Tag Archives: President Trump

January 13, 2021 · 15:46

The contemplation

We all have things to contemplate, for me this all started a while ago, but it got to the forefront yesterday after a call with a friend. We disagree on something and it is not about right or wrong, even if I believe I am right, I see that he in NOT wrong. My setting is data and I have been around it for decades, I have been in specific fields, he has not, but he has a real good grasp of data. So as I made a joke about not forgetting the population of zero for Parler, he dismissed it as zero data groups do not matter, and for a lot it does not, but it actually does.

So how to bring it to the forefront? In this (as a Republican) we can look at the stupid, stupid left and can coin a few phrases. There was the Washington Post ‘Parler, a Platform Favoured by Trump Fans, Struggles for Survival’, my by-line? ‘Rebekah Mercer just got a $23,000,000 tax deductibility option’. USA Today gives us ‘Parler goes dark: Amazon suspends the social platform from its web hosting services’, there is a lot more, but the setting is made, no more Parler and now we get to the zero part. You see, the one thing that President Trump achieved was a larger polarisation, the left thought that they had won, but players like Rebekah Mercer, one the people behind Cambridge Analytica and Parler have settings, they have larger plans. You think that she gives away $23 million without a larger gain somewhere else? It was the nightmare scenario, a unified place for right splinter groups and extremists. You think that people like John Matze will sit still? Uniting right wing splinter groups can be massively profitable, when no one will do business with you, losing 10% on the one who does business with you is still appealing, and splinter groups that cumulatively surpass the 50 million member marker is  still worth the effort.

How does this relate?
Even if Parler is at zero, its members will go somewhere else. There is Telegram, Signal and these people need attention and they will go where they can find it. Even now we see the Financial Times give us ‘WhatsApp fights back as users flee to Signal and Telegram’, and even as we see the quote “Facebook is scrambling to deal with a sudden competitive threat to its messaging platform WhatsApp after a change to its terms of service sparked privacy concerns and prompted users to turn to rivals such as Signal and Telegram in droves” (at https://www.ft.com/content/ee1b716d-4ed2-4b26-8da1-40c98db7b9b6), the stupid stupid left just doesn’t learn, presenting that a thing is doesn’t make it so, and the setting that the media cannot be trusted is out there in big letters. So when I say that Parler: n=0 is important. These people find other means and even as not all will go over, and not all will go to the same solution, if Parler had 100,000 voices, we need to find where at least 80,000 went, we need to tag and identify the extremists, I reckon the US Capitol setting made that clear. 

In this we could consider the work of Marina Soley-Bori ‘Dealing with missing data: Key assumptions and methods for applied analysis’, it was written in 2013, but it is quite good and we start with the premise “the precision of confidence intervals is harmed, statistical power weakens and the parameter estimates may be biased. Appropriately dealing with missing can be challenging as it requires a careful examination of the data to identify the type and pattern of missingness, and also a clear understanding of how the different imputation methods work”, it is a decent starting point. In this stage, the report gives us a group NMAR (Not missing at random) that is the stage we have and it is an important stage. In the report she quotes Allison, 2001 “They lead to an underestimation of standard errors and, thus, overestimation of test statistics. The main reason is that the imputed values are completely determined by a model applied to the observed data, in other words, they contain no error”, the NMAR group is largely ignored and we can accept that in this work, yet in real life, the QAnon group and the Parler users are a larger stage and those who do not flee to 4Chen are in the wind and that is where we do not want them to be, so pushing these people to the dark-web was a silly move. Perhaps some might notice that I bolded one word, one word made the difference. Bias is the setting in missing values that is the dangerous one, most who know what they do see that, they tend to call it ‘arbitrary decisions’ but it remains a form of (whether good or not), of bias and that is where the train goes of the rails (without it being a maglev). The stage to find the NMAR is becoming increasingly important. It is not merely those that move there, it is the group they drag along that becomes a lot larger. You see, they might only gain the interest of an additional 2%, on a stage of 50,000,000 extremists, that is one million votes, that much changes an election, the silly democrats making presentations should have considered that in a much earlier stage. Yes, we see that pornhub can no longer use credit cards, but as these so called hypocrites will still cater to child labor and implied slavery, how much was gained? Especially as one stage was founded on consenting adults, the other was not. We see one side of the story, and the left keeps on hiding the other side, that does not mean that the other side does not exist. The democrats have an ‘out-of-sight-out-of-mind’ approach, that is unless they get hit directly, then they become vindictive. That was never a stage that would ever work, but they will learn at some point. The problem is not their mindset, it is their inability to follow through and people like Rebekah Mercer have the goods to unify one side and get rich in the process. All whilst players like Google pull up their nose at a $25,000,000 bill for a 60% share, they say that they can solve it themselves (they wish), and when they rely on ‘EVERYONE LOVES GOOGLE TV’, all whilst the consumer, when the $65 bill is due and the people see their budget melt away, do you still believe that everyone stays happy and loving? So when I make my solution public domain, do you think that there will be zero cease and desist messages? 

In this the stage is rather large, the splintered right have moved somewhere else and now the larger stage cannot be predicted, when the Parler group goes dark-web, the stage changes even further and earlier some had days to prepare, now hours, how is that a better stage? 

