Tag Archives: New York

January 3, 2022 · 19:51

The virtual quarterback

We can consider me being the Monday morning quarterback, it would be fair to call me this. I have been for the longest time a champion of science, I believe that not unlike evidence in law, science is the cornerstone of all daily life decisions. So I tend to take sides with science for nearly all cases. Yet today, in opposition of a piece in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/britain-got-it-wrong-on-covid-long-lockdown-did-more-harm-than-good-says-scientist) I take another side, the non-scientist setting. I oppose the views of Professor Mark Woolhouse. So feel free to oppose my views, which would be fair enough. But in all matters take a long hard look at some of the things we are handed here today. I believe that not unlike some wannabe journalists who wanted to cash in on Jamal Khashoggi with their fiction view of ‘Blood and Oil’ this professor might be trying to find the same rabbit in a different hat with ‘The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir’.

So where do I oppose?
It starts with “I am afraid Gove’s statement was simply not true,” he says. “In fact, this is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.” In March 2020 there was a lot we never knew. Do not forget that the disease was out for only 2-3 months, and it had not spread to the degree it has now. China had no answers, and the people who were responsible for calling this a pandemic did not do so. In addition, the media gave us “This might become a pandemic” all whilst the points of calling it a pandemic had already passed. I wrote about it on February 3rd 2020 in ‘Corona?  I Never touch the stuff!’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/corona-i-never-touch-the-stuff/), a month before we see given here. I already saw the pandemic threshold passed, yet most media were in denial with “This might become a pandemic” as such, it seems to me that Professor Mark Woolhouse will have to explain a few things. Then we get to “We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence, as well as suffering damage to their future prospects, while they were left to inherit a record-breaking mountain of public debt” in this is resort to the blunt ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ In the first there was a lot we did not know, and for the longest time there are still questions, so the response I see with “We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence” is something I would like to refer to as bullshit marketing. You see the first peak of daily deaths did not start until April 13th 2020, with 6916 dead people (aka the non-living). 

I found a table from April 2020 from New York. In this table we see 6839 died, but the interesting part is that 5151 cases had an underlying condition and in that case the older you get the higher the chance of an underlying condition, and in that up to 44 years old 312 died. Most with an underlying condition, but there was a lot not known in that setting. More important, there was no vaccine, there was no protection. The Pfizer solution was still in clinical trials in November 2020. And when you start looking at the facts as they were known, I believe that Mark Woolhouse is trimming his own trumpet for the sake of book-sales (a speculative view, but it is my view). 

Were mistakes made?
Yes, of course mistakes were made, they were made all over the world and with the US having an idiot as president in those days did not help much. There was a large void of knowledge and there was a large void of experience, so looking at the facts after the fact does not help much (apparently it might help a certain professor with a book to sell). And in all this the professor does not take into account the anti-lockdown idiots spreading the disease, the ignorant anti-vaxxers adding fuel to the fire and then the people who were ignorant of the way the disease spread going to relative, friends and so forth needing their social moment. 

And in London that is a large powder-keg waiting to explode and now that it is doing just that we see the blame game in effect. So consider the anti-lockdown protest, it only 10 people had it at that point, at least 1000 could have it 3 days later. And everyone remains in denial, oh boo hoo hoo!

So when we get to “the country should have put far more effort into protecting the vulnerable. Well over 30,000 people died of Covid-19 in Britain’s care homes. On average, each home got an extra £250,000 from the government to protect against the virus, he calculates. “Much more should have been spent on providing protection for care homes,” says Woolhouse, who also castigates the government for offering nothing more than a letter telling those shielding elderly parents and other vulnerable individuals in their own homes to take precautions.” Where is the time line? When did we know what we know now and that is before we add the complications of Alpha, Delta and Omicron. And with the last quote “By contrast, we spent almost nothing on protecting the vulnerable in the community. We should and could have invested in both suppression and protection. We effectively chose just one.”

In the first, the government could not afford both paths (slight speculation), there were too many unknown factors and with Omicron raging now, anti-vaxxer idiots and anti-lockdown dumbo’s, how can you protect a community? You can claim you can but stupid people will do whatever they feel like, the vulnerable be damned. That is how people tend to be. 

So this is my view on the matter and it is a rare event when I oppose a scientist, especially a professor, but here I feel it was needed. And I had a few more views concerning covid over that year and last year too. I kept it low, because I am not a medici (ha ha ha), yet the larger stage is also ignored in the story. The media was fear mongering all over the place and that too resulted in negative actions. There were several factors and I believe that too many factors were unknown, or untested for the longest of times. 

So, if you decide I am the Monday morning quarterback it is fine, I gave my reasoning and my views that go back to February 2020 when it was in the earliest stage. So I am not exactly the Monday morning quarterback, but I am definitely a virtual one. Consider the facts and consider the blah blah from Professor Mark Woolhouse and draw your own conclusions.

