Tag Archives: politics

September 24, 2024 · 22:59

Two sides of technology

There are always two sides on any technology. The question is whether they are aligned or not. The first story is found at (at https://www.edgemiddleeast.com/ai/tsmc-and-samsung-consider-100-billion-uae-chip-projects) where the Edge Middle East gives us ‘TSMC and Samsung Consider $100 Billion UAE Chip Projects’, it all comes across as straight forward. We are given “Semiconductor giants TSMC and Samsung are in early talks to establish massive chip-making facilities in the UAE, potentially marking a significant expansion in global production.” It seems to me that this is a straight forward option, especially for the UAE. We are also given “develop potential chip projects in the United Arab Emirates, with investments that could exceed $100 billion. The discussions, which are still in the early stages, were first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday” and this article ends with “Should these plans move forward, they would mark a significant milestone in the UAE’s efforts to position itself as a global technology hub.” The second article was initially from the Financial Times (but they are behind a paywall), as such I I cannot give the link, but the headline reads ‘UAE president meets Joe Biden in push for more US AI technology’ where we are given “Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan seeks to formalise fledgling partnership between both countries” as well as “The United Arab Emirates’ leader met US President Joe Biden in Washington on Monday to advance artificial intelligence co-operation as the Gulf nation tries to secure easier access to US-made technology” and “The UAE is one of the US’s most important allies in the Middle East, but relations have been strained at times in recent years. Talks for a formal security pact with Washington have stalled, and Abu Dhabi was infuriated by what it saw as a lukewarm US response to attacks on the UAE’s capital by Houthi rebels from Yemen in 2022.” This is a dangerous time for America. The trivialisation of the Houthi terrorists will cost America dearly, it has before and it will cost America more than they imagined. You see, as I personally see it. There is a bigger fish. The option that China will play nice with Taiwan when there is a larger part of the $100,000,000,000 could give China the edge they need. And in this setting China will have several bonus options that would fall away from American. That alone would entice China to play nice with Taiwan to a whole larger degree. Is it viable? I honestly cannot say as the media is massively anti-China. Ask Huawei is you doubt my view on this issue. 

How could this happen?
There are several options, but if I were a betting man China would offer Taiwan independence UNDER China. Would Taiwan accept this? I don’t know, but if China would enable a diplomatic solution via the United Arab Emirates it could happen. China is more interested in the collapse of America sooner and will hand an independence ‘option’ to Taiwan. And the setting with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan gives China a larger option to manouver. It is my believe that the Biden administration is driven to not make my speculation happen and for that it needs a slice of the UAE AI business and America will offer whatever it has to to make their entrance a done deal. On the positive side if Microsoft gets involved there is every chance that their affinity to mediocrity will blow up in their faces and the American stance becomes a whole lot weaker. This is not ‘fear mongering’, this is merely the view I have on Microsoft and the blunders they have made in the recent past. The UAE embraces perfection, as such Amazon (AWS) or Google would be a much better fit. But this is not about bashing Microsoft (it is fun though). The AI investments that could be coming the way of the UAE, there is a larger field. We hear all about ‘AI’ and the developers (Amazon, Apple, Google, et al) but most forget that Huawei has its own system. The FusionMind AI platform. I don’t know how good it is. Whatever the media tells us, once Huawei gets to demonstrate their system. No matter what others think, if the UAE considers it good enough, the American race for revenues goes in the wrong direction (for America that is). Don’t ask me how good or how bad the Huawei system is, because I have never seen it, but I know about it and the media is doing its best to ignore Huawei, but I am not convinced that this is a good move to make. The IT people (like me) want to assist people with solutions that WORK. I do not think it is a good idea to ignore the Huawei system. And I believe that neither Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates are ignoring the Huawei technology side of it all. For me the larger setting isn’t merely what works, but it is the dim witted view of accusing Huawei whilst not offering ANY clear evidence. That is the larger stage and if Huawei, or the Chinese government can convince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to allow Huawei to present their case, American will have additional worries to deal with. I personally think that Google AI with Mandiant would be personally the better option. That is merely because I have have limited exposure to AWS and no exposure to Amazon security solutions. So my view is slightly biased. In all this, Google needs to convince the UAE that they have what the UAE needs. After that Saudi Arabia should be shown these solutions too (likely they have already seen them).

When we see these sides, one side is the technology, the other side is the software and when we optionally see these chip solutions the bigger winner becomes whomever sets the premise of their software to the hardware provided. I personally hope for Google (I am biased here), but the end game is nowhere near concluded at present. I reckon the Biden administration is hoping for a memorandum of intent, but that is something we might see on Wednesday. So keep looking.

It is almost Wednesday here and Vancouver is following in 18 hours. So anything is possible. Have a great day.

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November 19, 2023 · 04:03

Speculating towards something?

