Tag Archives: the Guardian

Tools of convenience

It is 01:39, I thought it was going to be a boring Thursday. Yet, there she is, everyones favourite tool Stephanie Kirchgaessner is making another run for it. She gives us ‘Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US blacklist’. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/03/nso-group-pegasus-spyware-us-blacklist) comes with all posturing, yet no evidence. She gives us “It comes three months after a consortium of journalists working with the French non-profit group Forbidden Stories, including the Guardian, revealed multiple cases of journalists and activists who were hacked by foreign governments using the spyware” yet there are a few sides to consider. This so called ‘consortium of essay writers’ working with the clowns calling themselves the ‘non-profit group Forbidden Stories’ came with insinuations and no evidence. On July 23rd 2021 I wrote ‘From horse to course’, there I gave the readers “but consider that if the media has not released a dashboard of these 50,000 numbers, I believe that my case is rather clear, I would personally consider that list is nothing more than the fabrication of a stakeholder who needs the revenue that the NSO Group currently has”, in addition to that, the BBC gives us (the link is in the same story) “Of the people whose numbers are on the list, 67 agreed to give Forbidden Stories their phones for forensic analysis. And this research, by Amnesty International Security Labs, reportedly found evidence of potential targeting by Pegasus on 37 of those”, so basically they could prove it in no more then 60% of the cases which they call ‘evidence of potential targeting’, I am not debating it, but this setting where we saw a few mentions that the NSO Group pleaded innocence, we need to have evidence, and the whatever you wanna call it pointlessly blaming people without presenting evidence constitutes in my humble opinion a person too useless to consider a valid source of information.

She goes on giving us “The Guardian and others also revealed that the mobile numbers of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and nearly his entire cabinet were contained on a leaked list of individuals who were selected as possible targets of surveillance”, a leaked list that was opposed by the Verge and a few other sources which I dealt with again in ‘The same gramophone’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/16/the-same-gramophone/) We see several issues with what is stated from a few articles, but the part was that the leaked number list was from 2016, and there were other considerations too, in part that 50,000 numbers represent $600,000,000 in the cheapest configuration and so far, no evidence was ever shown that the NSO Group had made THAT much money. We also get the show of a party line “NSO has said that its spyware is used by foreign government clients to target serious criminals. It has denied that any of its clients ever targeted Macron or any French government officials”, I get that. It does not make the NSO group innocent, but so far the confused tool Stephanie Kirchgaessner and whatever master she barks to are not presenting ANYONE clear evidence. I stated it 6 months ago there too. A top line of what was available and optionally evidence would have been presented and in 6 months none of them did any of that. 

Have we stopped being nations of laws? There is a second side to all this it is seen in the headline  ‘Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US blacklist’, we get “Decision against company at heart of Pegasus project reflects deep concern about impact of spyware on US national security interests”, OK that is fair, the US has national interests and as such they have the right to push for their national interests, I cannot and will not debate that, it is their right. I just wished the Guardian had actually done their homework and not hide behind “It comes three months after a consortium of journalists working with the French non-profit group Forbidden Stories, including the Guardian, revealed multiple cases of journalists and activists who were hacked by foreign governments using the spyware”, that and unsubstantiated mentions makes for a shoddy article, one that is debatable on too many sides and degrades the Guardian from their AAA status to a mere B-. Feel free to oppose this, you only have to get actual evidence and so far none of them presented any and several sources debated what some presented, a mess and this is the third time I personally see the name Stephanie Kirchgaessner towards something that I personally regard to be shoddy. Once happens, twice perhaps if the career is long enough, but three times? As I personally see it, the average journalism intern is better than that. 

And no matter how we slice it, Shalev Hulio, NSO’s founder has a larger issue and optionally new avenues to explore. I wonder if that was the content of the meeting that is given to us as “But in the weeks that followed the publication of the Pegasus project, Israeli officials met with counterparts in the US and France to discuss allegations of abuse of the technology.” I think the current administration is shitting bricks, they are scared. The NSO group is the first time in history that a private company had a better grasp of technology then the NSA EVER had. And the next credit ceiling conversations are a mere 7 weeks away, I reckon that the democrats are afraid that any deal towards that comes out into the open from any non-US source. It must be awful to rely on tools you owe big time, but that is merely my take on the matter.

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Fake it till you break it

I have been twisting and turning on this. This is not really my cup of tea, so I was happy to let it slide by. But then three things happened. In the first there were two stories, there was actually a third one, but I could not retrieve it. Then there was a tweet. Apparently the Glasgow COP had dignitaries at the scene, as such well over a dozen cars were running on idle during THE ENTIRE DAY, so how is that for the environment? But I digress. It was the second article, the one starting with ‘Thunberg tells Glasgow protest politicians are pretending’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-59116611) that pushed me on. You see, she is right and I will hand over what I personally believe to be evidence over to you and I will let you decide. The article gives us “She told fellow activists from “Fridays for Future” that change would not come from politicians at the summit but from individuals showing leadership. The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was sailing up the Clyde, with plans to dock near the conference venue”, the article is almost a day old, I had been fighting with myself on this for a day. So it is the first article that was the tide setter. The article ‘World leaders promise to end deforestation by 2030’ started the trouble. This link is an hour old, but there was an earlier story. This article is at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59088498. You see, if they were sincere about doing something, the promise would not be for 2030 when most of these losers would be out of office, it would realistically set to January 1st 2023, that would have been real, that would have been a decent mark towards some victory. But the greed driven need to capture whatever they can, mainly because some analyst in Wall Street seems to have given that deadline. So when we are given “warned a previous deal in 2014 had “failed to slow deforestation at all” and commitments needed to be delivered on” and no amount of posturing as is seen with “UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the global meeting in Glasgow, said “more leaders than ever before” – a total of 110 – had made the “landmark” commitment” is nothing more than a joke, a joke optionally forgotten by January 1st 2029, when most signatories are no longer in office and a landmark adjustment is made towards 2035, optionally 2038. I reckon that Greta Thunberg is right, they are merely pretending. I wonder how many of them have sold whatever they had at the coastline. So we can think whatever we want, but the person making the statement “end the role of humanity as nature’s conqueror, and instead become nature’s custodian” could be dead before that moment arrives. In this I find the response from Dr Nigel Sizer, the ecologist the most disappointing one “But maybe this is realistic and the best that they can achieve”, their best is not even close to acceptable, not in the cases we are seeing now. And in all this, I saw no commitment or actionable signs from China, the one who is still the alleged number one polluter. As far as some papers go, China made no commitments, one source gave us ‘no new commitments’, but so far (or as far as I can see) China hasn’t done anything in the old setting either. 