There is no population zero, unless they are all dead they merely vacated somewhere else and that somewhere else is the problem. This population is not missing at random, they are shunning the media and as we are given ‘An Absurdly Basic Bug Let Anyone Grab All of Parler’s Data’ by Wired (at https://www.wired.com/story/parler-hack-data-public-posts-images-video/) a mere 11 hours ago, do you think that it will be that easy, a person like Rebekah Mercer learned from Cambridge Analytica, was at a bug or an open backdoor? So when we see “The truth was far simpler: Parler lacked the most basic security measures that would have prevented the automated scraping of the site’s data. It even ordered its posts by number in the site’s URLs, so that anyone could have easily, programmatically downloaded the site’s millions of posts”, anyone thinking that things where that simple are out of their mind, this is a setting where some had the lowdown on millions, and as Wired gives us “I wouldn’t even call it a rookie mistake because, as a professional, you would never write something like this”, they touch on the stage that matters, when someone has the lowdown on a group of millions of people and they can unite them, do you think that no one looked at something out there for 2 years? Do you think that this is merely seen 11 hours ago (plus a few weeks to write the article), this issue has been out for a while and now that these people go to other means and other voices (the same voices in other accounts), the problem becomes a lot larger and more real. The people of Parler did not stop being an issue as Parler has population zero, now the people who needed to keep informed need to go back to square one and find them first. So how silly was the move we see now?

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January 10, 2021 · 21:54

Pirates of a feather

For me this is a little new ground, until recently I was not aware of the ability to speak ‘Parler’, as I see it, they refined it from Parley, which comes from the French ‘Parler’ meaning ‘to speak’. The event was set to “a discussion or conference, especially one designed to end an argument or hostilities between two groups of people”, as such I was aware of the term, but not the setting that President Trump uses. CNN (at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/15/media/rebekah-mercer-parler/index.html) gave us a little while ago ‘Meet Rebekah Mercer, the deep-pocketed co-founder of Parler, a controversial conservative social network’, and the co-founder to Cambridge Analytica and a few others, so when I saw the Cambridge link, I wondered what data Parler is capturing. This is added in other ways too, but let’s keep to the CNN story for now. And when the article start with the quote “John and I started Parler to provide a neutral platform for free speech, as our founders intended, and also to create a social media environment that would protect data privacy”, all whilst another source gives us “journalists and users have criticised the service for content policies that are more restrictive than the company portrays and sometimes more restrictive than those of its competitors” (source: Washington Post July 2020), and it basically goes from bad to worse. That is given with the quote “The ever increasing tyranny and hubris of our tech overlords demands that someone lead the fight against data mining, and for the protection of free speech online. That someone is Parler, a beacon to all who value their liberty, free speech, and personal privacy.”” And let not forget that this comes from the co-founder of Cambridge Analytica. I still wonder what Parler was capturing, especially with the restrictive rules in place. And if these restrictions were limited to the stage of “But Parler is quickly discovering the limits of free expression. On June 30, Matze used Parler to explain its house rules, apparently frustrated with some of Parler’s new users testing the limits of its free-expression motto by posting pornographic images and obscenities”, I believe that this is up for debate. So even as I take notice of “Wernick wrote a Fox News opinion piece in support of Parler this month, saying Twitter and Facebook are using “technology intended to liberate, instead to subjugate”, I wonder what we will learn when we make a cross section of those on Parler AND on 4Chan, I even wonder if the FBI is not already on this. You see, there is a problem with ‘philanthropists’, the true philanthropist not, but the stage we see “Robert Mercer, who helped oversee Renaissance Technologies hedge fund, and his wife Diane, donated more than $23 million to groups that backed conservative candidates, according to a tally by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics”, in light of Cambridge Analytica, I am still in the personal opinion, that these people would not set $23,000,000 out in the open, unless they can bank at least double that, and with them owning Renaissance Technologies hedge fund, I feel certain I am right. The power of $110,000,000,000 reaches far and too many want scraps from that table of plenty. In this I wonder if Parler is a way to identify and unify the scattered right, it is not a bad plan, if they succeed they have the means to oppose the Democratic side of things to a much larger extent than anyone is willing to give them credit for.

Even as the Wall Street Journal (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-backed-by-mercer-family-makes-play-for-conservatives-mad-at-facebook-twitter-11605382430) gives us ‘Parler Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at Facebook, Twitter’, I believe this goes deeper. Even as the blinker are attached with “After The Wall Street Journal reported on the Mercers’ ties with Parler, Chief Executive John Matze confirmed that Ms. Mercer was the lead investor in the company at its outset and said that her backing was dependent on the platform allowing users to control what they see”, the seting given to us in the beginning, gives us a different tory, and when ‘allowing users to control what they see’ falls away, the one important part remains is identity, when you look in the past, no one has tried to unify the extreme right, there is every chance that the Mercer family see the power and the massive amount of gains that this optionally brings. It took me less than a day to figure out the parts that the media was so eager not to mention, I wonder who else is on tht train, actually, I believe that they all are, even big tech. I expect that they too want the bucket of gold at the and of that nightmare rainbow, and Mercer might have gotten way more than double the investment on that 23 million dollar train, if he unites the right wing and far right wing, the democrats have much to be worried about, they have been used to a scattered opponent in the last 25 years, a unified one is an opponent that they haven’t faced before. And as I see it, the Mercer family is at the speculated centre of all that. 

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January 9, 2021 · 21:23

What is a weasel?

Well, a ‘weasel’ that imply deception and irresponsibility include: the noun form, referring to a sneaky, untrustworthy, or insincere person. Yet this is not complete, the words person and company are interchangeable. That is the feeling I see at present (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55597840), they label themselves with “It comes amid a Big Tech purge of the online platforms used by Mr Trump and his supporters”, and it comes now AFTER congress ratified the win of president elect Biden, AFTER the stage and settings that American endured for years. The BBC is fair enough to give us “Some lawmakers and celebrities have been calling for years on Twitter to ban Mr Trump altogether. Former First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted on Thursday that the Silicon Valley giants should stop enabling Mr Trump’s “monstrous behaviour” and permanently expel him” we are seeing the price of enabling and facilitation and the people are catching on, it is a bad day for Facebook and Twitter altogether. For years they facilitate and there will be a price down the lane, they will pay it because they see it as an essential price for doing business. Yet is that enough?

