Tag Archives: the Guardian

February 21, 2022 · 04:59

The presumption is mine

There is a setting that does not agree with me and I have seen this before. Yet before I do that there are two words we need to look at. The first one is speculation, it means ‘the activity of guessing possible answers to a question without having enough information to be certain’, then there is presumption ‘the ground, reason, or evidence lending probability to a belief’. So one is a guess, the other is an educated guess. It is always stronger than a guess, but it is till lacking certain levels of evidence and that is important to know.

This all started as I was just unwinding of several (too many) hours playing Horizons 2: Forbidden West. I started that second play-through without completing the first. I did this with the first game. You see, Eloy needs power and skill and running after the main quest (something I erroneously did in the first game) will not do it. You need skill points and the game is large, really really large and when you start finding adversaries that are (on land) a lot bigger than you think you will be either running for your life or running for cover. Those who go meet the challenge head on are shredded. Yet I digress (or do I)?

The Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/20/credit-suisse-secrets-leak-unmasks-criminals-fraudsters-corrupt-politicians) where we see ‘Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians’. There Is one problem. You see I do not think that this is happening, the Guardian was a happy tool just to get the exclusive. So as we are given:

Massive leak reveals secret owners of £80bn held in Swiss bank
Whistleblower leaked bank’s data to expose ‘immoral’ secrecy laws
Clients included human trafficker and billionaire who ordered girlfriend’s murder
Vatican-owned account used to spend €350m in allegedly fraudulent investment
Scandal-hit Credit Suisse rejects allegations it may be ‘rogue bank’

You see, my issue is that just like the ICIJ Pandora papers farce, this is an orchestration. I cannot say by who, we can point towards the NSA or a likeminded player (GCHQ), but the setting is larger. The US and EU are close to bankrupt, they play a nice tune, but the musical instrument has not been tuned for too long. A debt surpassing $30,000,000,000,000 and the EU is set to be in debt for about €10,973,338,444,376. They need to do something and going after some specific people is a first need. You cannot overhaul finances until certain ‘progressive entrepreneurs’ (aka white collar criminals) are dealt with ad the courts take too long, the problem is two fold. In the first the ICIJ was all about tantrums and BS, not much real useful info. We saw the accusations here and there with added ‘No actual laws were broken’ additions and it was a farce from beginning to end. Basic intelligence gathering acts were ignored, basic dashboarding was cast aside, and after 304 messages I know it was a wash. It was all about the power towards a ‘tax the rich’ flame which was happily drowned in whatever they used. Now we see the scolding of Credit Suisse and there are two parts here: 

  1. In the first they are accusations, so there will be a time gap, not a short one either. But it will be a message to ALL other banks that certain people have had enough.
  2. We see “billionaire who ordered girlfriend’s murder”, which might be fine, but which of the 2,755 billionaires was it? Well, the article gives us “his Lebanese pop star girlfriend”, so it might not be that hard. 

The issue is not the article perse, it is “A massive leak from one of the world’s biggest private banks, Credit Suisse, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes. Details of accounts linked to 30,000 Credit Suisse clients all over the world are contained in the leak, which unmasks the beneficiaries of more than 100bn Swiss francs (£80bn) held in one of Switzerland’s best-known financial institutions.”

Let me take you through the numbers. There is not one employee that has access to the 30,000 accounts, so it is the CEO, CTO, CFO, or something like that. Do you think that they are the whistleblower? Nope? Neither do I! Then there is the IT, but Credit Suisse is global, so it we get back to the CTO. One IT person does not have this kind of access without getting caught. This level of data has all kinds of security. It needs to have it. Then there is the inside part Who is the drug trafficker? Who is the corrupt? Who is the torturer? This is not set into an account, it requires data aggregation, something a way to large computer can do but leakers tend to now have that access, without getting caught. And the Swiss laws are strict, massively strict so there is doubt on the stage of “held in one of Switzerland’s best-known financial institutions” as well. The levels of security and insight cannot come from a leaker, just like with the Pandora papers. I stated that from the beginning. This was a state operator and the NSA is the most likely culprit. The USA is in too much debt, it needs to release pressures and they are out of options. So when the ICIJ strikes out, we get this. 

I have worked in data for decades and I have had less then 5 instances where I had national levels of data access, but I was monitored all the time (as one does), one protects the data it has. And I was able to do my job and aid the people involved. In an age of data being currency, do you think this is some leak? An £80bn leak no less? Then there is “leak reveals secret owners of £80bn held in Swiss bank”, a bullshit header if ever there was one. You see Swiss bank laws are strict, very strict and have been for a very long time but someone wants access and a leak would never reveal that. Such information can only come from state players, players with aggregated data on a very large level and there is every indication that the dat did not come from the bank but from other sources who transferred the funds from one to the other. The setting of ‘Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians’ debunked in mere minutes. It took me at least 4 times longer to type this all. And when we get one example where the article is so ‘huge’, we get “the leaked Credit Suisse data shows his accounts were left open until at least well into the last decade. At one point after he left Siemens, one account was worth 54m CHF (£24m). Seidel’s lawyer declined to say whether the accounts were his. He said his client had addressed all outstanding matters relating to his bribery offences and wished to move on with his life”, as well as “The lawyer did not respond to repeated invitations to explain the source of the 54m CHF. Siemens said it did not know about the money and that its review of its own cashflows shed no light on the account”, so all that space on what amounts to 0.03% of the entire amount. Just like the ICIJ, shortsighted and a waste of time. So we get repeated invitations to explain 0.03% of what is such a massive leak? Is anyone waking up yet? 