Where do we go from here?
I honestly do not know, the idea of culling the human population by 97.3% is still on the table as far as I can tell and if that happens, I will not be around for commentary, The super enabled will be part of the surviving 2.7% and in light of how drastic the situation might be, that is as good as it will get. And it is already starting. The Guardian gave us yesterday ‘Do not trust Brazil’s ‘greenwashing’ promises, say Amazon activists’, so the COP hasn’t even ended and the doubts are flying all over the field. So far it seems that a teenager named Greta Thunberg is seemingly a lot closer to the mark than any current or previous environmental editor in any newspaper. And when you realise that part, how much were the cost of meetings that go nowhere, because you the taxpayer paid for all that. And my skepticism is not unique. Elon Musk gave (via ABC News) the headline ‘Elon Musk offers $US6 billion to UN World Food Programme if it can prove it’ll end world hunger’, the UN, Environmental agencies, they have become the laughing stock for players in Wall Street play the delay game. Should you doubt that, consider the stage of full deforestation until 2030, that whilst an attempt was made in 2014, it failed and the so called critics with ‘it was voluntary’ is useless. It shows that governments need to fill their pockets, it is the need for greed and the setting where the population gets to One (see previous article). By 2019, 5 years after the ‘promise’ nearly all have failed. Russia and a few others weren’t part of this, but do they have to? If we cannot see the dangers we are facing it doesn’t matter what Russia does, we merely no longer deserve to live, hip hip hurrah to Wall Street. 

We can look at it from all the angles, but in the end it is all about fictive promises that will not be held by those in office when it counts, it will not set the stage of promises that are broken again and again. If they had set the promise towards January 1st 2023 when most would still be in office it is one thing, 2030 is just a joke, but as things go I will not live long enough to see that date come, so whomever is alive then, make sure that these politicians are held to account and if needed let EVERY newspaper print a page every day with the shame list of those who attended COP26 and were unable to keep their word. I reckon it will not happen, because it will stop business agreements and space for advertisements will be lost, and Wall Street wins again. 

Perhaps this will wake you up, in a stage of greed there is one winner, it is the ‘me-stage’ we face and that stage will not be defeated, it comes from the push and the reality that greed is eternal. 

P.S. WordPress still hasn’t fixed colours, I hope to find an alternative soon.

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Population One

It might be the most depressing outlook one could ever have. When the population depletes to one, thee will be no reproduction (and no sex either). It does not matter who wins, whether it is a he or a she. Greed is based on the foundation that everyone else must fail. So it ends with a population of one. Yet I did not get there in a single stroke, I went beyond the DNA virus that could kill 97.3% of all people. I went beyond the fake promises of politicians, the calculated misinformation the media aids them with and it all comes down to the man in charge. The most greed driven ding dong on Wall Street. We are all in a stage of self destruction. Whether it is some form of discrimination, whether it is some form of gathering wealth by people who should not be allowed to have a dime in the first place (not referring to the wealthy people like Beff Jezos, Gill Bates or Zark Muckerman), I am talking about the wannabe’s who got creative and turned the law into something productive FOR THEM. I am talking about those who cut corners so that they can scrape a few coins they never worked for and if that results in some gap driven solution where people in the UK find out their house is stolen from under their noses, that is just business. So when you read the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-59069662) and see “the duplicate driving licence issued by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Mr Hall’s name, details of a bank account set up in his name to receive the proceeds of the sale, and phone recordings of the house being stolen” You would be wrong that this is a fluke. You could optionally accept “We work with professional conveyancers, such as solicitors, and rely on them and the checks that they make to spot fraudulent attempts to impersonate property owners. Despite our efforts, every year we do register a very small number of fraudulent transactions”, and I would too, but in this case we are both wrong. You see, this was not a fluke, this was well thought through, this was orchestrated and this was intent and all parties failed to protect a homeowner. Yet in all this, the banks cut corners. So where was the notary? Oh right, someone gave the clear indication that a notary was no longer required, it is so much faster to get a councilman doing that. It is a mess and the mess is merely increasing, all because some players are crying that things have to move faster and we all complied, we all did this.

But this is not about a house, or a notary, or any form of simple matter. This is a much larger problem and it includes politicians, the media and us. We were always part of the bungle. Me too, I cannot claim innocence, I am a part of this screw up, just like you are. And perhaps it is already too late. 

Step One
In step One I wish to remind you of older articles. On December 10th 2020 I wrote ‘Uniform Nameless Entitlement Perforation’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/10/uniform-nameless-entitlement-perforation/) There I brought a report to the surface by the European Environment Agency. A report from the United Nations Environment Programme was included at the end of the article. But the most striking part was that the EEA gave us that 147 facilities are producing 50% of ALL pollution damage. That is a clear indication, we saw the Guardian helping out some vague friend by setting the stage that if rich people stopped using their jets, 10% less pollution would be the case (a setting I highly doubt), so whilst we aren’t clearly seeing that, the claim of “Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles”, it amounts to I will fuck the neighbours wife without a condom so that we can safe the environment. Yes, we could all slash high carbon living, but that means we would be able to have a life, and that is not the case (at present).