The BBC gives a quote that is out there is it is debatable with “as mere mortal, repeatedly spreading disinformation, fake news and inciting violence will get you thrown off mainstream social media platforms”, you see what constitutes ‘repeatedly spreading disinformation’ and when exactly does it become disinformation? It is a serious question because it optionally shows the initial inactions of big-tech, the message that President Trump gave on ‘landslide victory’ is one, his views and his statements on ‘black lives matter’ is another. To see this we need to take you back to July 2020, there we see “The US president tweeted on Wednesday about New York City’s decision to paint “Black Lives Matter” on Fifth Avenue, calling it “a symbol of hate””, what clear evidence is there to call ‘black lives matter’ a symbol of hate? All whilst the people behind it state clearly “builds power to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe”, we might agree, we might disagree, we might not care, but it clearly is not set as a symbol of hate, and that is merely one of many examples and big-tech did not act, only after the next guy is ratified  do we see “after close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account”, as such I ask you, what is a weasel?

Those who follow my blog know I am not anti big-tech, I am not against Google, Apple, Amazon or Facebook, but that does not mean I will not hold them to account when the time is there. And in this case, after close to 4 years of facilitating it is time to hold them to account. In this, I do have a sense of humour and state that I am against discrimination and Microsoft devices, so there! 

In this I wonder if these weasels will act on a global scale as ABC gives us ‘Victorian Liberal MP Bernie Finn posts Trump election conspiracy theories to Facebook’, we need to accept the freedom of expression, but I wonder how much freedom is in jeopardy when elected officials are spouting conspiracy theories, especially on elections that they seemingly have a lack of knowledge of. 

And locally ABC covered their ass by also giving us “The ABC is not suggesting Mr Finn supported the violence or rioting at the Capitol”, consider that when the power players in this world start to wield actions based on facilitation and return on that investment, in that premise consider personally how much facilitation would happen towards you personally and when you realise that you do not matter, what will facilitation cost you?

I wonder if you tallied that part of the equation yet, if not you have some work to do.

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January 7, 2021 · 23:19

The expensive Presidential joke

That is how I felt for most of the last 24 hours. It got to be worse when the international media decided to ignore the events given to them. To see this, we need to consider the first part.

Here is the image (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX2gQsQElJY), the poster set the premise that it is open to interpretation, yet when you consider the quote by Reuters stating “after the police force that protects the legislative complex was overrun by a mob of Trump supporters in what law enforcement officials called a catastrophic failure to prepare”, the Dutch NOS, basically copied that text, yet when we see the police opening the gates, there is a larger failure, some would say that the metropolitan police in Washington DC can no longer be trusted. This is incorrect, when we see the quote “security initially was handled almost entirely alone by the U.S. Capitol Police, a 2,000-member force under the control of Congress and dedicated to protecting the 126-acre Capitol Grounds. For reasons that remained unclear as of early Thursday, other arms of the U.S. federal government’s vast security apparatus did not arrive in force for hours as rioters besieged the seat of Congress”, we see that their own security force is blatantly failing and my own personal interpretation is that in two weeks close to 2,000 pink slips need to be handed out. Remember when we saw Gerard Butler in Olympus has fallen, we need to realise that it does not require a large North Korean force, 2000 Trump fans driven to lunacy will do and for the most no firepower was required to turn the Capitol building into a war-zone. So when we pause and consider ‘For reasons that remained unclear’, there is a much larger stage, the first one is soon to be fired President Trump stating giving us that he won by a landslide, ABC gives us “Twitter hid three of the President’s tweets — including a video message repeating false claims that he won the election by a “landslide” — for “repeated and severe violations” of its civic integrity policy, warning it would permanently suspend him from the platform in the event of future violations. Facebook and Instagram followed suit soon after, tweeting that the platforms would block Mr Trump’s account from posting for 24 hours due to policy violations”, my issue here is the claim ‘it would permanently suspend him from the platform in the event of future violations’, they did a lot more to a lot of people for less, especially in light of other stages like ‘Black Lives Matter’, interesting how they closed speaking valves in that situation, is it not?

My anger is that for the most, I am a Republican, I am not American, but I identify with the republican side of politics (in many cases), I feel that this is the right way, yet I have always heralded the need for accountability. If you are not accountable, you are close to nothing. We take pride in our successes and as such we must also accept (and perhaps to a small degree herald) our failures. At times I believe that we learn more from failures then successes, but that might just be a setting limited to a few, in Business (and intelligence) most people hide or wash away failure like it is a bad habit and that setting gave us many failures (including 9/11 and Benghazi), there is a larger stage and we are setting the outline for that right now, as such it was a bit of a surprise to see James Comey (former director of the FBI) giving us “Donald Trump should not be federally prosecuted once he leaves the White House no matter how much evidence has been amassed against him”, it is a quote from his new book ‘Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency and Trust’ launched later this month. When you read the setting (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/05/james-comey-donald-trump-prosecuted-saving-justice-new-book) it makes sense, yet even as a Republican I would prefer to foster the trust of the American people with Trump in prison with a $400,000,000 tax bill around his neck. As I personally see it Trump has championed petulant childish behaviour for too long and it is too sickening to see this continue. In part I like the idea of Merrick Garland being the new Attorney General, I never understood the lack of wisdom in stopping his nomination. It was the right of then president Obama to choose a new justice. Lat year or not, like I supported the right of President Trump to chose this justice in the last months of his reign of stupidity, then President Obama was equally entitled to select a justice. Now, the process is clear, he still had to be voted in by the senate, yet to refuse to hold a hearing was wrong in my personal opinion. 

