Tag Archives: NY Times

The story not told

This is how it started, but then I realised that there are two stories that are not told. The western media does not want you to know any of it. It makes them simple red light debutantes. Whoring for digital dollars and all at the expense of not informing you. So how are you feeling now?

The story that started this was given to us by Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2258916/saudi-arabia) where we are given ‘Saudi project clears 882 Houthi mines in Yemen’ in addition we are given “Overseen by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, special teams destroyed five anti-personnel, 195 anti-tank mines, 681 unexploded ordinances and one explosive device” as well as “A total of 388,433 mines have been cleared since the start of the project” but in all this did you consider the larger stage of the issue?

(Photo by Saleh Al-OBEIDI / AFP)

There are two sides. The one side is that Iran was instrumental in delivering over a million mines to Houthi terrorists. The second side is that Saudi Arabia is trying to clear Yemen from these horrific devices, there is of course the third side where we see that the large wining media solutions (The Times, The Guardian, NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and LA Times) as far as I can tell never makes mention of ANY of it. Not the Iranian side of delivering mines. Not the Saudi side of stopping Yemeni casualties. Why is that? There is even an additional side, you see if these media jokes do not change their way, they will soon be less reliable than Arab News and Al Jazeera. And we can add Fox News to the list of useless sources. There is also an upside, these two sources can already be captured with their apps and give you the ACTUAL news regarding the middle east. The photo placed earlier was intentional. It came from Arab News but the source is the AFP, so why is this photo not all over the western news? Why are we kept in the dark on what Iran has been doing? You see Houthi terrorists do not have the means, the materials or the logistics to create a million mines. In the mean time we are given “In June 2022, the project’s contract was extended for another year at a cost of $33.29 million” whilst everyone is ignoring what Iran has been doing. We failed the Yemeni’s in many fronts. We are only partially able to stop weapon smuggle from Iran, We are unable to stop Houthi terrorists and the people doing something about it and that is merely the top of the list. And there is an overbearing other reason. With the claims out there made by 6,047 journalists in the US and over 320,000 journalists in the EU and I, a non-journalists am informing you? Where are these digital dollar seekers? Why is this Arab News not global news informing you on what Iran is part of? How about Houthi terrorists placing over a million mines? Who informed you? There is a decent chance that the western media did not, as far as I can tell, the only active western (French) player is the AFP at present. 

It is time we ask the hard questions from the media and do it in the limelight, preferably asking the stakeholders for their assistance in all this, but that is my sense of humour in action.

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The wrong wake up call

Yup that happens, but the way it was done was rather surprising. You see, I wrote about this situation and I did it reflecting on my own experiences. I reckon one of the clearest moments was August 2021 when I wrote ‘As credibility moves to the arctic’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/26/as-credibility-moves-to-the-arctic/) and the most recent was ‘The part we seem to forget’ where I wrote “The media is the bitch of shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers”. This is a stage I have mentioned since 2012, so I have been aware of this stage for 10 years. When it upsets the advertisers it is trivialised (Sony, 2012) and they are not alone. When it is a larger issues the media gets to meet with stakeholders who provide a narrative and that is how it is set, there is more with shareholders, but that is for another day. And now the BBC gives us ‘BFM journalist Rachid M’Barki suspended in scandal linked to disinformation firm’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64677232) where we see “he admits to bypassing BFM’s editorial checks”, yes admitting to incompetence is the way to go, but here it is not enough. I reckon he stepped on the toes of the wrong stakeholder and he is hung out to dry. So when we are given “an investigation by Le Monde newspaper in conjunction with the campaigning organisation Forbidden Stories has revealed more details. According to the investigation, M’Barki ran reports on a variety of subjects – luxury yachts in Monaco, a Sudanese opposition leader, allegations of corruption in Qatar – that had all one thing in common: they were planted by an Israel-based outfit specialising in ‘news for hire’.” We have hundreds of news sources starting at Reuters, but these three gave enough to set the stage to an Israeli firm? I have questions and a lot of them. It is possible that a whole range over a time would give an optional narrative, yet the larger problem with the media is not merely copying one another, it is that there is no vetting of information and I am not talking about editorial checks. The need for news-by-wire is setting a stage where proper vetting of information is surpassed (as I personally see it). And this time around a man named Rachid M’Barki gets the joker served in a not so nice way, he is hung out to dry. Now it is simple to say that something is not possible. I say some things are too highly unlikely and there is a second stage, this is coming to the forefront all whilst these connected stakeholders are massively shy of the limelight. Their value is not being seen. This is why some people have lunch meetings with stakeholders and often in a neutral place. Please do not take my word for this, seek out your own evidence. I woke up when I saw Australian news ignore events surrounding Sony in 2012, a mere week before the PS4 was launched and they ALL ignored it, Sony advertisement money was too powerful, too incentive for words, as such the fact that 30 million gamers were exposed to changes was ignored by pretty much all of them. From that moment on I started to track certain events and the media did not disappoint, they dropped the ball time after time and I started to see patterns (as I would call them)  digital patterns all about the money and infused by below quality reporting as I saw it. I made several mentions from 2012, but the load started to become heavy from 2019 onwards. And now the BBC gives us another wake up call, but it is one they might not want to make, because we are given the guilt of Rachid M’Barki butt that also opens up the an of worms that we get to see with most of the media and that includes BBC, the Guardian, NY Times and a few other players. As I personally see it, all media has its own stakeholders and we are denied the news, we are merely handed filtered information. Information filtered to the needs of share holders, stake holders and advertisers. That is how I personally see it.