Then on July 1st 2021 I wrote ‘Big Oil in the family’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/01/big-oil-in-the-family/) there we are given “An unprecedented wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US, aim to hold the oil and gas industry to account for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuels – and covering up what they knew along the way”, you see it is another wave of the blame game. There is truth in the statement, but it also comes with the seal of approval by Wall Street, greed never sleeps and oil was an instant moneymaker. People in the oil industry were printing money on the spot. Do you have any believe that those people give up that gained benefit? I think not

Step two
Here we take a gander. 

we take a small step to Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehailstone/2021/10/01/industrial-air-pollution-costs-europe-2-3-of-gdp/) there we are given “The report – by the European Environment Agency – concludes that half of this pollution is caused by just 211 facilities scattered over the EU”, which is interesting as the images I gave you all shows it to be 147 facilities, but the locations are unknown. In addition we are given “Just 211 sites of the 11,655 facilities reporting emissions caused 50% of the pollution in 2017”, interesting as I was looking at 2020 material, So why is Forbes, in an October 2021 article going back to a 2017 report? And I got to that point 10 months before Forbes did. Someone does not want the whole enchilada out in the open. So where is that stakeholder? My assumption is Wall Street. 

In one of the articles I gave the quote “In the early 1990s, Kenneth Lay helped to initiate the selling of electricity at market prices and, soon after, Congress approved legislation deregulating the sale of natural gas” and now we see prices of Gas explode out of proportions. We see ‘electricity at market prices’ yet they did not upgrade installations and the need for electricity has also exploded out of proportions. Now one of those really wealthy people is sitting on a solution, but governments have not made any interesting move to make it happen, to push renewable industries to a much greater extend, and that is now starting to bite. 

Step Three
Now we get to the good stuff. I see a video by some grandmother named Gina McCarthy pass by. I see the text “the US is back in a leadership position”, it took 3 vials of Haldol to get me back to hysterics. The US has not been in a leadership position for the longest of time, Wall Street is. And in 7 weeks we get to see them flexing their muscles again. You see, we see headlines like ‘Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveils £3bn climate aid commitment at COP26’, where is he getting the money? Where is the US getting the money? Their clock runs out in 7 weeks and they do not have any funds, the larger polluter is China according to some of these reports, but where are they? What are they setting up? In all this the US is seemingly the least powerful player (an empty wallet does that), it is one of the less rich players (Canada) that is making larger and optionally tougher strides, will it be enough? 

You see, it remains to be seen, there are too many eyes on this event, so we are getting all the same messages. Yet it is next month, and January (after Christmas) that counts and it is then that we are more likely than not see more wealthy jet stories (the Guardian) or older reports (Forbes). And that is when you will need to take a stance, will you hold politicians and media accountable for luring you away from the limelight of truth? Consider that one source gives us two quotes. The first is “Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef, Warren Entsch won’t attend the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow”, the second is “Mr. Entsch has now confirmed he opted out of the summit after the uncertainty around being able to return home”, so how committed is he? Perhaps he is afraid he’ll miss an episode of Home and Away? #JustAsking

We have global problems, we have problems all over the world, yet to be honest, I never would have guessed that Australians would be guilty of destruction of their Great Barrier Reef by being ignorant. And a similar (optionally even worse) event is happening is Western Australia. We all destroyed our planet, you, me, all of us. We let the Wall Street people act and cut corners to facilitate greed and we let the politicians assist them. As I personally see it, getting rid of 97.3% of all people might have been the humane solution. I will let you consider whether I am absolutely insane, or if I might have a decent case. In the end Greed only requires a population of one, my solution would be an option for 210.6 million people. Around what it was in the year 800. We need to reconsider what we do, we need to reconsider what will work, but flying people all over the world making presentations they cannot keep, enforce or pay for is not the solution. 

I will let you decide.

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Direction and Course

We are all driven by doubts. We are all driven by needs and we are all enticed by desires. There is no exception, none at all. Not if you are a cleric, Christian or Muslim. Not if you are a farmer or a politician (although too often I think that the first party is more intelligent than the second one). We are all driven by surges, by vectors and by elements outside ourselves. They are the particles that fuel the internal engine in us and the mindset that accompanies it. I remain on the fence regarding the building scandal in Rotterdam, the political power-drive for a place called Vestia. The simplest side is a mere tally, 524 homes are removed to be replaced by 137 locations to inhabit, with an added 101 apartments for higher incomes and 143 apartments for sale, the tally does not add up. A new station is created with -143 locations. This was about money, plain and simple. So whilst Vestia hides behind “We achieve this by taking an effective and innovative approach to rentals, sales, liveability, maintenance, investments and operating costs. We are committed to providing good service to our customers: the people who rent and buy our homes”, so whilst we see one, we also see that they enabled the removal of 387 social housing locations, it was the simplest math problem. Someone got rich here. Yet in the setting of greed, there is so much out there, Rotterdam is not even the smallest blip on any, not even a Dutch radar. 