And the stage America is on right now is not a good one, and as we go back to that building and Reuters giving us “The force’s officers are trained to keep protesters off the Capitol’s marble outdoor steps, to protect the complex like a citadel. But there are so many windows and doors in the 19th-century complex that it is difficult to defend them all, said Terrance Gainer”, the fact that security let the people right through is a much larger failure that is not debated or considered, a stage we all see and we all ignore, why is that Mr Gainer?

So as we take notice of the failures under this president, we all hope that the next one will be better, as I see it, he will be cleaning house for most of his first term, not merely his administration, he will need to address a failed infrastructure in a few more places than he will be comfortable with, on the upside, the Capitol security services might have up to 2,000 new positions open in the next few months. So those seeking a job (if you survive COVID-19) there is one lace you could apply.

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November 15, 2020 · 23:06

Dead on arrival?

Yes, we get the at times, not when the ambulance is racing to get to the ER with a guy wearing 10 knives in his chest, but a setting the is less obvious, almost like the movie dead on arrival, I saw the Dennis Quaid version (1988), I never saw the original from 1950. Yet in this version the victim (USA) does not yet know that it is carrying a deadly toxin, it was the benefit Dennis Quaid had in the movie. So as we see the USA in a stage of what they think matters, we see a larger stage, the stage Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) gives the people, with a still open invitation to India, it is the first time we get an economic bloc of this size where the USA is no longer a consideration, their 300 million consumers are in a stage where they can afford less and less. So as we get (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54949260) “President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) shortly after taking office. The deal was to involve 12 countries and was supported by Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama as a way to counter China’s surging power in the region”, we need to see the partial truth that was a problem, a global one. Some give us (in regard to the TPP “Most of the gains in income would have gone to workers making more than $87,000 a year. Free trade agreements contribute to income inequality in high-wage countries. They promote cheaper goods from low-wage countries”, in addition we get “The agreement regarding patents would have reduced the availability of cheap generics. That could have raised the cost of many drugs. Competitive business pressures would have reduced the incentives in Asia to protect the environment. Last but not least, the trade agreement could have superseded financial regulations”, and there was more, so now we see the RCEP, optionally with similar issues, yet with India optionally joining we see a severe blow to patents (not good for me), but generic medication gets better protection (really good for me), and as we now get “The RCEP is expected to eliminate a range of tariffs on imports within 20 years. It also includes provisions on intellectual property, telecommunications, financial services, e-commerce and professional services”, so if that pact grows any further, we see a larger stage, one where the US and the EU see their cushy incomes diminish by well over 25%, yet it might take a decade, but it also means that the stage cannot be continued, as such their economies will need a vast overhaul in the next 5 years or living there in 2030 might not be a nice ideal in several places. So whilst the players are all about their financial services, we see a field that will vastly adjust in the next 5 years. And as I personally see it, it means that the death clock on Wall Street is pushing towards midnight. This is the consequence of catering to the greed stricken, this is what happens when ego takes over and in this case the ego of the USA and the EU are limiting their options, but the EU can always cater to Iran. And as I see it, a third of the global population is holding on to its 29% of the global gross domestic product. A stage that is a little new for a lot of us. As I see it, in 2030 when the national budgets become reality, I wonder how many people will herald the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, remember these grannies holding up the banner, stopping the arms trade against those bad bad Saudi’s? So when their pension goes down another 20% (if it still exists then), who will they blame? Will they call for Jeremy Corbyn? Will he still be alive? The same for the USA, yet here it will be president elect Biden calling the shots (he is entitled to that), but. Can they foresee the impact that the RCEP will have on their economy? I very much doubt it, yet endangering the $8,500,000,000 deal out there tends to be a really bad call, so as the RCEP will deliver to a larger population, we see a slow push take the USA from the pool of those who matter. As I personally see it, hypocritical high morals are nice, that is until the invoices come in, and these always come in.

Today the largest trade agreement in history was signed and the USA was no longer part of the big things happening, it might be a first, but it is no longer a last, that is the impact of close to 15 years of stupidity, short sightedness and ego, all set in a near package, it is efficient, I merely wonder for who it was an efficient setting, not for the USA, not for the EU, that much is certain. 

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November 12, 2020 · 21:06

Sunny side up

Yup, its like the eggs, I like my eggs in different ways, sunny side up, scrambled and poached. The poached ones I tend to prefer with Salmon and sourdough, yet I remain optimistic. Today is a stage of a lot of optional optimism. You see, like the eggs I am faced with a few scenario’s

Scrambled
There is more than one setting, there is the stage where we make our way quickly or awkwardly up a steep gradient or over rough ground, it is what the US is enabling me to do. You see, it is well over a week and there is still no result from Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin is under review and recent soon enough, the 0.2% advantage the Biden has in Georgia guarantees a recount. With another state in question there is a lot happening and they opened the for buy continuing in a media takes all frenzy that makes certain allies nervous, yet the American setting is all about media proclaimed superiority, yet the BBC give us ‘US election: Gulf Arab leaders face new reality after Biden victory’, all whilst 5 states remain in question. Even now, North Carolina and Georgia have not been called. Wisconsin is in the wind and Arizona, no-one knows what will happen there and it is making more than a few people rather nervous.