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December 9, 2021 · 19:01

The old joke

There is an old joke, I heard it in the 70’s. The joke goes like “John, I have no idea how this firm has any chance of surviving without your presence, but as per this coming Monday, we will give that a try!”, and whenever I see staff removals happening, including me getting made redundant years ago, that joke goes around my brain. So when the BBC gives us ‘Boss says sorry for ‘blundered’ Zoom firing of 900 staff’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59573146). So we get the outrage linked to “Mr Garg was heavily criticised after he sacked 900 staff in an online meeting”, There is one other setting that I do not get. You see, we get the following part “A deal is likely to value the business – which Mr Garg founded in 2015 – at between $6.9bn (£5.2bn) and $7.7bn”, so in 6 years a firm has grown to $7,000,000,000 and he casually fires 900 people? Didn’t they help the business grow? So, as we set the larger stage we get ““Organisations do have to make job cuts sometimes, it is a hard reality,” says Rachel Suff, senior policy adviser on employee relations at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. “But how they go about it and the humanity they approach it with can have a fundamental impact on how people deal with that shocking news.”” Yes, we can be humane, and we can be callous. Yet the stage of firing 900 people when you went from (assumed) zero to $7,000,000,000 in 6 years is quite the success story, as such the move makes no sense, unless he wants to hang his coat up and retire a multi billionaire. As I see it, the setting of “to float the company on the stock market”, a choice that might be valid, it might not be. I cannot tell, it is not area of expertise, yet the question becomes towards it mission statement “Better.com, which aims to use technology to make the house buying process “faster and more efficient””, is that one direction, was it also safer to do that, or has someone figured out that the faster and more efficient comes with larger safety holes? I actually do not know, but that is the first question that pops into my head. 

You see, we do see “The market has changed”, yet I also find “Home values in New York (statewide) have risen 14.2 percent (current = $363,990) in the last year and will continue to rise in 2021. Over the last year, home values in New York City have increased by 4.5 percent. The latest market forecast is not available for NYC”, so I am not sure what is going on and before we go all high and mighty on the 900 removed people, it represents 15% of removed staff, implying that better.com did one hell of a job, it implies that he still employs 5100 people. The article does not really bear that out does it? I am not blaming the BBC for that, but the setting of what still is remains important. If there is one critique on this, then it is their homesite that still has a career page that is hiring. I reckon that there should be a clear page setting something like “Due to volatile market settings, all hiring activities are temporarily suspended”, as such I reckon that this Vishal Garg optionally missed the ball twice over. But that small part was not picked up either by the media. The website actually looks decent, so the business is seemingly not too shabby.

So whilst the BBC is all about slapping him around, and that is fine. No one is considering the fact that 5100 are still employed and that a startup has grown from close to zero to $7,000,000,000 a feat that is pretty rare to say the least. 

I find it hard to condemn the act (I had been made redundant more harshly then that in the past). It happens to us all one day, unless we are on the board of directors, in which case we get a huge bonus and we are escorted to the limousine.

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September 3, 2021 · 12:48

When one and one remains one

Two things crossed my path, as perhaps a lot of you too. They are not related, but they gave me food for thought. The first are the floods all over NY city. I looked at a lot of YouTube videos and I agree, we have never seen this before, will we see more of that? Time will tell. Yes, it could be due to global warming, but it is not a given. We have tornado’s and we have storms and this one went towards New York. Now, I am not stating that it isn’t due to global warming, but to point the finger from the start is not a good idea. I do believe that global warming is part of the storm surge and as global warming continues there will be more storms. There is no denying that. One can lead to the other, but one is not the definite cause of the other. That setting is here too. So whilst those with a sub-level apartment, they now have a swimming pool. I am not making fun of them, that would be wrong, but it is important to consider that New York has never dealt with this before and it is now August. It will take months to dry, so we are in a setting with thousands of a basement apartments and when the frost sets in, these houses will become death traps. November and December will be close to unbearable and in January if the frost sets in these apartments will be a different setting. It is also a more important setting, if snowfall comes early this December, thousands of places to live will become close to unsurvivable and New York better get ready for that stage, it could kill a lot of people. Is it a given? No, it is not, but the floods are clearly visible, if the subway is flooded, how will these houses fare? And that is only the start, the water brought all kinds of mud and other health threats, so cleaning these places will be an almost titanic task. Then we get to the damaged electrical systems, and all this is before we realise that plumbing and  water will take a while to become decently reliable again. A stage we saw in part, but how much of these dangers did the people see?

The second is not related, but it had my attention. Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/article/amazon-tv-usa/amazon-to-roll-out-its-own-tv-in-u-s-by-october-business-insider-idUSKBN2FZ00D) gives us ‘Amazon to roll out its own TV in U.S. by October’, this implies that there is another statin on US minds, Amazon will have more than Amazon Prime Video, they are now setting the stage to TV and there is no attack, there is no issue. Yet the stage of them offering  TV with a twist is not out of the question. It is a clever move from Amazon, they have the option to take advertising to a whole new level and it is THEIR TV channel, so the essential attacks on Amazon will not be as effective as the attacks that Apple and Google are facing. But is that what it is about? No, it is not merely the TV part, it is the shifting economy that Amazon gets to push for. This is not meant in a negative way, but consider that thousands will be dislodged, thousands will need a job, a home and Amazon who is out to hire 55,000 tech jobs and that news is a mere 22 hours old. People have relocated for a lot less and that gives Amazon more than a leg up, it gives them a furlong head start in 2-3 venues and in this setting of bad news they become a shining light and optionally a larger staged beneficial noise to a lot of people. The part that New York might not like is that there is a setting where (depending on Amazon choices) 20-30 thousand people vacate for sunnier shores and in light of what happened in the last few days, with the added workforce taking a step in an optional other direction. We will see a larger stage of the economy changing in New York, one New York never anticipated before. So we see the tech jobs, TV and a lot more and Amazon is at the heart of that. These events are not connected, yet the stage of a larger change becomes apparent, or perhaps I need to say ‘speculatively apparent’. because it is speculation from my side. A stage where Amazon gets to promote their jobs, their positions, their TV, their goods at base pries is an advantage that few ever have and thousands are looking for jobs and that advantage is likely to increase over time. I am merely looking at the pharmaceutical side, the retail side and the job side and there we see Amazon having an advantage thrice over. And as I see it, they are not doing anything wrong. They merely take a versatile set in a post covid era and they are decently ahead of the rest. 