That is the setting, I have been keeping my eyes on Bangladesh for more than one reason. You see, Bangladesh with its 170,000,000 people represent an upcoming population that has never been considered for several retail groups, but that nation could become a more important group. China sees this, Saudi Arabia sees this and that is where the next article comes into play. The article (at https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2023/11/18/japan-brings-bangladesh-into-the-folds-of-new-security-framework/) gives us ‘Japan brings Bangladesh into the folds of new security framework’ which also gives us “Japan maintains economic partnerships with most Asian countries, particularly Bangladesh. Dhaka has received around US$25 billion in development and economic assistance from Tokyo since 1972 and around US$9.2 billion of this has been overseas development assistance.” I believe it is one truth, but not the one that matters to Japan. When America implodes, so will Japan, unless they make new friends fast. And when Japan embraces 170 million Muslims, they stand a chance to get some relief from Saudi Arabia and optionally the UAE too. That is what I am speculating is behind this move. Yes, there is a stage that Japan can use for retail purposes, but there is a larger stage. As per March, Japan is dealing with a $9.2 trillion debt. When America collapses (not if, when) Japan will lose a lot more and whatever they have banked against the dollar will fall away, as such Japan needs another path. China is not one due to historical stages, Russia is equally unavailable. As such this path seems the most intelligent one and even as it is not the best path, it might be one of the few left available to the former friends of the United States. And in continuation of this speculation, when things implode, the BRICS players would like to keep as many as larger players on their side as possible and Japan is not great, it is a huge economic player. 

So as I see it (and I could be wrong), Japan and a few others will need to realign their priorities in allies and economic sides and Japan seemingly just made their first move. I wonder when either Saudi Arabia or the UAE will set another path towards Indonesia and its 273 million citizens. This makes the setting fro BRICS a larger one, with two additional nations they get almost half a billion consumer and this is the stage that is merely in its starting place. When these two nations get the chance to become workers in Neom, optionally additional domains we get a new setting for economy and that is where Japan is banking on. It is trying to get a slice of that pie and as America has been in denial of too much we see that their ‘friends’ are reevaluating their options and there is now an optional case that Japan made the first move. 

Am I right? Am I wrong?
That remains the question, my speculative view comes from the data available to me, it does not make me correct, but I see it that I am more likely than not correct. A stage we all faced. I am willing to become critical of my view, slice and dice it, merge the data streams and see what I can prove through that. I am still a decent amount away from proving it all, but I feel that It is clear that Bangladesh wasn’t merely for some security framework, the larger stage is still in play. It is still fluidic but the media at large is less and less reliable. Consider the media streams that gave ANY view on this stage and then ask yourself the question why did they not make mention of it? 

Just 20 hours until my weekend is over, enjoy yours.

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August 14, 2023 · 20:00

What is worse then stupid?

That is how I first reacted. We remember Forest Gump (Stupid is as stupid does), but this is worse. As such the CBC gives us (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-world-economic-forum-rhetoric-1.6935294) the article ‘Poilievre’s Conservative Party embracing language of mainstream conspiracy theories’. It is there that we see “Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been hitting the summer barbecue circuit with ramped-up rhetoric around debunked claims that the World Economic Forum is attempting to impose its agenda on sovereign governments” with the added “Poilievre has promised that none of his ministers will attend the international organisation’s conferences, including the annual meeting typically held in Davos, Switzerland” Now, any person and any government is allowed to do what it legally wants to do, but it is at this point the Canadians need to be thankful that it has Justin Trudeau making sense of a global mess. You see, before you join the stupid group, you have to know and realist WHAT the World Economic Forum is about. The organisation (a https://www.weforum.org/about/world-economic-forum) gives us “The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas”, in addition it is important to notice of “Moral and intellectual integrity is at the heart of everything it does”, leave it to a man like Pierre Poilievre to throw morality out of the window. So this is the setting, now consider that this is a place where political and industrial leaders have a sort-of non official place where they could mix mingle and see what is possible. Now, I will be the first to accept that these industrial leaders are in it for the $$$$$, they are there to see what options are there. So at what point in time, in what universe, with what economic scales it makes sense to give the people “The Conservative Party also recently sent out mailers with a poll asking people to tell Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who they think the prime minister should stand with: working Canadians or the World Economic Forum”. The clear setting is that people like Justin Trudeau are there to make sure that there is a decent future for Canada and Canadians. Will it all be smooth and will it all be great? I doubt it, give me an industrial leader and I will show you a person who is eager to please his shareholders and himself (and his board of directors), but this is in a stage where people like Trudeau can find options for places like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia as well. If there are 250 industry leaders there, there will be well over 225 who have no clue where these two places are and they have no idea that they represent 1.8 million people, many of them hoping for a long term job. Not everything has to go to British Columbia, Ontario or Quebec. And people like Justin Trudeau (optionally with an assist by Chrystia Freeland) can make these people aware of those options. I reckon that people like Pierre Poilievre will be all about helping ‘THEIR’ friends, so who does that help? There is a larger stage, the fact that this early in any elections that we see that people like Pierre Poilievre is embracing conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists is an alarming one. So Canadians better be aware that when things go wrong, people like Pierre Poilievre are most likely to hide behind spin stories and hide where ever they can until the dust settles and after that they will find the piggy in the middle to blame. Who will that serve? In this day and age, especially whilst the US is about to become a third world nation with its $31,000,000,000,000 plus debt. When that happens Canada will be in direct trouble, 250 million people seeking a ‘new’ home will come knocking on Canada’s door. There’s a conspiracy to see coming right at you at 500Km/H (I respected the metric system here). 

