Tag Archives: the Guardian

July 26, 2017 · 13:58

Balloons a Pollo from Brussels

The guardian is giving us another issue a mere few hours ago. The article ‘Brussels attacks Liam Fox’s ‘ignorant’ remarks on chlorinated chicken‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/25/brussels-attacks-liam-foxs-ignorant-remarks-chlorinated-chicken-eu-trade-deal-us) is showing us that the UK Trade secretary has been stepping on toes, and off course, we get Brussels to scream fowl. In this the quote “lowering UK food standards to allow the import of chlorinated chicken from the US is an insignificant detail” we might argue that lowering food standards is never ever a good thing, yet in all as the EU is talking about optional UK food standards whilst even now dozens of people are getting arrested in regards to the production and sale of equine beef burgers. Now, they still have a case regarding the quality of food. I reckon that Liam Fox is making a few mistakes. Not merely regarding the Chickens. You see, getting chlorine chickens into the UK, creating an additional danger to the NHS and increasing obesity and Type 2 diabetes is not merely a mistake, it is more of a gastronomic blunder of poised proportions. So as we see a composed (or is that a decomposing) Liam Fox, trying to impress whomever he reports to with securing a quick trade deal, we see that the medication is a lot worse than the disease. When we take an academic gander to the cellulitis side of the equation, we see (at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5393257/), that the issue is not merely the swelling of egos, the issue as given in 2014 gives us “Recently, evidence has linked environmental chemicals with obesity, insulin resistance, and T2D. In January 2011, the US National Toxicology Program and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences held a workshop that evaluated the science assessing exposure to certain chemicals with the development of these disorders. A main conclusion was that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have generated particularly strong evidence as a risk factor for T2D in humans.”

This now matters as POP’s, or stated Persistent organic pollutants are an actual hidden danger. We get part of this from the youthful youngling from Oxford named Paula Baillie-Hamilton. In 2002 she came up with the hypothesis linking exposure to chemicals with obesity, and this premise is now gaining credence, as stated in the article. So, 15 years ago she got some level of evidence (or a hunch) that seen in the paper ‘Chemical toxins: a hypothesis to explain the global obesity epidemic‘ was to some degree ignored in early studies. The paper goes is a lot deeper (see the links earlier), in all the upsetting phrases ‘appetite controls‘, ‘alter developmental programming of the endocrine controls of metabolism‘ as well as ‘differentiation of adipocytes, resulting in obesity in the future‘. These are not mere quick words, these are upsetting phrases. Now, a little sidestep for the non-academics (and to clear the palate); in the TV-Series ‘Supernatural‘ which is hilarious and of course none of it is true, we see in the season 7, in the episode named “How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters” the premise ‘the Leviathan were working on a food additive designed to render humans complacent and mindless‘, now we can laugh about that, but here we see academic proof that even though we are not becoming mindless, that the so called appetite control, metabolism control and predestination towards obesity and type 2 diabetes dangers that could be a given are the consequences of POP’s (Persistent Organic Pollutants) which are very real risks, and even worse it’s the fact that there is an indication that politicians expect us to remain complacent about it. In part IV.b of that paper we see the question ‘Are obesogens unequivocally harmful?‘, mind you, the text here reads a little strange (mainly because it is an academic work), so when we see “if there is continuous excess energy intake, it will lead to consequent increase of fatty acid spillover into plasma and provide substrate availability for triglyceride synthesis in other tissues such as liver, skeletal muscle, myocardium, or even pancreas, increasing ectopic fat deposition, insulin resistance, and T2D” (T2D = Type 2 Diabetes), which reads to me like, if you continue eating, we get more fatty tissue and insulin resistance which gets us the Diabetes we never wanted in the first place. The claims here are not set in stone and there is a clear directive towards future research. In the conclusion we see “a growing body of evidence links T2D to background exposure to environmental chemicals, in particular chlorinated POPs“, so in this day and age of the NHS, Liam Fox decided to give the playing field to cheap chlorinated chickens. It is however not the only danger, as I exposed the world to certain events a few years ago. The US got into health hazards as the FDA decided to play stupid and hormonal treatments had not been properly vetted for long term dangers, in the end some were removed, yet others are increasingly not or badly examined. Now, we know that Hormones are banned in poultry, yet antibiotics are not. There have been health warnings on this all over the place, also in the US for the longest of times. I am speculating that the two together are potentially working together like a long term cocktail (Chlorinated POP’s & Antibiotics). So not only do US chickens promote the dangers of the population getting exposed to more and more antibiotics resistant bugs, the Chlorinated POP’s might leave us with even less resistance to fight these superbugs.