There is more out there, the stage of the media is getting out of control, stake holders, the setting of lobbyists that are gracing the foundation of media is getting larger, os getting stronger and the media itself does not care, it is like watching a crack whore reach for the goods. Their grasp towards digital dollars without contemplating the larger stage is ludicrous. As an example look at the home page of the Independent (independent.co.uk), the Los Angeles Times (latimes.com), The Washington Post (washingtonpost.com), and Dagens Nyheter (www.dn.se). Notice the advertisements? Let’s be clear, the papers are allowed to do that, yet consider who can afford that. Consider the cost of a front page advertisement in the paper versus the front page of a website. Consider the stage of who gets the visibility and how they got there. Now there is an opposing side to this some are merely advertising, there is no ‘stake holder’, there is no political need, but that stage is fluidic and siding with the stake holders. Consider the past, how many advertisements for some Microsoft device passed you by? How many claims of mobile data for less, how many ads are localised? Consider seeing the LA Times, seeing “Coliving Homes in Sydney. Coliving homes for rent in Sydney from A$1,300/month, inclusive of weekly housekeeping”, now there is nothing wrong with the ad. And it is powered by Google Ads and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet consider that an apartment costing A$1300 a week has an ad on the front page of the LA Times. The setting is so much larger than even I can understand. This is global and this is not some anti-Google setting, I am making the claim that there is a layer between the media and advertisers. Electronic lobbyists, I call them Stake Holders, and they are raking in millions. The view is not easy, and I am not making a claim that I have it, it is so convoluted on the global scale that no one really has an idea, it would require the Google source data and a very powerful computer to suss it out to the smallest degree. I saw glimmers as Microsoft was advertising its Surface pro, but that could just as easily be seen as a glimmer of delusion. The problem is not me, it is not anyone who might not be able to see it, it will be the media, they are part of it. They are setting a new course, they are setting a course towards their digital dollars at the expense of the people, what I often refer to the ‘click bitches’ they create though emotional articles. A newspaper will give you ‘Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich and powerful’, whilst they also give you “the move was not illegal, and there is no evidence the Blairs proactively sought to avoid property taxes” Consider that journalists waste time on non-illegal actions whilst we see some papers give us ‘Houthi blockade restricts aid’, is that not interesting? The UN was all about attacking Saudi Arabia recently whilst keeping (according to media) Houthi and Iranian elements out of that think-tank presentation. So why are we not given the full view whilst some are wasting our time on “the move was not illegal”. I believe that political lobbyists and digital lobbyists are uniting to some extent, optionally the political lobbyists are also on the digital platform calling themselves ‘stake holders’. This is speculation, this is not proven (yet) and there could be all kinds of ‘evidence’ proving me wrong. I do not know yet, but the views I have seen over the last 15 months proving me to be correct more and more. And now, I am taking the light to my work and looking deeper into it all, because anyone not criticising and digging into his own data will fail from the start, and I do not like failure. But that is just me, to seek a direction and course requires energy and it needs a drive, but what that drive is remains open to debate, even for me.

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It was the smell of coffee

We all have this and we all try to ignores it when it is not Sunday. Yet that was for me the setting this morning. I was going through the Guardian with the smell of coffee in my nose. Still half asleep I noticed the words ‘shun workers’ and I saw the picture of a lovely young lady (Genevieve LeJeune) and my mind went ‘whats this about?’ And I started to read the article. As such the title became ‘Sex discrimination: why banks shun workers in adult entertainment’, I saw the word ‘sex; and I am a simple guy, so I was very much in the ‘lets read this’ mood. So the article gives us that the HSBC bank was part of “I didn’t think for one minute they would have an issue with what the business was about. And why would they be concerned, as long as I’m cashflow positive and I do all the right things, and it’s completely legal?” It was basically as was stated “She said she told the bank that she ran a community for the “B” in LGBTQ+ and was not chased for any further information”, by her own account a community with 16000 members. They were suddenly cut off and we get “She has spent more than four years battling HSBC for access to more than £20,000 trapped in those accounts” with in the finale “only regained control of the cash this spring after complaining to the Financial Ombudsman Service”. There are two parts that catch me in the article. The first was the setting given “she ran a community for the “B” in LGBTQ+”, and the subsequent part of the article that paints them all as “sex workers”. One is not the other and even as we accept that Bi curious women might see of there is a penny, it is not a given, it requires evidence and that is even a larger problem because are stated they are not breaking the law. So let’s take a look at the other side. 

In 2018 we get ‘HSBC ‘divests’ from Israeli arms company Elbit Systems’, HSBC only acted when pro-Palestinian voices became too loud and personally I do not think they had to give in. 

. Oh and Elbit Systems is an electronics company (mostly drones), the ICIJ reported only last year ‘HSBC moved vast sums of dirty money after paying record laundering fine’, so a laundering company makes waves over skirts? How is that for irony? So when we are given (at https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/) “HSBC was profiting from an international criminal scheme even while on probation for having served murderous drug cartels and other criminals. HSBC had admitted to U.S. prosecutors in 2012 that it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least $881 million controlled by the notorious Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican drug gangs”, we see a setting where Bi-curious women have less rights than drug gangs in the eyes of the bank? I reckon that the drug gangs didn’t have to go to the Ombudsman (why is that?)

And only last July the Guardian reported (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/28/hsbc-faces-questions-over-disclosure-of-alleged-money-laundering-to-monitors) ‘HSBC faces questions over disclosure of alleged money laundering to monitors’ with the byline “Bank was under supervision by US Department of Justice-appointed team because of previous violations”. I think we need to do something else. Something I have never ever done on this site before. I am calling ALL readers to see if they or their friends use the HSBC as a bank, and ask them all to switch banks, to whatever bank they prefer. It is time to give HSBC an education on hypocrisy. I have no connections to that bank, and I hope the large numbers of readers (especially in the UK) will move to another bank. 

I feel this is the only path open to us. Now if you feel that curious women are to be discriminated against, I leave it up to you, but a bank with these standards acting against people who broke no law whilst they are on the US laundering top 10 with ties to drug gangs should not be allowed to function, should they?