This is about something else, it always was and in this the Guardian is allowing themselves (yet again) to be the tool in all this. It is not rocket science and it took me minutes to debunk a setting that is intentionally being misrepresented by 5 writers, I did this all alone in less then an hour (including the writing), so what fairy tale will the newspapers (via a state actor) serve up next?

Charging in full frontal will get some state players shredded, so they decided on the Eloy solution, illuminate from the tall grass and stay out of sight, plenty of players eager to take that limelight.

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January 30, 2022 · 23:53

Accusatio et testimonio

That is the setting and I waited for a few hours. To be honest I had doubts when the news reached me via Saudi Arabia News. So I checked, Al Jazeera had it, ABC had it and i24 news had it. You know who did not have it? BBC, the Guardian, the Times, even the sanctimonious Washington Post. None of them had it and lets face it, there is nothing news about ‘2,000 children recruited by Yemen’s Houthis died fighting: UN’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/30/2000-children-recruited-by-yemens-houthis-died-fighting-un). Lets be clear this is not some accusation, this is a report by the United Nations which then gives us “A United Nations report found children aged between 10 and 17 years are being lured into fighting Yemen’s internationally recognised government” In this, do you still think I am kidding when I mentioned that stake holders are filtering the news that we are allowed to have? Of all sources, the BBC, the Guardian, the Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the list goes on regarding top tier newspapers who all basically forgot to mention it and we are likely to hear an ‘oops’ by some. This is what Saudi Arabia and the UAE faces an opponent using children and it is not for our eyes. It didn’t even make the Save the Children International news who gave us a week ago that three children were killed. Beat that with a charity fence. 

So this is what Al Jazeera gives us “The children are instructed to shout the Houthi slogan ‘death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam’,” the four-member panel of experts said. “In one camp, children as young as 7 years of age were taught to clean weapons and evade rockets”, that is the reality that Saudi Arabia faces, that is the reality we face and these children will get hardened and more extreme and more militant as they get to 18, they will have more combat training then the average NATO soldier. That is the reality of a war that Houthi forces with Iranian support are bringing to our shores and the stakeholders do not want us informed, perhaps the have some golden joke to serve Iran, perhaps it is about the billions in oil revenue that end up in the hands of some middle man, but there is an agenda, there always is. And we can no longer afford that agenda, we need to pick a side, this war has been going on for almost 7.5 years and there is no end in sight and with the Houthi forces now relying on children there is no future for Yemen either. We could just bomb it into the stone age and be done with it. But that would imply we would have to do the same to Iran and Hezbollah. Iran is fine, we get rid of 85 million people and problems are solved. But what about Hezbollah? What about those 5 million people? When will it end? I tell you, when we give full and complete support to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, that is when we get a first clear victory and the beginning of the end becomes visible. We will also make sure that Iran is no longer welcome there. It was a clear path that has been staring us in the face for well over 4 years, but we took pride in grannies with their CAAT and ‘no weapons to Saudi Arabia’ banners and we thought the problem was gone. No it never was, we merely gave billions in sales to China and Russia and lost out there too. Now we have lost options and listening to media in denial of events does not help, listening to stakeholders does not help. A setting that has been clear for years, yet we were in denial. Why? Houthi drone bombings on Saudi civilian targets never made the news. And now you can see it for yourself, the large papers seem to silence a UN report. All whilst news tends to waste papers on any UN report even when no one cares, but 2000 children? Do you think we will care or will we not? I let you decide and check the time of WHEN these other papers give us the news, because after the fact is nice when it is a hiker getting lost, but a United Nation report on 2000 children being pushed into a war? How does that sit with you?

I will let you figure it out.

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January 15, 2022 · 19:29

A woman’s voice

Something bothered me, it bothered me from the beginning, but I let it go. There are several important things going on in the world and this was not one of them, or was it? It was the Guardian that pushed me into action. The article ‘Hollywood stars back Emma Watson after Palestinian solidarity post’ gave me the view that is was essential to act, and believe it or not act is the central part of the whole story.

The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jan/13/hollywood-stars-back-emma-watson-after-palestinian-solidarity-post) gives us a few things. Now to be honest, for the most I tend to take the side of Israel, for several reasons. The setting was that Emma Watson showed an image, an image that gives us “a photograph of a pro-Palestinian protest with the banner “solidarity is a verb” written across it. It was accompanied with a quote about the meaning of solidarity from the intersectional feminist scholar Sara Ahmed.” I reckon that Emma Watson agreed and she posted the image. In the initial hours I saw responses and also the accusation of antisemitism and I thought nothing of it, I believed it to be an overreaction. In this, I also saw the tweets by Danny Danon and I believed he was wrong, he too overreacted, but I let it slide. Now that we see all these responses, I feel that it is important to respond. 

As I stated, in most cases I tend to side with Israel. Here there is a truth. The truth is simple “solidarity is a verb”, that is truth, it is a verb until it is followed by acts, commitment and actions. If you want to see that look in your history books on Poland in the 1985-1999 era, solidarity came from actions, until that is done, it is merely a verb. Yet all sources ignore the third side in all this. There is one side, there is the opposition and there is the photograph. You see the photograph is brilliant. It starts conversations,. It starts views and it does create opposition, yet nearly all ignored or overlooked the third party, didn’t you? We see the acts against a young lay, and let’s face it, she is only 382 months old. It is not an excuse, it is not negative, it merely is a fact, just like the fact that “solidarity is a verb”. And she identified with the verb, she identified with the thought. In this she is right and a lot of people are wrong. So it is good to see names like Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Capaldi, Charles Dance, Gael García Bernal, Jim Jarmusch, Maxine Peake, Viggo Mortensen and Steve Coogan standing with her. In this Danny Danon and Israeli officials did the wrong thing, perhaps Palestine was hoping for an overreaction, perhaps it was something else and in all this Miss Watson never uttered an anti-semite word and that needs to be seen and seen as soon as possible. And in all this we see a second failing. Did you pick up on it? The media merely gives us “the meaning of solidarity from the intersectional feminist scholar Sara Ahmed”. So what was the meaning? Why is it (as I personally see it) overlooked? And more important, who is Sara Ahmed? The Quote was “Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” Do you know where I got that from? Vogue Magazine! They gave a more complete story than the newspapers, how weird is that?