The fact that CBC was told that Poilievre did not agree to an interview on the matter. Is even more concern on the matter. My issue is that there are stupid people everywhere (even in Canada) so I have no idea how they can influence Canadian politics, but there is some chance, or CBC might not have written about it. On the plus side, Canada can take an example from Australia. We took care of the Karen’s in our society. We have games where the losers might not survive. The track event is started and around 10 seconds after that we release 4-6 dingo’s. The losers will be eaten. Result? Dingo’s not hungry and most Karens taken care of. Except the 2019 event. There we had 9 contestant and someone released 8 dingo’s. So I was gobbling up the popcorn thinking ‘This is great TV’. So there was the one winner and he was walking to closely to the water and a salty (salt water crocodile) got his ass. One year with no winners. Sad but still good entertainment. The problem is that conspiracies can be given in entertainment, but when it is seriously based it becomes a problem. Although in even in entertainment, when that sarcasm backfires it becomes irony, so take heed when employing that solution.

As such I wonder what is worse then stupid. Neither I or Forest Gump have any clue where to look. Yet we should all keep out eyes open for that problem and tag it when you see it. 

Enjoy the day.

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July 2, 2023 · 22:14

One plus one makes 256

I got struck by two things today. The first was given to me by the BBC. There (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66021325) we are given something that should not be allowed to happen. We are given ‘Shell still trading Russian gas despite pledge to stop’ this has one part that offends me. You see it is the Royal Dutch Shell. The Dutch Royal family has a majority stake in this and we all agree that we do not under any circumstance support the Russians in their endeavour. In addition, Royal Dutch Shell is not alone. Dozens of American firms are still making money from Russia and allowing them to continue their acts of terror against civilian targets. I am all royalist, yet when something wrong is done I speak out, the fact that the BBC is extremely willing to drop the ‘Royal Dutch’ part in this equation speaks out against the BBC and their setting of informing the public (yet again). In addition to this we are given. “Shell said the trades were the result of “long-term contractual commitments” and do not violate laws or sanctions.” And when was war a reason not to break a contract? How long have certain corporations been doing business with Idi Amin Dada Oumee in the timeframe of 1971-1979? Do they not learn? I think this is the first time I ever speak out against the Dutch Royal family, but this time I see no other option but to speak out. And when we get to “Oleg Ustenko, an adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, accused Shell of accepting “blood money”” I personally would agree with Oleg Ustenko. And with “Last year Shell accounted for 12% of Russia’s seaborne LNG trade, Global Witness calculates, and was among the top five traders of Russian-originated LNG that year” we see just how deep Royal Dutch Shell is connected to all this. 

Yet what you just read is not correct, and I did that intentionally. You see we also have “In January 2022, the firm merged the A and B shares, moved its headquarters to London, and changed its legal name to Shell plc.” So what is the UK doing? You see, Shell is seen as the 15th largest company in the world. You do not give up that position lightly or cheap. So whatever happened in January 2022 has had a massive impact and for some reason no one really knows what was going on (I have no clue), but me separating with ownership of a firm that big is a ‘no no’, so something does not add up to me, would you just shed a company that makes $20 billion a year? I have issues with all this and yes the BBC did nothing wrong, but the fact that this was once the Royal Dutch Shell and there is no indication (does not mean it did not happen) that the Dutch Royal family might still have a large stake in all this is upsetting to me and it would be to anyone having Dutch links. 

