Tag Archives: the Guardian

February 14, 2021 · 08:49

The black door of death

Yup there is a door, a black door, some say it is the door of death. Hades assures me it is a door of change and opportunity, but then that man is not happy until the news given to all is gloomy beyond belief. I am a republican, I never made a secret of that and in some cases I gave that news up front. Today we see why! Al Jazeera gives us (among others) “Trump lawyers and House impeachment managers have decided to avoid calling witnesses in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, beginning four hours of closing statements”, then we get ABC giving us “Mr Evans, 35, appeared before a federal judge in Huntington West Virginia on Friday afternoon after being arrested. If convicted, he faces up to a year and a half in federal prison for two misdemeanours: entering a restricted area and disorderly conduct. A growing number of Republicans and Democrats have said they want to expel Mr Evans from the legislature if he does not resign. His lawyer, John Bryan, said Mr Evans was acting as an amateur journalist recording the day’s events and he was not involved in violence. He said Evans did not commit a crime and did not plan to step down”, a setting when we consider “two black men were arrested last week when a store employee called police to say the men were trespassing. The protests followed the release of a video that showed the two men being arrested after a store manager called the police because they were sitting in the store without placing an order” (source: the Guardian), as such, they could have avoided arrest and cuffing if they called themselves ‘amateur journalists’?

We see the defence give us “It was a report from a reporter from a friend of somebody who had some hearsay they heard the night before at a bar somewhere”, we see hundreds of hours of footage, we see a loud mouthed petulant bullish childish NYC realtor gave us on January 6th “Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election”, we are also given “Trump defence dodges question on what he did to stop Capitol attack, says there was no insurrection”, yet the democrats miss the ball again and again. So what was this media circus, a show? A let this all be good for the grace of death?

And now we see “Former President Donald Trump acquitted again” (source: ABC news). The democrats foil the ball yet again, OK, I will admit that there are a few dubious characters on my side of the isle, yet proper investigation and interrogation might have gone a long way in this. 

So why do I care? I think something despicable happened, and a knowingly lying former president of the USA is not a good way to stage the setting. But that also opens the door of opportunity. And that door is not a nice one. I hereby call upon the specialist (read: CIA Wet Teams) to set a new standard. In an age of “Ransomware attacks are proving more lucrative for cyber criminals as even organisations that can restore from backups are paying ransom demands to prevent further damage”, as well as “As 2020 started, only the Maze ransomware gang was using this tactic. But as it ended, an additional 17 ransomware crews had taken to publishing stolen data of victims if they didn’t receive payment”. As such I am asking (read: demanding) that the CIA Wet teams are activated to secure American business safety. The victims are wide spread “They included 1,681 schools, colleges and universities, 560 healthcare facilities and 113 federal, state and municipal governments and agencies. Meanwhile, over 1,300 private companies were also hit by ransomware attacks”, as such we set the C.W.T. (CIA Wet Teams) in the field and we kill these people, no long wasted court-time, just a bullet through the back of the head. I don’t care it comes from a 16 year old with a crying excuse “I wanted to be cool”, that person will be pretty cool (ground temperature) in a casket, unless he is cremated, that person will be room temperature (still cool). Is that too much? I think it is time to set a different premise, it is time to set the premise of ‘enough is enough’, the law has not worked , not for 2-3 decades, scare tactics did not and as such, after the first half dozen are found and put to death, the rest will dump their computers faster than anything else they ever had and as such they are dealt with. It is a bit over the top, but Hades told me that there would be opportunity, so I sought one, I found one and now I am casing one. 

The setting stage of such failing blunders on the democratic side is just the start of the larger stage, the attacks on Saudi Arabia, whilst the actions by Iran on this are are almost 100% ignored, there is more one sided actions, as such setting a larger footprint on the other side of the fence is not the worst tactic to use, and lets face it, apart from the ransomware attackers (and their mummies and daddies) how much real opposition will there be? The second acquittal opened a new door, a door of all those thinking there would be no accountability for electing a stupid person, lets make sure that the new signals are a clear given sign that this was not the case and that we are all in a stage of having had enough. That is how I see it, yet I could be wrong.

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February 9, 2021 · 03:47

The marker, what is it?

We are always in a stage where it is about the price, as such the title ‘are video games too expensive?’ In the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/feb/08/are-video-games-too-expensive-assassins-creed-cyberpunk-2077) had my attention, I wonder what they are throwing at us this time, they being Luke Holland. He throws “With new consoles from Sony and Microsoft expected, a raft of video game publishers announced that the RRP of their new releases would increase for the first time since the mid-00s” at us and that seems fine. There is also the fact that most game dealers tend to lower that price off the bat, the makers have there day one discounts and it goes on. I get it. Luke is not wrong and through the article he gives a decent point of view, but some issues remain. It is not given with “While an extra £20 won’t break the bank for some, games might already be stretching what little disposable income many people have, particularly when twinned with the £250-£450 cost of the shiny new console on which to play them”, it is a fact, but there is more (there always is). He touches on it with “the cost of producing an AAA game – big-budget, big-studio, tentpole titles – is now akin to that of making a Hollywood blockbuster. Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, cost £195m in development and marketing” yet he dances around it by dangling Cyberpunks and the bugs in our faces, whilst he ignores the massive bug list that AC Valhalla had (the very first image in the story). So whilst we get “A Martin Scorsese film lumbers in at three hours long. Most narrative-led games clock in at 15-or-so hours – five whole Scorseses; a hundred quid’s worth of Marty”, yes but there we see it, the quality, quality is what separates them, Scorsese hands us sheer perfection, Ubisoft products have not done this for the better part of a decade, in addition a game like Cyberpunk is showing us innovation to a much larger degree even (if for now) it has bugs. Ubisoft has been treating us to more of the same for years and they still can’t get it right. That is the part that is missing in this. And the gem is given at the very last “Yes, £70 is a lot. But choose wisely and you’ll never, ever feel short-changed”, yes we agree, but the ‘choose wisely’ part has become tainted. Consider that IGN gave us ‘Update 1.1.0 will fix over 30 Quest, World Event, and Side Activity issues, many that would prevent players from proceeding due to glitches and problems’, they gave this TWO MONTHS after the game was released, so how come that we see scores (metacritic: 80-85) depending on what system, a game with that many bugs is given 70+? And when we see that per source Gamepro (65) to PC gamer (92), we should have issues with the ‘choose wisely part’, in opposition there is Watchdogs: Legion, they did get that part right and when we see metacritic reviews (66-74) we need to sit down and consider that we all have different tastes and the settings are not equally pressed, which is unfair to Ubisoft as well. 