So as we wonder who is right and who is wrong. I gave my view, yet I will not deny that Palestine has a hard situation, in part Palestine created it, but the truth behind the setting is that “Solidarity involves commitment, and work” it is an absolute truth and I wonder all those voices screaming and parroting that Emma Watson is an anti-semite, who did their vetting, who did their investigation? I fear that this group is far too small and that should sadden us all. 

But there is also good news Emma Watson turned 382 months today, so she can celebrate her day in life, her month in life and she can do it holding her head up high, she never did anything wrong here. 

So solidarity is a verb, so is judgemental. Who thought it through and who considered that the photograph did what it needed to do, to get people talking. As I see it +15 points for Gryffindor.

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January 11, 2022 · 17:08

Media in Limelight

That is the setting, is it time to put the media in the limelight? It started yesterday in Al Jazeera which was based on an article that came from the Wall Street Journal. The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/9/iran-likely-smuggling-weapons-to-yemen-confidential-report) gives us ‘Iran ‘likely’ smuggling weapons to Yemen: UN report’I got there over three years ago, with a little later, in December 16th 2019 when I wrote ‘Joke of 2019: United Nations’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/12/16/joke-of-2019-united-nations/), where we see the UN giving us in some delusional Tate of denial “The UN has reportedly so far been unable to confirm Iran was involved in drone and cruise missile attacks on two key Saudi oil facilities in September”, they were that much in denial, one could argue that the UN allowed itself to be steered clear of any evidence involving Iran and the media was happy to oblige. If you search for these elements in Western media you will find very little. The Wall Street Journal who gave us two days ago (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-navy-port-emerges-as-key-to-alleged-weapons-smuggling-to-yemen-u-n-report-says-11641651941) “Thousands of weapons seized by the U.S. along supply routes for Yemen’s Houthis likely originated from Jask in Iran’s southeast, according to a draft report” might be one of the first that takes a larger look at the acts of Iran, well, I have to say that it took them long enough. I have a three year head start on most of them as such I wonder which stakeholder is out in the cold now?

A stage most ignores for the longest time is now a hot potato. So we do hope that General Turki Al-Maliki, serving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will get the support he has been entitled to for well over two years. And all this is before you realise that Arab News gave us (at https://youtu.be/6Ab-8bIHY90) the setting of what Saudi Arabia was getting done in Yemen. Now, I am willing to be skeptical and not one sided, but the media did not report on any of that did they? It would be fair to see opposition, there always is, yet that part is also missing. We see blunt debatable attacks by tools like Stephanie Kirchgaessner (the Guardian, Washington DC) and a few other tools, but that is the extent, this is one of the larger first articles that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and in particular General Turki Al-Maliki has been rowing upstream for far too long all whilst the media shuts down any reporting on Iranian actions towards and in Yemen, why is that?

If there was opposition, disagreements on matters it would show, it always does, one side reports on knives being delivered, the other party will state that the manufacturers of stone knives are being pushed out of a job. This is life, but the shutdown on news regarding Iranian actions is another matter and the Wall Street Journal (as well as Al Jazeera) seemingly broke rank. And when we see the response in the WSJ “Iran’s mission at the U.N. said Iran doesn’t interfere in the conflict in Yemen, as a matter of policy. “Iran has not sold, exported, or transferred any arms, ammunition, or related equipment to Yemen in contravention of Security Council resolutions,” the Iranian mission said in an emailed statement.” We get the political side of the statement, yet the part where we see “thousands of weapons seized” tell a very different story. So whilst there will be twisting and turning for some time (which always happen) the one side that does not get to be in denial is the media, two sources? The media are all over each other whenever possible and Yemen is no exception. We need to consider the media and the irresponsible acts of keeping news from us. Keeping us in the dark on what Iran is doing, we need to set the limelight on the media and their stage of denial, it is that simple. When they all start doing their job, the job of some become more outspoken and we see a much larger wheel in motion, and perhaps the headline we saw in September 2021 ‘Iran Selling More Oil In 2021 But Middlemen Reap The Profit’, the setting is simple. In what universe does the middlemen reap the profits, close to all the profits? I wonder if the media will grace us with a list of names, yet I doubt that, the stakeholders on a few levels will not allow for that. This is of course personal speculation, yet consider the revenue that oil has and now we see that the alleged Iranian profits go somewhere else? Do you not think we need to know where they go? Do you think that the CIA, FBI (and many others) are not interested where billions in profits sailed to? The media is suddenly not interested?

If Toyota released another ISIS model, the media would be all over the design teams and asking them which of the members had middle eastern relatives. Now they are quiet? I do not think so! I believe that the Wall Street Journal (al Jazeera too) is exposing a little more than they bargained for and the call for exposing and illuminating the media in the limelight is the right call to make. 