So as we say goodbye to that part, we get to the interesting dream I had. I dozed off whilst watching the Rookie (season 4). My dream (or nightmare) took me to Los Angeles and an interesting Terrorist plot to create and unsurmountable amount of chaos to that city. You see, with all the connected and interacting systems someone created an interesting virus/worm/program (not sure which one). This work was pretty ingenious. You see, instead of debilitating IT systems, they did something different. They infected data parsers. In my dream I was hit as I wanted to find places that had in part the term “vectium” and suddenly it all stopped. Systems worked by they were no longer able to give the full details sudden intelligent settings in Google Search, Bing (yes that one too), and all other engines failed because certain subsystems were deactivated and for some reason some version of ChatGPT was merely making matters worse and spreading the problem across the US and hitting the other continents merely hours later. Because certain detection matters were limited to certain main parts and not subparts that damage continued. The weird part was that anyone with IT knowledge and the ability to give complete correct search terms could still work, but well over 200,000,000 people suddenly had mobiles and IT systems that would no longer connect or hand over correct information, like some kind of aphasia. The dream is now fading and I can no longer see the specifics, but at the beginning it had something to do with search terms ‘like’, which then infected more and more systems. After a short time terms like ‘containing’ would stop working and even as the complete old version SQL string would work, it was about the only thing that did and it crippled the metropolitan areas of the US (and Canada shortly thereafter). The more I think about it, the more interesting it would be to set an episode of the Rookie where infrastructures collapse. You see, people are nice when they have their coffee and their hamburger (or cheeseburger), when that stops the niceties do too.

Well that is it for me, for all you others, the end of the weekend is now no more than 19 hours away, make them count and have a lovely day.

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March 27, 2023 · 02:58

Speedy escalation dot who?

It started with something I wrote on February 3rd 2023 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/02/03/as-the-tide-turns/) when I wrote ‘As the tide turns’. There was some grumbling when I presented “some governments will start to draw out papers where Russians without permanent residency or citizenship will not be allowed to own anything” it was a natural progression, as such I felt decently certain that this would happen. Plenty did not agree and that is fair, but with Oligarchs all over the field, trying to secure what they can in places like Dubai, the future was decently fluidic. 

Now less than a day ago, I see a Tweet from Lithuania that Russians cannot get a VISA, they cannot get citizenship and they cannot own property and I think Lithuania is only the start. This will go further and now we get to see another side. This could be a larger tooth in a set of juridical teeth that is about to do something about Russian organised crime in many nations and they all it all to Vladimir Putin. Not only did his actions undid a century of goodwill for Russia, it in the same trend it undid the degrees of freedom of Russian oligarchs and now Russian organised crime will get a massive slap to whatever they owned and Lithuania seemingly started that stage. A stage that I saw coming because it is what I regarded as logical continuation. As such London who reacted the slowest of all now needs to give full steam or they need to answer questions like ‘Why did you do so little?’

Did I see the future?
Well, that is up for grabs, I presumed that certain steps are a natural continuation and this was one, to be honest, I had no timeline in sight, one usually does not have that with near natural time lines. But I expected it to be in the works and for a country like Lithuania to take that step has also larger implications. Russians have an interest in Lithuania, it is their smuggle route Vilnius – Kaunas – Klapeida that is now also under fire and that closes the routes to places all over Europe, they will now need to rely on other routes and there is not that much options via Poland, they already despised Russians long before the Ukrainian issues started, as such there will have to design new routes but where? I have no idea, that is not my forte or my data driven direction. 

No matter how I see it, larger changes are coming all over Europe and when the US does the same jump pro Russian political forces in the US will run for cover and they will be running everywhere that is petty much a given. 

So speculate or presume all you care and all you desire, but you got the news here first and yes, I do accept that Twitter is no verifiable source, but similar news is coming from the Baltic News Network and it seems that 16 hours ago Estonia started a similar direction, as such Russian routes and Russian opportunities are drying up and when you consider the US, these two nations have done a lot more in a month than the US has done in over a year. That part becomes visible when you investigate what corporations are still active in Russia, the answer should scare you.

Have a nice Sunday

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March 17, 2023 · 05:23

Confirmation and standards

That is what I was confronted with over the last 5 hours. I got a message a little before that and we will talk about it. I mentioned it in my previous article. It connects to more, but that is not important right now. What set me off was the article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2268696/saudi-arabia) where we are given ‘Saudi energy minister: Kingdom will not sell oil to any country that imposes a price cap’. In this I agree, even if it hurts me badly. You see the US has been crying on expensive oil, but the price is set as well by Brent oil, an American firm. One that has the BIGGEST production of oil on the planet.

So when we are given “Spare capacity and global emergency stocks are the ultimate safety net for the oil market in face of potential shocks. I have repeatedly warned that global demand growth will outpace current global spare capacity, while emergency reserves are at a historic low.” I have no other thought but to agree. This has been going on for the better part of 2 decades. No one was complaining when oil was $40, but the setting differs. The US will not buy from Russia (which makes sense) and neither is Venezuela an option. The Arab nations are united in getting the best deal FOR THEM, which is done on a global scale in many commodities, but oil is not the US point of trade, it is THEIR anchor, yet no one looks at Brent oil and what it does, weird, isn’t it? We have seen the massive need to drop dependency on oil and in 2 decades nothing was done. The blame is all on governments for not acting, then 5 years ago an optional sidestep could be made, but the US government pissed of Elon Musk, whilst giving a free ride to that previous Twitter owner, that Dorsey thingamajig. But the Media on a global level REFUSED to ask him the hard questions. And now that it is too late, now that we see that a battery change was required 3-4 years ago, the Governments (especially America) start crying like little bitches. 