This is where the shoes become an issue, we might think that £20  is not too big an issue, when you are in a stage where you might buy a lemon £20 is a lot, really it is. 

As we try to set a value per time range, we need to consider that art is not easily categorised, and a true video game is still a work of art, which is why I have been slapping Ubisoft all I can, as I feel that they forgot that part. They got parts right they got games right. Even now, I still see in my mind the sunrise in AC Origins, perhaps because it was the first real 4K game, perhaps it was the setting, but they got that part right, pretty much all of it, which is why I am so angry about AC Valhalla. I stayed away from it and until the price is set to below £10 I continue to do so. I got AC Odyssey at £10 at some point, and I still regret it, so I might not fall for that this time around, in this I have serious settings on finding a way to officially remove Ubisoft from the AAA developers list, but then I remember, they got Watchdogs: Legion right, they might pull it off again. 

In this we need to make one more sidestep, Luke gives us “December’s Cyberpunk 2077 – despite being unfinished, riddled with bugs and, on consoles, uglier than a pooing pug”, which is interesting as he did not give us that setting for AC Valhalla, did he? I get it, we all have style of games we like, as I was in the 70’s addicted to the original William Gibson’s Neuromancer, I remain faithful to the game, I keep it on my shelf and I wait until the fixes have come in to play beyond the introduction. We also seem to forget that Cyberpunk 2077 had grossed well over $600 million in digital sales alone as of the end of 2020. He can have that view, I never liked GTA5, I did not like GTA4, so I stayed away from the sequel, I get it plenty like it, but it is not for me, just like Skyrim is not the game for a lot of them. We all have different tastes. 

Yet the title of the article remains in my mind, it still does, you see the part that Luke skated away from is that Immortals Fenyx Rising is $39 in the US, the same game is $50 in Europe, $77 in Australia and $45 in the UK (all PS4 prices). And this has been going on for years, all whilst the prices are even worse when you buy a digital format game, it also impacts the value of the art but we do not see that here, or in Luke’s defence with “a hundred quid’s worth of Marty”, when a game is not set to a level stage we see the issues, especially when the Xbox store charges more for a digital copy than a store would for a physical one, even an Australian store. This has been going on for at least 5 years. Games are judged by markers, but the reviewers are using different markers on different stages and they all refer to them as ‘markers’, as such people are walking away because they can no longer tell the difference. In this the final remark (which is still wise) “But choose wisely and you’ll never, ever feel short-changed” loses ground. An overhaul of what reviews and what should be reviewed is set to corners that are blatantly disregarded and it required an overhaul for well over a decade, I know because in the beginning (1988-1999) I was a reviewer. I might never have been the best, but I was always fair on the games I reviewed and I kept to the games I liked. When you get 2 pages a month, you want to spend them on the games you like, nothing else. A flaw? Optionally, but I had to make the space count so I did it on the games I likes and other reviewers on the games they liked. 

And I will admit, reviewing has become a lot more complex. A game that was on the CBM64, Atari ST or PC286 does not compare what is out today, so in that consider Watchdogs: Legion (at https://www.bworldonline.com/it-could-have-been-transcendent-arts/), I for the most agree with the review and the 85% score is decent and well earned and the one issue that I have is seen in “perhaps due to the weight of its pledges, it never gets to reach its projected dazzling heights. It never stops being enjoyable, but the most demanding players will be bothered by a nagging feeling that it could have been not just better, but transcendent — that it’s just a few steps shy of greatness”, it sums up the failing of Ubisoft, games that could have been beyond ‘WOW!’ are merely ‘Nice!’ And many reviewers do not do half as good a job on reviews as Alexander O. Cuaycong and Anthony L. Cuaycong did. So whilst we give attention to ‘choose wisely’ we forget that gamers are getting overloaded with reviews on all kinds of digital formats, and they often can no longer separate the critical reviewer from the unquestioning followers and the blind hater, which is an actual problem that makes any gamer like they are getting played and suddenly that £20 makes a whole lot of difference. 

If enough people say that it is not a marker, it is a coffee stick. We will see that at some point some will stir their coffee with it, no matter where it was before. 