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January 3, 2022 · 19:51

The virtual quarterback

We can consider me being the Monday morning quarterback, it would be fair to call me this. I have been for the longest time a champion of science, I believe that not unlike evidence in law, science is the cornerstone of all daily life decisions. So I tend to take sides with science for nearly all cases. Yet today, in opposition of a piece in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/britain-got-it-wrong-on-covid-long-lockdown-did-more-harm-than-good-says-scientist) I take another side, the non-scientist setting. I oppose the views of Professor Mark Woolhouse. So feel free to oppose my views, which would be fair enough. But in all matters take a long hard look at some of the things we are handed here today. I believe that not unlike some wannabe journalists who wanted to cash in on Jamal Khashoggi with their fiction view of ‘Blood and Oil’ this professor might be trying to find the same rabbit in a different hat with ‘The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir’.

So where do I oppose?
It starts with “I am afraid Gove’s statement was simply not true,” he says. “In fact, this is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.” In March 2020 there was a lot we never knew. Do not forget that the disease was out for only 2-3 months, and it had not spread to the degree it has now. China had no answers, and the people who were responsible for calling this a pandemic did not do so. In addition, the media gave us “This might become a pandemic” all whilst the points of calling it a pandemic had already passed. I wrote about it on February 3rd 2020 in ‘Corona?  I Never touch the stuff!’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/corona-i-never-touch-the-stuff/), a month before we see given here. I already saw the pandemic threshold passed, yet most media were in denial with “This might become a pandemic” as such, it seems to me that Professor Mark Woolhouse will have to explain a few things. Then we get to “We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence, as well as suffering damage to their future prospects, while they were left to inherit a record-breaking mountain of public debt” in this is resort to the blunt ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ In the first there was a lot we did not know, and for the longest time there are still questions, so the response I see with “We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence” is something I would like to refer to as bullshit marketing. You see the first peak of daily deaths did not start until April 13th 2020, with 6916 dead people (aka the non-living). 

I found a table from April 2020 from New York. In this table we see 6839 died, but the interesting part is that 5151 cases had an underlying condition and in that case the older you get the higher the chance of an underlying condition, and in that up to 44 years old 312 died. Most with an underlying condition, but there was a lot not known in that setting. More important, there was no vaccine, there was no protection. The Pfizer solution was still in clinical trials in November 2020. And when you start looking at the facts as they were known, I believe that Mark Woolhouse is trimming his own trumpet for the sake of book-sales (a speculative view, but it is my view). 

Were mistakes made?
Yes, of course mistakes were made, they were made all over the world and with the US having an idiot as president in those days did not help much. There was a large void of knowledge and there was a large void of experience, so looking at the facts after the fact does not help much (apparently it might help a certain professor with a book to sell). And in all this the professor does not take into account the anti-lockdown idiots spreading the disease, the ignorant anti-vaxxers adding fuel to the fire and then the people who were ignorant of the way the disease spread going to relative, friends and so forth needing their social moment. 

And in London that is a large powder-keg waiting to explode and now that it is doing just that we see the blame game in effect. So consider the anti-lockdown protest, it only 10 people had it at that point, at least 1000 could have it 3 days later. And everyone remains in denial, oh boo hoo hoo!

So when we get to “the country should have put far more effort into protecting the vulnerable. Well over 30,000 people died of Covid-19 in Britain’s care homes. On average, each home got an extra £250,000 from the government to protect against the virus, he calculates. “Much more should have been spent on providing protection for care homes,” says Woolhouse, who also castigates the government for offering nothing more than a letter telling those shielding elderly parents and other vulnerable individuals in their own homes to take precautions.” Where is the time line? When did we know what we know now and that is before we add the complications of Alpha, Delta and Omicron. And with the last quote “By contrast, we spent almost nothing on protecting the vulnerable in the community. We should and could have invested in both suppression and protection. We effectively chose just one.”

In the first, the government could not afford both paths (slight speculation), there were too many unknown factors and with Omicron raging now, anti-vaxxer idiots and anti-lockdown dumbo’s, how can you protect a community? You can claim you can but stupid people will do whatever they feel like, the vulnerable be damned. That is how people tend to be. 

So this is my view on the matter and it is a rare event when I oppose a scientist, especially a professor, but here I feel it was needed. And I had a few more views concerning covid over that year and last year too. I kept it low, because I am not a medici (ha ha ha), yet the larger stage is also ignored in the story. The media was fear mongering all over the place and that too resulted in negative actions. There were several factors and I believe that too many factors were unknown, or untested for the longest of times. 

So, if you decide I am the Monday morning quarterback it is fine, I gave my reasoning and my views that go back to February 2020 when it was in the earliest stage. So I am not exactly the Monday morning quarterback, but I am definitely a virtual one. Consider the facts and consider the blah blah from Professor Mark Woolhouse and draw your own conclusions.

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December 21, 2021 · 20:38

When will people learn?

