” Russia is unlikely to take kindly to that and there is no indication just how ready Germany and Poland are for an direct conflict with Russian forces, that 1,500,000 meter barrier is not going to last long is it? The best outcome is to make sure that the Ukraine wins this war, but at the speed that Russia is bombing the Ukraine, there might not be much left of it in the next 26 weeks. After that? I fully believe that the Ukrainians will fight for every inch of the Ukraine, but when there is nothing left one of the few options remaining is to fight Russia in Russia and that is a very different war, one they are less equipped for. 

As such I believe there is a lot of merit to the words of Martin Wijnen. The fact that the new Prime Minister of the Netherlands is pro-Russian will not help matters much, although the moment one assault on the Netherlands takes place he better change direction, or become the first Regent to face the deadly mobs since the execution of Johan de Witt on August 20th 1672. But not to worry, I feel certain that the media, YouTubers and TikTokkers will be there to cover it all in 4K.

The words of the general sound true. There is a worry and the worry should not be trivialised. No matter how it continues with the Ukraine, Russia needs a win, it needs one soon and Putin needs one to appease his Kremlin cronies. 

We have seen the damage that the Ukraine has dealt Russia, but they have a lot more and some of it actually works. My biggest fear is that Putin takes a lesson from the Hitler playbook and takes out a city in the Netherlands, not unlike was done on May 14th 1940. To think of that, how long until France, Germany and Belgium face that very same danger? I have no idea, and I reckon the rest of the world would instantly turn against Russia, still, there are too many ‘what if’s’ in that equation and I (for the most) hate what if settings. It fuels too much super good, or super bad thinking, extremes away from the expected and most unexpected norms. It fuels the wrong part of the thinker, which I personally believe is never a good thing. 

In all this General Wijnen is not alone in this setting, but I do believe too many nations remain silent on the matter. Germany spoke out for strengthening their armed forces, but in this setting the United Kingdom did not, neither (as far as I am aware) did France and for the most their Legion Etrangere is the only one ready to face whatever comes their way. And these 9,000 troops, their Legio Patria Nostra (or as I gigglingly call them, the well educated fathers of the night) could deal with about 40% of the total of Russian forces, but what would be left for the Dutch? OK, still enough, but France and Belgium better get ready to consider the darker setting of Europe as we consider the words of General Wijnen. 

So now on a lighter tone, it is time for the same joke I have been telling friends for well over a decade.

Q: Do you know the definition of sex 2023?
A: Todays is the last day to find out.

Enjoy this final day and stay safe around fireworks.

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November 23, 2023 · 23:23

A dangerous escalation

Before I go into the story, I need you to know something. Hamas is a terrorist organisation, no doubt about it. Governments and the United Nations are bending over backwards to avoid phrasing any sentence that combines Hamas and Terrorist. So I have been watching the ‘pro-Palestinian’ events. Too many are riddles with anti-semitics. And as some spokesperson from the United Nations, the simple looking broad with the saggy tits. I had enough. Israel has a right to defend themselves. Yet, I also agree with the actor Misha Collins, who on Twitter stated that what is happening now amounts to war crimes. I cannot disagree with him. Hamas is fully integrated in the west bank, into its populations. The hospitals (at least one) goes into tunnels with weapon caches. All issues. Now that you know that lets get into the article and the actual dangers that Israel is about to face. And Israel went bug-nuts, more then ever. I get the why, but the setting still stands. Israel is basically guilty of war crimes. I have no idea how they could have acted differently. Hamas killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians and a large group of them children, people were kidnapped and taken into the west bank. Israel lost their cool and went nuts. 

The article (at https://ara.tv/6a4dp) gives us ‘Saudi Crown Prince calls on all countries to stop arms exports to Israel’. I get it Saudi Arabia is a Muslim nation, as such it will side with Muslims. Also on October 20th the BBC gave us “Prince Turki al-Faisal has publicly condemned both Hamas and Israel for attacking civilians” this matters to everyone. Hamas is now and will remain a terrorist organisation, even if the United Nations are in denial. The danger is seen with “Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged all nations during an extraordinary BRICS summit on Tuesday to cease weapon exports to Israel.” The title gave us the goods, but it is now a more dangerous setting. You see Saudi Arabia is now a stronger voice in BRICS, they have the money, they have the economic future and that has been enough of an incentive for all governments to react. As I see these useless United Nations, the people who would not clearly act against Houthi terrorists are now even more useless. And when Saudi Arabia gets the upper voice, the UN is mostly done for. 

This is no boast, no grandstanding. The last four events West Bank, Ukraine, Yemen and Syria. In all these matters the UN achieved almost nothing, mere grandstanding and the fuel for a gravy train. That is all the UN now amounts to. So as BRICS grows and there is absolutely zero doubt that this will not happen. All kinds of nations will want a piece of that for their economy. That deflates the UN, sets larger issues with the EU and as you have seen in America, too many voices are not merely against Ukraine, they are more and more pro Russian. That is the future we see coming on all channels but the media is making a populist mockery of it all. And now that things need to be achieved the Kingdom in Saudi Arabia is hugely placed to make it happen. It gets to be worse (or better for me) for that. I once wrote the (partial) script of ‘How to assassinate a politician’ that politician is now the largest person in the Dutch election. Geert Wilders, the anti-Muslim far right voice has the most votes. I might just offer my writing again to Al-Arabiya, Al Saudiya, or Dubai TV. The fact that Geert Wilders is about to become prime minister of the Netherlands might make my script worth a few pennies. 

Still the larger station for Israel changes. There could soon be a setting that the State of Israel will end up standing alone. When America and the Commonwealth need to choose their economies or Israel is not entirely unlikely. I have no idea how that will play out, but as the Ukrainian pressures play out, Russia will be in a new stage. Side with BRICS and Saudi Arabia and end up with the tick of NATO at their front door, or make sure that Europe diversifies. The danger for Israel is not complete, but it is growing and Hamas ends up with winning a war they should never have been allowed to win. Because the moment a terrorist organisation wins a war, we all lose, no exception to that setting. That much is certain and the media stands on its own shores, the one with digital dollars, the populist voice. Because flames get responses, get clicks and sets the populistic people on a typing rampage creating even more clicks. 

Enjoy the day. It is almost Friday for me.

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