Tag Archives: Politico

Cutting corners

Something did not sit well with me yesterday. I have been mulling things over for most of today and it all started with Politico (at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/12/pentagon-cyber-command-private-companies-00115206) where we are given ‘The U.S. is getting hacked. So the Pentagon is overhauling its approach to cyber.

This setting comes in a few stages. Lets start with the given that I have no opposition to the Pentagon getting involved. But the stage is not that simple. So we start with the quote “attacks on critical U.S. companies and federal agencies, and as the Pentagon eyes Chinese hacking efforts with increasing concern.” The first issue is that I would have said “Chinese and Russian hacking efforts”, it would be more accurate. There is an additional side to all this. If American corporations had done their job BETTER, this issue would not be the critical issue it currently is. 

Equifax (2017)
Marriott International (2018)
Capital One (2019)
First American (2019)
Solarwinds (2020)
Colonial Pipeline (2021)
LikedIn (2021)
Microsoft Exchange Server (2021)
Twitter (2022)

This is merely a small grasps, this grasp has millions of records online for each of these cases, In this Linked in stood out with “Personal records of over 700 million users – 92% of the user base – were scraped from the platform and put up for sale in a hacker forum. Why did this happen? Attackers found a public API without authentication and breached it to scrape content.” This case is also the larger issue (beside the fact that it was an API and I wrote about that risk in ‘A simpleminded A, B, C’ On August 30th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/08/30/a-simpleminded-a-b-c/) a simple setting now out in the open. People still think I was grasping at straws? Now here we see (in the LinkedIn case) “Attackers found a public API without authentication”, as such couldn’t they do their bloody jobs? I understand the setting of the Pentagon, but there needs to be a bill for utter stupidity and a link to your data without authentication is definitely one.

Corporations have been cutting corners on cost and staff and now that the consequences are out in the open, the Pentagon needs to rescue them? Screw that!

It is nice that the Pentagon comes to the rescue, but every rescue needs to come with an audit of that company and a hefty bill for the action. Consider a pointless rescue by coast guard and Marine rescue, these people get a hefty fine, I see that someone employs an API without authentication in pretty much the same way.

Yet the article is merely the start. You see, we can all agree on “Hackers are increasingly infiltrating private companies and government agencies far outside the Pentagon’s usual purview, and the hacks are being perpetrated by cybercriminals who honed their strategies abroad before striking the United States.” OK, that is fine and the fact that the Pentagon and its digital weapon systems are brought to bear is fine, but the utter stupid setting by corporations that cut corners is part one and that is on those corporations. I am even willing to accept that it took a disgruntled employee to hand visibility to the wrong people. Yet that also implies that these corporations have a larger problem and THEY have to pay for that. 

So about Three weeks ago, we were handed the 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy guide. The PDF (see bottom) is a nice piece of work. My issue is with page 6 where we are given “The Department will continue to persistently engage U.S. adversaries in cyberspace, identifying malicious cyber activity in the early stages of planning and development. We will track the organization, capabilities, and intent of malicious cyber actors. We will leverage these insights to bolster the cyber resilience of the Nation and will coordinate with interagency partners to publicize this information as circumstances permit.” As I personally see it, it should say “The Department will continue to persistently engage U.S. adversaries in cyberspace, identifying malicious cyber activity in the early stages of planning and development. We will track the organisation, capabilities, and intent of malicious cyber actors, whilst registering corporate shortcomings. We will leverage these insights to bolster the cyber resilience of the Nation and will coordinate with interagency partners to publicise this information as circumstances permit, where corporate shortcomings will not be silenced.” In this case some will state that this is not the job of the DoD and they would be correct, but Corporate America fell short and they now want help, that shortcoming needs to be illuminated as well. You cannot have it both ways.

The document gives us a lot to think about and I agree with 99% of it all, especially when it comes to the Department of Defense Information Network. 

I created the Hub+1 intrusion solution in 2014 (or 2015). As far as I know, no one is at this time ready for that creative little caper. I got there shortly after the Sony hack. The information never added up to me and I started to wonder how it could have been done (always a nice way to find the issue by re-engineering the possibilities). And all this is long before we consider issues like non-repudiation, a simple setting I learned about in UTS (University of Technology Sydney) about 3 years before the Sony hack and corporations have been cutting corners ever since. Consider the routers of the FBI, DoD, DMV, Department of Homeland Security and the postal services. Now check EVERY router and tally the ones where the password was Cisco123. I reckon you will find close to a dozen routers. I know it is more presumption than speculation on my side, but that is the larger failure and that is BEFORE we check all the corporate routers. People in IT have been too lazy (for many obvious reasons) and most of them involve resource shortages and why should the Pentagon pay for that bill?

I see that corporate America needs to pay for their cutting corners, the Pentagon has enough issues to work through and when it needs to step in (and when shortcomings are found) that corporation needs to get billed. This is specific. Corporate players cannot shield themselves from top tier hackers, that is BS. But letting the Pentagon pay for corporate stupidity is equally stupid and that needs to be out in the open. 

So this was my rant on stupidity, enjoy the day.

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The song remains the same

Yes, that is the setting we hear at times. We think that we are hearing something different, but when we listen closely, it is merely the same song we are hearing and this concert is all about ‘Oil in the family’ (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5vrWeHvErQ) yes, the song actually exists and it was created by Jan Akkerman (Dutch musician) a long time ago.