So consider what I write, consider what you think and see where you can prosper, because someone who hires 55,000 tech jobs has a larger plan in place and that is not something you should ignore, especially when Amazon takes that setting on an international level. It gives them a larger advantage over several players who aren’t even close to doing what Amazon is claiming to start over the next 4 weeks.

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July 5, 2021 · 21:48

Your data or your life!

It is not the dream, not this time. I was persecuted by a Construction AI with diminishing reality capacity, but in the humour side there were a few criminals trying to get away with a golden car (like Goldfinger) and they got in the middle, so there. No, today is about Ransomware. Reuters gives us ‘Ransomware breach at Florida IT firm hits 200 businesses’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/200-businesses-hit-by-ransomware-following-incident-us-it-firm-huntress-labs-2021-07-02/). Like the solarwinds issue we see “The attackers changed a Kaseya tool called VSA, used by companies that manage technology at smaller businesses. They then encrypted the files of those providers’ customers simultaneously” and no one, most visibly the media is asking the questions that needs asking. The Microsoft Exchange issue, the Solarwinds issue, now Kaseya. We understand that things go wrong, but as I see it the hackers (read: optionally organised crime) have a much better understanding of matters than the lawmakers and police do, we see this with “encrypted the files of those providers’ customers simultaneously” and that is before we consider that ‘an American software company that develops software for managing networks, systems, and information technology infrastructure’ has the kind of security that can be trespassed upon. And why do I think this? It is seen “The attackers changed a Kaseya tool called VSA, used by companies that manage technology at smaller businesses” and contemplate the issue that this had been happening for the last 5 months. A lack of larger systems as well, and all this continues as the law is close to clueless on how to proceed on this. We see statements like “In their advisory and further incident communications, Kaseya said that only a few out of their 36 000 customers were affected”, yet CNet gives us “REvil, the Russia-linked hacking group behind the attack on meat processor JBS, is linked to the Kaseya attack, The Wall Street Journal reported. Security firms Huntress Labs and Sophos Labs have likewise pointed to REvil”, which gives the law the problem that a member must be a proven member of REvil and that is largely not the case, moreover they have no clue how many members are involved. When one player gives us “We are in the process of formulating a staged return to service of our SaaS server farms with restricted functionality and a higher security posture (estimated in the next 24-48 hours but that is subject to change) on a geographic basis”, all whilst one of the victims is the largest grocery store in Sweden (COOP), the setting of “only a few out of their 36 000 customers” becomes debatable and it will affect the retail stage to a much larger degree, especially when you consider that they are cloud based. I stated in the past (based on data seen) that 90% of the cloud can be transgressed upon. And they are all servicing the larger stage of people dealing with IT requirements on a global scale. Now consider that cloud systems remain largely insecure and beyond the fact that ITWire was giving us “SolarWinds FTP credentials were leaking on GitHub in November 2019” and it was a direct results from someone who thought that ‘solarwinds123’ was a good idea. Oh, I remember a situation involving Sony and stated that there might be an issue that someone (I implied the Pentagon) had a router with password ‘cisco123’, I did that in ‘The Scott Pilgrim of Technology’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/23/the-scott-pilgrim-of-technology/) in MAY 2019, and did anyone learn anything yet? It is now 2 years later and still we see these levels of transgressions? Some might say that IT firms are helping REvil get essential revenues, some might say that these IT firms got themselves in this mess. So when we look at some firms relying on ‘Five years of experience for an entry-level job’, or perhaps “Any of the following will be grounds for immediate dismissal during the probationary period: coming in late or leaving early without prior permission; being unavailable at night or on the weekends; failing to meet any goals; giving unsolicited advice about how to run things; taking personal phone calls during work hours; gossiping; misusing company property, including surfing the internet while at work; submission of poorly written materials; creating an atmosphere of complaint or argument; failing to respond to emails in a timely way; not showing an interest in other aspects of publishing beyond editorial; making repeated mistakes; violating company policies. DO NOT APPLY if you have a work history containing any of the above” (source: Forbes). All this in a stage of age discrimination and narrow minded thinking of HR departments. Yes that is the dynamic stage of people that have bad passwords and a stage of transgressions. So whilst we might think it is a stage of ‘Your data or your life’, there is a larger stage where the law has a bigger issue, it has the issue of IT firms cutting cost and having a blasé approach to the safety of their systems, and more important their customers. And whilst ABC New York gives us “The number of victims here is already over a thousand and will likely reach into the tens of thousands,” said cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank. “No other ransomware campaign comes even close in terms of impact” (at https://abc7ny.com/amp/ransomware-attack-4th-of-july-cyberattack-kaseya/10859014/) we see a first stage where the statement ‘only a few out of their 36 000 customers were affected’ is as I personally see it marketing driven panic. And that is a much larger case. I get that the firm hit does not want too much out in the open, but between a few, 2% and optionally a stage that could go beyond 27% is a setting too many are unable and too uneasy to consider. And when we see that 27%, do I still sound too ‘doomsday’ when I state that there is a much larger problem? And when we see the media go with ‘MSPs on alert after Kaseya VSA supply chain ransomware attack’, all whilst I stated a few issues well over 2 years ago, they should have been on the ball already. I am not blaming the MSP’s, but I do have questions on how their systems are so automated that an attack of this kind (the stated 1000+ customers hit) all whilst some sources state 50 MSP’s, there is a stage where triggers would have been there and the alarms were set to silent because some people might have thought that there were too many false alarms. This is a different stage to the larger playing field, yet I believe it needs to be looked at, especially when the damage can be so large. I am not certain what work lies ahead of the hit customers like COOP that had to close down 800 supermarkets, but in all this something will have to give. 