P.S. WordPress still has not fixed colour issue

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The rule of guns

This is not new, this is not even novel. It is the continuation of something that has been going on for decades, I saw it with my own eyes in 1982, others saw it too. Some objected, others did not. And when Beirut had its fireworks party on August 5th 2020, so many voices were eager to give rise to a setting that could never be, and all rejoiced when the media forwarded those messages. They must have thought it was in the bag. But I knew a think or two and I gave the readers ‘Boom goes the dynamite’ that very same day (about 6 hours later, might have been 12). And I gave the readers “It is speculation, but consider the blast, according to some the blast was noticed well over 100Km away. I do have a point of reference, the Fireworks blast in the Netherlands (Enschede) had a similar effect, but nowhere near the size, the video’s I saw told a different story, one car on the highway with a distance of around 2000 meters away got its windows blown out and the rear view mirrors got blown off the car, and that is one of a few video’s that show me that this was no ordinary blast”, so there was a lager stage and the people who were behind it went under the rocks like cockroaches. I calculated that it took a massive amount of 40’ containers and the cargo, 125 40’ containers worth cannot go up like the way it did, not in one go. And I rote more than one article about that. So when we now see in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/14/gunfire-beirut-protest-judge-leading-port-blast-inquiry), the setting of ‘Five dead as shooting breaks out at Beirut protests over port blast inquiry’, we now see “demanding end to judge’s investigation of huge blast last year”, all whilst we see Hezbollah types being brave behind their balaclava’s. So whilst we get the terrorist spokespeople Nabih Berri and Hassan Nasrallah make noise, we see the attacks on judge Tarek Bitar continue. I see no surprises, once a terrorist, always a terrorist. And when we see “However, demands that all aspects of the explosion be investigated seem almost impossible to deliver, with ministers summoned for investigation refusing to turn up”, something that I saw and I feel certain plenty of others saw that too, we wonder when Hezbollah will be held to account. So whilst these political chihuahua’s refuse to appear we see the stage changing, a stage where a lot of people are demanding that ALL HELP towards Lebanon will stop until someone correctly muzzles Hezbollah. And I see a reason to divert those aid funds to Israel (if needed). A larger stage erupts as the smaller (2020/8/5) subsides. This is not about local rights, this is about Hezbollah is showing itself as the bully it always was, it was that in 1982, it still is that now. In this I am not making judgement on judge Tarek Bitar, I know too little about him, but the stage that Hezbollah wants it stopped and they are happy to show themselves (often with balaclava’s) exercise that right wielding an RPG-7, or other hardware of the ‘firearms’ variety shows them to be the aggressor, to be the bad apples and now as the energy crises is pushing into winter, the stage of anger changes even more. Now there is a larger explosion and it could go on into its neighbouring places and one of them is Israel the other one is Syria and neither accepts the Hezbollah approach. I nice stage to set and the people of Lebanon do not get a choice in the matter, they let things slide with Hezbollah for too long and this will implode in all kinds of wrong settings. Even now we see all minds of media including Iran in this mess. I cannot follow that as I remain a follower of evidence, but it does make sense. And even in light of the humanitarian side of ‘Hezbollah-run oil shipments from Iran’, enough players were willing to let that slide, but it would not take long until Hezbollah thought it was in control (because to some degree they are) and now the world has had enough, some will stop funds, more will stop goods and Hezbollah will learn what war against hungry and cold fellow citizens look like, they will not give Hezbollah any consideration in all this and neither should we. There comes a time when enough is enough and too many have hit that point now, so as Hezbollah and Amar will seek ‘compensation’ (optionally for their lost explosives), the larger station is no what they want, it is what they were part of and that is what fears them. The Times of Israel gives us “Local commentators said Washington, worried about chaos in Lebanon amid raging, multiple crises, may have decided to look the other way”, but that is not the real deal. The slightly more real deal is “humanitarian assistance in Lebanon to more than $372 million in Fiscal Year 2021” and it has become time to stop that. Let the cancer die, let those people die. This in not inhumane, it is an essential part of stopping terrorism by Hezbollah. If there are no people to care, there are no recruits, there is no Hezbollah and the times and the economic pressure are growing in this direction. It would have been less of an issue if someone muzzled them, but no one did so we have a new stage to look forward to. In the first the UN trying to smooth things over, the other all the heart bleeding people who ache for the people of Lebanon, yet none of them are willing to hold Hezbollah to account, why is that?

To keep instability around? It is too late for that, Wall Street solved that problem for you all. 

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A waste of space

Yes, some people are that, I believe that the tool ICIJ director Gerard Ryle is such a person (he will clim it is me). Yet how did I get there? That is important too. Those who read the previous articles will remember that I stated that a top-line display would give us the parts we initially needed. But no, after all this time, with 600 journalists at his back, Ryle never walked the walk. However I see ABC, the Guardian, BBC and others all do the motion of jabs, to create flames, to create click bitches. In a dying light they want to grab any digital dollar they can. Even the useless leader of the Democratic Party (President Joe Biden) via his administration gives us today “The Biden administration said it would “crack down on the unfair schemes that give big corporations a leg up” in the wake of the Pandora disclosures.” It is a pointless exercise in a waste of time, it is merely the prequel to something much worse.

You see the top-line would give us a better look at the “130 billionaires from 45 countries, including 46 Russian oligarchs. Bollywood actors, soccer stars, corrupt sports officials, a king’s lover, feuding princesses, movie directors and stars, supermodels, acclaimed designers and world-famous singers, 330 politicians and high-level public officials in more than 90 countries and territories, including 35 current and former country leaders” and this is linked to the even less useful quote “By some estimates 10 per cent of the world’s total economic output is parked in offshore financial centres, costing governments billions of dollars in lost revenue” 

Why is this?
The top-line would give us where the impact is. The 130 billionaires? You see there are 165 in Dubai and they are in the 0% bracket. I stated the dangers two days ago. Then from all these numbers, how many are in which nation, ho many are governmental versus non-governmental. When we see those numbers, we will likely see a created a storm in a teacup. 

And this is linked to the first setting proving that Gerard Ryle is a useless and optionally corrupt tool. “The source of the documents hasn’t been revealed to media partners but made it clear to the ICIJ he wanted the public to see where dirty money is really flowing. Ryle says the source had two conditions for leaking the documents. “First of all the source wanted anonymity. I presume for safety reasons,” he says.” Presume my ass! When we investigate the sources we see that some have well above decent protection, in my view there are only two players involved here, the CIA and the NSA. Both Russian and Chinese investigations would stopping their local laundry, as such there would be nothing on oligarchs outside of Russia. 

I believe this all to be a well managed (speculative) ruse. When it all comes out, we will get a flame of ‘tax the rich’ and that is what that useless democratic leader needs, his land is BANKRUPT and when the default hits grabbing (not taxing) whatever the American billionaires have is on the short list, reparations come later and if it all goes to shit the politicians will run for cover in any nation that will put up with them (Australia and UK). 

And when you truly read the articles you will see statements like “the documents reportedly tied prime minister Andrej Babis to a $22 million estate near Cannes, France. Speaking in a television debate, Babis, who was a billionaire before he entered politics, denied any wrongdoing.” 600 journalists and not one has added evidence of wrongdoing, merely a billionaire doing what he is allowed to do, buy a house in the south of France and France is not even a 0% tax land, so where are the incriminating papers? 