Yet the news comes from different sides. There is Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2285261/saudi-arabia) who gives us ‘Saudi crown prince and US Senator Lindsey Graham discuss bilateral ties’, wasn’t he one of these people who would not discuss things whilst his Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud was in office? I remember something of that nature. So whilst we see “Graham, a member of the Republican party, has served as a senator since 2002. His visit was said to reflect a continuation of Saudi-US bilateral ties and reciprocal visits through the years” make no mistake, this was about restoring lost oil settings, it has the ability to set the stage I saw yesterday (previous article) I dreamt of. I reckon the Iranian setting would be raised as well. A setting that defines the coming end of the United States as the middle eastern power player is now in discussion and for the US it sucks, the ally they shorthanded for too long now has the US (as some younglings state) by the short and hairy and the US does not like that. They will do almost whatever they can to restore settings, but they are as I personally see it too late. There is every change they can restore 500K barrels a day, but they will pay for that, they will have to pay top dollar and the energy shortages head of them will make them pay. Oil rules the world at present as it has the last few decades. So whilst they mull over their options lets take a short sidestep The US and its people were all (including media) so set on letting Jack Dorsey pass by and hammer Elon Musk, his power-cell solution could have lessened the impact of oil in energy for a massive amount three years ago, now there isn’t enough times and they keep on hammering Elon Musk. Now, this is their western ‘right’ but it also largely enables oil and therefor Saudi Arabia (Aramco). 

ABC4 news (at https://abcnews4.com//senator-lindsay-graham-meets-with-crown-prince-of-saudi-arabia-mohammad-bin-salman-jeddah-international-relations-boeing-airline-money-wach) gives us ‘Sen. Lindsay Graham meets with Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia’ with the added “I just had a very productive, candid meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince and his senior leadership team. The opportunity to enhance the U.S.-Saudi relationship is real and the reforms going on in Saudi Arabia are equally real”, with the added “I also expressed deep appreciation to the Kingdom for purchasing $37 billion worth of Boeing 787s – which are made in South Carolina – for the new Saudi airline. Investments like this are game changers” all whilst the topic oil is never mentioned and mostly because that part was handled behind closed doors. Iran is avoided as the US needs the lollipop named Oil (most likely a liquorice lollipop). The more it is avoided, the stronger it pushes to the foreground. Just like the 1981 song that rocked disco’s all over Europe. A good song can never be held down, just ask Mozart, the man is dead and requiem (1791) still shines on. No matter whether it is for you of for someone you know, that song remains a hit in every funeral parlour. Last there is Politico (at https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/04/graham-senate-rebuke-saudi-arabia-1041379) that gives us ‘Graham on Senate rebuke of Saudi Arabia: ‘Someone’s got to do it’’ there we see “Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday championed the Senate’s willingness to publicly rebuke the Saudi Arabian government despite the White House’s unwillingness to do the same, slamming the Gulf monarchy and calling out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by name for accusing senators of grandstanding on the issue” there we see the larger problem and it is not that the White Houses unwillingness to do something, it is that they and others remain in denial. And guess what if the energy crises goes south and places like Google, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon see the impact of losing around 70% of the abilities during summer to do business because there isn’t enough energy to keep the equipment running, that is when the economic meltdown starts and panic hits several states. I think my early prediction of 90 days is right on the nose. At that point the US sees waves of panic it never faced before and China will be on the sidelines laughing. Their game worked perfectly. In my assessment (a purely personal one) action trumps inaction EVERY SINGLE TIME and that is what we see, and that is not nearly the end of it. Politico also hands us “the president, secretary of State and secretary of Defense have all said there is no definitive proof that the Saudi crown prince ordered Khashoggi killed. Multiple media outlets have reported that U.S. intelligence agencies have “high confidence” that the crown prince ordered the journalist’s murder.” The takeaway here is “there is no definitive proof”, something I mentioned several times, the gameplay via the United Nations (via someone called Eggy Calamari), its essay writer is falling flat and that goes back to February 2021  (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/27/that-was-easy/), more than two years ago, I already saw the failings of a United Nations being the useless tool of whomever. I even attached the document that shows their failings. It is so much easier to attach their folly, makes reading it easier. I don’t think the most powerful element that NO ONE investigated and forensically investigated the tape, there is mention of the tape, but when you read closely you see it surrounds things as ‘possible’ and ‘could’ the effect of forensic lacks. So this game was continued for over two years and that is what the US needs to claw back and they can not. 

Then the article ends with “Responding to Pompeo’s insistence that Congress breaking with the administration over Yemen would undermine the possibility for peaceful resolution there, Graham retorted in his op-ed that Congress is “a coequal branch of government exercising leadership to safeguard the country’s long-term interests, values and reputation.”” This shows that the US is still all about the discord, the denial and that is why the US is about to fail massively. The media played along and now they are caught between two difficult situations, because when they lose the energy and they cannot produce they will cry like the little girls they were all along. And there we see the final part of what I stated in the beginning, the song remains the same.

Have a great days and consider whatever you can upgrade to systems that rely on chargers, because soon enough for many hours a day, you will not have any options. The wealthier people will embrace the Elon Musk energy solution, but it will cost them top dollar. The others (like me) we will not be that fortunate, it is the consequence of an inactive political engine on a near global level. 

Enjoy the day and the working lightbulbs (for now).

 

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Repetition

You would think that the Germans would learn. They were stupid during WW1, then again WW2 and now they decided to openly support Russia. Do people never learn? To be honest, I am not sure that it is ALL germans are that stupid, but it is the party of Scholz, the Social Democratic Party of German (SDP). And to see this we need to look at a timeline. 