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February 14, 2021 · 08:49

The black door of death

Yup there is a door, a black door, some say it is the door of death. Hades assures me it is a door of change and opportunity, but then that man is not happy until the news given to all is gloomy beyond belief. I am a republican, I never made a secret of that and in some cases I gave that news up front. Today we see why! Al Jazeera gives us (among others) “Trump lawyers and House impeachment managers have decided to avoid calling witnesses in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, beginning four hours of closing statements”, then we get ABC giving us “Mr Evans, 35, appeared before a federal judge in Huntington West Virginia on Friday afternoon after being arrested. If convicted, he faces up to a year and a half in federal prison for two misdemeanours: entering a restricted area and disorderly conduct. A growing number of Republicans and Democrats have said they want to expel Mr Evans from the legislature if he does not resign. His lawyer, John Bryan, said Mr Evans was acting as an amateur journalist recording the day’s events and he was not involved in violence. He said Evans did not commit a crime and did not plan to step down”, a setting when we consider “two black men were arrested last week when a store employee called police to say the men were trespassing. The protests followed the release of a video that showed the two men being arrested after a store manager called the police because they were sitting in the store without placing an order” (source: the Guardian), as such, they could have avoided arrest and cuffing if they called themselves ‘amateur journalists’?

We see the defence give us “It was a report from a reporter from a friend of somebody who had some hearsay they heard the night before at a bar somewhere”, we see hundreds of hours of footage, we see a loud mouthed petulant bullish childish NYC realtor gave us on January 6th “Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election”, we are also given “Trump defence dodges question on what he did to stop Capitol attack, says there was no insurrection”, yet the democrats miss the ball again and again. So what was this media circus, a show? A let this all be good for the grace of death?

And now we see “Former President Donald Trump acquitted again” (source: ABC news). The democrats foil the ball yet again, OK, I will admit that there are a few dubious characters on my side of the isle, yet proper investigation and interrogation might have gone a long way in this. 

So why do I care? I think something despicable happened, and a knowingly lying former president of the USA is not a good way to stage the setting. But that also opens the door of opportunity. And that door is not a nice one. I hereby call upon the specialist (read: CIA Wet Teams) to set a new standard. In an age of “Ransomware attacks are proving more lucrative for cyber criminals as even organisations that can restore from backups are paying ransom demands to prevent further damage”, as well as “As 2020 started, only the Maze ransomware gang was using this tactic. But as it ended, an additional 17 ransomware crews had taken to publishing stolen data of victims if they didn’t receive payment”. As such I am asking (read: demanding) that the CIA Wet teams are activated to secure American business safety. The victims are wide spread “They included 1,681 schools, colleges and universities, 560 healthcare facilities and 113 federal, state and municipal governments and agencies. Meanwhile, over 1,300 private companies were also hit by ransomware attacks”, as such we set the C.W.T. (CIA Wet Teams) in the field and we kill these people, no long wasted court-time, just a bullet through the back of the head. I don’t care it comes from a 16 year old with a crying excuse “I wanted to be cool”, that person will be pretty cool (ground temperature) in a casket, unless he is cremated, that person will be room temperature (still cool). Is that too much? I think it is time to set a different premise, it is time to set the premise of ‘enough is enough’, the law has not worked , not for 2-3 decades, scare tactics did not and as such, after the first half dozen are found and put to death, the rest will dump their computers faster than anything else they ever had and as such they are dealt with. It is a bit over the top, but Hades told me that there would be opportunity, so I sought one, I found one and now I am casing one. 

The setting stage of such failing blunders on the democratic side is just the start of the larger stage, the attacks on Saudi Arabia, whilst the actions by Iran on this are are almost 100% ignored, there is more one sided actions, as such setting a larger footprint on the other side of the fence is not the worst tactic to use, and lets face it, apart from the ransomware attackers (and their mummies and daddies) how much real opposition will there be? The second acquittal opened a new door, a door of all those thinking there would be no accountability for electing a stupid person, lets make sure that the new signals are a clear given sign that this was not the case and that we are all in a stage of having had enough. That is how I see it, yet I could be wrong.

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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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June 26, 2020 · 16:12

Changing my name

So, I have found a new way to get rich fast (and I mean really fast), I am changing my name from Lawrence to Laurent more precisely to Laurent Rothschild. At that point the people at Bilderberg will take my call, Google’s own Papa Smurf will meet with me (Sergey Brin’s nickname) and so on, names make a difference (or so they say) the was the first thing that went through my head when I saw the BBC article on how ‘US Country band Dixie Chicks drop the Dixie from their name’. There I was slightly (only slightly) puzzled. Why would that one word matter? You see, the Dixie Chicks have earned their name, they have earned their reputation as a good band with great music and they have their own identity. 