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United States of Criminality

That is a strong expression, but it is a valid one. This all started for me when I took a first look at the Richneck Elementary School shooting. Now there are two stages. The first is the legal setting of Doli Incapax. A six year old cannot decently be prosecuted for this and I accept this. I get it, there is an issue. But there is a larger issue with the media and the news and I am looking at the Washington Post in this case. They have blatantly made claims against Saudi Arabia, they made blatant claims against many and they have at times lost the plot. Like losing that columnist no one cared about. In this case a mere 7 hours ago, they give us dribble, loaded useless dribble on this case. I started this 2 days ago when I wrote ‘Little shits’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/08/little-shits/) the Washington Post, NY Times and a few others have had 2 days and no one asks the questions that matter. The parents should have been arrested for questioning. I get that they in the end cannot be arrested for the crimes, but they are clearly covered in responsibility here. Where did the gun come from? There is no arrest, no intelligence on whether the parents had any firearms, perhaps even THAT firearm. Why not? It would have been the first thing I did. And the parents can suffer the experience, THEIR CHILD shot a woman with a gun at the age of six. 

The police might not have been forthcoming in the first hour, but it has been two days. They should have something by now, even if it is to state that no evidence came forward from inspecting the lifeline of the gun. This was a clear hatchet job from the first hour I looked into this. The missing settings and the non-available facts made this from my point of view a simple case of orchestration. 

You can disagree and that is OK, but see for yourself. How much facts have the media exposed to you? They are all about emotion, about flammable events. It is what I personally call ‘whoring for digital dollars’ am I wrong? Even the Washington Post has nothing to offer. 

And when we see the closure of the school, which makes sense, and how stable the teacher is, which is good. Nothing on the child and more important nothing on the parents. Is anyone waking up? Then there is CBS who used the line “a handgun was used”, was that all? There are over 170,000,000 of handguns in the US (according to one source) there are thousands of brands. I think that the police from day one could have done better than “a handgun was used” and the media never followed up on it, at least not from the dozen or so sources I saw. So why not? What makes this case different? Who are the parents? I let you simmer on this.

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The unsettling realisation

There is a stage we all see, it is not the same for all. We see it, but the words do not completely come, there is a sort of disjointment between what we see, what we perceive and what we think is right. It was all over the field when it came to blow in my mind with a Reuters article. Weirdly enough they gave the pieces, the missing pieces to form the new image, an image I did relate to and as such the article becomes a reality.

The article in question is the article (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musks-twitter-suspension-journalists-draws-global-backlash-2022-12-16/) giving us ‘Elon Musk restores Twitter accounts of journalists but concerns persist’, you see, the elements start with “The reinstatements came after the unprecedented suspensions evoked stinging criticism from government officials, advocacy groups and journalism organisations from several parts of the globe on Friday, with some saying the microblogging platform was jeopardising press freedom” My initial response is that if these idiots did their job, their proper jobs, their credibility would not be on level -23. They did this to themselves. 

When you whore for digital dollars there in a consequence. In addition players like the NY Times print not properly vetted information (see one of my previous articles on the subject). The press does not bring freedom. It brings us filtered information. Information that is approved by share holders, stake holders and advertisers. So stop talking about the freedom of the press. Start doing your bloody jobs or become Uber drivers, they have a shortage at present. So when we get “A Reuters check showed the suspended accounts, which included journalists from the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post, have been reinstated.” We do not get a clear picture on why certain issues happened, in case of the NY Times I could speculate but this is larger. These people REFUSED to do their jobs when there was time to openly ask Jack Dorsey for answers, there was time to give a clear response towards a stage where a company was overvalued by close to 100%, but you did not do ANYTHING, did you? 