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January 26, 2021 · 22:26

Panem et circenses

Yes, this setting is as old as the hills, the Italian hills mind you. We get this view from Decimus Junius Juvenalis who had a view on life and society 1800-1900 years ago that seems to reflect on the now. His view reflected on superficial appeasement, a stage we have been in for around 20-30 years. We (a collection of nations) became nanny states, but the politicians have no way to deal with the impact of the cost of living in that way. So whilst we might notice that politicians are here to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, even as most comprehend that Donald Trump is merely the latest version of bad management, he is not alone, this is happening all over Europe as well, and to some extent the media is playing along as long as their owners get a slice of that pie, or is that pizza?

No matter how we tell ourselves it is, we created this stage by letting a few loose cannons set expenditure without accountability. So when I see ‘The only answer: squeeze the super-rich’, I wonder if he has any clue on how deranged that path of thinking truly is. In this, I have to take caution. I might not agree with Simon Jenkins, yet he is entitled to his view. I feel that it is unacceptable to merely bash the man with a dictionary. So as we see the full title ‘Covid has made inequality even worse. The only answer: squeeze the super-rich’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2021/jan/26/covid-inequality-worse-squeeze-super-rich), it is the by-line that matters. Here we see “It’s not right that the world’s 10 richest people have amassed £400bn since the start of the pandemic while billions struggle”, in this he might not be wrong, but does he have a case? Consider that COVID was not any person’s fault, it merely was, we had the Spanish flu 100 years ago, we have COVID now and these 10 people are not to blame, whilst the politicians made the people lazy and content with bread and games (McDonalds & Netflix), some went out and did something, they had made solutions that applied to isolation and they got to cash in. My IP would have been great, yet it was never designed for that, I looked at the plans for Neom City (Saudi Arabia) and came up with the solution, all whilst I also designed an additional system to optionally limit cyber crimes, and if it is not sold soon, I will make it Public Domain and let the hungry feast on that free IP and ruffle a few feathers along the way. 

So when I saw ‘squeeze the super-rich’, all whilst politicians are largely to blame as they refused to overhaul tax laws for 20-30 years, and even make more essential adjustments to tax write offs in the last 10 years, you see where I found the snare of the loom of discord in the writing of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. So when I see “it is hard to quarrel with the report’s conclusion that current economic policies have enabled “a super-rich elite to amass wealth in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, while billions of people are struggling to make ends meet””, all whilst the Great Depression is the stage we face, can anyone help me remember who set the stage of the the 47-storey Waldorf-Astoria Hotel that opened in 1931 at a cost of $42 million ($600 million today)? The rich had a really good life then and some truck out, greed driven and losing their fortune as the depression hit America, 70 years ago, so how was that solved? Well, we got rid of plenty of people by setting the stage towards WW2, we look at people like J. Paul Getty and Barbara Hutton, but we fail to notice the mess that politicians allowed to happen in the first place, so how will it end now? We might blame that list of 10, but what happens when I get lucky (you gotta get lucky sometimes), will it be my fault, or was my crime to innovate what people forgot about and I got to cash in? Most of us, we all catered to some politicians by accepting the Hamburger and watch Netflix (or Disney Plus), I wonder if anyone on the lit of 10 had any time to watch Netflix, to get the hamburger (the second most likely yes). There is a saying that I saw a few years back: “behind every successful man or woman is a deactivated Facebook account”. There is a ring of truth there and it sets the stage of emotional flames on social media, so whilst we drown in those messages and responses, we forgot to look at the ball and watch someone else take it to success. It is the impact of bread and circuses and even as there is some acceptance on the view of Simon Jenkins, he is seemingly ignoring the bread and circuses stage that has been going on for 20 years, even if one of the ten is paying for the circus, there is a stage where we see that politicians failed its population close to completely, as I see it, it is time to ask the hard questions, but that is a stage that politicians dread, so they will appeal to the media to set all kinds of talks that are about emotion and less about fact, or sales deals for vaccines where the EU relies on the word ‘hope’ and not on the clear contract that needed to be there (see yesterday’s article for details). 

The stage of Panem et circenses will come to a halt soon enough, because the governments of a whole list of nations are out of money, they all owe the banks and the list of 10, who can now set a very different agenda, you are either a consumer, and enabler or useless. If you fall into category 3 hard times are ahead, hard times unlike you ever faced because governments will no longer be able to assist you. It is the price of a nanny state, it’s good going until the invoice is due, at which point the people behind that push are gone, gone like snowflakes in a heatwave. So whilst Jenkins gives us “it is for governments to track down and police those who, far from not paying enough tax, pay little or none at all. They grow rich by keeping their wealth offshore and refusing to contribute to treasuries from which they and their families draw a lifetime of benefit. The billions of dollars in the world’s protected tax havens”, I merely wonder if he comprehends the setting that these tax havens and tax options exist because politicians refused to take care of business in the last 20 years, the stage that they all avoid is that these super rich people did not break any laws, their accountants saw options, their accountants used options that governments allowed to happen. All whilst they now flame Google on news, in a stage that this is to aid a few Murdoch type of people, all whilst the tax overhaul would have helped all, you did realise this, did you not? And when Google does go, as I stated days ago, small business will suffer to a much larger degree than they ever thought possible, and why? All because papers are no longer dependent on news, they are dependent on their advertisers, a stage of what I personally see as filtered content (instead of news) has a much larger impact, the people are seeing this too and they resort to apps by Al Jazeera, BBC, the Guardian et al. And the people are also realising that the politicians are part of the problem, not part of the solution, but so far there is no real solution, yet in my view, the first part of a solution is seeing that you have a problem and as I personally see it those relying on Panem et circenses are a massive problem. In the year that we had COVID, I designed the foundation of 5G IP, the setting for almost a dozen video games, 2 movies and a TV series. Now, I need to find a way to sell it in a trustworthy way (or make it public domain), because that stage too is still thwart with dangers, enablers look in two ways, those they enable so that they are enabled and those they serve enabling them to the position that they are in now and in all this, the laws and politicians have set a stage that is unequal, but not in the way Simon Jenkins sees it it is inequality to further those in key positions. These so called friends of the media and politicians who offer you a golden deal, yet they will never deliver, they merely apologise for setting the wrong stage due to miscommunication from your side and then walk off with your idea. 