I personally see nothing negative ab out dixie, I truly do not. If we actually want to dig we will see that the Oxford dictionary calls the references ons cure, well there was nothing obscure about the Dixie chicks, There is also a derivation from Jeremiah Dixon, the person who surveyed the Mason – /Dixon line, it is the separating border between Maryland and Pennsylvania (something I did not know).

There are of course more references and still there is nothing negative in the name Dixie chicks, and there is nothing negative about their music, if anything they are optionally a driving force for other woman to make it on their own. In this US civil war towards black lives matter, there is now a growing concern that the war is turning into a marketing clambake of quick sale towards people to steer away from negativity all whilst the implied negativity is between their ears.

The actions by the Dixie chicks does nothing to racial inequality (as I personally see it), fighting racial inequality does and to forget that there ever was racial inequality is one way to lie to yourself and lie to the world around you. There are large stages of racial inequality, in the US, seemingly in Canada, in Australia, in large parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Inequality comes from considering yourself above all others and certainly certain people. Its not like we are discriminating against Xbox Users, every Playstation user knows that they are less and that is where we forget that it was never about the system, it was about the joy of playing a game, whether your skin is Xbox green, Playstation blue of Nintendo red, it is not about the silicon brain in your head of the screen that makes your eyes, it is about the acceptance of difference and to be honest, I personally fail to see the change of the name of a band, more likely I forget to buy their music because the Dixie Chicks are no longer under the ‘D’ of Duh!

Yet, if the powers in the US can be marketed in this way, I can look forward to a decent amount of work stress and an income that is close to a hundred times better (than what I am currently making) by being Laurent Rothschild.

So if you learn next week that I was not eating all over New York like a cast member of Billions in Katz’s, Sushi Nakazawa, or Vaucluse at that point you might consider that my solution was not really a working one, so here’s hoping the I will enjoy a Pastrami sandwich at Katz’s really really soon.

This is the view I have and until someone proves to me that these Dixie chicks chose their name in a wave of racism, I refuse to consider that they did so and it is just a lovely southern name and I will enjoy and tap my feet to the music of ‘Sin Wagon’, and I will not be waiting time on the views that some people might have on the reference to Dixie. Consider that the great Satchmo (Louis Armstrong) played Dixieland, I enjoyed his music and still do, why would I think negatively on the reference to Dixie? And let’s be honest can a person be blamed for thinking naughty thoughts whilst listening to ‘Sin Wagon’ seeing Emily Robinson? Many thoughts come to mind, not one of them is racial. 

It is time to solve issues, not losing too much time by trying to marketing them away in name changes. Too bad, I think that Laurent Rothschild could be a great change and I do like the idea of  a large Pastrami sandwich like only Katz can make it.

 

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April 21, 2020 · 01:27

Vote Ogre

Even I, on my best day can get duped, we all have it in ourselves to fall like a little guppie taking in hook line and sinker and then wiggle like today is the last day you ever do the macarena. I will not go to deep into details, for several reasons that have nothing to do with my ego, but I fell like a crackwhore falls for a brick of pure H. There is no denying it and there was no gold at the end of the rainbow. Even I, Mr Doubting Anyone can be gotten to. As such the fake coronavirus details out there, are the worst kind of details to follow and to belief (not that I do). In this there are always exceptions. In the first rely only on a real newspaper for the actual and factual events (like the Times, the Guardian, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe) the list is not super long but it is renowned. In all this the source matters. Yes, even in these forms some will ‘misrepresent’ the cases and elaborate on a percentage whilst the cases are abysmally small, but they will not lie, as such reading the entire article is important. In that same trend The presentation on the Covid virus by Governor Cuomo was exceptionally good. He was clear on issues and explaining the numbers. It is a 50 minute presentation, so it is long, but you see the goods. As such it is a little upsetting to see that it had 950 thumbs up and 1400 thumps down ratings. As such there is a chance that more and more people ignore the well brought news. The press conference was covered by several sources as such searching ‘Cuomo’ on YouTube will get you there. His view is important because New York represents 1/3rd of ALL US corona cases. New York has a massive population packed together and it is only a first indication of the issues that Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Houston could face and if the mobs are pushing to end lockdown, the worst is yet to come for the US. 

There is no guarantee where it hits, how it hits and how many it hits, but there is every chance that the greater cities will need the NY numbers when their deuce is up. 

We tend to go by the deceitful part of the numbers, on how the US is the largest place to get hit (and that is still true), yet the truth is that the US is half the size of the EU and they are at present in an abysmal place. Like the nations of Europe, the US states will have to stop everything for a much longer time and that realisation needs to set in,and it needs to set in fast. 

I could go into reverse psychology and tell them to continue the current path, because 2 dead full time workers in the US means that optionally one in the EU or Commonwealth is regained. I wonder if they ever saw it that way. They are all booing the 22 million jobs missing, but a lot of them are tems and hospitality. Consider what happens when the dead jobs of IT are replaced by EU jobs. The IT field is much more global, and these bosses mostly consider their bonus check, at present I have received 4 international offers, the move towards Europe is already starting by some. In a more greedy setting, as Google runs dry in the US, Huawei can buy my 5G IP, it is that simple. Big business pushed for mercenary tactics when it suited them, now they are not the choosing side and I go where the money is, they taught me that, and they had no problem with short changing loyalty when it suited them. 

There is a larger issue in play, even for the ‘pros’ like me, it becomes ever easier to mistake news and fake news, the difference is often no longer visible and the media when they hunted clicks and views are in part to blame, so when they cry ‘foul’ over fake news, whilst they opened that stream themselves is a little hypocrite, don’t you think?