And for the man blocking Elon Musk with a facial covering with license plate CJ82G38? Did you do anything, did you report on who the man was, was the car stolen, was there anything? No, you merely try to collect on digital dollars, didn’t you? 

In that same setting there is an issue with “The German Foreign Office warned Twitter that the ministry had a problem with moves that jeopardised press freedom.” We get that, but when the press isn’t taking its ‘responsibilities’ serious, should we give them any consideration? And with that we get the second part that rubbed ME the wrong way. It was “Melissa Fleming, head of communications for the United Nations, tweeted she was “deeply disturbed” by the suspensions and that “media freedom is not a toy.”” Well, see what pot is calling the kettle black. The UN made its own bed with stupid settings regarding Jeff Bezos (an anti-Saudi stage) and a few others. If the United Nations actually get things done and focussed on areas like Syria and Yemen and got communications on Houthi terrorist events started the people might get informed at some point. For example the Middle East Monitor gives us “The US Special Envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, said on Wednesday that the Houthis’ “maximalist demands” had hindered UN efforts to renew a six-month truce in the country that ended in October.” As such, these so called ‘culled’ papers. How much did they expose to the public of this? I think that Miss Fleming has other problems and making sure that the Press covers the actual news might be a clear first. It comes with the stage where she claims that media freedom is not a toy and it applies to the media just as much, in case she forgot.

So, I got that off my chest. You see, I cannot see if Elon Musk is guilty of anything at all, because we keep on getting one sided news from the media and they have no credibility left (as I personally see it). 

I will let you consider who is correct and consider what you are shown, and what is trivialised by the media.

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Information through confliction

We all have such moment, we are given some parts when things go wrong, this happens, but to the degree we see at present, does it make sense? I think that it is clear that there is almost no one left on the planet who has not heard the name ‘Sam Bankman-Fried’, the media has been bringing it like Jesus of Nazareth was the second coming of this individual. It was only three weeks ago when we were given ‘FTX TO LAUNCH ITS OWN STABLECOIN SOON, SAYS SAM BANKMAN-FRIED’, there we see “The fresh capital injection, which is still subject to negotiations, would keep the crypto conglomerate at the same valuation it had landed after a $400 million funding round back in January. At the time, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried was valued at $32 billion. According to leaked financial documents, global trading revenue generated by FTX hit $1.02 billion in 2021, having increased more than 10 times from the $89 million recorded in 2020. Additionally, FTX’s operating income swallowed $272 million throughout last year’s bull run from $14 million a year earlier. FTX saw net income of $388 million last year, up from just $17 million in 2020” and there has been too few questions, no one was looking into matters. Just like the issues surrounding Jack Dorsey. The media had forsaken its duties. It’s like all the paparazzi’ were heralding a 42nd crack maiden as she was giving out free blowjobs to anyone coming along. They had no problems slapping Elon Musk, because he was too arrogant, he was evil. The media had forsaken its duties to the largest degree. To properly inform us and it was at that point when someone informed me of a Dilbert comic. I know off Dilbert, but I do not religiously follow him. I have a book with Dilberts, but that book is at least 20 years old. So I had to look him up and I placed him below.

So here we see what I have been telling you for years, but the person was onto something. If we are to accept the wisdom of Scott Adams, the ‘We’ in the second image represents governments, corporations as well as media interests? It is the last one that was a little forgotten. Not by me, but I was equally not s inclusive as I had needed to be. 