When a well can pump 10 cups of water an hour, and there are at any given moment 25 people needing water, some will go thirsty and that setting has been clearly there for over 2 decades. Why was nothing done? So when I see “NOPEC refers to a No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels bill, proposed US legislation that could leave members of OPEC+ open to prosecution under American antitrust laws. The bill, which has been periodically proposed for several years, was revived this month by a bipartisan group of senators in Washington amid ongoing concern about high energy prices.” And here the thought “Are you insane?” pops up. In the first why is Brent Oil not mentioned? And it is so easily fixed. Saudi Arabia (Aramco) could deliver 20% less oil to the US and Europe and sell that to China, everyone happy, or not? It is not a concern for high energy prices, it is the bloody mess of inaction which can be clearly shown for well over a decade and when there was a solution, you pissed off the industrial that could have aided you. So how is that for stupidity?

The second reel
The second reel is different, it is not connected to oil, but optionally to stupidity (as I personally see it). I have seen now confirmation on two of the branches that this will work and due to a few changes, there would be a growing need for the third branch as well. For me it could be good, and could is the operative word as Google was asleep at the wheel and let it pass and Amazon doesn’t seen to be waking up to the billions they can get in this. At present my hope lies with Kingdom Holdings and one other party. That one might not give me the full price, but it is better than nothing, in addition, keeping Microsoft away from there is prime concern, they can only screw up the IP, blame others, point fingers and then refer to miscommunications. I can do without that. There is a small option that Apple might pick it up, but it is not really their turf, so I feel uncertain about that thought. So it is in some regard inverted from oil. Oil everyone wants, and seemingly my IP no one wants. I reckon that the first one that buys it and see what they stand to gain, at that point everyone will come calling, like a Credit Suisse banker with an empty wallet, but that is my weird sense of humour.

The idea that I am right is nice, but I have seen enough confirmations in several directions to know I am right, but that is just me. I still check all forms of verifications, not merely to proof that I am right, but to confirm I was never wrong. That too matters, because I am where banks and oil consumers needed to be, in a place of checks and balances, something both parties require very very fast.

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February 5, 2023 · 10:02

Low ball realisation

This happens and I am just as easily taken in on that funnel as anyone else. Before I go into that part it will be important to illuminate another side. This all started last night when I took notice of ‘Pakistan blocks Wikipedia for ‘blasphemous content’’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64523501). It is there we see “The move was announced on Saturday after the free online encyclopaedia was given a 48-hour deadline to remove some material. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said Wikipedia failed to comply with its ultimatum.” And if you think that it is set to “Blasphemy is a highly sensitive and incendiary issue in Pakistan.

Other platforms including Tinder, Facebook and YouTube were previously blocked in the Muslim-majority country” you would only be partially right. You see, later in the article we see “Facebook was blocked in 2010 following a row over an internet campaign inviting people to draw images of the Prophet Muhammad”, here we now have an issue. You see, Islam does not allow any image of the prophet and every Muslim knows this. This is done by people to push islamophobia. It was not an drawing competition to draw the image of Jesus of Nazareth, or even Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. It was an insult to Muslims and we need to start learning that some things are just not on. Why insult Islam? Islamophobia is a lot bigger today than it was in 1095, when the first Crusade was happening we we were all trying to kill one another. Something needs to be done and the drawing competition was my handle to write the script ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which was my script on the assassination of Dutch politician Geert Wilders. A movie that plays in part in Saudi Arabia and part in the Netherlands (the Hague). It was my response to these unacceptable acts of islamophobia. Yet in the latter settings it also enabled me to create a new IP that allows for 50 million subscriptions in phase one and growing a lot more after that. Now with this event in Pakistan it might be that my expectations might have been low balled. The numbers might turn out decently higher. Which would be good for me, but not so good for Google, Facebook and two other players. Amazon is still on the ramp to make a decent killing here, but there is one issue, I am not sure if Amazon is ready for it and in part I hope that the Kingdom Holding Company and in particular Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud as I hope to retire soon and leave this islamophobic world behind me. I honestly have had enough of the hatred and empty ego stages, aren’t you fed up with needless hatred?