And it gets to be a lot worse, the speeches from the White House are giving the indication that one elected official is more interesting in setting his ego to a good place, than consider the health and safety of his fellow Americans, I myself have a Republican side and I have never been so ashamed of anyone doing the acts we see, merely to look good whilst over 40,000 Americans are dead and a lot of them have not been buried yet, in addition, there is every indication that the total of non surviving American will double, optionally even triple. In addition to all this there are all the voices shouting on how we were not ready. It is true to some degree and to some degree governments all over the world will hide from the responsibility that these administrations and the ones before them had, yet what we all forget is that this situation has not happened since WW1. The Spanish flu would kill as some numbers give between 40 and 100 million people and in those days only the rich could afford to travel, nowadays we have been spreading the virus all over the planet, in that regard, the damage could end up being worse. Yes, medicines available are better now, but there is no vaccine, there is no real treatment, the strong will live, others will not, that is the short and sweet of it.

In all this, we need to realise that we either stand together or accept the loss of a neighbour, as such the protests in the US are completely out of whack. Will I be wrong? I truly hope so, but most of the factual information I rely on gives a much darker future. We need to change the mindset we have and tht is shown as we face the setting in India which is currently unknown, the numbers are incorrect and there is a much larger stagewhere we see that the Indian government has no idea what to do. They are smaller than the US having to deal with a population close to 600% of what the US has, consider the entire US packed like Manhattan and you get the idea just how uncontrollable that setting is. The Mumbai region alone is 55 million people and there is no way that this can be contained as soon as cases become visible. One will infect 25-50, as such the 12,000 cases stated cannot be correct, yet the setting is that there is no way to find all the infected, there are not enough resources in the EU to identify the cases that require treatment in India and as such the curve goes from bad to worse. In my mind there is also no way that the US is so far ahead of India in cases. It takes one person to travel from region to region (on a train) to end up infecting most of the train and we are shutting our eyes to that danger.

As such, when you see the optional troll stepping in and telling you that everything is safe, step back and vote Ogre! Do not believe him/her, and in that mindset, do not believe me either, find out what is true from factual sources like renowned newspapers (preferable not one owned by Rupert Murdoch).

 

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October 8, 2019 · 11:22

When the cure is part of the disease

Have you seen that issue in your life, the claim that the cure is worse than the disease, or perhaps that the cure is not worth the disease. There are medical situations where this applies and they are usually used in cases of huge risks, but it is always in a stage where it is about optionally curing the person who got that winning lottery ticket, and the cure will hit him or her full on. It happens, yet what is the stage where the cure is the disease? I am not talking about a vaccine where we are making the body stronger by fighting a weaker version of the disease, no this is a stage where we give the person Ebola or Hantavirus to let the body cure it. The problem becomes that once you have the virus you are actually sick and the complications start from that point onward.

This is the stage we are confronted with in ‘IMF accused of ‘reckless lending’ to debt-troubled states‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/07/imf-accused-of-reckless-lending-to-debt-troubled-states). It is not merely “the Fund broke its own rules by not ensuring sustainable debt burden“, I personally believe it to be a much larger problem in all this. It is also not merely: “encouraging reckless lending by extending $93bn of loans to 18 financially troubled countries without a debt restructuring programme first“, I believe it to be a larger play to push revenue away from vulture funds to create a systemic problem for these nations to become part of the consumer feeding frenzy to banks for generations. when we see: “Debt sustainability has come into the spotlight over the past year after the IMF controversially lent a record $56bn to Argentina even though its annual debt repayments far exceeded the Fund’s own limit” the given excuse ‘The IMF said Argentina, the second biggest economy in South America, was a special case‘ the handed excuse should be casted aside and given no value at all. the supporting evidence is seen in “The crisis intensified when, on 5 December 2001, the IMF refused to release a US$1.3 billion tranche of its loan, citing the failure of the Argentine government to reach its budget deficit targets” (source: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/11/business/argentina-scrambles-for-imf-loans.html). When I asked about the situation about 5 years ago from these so called Australian ‘economic reporters’, none of them had any level of a clear answer for me. The case was clear 5 years ago when certain vulture funds issues got to the surface, and now 17 years later they are giving out $56 billion, whilst refusing a $1.3 billion option 17 years earlier. There is a much larger flaw in all this and there have been whispers (read: gossip) that the IMF is very much into facilitating towards the needs of Wall Street and the financial operators out there. The bottom dollar line of Wall Street needs to be met and no one cares how it is done.

the stage becomes a lot less acceptable when we consider the stage Afghanistan; Angola; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Ecuador; Egypt; Ghana; Jordan; Mauritania; Mongolia; Pakistan; São Tomé and Príncipe; Sierra Leone; Sri Lanka; Tunisia; and Ukraine, all whilst Egypt, Pakistan and Ecuador are regarded as high risk, I personally feel that the risk factors of Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Jordan are also way above normal with only Jordan being in a better long term position however, if Jordan does not address its water shortage issues, Jordan could drop into the ultra-high risk group a lot faster than anyone could state: ‘Would you like a glass of water?‘, and in all this we see a larger failing.