All the flames I see are about people no one cares about (the King of Jordan), yes Jordanians care about him and that is OK, people in the UK less so. And the truckloads of articles are just that small jabs to keep the readers angry, but no one is taking too much notice of “ICIJ director Gerard Ryle says the Pandora Papers reveal that some international leaders who could tackle offshore tax avoidance have themselves secretly moved money and assets beyond the reach of tax and law enforcement authorities as their citizens struggle” as such I reply “Gerard you fuck, why did the press not do enough over 30 years to make politicians tackle tax laws?” And in HIS statement we see ‘could’ and ‘secret’, but if a person buys a house in Monaco or Dubai they can have money there, it would be legal and it would be tax exempt. You (as I personally see it intentionally) overlooked that part, there is also the Caymans and a few other places, but it does not match the need of the governmental hacker who got into 14 systems, 5 of them had good security, and you could have seen that from day one, but you need click bitches, you need digital revenue and you need to make sure you are not obsolete. So where is that part of the equation?

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A disregarded shelter setting

The Guardian was at it again and they are not doing anything wrong (at least I think they aren’t) but the stage created is calling for a nice stage and it is getting close to immediate that we take a hard look at the meaning of hypocrisy. 

The article ‘Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich and powerful’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pandora-papers-biggest-ever-leak-of-offshore-data-exposes-financial-secrets-of-rich-and-powerful) gives us a few items and before you think we are digging into the air, lets take a look at a few essential parts. It starts with “companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts in tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands” first, this is not an illegal act, then we need to look at Monaco and Dubai. Monaco gives us over two sources “You can apply for a Carte de Residence once you have an address in Monaco (either bought or rented a property for a minimum of a year). You must also agree to live there for more than three months of the year. Resident individuals are not subject to personal income tax in the Principality of Monaco”, now this is not the easiest setting as decent apartments tend to start at €3,000,000 going up to €387,000,000. As such I wish you good luck finding something you like. In Dubai we see “There is currently no personal income tax in the United Arab Emirates. As such, there are no individual tax registration or reporting obligations.” These are called tax havens and they are perfectly legal. It is the way THAT nation operates and it works for them, so when we see the Guardian give us “But the secrecy offered by tax havens has at times proven attractive to tax evaders, fraudsters and money launderers, some of whom are exposed in the files”, which is a debatable setting. You see someone who takes effort in buying an apartment in Monaco or Dubai, or most of these places is not a tax evader, that person is involved with tax avoidance and it is not the same. Black letter lawyers found a setting where the rules work FOR their clients and they are allowed to do this. Yet the Guardian inserts ‘tax evader’ whilst knowingly adding “some of whom are exposed in the files”, some implying not all and some is seemingly inserted hoping that the people are flamed to the list of “more than 100 billionaires, 30 world leaders and 300 public officials” hoping that they are all painted by the flamed audience. And in light of this, did anyone take a long hard look at “the cache includes 11.9m files from companies hired by” what is not looked at is the source of that information and how that source got the information. A setting not dissimilar from my article ‘The same gramophone’ on September 16th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/16/the-same-gramophone/) regarding Pegasus and in light of evidence given (lack thereof) to the people by the Washington Post an interesting repetition of flames lacking evidence. The article on tax issues does not once, NOT ONCE mention tax avoidance, or give the setting of tax evasion versus tax avoidance. One is illegal the other is not. In this the text “They also shine a light on the secret finances of more than 300 other public officials such as government ministers, judges, mayors and military generals in more than 90 countries” could be seen as “They also shine a light on the private finances of more than 300 other public officials such as government ministers, judges, mayors and military generals in more than 90 countries”, yet they chose to not use the word Private did they? Private and non evidence could be seen as intrusive and harassing, the media really does not like it when their actions are seen in that way. 

My view?
You see if there was clear ‘tax evasion’ we would be getting this, instead of “leaked data with select media partners including the Guardian, BBC Panorama, Le Monde and the Washington Post. More than 600 journalists have sifted through the files as part of a massive global investigation”, so are they incompetent or is there too little remaining? The price of 600 journalists cannot be cheap so the more they flame, the more they ‘earn’ back, but that part is not really given is it? There is no top-line, a flaw we have seen more than once before. If it was clear 300 people can be shown in a top-line like Nation, government, non government easily enough. That would take an hour, perhaps two, but we do not get to see that, do we? We also get all kinds of embossed examples, with the added text “This is the Panama papers on steroids, it’s broader, richer and has more detail”, my view would be, then give it Ryle you dumb fuck! Do not posture, present facts! The top-line, the setting of tax evasion versus tax avoidance and a few other facts, including the source of the data, but we do not get any of that, do we?

I see it as a mere approach to the upcoming US debt ceiling and someone flaming that if ‘they’ had paid their taxes, there would not be an issue. Well, my view “Well, you stupid fucks, if you had clearly focussed on the tax laws that needed an overhaul for THREE DECADES we might not be in this mess either!” So whilst we are given “The files include disclosures about major donors to the Conservative party, raising difficult questions for Boris Johnson as his party meets for its annual conference”, an anti-tory smear setting. No matter who donates and to what party, if these people are not proven criminals, there would be no issue and I wonder how far these 600 journalists got. So when we consider “Many use shell companies to hold luxury items such as property and yachts, as well as incognito bank accounts” we need to see whether laws were broken and let’s be clear, they stated that these are people in over 90 countries. So which have laws against these acts and if they have an address in Monaco or Dubai, are any laws broken? This took me 5 minutes and we see a lack of a lot in one article seemingly the source of 600 journalists. 

I personally see only one option for a person like Gerard Ryle. Either give us that top-line clearly or become an Uber driver. As I personally see it, someone posturing absent of evidence should be somewhere else, not be some director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, but that is merely my call on the matter we see here now.

Oh, and before I forget the meaning of Hypocrisy is “the practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case”, a setting too many journalists fall into lately.