This part becomes clear when we see the Australian Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/technology/ftx-came-dangerously-close-to-upending-futures-markets-20221117-p5bz5m), there we see ‘FTX came dangerously close to upending futures markets’ with the added “FTX’s ambitions were grandiose: It wanted to carry out every aspect of customers’ crypto derivatives needs on its own, using algorithms rather than brokers to help clear trades”, you think this is it, but it isn’t even close. Yet it lifted the veil and gives us the question “Why was the media asleep?” Things of these nature get noticed and the media was not asking questions. It goes from bad to worse when we see the Guardian giving us ‘Why were so many smart people so dumb about FTX? Did they seriously just like Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘vibe’?’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/commentisfree/2022/nov/15/why-were-so-many-smart-people-so-dumb-about-ftx-did-they-seriously-just-like-sam-bankman-frieds-vibe-), it is actually a much better question than you think it is. The ‘vibe’ part is indicative and subjective, but the setting of smart people being dumb is central. The media is allegedly supposed to be smart and they never saw it, they never investigated. Was it them or their shareholders, their stake holders and their advertisers that could not stand the sight of critical questions? The fact that I found 6 billion that Google and Amazon overlooked implies they are merely reckless, shortsighted and only optionally stupid. But tell me what company goes around ignoring 6 billion in revenue whilst they are getting ready for recession dropping employees left, right and centre? Then we see the subjective part “The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange will cost investors billions. But why would anyone give money to a man who plays video games in important meetings?” There is a dangerous stage here. They are not wrong, but it also implies that the important meetings are egocentric. I found 6 billion through video games, in addition, I knew WHERE to look. It implies that these so called important meetings are important to some and not others. Are they therefor important? And we get more information when we see “It seems, however, that FTX was doing some very dubious things: namely, furtively shifting customer funds to Alameda Research, a firm also operated by Bankman-Fried, which then gambled them away on risky trades. Instead of becoming the world’s first trillionaire, SBF saw his net worth plummet from $16.2bn to about $3 overnight. Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers has likened FTX’s collapse to the Enron scandal, saying that from the reports, there were “whiffs of fraud” about it.” And the information we get is not about SBF or FTX, it is that the media fucked up, it massively fucked up. Who in the media started to look into Alameda Research? How much of the $6.2 billion was lost by the time someone woke up? All questions that the media will not look into or shed light on. Too many got burned by Leveson and when we illuminate that the media has more priority towards digital dollars than to inform the people on events, it is at that point that the people will demand investigation of the media and that scares them. Like fucked up Chihuahua’s they will cry the freedom of the press and the fact that they can police themselves, yet there are enough indications that there is no freedom of the press, there has not been for quite some time and the final push is seen through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63662396) where we see ‘New FTX boss condemns crypto exchange’s failure’, a stage that happened 13 hours ago where we are given “The firm filed for bankruptcy in the US last week and, in court filings, Mr Ray said he had never “seen such a complete failure of corporate controls”. Mr Ray, who replaced Sam Bankman-Fried, also criticised a “complete absence of trustworthy financial information”.” In a stage that is a mere three weeks old we see someone from second coming to financial terrorist getting nailed to a cross. And when we realise that this is a stage that was 3 years in the making and the media ignored too many signals and it is time to demand answers. So called idiots making environment claims a mere two days go with “30 newspapers and media organisations in more than 20 countries have taken a common view”, how about you do your fucking jobs and report the news, the actual news, not filtered information!

That setting has been clearly out in the open, but the media does not investigate itself and we are now at a point where the people ned to hold the media to account. When we are given by the BBC “Mr Ray also criticised what he said were “erratic and misleading” public statements by his predecessor. Mr Ray said that FTX had concentrated control in the hands of a “very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals”, and that it did not maintain centralised control of its cash. Instead, he said, there was an “absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories”. So far he said it had been possible to locate “only a fraction of the digital assets” held by the firm.” All this whilst the media was praising some crypto brat like he was evangelising the new economy, and there were no checks, no balances and the media was nowhere to be found. A place like FTX made over a million victims, lost over $16,000,000,000 and the media was nowhere to be found, oh yes, when the carcass was out in the open for everyone to take a bite from, but such numbers aren’t created in a day, there was a long stage of planning and the media was nowhere to be found. Why not?

In light of all the stupidity I see there is now a decent stage where people should consider handing their IP over to China and hope for the best, because our system made a righteous mess of it all and that kind of damage does not happen overnight, it requires the media to forsake its duty to a massive amount. And this is not one media, it is the bulk of them. And my view? When the BBC reports “Meanwhile, Mr Bankman-Fried has told the Vox news website that he regretted filing for bankruptcy.” Vox? And the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Times, the Guardian and others aren’t wondering why the Vox got that little part and none of the others are all over the Crypto Brat? Makes you wonder what else they aren’t looking at, not?

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Ko Inky Dink?