Poached
As such, when we see (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54904874) “Mr Biden’s victory could now have far-reaching consequences for Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Arab states”, in all this, I am not sitting by, with a $8,500,000,000 deal that could fall in the water I could look at 3.75% of that amount if I poach it. It would give me $318,750,000 and I need to pay rent. You want to be delusional? The is fine with me, I prefer to do it via the BAE, get the UK the arms deals, but in the end, I actually do not care whether it is them or China, you wanted greed driven? I wonder if you still like it when the shoe is on the other foot. And lets be clear, Saudi Arabia wanted (read: preferred) the American product, but certain delusional congress and senate members had this overreaching idea of whatever they were thinking and I do not mind, I saw a nice house and I do not mind spending my retirement there. It was only last march when we were given ‘Wall Street Poaching Season Stalls as Virus Curbs Interviews’, as such, if poaching is so acceptable, you do not mind me taking away business, do you? Even now when we see “President Barack Obama, under whom Mr Biden served as vice-president for eight years, was increasingly uncomfortable about Saudi Arabia’s conduct of the war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. By the time he left office, the air war had been going for almost two years with little military success while inflicting enormous damage on civilians and the country’s infrastructure”, we understand part of it, yet the stage remains unbalanced, the atrocities of the Houthis remain unmentioned, as dos the actions of Hezbollah and Iran in Yemen, but remain in denial, I will look after that multi-trillionaire client of yours. And whilst we now see “This lifted sanctions on Iran in return for strict compliance with limits on its nuclear activities and inspections of its nuclear facilities. President Trump called it “the worst deal ever” and pulled the US out of it. Now, his successor looks set to take the US back into the agreement in some form”, as the stage of denial of Iran becomes more and more visible, we will see that additional business opportunities become mine (read: wishful thinking), yet that is the setting of poaching, closing your eyes to pragmatism and reality works for Mme in this case, so I will take it.

Sunny Side Up
Yup, the yoke is on the people of the US. When they lose an additional $8.5B, more and more infrastructure will not be affordable, a stage they made for themselves, we can warn them again and again, yet at some point I will take the money, what was theirs is now mine, they set the stage for me to walk on and dance I will (that much money and they can see me do a jig). And when the people in the US finally wake up, finally realise that some games come at a price, we will see them cry foul (or fowl), yet they called for their chickens and they merely turned into turkey’s. 

Of course I know that my chances are slim to none, but in that setting I will take slim anyway and as I see it, my chances here are better than the lottery and the price is a hell of a lot more rewarding. So whilst Al Jazeera gives us ‘‘Relationship reassessed’: Joe Biden and Saudi Arabia relations’, I say “reassess all you like”, and the quote there is “We should not overestimate what the Biden administration can do in relation to Yemen’s war,” Nadwa Dawsari, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera. “A political settlement under the current circumstances would further complicate Yemen’s war and play into the hands of the Houthis and, by default, Iran” and the is where Saudi Arabia becomes more and more nervous, more and more needing an alternative. It is not ego, Iran is becoming a much larger problem all over the Middle-East and Saudi Arabia is not in a good place, they feel even less certain whether the egotistical democrats realise just how much of a problem Iran really is. The media has been keeping silent over so much events, there is a general distrust here and I am very (read: extremely) willing to step in and get a few coins out of it. Now, I am no Nicholas Cage, but I do get the part when he states (in Lords of War) “Without operations like mine it would be impossible for certain countries to conduct a respectable war. I was able to navigate around those inconvenient little arms embargoes. There are three basic types of arms deal: white, being legal, black, being illegal, and my personal favourite colour, *grey*. Sometimes I made the deal so convoluted, it was hard for *me* to work out if they were on the level”, and that works for me in this case, the fact that I take $8.5 billion and give it to the UK is merely icing on the cake (as long as I get my 3.75% or more).

You might think that I am deplorable, but if I do not step in, the Russians will and I have something against giving free money to them (its an old cold war thing). A stage where the US is finagling billions in 5G, optionally more, a stage where their close rich allies are turning away all because thee media cannot be bothered giving all Americans the proper picture as such I see no reason not to step in and after that I can fund my IP into products the will make me rich beyond belief. Yup, as I see it, 2021 might be sunny side up, although I do admit that 2020 was mostly about scrambling and poaching. But that is partially due to those willing to let it all happen.

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October 13, 2020 · 04:45

The Jet joke

The old joke goes “How do you know the plane is full of politicians? When the engines shut down and the whining goes on”, I believe it should be followed by a da-dum-dum. Yet the stage is set and it has been going on for a while now. The BBC article ‘Amy Coney Barrett: Democrats attack ‘shameful’ Supreme Court hearing’ got the better of me and the whining (in an age where we we have actual problems) got on my nerves. OK, I will admit that I am mostly Republican in mind, the issue of this president is one that I am not happy about. From my personal point of view, this president is no Republican, I consider him a greed driven loon, yet he was elected and as I wrote earlier, the constitution allows him to nominate a Supreme Court Judge, and the senate gets to confirm the nomination, this is what the American constitution gives us, yet the BBC gives us “But one Democratic senator on the committee described the process as “shameful””, so which Senator was that BBC? Do the people not have a right to know? In addition, what legal premise is this senator working from? In addition, the BBC gives us “The Republicans – who currently hold a slim majority in the US Senate, the body that confirms Supreme Court judges – are trying to complete the process before Mr Trump takes on Democratic rival Joe Biden in the election”, which is correct, but what are the names in the panel? The BBC also gives us “this process has been nothing but shameful. Worse, it will almost certainly lead to disastrous consequences for Americans”, as such I wonder what evidence can Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy give us? So far he is giving us nothing but air, not even hot air. At what moment in time, has any supreme court judge been anything but legal? Yes, we get it, they all want to have liberal judges and no one denies that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a force to be reckoned with and she was a liberal judge. Yet the law was clear, the elected president gets to nominate a Supreme Court Judge during his tour as president of the United States, electing a Supreme Court Judge is one of the few long term policies he can set, and as such President Trump is allowed to do what is happening today, but the media is nothing if not ‘appeasing’, they will print the ramblings of Democrats, because the larger belief is that this president is most likely a one term president and the media needs brownie points. 