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January 25, 2021 · 23:18

Perspective

We all need it, you, me and all around us, it is essential to set a stage where we are able to set dimensionality of what we know, what we think we know and how it relates to everything around us. There are to benefits, the first is the ‘blinker’ effect. In the old days (and ever today) horses were given blinkers as to not get alarmed by what was happening around them, we too need blinkers. If we take in everything around us we might get anxiety. Now, we do not need actual blinkers, we day dream, we focus, we set the view to what we (at times) need to see. Some focus too much and get this tunnel view where the larger image would have been useful, but that is not always the case, it is at times arbitrary.

How about an example. There is talk of Google search leaving Australia, so here we see ‘A Google exit could open door for publisher deals with smaller players: ACCC’, a quote by Competition tsar Rod Sims, my somewhat less diplomatic view is “Is this Sims out of his fucking mind?”, you see the media has almost no credibility left, if you need an example of that, consider the news (by Dutch NOS) on December 25th (at https://nos.nl/artikel/2362024-leids-onderzoek-veel-gebruikte-sneltest-minder-betrouwbaar-dan-gedacht.html), I wrote about it in ‘The lull of writing’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/28/the-lull-of-writing/), in that time, which media format gave us any information? In light of todays news (at https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceania/what-we-know-about-the-new-zealand-northland-case-20210125-p56wre.html) a month after the Dutch situation we are given all kinds of filtered information, including a new South African version, with the added “but there’s no evidence to suggest an increase in disease severity or fatality rates”, and there we have it, no mention of ‘False Negatives’ at all, something that was out for a month from reliable sources mind you. In addition, we see the NewScientist giving us ‘Covid-19 news: UK variant may be 30 per cent more deadly’ (at https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-news-uk-variant-may-be-30-per-cent-more-deadly) and here I accept that one source does not validate the second part, yet Sky News gives us that it ‘may be’ more deadly, which indicates that there is no proof, and other sources do not gives us anything, not even any form of opposition of the two elements, which could be valid, but the news is no longer about informing us, but giving us filtered information (which is their shareholders, stake holders and advertisers version of censorship), as such are we confronted by censorship or scenesoreship? I let you decide, yet the stage that the media gives us in opposition to Google, all whilst they have little to no credibility at present (well most of them anyway) leaves us out in the open wondering why we pay for that level of news anyway, are the shareholders and advertisers not paying them? So whilst Bloomberg gives us ‘Australia Says ‘Inevitable’ Google Will Have to Pay for News’ (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-24/australia-says-inevitable-google-others-have-to-pay-for-news) people like Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg better realise that they are now walking with a target on their backs, you see, they might hide behind “it’s “inevitable” that Google and other tech behemoths will have to eventually pay for using media content”, all whilst that pussy refused (read: was unable) to overhaul tax laws, tax laws that impact all (including Apple, Netflix and Amazon), and in that setting, we will hold HIM accountable for filtered content, all whilst these news players give us links on Twitter, Facebook and Google Search that leads to advertisements to pay for reading their news, these advertisements are in the news sections, so where do we get OUR money back? So whilst we see “Frydenberg said Australia could either be a “world leader” in pushing for the code or wait to follow others in passing similar legislation”, or Australia becomes option 3, namely irrelevant. A nation with 25 million people is not that relevant, especially when it is as isolated as Australia is. And in that light, when Google moves out, what will Australia do when it realises that there are cogs to digital advertisement and commerce falls down and down, rely on the yellow pages, or a yellow solution (Chinese e-advertisement options). The news dug its own hole, it catered to Murdoch frenzy who pushed towards glossy pages, which is nice in the UK where there are 25 different newspapers on every corner, that is not the setting in Australia, so when the Australian Epoch Times overtakes any of the Australian papers, I will be howling with laughter, these people dug their own graves, relying on entertainment TV (channel 7, channel 9) to give us the filtered information (read: Australian news) all whilst the people were never considered in the first place. 

Now, there will be peope out there that my perspective is wrong, and I am fine with that, so the best thing to do is to investigate, the news that BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera gives all, whilst we take a look at local newspapers and see what information is missing, as well as from their online versions. I saw the start well before 2012, but in November 2012 the news agents filtered out what gamers needed to know, there we see the larger issue. Trivialising a setting with ‘there is a memo’ whilst the terms of service are a legal setting between consumer and industrial, the memo was not, any meeting could destroy the memo, it could not diminish any agreed terms of service and 30 million gamers were about to get hit, the filtered information bringers left that out, and they have been leaving things out for a decade, the ‘False Negative’ issue as reported  by Frits Rosendaal from the Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum (LUMC) gave us this a month ago, and it impacts a lot more people than 30 million people, so where was this news? If you do not read Dutch you might not know this and you all needed to know this, which is opposing the view of Shareholders, stake holders and advertisers. So why do we pay for filtered information?