Before I begin, there is something you need to know. I understand and agree that we ALL need anti viral protection. In the old days there was Norton (not that great) and McAfee. There was also Virex (an unknown for Mac’s), over time the setting evolved and in the last 20-30 years it was about the 4 big players Norton, McAfee, Sophos and Kasparsky. I stuck to McAfee and later on Norton. Norton had improved its system and it was basically a turn of a friendly card when I went onto the Norton highway. So for the most I remained in the dark. I hd a program, it seemingly works (you don’t know until things go wrong) and so far no issues (touch wood). It was about 4 weeks ago when I saw something pass by. It was (at https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/kaspersky-discovers-about-100000-new-banking-trojans-and-warns-about-increasing-mobile-malware-sophistication/) with the serious ‘Kaspersky Discovers About 100,000 New Banking Trojans and Warns About Increasing Mobile Malware Sophistication’, for me it was not interesting. I do not trust banking apps, not one of them, the more they offer, the more dangerous they are and as such I do not touch them. I know from the past the X-25 issues that were there and I will not bank online, I will not bank mobile. Some things are better the old way, at least they are somewhat more secure and I have set up triggers to alert me if anyone wants to activate my online banking and mobile banking. So as the article gives us “Kaspersky’s Mobile Threats in 2021 report noted that the number of mobile trojans detected almost doubled in 2021, while the total number of mobile attacks declined during the same period. Sadly, the increased sophistication of the attacks, malware functionality, and attack vectors, coupled with the emergence of new players in the market, compensated for the reduction in the number of attacks.” I saw this coming (to some extent) a mile away, that is why I created a 5G solution that reduces the risk. It does not nullify it, but the transgressions are limited to the high tier hackers, I speculate that I can stop a third of the danger, which is not bad. At that point I did wonder why it was Kaspersky alone that reported it, nothing from the other three, but I left that in the air. So today (late last night) I got alerted to ‘Remove and replace Kaspersky AV, says German cyber intelligence’ (at https://www.itnews.com.au/news/remove-and-replace-kaspersky-av-says-german-cyber-intelligence-577390), which is odd. The timing is definitely off. I am not judging, I cannot tell whether it is true or not, the article does give us “In 2017, the United States banned government agencies from using Kaspersky products, with the European Union following suit the year after.”, as well as “BSI has now extended the advisory to all Kaspersky customers, telling them to swap out the Russian antivirus with an alternative security product.” So what evidence was there. Why was this not in places like The Verge? 

And when we get ““A Russian IT manufacturer can conduct offensive operations itself, be forced to attack target systems against its own will, or be spied on without its knowledge as a victim of a cyber operation, or be used as a tool for attacks against its own customers,” the BSI wrote.” OK, I get it, there is OPTIONALLY a risk and people need to be aware, but if this risk was known in 2017, why was it only now and not two weeks ago that we were informed. Moreover, why is this merely the German intelligence, why does Reuters not have an American point of view with all the ins and outs? There is also “Kaspersky had moved its data infrastructure to Switzerland to counter hacking and spying allegations by Western nations”, which I get. In the end I have questions, is Germany merely an American tool spouting McCarthyism to a larger degree? I wonder why the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) did not counter or support the Switzerland element in that equation. If Russia has tools and support in a place like Switzerland, I reckon that the Swiss would want to know. 

So personally the issue with a coincidence factor is just too weird here. I am not stating the BSI is wrong or misinforming us, but personally I feel that the articles in Reuters and ITNews would require adjustments. The search (Google) gives nothing on Kaspersky and the LA Times, New York Times and Washington Post. Why not? The articles are 18 hours old, one of these three should have picked them up at least 8 hours ago, as such I have questions. Don’t you?

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Greed, Consumerism and safety?

There is a dangerous stance, a stance not on the safety of people, but on the revenue that they represent and there is every chance that this level of greed driven consumerism is at the core of a lot worse to come. 

Part 1
Part one is seen in the article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-criticizes-china-canceling-some-flights-over-covid-19-cases-2022-01-12/) called ‘U.S. criticises China over canceled flights’. There we see ““China’s actions are inconsistent with its obligations under the U.S.-China Air Transport Agreement. We are engaging with the (Chinese government) on this and we retain the right to take regulatory measures as appropriate,” a U.S. Transportation Department (USDOT) spokesperson said.” OK, we can accept that, but in that setting can that spokesperson please show us the paragraphs that deal with issues like pandemics? The greed driven will see and focus on ‘obligations’, but what of the safety of the people? The Chinese government is obliged to look after the safety of people, so where is that part? I am not taking a side whether one or the other is right and which party is wrong. Yet when I see “identify a path forward that minimises impact to travellers” I wonder who they are working for. In December, Bloomberg gave us ‘Omicron May Double Risk of Getting Infected on Planes, IATA Says’, I heard from a friend who went on vacation that the return flight was filled with people coughing and yes, two days later he had covid too. When will people learn that IF YOU ARE SICK YOU STAY AT HOME? And more important those who get sick on vacation are all about ‘safely getting home’ dangers be damned. And that is the core problem with air travel. So I cannot fault China for its position, I understand the greed driven side for getting people to travel, yet it seems to me that the greed driven do not care as long as they see the revenue, infections be damned. Those stating that they take all precautions are delusional, there will never be a safe route in this.