The tweet above woke me up, something was bothering me about this. And yes, there it was. It was in 2022 when politico gave us (at https://www.politico.eu/article/we-failed-germany-depended-on-russia-social-democrat-said/) ‘‘We failed’ on Russia: Top German Social Democrat offers mea culpa’, clearly it was a mere spin, their actions will support my view that they are merely the pro-Putin spin puppets of Europe. There we are given “Germany’s ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) “failed” to see Russia’s aggressive intentions, bargained away trust by ignoring warnings from Eastern Europe and manoeuvred Germany into dangerous energy dependency, the party’s co-chief acknowledged Tuesday”, well this isn’t nearly the end and the media is avoiding all this, why is that? We are also given “The self-critical words are also a break from Scholz, who last week self-confidently claimed that he “always” knew about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions to use energy as a weapon; and Merkel, who has claimed that she did nothing wrong with her Russia policies.” Well, Merkel is up for debate, but that needs to be done by someone with a much stronger sense of German politics than I have. You see, this stage preluded the setting we see in the Deutsche Welle (https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-chancellor-olaf-scholz-is-hesitant-about-delivering-battle-tanks-to-ukraine/a-64493249), we are given ‘Why Germany hesitates on sending battle tanks to Ukraine’, but there is a time line now and this message that we get in January 2023 gives us the setting. The German SDP is the spin chihuahua of the Russian machine and it is time that all parties acknowledge that. There is no “Pressure is growing on Germany to send Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz doesn’t want to commit just yet, partly because he’s playing to his party, the Social Democrats.” There was no SDP, this was to stop the pressure getting upped against Russia and that is what was at stake. The Russian tanks are already demolished enough as it were and the Leopards would make slim work out of the mechanised infantry that Russia has. So when we see “In reference to Scholz’s now-famous Zeitenwende speech condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, Klingbeil said the party needed to answer fundamental questions: “What does this historic shift mean from a Social Democratic perspective? How do we define our relationship with Russia, China, and the United States? How does a self-confident and sovereign Europe define itself, and what is Germany’s role in this rapidly changing world?”” Well as I personally see it, I am reminded of The Munich Agreement,  concluded on September 30th 1938, by Nazi Germany. You remember the photograph of Chamberlain getting out of his plane? The quote “Peace in our time”? How did that end? I mean you all got history lessons in primary school did you not? 

We see a time line where the SDP is nothing more than a puppet of Russia and the latest BS peace (bad) idea where Ukraine losses their lands was rejected by Oleksii Makeiev in the strongest way, there never was a peace plan, it was the SDP doing what Russia could not, they are losing and it reminds me of something I saw a few months ago “Ukraine is supported to make the war go on, not supported to win the war”, I was skeptical when I saw it, now months later when I see the evolution in the media, and the media is willing to not report on the timeline gives a rather nasty reality, the media is set against complete reporting, exploit the emotional moments and not do their jobs. Feel free to investigate. Feel free to explore the timeline 2022-2023. Russia has support in the media and it shows how redundant the media has become. As I see it, after the news we have seen over the last year alone. There is no relationship with Russia, only the delusional see that there is a relationship. There is merely adherence to the Russian machine ad the media is willing to collect every digital dollar they can to cater to both sides. 

How sickening Europe has become.

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Introducing: The nightmare

Yes, that is where we are at. It is not the beginning of some horror, although that is not out of the question, the larger stage is who the horror will hit. The setting of this stage begins with ‘Biden prepares largest Pentagon budget in history as spending cuts loom’ (at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/10/biden-pentagon-budget-debt-ceiling-00082302). This could be any day just like any other day, but it is not, it really isn’t. You see, the debt ceiling is about to get hit (yet again) but there is no raising it this time, with the debt surpassing $30,000,000,000,000  this debt is also surpassing the national GDP. It is even more dangerous. Last year the interest on this debt surpassed 25% of the national budget. It has become that bad. And I tried to warn people that the media and the puffy politicians were playing a game with you, but most never listened and that is not on them. There is no reason to listen to me. It is much better that you find out for yourself. So here we are, all whilst something serious should have been done from the age of former President Barack Obama. Let’s be clear, I am not blaming him, the fault is on BOTH sides of the isle. Tax laws and a tax system that was never overhauled, budgets that were not kept in control and things went from bad to worse. So now we get the pentagon budget. I am not saying what should be done, the issues with Russia and their invasion of the Ukraine is still a massive factor and there is every chance Russia does not stop there. Something needs to be done I get that, what the best course is is only known for those who know the actual facts and we don’t have them, but with a stage where that budget is now getting the additional “lawmakers appropriated $858 billion in national defence funding — $45 billion more than Biden sought”, almost a trillion dollars is added to the total debt slamming pretty much through the debt ceiling, as far as I can tell issues will rise and things will start to collapse the things got this far out of hand and now the US will face a new domestic danger. You see Wall Street might actually embrace a default. It would give them unparalleled powers in the US, not for a few years or decades, it will solidify their powers for CENTURIES to come and that will make them richer then anything else. That is the nightmare scenario and it is here 3-5 years before I thought it would come, but then I am not an economist and my predictions are more on point than some of the predictions the IMF made, so there.

And if you think that this is merely some paper run, think again. If the US goes into default, where do you think the Ukraine will get there hardware from? When the US falls, so will Japan soon thereafter and the EU is not far behind them, a world that overspent for decades. A world for the taking by China to say the least, optionally 2-3 more players enter that field, but about that more later. And if you think that this is just prancing, think again. As I see it to avoid this setting the US would have to cut budgets by 50%. That pretty much ends the social settings, infrastructure and a few other stages. The nightmare scenario has arrived on the porch of US households and there is no way to predict how this unfolds, we cannot tell because the path will be in part on how Wall Street deems it to be and that is never in favour of any household.

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The speculative rage

Yes, there is speculation, there is rage, there is the play and there are the consequences. As I stated about a day ago in ‘The presumption is mine’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/21/the-presumption-is-mine/) where I stated “so all that space on what amounts to 0.03% of the entire amount. Just like the ICIJ, shortsighted and a waste of time. So we get repeated invitations to explain 0.03% of what is such a massive leak? Is anyone waking up yet?” A stage play and the Guardian is milking it for EVERYTHING it can, but in doing so it gives a larger play away, and this is not presumption, it is speculation. Yet to see this we need to look at more than one article.

The first one is seen (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/21/revealed-king-jordan-used-swiss-accounts-hoard-massive-wealth) where we are told ‘Revealed: king of Jordan used Swiss accounts to hoard massive wealth’, all yada yada, bla bla and more emotion and the basic part of evidence is missing. What crimes did the King of Jordan commit? We get “According to a massive trove of data leaked from the bank that names both royals as account holders, one account would later be worth a remarkable 230m Swiss francs”, again and again the mention of leaked data, all whilst we need to consider there was no leak, but more about that soon. Now we see 0.28% of the total money mentioned. Then we go on with the next article (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/21/tax-timeline-credit-suisse-scandals) where we are treated to ‘Crooks, kleptocrats and crises: a timeline of Credit Suisse scandals’, we see the list and I am not debating the list, yet how much ‘effort’ did the media do when it comes to investigating players like Price Waterhouse Cooper? You see, it is not about this, or about that, we see the larger play with ‘Switzerland at risk of EU blacklist after Credit Suisse leak’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/21/switzerland-at-risk-of-eu-blacklist-after-credit-suisse-leak), and again the mention of leak. This is (a personal speculation) the EU and US needing to button down, but with a place like Switzerland, there is no stopping what they desperately need, they need revenue and they need their cup filled, the bankrupt are now desperate.