This is not the first time time that I go all out against a Guardian essay writer (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/20/un-backed-investigator-into-possible-yemen-war-crimes-targeted-by-spyware) So lets take you through this track of what I regard to be stupid bumbles. The title is fine ‘UN-backed investigator into possible Yemen war crimes targeted by spyware’, it is what is reported on, but the stage quickly changes with “a panel mandated by the UN to investigate possible war crimes – was targeted in August 2019, according to an analysis of his mobile phone by experts at Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.” Why is this important? Well we are not given an iota of evidence on how that was established. More important, we have heard of the experts of Citizen Lab, but who has heard of the experts at the UN? More important, why is this shown 2 years later (aka roughly 840 days)? So then we get to be off to the races. We now get the French Fairy tale division giving us “Jendoubi’s mobile number also appears on a leaked database at the heart of the Pegasus Project, an investigation into NSO by the Guardian and other media outlets, which was coordinated by Forbidden Stories, the French non-profit media group.” This is an issue as I had shown (source: Washington Post) in my story ‘Retry or Retrial?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/28/retry-or-retrial/) with ““reporters were able to identify more than 1,000 people spanning more than 50 countries through research and interviews on four continents: several Arab royal family members, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists, 189 journalists, and more than 600 politicians and government officials — including cabinet ministers, diplomats, and military and security officers. The numbers of several heads of state and prime ministers also appeared on the list”, no evidence mind you, merely statement and boasting. I call it boast, because we see there that the Amnesty’s Security Lab examined 67 smartphones all whilst close to 50% had an inconclusive test. If this is 67, what about the other 49,933?” In this there was another side that no one considered. The list represented $400,000,000 in revenue and the NSO Group never had that, more important, none of these essay writers EVER published a dashboard showing where the 1,000 people were, there the other 9,000 were. If there is a phone list, there is a location and a dashboard on these numbers was never released, something I would do in the first few hours. 

Then we get the other clown (at the UN) with a clear hatred of Saudi Arabia “Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, who previously served as a UN special rapporteur, called the news of Jendoubi’s alleged targeting “shocking and unacceptable”” It is that much of a setting, the article goes longer into blah blah mode, but no evidence is ever given to us. And it is then that we see a pie in the face on the clowns involved. We get “It suggests further reprehensible evidence of the Saudi authorities’ utter disregard for international law, their willingness to do anything to maintain their impunity, and it demonstrates yet again a complete disrespect for the United Nations, multilateral instruments and human rights procedures.” And why do I state it like that? In the previous article we see “In this Shalev Hulio is right that he is “continuing to dispute that the list of more than 50,000 phone numbers had anything to do with NSO or Pegasus”, I would too and I found a lot of the disputable issues within an hour, I wonder how shortsighted the media was when they decided to reprint what the Washington Post gave them.” This does not mean that the NSO Group and Saudi Arabia are innocent, but it calls in question the evidence presented. The verge and the Washington Post had issues with that list and I found another issue that could have been verified, as such we see a Stephanie Kirchgaessner who in 3-4 articles reduced the Guardian to a mere level of the Daily Mail, what a lovely way to end 2021, perhaps its editor Katharine Viner might do well by internally vetting what is being published, and perhaps she is part of the setting. Let well, I never stated that Saudi Arabia was innocent, but the fact that the NSO Group cannot see WHO infected (if that was the case) the phone of Kamel Jendoubi’s mobile phone, what other matters did these essay writers ignore to get a nice little hate piece against Saudi Arabia?

When will people learn that evidence is where it is at and several sources have debated the validity and the correctness of that list, and in all those months, no. one decided to look into the list and give us all a dashboard, weird is it not? I am not stating that Shalev Hulio, or Saudi Arab ia is innocent, but there is no presented evidence that they are either, as such the Daily Mail 2 (the Guardian) has a lot of making up to do, but perhaps they are merely doing what politicians and stake holders are telling them to do.

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December 11, 2021 · 23:53

Cross here to die

Yup it happens, there is a point in our lives when someone points at a road and states that death comes to those who cross here. I (with an uncanny sense of humour) would state that you cannot cross here, but that is me.

This all started with keeping the press accountable with what the Guardian gives us. It is (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/11/omicron-covid-variant-could-cause-75000-deaths-in-england-by-end-of-april-say-scientists) and is called ‘Omicron could cause 75,000 deaths in England by end of April, say scientists’. Let’s start by setting the proper page that the Guardian has done nothing wrong (as far as I can tell). In the second part, let’s look at the non-living rates that I see. One source gives us that at present 146,255 people in the UK stopped breathing (due to COVID). Then we see that this would up the ante by 50% and so far we are told that Omicron is a mild version, so someone is lying to us and the press should be all over this. 

The full text states “prevent Omicron causing anywhere between 25,000 to 75,000 deaths in England over the next five months, according to scientists advising the government”, My issue is that the current numbers are set to Feb 2020 – Dec 2021, so how could a mild version create up to 50% more non-living? OK, we see that it is 25K-75K, but that still does not make sense. This is fear mongering, or this is fear mongering as I personally see it. 

And there is more we get to see “a wave of infection is projected that could lead to a peak of more than 2,000 daily hospital admissions, with 175,000 hospital admissions and 24,700 deaths between 1 December this year and 30 April 2022.” And it is natural that these people hide behind ‘could lead to’, Yet the stage does not match. 175,000 admissions leading to 24,700, deaths. It goes against the numbers I have so far over a lot of nations and Omicron is stated (several sources) that it is a mild version that is more easily transmitted, yet not more deadly, so the numbers do not add up.

Why is the Guardian not all over this, why do we merely see “More follows …” at the end? I get that more will follow, but I think there is a large gap on the numbers the UK people have and saw and what this is now telling them, someone is spiking the drinks (not vetting speculative numbers). Now, I could miss something, I will happily agree to that, but the numbers do not make sense and I have been around intelligence numbers for decades. This does not add up. 

So I get it that some ‘covering’ is needed, but the ‘could lead to’ and ’could cause’ is like me stating “Cross here to die” I did remove the Warning Mines here! sign, but that negatively impacted a lovely photographic stretch of road. And let’s be honest, that sign might have been there too long in the first place, WW2 ended in 1945, a lifetime ago, almost two lifetimes ago.