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And so it begins

We all have sides, and we all have sides we tend to look less at. There is no exclusion, no even me. I try to always take the bigger picture in view, but at times I too fail to do that and today might be such a time. So if you have objections, you might be right. It all started a little over an hour ago when I took notice of ‘CNN denies Australians access to its Facebook pages, cites defamation risk’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/cnn-quits-facebook-australia-citing-defamation-risk-2021-09-29/), on one side I am in a state of ‘Who the fuck cares?’, on the other side I am wondering why someone would take the stage to this degree? You see, we take notice of “after a court ruled that publishers can be liable for defamation in public comment sections and the social media firm refused to help it disable comments in the country”, so what happens when the public comments commence in http://www.cnn.com? The newsagent does have a website and lets face it, social media is not a place for news, it is a place for flames to bolster engagement, as such the part of “the social media firm refused to help it disable comments in the country” makes perfect sense. News leads to flames, flames leads to engagement and engagement leads to additional advertisement revenue which is the bread and butter of Facebook. I for one do not consider Facebook any kind of place for news, and if there is any, it is not place to comment there, I have a blog that does that and if there is a real reason to directly offer issues, they have an editorial and they have an email address (which tends to lead to the circular archive system). Flames are not now and mostly not ever useful, it only propagates the limelight of ones own ego.

So as we take notice of “defamation lawyers accusing Australia of not keeping up with technological change and noting the contrast with the United States and Britain where laws largely protect publishers from any fallout from comments posted online”, my issue here is that the posters of comments are also absent of accountability and there is a problem there. With “Australia is currently reviewing its defamation laws but in the meantime, other global news organisations, especially those that feel they can easily live without an Australian Facebook audience” we do see a truth, there is no need for ANY newsagent to be on Facebook, but that stifles the revenue of Facebook, does it not? And it is true, the world does not need the 25,000,000 people in Australia. Facebook has close to 3,000,000,000 members (read; near active accounts), so 25 million are not much of a dent, but it is a beginning. There is an upside for all newspapers to move away from Facebook, there is a downside as well. You see one place to flame all is a setting that rarely ever will lead to anything positive, but the newsagents all tend to think that it leads to revenue and for a few at times it might but there is a reason why I check WWW.BBC.CO.UK, theguardian.com, www.ft.com, www.reuters.com, www.aljazeera.com on a nearly daily basis and there are a few more (ABC, SBS, Arab News), you see the papers are still in levels of problems, the papers have to deal with bias, political siding, stakeholders and a few more and as I see the same article on a few sites I get a better view of the issue (that is when they do not directly copy and paste from Reuters). But I digress, it is about CNN and here we see that Reuters have two more gems to offer. The first is “We are disappointed that Facebook, once again, has failed to ensure its platform is a place for credible journalism and productive dialogue around current events among its users,” this from my point of view two issues, one is that Facebook is not a place for credible journalism, no matter how you slice it. Too many are in a stage to get traction and visitor revenue through flaming and through the incitement of flaming. And the second part is ‘productive dialogue’, there is no way in my mind that ANYTHING on Facebook will lead to that unless it is a closed circle of personal friends and family. The second gem is “defamation lawyers accusing Australia of not keeping up with technological change and noting the contrast with the United States and Britain”. It is a gem because it raises a few issues. It is not about technological change, it is about accountability. And we see close to nothing on that front from either the USA or the UK for that matter. There is also a larger stage that adhering to this on a much larger stage is a problem. Even though I will oppose the news mummy (Rupert Murdoch) on nearly every front, because I believe that he lost the plot on news and he is too much about flames and revenue (which is not entirely wrong for him). In this, the danger of flames depending issues and people, the danger becomes the house catches fire and that is not a good thing (newspapers burn really well). 

Until there is a real stage where the people on social media get hauled towards accountability this stage will not change and Facebook does not want change. The newspapers are close to zero in their consideration. It is about engagement to sell advertisement and so far Facebook has the upper hand. This is not meant good or bad, it is their business model and it works for them, yet over the years we see media look at places like Facebook and they all wonder if they can tap into this, First Google search, now Facebook and soon they will move beyond Twitter. Where next? Who can tell. Yet the Murdochs and Murdoch wannabe’s will continue because their newspapers are founded on the need to entice the people to flame, they have been at it for a long time in many places. So when Australia held Facebook liable Facebook closed the tap and they are entitled doing so. As such it is not “Facebook, once again, has failed to ensure its platform is a place for credible journalism and productive dialogue”, it is “Posters need to be held accountable for what they post, including posters of comments” and the law in many many nations are not ready or prepared to do that. Too many places rely on flames of all kinds. It is time to recognise that part of the equation.

In this consider a UK setting. In the first we see a statement (wiki) “The Daily Mirror, founded in 1903, is a British national daily tabloid-sized newspaper that is considered to be engaged in tabloid-style journalism”, here we see two parts ‘newspaper’, as well as ‘engaged in tabloid-style journalism’. Yet in another source we see “largely sensationalist journalism (usually dramatised and sometimes unverifiable or even blatantly false)” and it is a stage we see far too often. So in addition we have an image.

With the text “Big Brother’s Grace and Mikey expecting fourth child and say people think they are mad”, so it is a story about people, a woman who willingly received a penis into her vagina with a long term gift (36 weeks later). Now, I am happy for her, but is it news? This is not royalty, or people with global impact. And this is on the FRONT PAGE of the Daily Mirror (website), this is news? And here the problem starts, we agree that CNN is real news but the ledge that separates them from a place like the Daily Mirror is too small, moreover on places like Facebook too many people cannot tell the difference. In all this the one element (not) overlooked is the need for (actual) Newspapers to find ways to grow revenue, I do not oppose that, the problem is that other ways need to be found and in This they will find a better venue talking to places like Google then Facebook and that is before we see a new social media side in Amazon, because that option is mere inches away. 

When the people start realising that Facebook lost the edge is had, when they realise that true social media comes from places like https://cocoon.com Facebook will get hit after hit and there the people will be able to set a stage for what some spokespeople call ‘productive dialogue’, Google might have shut down its plus side, but it opens the realm for Amazon 

So it begins and it did not start in Australia, it did not start in censorship it started with the realisation that there is nothing to be gotten from flaming, there almost never was and that realisation will cause the loss of revenue in plenty of places.