Part 2
The second part is given to us by SBS. There we see (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/another-53-people-have-died-from-covid-19-as-nsw-posts-record-92-264-new-cases/4809f03d-d922-4c30-bfe8-6c1251568bfa) that ‘Another 53 people have died from COVID-19 as NSW posts record 92,264 new cases’, the issue is that when we see it next to the UK (120,000 cases) all whilst the population of the UK is 300% larger, we see that things do not add up, in that same setting the US with 829,000 cases are a larger setting. The us has around 500% of the population of the UK, yet they have a lot more infections. Now this is not the proper way to vet numbers, but there should be some linearity and these numbers are all over the place. So in this India with 247,500 cases all whilst they have 4 times the population of the US does not make sense. The numbers do not add up, I get it there could be a dozen elements influencing other facts, but the numbers are wrong, and I personally believe that India has a much larger problem, so when we consider that is it really wrong for China to act the way it does? 

The entire setting of flight have to continue in an era where we live in a pandemic, someone needs to wake up. The entire need to travel all whilst a lot of issues can be resolved virtually gets to be on the centre stage. In addition to that view we see “China has all but shut its borders to travellers, cutting total international flights to just 200 a week, or 2% of pre-pandemic levels”, is it right, it is wrong? It seems to me that it is to stop a wave of infections that have close to free rule in any nation that did not lock its borders. Last November the NY Times reported “At least 13 people who arrived in the Netherlands on two flights from South Africa on Friday were infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and more cases will most likely be found, Dutch health officials said on Sunday.” We saw South Africa protesting that it was a mild issue, now we have over 3 million new cases EVERY DAY, so how is that mild? How is the drastic shortage of hospital beds a mild consideration?

Is this what happens when greed shakes hands with consumerism? I do not know, but from where I sit, the view regarding the safety of people is close to totally ignored. There is every chance that those who closed their borders stand a much better chance. That is unless you open borders for tennis players who later admit “that he released a statement with new admissions, including the fact that he sat for an interview and maskless photoshoot knowing he had Covid without disclosing his status”, so a person who knew he had covid went knowingly and willingly maskless. And China is the one that is painted as the attacked party? I reckon that our laws and our regulations are blatantly failing in these pandemic stages, I will let you ponder on why that is and before you blame China for anything, wonder why no spokesperson raised issues on pandemic obligations that should be out there. I wonder how consumerism won that side of the battle. And before you think it will be easy peasy, consider what optionally might come AFTER Omicron and when that part is less mild, what will the consequences be? 

I do not know, but more important, the scientists that should know do not know either, it is new turf for them. So when we listen to obligations and consumerism lets also wonder how safe these obligations were in the first place, especially as yesterday gave us an additional 3,201,862 new cases. I will accept that most will be mild, but 1% might not be and that means that globally for 6-8 days 32,018 new beds need to be secured for the yesterdays cases alone. So what about tomorrow and the day after that? How many beds are left then? I do not know, do you?

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A two sided sword

It is nice (novel too) when the press does your work. Al Jazeera (at https://aje.io/xvndmj) with the headline ‘Nobel Peace Prize winners warn of growing disinformation threat’, which sounds nice, but the complication is that the press is part of the problem, in the last two years 

I looked at issues with the NSO group, Jamal Khashoggi (the reporter no one cares about), one sided accusations against Saudi Arabia, bungled investigations involving Jeff Bezos (and the UN), Ignoring the events from Iran and Houthi forces and that running joke known as the ICIJ with their papers of hope (Pandora papers). All issues that show the press being part of the problem, not a solution. All vying for digital dollars any way they can. 

So when I see “Maria Ressa of the Philippines said the greatest threat to democracy is “when lies become facts”, while Dmitry Muratov of Russia said society is currently in a dangerous “post-truth period””, I am not opposing Maria Ressa, I am stating that the disinformation problem is a lot larger than what we hear and journalists are part of that problem. 

Journalists have with some regularity placed themselves on the axial of a seesaw and tried to keep a balance between events taking place and Stakeholders that need things go certain ways (my speculation/presumption). It is a setting that have been going on since 2012 (which is when I started to take notice). So when I see “Muratov also told Al Jazeera that disinformation was a significant and growing threat. “Manipulation leads to war,” he said. “We are in the middle of a post-truth period. Now, everyone is concerned about their own ideas and not the facts,” Muratov said” I feel an involuntary giggle coming up. It is correct what he states, but the part of ‘Manipulation leads to war’, was this communicated to the morning breakfast shows? Was this communicated to newspapers who do this way too often? 

Yes there are problems and they are all over the place, yet the press is part of the problem, it stopped being part of the solution when shareholders needed to see more money from news outlets. A plate for pigs and there are too many pigs and the plate is seemingly getting smaller. 