On the other side, I get it, we might not know all about Omicron, but is informing us not the duty of the newspapers?  So what gives, because this setting is too surreal for words and after we got a lecture from a Nobel winner who states to us all “when lies become facts”, I reckon the news beacons better get there A game on, especially as Al Jazeera also gives us (just now) “Pegasus, the Israeli spyware tool exposed by journalists early this year, is now in trouble with  American authorities and big tech”. In the first, I do not think that the NSO group is innocent, yet no proper evidence has been presented and some newspapers have given us facts that are debatable in the very least on a few fronts (one of those newspapers was the Guardian), And in all this, the infector is yet to be proven and the NSO group is not the only player in that town and if a pervious quote applies that 34 out of 76 might have been infected (might is the operative word), we need to see a lot more and especially a lot better from the newspapers.

Getting people to cross a mine field is relatively easy when you remove the warning signs. And that is what we almost face, we are told that there is a minefield to the left and we need to cross to the right, that sounds nice, until you realise that the signs were moved and now we all get to stride through the boom boom field. 

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December 3, 2021 · 22:03

It is difficult

One one hand, thee was a reason to be joyful. There was another article by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, so let the bashing begin. On the other hand, this is actually a good article. It is also an important article. And there is a stage where we need to consider what is and what could be. The article ‘Rights groups urge EU to ban NSO over clients’ use of Pegasus spyware’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/dec/03/rights-groups-urge-eu-to-ban-nso-over-clients-use-of-pegasus-spyware). This is interesting in two ways. We see no such ban on Remington, Fabrique national, Glock and a few other firms. And I would like to add that the NSA has done worse, much worse, so why is it now onto the NSO because their clients are skating on the edge of what some people might seem as ‘unacceptable’?

We see “Letter signed by 86 organisations asks for sanctions against Israeli firm, alleging governments used its software to abuse rights”, we see it, but do we realise what is going on? We are holding the publisher of a law book accountable for criminals using those books to stay out of prison. And it is not mere criminals using the books, it is governments using the books. 

This is a slippery slope and as Stephanie Kirchgaessner illuminates this, we are left with questions. I personally want to see a list of these 86 organisations. I am not saying that the Guardian is lying, I am stating that the NSO and us have a right to see these accusers. Yes, we see Access Now, Amnesty International and the Digital Rights Foundation. But where are the others? We also see “the EU’s sanctions regime gave it the power to target entities that were responsible for “violations or abuses that are of serious concern as regards to the objectives of the common foreign and security policy, including violations or abuses of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, or of freedom of opinion and expression””, it is here that the problem starts. We see “freedom of opinion and expression”, but who allows for that? Who allows for ‘peaceful assembly’? Consider the US and their ‘Black Lives Matter’ setting. We see “Some states have recently increased the severity of criminal penalties for protesters along political lines”, so where is your freedom of expression and opinion now? 

There is an issue, there is and in this Stephanie is right, but is there any kind of stage where the NSO can be held responsible for the actions of their clients? What do you think will happen when the NSO sells what they have to China and/or Russia? Do you think these 86 organisations will have anything to say then? 

And there is a larger stage, the stage everyone is silent about, the stage we all know but no one is willing to look there. We are so willing to blame the NSO group, but no one is wondering why Apple and Google didn’t have better protection? We can understand that there are always, but they do not seem to work and for some reason, Apple and Google have a massive problem. So when we consider Forbes ‘Apple Starts Sending NSO Hack Warnings To iPhone Users’, why was this not done earlier, and more important why was the problem not fixed 5 years ago? Apple is playing the cautious game, leaving the NSO group out of the debate with “State-sponsored attackers are very well-funded and sophisticated, and their attacks evolve over time. Detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete. It’s possible that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms, or that some attacks are not detected. We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future.” So why are new phones not more secure? Why are cyber locks a problem? Because Apple (Google too) caters to people who need automation to get better and more revenue and that crosses with the needs of some players who need access. 

In all this, the simplest solution was that no one gets access to your mobile, and it is not a new concept. The Blackberry started that idea and was quickly pushed out of the market (they were not the cheapest either). I saw this come up a few times when I was considering the evolution of a console (name xxxxxxxx redacted) , but the premise is larger and it is all linked to the simple setting that Facebook opened a door and EVERYONE wants to get through. In this case the NSO group saw that as a great idea to collect information and they are not alone, let that be clear, they might be the most visible player, but they are not the only player, but the article does not give that part, do they? You see there were a few nations on the list (that everyone ignores) and they are not NSO group clients, but they have certain abilities, so they are a client of someone and these 86 organisations are about to give that one player (with no scruples) the entire market.

Did you consider that?

Moreover, the accusations from some against the NSO group are still absent of evidence. Several newspapers gave light that the list of 10,000 was bogus and it was from 2017. In addition, I found the financial link missing, 10,000 hacks implied that the NSO group had received in excess of $600,000,000 and they have not. Some give us specifically worded accusations. Like the Citizens Lab giving us that 36 phones might (emphasis on might) have been transgressed upon, 36 out of 76, and we seemingly delete the word ‘might’ with our minds, but I did not. I am not opposing the Citizens Lab, but 36 might out of a debatable list of 10,000 is a long stretch and so far none of the media have given us any clear evidence, but these 86 organisations see there limelight moment, so they are all crying foul (or is that fowl). 