It is a stage of perspective, I will let you decide whether a false negative in a corona viral issue could affect you, your mum or nana. Have a great day.

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January 7, 2021 · 23:19

The expensive Presidential joke

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

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

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

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

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

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January 5, 2021 · 21:06

Dark dreaming

We all do it, and I am no exception, even though, when I dream, it tends to be creative, yet even I pulled back from the darkness of this. And when I dove deeper into my dream, I found links to a story I saw 3 years ago, the problem is, is it altered to seem real or is it merely fantasy, but not the good kind that involves unicorns. 

The story starts with the setting that a man is going to court to give evidence, on the way he gets harassed by people, harassed by the media, who all claim that the people are allowed to know the truth, and in this the man proceeds, a young lady was raped and he is giving evidence. But the media has another direction, in this their stake holders need alteration, as such the man is shown over the days to be loosely untethered to reality, and that is how the defence of the raper continues and the man is set free, the people AFTER the trial are not the most interested in what actually happens. Suddenly the media takes a distance from the man and they are all the promiscuity of the girl, they achieved the goal that the Stakeholder requires and they set the achievement of a large advertiser they all have reason to celeb rate, because the truth got out, but in this, the story is merely beginning, the man who got played and got tainted was never the most stable one, merely. Man with moral fibre and that can be the most dangerous man of all. He finds the two men at the heart of the ragging and he soon learns that they recently acquired new cars, new wardrobes and their children were able to get into schools they should never have been able to get into and the man gets angry, he waits until there is a dark night, a moonless night and he sets fire to the houses and the cars, he walks off, there are no witnesses and he does not care whether the people survive (they do), and as we see this iteration, we also see the man closing in on the reporter, who is now largely aware that she had become a target too. Even as she pleads on the TV for the man to come out, promising that they would hear him out, he merely walks on, ignoring TV’s, having coloured his hair grown a beard, and wearing a small pillow to seem heavier than he is and he walks on, through the streets on his way to make someone pay. It is a morning and we see a view of a square, we see a view of people and as we see the people walk into buildings, some might notice the reporter with dark shades, a cap and moving a little faster as she sees the building where she works, he sees her too from a distance up on high, he aims and pulls the trigger, exactly where he was aiming for, the right kneecap, another miss filer of truth had come to its rightful setting, on the floor drowning in fear, blood and horror. 

Even then the man who had safely (and rather fast) eloped to his place of birth now knew that he could never return to that nation, even as he used the media to give the people an avalanche of stories that suited HIS needs, the media was all too aware that there is a price to pay, and the reporters who are offered the bonus are not eager to accept any of it.

So this was the dark dream, and we will of course relate to J. Epstein and G. Maxwell who finds herself in court also in a stage where she might enjoy that view for 35 years. There is an other piece, on that I saw in 2017, it is called ‘How do sexual assault victims feel when the media fails them like this?’, an opinion piece (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/03/sexual-assault-victims-newsnight-media-blaming-victims), it is important, because it shows a rather large failing of the media, a stage we seem to ignore, especially when we are click baited by some. In this, when you consider the sides of “Newsnight producers decided we needed to hear from a panel of 14 men making comparisons with the animal kingdom and complaining that you can’t even put your arm around a woman these days”, which is interesting, especially when we see ‘Newsnight Sexual Harassment Debate Featuring 14 Men And 3 Women Was Pretty Weird’ by reporter Jack Sommers who also gives us “A ‘cross-section of complete lunatics’”, so in this, who EXACTLY were the producers of Newsnight? Perhaps they were whispered to? But to see the media fail one gender this completely is a setting to a large rise of questions. We are witnessing an abuse of channels whilst the victims are more often than not ignored or played down, so why is that?

And if that is not enough, consider the stage that all this started with an affidavit in 2015, and the same media that will spread unconfirmed and unproven issues regarding Jamal Khashoggi have (with the exception of the Miami Herald) left the affidavit largely untouched, as I personally (and speculatively) see it, the rich have too many stake holders, shareholders and advertisers in play in the media. The first truth is that the media tends to filter the truth, and the people are not willing to ask why, as such we see a larger failing and perhaps that too added to the dark dream I had, I hope the next one is lighter, or if it is a dark one, spearheaded towards a new game. In this I can only hope, even as I set the larger stage towards the in creation TV series Keno Diastima.

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January 2, 2021 · 07:51

Fortune cookie?