So it needs to be clear, I am not opposing the person who achieved the standing of winning a Nobel price, I am however pointing towards the wannabe’s behind these people maximising digital coins at the expense of clear reporting. In case of the ICIJ, has anyone seen a clear dashboard giving us numbers of people per nation, nations with government people involved and non-government people? No, you haven’t. More importantly when we see the stage of those in zero tax nations (and their right to be there), what is left? In that stage we see the ICIJ speak like parrots, repeating the same thing over and over without any real revelations, any real criminal activities. So when you see “The new data reveals confidential information about the owners of offshore entities mostly registered in the British Virgin Islands, a notoriously secretive jurisdiction, between 1980 and 2018.” You get no real information, merely some silly essay person waving his dick. The problem is that this so called “confidential information about the owners of offshore entities”, is absent of criminal activities. It is about tax laws and these clowns have not achieved anything, merely made you all angry that some people get LEGALLY away with avoiding taxation. So Boo Hoo flipping Hoo. 

So I get it that some journalists should receive protection, but in my personal view, we could do without those 600 at the ICIJ brilliantly. The term of “when lies become facts” sounds really nice, but that means that we hold journalists and what they write accountable, an act that hasn’t been the case for the longest of times, should you doubt that, read the Leveson report. The stage is changing and to some degree journalists and news outlets are responsible for that mess. Consider that the big papers which include the Wall Street Journal, The Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Boston globe and the NY Times. How many did a real piece on how tax laws have failed a nation? None as fr as I can tell, they are all screaming ‘Tax the Rich’ but it were these tax laws that got them in that setting. The disregarded acts by Iran are visible all over by the bulk of these papers seemingly disregard these parts, just like the assaults by Houthi’s but they are all eager to slam the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one sided reporting is disinformation, I hope that this is clear? Filtered information (like morning shows) is also a form of disinformation and they all serve some stakeholder (as I personally see it).

A stage that has to change and it should start with those calling themselves journalists. 

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Notice not given

We get that, we sometimes do not inform people. Yet in a stage where lives are in danger, where lives are on a stage where we cannot say whether they live or they will die. Is it moral, or even justified not to inform the people?

That was the setting we have seen in the last few days. I took notice to some effect, but in a stage where I have no influence, I merely set myself into some setting of a wait state. Awaiting more information before I take a larger stand against or for something. 

So the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59453842) 22 hours ago ‘South Africa’s president calls for lifting of Omicron travel bans’, you might want to say that is fair, but is it? Consider “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, unjustified? How about informing the people and the experts of the larger setting that omicron forms? The Dutch NOS gave us (at https://nos.nl/l/2407414) ‘Omikron is in the Netherlands, many questions on this new variant’. As such 13 of the 624 passengers have the omicron variant, so the Dutch get a plane full of the people and no one thought of making sure that these people do NOT travel? And when we see “Little is known on the omicron variant”, as such the other message on the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59463879) where we see ‘No need to panic, South African minister says’, I think he has got to be out of his fucking mind. And even as we see “The heavily mutated variant was detected in South Africa earlier this month and then reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) last Wednesday”, and how come the Netherlands are seemingly in the dark? The variant is seen in several nations, so it is clear that a travel ban needed to be more complete and a lot more shown across nations. It is now in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. We are told that the Ditch cases come from South Africa, I cannot tell if the other nations have the same origin. Yet the stage of a new version in this many cases and South Africa crying on lifting travel bans is just too ludicrous to consider. The larger question remains. How did this variant gets out so far and so wide? I wonder if we ever get a clear answer to this. 

And when we see “South Africa reported 2,800 new infections on Sunday, a rise from the daily average of 500 in the previous week” we see a larger setting. It is not sure how this version got to be, but South Africa has been instrumental to allegedly spreading it all over the globe. In addition, the NY Times reports that scientists are trying to find out whether the current vaccines can stop Omicron, it seems that they do not know. So as such the response we see in the BBC article “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, is complete BS. If anything the travel ban should have ben imposed a lot sooner then it was. 

In addition, when we see “Salim Abdool Karim said he expected the number of cases to reach more than 10,000 a day by the end of the week, and for hospitals to come under pressure in the next two to three weeks”, which now implies that several nations will be in serious trouble soon enough. In this Salim Abdool Karim is the South African government adviser and epidemiologist. And from those assessments, there wee see a government person stating that the travel ban is unjust? Go cry me a river (please).

A stage that might not be blamed South Africa, but in light of what we see, I reckon that Cyril Ramaphosa needs to be clearly considering that the rest of the planet is considering that it was unjust that he let this variant spread on such a global stage. And this is not the first time that governments are slow to react, or to impose clear restrictions. Well on the upside, if this kills off another few million people the unemployment issue will be largely solved, optionally housing issues in metropolitan areas might be solved too. 