Anyway, the stage of Pakistan works for me, but there are two parts that needs addressing. It is seen with “Wikipedia failed to respond to “repeated correspondence” over the removal of “blasphemous content”” and ““They did remove some of the material but not all,” he added, confirming that the website would remain blocked until “all the objectionable material” was removed” for the first part and “Details of the material in question have not been revealed” for the second part. For me there is an issue as I am not Muslim, I have no idea what goes and what is forbidden as blasphemous. That part too needs addressing and the BBC is not giving us anything on this at present. I cannot blame the BBC, because I do not know if they know, or if Wiki has been lacking in informing all parties. In addition we see “Free speech campaigners have raised concerns over the move, saying there seemed to be “a concerted effort to exert greater control over content on the internet”” yet I do not agree with them, not in this case. Islam has strict rules and for the most Muslims are pretty conservative when it comes to those rules. We need to accept this and bullshit wielding free speech campaigners need to accept that their notions are limiting and not the view of all, not even the view of most. Now that Christianity is a minority, these ‘evangelisers’ will have to put more and more water to their mass wine and accept that they are no longer in any kind of charge. We need to accept that we might have a say in OUR pond in our garden, but our voices are no longer accepted in lakes, rivers, seas and oceans. We need to learn to adhere to the rules in those places. I love free speech, but do we even have that? We are silenced by trolls and idiots who silence us whilst politicians remain silent and remain inactive on too many events. In other places these people are taken off the board and not in a nice way. We low ball our vision of self, whilst we over-exaggerate how much we can do. 

The world never ever worked that way. In the 90’s Netscape was told where to go by Microsoft and the stakeholders on the side of Microsoft, several other events took place, but in many cases, they were simply surpassed. AltaVista became part of Yahoo and they were surpassed by Google who thought things through and really made a killing. Not all events are ‘evil’ events, technology does evolve and no everyone adjusts and evolves with it, that is the part we overlook. Islam does not evolve easily or to a larger effect. Changes take a really long time and we either accept that or we become obsolete in their eyes. The second is likely to happen and we need to take heed. The larger problem is that plenty of technologists like me are not Muslim, some of us have no clue what is blasphemous and we are often never informed. As I read it Wiki was, as we were given “Wikipedia failed to respond to “repeated correspondence” over the removal of “blasphemous content”” but the BBC did not tell us what the blasphemy was. And that is the setting that islamophobes are pushing for with their drawing competition of Muhammed and I get it that Muslims take offence to such events, do you?

The world and economy are taking a sharp turn in another direction, I foresaw that and created new IP because of it. Will it work? I hope so, yet I cannot tell. Amazon is my best hope as Google walked away from that field, a field with a maximum of 1,800,000,000 subscribers. Time will tell, but as I see it Pakistan is now adding oil to that fire, which seemingly works for me, I personally hope so and that is as good as it gets for me (at present).

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July 7, 2022 · 19:44

Interestingly unknown

It was the BBC that got me here. Their article ‘Arabs believe economy is weak under democracy’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-62001426) has a few debatable sides, but these debates come from a preset mind that did not have access to all the evidence (read: raw data). Yes, that would be my mind, but the setting is interesting. And the mental race get tarted with “Michael Robbins, director of Arab Barometer, a research network based at Princeton University which worked with universities and polling organisations in the Middle East and North Africa to conduct the survey between late 2021 and Spring 2022, says there has been a regional shift in views on democracy since the last survey in 2018/19.” And when we get to ‘Rise in people who agree the economy is weak under a democracy’ we see that nearly all of them went up, only Morocco remains under 50%, the rest is higher and Iraq gets up to nearly 75%. It is interesting that a question ‘This country needs a leader who can bend the rules to get things done’ There too Morocco is in a doubt, but so are the Palestinian territories, the rest is largely in favour of that statement. In most cases, the economic challenges are on most minds and that makes sense. Only in Tunisia, Iraq and Libya is corruption a much larger fish than other nations. It is when we get to the question ‘More than one in three people ran out of money to buy more food’, the question seems trivial, but the fact that it is 68% in Egypt seems OK, it is the fact that the same question scores below 50% in Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, and Palestinian Territories when we see the News from all kinds of sources the fact that food prices and hunger is not on the forefront in at least 2 nations comes across as weird to me, yet as I stated. I never saw the raw data and these results should be scrutinised. The lack of an N is several charts give rise to debate, Also, it seems nice to see percentages, but if Jordan has an N of 3500 and Libya has an N of 12500, the setting becomes slightly warped and weighting data is dangerous, especially when you compare different groups. There is a lot more, but that is not up for discussion without seeing the raw data and the complete report. But I am speaking too soon, you see at the end we see “The project interviewed 22,765 people face-to-face in nine countries and the Palestinian territories” yet the one thing I do not see it that the cultural stage towards government changes per region. You see Tunisia, I see Kibili, Sfax and Kef. And we can do that for each of the nations. Now it is possible that the Arab Barometer took all that in account, but I cannot tell at present and lets be clear. I am not attacking the article, or the results. I like the setting, but at all times I keep a skeptical mind awake. The setting that clearly shows the desire for strong leaders is nothing against a democracy, it is that democratic nations have largely shown nothing more than indecisiveness and ‘corporate corruption’ to coin a phrase. There is a lot more going on and the fact that the media is part of the problem is also a debatable setting in all this and the Arab nations have seen too much of that too, but that too is a debatable side in all this. In the end, the article is good reading and it does refer to sources and methodology. If only the BBC had thought a few matters through and added a few more parts, but as I stated, these thoughts are debatable, so I am putting myself under similar scrutiny, because I would hate to judge anyone on items that seem incomplete. And it is one of the final parts “It is of Arab world opinion, so does not include Iran, Israel or Turkey, though it does include the Palestinian territories. Most countries in the region are included but several Gulf governments refused full and fair access to the survey. The Kuwait and Algeria results came in too late to include in the BBC Arabic coverage. Syria could not be included due to the difficulty of access.” So the question is raised with “several Gulf governments refused full and fair access to the survey” Did that include Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen? Yemen might be excluded for a few natural reasons, but the others? 