The leak never made sense. I have worked in several places where I get access to data, but never to this degree and that wasn’t even a bank, the bank laws in Switzerland are no fun for bankers. This, as I personally see it, was state orchestrated. 

To see this we need to take the quote “The fallout from a huge leak of Credit Suisse banking data threatened to damage Switzerland’s entire financial sector on Monday after the European parliament’s main political grouping raised the prospect of adding the country to a money-laundering blacklist.” We cannot get the EU to agree on anything. Consider the Politico quote on the EU and covid “The Council press office said the Nice summit took over 90 hours in a tweet Monday afternoon to rein in already spreading rumours claiming the ongoing summit could become the longest by midnight.” There has been a long standing issue on Switzerland and the EU, but times are dire and something will have to give. So when we see “A move to the blacklist would mean Switzerland would face the kind of enhanced due diligence applied to transactions linked to rogue nations including North Korea”, this is one setting, but the larger stage is that the people they want could move their fortunes to the UAE or the Bahama’s all zero tax nations. And in all this with all these articles we still have not seen any collection of data that sets the stage to 7.5%, you know why? Because that was the PWC oversight regarding Tesco, a mere $6,000,000,000 and we see less than that here. But the biggest failing is that we see no transgressions of Swiss Banking Laws. We are given “how a massive leak of Credit Suisse data had uncovered apparently widespread failures of due diligence by the bank”, it is not the leak (well that too), but it is ‘apparently widespread failures’, ONE BANK! Yet now we get “When Swiss banks fail to apply international anti-money-laundering standards properly, Switzerland itself becomes a high-risk jurisdiction”, a statement by Markus Ferber, the coordinator on economic affairs for the EPP, the EPP or sometimes referred to as the sanctimonious Christian fucks of the European Union. So we have one bank, the Credit Suisse Group AG is a global investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. And we optionally have ONE bank transgressing, but for this the entire nation is set on fire. And that is before some people realise that a leak of this nature is not possible under normal conditions. It requires a state player like the NSA, GCHQ or DGSE to get involved. So who was it? 

And in all this the Guardian is again and again all about emotion and less about evidence, why is that? 

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The waste of overrun

The BBC gave us news today, the news is open to interpretation. This is not their fault, but it calls for a larger setting. This is seen in “In solidarity with France, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has questioned whether the EU would be able to strike a trade deal with Australia”, now I never regarded Ursula to be a useful tool, in this my setting for that was seen in 2019 when we were given by Politico (and a few others) “Ursula von der Leyen is planning a new career as European Commission chief in Brussels, but the German defence minister still has questions to answer back home”, so she is like that physician running from location to location, to avoid a malpractice suit. The quote “Last November, she told the German parliament there had been “mistakes” in how external consultants were hired and said “this never should have happened.” But she defended the use of such consultants, saying they had been required to undertake a huge overhaul of the ministry.” Yes, there are always mistakes, there are always miscommunications, that happens, and in this we can have all kinds of directions on those consultants, even when they are tools or stakeholders for others. Yet when we return to the reason why France is angry “Australia cancelled a $37bn (£27bn) deal with a French company building diesel-powered submarines, and, what’s more, France – a traditional Western ally – found out about the new pact only a few hours before the public announcement” we need to consider another source. Business Insider and a few other sources gave us “France’s deal to build Australia’s new submarines was dogged by years of problems”, as well as “The project to replace Australia’s aging Collins-class submarines was supposed to cost $US36.5 ($AU50) billion, Politico reported, but the cost had nearly doubled by this year to an estimated $US66 ($AU91) billion”, so we see a cost overrun of nearly 100%, and so far the BBC and a few other sources are extremely willing not to mention that. If I go to my boss and tell him that something was 10% more expensive, I will get fired and I will not be able to get a job for years to come, the French double the cost and they are heralded as victims? By the way, the more advanced Los Angeles class a nuclear powered submarine is less than $2,000,000,000, as such the cost overrun will pay for 15 submarines, as such, did anyone in France (or Strasbourg for that matter) do the math? So cancelling the 12 French submarines at $66,000,000,000 will get us 15 at 50% of the price and in this is anyone surprised that the deal was cancelled? The fact that the BBC is also willing to overlook a few matters in this calls for a little vetting in the BBC. Now, should the BBC find debatable evidence of the ‘evidence’ that Business Insider and ABC gave us, that is fine, we can take that into consideration. Yet it is odd that such a large setting is overlooked by France and the BBC, not to mention some former excuse for a German defence minister. 

And in this, is anyone paying attention? Even as France has its idea’s and shakes on ‘Gaullist’ temperament and dreams of greatness, it does help if they can keep their builders in a stage of competitiveness, which does mean that cost overruns that approach 100% is totally out of bounds. In this the US is not absent of such settings either, but to get a diesel submarine at twice the price of a nuclear powered submarine, all whilst the diesel version lasts 18,000 miles and the nuclear one can travel non-stop for three decades is a bit of a stretch. Yet the cost overruns are left outside of plenty of newspapers. The ideology of non-nuclear is fine, but when it comes with a cost overrun of 100% we need to ask questions and the news seemingly is not.

This is a different stage, even as the USS Zumwalt failed all its objectives and reached the unique objective of being the ugliest dinghy in US naval history, the US nuclear submarines like the Los Angeles class has proven itself and is also a nice looking vessel. People go out to the shoreline to watch submerged submarine races hoping to see the shadow of an LA class vessel, it is a spectator sport.
As such the Naval builders got the job done and then some. Especially in an age where we look for cheaper solutions, the idea that any submarine needs to refuel thrice a century is a bit overlooked as well. 