And there is a larger stage that will be there soon enough. How many houses/apartment will not be sellable until it has been biologically cleansed? How long until COVID statistics are part of the reporting governments? These are a few of the notices not given, but governments (always eager to blame someone else) might not get a choice here. If COVID is an impediment on commerce, the reporting of COVID will be regarded as important and there will be government needs to belittle related issues soon thereafter. 

What a nice week we are heading into. 

P.S. There are no numbers from Russia, China, Egypt, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. It is possible that they avoided this risk, but I do feel it is too soon for them to howl hurrah! Especially as the World Cup in Qatar started this week.

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Discriminators big and small

It happens, we sometimes discriminate, even if that was not the intent, even if it was just a joke (obviously a bad one), or even if it was an unknown reason, merely because you never knew. The last one is actually a larger slice of the cake and it is not held against anyone. If it was unintended, and we never knew the foundation of that discrimination, we feel a little ashamed when it passes and we make a mental note not to do it again. Should the media be given a pass? Are they allowed to be ‘uninformed’? It is a much larger question than you think and it is brought to the surface today by two events. The first is ‘Saudi-led coalition intercepts Houthi drone, says state TV’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-led-coalition-intercepts-houthi-drone-says-state-tv-2021-06-14/). Here we see “air defences intercepted and destroyed an armed drone launched by Yemen’s Houthi group towards the southern Saudi city of Khamis Mushait, state television said on Monday” they are one of THREE non muslim sources that gave me the article. So when we have the BBC, Boston Globe, NY Times, Washington Post, the Times, San Francisco Chronicle and several other large news papers, I found a total of three sources that gave me this article. Saudi Arabian citizens are under terrorist attack by Houthi forces and we see none of that, we will see teabag ladies holding up CAAT signs on arms trade against Saudi Arabia,  that makes all the newspapers, optionally the teabag lady was the human interest side. Some of us will shout all kinds of ‘evil Saudi intent’ yet these people have not been told the whole truth, why is that? Why is the media setting the stage of intentional discrimination? And it is not one nation, this is global, or should I say Christian global? We saw the French examples of pushing a ‘non-religion’ agenda, or is that a christian agenda?

Islam does not allow an image of Mohammed

It took me 3 minutes to come up with an alternative image to make sure that the classroom would understand that an image of Mohammed was taboo in Islam, so instead of the image explaining that is was against Islam to give any image of Mohammed, we see an image causing outrage and they knew it was going to lead to outrage, so why was that?

The second one is more despicable, I saw a few sources give us ‘New Zealand’s Ardern criticises Christchurch attack film amid uproar’, with the added text ““They Are Us” film about PM Jacinda Ardern’s response to 2019 Christchurch terror attacks has been slammed by New Zealand’s Muslims and others for pushing a “white saviour” narrative and “sidelining the victims””, I wonder why the powers are so afraid of Islam and Muslims, when we see “Philippa Campbell, New Zealand producer, on Monday announced that she was resigning, according to The Guardian”, when we realise that the producer is resigning, there is a larger issue in play with the director and the people behind the screens and that too does not yet make it to the forefront, why is that? 

As I see a daily dose of age discrimination and religious discrimination all over the field, do you really think that statements by others in the area of ‘Trust them, it will work out, they know what they do’, do you think there is any trust left? The media is eager to put ‘the people have a right to know’ in the drawer when it suits the needs of their friends, yet they are well versed in staging these friends into the circle of ‘unnamed sources’, so why is that? And more importantly why do we continue to let this happen? Gallup had a nice presentation (at https://news.gallup.com/poll/157082/islamophobia-understanding-anti-muslim-sentiment-west.aspx) for me there were two slides, but I will give one, here we see how massive that problem is and the media is shunning its responsibilities to the largest extent. 

Here we see that Italy seems to be the most accepting nation with 28% not accepting muslims, but with a 15% data gap the message there could be a lot worse, in the US that non acceptance is 52% with only an 8% gap, so at best it is a 50/50 premise there and why is that? Muslims have been part of investigations against extremism. In the FBI, CIA, and other players in town on a global scale all whilst we are shunning our duties as people, as citizens, as concerned people who need to be told the truth and the truth is being skewed and negated n nearly every turn, why is that? I do not expect you to have the answer, but I believe it is more important to be told the truth and the media is not part of that, why are news agencies stacking news to set an anti perception? Consider that today, today is a good day to consider just that. 

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