It becomes a more visible issue when we see the IMF spin doctors at work. We partially accept the statement: “More than half that amount is accounted for by one programme – Argentina, which has unique circumstances“, yet I am much less forgiving when I see: “We have clear guidelines about not lending into unsustainable debt situations and all programmes require approval by the IMF’s executive board“. It is my response that they publish clearly all their guidelines (and policies), but we will not ever get that. In addition, the Argentina matter after the Vultures were done with it is also a failing of the highest degree, the fact that over 17 years $1.3 billion has required $56 billion implies more than merely 4,300% more funds needed. It gives rise that over 17 years a debt increase of 23% year on year was accumulated one way or another. It is a direct optional sign of complete and utter governmental financial malfeasance. It is a failure on a scale never seen before and the fact that no one stepped in shows the larger failure by the IMF. You see, the overall lack of illumination also constitutes evidence that the players wanted this to be kept out of the lime lights.

In addition, when we look at the 17 nations, when we ignore the obvious three, we see a larger issue in Jordan. Jordan stepped up and towards the issue that there are well over 1.4 million refugees in Jordan and Jordan was not ready in any way shape or form to deal with that. In their current state the Jordan desalination plants will not be able to keep up (so far it cannot keep up) and the fact that the Jordan population grew by 14% in 2-3 years due to the refugees was never clearly illuminated and now Jordan has a larger issue, even if another desalination plant is added in the Gulf of Aqaba, the issue will not diminish and the loans towards Jordan would become unsustainable. In addition, when you consider Sri Lanka, the newspapers all gave the same quote a month ago: ‘Sri Lanka’s economy has shown a ‘fair bit of resilience’‘, they quoted that to the letter, yet who was feeding them that information? Only 14 hours ago we see: “Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals in September were down 27.2% from a year earlier“, those factors did not really change did they? When we consider a month ago, we see an economy that is getting hit hard, especially when Reuters gives us: “a sixth consecutive monthly fall“. It seems to me that Sri Lanka are betting on the required roll of the dice, when we get the clear indication that the dice are loaded and it seems that they are loaded towards the needs of the IMF/Wall Street and not in favour of Sri Lanka.

When we add the Reuters information: “Arrivals in the five months from May to September were down 44.4% to 468,737 from 843,569 a year earlier” we get a level of clear indication that the quote: ‘Sri Lanka’s economy has shown a ‘fair bit of resilience’‘ should be seen as media BS. And there is more regarding Sri Lanka, the quote less than 24 hours ago is “Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said all the money the current government has borrowed since 2016 was to repay the loans of the previous government of Mahinda Rajapaksa“, if that is true, then there are additional questions towards the IMF in regards to their spin doctors giving us: “Our decisions to lend to countries are not simply based on numerical thresholds, but on comprehensive debt sustainability analyses and policies needed to address economic imbalances and debt burdens“, which in the case of Sri Lanka shows a much larger issue, the fact that the quote on repaying from a previous government and that loan has been in place for 3 years shows a larger problem, so how much was given to them? In addition to this I wonder how much of the $56 billion is going to Elliott Advisors, so much is the IMF helping out Manhattan bad boy Paul Singer? In my view, the question becomes: ‘How much of the $56 billion goes to Hedge funds manager Paul Singer?‘ Under those conditions I reckon anyone could get their fingers on the penthouse in Sky Lofts building in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighbourhood. If it is good enough for Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), it is good enough for the Lawlordtobe (Lawrence van Rijn), and I could do with a change of scenery, especially if Google buys my 5G IP portfolio.

So if my new address becomes 145 Hudson St New York, NY 10013, I promise that I will not consider the ’13’ in my zip code to be a bad omen and at least I will not have used the IMF to gain my fortune (although I will admit that I am perfectly willing to do that too #weallneedtoeat).

When we see these two issues and we see that I have not even looked at the 12 others (three were known issues) I wonder when any reporter will give us the entire down low on these so called analyses and policies that the IMF has in place, I feel with some level of certain ty that I will find a lot more issues under the waterline than the IMF spin doctors will be able to hide. Especially when we realise the quote in the Guardian: “concerns that a general election later this month will oust incumbent president, Mauricio Macri, in favour of the populist Alberto Fernández and his running mate, the former president Cristina de Kirchner, triggered a flight of investors, a run on the currency and sent the interest rate on the country’s publicly traded debts soaring“, more important, under that change the entire case which would have been part of the $56 billion ‘donation’ that we see through “Argentina agreed to reduce its fiscal deficit to 1.3% of GDP this year, down from 2.2% previously and a balanced budget next year“, especially when we see the required drop of 0.9% deficit, I cannot remember any elected official making that part of their campaign, it tends to leave them unelected at the polls, so in all this, not only does the JDC have a point, we see that Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director of Jubilee Debt Campaign should be considered to be a lot more serious and is in my personal view entitled to massive dose of limelight from the global media, so that she can ask the questions that the IMF would have to explain in a clear and transparent way, would you like to take a bet on the chance of that actually happening?

I believe that people like Paul Singer will set that bet to an estimated 250:1 chance (of it not happening), and as he personally was able to acquire $3.5 billion, I am not putting my hopes on high here. I merely wonder if the people in Argentina have any decent level of Christmas to look forward to this year and the many years that follow.

 

 

 

 

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June 13, 2019 · 11:28

The 11th hour of Chapter 11

It was around 01:00 this morning when a ‘recommended video’ made it to my stream. Now, I am known to have a sense of humour, a flaky one at best and to see the name Jon Stewart (yes the comedian) to be on that ‘recommended stream’ regarding a PBS News hour was something new to me, but I was a little curious and I took a look.

What I was confronted with did not merely blow my socks off; it gave the impression that America is currently in such a bad state that it makes me wonder why at present this issue does not grace the front page in EVERY NEWSPAPER on the planet.