So when we see “Democrats demonstrated that they want Amy Coney Barrett’s hearings to be about the Republican rush to seat a new justice before the elections and the possibility that she could be a deciding vote to strike down the increasingly popular healthcare reforms passed under Democratic President Barack Obama”, so where does it state in the constitutions that this is about  “the Republican rush to seat a new justice before the elections”, all whilst all parties (except the Republicans) ignore the constitution that states “When a vacancy occurs, the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints a new justice”, that is the law and the law was abided to, it might not please the Democrats, but the is what it is, so now they all whine like little bitches (I meant like jet engines). Yet in all this we see no clarity on the panel, do we?

As such, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court , who exactly are these members?  Well there is a majority group which consists of Lindsey Graham (SC), Chairman,  Chuck Grassley (IA), John Cornyn (TX), Mike Lee (UT), Ted Cruz (TX), Ben Sasse (NE), Josh Hawley (MO), Thom Tillis (NC), Joni Ernst (IA), Mike Crapo (ID), John Kennedy (LA), Marsha Blackburn (TN). These 12 members are the majority, the 10 minority members are Dianne Feinstein (CA), Patrick Leahy (VM), Dick Durbin (IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Chris Coons (DE), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Mazie Hirono (HI), Cory Booker (NJ), Kamala Harris (CA). 22 members ‘interrogating’ the next Supreme Court Justice, but the confirmation is set when all senators vote and the Republicans have a majority, a very slim one, as such the Democrats have one option, to ask the right questions, as they pound on those, they can merely hope to sway 3 senators away from the ‘Yay’ vote when the confirmation vote starts and they need a majority to make it pass, if ALL democrats agree this will not happen. The is as good as it gets for the Democrats. Will this happen? I do not know, the previous confirmation was Justice Kavanaugh and took 48 hours as well as more than 1200 questions. Will we see a repetition of this? We are about to find out. 

I wonder how much media will actually be focusing on the questions the democrats asked, and why they were asked. A similar setting does apply to the Republicans, yet the setting of “Democrats are avoiding the divisive topic of abortion, which motivates political adversaries as much as it rallies allies, for what they feel is more favourable political ground”, as such we see the chance of finding a justice with a focus on law is low compared to the Democrat need to find a person that is politically convenient. I merely wonder why they want judges to begin with.

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October 7, 2020 · 19:06

The stage of Medici

Yup, we understand (or most at least) the stage that the Medici bring, it is a political stage, it does tend to get a bit confusing when those who who employ the tactics of the medici also study medicine, they are not the same. In this we call the stage (or boxing ring) between Dr. Fauci and Dr. Atlas. In one corner we have Dr. Fauci, an immunologist has had a career in infectious diseases since 1984. This man is extremely qualified on the stage of Covid-19. In the other corner we see Dr. Atlas, a neuroradiologist. It is a subspecialty of radiology focusing on the diagnosis and characterisation of the central and peripheral nervous system, spine, and head and neck using neuroimaging techniques. So oversimplified, one takes pictures and one looks at infectious diseases. I am arrogant enough to say that I could do (after learning it) what Dr. Atlas does, but I would never be willing to claim that I could ever do what Dr. Fauci does.

In all this it is nice to take a look (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/scott-atlas-hits-back-critics-questioning-science-fauci-redfield-2020-10) the link to the article, there we see “a health-policy expert who spent months speaking out against lockdowns and advocating the full reopening of schools, to the White House coronavirus task force in August prompted outrage in the medical community”, in light of a massive part of the White House, now in a stage where no work can be done, all whilst the cases are till growing globally by well over 300,000 each day. There is not. Lot more we can do, because there is every indication that the numbers are tweaked, incomplete and misreported making the US look worse off, but that stage is (as I personally see it) largely incorrect. In the stage I am on the fence, because the stage is larger and there is a lot of fear mongering. No matter how important we see ourselves, the morality rate is still around 4%, optional a little lower when we consider that several nations have not reported or insufficiently tested for hundreds of thousands of people. All whilst 96% will endure. Yes we would like to see 0% death, but that is not realistically, the over reaction is too often ignored, and when we see “after months of Atlas appearing on Fox News and speaking out against lockdowns”, I am not sure if I can disagree with him, the larger stage is about protecting 96% of the people in amber, which is counter productive and almost pointless. I do not disagree with “members questioning his qualifications to advise the president since his background is in health policy and neuroradiology, not infectious diseases”, if we can accept some lists, we could reflect on Sweden, currently in 42nd place, with 96,145 cases and 5883 Covid casualties, giving them a mortality rate of 6.1%, yet the percentage seems 50% higher, but the economic impact was avoided to some degree. There is also the issue that Sweden is massively rural with the exception of the villages Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg. There would optionally be a reason to impact these villages. There is a decent setting that this approach could never work in London, Paris or the Netherlands, the population pressure is too high, it also gives a larger stage that the numbers from India do not add up, yet for the US there needed to be a more fluidic setting. Yes, lock down New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, yet doing that in Arkansas, Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kansas and rural settings makes a lot less sense. Even now, I get it, Face masks is in too many places unavoidable, and I do not object, but the mass fears and the mass ashes were not the greatest ideas. So in this, the Medici move gives rise to “In recent years, however, Atlas has transitioned to a career in health policy. He works as a senior fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution and has advised politicians including Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani on heath policy”, yet in this case, in the case of Covid, his knowledge is inferior to Dr. Fauci, as such, (again oversimplified) it is a speaker of Medici opposing a speaker of medicine and too many do not understand the difference. I see the wisdom in “his background is in health policy and neuroradiology, not infectious diseases” and I see that too, Dr Fauci is the better expert on the matter, but for any health care worker ever confronted with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, we need to understand that this is not a medical book, it is a book for legal settings. It is a rosetta stone so that health professionals can converse with legal professionals and that is the setting a lot of people seem to miss.