A setting that requires scrutiny, because the Arab voice with 6 missing voices? It does not make the other views invalid, merely debatable and optionally one sided as the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia are Monarchies, but that is merely my view on the matter.

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June 22, 2022 · 01:18

The Jamocratic joke

Yup a wordplay and it is not the only one I have, but it is one of the less ‘hurtful’ ones. In the first, I have a republican mindset, I have always had that. I oppose Trump in all its glorified stupidity. I believe the US lost a great man with the passing of John McCain and I think the republicans wrongfully stabbed Liz Cheney in the back on the words of a bully, but we will have a reckoning on that later. Today we start with SkyNews who gave us ‘‘Morally bankrupt’: Biden ‘humiliated’ by Saudi Arabia and oil companies’ (at https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/united-states/morally-bankrupt-biden-humilitaed-by-saudi-arabia-and-oil-companies/video/5819a070a892b5de3db7a8f259bff9c6), now granted the news is 2 days old. I wanted a little time to mull things over, but the text as given by “The president said it’s “unacceptable” that oil companies are making record profits during “a time of war.”” Oh? America is in a war? Who are they in war with? With their ‘proud boys’, with their failures? The list goes on and it is not a nice list. They gave the power to Wall Street and Wall Street ants ledgers, not excuses. 

And we were given a list of the oil companies

Marathon Petroleum, Valero Energy, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, Chevron, BP, and Shell.

Marathon made $69B in 2020, that was their operating income, Their Net profit was $9.9B in 2020. Valero might have had a larger revenue $117B (2018), but a much lower Net profit which was a mere $4B (2018), Exxon mobile was the bigger player with $276B (2021), yet only with a Net income of $23B (2021), less than 10%. Are they corporations? Yes they are! They own responsibility to their shareholders and 10% does not add up to much and the statement of “record profits” does not add up, well not completely. You see Biden was handed a bad hand and the Russians gave that to him, so to see him blame American companies is one failure, to nag and bitch to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after he vowed to make them a pariah on something lacking clear evidence is a second failure. None of these players owe him, or the American people anything. This is the setting of a commodity driven economy. Consider the list. The US is one of the top three oil producing nations, so why is all that oil squandered? Why did the presidents (all of them, Republicans as well) not halt the consumption of oil? Why was something not done 20 years ago? I have articles spanning back decades on this folly. In 2015 Americans told me to shut up (fair enough), but now they do not get to scream! 

They can have ice cream (to soften the blow) but not whinge and whine. 

You see the problem is so much larger, and the US is part of that problem, it was never part of that solution. In 1999 crude oil was at an almost all time low of $19.35 a barrel. The cost was so low that oil providers started to shut down, the only time is was lower was in July 1946. Oil has had a rollercoaster life with tops in 2008 ($187) and April 1980 ($142), so as it is now at around $114 I would say “You ain’t seen nothing yet”, oh and before I forget what wars were the US in in 2008, or 1980? 

No, as I see it when you decide to hand the reigns to Wall Street, you cannot ‘yap’ like the little chihuahua. A commodity driven economy does not care, it does not care that your granny is sick, that the dog ate your homework, or that the mistress will not have sex with you as you only bought her a Microlino instead of a Dodge Challenger. All parts a commodity driven economy cares nothing about.

And Saudi Arabia? They need to do what is best for their country, not what matters to their greed driven customers. Does it hurt me? Yes it does, but that is the world I live in. I do not control oil, I do not control wealth, as such I am its plaything just like anyone else. As such SkyNews has a point with “US President Joe Biden has been criticised as “morally bankrupt” and “weak” in regard to his energy policy after it was revealed he is planning to visit Saudi Arabia to discuss the global oil crisis.” Yes, it is one way to look, but if he cannot control the American people who are eager to dig a deeper grave by the day (they are almost deep enough to say ‘Nǐ hǎo’ to the Chinese people) and no one in the US is stopping the need for oil, higher prices is where it will be. A simple setting of Supply and Demand.