And the woman looked at me and said: “There are two kind of unemployed people, those who cannot deal with the situation and those who are unwilling to consider alternatives”, I have no idea who she was and she basically threw the ‘accusation’ in my direction. Yet it is not a truth, it is what some call ‘the fortune cookie truth’, it is almost like reading a horoscope, you want it to be true, and you will read it accordingly with a weighted view on what you read. Yet that is not the only time you read it this way. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/28/how-the-free-press-worldwide-is-under-threat) gives us ‘How the free press worldwide is under threat’, well it is debatable whether it is, and to some extent you did this to yourself. So when I read “In recent years, another way of silencing journalists has proliferated: the use of what are known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or Slapps, where defamation or criminal lawsuits are brought with the intention of shutting down forms of expression such as peaceful protest or writing blogs”, I wonder where this is going, you see we are given all kinds of examples, and the loud Mexican example is pushing the matter, but when we see “In France, media organisations and NGOs have been hit with what they view as Slapp suits for publishing accusations of land-grabbing from villagers and farmers in Cameroon by companies associated with the Bolloré Group. In the UK, fracking companies including Ineos, UK Oil & Gas, Cuadrilla, IGas and Angus Energy have since 2017 sought and been granted wide-ranging court injunctions, often directed against persons unknown, to prevent protests and campaigning activities at drilling sites” we do see something that should not get ignored, yet the setting is actually larger than that. All kinds of publications have pushed this and the demand for proper policing has not ben met seriously. So as we are given “a framework for co-operation between UN bodies, national authorities, media actors and NGOs. Spearheaded through Unesco, the plan was incorporated into the Declaration of the Council of Europe in April 2014, and in guidelines published by the EU soon after. In April 2016, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a recommendation on the protection of journalism and safety of journalists and other media actors” we are given the first part, not the journalist, but the phrase media actors, they are part of the problem and as the media refuses to acknowledge the stage, they themselves are endangering the journalists. And it took a while, but they come out with the old and misrepresented cow, we get “Other infamous cases of state-sponsored crimes against journalists include the brutal murder, on 2 October 2018, of Saudi dissident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The CIA have concluded that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the journalist’s assassination. On 19 July 2019, the office of the UNHCR released a report describing Khashoggi’s death as “premeditated extra judicial execution”.” Let’s not forget that this is the same CIA that gave us the presence of WMD’s in Iraq, so where were they? The emotional ‘brutal murder’ is given, absent of actual and factual evidence and this is where we see that the journalists became the media actors. The people can no longer tell the difference, a journalist gives us the FACTS, a media actor does not, mostly they rely on emotional storytelling to flame events, a ‘Whornalist’ if you wish, and the matter is getting worse, the people are rejecting journalist sources, complicating matter further. It is becoming a setting where the ‘fortune cookie telling’ is regarded to a much larger extent as some unwritten truth and the media pushed for this, emotional people will click sooner, will click more often and every click matters in the digital world. It also enables corporations and players to use Slapps to a much larger degree. So these ‘Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation’ are now proving to be a much larger weapon of choice by too many players and the media seemingly and speculatively allows for them according to the needs of shareholders and stake holders. And as I personally see it, UN Essay writers are making things less and less palatable, not because of what they claim, but they are using more and more dodgy settings to create an air of ‘humane lawgiving’ a statement that is it own antonym a it is not humane and in no way is it lawgiving, and speculatively speaking it might not be lawful either. 

So as the article ends with “Today, citizens are on lockdown, eager for news like never before. And more than ever, the news must be fact-checked, verified. Because disinformation spreads as fast as the virus itself, and journalists are on the frontline in the fight against the distortion of truth. More than ever we need facts. Facts to avoid spreading fear, fake news and panic. More than ever we need a free press” they need to realise and accept that as long as journalism dos not take a hard look at itself and distances itself from media actors, their plight will merely become harder, people can no longer see the difference, and the options they had from day one, the fact that a journalist has (or should have) a degree in journalism, as such the articles they write can be made to look significantly different from opinion makers and non-journalistic flamers, they are all set to the same category (read: garbage). 

Entertainment stations,  claiming to give us the News, all whilst that news is tainted and filtered to keep out what we should know, but someone insisted that it is not worth knowing, it does not matter whether the decision maker is aiming for Digital currency, a stake holder, a share holder or someone else, the news is filtered and therefor might not be news anymore, merely filtered information and there are examples going all the way back to 2012, optionally a larger time before that. The people can no longer tell the difference, what was hard about that? As such the given part “when powerful political and business actors can attack journalists with impunity” is merely half a truth as I personally see it. They are part of the shareholders and take holders that limit the view of the people through media actors and that part is the unwritten part that has gone way out of control. That needs to be addressed before you claim that you want a free press, you merely boxed yourself in and you are in denial, merely coining the idea that the quarters you are in now are a bit cramped, which implies that you merely had to stop them from becoming cubicle neighbours in that building you call journalism.

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December 14, 2020 · 00:26

The academic freezer

It is a harsh stage, at times we tend to, according to our own nature, be cold, ice cold. In some cases (like mine) inhumane cold. I am not doing it intentionally, but I do get that some see me as  cold insensitive bastard, and I like ice cream too. So here I am in a setting that does not appeal to many, but outspoken so that you know what is in play. You see, we see and some feel the hrh reality of the Coronavirus, and the BBC gives us ‘Coronavirus: Germany to go into lockdown over Christmas’, I get it, we need to be careful, but the cold numbers (as reliable as they can be) give us 72,221,006 corona cases, 50,607,364 recovered and 1,613,868 cases ended with a heart rate of ZERO. So basically we see 69% made a recovery, 3.18% did not make it, the rest is still in a stage of healing. Consider all the actions, all the ruckus and all the settings for these numbers. Now, I am all for stopping the disease. 1.6 million is not nothing, and as we see all the presented decks on more people dies in the US than in WW2, we are all overreacting. Whilst we see that WW2 ended the lives of 405K Americans, another source gives us 291K deaths, so who can we trust? The numbers are less than a month old, all whilst WW2 ended in 1945. As such when we consider that several of the sources tend to be seen as reliable, who fed them these numbers? 