I am aware of the stage where psychiatrist Allen Frances has been critical of proposed revisions to the DSM-5, with the generalised quote “it will medicalise normality and result in a box full of unnecessary and harmful drug prescription”, all whilst I am in a stage where I state “if you had to grasp art the book you know there was an issue from moment one of going there”, and in the end it is not a medical book, it is a reference (of sorts). 

So whilst the Fauci and Atlas are brushing up on pugilism, we are standing on the sidelines, tightly packed to see as much of that fight as possible, forgetting that we can make changes to the choices and optionally keep ourselves and other safe. The first lesson that these fanatics seem to forget, because if their actions can be used as optional evidence that they infected others, those relatives of these people could push for arrests towards negligent homicide. At that point it is not about ‘personal rights’ it will not be about ‘freedom of expression’, they got (optionally) others killed and as thousands are getting arrested and jailed before the election, that stage will set a new record of accusations towards election tempering. It is more than merely a silly thought to have.

Yet on the other side I get it, there is a larger overreaction to the situation. It is the impact of fear (as I personally see it). There is no clean setting (other than the Dr. Fauci vs Dr. Atlas setting) and there this president has created a problem for himself. Especially as deaths are on the rise in the US, and it takes only one death in White House staff for the situation to explode (or implode) in a much larger form of consideration, why did President Trump ignore Dr. Fauci in the first place? So far he has not been wrong. I accept that the president has an issue with the ‘better be safe than sorry approach’, yet that is almost every doctor and in this stage Dr. Atlas has a larger disadvantage. 

No matter how this goes, Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli has been howling with laughter for days, the fact that the medico are now medico di Medici is something he never expected and he is clearly having fun.  I feel like celebrating (and giggling) too, let see if he has any of that Italian grape juice left.

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October 2, 2020 · 02:14

You’re useless and you know it

Yup, quite the opening headline and  would like to tell the reader the it is about him or her, but no such luck, the headline (as is) can only be given to the most useless of useless, the US Senate. Yup, as some voices stated in the past, the US has fruits (US Congress) and nuts (US Senate) and there we sit in the middle of the tutti frutti of the dance floor, one might almost invite Madonna to come over and add a little spice to the mixture.

Yet Reuters who gives us (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-senate-tech/senate-panel-approves-sending-subpoenas-to-ceos-of-twitter-facebook-google-idUSKBN26M6FA) the headline ‘Senate panel approves sending subpoenas to CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, Google’, with the quote “The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday unanimously voted to approve a plan to subpoena chief executives of Twitter, Alphabet’s Google and Facebook for a hearing likely to be held before the election on a prized legal immunity enjoyed by internet companies”, We can go in every direction possible, but lets start with “passed into law as part of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 (a common name for Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996), formally codified as Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 at 47 U.S.C. § 230. Section 230 generally provides immunity for website publishers from third-party content”, In this we see two elements, the first being that in 1996 there was no Google, no Twitter and no Facebook, in the second on larger beneficiary was the online presence of FoxNews, Yahoo and lets face it as I personally see it, Microsoft who started part of the mess we have now. 

To invoke what I did (the useless part), it is important to see “After passage of the Telecommunications Act, the CDA was challenged in courts and ruled by the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997) to be partially unconstitutional, leaving the Section 230 provisions in place. Since then, several legal challenges have validated the constitutionality of Section 230”, in this Justice John Paul Stevens (Supreme Court) wrote in June 1997: “We are persuaded that the CDA lacks the precision that the First Amendment requires when a statute regulates the content of speech. In order to deny minors access to potentially harmful speech, the CDA effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another. That burden on adult speech is unacceptable if less restrictive alternatives would be at least as effective in achieving the legitimate purpose that the statute was enacted to serve. … It is true that we have repeatedly recognized the governmental interest in protecting children from harmful materials. But that interest does not justify an unnecessarily broad suppression of speech addressed to adults. As we have explained, the Government may not “reduc[e] the adult population … to … only what is fit for children.””, as such how stupid does a US Senator tend to be? It passed the Supreme court, it passed a few stations over the term of 20 years and optional alleged beneficiaries (Google, Facebook, Twitter) are called into a Senate hearing? Some sources even state ‘Letting Platforms Decide What Content To Facilitate Is What Makes Section 230 Work’, the latter one is up for debate, but the setting of section 230 is not, it is a legal thing, so why would someone set the stage for a hearing the is basically pointless set the stage? To get a few free dinners and perhaps tax deductibility? I do not know, I merely ask.

The setting of a stage 40 days before election, is the current view and when we see “top Democrat Maria Cantwell, who opposed the move last week, saying she was against using “the committee’s serious subpoena power for a partisan effort 40 days before an election,” changed her mind and voted to approve the move” I wonder what this really is, because as I see it, it has nothing to do with big tech, and optionally section 230 is also not in play, but what is? There is the optional quote given “Republican President Donald Trump has made holding tech companies accountable for allegedly stifling conservative voices a theme of his administration. As a result, calls for a reform of Section 230 have been intensifying ahead of the elections, but there is little chance of approval by Congress this year”, yet optional settings of “stifling conservative voice” would not change that, this is about intentional hurting facilitation, changing the premise of free expression, the moment big tech is held responsible, no opinion is heard and the anti-Trump (those who highlight stupidity) is seen nearly everywhere, as such, President Trump needs every amount he can get. I do not think that this is the right path and more important changing law on this scale to bake (not make) awareness of something set almost in stone for 20 years does not help. 