So whilst we might show some level of understanding on the sentiments of French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian who called this “a stab in the back” it needs to be state that le petit Jean-Yves needs to take a look at cost overruns and set the proper tone to that side of the sliding scale. In addition to this, the ideas of 12 submarines needing refuelling every 18,000 miles is also a setting for debate, which is not on France mind you. 

So as the clock passed midnight and I complete my 2,000th article I will do a small victory dance after which I will try to break my record of being the loudest snorer in the nation (we all have goals). We all have records to break and France might do the same by trying to limit their cost overrun.

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Where the grass is greener

It is a question that comes from an expression, which also has the answer. And we will look into that later. It seems that the US is taking larger steps in ending the friendship with Saudi Arabia. Politico reported yesterday ‘U.S. pulls missile defences in Saudi Arabia amid Yemen attacks’ (at https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/11/missile-defense-saudi-arabia-511320), now we can understand that some are not willing to sell arms, but a defence system that stops terrorists sending drones and missiles on civilian targets? It seems that the actions are a prelude for the US to get into bed with Iran (highly speculative) and that is a concept worthy of laughter, but I am not laughing. 

The setting that is given is “the perception is very clear that the U.S. is not as committed to the Gulf as it used to be in the views of many people in decision-making authority in the region” we get this from Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. I think there is more to that, but it lacks evidence. I for one have believed for years that the US (NATO allies too) were playing a one step destabilisation game in the middle east. A game where destabilisation is a mere one step away and that is no longer the case. Until thee is a direct blow between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the larger stage is not maintained and the US is getting out of there. For China it is good news, now that they are looking at another customer for the HQ-9 and a few other options. Yes, we see the western press all shouting on ending arms deals, but in the end Saudi Arabia should be allowed to defend itself and the need to defend against Houthi terrorist attacks is a prime concern for a lot of people there. So is there an alternative? Well, there is the Russian alternative, but they are shipping that to Iran, so to buy those as well is a bit of an issue on a few levels, but those objections work for China. Consider that China now has a direct setting to sell well over $17,000,000,000 in hardware to Saudi Arabia, the same will now be lost to the US in an age where they are absolutely broke. It never made sense to me, it is all nice to have high morals, but in an age where you cannot afford to buy bread and healthcare high morals just leads to more hunger in a day and age where most cannot afford such luxuries. And let’s be clear, this is not some banana republic, this is a well established monarchy. And whilst we see “From the Saudi point of view, they now see Obama, Trump and Biden — three successive presidents — taking decisions that signify to some extent an abandonment.” We merely see more and more options for China and that is merely the beginning, once the stage is set the US will lose more ground and that also leads to a stage where they are completely dependent on Israel to give them intelligence.  A stage that could have been prevented from the start and no matter how they see it and I am accepting that it is their policy, it also comes with the new policy that the OPEC nations might have a new consideration, oil to China and not to the US or Europe (mostly reduced amounts of oil to Europe) And it will not aid Strasbourg to start crying foul here, it is the consequence of closing settings and in all this I personally prefer China and not Russia to get these options, it is a personal matter (NATO related). The larger stage will also hit Egypt, should Saudi Arabia continue with Huawei to set 5G connections in Egypt, the economic footprint of Saudi Arabia will change, all whilst the US ends up with a reduced footprint and that is a stage that is now escalating over the next 12-18 months. 

Will I be right?
That is open to interpretation and it is open to a few factors that are not given, untested and lacking evidence, but there is a larger stage that this could play out and that is really bad news for anyone not relying on Huawei hardware, with the US pulling out of areas that stage will also lose a few more settings, so as Chinese hardware comes in, US consultants will lose more and more traction in larger areas and that is the stage some players (seemingly) overlooked. So when Analysys Mason and Boston Consulting Group start missing deals and getting less appointments you know it will be too late for a few options. There are a few more players there, but they have a much larger stage with more nations and more options, they might end up with a few projects that are China based. 

So why would Saudi Arabia move to Egypt?

It is a fair question and it sets a much larger stage where Neom city will be all 5G and to stretch out towards Egypt makes perfect sense, one large network that stretches from Cairo to Jeddah, to Mecca and via Riyadh to Dammam, a network that also includes Neom, one of the biggest 5G networks in the world and it would be all Saudi, now consider the lack of credibility that the west has in a place like Egypt and now a fellow Islamic nation offers to include Egypt, what do you think Egypt will do? And lets not forget with all the band and embargo’s and collateral damage the US has in its name, Egypt is ready to seek a telecom alliance with Saudi Arabia and their numbers look really good compared to the US, it is partially speculation yet in this the Huawei announcements in 2019 give validity to my train of thought, Now add to that the media rollover I discussed a week or two ago and you see a much larger stage and the promise that Saudi Arabia made on having more than oil as a form of income is now coming to pass with a rollout that could be ready long before that deadline hits in 2030, there is a stage that should see a larger readiness in 2025, long before the US has anywhere near that level of 5G completion. In May of this year we were given “All of the major U.S. wireless carriers say they have nationwide 5G service, but industry analysts say that service is largely indistinguishable from 4G LTE service.” This implies that the Statista numbers we saw last year remains accurate for at least two more years, implying that the Saudi 5G is well over 700% faster than anything the US has and that is just embarrassing. So when we see Telecom and defence falling away from the west, how much more losses do we need to see before someone realises that we are cutting ourselves. Morality is nice but the hungry need food and they do not care how they get it. A stage where the middle east becomes the tech centre is weird, completely unexpected and whilst we see stories on Silicon Valley, I wonder if they have anything left? When the middle east is driving tech innovation the west becomes a mere iterator trying to keep up. I personally see it as the result of concept selling, it is all good and nice but the customer wants a product, it needs to get working and as we see hype after hype on AI all whilst it is merely machine learning and deeper learning, we need to consider how long this can continue until the stage implodes on itself? 