You see, the reactions we are seeing is on a stage of 3.18%, all whilst we also see “11% of all deaths and 42% of CVD deaths” (CVD=Cardio Vascular Deaths), this was in 2018, so how much fuss was made over heart issues? When we see the numbers next to others, Corona does not amount to too much. I am not stating that we ignore the event, I am showing you that the over reaction is a little much. Especially as we entered a recession in the end of 2018, an economic setting that nearly all governments are trying to avoid, especially in light of the debts that all these governments have. Another ploy that Wall Street is happy about, they got to blame a disease and optionally the CDC as well. 

Am I overreacting?
That remains to be seen and it is a fair question to ask, yet I am showing you the numbers, the charts and the percentages, those you can calculate yourself (you might find a rounding adjustment at best). 

The sight that we see is a scary one, governments have ordered billions in vaccines, a vaccine that we do need to have, but the bombastic fanfare is one we could have done without and no one is looking hard at the recession, are they? ABC gave us last week “The recession is technically over but for wages and jobs, the recovery is a long way away”, is the recession really over? Is the overreaction and shifting of the blame towards Corona justified? Ask yourself that question when you see the extended amount of unemployed people, when you see the lack of controls on corporations when we consider the impact of what should have happened. I said it from the very beginning, the numbers never added up. I was merely unsure what they were supposed to be and when you see numbers not matching on a whole level of fronts, perhaps you will wonder where the numbers came from as well, there is a level of facilitation in play that is happening on a number of levels and it seems that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing, in all honesty I wonder if you can figure out what the right hand and what the other one was all along.

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November 29, 2020 · 23:33

The pun remains

We all seek confirmation, it is for the most in our core, even now (after the idiocy ordeal) of dealing with Indeed and their ‘so called tests’ on a multiple choice test for answering the phone, I remembered things that actually mattered (to me that is). You see, Iran lost a nuclear physicist, the man Mohsen Fakhrizadeh did not see the beginning of December. And when we see “the architect of Tehran’s nuclear strategy, was killed on Friday on a highway near the capital in a carefully planned assassination”, I merely wonder how carefully the stage was planned. Yes, there is a chance that Mossad arranged for the release in stress to the State of Israel, there is also the chance that some hardliners are thinking that the nuclear escalation is not fast enough and they needed to increase tensions, or basically the IRGC promoted Mohsen Fakhrizadeh from citizen to dead citizen. Now, mind you, my view is highly speculative, but think on the lack of security a scientist apparently has in Iran and how little the IRGC has done to ensure ‘prompt response’ on those failing protection, is that not weird?

So whilst the Guardian gives voice to Hassan Rouhani and the quote “blamed Israel and reiterated that Fakhrizadeh’s death would not stop the country’s nuclear programme”, we can look at the horizon for a few matters. So whilst SBS relies to some degree on “Fakhrizadeh has been described by Western and Israeli intelligence services for years as the mysterious leader of a covert atomic bomb programme halted in 2003, which Israel and the United States accuse Tehran of trying to restore. Iran has long denied seeking to weaponise nuclear energy”, I merely wonder, how many scientists do YOU know that sit on their hands for 17 years? How many academic papers has he released since 2003? That too is evidence, if he actually worked towards safe nuclear energy. It is the same as the traps the Rotterdam harbour made in the late 80’s, idle time is NEVER linear. So when we get to the goods we see “He was the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2015 “final assessment” of open questions about Iran’s nuclear programme. The IAEA’s report said he oversaw activities “in support of a possible military dimension to (Iran’s) nuclear programme”. He was a central figure in a presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018 accusing Iran of continuing to seek nuclear weapons”, and my need for precision needs to say that this too does not constitute evidence, merely alleged accusations, it is where is his team? A man like that does not work alone and his team and their actions are part of the chain of evidence, so where is it and what did the media uncover (if they took effort). It is a stage and the scientific stage tends to be ego fuelled, the man with the largest team is the most important, that is true pretty much everywhere. Only the established experts in a field that is too limited, too precise tends to be small, the nuclear field cannot boast this setting. Oh, and as for Mossad getting an operation this deep into Iran, weird, but OK, I can go along with excellence and well managed, yet that too is evidence. It implies that the IRGC is dropping essential balls all over the place and that is also an indication, perhaps Israel might be interested in Gorman One and Evia Miden, I have to sell to someone, Christmas is coming and I want to give myself a nice present, I reckon that these two weapon systems will do just that, how pathetic is my life? Me, willing to sell a weapon system to harm Iran for a video game and a cheese pizza? (Which was me oversimplifying matters).

 And in all this, we still have not seen any acceptable level of evidence to show it was Israel tht did the attack, for all we know it was Turkey who did this, lets face it we saw the headline ‘Erdoğan uses syncretism of neo-Ottomanism and pan-Turkism to build Greater Turkey’, and they cannot go after Greece, the EU won’t let them, Greece has too many friends, so who has no friends and can be used to show greatness? Ah yes, Iran! The evidence is super flimsy, but Iran is used to super flimsy evidence, so I jut thought I would help them out. You see, when you stop relying on actual data and evidence. Where do you end? Well, that is merely part of the evidence seen and in light of the nuclear aspirations of Iran, we need to start worrying on the EU taking actual notice of the dread that is Iran, when an attack does happen, and the target is Israel, it will hit the Mediterranean and as such it will hit European interests in no less than 8 countries, it is time for the EU to wake up, so when I see the Guardian giving us “Iran calls on international community – and especially EU – to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror”, we need to consider the play that follows this and ‘especially EU’ was not a suggestion, it was a specific tone meant for a specific person, as such we need to consider what we are all getting into, the EU especially because the nuclear game Iran is aiming for will happen in the EU backyard with decades of damage to follow, anyone not seeing that is a clear and proper fool.