It is getting worse, less than 3 hours ago we were informed (by Reuters) “Egypt and Saudi Arabia have signed 14 agreements valued at $7.7 billion during a visit to Cairo by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman” in addition there is “the establishment of a $150 million “pharmaceutical city” by Egypt’s Pharco Pharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia” That is the true benefit of being a true ally to Saudi Arabia, a setting now starts that will cost the American coffers billions, just as I predicted will happen in 2016, 2018, 2020 and now we see the first (or second) impact in 2022. The US pharmaceutical branch in Saudi Arabia will lose power, Egypt will rise. Egypt will offer services to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for billions, those billions are lost to the US and the EU. This is the impact of a failed policy that never had any strength to begin with. 

So in all this, the administrations of the US (not President Biden) failed its citizens. The administration set the paper tiger in motion that looks nice, but when the people around it know that this tiger is paper (unlike the one below)

There will be a lack of reaction, a lack of adherence and that is when we realise there was never any need to adhere to anything. So the American people pissed off the KSA and Elon Musk (both energy saviours). So how exactly was that letter anything but a bad idea even before it was written? I see it was a desperate act of an administration that saw its fuel policy go to $5.87 (from $2.17) a rise of well over 100%. We get the desperation of the letter, but the expectation of success is equally laughable. As such what is the letter anything else but an admission that bankruptcy is merely just around the corner? When this all comes to blow the larger setting will come into play and there Wall Street will get to learn the lesson that absolute greed has merely one direction and it is not a good one, but those in Wall Street will have packed up their 8 or 9 figure balance and they will have headed for a zero tax shelter with warm sands and warm beaches. The rest? Well good luck to them. Oh and do not forget winter (and the need for heating fuel) is a mere 17 weeks away now. 

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October 17, 2021 · 06:43

New lodgings in New York

OK, I will admit that is not entirely the case, but the question becomes. How much would a 4 bedroom condo at 405 East 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10017, USA cost? It is a building with 39 floors. The top 2 floors would have 2-3 apartments, the rest 6-8. I reckon we can around 250 apartments out of it. We large meeting room could be a restaurant and the lowest floors would have space for shops and so on. Not bad eh?

You see, the Guardian gives us ‘Saudi Arabia accused of forcing Yemenis in the kingdom out of their jobs’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/14/saudi-arabia-accused-of-forcing-yemenis-in-the-kingdom-out-of-their-jobs), and we do see ‘accused’ meaning it can go anywhere. Yet when we see “Calling on all sides, including the Houthis, to remove the impediments to distributing aid, Deen also pointed out that only 55% of the pledges made at the Yemen humanitarian summit had been fulfilled”, yes it sounds so nice and consider that with 55% of the pledges the population of Yemen would only be half as hungry now. The involvement of Iran in Yemen is completely overlooked (read: ignored) and the think-tank that was invited seems to do exactly what it was arranged to do, to slap Saudi Arabia around. And when we consider that the Sana’a Centre think-tank was invited to give an update on “the six-year civil war in Yemen”, can we consider that Maysaa Shuja al-Deen is optionally incompetent? The six year war should include a direct tally of Houthi actions against the Yemeni people (the article dos not give that to us), the military aid that Iran is giving the Houthi’s, which also seems to be missing. And when I see “She appealed to the Gulf states to keep their doors open to Yemen, adding that the security council should put pressure on the Saudis immediately to stop expanding and tightening the grip on Yemeni workers in the Saudi labour market” my initial emotional response would be “Who the fuck does she think she is”, whilst the non-emotional side wonders if she ever considered that there is a security risk with Any Yemeni working in Saudi Arabia, because those people have family in Yemen and the Houthi’s have too much control in Yemen. So when I say ‘these fucks in the security council’ I do know what I am talking about because I once worked for them (a very long time ago). It is all about image and protocol. So whilst once source only 13 hours ago gave us ‘Houthis claim seizing district in central Yemen’ and of course it is the one with loads of oil. 

As far as I can tell (the article is not a great resource) it seems that the Sana’a Centre think-tank is not about informing people, it is about scoring brownie points and filling a political agenda. Whose agenda remains to be seen, as Saudi Arabia has a few people in that building that seemingly have anti Saudi emotions. So shall we have a vote to turn 405 East 42nd Street into an apartment building? I will leave that up to you to contemplate this Sunday. I have to go and kill a few people (PS5 joke). 

Have a great day.

p.s. WordPress still cannot fix what they break, so I am sorry that I could not add the colours at present

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