So where is the grass greener? On the other fellows yard! (Billy Jones, 1924)

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Self destruct initiated

We all have within ourselves the ability to self destruct, to destroy and to inflict harm. In games we can eat people (Man Eater), we can destroy people (Destroy all humans) and we can lay waste to them (Plague Inc), yes they are merely gams, but what happens when it is no longer a game? Many have seen the man in Wisconsin (Jacob Blake), getting shot in the back of the head as he walks towards his car. I try not to judge, because a 60 second video is not a story, some say that it is and that is fine, but I wonder what set this off. I am not discussing the 7 bullets, it is overkill. I wonder why the policeman did not shoot once in the leg, it would have been directly incapacitated Jacob Blake. Why was that not done? The news on several levels are pushing emotion, but normally there is at least one newspaper giving us a minute by minute stage of what happened. This time, I did not see any of that. Yet USA Today gives us ‘Jacob Blake was shot less than 3 minutes after Wisconsin police arrived at the scene, according to dispatch audio’ with that additional quote “The shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday by Wisconsin police happened quickly, with less than three minutes elapsing between the time the first officer arrived and shots being fired, according to dispatch audio”, three minutes was that was needed. I understand that the police really doesn’t want any kind of time line in this, but what set it all off? I need to try to stay neutral, for the simple reason that emotions will not get us anything. This is not about trivialising the events on Jacob Blake, this is not about minimising events, but to find out what happened EXACTLY. USA Today helps out (at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/25/jacob-blake-kenosha-police-shot-black-man-minutes-after-arriving/3438802001/), yet they are one of the few that took this trouble. 

So we see that at 5:13:47 p.m. one of the officers asks for a description of Jacob Blake, and at 5:15:37 p.m. the shooting starts, 110 seconds between asking for a description and shooting Jacob Blake. Important is the fact that there was no indications that he was armed, or that there was a direct threat from him. It seems that there were more factors involved, but none of them give any level of rise that shooting him was ESSENTIAL. There might have been a cause to shoot, yet in light of him not being armed it is my personal opinion that at the most one single shot in the leg would have sufficed (if shooting could not have been prevented). 

This is not about whether shooting should or should not have happened, this is about the way it unfolded and the level of violence that the Wisconsin police had opted for. So now we see ‘Two dead as gunfire erupts at Wisconsin protests’ and all this is happening in a third night of unrest in Kenosha. It is not the first, not the only one and there is every chance that all this will escalate. We see all kinds of news and all kinds of actions, but the inaction of the Governor of Wisconsin is staggering. Apart from the fact that he declared an emergency, we are given “Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers called for protesters to be peaceful, while also saying the National Guard presence would be doubled from 125 to 250 in Kenosha after crowds destroyed dozens of buildings and set more than 30 fires on Monday night”, politico (at https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/25/wisconsin-governor-jacob-blake-emergency-401695) also gives us ““We cannot allow the cycle of systemic racism and injustice to continue,” said Evers, who is facing mounting pressure from Republicans over his handling of the unrest that has followed the shooting. “We also cannot continue going down this path of damage and destruction.”” Yet we are not given anything regarding the actions of Governor Tony Evers regarding Jacob Blake, not even the acknowledgement, or the setting that this is an investigation that will be pursued, there is a lack of acknowledgement (or at least if we are to take the media at their word). Looking at the Wisconsin site (at https://evers.wi.gov/Pages/Newsroom/Press-Releases.aspx) we see nothing in regards of what is going on, even now, more than a day later, the governor of Wisconsin has done too little too little. Even the website of the City of Kenosha (at https://www.kenosha.org/visitors/news/police) lacks a lot of information, the police section had the option to give information, to try and diffuse the situation, yet this is not done, so for almost 24 hours people on several levels were inactive, unable to set a stage of diffusing the situation, and in all this, no one is asking questions. They are merely letting the social media flame a situation from bad to worse.

A situation that leads to self-destruction, no Shark, alien or virus was required, merely the inaction of all kinds of governmental officials. Its another nice mess they got themselves into.

 

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A pawn in nuclearity

There was an article, now 7 hours old, but I had seen it before, a day earlier I believe. I left it alone as I had to ponder a few items in this stage. You see the article reading ‘Nuclear Gulf: Is Saudi Arabia pushing itself into a nuclear trap?’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/nuclear-gulf-saudi-arabia-pushing-nuclear-trap-200718155513128.html) is giving us the part that matters “if Iran gets them first”, and as I see it focusses less on the danger that Iran is to the entire Middle East if they have them first. Even as we notice “The spectre of the Saudi-Iran Cold War escalating into a nuclear arms race is not beyond the realm of possibility”, we remain increasingly ignorant of “EU says Iran has triggered nuclear deal dispute mechanism” (at https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/04/eu-says-iran-has-triggered-nuclear-deal-dispute-mechanism-348680). The setting is not merely that Iran is seeking to become a Nuclear power, when we see “In January, the European architects of the deal triggered the dispute resolution mechanism provision in the accord, which is aimed at forcing Iran to return to compliance or potentially face the reimposition of international sanctions. They later suspended the action” we see the setting that the EU is sanctifying the Iranian actions, whilst diminishing the powers to stop Iran, this is a path that EU (et al) want this to happen, there are forces that want destabilisation of the Middle East and Iran having a nuclear options achieves that. 