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November 17, 2020 · 22:39

The jeopardy lingo

It seems fitting that I do see sort of Homage to Jeopardy, I was never a fan like a lot are, but Alex Trebek pretty much put his heart and soul into that and it seems fitting that we acknowledge that, if only for that one simple part. This article is largely based on the Al Jazeera article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/17/report-us-military-buying-location-data-on-popular-muslim-apps)

So as we see “US military buys location data of popular Muslim apps: Report”, the question becomes ‘Who bought a lot of religious tainted data?’ Yes the military did. It was a setting that was always going to happen and there is every indication that this has been going in for quite a while. It is one of the flags that I saw coming over a year ago setting the stage that Saudi Arabia with its (at present) vastly superior 5G might want to offer apps and such from their locality. Even though it is not about the apps, but consider all US and EU data missing Arabic data, it is something to think about and I saw this scenario taking shape some time ago. 

Next we get “several used by Muslims that have been downloaded nearly 100 billion times” gets us to the question ‘Who at Motherboard was unable to count and weight their data properly?’, yes another point for the blogger, the numbers indicate that the apps in question had been downloaded by every person on the planet at least 12 Tims, in light of the fact that less than to thirds of the planet has an internet capable phone makes the setting a little dubious. 

And as it is time to see “Monday found the US Special Operations Command was procuring location data from several companies”, we get to ‘What did US politicians allow to happen in light of personal privacy?’ Which is a loaded question by itself. You see there is every indication that a lot of people have all kinds of apps, there is another indication that those in the extreme know (those who know extreme actions taking place) have a digital footprint that is close to zero, as such I actually wonder how interesting the data is, as I downloaded the Quran on Android, they might have my details, well good luck to the and if they get personal details on Olivia Wilde, Laura Vandervoort, Leslie Bibb, Natasha McElhone or Olivia Munn, would US Special command please forward that to my personal phone? I gratefully thank you in advance for that. 

As such when we get to “the Motherboard investigation noted some companies obtain app location data when advertisers pay to insert their ads into peoples’ browsing sessions” we almost get to the end of round one where we wonder how foreign intelligence organisations react to the US military acquiring the location at a of its citizens. It is a slippery slope, you see if advertisers can buy it, why not the US military? Isn’t that a fair question? Stating that Halal Malik, on 34th street, best Islamic butcher in New York can get data, yet the US military can not is basically discrimination, as such there is a much larger station there and the question becomes, what additional data was given to the US Military that Malik was unable to get, which boils down to another level of discrimination. So when we get to Timmy the sea-rat Hawkins (allegedly his nickname) giving us “We strictly adhere to established procedures and policies for protecting the privacy, civil liberties, constitutional and legal rights of American citizens”, I reckon that it has the emphasis on ‘legal rights of American citizens’, anyone not in that group might not have any rights. So at that point we get to “it tracks 25 million devices inside the United States every month and 40 million elsewhere – including in the European Union, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region” we get to ‘What rights do the 40 million tracked mobile devices have?’, yup they allegedly have none, but that is a speculation from my side, in addition how many players outside of Al Jazeera have this and how much visibility will this part not get, especially in Europe, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I reckon France (for obvious reasons) will go along with whatever the politicians connected to this will say to them. 

You see there is an almost dangerous setting when we see “US Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard that X-Mode also admitted selling data it collected to other “US military customers”” I am setting the emphasis on ‘almost’, from my point of view if you have no issues with commercial corporations digging on your needs, then why object to governments doing the same thing? As I personally see it, there is a lot more to question when healthcare insurers get your data than the government does. It seems almost fair, they all get access, and this is what I stated again and again is the price of free apps and free social media, so now that the cat is out of the bag (he is just to the right of your peripheral vision) we will see all these people scream, shout and cry yet I wonder why and what do you have to hide? It pretty much boils down to something (I believe it was Stephen Fry) that was said “If you do not want your nude pictures on the internet, do not pose naked”, the man has a point and it is a point we can adapt or use in emphasis as the actor Chris Evans gave joy to a billion woman, whilst setting his staff to the notion to go vote. Yes that was an accidental unintended pun. 

So even if we consider both ends of the spectrum and the setting where we keep all our data sacred and separate, we will soon find that it is much to late for that. Apart from the things I reported recently giving some people 5 versions of the customer data, and part from these mishaps, there is a whole station of data that is on back-ups, legacy systems and there is close to no stage of any kind of legal rights. We saw the Guardian give us close to a year ago ‘NHS data is a goldmine. It must be saved from big tech’, if you really think that big tech is the larger danger you are quite out of your mind. Even now we see the emotional response to Islamic data on Al Jazeera, so how about your health data available for health instances to tweak your annual premium, or them adjusting the questionnaire? Did you consider the simple question ‘How often do you smoke?’, whilst most people automatically answer ‘Don’t smoke’, yet social media has you puffing something and the health records give them certain other parameters, so when they ask you for verification purposes, you unwillingly set yourself up for a massive price hike, or a stage where you might be discontinued as a customer when you actually need help, because they will claim you lied. The setting eludes a lot of people but it is an important stage, because there are close to a dozen other settings the will give you health issues when you turn 50, 60 and when you are pre-dead.

Which almost gets us to the question ‘Who, what, when, where, how, why for $50’ and you will see that the bulk of the people are not ready for what is linked behind it all.

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