I for one want to see the media become responsible and hand over a dashboard of alleged victims. 10,000 numbers, that would be a massive list, but a dashboard stating how many are government, how many are journalists (which was in one article no more than 180, I think) making that a mere 1.8%. How many infections per nation? The list goes on and the media over all these months presented ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. But now we see “Letter signed by 86 organisations asks for sanctions against Israeli firm”, all whilst no clear evidence has been presented EVER. This is ab out something else and it has nothing to do with the NSO group, it has everything to do with a group of journalists who have become obsolete and as we see event after even (like that running Joke called the ICIJ), how much evidence have we see on their so called 11.9 million leaked documents with 2.9 terabytes of data, and zero (none) dashboard giving a summary, even with all that time and 600 journalists no one had time to give us a run down, that is how pathetic the media has become. Oh and they promised not to investigate the source, interesting is it not?

All flaming for digital revenue and presenting close to nothing, flames and way too little  substance. So when we ask these media players for clarity, their most likely answer will be ‘It is difficult’

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December 2, 2021 · 04:43

The shoddy essay

I actively dislike certain people, especially as they use their position to merely lash out at others. This is seen (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/01/saudi-arabia-yemen-un-human-rights-investigation-incentives-and-therats) when we see Stephanie Kirchgaessner have another go at Saudi Arabia. I honestly think that is all she does. So here is my take. The article ‘Saudis used ‘incentives and threats’ to shut down UN investigation in Yemen’ Of course my first reaction was ‘What UN investigation in Yemen?’ And the article starts off with “Political officials and diplomatic and activist sources describe stealth campaign”. I go into the article and I am treated to “according to sources with close knowledge of the matter”, “Riyadh is alleged to have warned Indonesia”, and lets not forget ““You could see the whole thing shift, and that was a shock,” said one person familiar with the matter”, so what people were familiar to the matter? What actually happened? It is a fair question, especially when we are given “The resolution was defeated by a simple majority of 21-18, with seven countries abstaining”, it is in this case that I am apparently a much better investigator. So, lets take a look.

First lets look at some headlines ‘UN calls on Yemen’s Houthis to release detained staff’, ‘UN: Houthi rebels impeding aid flow in Yemen’, ‘Yemen: Houthi Terrorism Designation Threatens Aid’, and these are just three headlines from dozens in the last two years. In this, the UN and other parties (like essay writers) have been really active in silencing any actions that included Houthi and Iranian forces in Yemen. The article has two mentions on Houthi, one in a photo and none (read: Zero) mentions of Iran. We see one mention of all in “committed by all sides”. The article is that one sided and that much of a hack job. The situation in Yemen is large, much larger then this essay writer makes it out to be. 

I am not making some claim that Saudi Arabia is innocent, but I can tell you it is definitely not that guilty either. Houthi and Iranian forces have at least part of that blame (well over 50%) and we seem to forget that all this started by Houthi forces, The Saudi coalition was asked to come and no one seems to notice that. So whilst the Guardian hides behind “the Saudis appear to have influenced officials”, I merely wonder if there isn’t a much larger picture. We see mention by John Fisher giving us “It was a very tight vote. We understand that Saudi Arabia and their coalition allies and Yemen were working at a high level for some time to persuade states in capitals through a mixture of threats and incentives, to back their bids to terminate the mandate of this international monitoring mechanism”, here we see the stage, but we ignore the lighting. In addition to that stage, what evidence is there for “through a mixture of threats and incentive”, you see Iran and  Houthi Yemen do not want any monitoring for a few reasons, and they are non-mentioned parties, why is that? Shovelling BS all on one pile is nice at times and we love to see all that BS piled up at Strasbourg, but that will not happen either will it? 

You think that this I the end, but it is time to add flavour to it all,  because in all fairness, Stephanie Kirchgaessner is not in this alone, the stakes against Saudi Arabia are much larger. That is seen when we add the Conversation (at https://theconversation.com/jobs-are-no-excuse-canada-must-stop-arming-saudi-arabia-171792) where we see “Jobs are no excuse — Canada must stop arming Saudi Arabia”, and I would state ‘Yes, handing more revenue to China is the way to go!’ I would love to get a larger billion dollar stake holding a 3.75% bonus setting. Even as we are given “The bulk of Canadian arms exports to the Saudis are light armoured vehicles, known as LAVs”, We see the attack using ‘Human Rights’ all whilst Saudi Arabia is under actual attack, Houthi (apparently Iranian operated drones) are attacking civil targets in South Saudi Arabia, so whilst we are given “Canada has twice been named by the United Nations Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen as one of several world powers helping to perpetuate the conflict by continuing to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia”, and we are not given the clear involvement of Iranian and Houthi settings, it is all a one sided attack and it matters, these people attack one sided for a larger need, an ego driven need and the media is helping them do this. But feel free to state I am wrong, and I am happy to be wrong, especially if $12,000,000,000 going to China might fetch me a nice 450 million dollars (I can dream, can’t I?). when the numbers are this high 3.75% makes a very nice number. And the world is making this happen, so when we see project after project fail in Europe and the US because the moral high ground came at a price, consider the names of people who made that happen. Hunger on the moral high ground is not rare, it usually is linked to all kinds of revenue that they never got. This is not a perfect world, I never claimed it to be, but a commerce world needs to sell all kinds of stuff, also stuff that seems to be wrong, there is no denying that. And when it comes to that side, these two articles leave Houthi and Iranian actions in the dark. You should wonder why that is, because a nation does not spend 12 billion in any one sided event. If it was truly one sided one billion would have been more than enough. Did you consider that?