And that is not the end of the EGO of the EU, when we see “EU’s top diplomat said that he remains “determined to continue working with the participants of the JCPOA and the international community to preserve [the deal]” and we see that this was three months ago, all whilst since then  we see no later than yesterday ‘EU Vows Greater Efforts to Safeguard Nuclear Accord’ (source: Financial times) we need to realise that this imbalance will have larger consequences in the Middle East and the players are not of the cooperative type (read: the EU and Iran). So even as Saudi Arabia is not looking forward to becoming a nuclear power, they are pushed by a larger group into this direction, and I wonder why this is. The stated setting that adding to the nuclear pool was to be stopped by nuclear forces is now setting a stage where an entire corridor from India to Israel is nuclear loaded. How is this a good idea ever? Consider India v Pakistan, Iran v Saudi Arabia & Israel, this can only end in disaster and as I personally see it the EU ego is not ready to deal with the fallout from this (literally so), as such I wonder why a larger group of nations is not standing pro-Saudi Arabia or anti-Iran in this (which of the two does not really matter). So as Al Jazeera gives us “Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions date back to at least 2006, when the kingdom started exploring nuclear power options as part of a joint programme with other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council”, they fail to give us the reasoning that Saudi Arabia “Saudi Arabia’s population has grown from 4 million in 1960 to over 31 million in 2016”, as I see it, power requirements have grown somewhere between 300%-500%, making Nuclear power one of the remaining options in the short term for Saudi Arabia, Iran on the other hand has been clear about becoming a nuclear power weapons wise, Al Jazeera also does not give us the fact that Saudi Arabia openly stated that they prefer not to have Nuclear weapons, but if Iran has them, Saudi Arabia feels forced to have them as well, making Iran the instigators in all this, yet the EU is seemingly oblivious to this. I wonder why? So when we look at the Financial Times again and see “He pointed to the beginning of discussions in 2003, which led to the conclusion of JCPOA and said, “It took 12 years to break the differences and to cut a deal. It was a big success for effective multilateralism and it has been a success because the JCPOA has delivered on its promises.”” We see an absence. The absence is that it took only 3 years for the deal to be broken by Iranian violations, but it seems that this part is largely not shown in many places. Yet in all this Saudi Arabia is named the pawn. I wonder why?

So as Saudi Arabia is entering the nuclear stage soon enough, we need to worry in other ways too. The EU was massively ignorant, or perhaps from my point of view it was intentionally ignorant on all these Houthi forces (as well as Hezbollah) have been practicing their missile firing abilities on Saudi Arabia, who what happens when one of them is a nuclear one? What happens when Iran ‘accidentally’ misplaces two of them? One for Israel and one for Saudi Arabia? Where will we find these Eu ego’s? The issues we have seen over the past give rise to this train of thought and Iran is not above the act of misplacing items. Has anyone found all these misplaced drones yet that accidentally made it into Houthi hands?

When we see the amount of pussyfooting around Iran, we need to consider the trap we set up for ourselves, it does not make Saudi Arabia the pawn, it makes us all the payers of high priced oil, because when this goes bad, really bad he price of oil will be close to 400% of what it is today, so when you at the pump, you realise what is about to happen to your budget, all thanks to the ego of some EU officials who should have played hard ball from the start.

 

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Saudi Arabia stands alone

I have seen hypocrisy in my time, people selling others down the river for the mere pleasure to afford their share of cocaine and hookers, or as they state it themselves, extra bonus for a family house. The benefit of selling whatever needs be short to afford a lifestyle their ego demands yet, it is a style usually preserved for CEO’s and higher.

It is not always the case, not 100%, sometimes people get ahead because they know someone; they have friends in housing, perhaps a police commissioner who gives them the goods in advance. These things happen. That is not corruption; that is at times merely a small advantage and we can agree that no hard was done, these things just are.

I have always believed that we need to do something when something wrong is done. Yet, what happens if we get played? What happens when there are too many questions and we see governments act on half-baked information? That is at the core of it all. This all started three days ago when I decided to write (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/03/28/because-skills-lacked/) ‘Because skills lacked?‘, It was all about the arms embargo for Saudi Arabia, enforced by Germany making both the UK and France uneasy. Yesterday (at https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-extends-saudi-arms-embargo-with-concessions-to-allies/) we saw that it was extended by six months, even as concessions have been given to UK and France, the issue is actually much larger and it is time to call for evidence.

In the first, my emotional response to issues is the question whether Agnes Callamard knew what she was doing. You see, Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/rapporteur-khashoggi-murder-perpetrated-saudi-officials-190207171824211.html) gave us a few things, issues repeated by many news casters. First there is “her three-member team had access to part of “chilling and gruesome audio material” of the murder obtained by Turkish intelligence agencies“, it is important we see no establishment of identity, we see no mention on authentication as that is unlikely to happen. Then there is “Woefully inadequate time and access was granted to Turkish investigators to conduct a professional and effective crime-scene examination and search required by international standards for investigation“, as well as “US intelligence agencies believe Prince Mohammed ordered the assassination“, and finally there is “His body has yet to be found“.

Her report might end up being more likely than not a failure (I have not read the full report as I have not been able to obtain it at present, and I might not be able to until the presentation this upcoming June. The initial issues seen at present are (with a lot more when we dig deeper):

  1. The authenticity of the tapes have not been verified, Turkey has been facilitating to Iran to the largest degree (who is in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia), in addition several published quotes give a different light of the activities of Turkey (see previous blogs on the matter).
  2. As I mentioned, there is an issue on Turkey and Iran, making Saudi Arabia a little hesitant to give any credibility to Turkey. In addition to all this, the Consulate is Saudi grounds, It is Saudi territory, as such Turkey has no rights on those grounds. Three weeks after the event refused to share all Khashoggi evidence with Saudi Arabia. If it was actual evidence sharing it would not have impacted the evidence, the fact that it was not shared implies optionally that it did not exist. In effect the Saudi prosecutor did not have access to all evidence.
  3. Are those the same US intelligence agencies that vowed that there were WMD’s in Iraq? What evidence did the US intelligence submit? When we consider the Washington Post, we get: “the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence. Khalid told Khashoggi, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post, that he should go to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so. It is not clear if Khalid knew that Khashoggi would be killed, but he made the call at his brother’s direction, according to the people familiar with the call, which was intercepted by U.S. intelligence.” I am not stating that this is false or inaccurate, yet the parts ‘according to the people familiar with the matter‘, as well as ‘he made the call at his brother’s direction, according to the people familiar with the call’; these two parts call doubt into the complete stage.
  4. The absence of a cadaver also implies that there is no forensic evidence of any kind (at present or ever).