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Sphere or Cube?

In continuation of yesterday, we have today. This is a direct consequence of time. Yet, that is not how some spin it and it is about spinning. In this we introduce Australia’s own spin master ACCC. They decided to inform us via the Guardian with ‘Google’s dominance of Australia’s online advertising needs to be reined in, says ACCC’, I personally wonder who they are speaking off (plenty of volunteers) but the article struck a chord, especially after what we saw today. I am not stating that limits should be drawn, I am not stating that the article is completely wrong. Yet the stage as it is painted does not add up, especially as some of the stakeholders are now in a stage where they painted themselves into corners. There is no real timeline here, because the article is actually quite good, but I am better (and a lot older). So let’s take you through the threads unravelling them one by one. Let’s be clear, there is no real lying here by the article writer. Yet when you see the unravelled strings, you might wonder how they got to this article. Time is the first element. The article is spun like it was a continuation of events, but it is not and more importantly the weavers seem driven to keep larger players Microsoft, Amazon and IBM out of the limelight. In light of this lets take a look at the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/28/accc-calls-for-new-powers-to-rein-in-googles-dominance-of-australian-online-ads) and look at that first thread. 

The first thread is “Google’s takeover of ad companies, including DoubleClick and Admob, as well video platform YouTube, have helped to further solidify its position, the ACCC said” the fact that these companies became part of Google is not in question, the statement “takeover of ad companies” however is. You see, YouTube was bought in 2006. In 2005 it was launched as a “an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google”, the players here namely Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim became multimillionaires overnight. After a golden idea a year later was tossed for a little over $1,500,000,000. In this we get from Steve Chen himself “he was inspired by how the search giant monetised without hurting their users. “It translated over to Youtube as well. There are people that create content, view content and pay for content,” he said.” Take here that the operative part was “without hurting their users” and it is important. Look at personal video’s, look at reviews of hardware (Hero 10, PS5) review of books, games and music, even video’s of songs. It all benefits the people, all the people. It was created in 2005 and sold in 2006. It was not until 2008 when they gained 480p videos, AFTER Google acquired it. Thanks to GoPro and DJI we now see 4K movies of cities. In all this time there was no mention of advertisement, the corporate world was not ready and not prepared for YouTube. 

Double Click was pure advertisement, and even as it was founded in a basement (behind the washing machine) by Kevin O’Connor and Dwight Merriman. It offered technology products and services for a mere handful of advertisers that included Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, L’Oréal, Palm, Inc., Apple Inc., Visa Inc., Nike, Inc., and Carlsberg Group, and this is important! So why is this important? You see DoubleClick was acquired by an equity firm named Hellman & Friedman. Basically a greed driven Wall Street player who saw that this would be worth something over time. And the two clients that DoubleClick had (Microsoft and Apple) never saw the potential, even as they were trying to break through in all the markets that Google had created, we see things like MSN Search, aQuantive and adCenter (renamed to Bing Ads) as well as Search Alliance (renamed to Yahoo! Bing Network). Microsoft used a 20 year old tactic, why create when you can acquire. Google acquired too but evolved the segments into behemoth, all whilst there is every chance that the Bing Network would be unable to properly identify the word ‘Behemoth’. A stage we do not see in the Guardian article because it raises too many questions. The one given part here is that only Google knew what it was doing, the rest merely tried to invoke invoices on the corporate world, Google tried to cater to the greatest denominator here, they tried to adhere to the needs of the seeker, the searcher, and as Steve Chen states “without hurting their users”, a stage that was a winning mixture and we do not see that in the ACCC spin, do we?

Then we get thread two “Rod Sims told Guardian Australia a key issue facing news sites and other users of ad tech is they did not know how much revenue ad tech providers like Google were making from each advertisement served up to readers”, in this I find ‘a key issue facing news sites’ as well as ‘they did not know how much revenue ad tech providers like Google were making from each advertisement’. It’s almost like hearing a toddler ask “these juggling tits, do they always provide milk?” In all this does it matter how much the advertiser makes? How often was this asked of Yellow pages or the advertisement moguls in New York? And it is important, because this hits Microsoft as well (Bing Ads, or Microsoft Advertising) Google was upfront in this, they even made it public in their documentation. “No matter how much you bid, you are only charged $0.01 more than the previous winner”, so if we see the bids $12, $9, $2.36, and $0.99 number three pays $1.00, number two pays $1.01 and number one pays $1.02, not $12. A setting NO advertisement company EVER offered, it was all about how much they could rake in and in their defence a system like this was not possible before the digital age. More important, the digital innovators (Google) took that step from day one (well, almost day one). A customer facing setting that prolongs the visibility of marketing departments because they can advertise more and longer, a stage they never faced before, yet the Guardian never touches on that, do they? It was all about the threat that the friends of the ACCC see, not what we actually experience. Oh, and when it comes to advertisement. Why is there no mention of Facebook, or Amazon for that matter? 

The article gives us that there needs to be a border and there should be limits, but is that up to the ACCC? 

So when we see “if you want to block certain companies advertising on your website, it’s very hard to do that through Google” there is a choice, do not advertise on your website, or get your own channel, and, oh…. Here is a thing, Google states “To give you editorial control over the ads that may appear on your site, AdSense offers several options for reviewing and blocking ads. There are various reasons why you might not want certain ads to show on your site. You may have content or business reasons, or philosophical issues. Maybe you have a vegan food blog and you don’t want to show an ad for a steakhouse”, as I personally see it Sims engaged in some forms of non truths (aka lies). And that is the beginning of a much larger station. The ACCC is the BS caterer of their friends and the Guardian did exactly what it was told to do, not inform us but to perpetrate issues that are not really there. And the entire article gives no mention of AdSense at all, why is that? It might not fit the needs of the ACCC, does it?

Consider what you are offered and vet the information, it is important that you do, you are given a pile of goods that are glued together, a setting of 10.000 cubes, glued together so that we see a sphere, but is it a sphere? I will let you decide.

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