The US and the EU have at presently dropped 48 billion in revenue, revenue that they desperately needed and now that von der Leyen revealed the ‘300 billion euro answer to China’s Belt and Road’, how will that be paid for? Not from the revenue that Saudi Arabia required to defend its borders. That revenue will support China’s Belt and Road projects, a nice pickle they got themselves in and no one is wondering how this farce can go on, because soon there will be no money left, the overdrawn credit cards from the US, the EU, France, Germany and the UK makes any economic action close to impossible. And soon (in about 3-5 weeks) when the US has another debt ceiling, consider all the things that the US could have done to stop the new stress settings; the EU and the UK as well, now that these funds are going to China, the stage changed, the electricity bill can no longer be paid and there is no fighting ring, there is no event to watch, it is just a dark room in a dark location and that I the setting we all had to avoid. But rejoice, you then know one element that Yemeni people face, they have no electricity either, the Houthi forces made sure of that. 

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November 30, 2021 · 18:59

The Trap

There is a trap out there, we all fall for it, it is in part our own ego, it is in part the way we believe, or we think we believe and it is in part the elements steering us. I fell for it yesterday and there is no shame, it happens to us all. I was merely happy I figured out what I was doing. I will not give the exact trap I fell for, but it comes down to a weird thought. An example is “People are old when they turn hundred, because that is the boiling point of water”. The link between the two is 100. There is no other link, but the mind at times uses the link to get more out of it and as it finds these supposed links we fall into the trap. As stated it happens to us all at times. So as I was relaxing I noticed two articles by the CBC. 

The first is (at https://www.cbc.ca/radiointeractives/docproject/warhammer-40k). We get ‘Warhammer 40,000 was a sanctuary during my high school years’. This is true, but then we also get “The irony that some Trump fans equated the 45th U.S. president with 40K’s desiccated Emperor isn’t lost on Gillen, author of Marvel Comics’ first Warhammer 40,000 mini-series, Marneus Calgar”. The issues is that behind the larger story (which is actually quite good) is “it has been embraced by Trump supporters and white supremacists”, you see there is another expression we need to see: ‘The sun shines on the just and unjust alike’. This matters, because if you do not you will fall in the trap I almost fell for. The just and unjust all need a game to play, they all need to relax and some play Warhammer, some play Skyrim and some play ‘Bo Red takes a gander’, it does not matter what they play. The game does not make them extremists, they were that and they decided to play a game. Yet there is a larger stage, the unjust will find a game where they can talk and where they can communicate and the more that is done outside of the monitoring elements the safer they feel. I saw this in 2011 in a game (I think), it think it was called ‘Lords of Ultima’, this has nothing to do with the game makers, they had a game and people in a guild could communicate privately, there were 99 private channels. And over time more games offered the option to communicate and the makers got cash for everything. 

The game and its makers are not to blame, the events are merely there. There is no deeper connection (at present). The second story is (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/holiday-movies-christmas-inclusive-1.6261313) the article is called ‘Diversity in holiday movies improves, but gaps still need to be filled’, so why is that? I am not opposing, I am asking. You see movies and TV shows are a business, they cater to the largest section they can because it gives them the best revenue. Do you think that Hollywood is anything but a siphon for revenue? And in that setting the bulk of all there watchers are white. It has a market. Bollywood (India) and Nollywood (Nigeria) figured out that there was a gap and they  figured out how they could fill their pockets with the gaps. So will there be a Gollywood, a Lollywood, or a Tollywood? I cannot tell, but those in that direction are seeing whether they can make a profit in this market. Collywood (China/Hong Kong) is steadily growing and as its watching population grows, so will they. So when I see “the film industry is making moves to change what some have previously called a “whitewashed” movie genre, some critics say more work remains to be done”, I am not sure I can agree. You see the business model is there but it is not inclusive. And in that setting when we consider Gollywood, Lollywood and Tollywood. We see people in that market like David Geffen, and they weren’t making large moves to set up that premise, why is that? I reckon that at present the business model is not affordable enough. Even break even might do the trick, but that doesn’t seem to the case. So when we see ‘Geffen has an estimated net worth of $10.8 billion, making him one of the richest people in the entertainment industry’, as well as ‘David Geffen has been ranked the most polluting individual American and second most polluting individual in the world, largely due to his yachts’ we need to wonder how much of it is true. You see, there are 17 yachts bigger than him, and yes none of the owners are American, yet who bought the yacht that was owned by Paul Allen? What happened to the yacht of Bill Gates? So when I see ‘the most polluting individual American’ all whilst we can find the larger setting of “nonprofit Environmental Working Group tested tap water at 19 sites in Northern Virginia and found levels as high as 62 parts per trillion”, a pollution setting three times higher than was noted in 2019, in two years it got to be this bad, but that doesn’t make for good gay-bashing, does it? There was the EPA giving the US citizens “In 2020, about 68 million tons of pollution were emitted into the atmosphere in the United States. These emissions mostly contribute to the formation of ozone and particles, the deposition of acids, and visibility impairment”, as such, does anyone want to make a serious bet that the most polluting individual American was not behind that, or even any serious part of that? So who were and why are their names omitted from any report?

The trap is that we make claims that ‘gaps need to be filled’ all whilst the people with the ability to fill them do not want to fill them and as long as the media is willing to emphasise on partial claims like ‘the most polluting individual American’ whilst avoiding all other kinds of information, we see a larger station, a station of obfuscation and denial. The trap the media sets out for us, just like the Guardian with their ‘carbon print’ all whilst they do a lot to avoid the 15 million flights increase over the last 15 years. 47,000 (or there about) a day more and that situation has no carbon footprint? 

So did we put our foot in the trap, or are we avoiding to look into the direction where the trap is? It works for the stakeholders of the media either way. And that is the larger trap we are faced with. 

Enjoy the week.

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