These four parts do not make Saudi Arabia innocent, yet the guilt cannot be established to any definite degree. I am not trying to twist anything, anyone on a jury in a capital crime knows that the establishment is ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ and that cannot be proven, even manslaughter cannot be proven at present. Consider that there was a beating, perhaps interrogation with a heavy hand; can we see evidence that this was the case? The audio is not evidence by itself, the simplicity is that we do not know whether the tape is a fake, is there any way to tell that the person in discomfort was Jamal Khashoggi? I have not heard the tape, I cannot tell, how was Agnes Callamard able to tell? In addition, if Turkish intelligence is so good, how did they get the body away and out of sight? The fact that the Turkish intelligence remained clueless should be an answer by itself. The newscasters go all out to contain people on their page, so when the Daily Mail gives us (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD06WLJH3Wk) ‘Khashoggi’s body parts carried into Saudi Arabia’s consul residence‘, what evidence is there that it was what they claim it to be? I cannot even tell whether they are carrying trash or books, let alone optionally part of a cadaver. CNN at least used the optional word ‘may’, there have been so many speculations, that and the fact that the Turkish government seemingly did not share all the evidence makes this a lost case.

And now for Germany

So in a stage where something went optionally wrong, yet no way to tell how far it actually goes, the Germans started an embargo on a non-event. There is no conviction, there has been no court on the matter, but for Germany it was enough to set the stage for the embargo. For me it is great, I need a second income and I will happily sell any weapon system to Saudi Arabia if that pays the rent. I see no problem to sell any weapon system to the Saudi government that I can lay my hands on. It is the simple application of American entrepreneurship: Ca$h is king!

So when I see: ‘Riyadh denies the powerful prince had any involvement, alleging “rogue” Saudi elements acted on their own accord‘, I am not willing to dismiss it, the optional evidence does not allow me to do so. In addition, “A confidential report prepared by Kroll, a large private security firm, for the Saudi public prosecutor found that none of the WhatsApp messages exchanged between Prince Mohammed and his top aide, Saud al-Qahtani” I see the reinforcement of that part. I wonder if the actual people who optionally caused the passing of Jamal Khashoggi will ever be found, the media made that close to impossible and Turkish posturing helped in the event, the fact that they have the most incarcerated journalists in the world does not help their attempts for the limelight and the Turkish use of the New Zealand tragedy is further evidence still that the Turkish government cannot see the difference to posturing and doing the right thing, making all the evidence they present even less valued and requiring more and more scrutiny to optionally see it as valid and not tainted.

It is the simple application of the Evidence Act 1995. When we look towards Ellis v Wallsend District Hospital 17 NSWLR 553, we see that it was: ‘open to a Court to disbelieve evidence tainted by hindsight‘, it is not about the case, but on the state of the evidence and there is a massive wave of actions giving a large rise to the fact that evidence is optionally tainted. I use the word optional as it would be to a judge to state it to be so, but the quotes and the application of what is not presented makes it optionally so. Time is the tainting factor on all the evidence. The Washington Post adds to this when the readers are treated to: “The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved“, ‘Accepted position‘? By what standard, what definition and on what premise and applied evidence is that? The overall usage of ‘people familiar with the matter’ makes the issue worse. The stage of manslaughter and higher requires ‘beyond all reasonable doubt‘, whilst in the current state it is becoming less and less likely that the Torts premise of ‘is it more likely than not‘ would be reached.

And that is the foundation of Germany to stage an embargo? Well, if that is to be the case, than for the next 6 months I will try to find a way to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia. I have rent to pay, taxes to pay and I need a wardrobe as well as a new desktop (and iPad), all these things cost money and I have no issues to sell to most governments if the opportunity arrives.

As the media is showing us how Saudi Arabia stands alone, all whilst they seem to overlook the Iranian actions, they are ready to pound others whilst there is a lack of evidence, seems odd does it not? Although, according to the Hollywood Reporter, people in Saudi Arabia have nothing better to do than hack the phone of some Amazon CEO and gives us: “Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information. As of today, it is unclear to what degree, if any, AMI was aware of the details” less than a day ago (at https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jeff-bezos-investigator-claims-saudi-arabia-behind-leaked-texts-1198348). I have absolutely no idea where that came from, it is not like that guy Jeff Bezos is a famous person, is he?

So is it about that optional famous person, the event, the leak, or is it about the new application of ‘several experts concluded with high confidence‘, exactly like the CIA used. It is a claim that cannot be vouched for; cannot be proven (or disproven) and no evidence is there, but the finger needs to be pointed at someone and the FBI learned the hard way on how blaming North Korea on Sony events was a bad idea. It is basically the Dutch building fraud example of: ‘Dat meen ik mij niet te herinneren‘, which means ‘I don’t think I can remember that‘, the trained response of a politician facing governmental scrutiny in a commission. That is the one sentence they had down perfectly (the Dutch denial version of a 5th amendment), and we see it applied in too many fields. So especially as it impacts larger government concerns, it seems that we need to take a look at the application of evidence towards assigning blame and guilt. Although, if this gets me my retirement fund of $24,445,000, so that I have a golden parachute. I would personally like to thank the German government, as well as the participating media for being this short sighted.

Saudi Arabia does not stand alone, there is always a person willing to facilitate to any government. It was the basic lesson Mossack Fonseca left the people on a minimum income, when a firm is facilitating within the confines of legal structures for 45 years, do you think that governments did NOT know? Give me a break, they merely played the flustered emotional card to keep the people at peace, in the end nothing changes and a new player takes over from the previous one.

The EU grave train provides one way or another, yet in the end it will provide and not to the people the taxpayers believe it does, on the larger international scale, especially in light if so much evidence failure, it was up to all of us to ask the hard questions but the media prevented it, the emotional curve are all the shareholders and stake holders required.

I think I will start Chapman Calibre Ballistics (CCB) and offer my services to the Saudi Arabian Defence Forces procurement division, so that others will readily confuse my acronym it all with either Child Care Benefit or China Construction Bank, giving the media more things to blame China for, because that is apparently how the game is supposed to be played.

 

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