In this I want to extend my friendliness to give a shout to the largest part of the problem, mainly Republican Senator Roger Wicker, even s he gives us “After extending an invite to these executives, I regret that they have again declined to participate and answer questions about issues that are so visible and urgent to the American people”, I merely wonder if he has any clue who the American people are. This train of thought is seen as Politico gives us “under the newly unveiled Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act, the legal shield would protect the companies only when they take down specific types of content, including material “promoting terrorism” or which promotes “self-harm” or is otherwise illegal”, as such, when was there an upside when we consider ‘specific types on content’, as I see it it the setting towards a biased filter of what constitutes free speech and freedom of expression. As such the simple question becomes: ‘Who has seen S.4534 – Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act?’ Deputy Counsel Elizabeth Banker did and gives us “Section 230’s otherwise objectionable clause underpins crucial content moderation efforts that make their platforms safer for everyone. Eliminating that clause will make it harder, not easier, for online services to remove content like misinformation, platform manipulation, or bullying that’s neither illegal nor in the bill’s new description of allowable moderation. This bill would also hamper platforms from adapting to future moderation challenges.“We also have serious First Amendment concerns with this bill. This bill would limit the ability of private online platforms and services, including small forums for schools, churches, and local sports leagues, to set and enforce rules for their communities.””, a direct powerful view given on September 8th (at https://internetassociation.org/news/statement-in-response-to-the-introduction-of-the-online-freedom-and-viewpoint-diversity-act/), as such we takeaway “Eliminating that clause will make it harder, not easier, for online services to remove content like misinformation, platform manipulation, or bullying” does this constitute the idea that the speculated biggest bully in America wants a free pass? And there are also “serious First Amendment concerns” which cannot be ignored. 

When we see this level of issues from the very beginning, how stupid is any senator participating in this, and when we demand under freedom of information their names and tell people that this lit constitutes a list of people attacking free speech, how happy will they be? There is of course the issue of the elected Democrat from the state of Washington Maria Cantwell, I wonder what she has to say for herself, especially it he hearing happens before the elections, I reckon that President Elect Biden will not have too much need for her, but that is merely my speculation.

 

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September 28, 2020 · 15:05

It is up to someone

Yup, there is always a person to point at, a person to blame, a person to delegate to and a person to expect from. We tend to be all alike in the common things, the things that need doing and it tends to motivate us. This all started a few hours ago whilst I was waking up (without coffee mind you), and I saw all kinds of news the involved $70,000. All kinds of celebrities and politicians were commenting on it. It took me a few seconds to find out the this was about the tax returns of president Trump. He had set a tax deduction of $70,000 towards that mangy coiffure of his.

I pondered as people were laughing at him and people were making claims of fraud and prosecution. Yet in all this not one voice raised the issue on the IRA, his accountant and the others involved signing off on that. Is that no interesting? Consider that a person spends $5800 a month on a haircut, it is even less likely than someone who is impotent requiring $4000 in condoms each month. In light of the setting that President Trump had set the stage with large losses I wonder who was checking his books and why the IRA approved it all. 

In all this I found that the Independent, via The Times, (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tax-report-apprentice-hair-expenses-b659155.html) did spend some time on this. They went further by stating “The Times report also found that Trump has been feuding with the Internal Revenue Service for the last decade over a nearly $73 million tax refund he previously claimed. If the IRS were to prevail in its audit, which has seemingly stalled in recent years, Trump could be responsible for paying over $100 million to the government”, consider that he states that criminals cannot vote, can the Americans demand that a politician cannot be elected with outstanding tax bills? 

It is not merely what President Trump believes is due, or what the IRS believes is outstanding, this one case alone proves what I have been claiming for over 2 years, until tax laws are overhauled the mess in America (and the EU) will continue. I would go further that anyone opposing tax bills must do so visibly for all to see. I wonder how much opposition we see at that point. 

A stage that fuels the setting of “It reported that the former reality television star reported making a combined $427.4 million from 2004 to 2018 by selling his name and image through various endorsements and licensing deals” with an additional “The Times reported that Trump appeared to be responsible for $421 million in loans coming due in the next four years”, it gives rise to a few issues where the IRS is falling short. 

So whilst we consider the opening setting “In a bombshell, 10,000-word report following an extensive investigation, The New York Times published claims that Mr Trump, who prides himself on his business acumen, pays a minuscule amount of tax”, it seems to me that no one has been talking to his accountant and the IRS, I know that his accountant will not talk, yet the setting is not on what happened, but on the small issue whether tax laws were breached. That is the centre stage and whilst every one is in a stage of the blame game whilst attending musical chairs, the question not answered, we merely focus on “paid no federal income tax in 10 of the past 15 years and only $750 in the year he was elected”, everyone is overlooking the fact whether he broke the law. That is the stage we need to see, we see that good accountants are expensive and they are so for a reason. For those with a sense of humour, consider that Star Trek gave us the Ferengi rules of acquisition over 20 years ago, there we see in Laws 255 “A wife is a luxury… a smart accountant a necessity”, as such TV stations were more clued in towards tax needs 33 years ago. Yes, it is that disgraceful, the setting of taxation and proper taxation was an item 33 years ago and over that time NOTHING was done. This is not a Republican flaw, because over 33 years several democratic presidents were in charge; but it was never a good time, was it? I have given light to flawed tax settings for well over 5 years, not just in the US, it is a flaw all over the EU as well, the Apple issue is proof of that. Yes, we can all blame and curse at President Trump (your right to do so), but consider that the IRS is central in this mess, so who is taking the limelight in that direction?

 

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