I have seen my fill of political windbags, their past acts gave Chicago the name ‘the windy city’, it gave the impression that a cocaine dealer has seemingly a higher regard for ‘their word’ than most members of the US Congress. Still, there was no stopping Jon Stewart as he gave his view in congress.

The story (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT5FTrIZN-E) shows that Jon Stewart is not merely a person with a sense of humour, the man talks up a storm, not a windy one, but a perfect storm. You need to hear it to believe what America and American politics is doing to the first line of defence of the city of New York, what has been done to those running into the area where the World Trade Centre, to give aid and to save as many people as possible. In a room that was filled with first responders, a room that is filled with the pain and agony of what they had gone through and the members of US Congress (the bulk of them) are not there, not there to stand protecting the first responders of America, not there to protect the first responders of America and not there for those putting their lives on the line for the annual amount that is less than 0.1% of what an average Wall Street banker takes home on an average month.

The headline pretty much states it with: ‘Congress ‘should be ashamed’ over inaction on helping 9/11 first responders‘, but that would be a disservice, US Congress failed on a much larger scale than that. The members of congress did not even have the respect and courtesy to show up. And during all this is the voice of Jon Stewart advocating for these people intentionally forgotten. Stated is that one member got there as he is up for a 69th round of chemo. I cannot even fathom anyone living past 2 dozen treatments, let alone an additional 45 treatments past that point. I personally have never felt such pride in being a witness to a person like Jon Stewart, what some would call merely a comedian standing up and advocating for a group that should have been protected by 320 million Americans calling and shouting at their senators, their congress representatives, their governors and their alderman to fix this immediately. Is America this broke, this bankrupt that denial of an essential and required need for first responders to be given at any given time? As Jon states, they were there in 5 seconds, the first responders were actively aiding and assisting the fallen and the wounded in 5 seconds. And it gets to be worse!

FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority, EMS responded they all did and Congress is now holding the implied ‘were out to lunch’, ‘we are currently unavailable, have a nice day’ signs, in my view every American should stand shoulder to shoulder with Jon Stewart making their voices heard making sure that first responders get better service and better protection than any member of congress every could hope to get. We are after this exposed to details that I have (to the best of my knowledge not seen anywhere, not to the degree it should be exposed to). The never ending waves of denial from those who should have been a circle of protection is not merely baffling, it should be beyond shameful. Anyone on that track should be barred from public office. that is how it should be, but it is not. It merely shows that government is not in charge, Wall Street seemingly is and these people have become too expensive to the American way of life.

Consider this

Even in the wildest time when the US was merely known as part of the British Empire, these people had a better standing and better protection than they now have in American society. Can you imagine the shame where rescue services as a member of the British colonies, serving the British Empire and the King of England in 1760 would have been treated better than those of the United States of America in 2001-2019?

Can anyone imagine the shame of it all?

Then optionally making an attack on America a New York issue, I wonder how congress would have treated this if the jets had flown into Mount Rushmore, would that have been an unfortunate collision with a shaped hill? The fact that the ‘pile’ had such dire issues to the health of first responders is also a much larger concern. Evan as ABC news gave us (at https://abcnews.go.com/US/911-toll-growsl-16000-ground-responders-sick-found/story?id=57669657) “Twenty-three NYPD officers were killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. In the 17 years since, the department says another 156 have died of illnesses contracted from their time on what was then known as “the pile,” the mountain of toxic debris from the fallen towers.” the fact that there is every indication that the number of people dying of disease directly due to the toxic elements of the WTC debris is staggering, the fact that 23 NYPD members died on the day and 156 died of health related issues, directly related to the WTC toxicity events since is a much larger concern. How did all that toxicity be part of that building in the first place?

Last august to total tally was a mere 28 people difference, there is every indication that the total deaths since 9/11 will surpass the first responders casualties on the day it happened in early 2020 and they did not go direct, instantly and gently, they were hollowed to nothing by toxicity and left to their own devices. How can any nation stand by and let this happen?

And when Jon Stewart mentions the hundred, nay thousands of tweets by officials giving us ‘Never forget the heroes of 9/11‘ and we now see that they are shunned and ignored, we see the anger that every American should have, because who will you count on when this happens again? Do you think that under these conditions first responders have any actual responsibility when their government, their congress abandons them?

It is hard to not be hit by the directness of Jon Stewart, I is hard to ignore that what Jon Stewart brings, but for the most, the media was silent, but not anymore, only a few hours ago I learn that ‘House panel unanimously passes 9/11 victims fund bill after Jon Stewart bashing‘, this is great in some respect, but why was the international media silent for so many years, and why did it take so long for this bill to pass? I reckon that the success that Jon Stewart booked will be reason enough that the global media picks up on this story, but as I personally see it, that act is a decade late and for the world of me, I cannot fathom why the media stayed silent on the plight of first responders for to the degree it did for such a long time, can you?

The only remaining part is now, why was action absent for that long, is America truly broke? If so should catering towards large corporations not end, or better stated has facilitation to this degree and for this long not been one of the most shameful acts? Who is to blame for such levels of denial and facilitation? Just image the reality of what I say and what I just proved. In one month we got close to 70,000,000 articles filled with speculations (often absent of actual facts) on what happened to one reporter no one cares about (harsh but true), yet how much awareness and articles were created since 9/11 2001 on the plight and hardship of first responders? When we realise this, how big was the failure to American first responders from 9/11 2002 onwards?

 

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