So, there is one side of the issue. Even as we agree that these chickens are a health hazard, the people are confronted more and more with the fact that they cannot afford to feed themselves at times and a 20% cheaper chicken will suddenly taste a lot better when you have to choose between the option of eating 6 out of 7 days, or have chicken twice a week and eat 7 days a week. You tell me what you would do. In addition, the quote “Fox accused the media of being obsessed with concerns about chlorine-washed chicken being sold in Britain, adding that “Americans have been eating it perfectly safely for years”“, we see that Liam might not just be ignorant, he might actually be stupid (which is still a valid condition to be in politics, US presidents have had that condition for decades). When we consider that well over 1 in 3 in the US is obese, in addition close to 10% of that population has type 2 diabetes, with roughly 1.4 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in United States every year, we see that the danger now becomes that one in five (20%) could have this condition before 2035, we are skating dangerously close to a flawed lifecycle that we are allowing to hit the next 3 generations. It is one way to cull the population, yet in equal measure the cost of living will take a downturn on a global scale if the health premise is right. Another part we see and should give serious consideration to is seen when we take the source (http://stateofobesity.org/diabetes/), when I slice the data to the hit states on recession in the US, than my statement on ‘chicken twice a week‘ gets a lot more foothold. the rising in places like West Virginia and Missouri give rise to my view, yet in opposition, when we consider the life in Utah as they relish their quality prime beef and the fact that they are 50^th on the US-state diabetes scale, we see that not only are cheap chickens an optional reason for diabetes; its dietary absence in a state like Utah is a speculated reason that not consuming chickens is also decreasing the diabetes wave by a lot. It is a mere 14.5% (WV) versus 7% (UT), which is a 100% difference!

So my question to Liam Fox at this moment becomes ‘Have you heard of long term consequences and did you properly investigate these?‘ My question is a valid given as the data out in the open from health institutions, from academic sources and the data openly available give a very grey view on the impact of healthcare. The fact that some of the proven research is well over 10 years old give even more questions towards the actions taken on Chlorine bathed chickens. Is it not equally interesting that one product made the difference in the ‘race to the bottom‘ as environment secretary Michael Gove gives us?

In finality on the academic side, the paper ‘Chlorinated Persistent Organic Pollutants, Obesity, and Type 2 Diabetes‘ came from Duk-Hee Lee, Miquel Porta, David R. Jacobs, Jr., and Laura N. Vandenberg. This is the paper where we see the reference to the paper by Paula (in section IV.A), with on the right side of that paper, dozens of other articles linked or contain references to all this. Some of them with titles a lot scarier than the one we used and the ones I looked at were all on an academic level, so this is not some speculative tabloid event.

Even as we look at the balloons in Brussels and as the evidence has been out in several ways, the Guardian article also calls for the immediate dismissal of Gianni Pitella. Unless he can bring evidential proof in the quote: “Gianni Pittella, leader of the socialist group in the European parliament, said: “I’m sure British citizens will be enthusiastic to go from the EU high standard control over chicken and food to the chlorinated, full of hormones, US chicken“, in light of the fact that the US had banned the use of hormones in poultry for the longest of times. So as he quickly made that statement, and seemingly replaced ‘antibiotics‘ with ‘hormones‘, who is he playing for?

He might look like a balloon (read: larger than life and extremely colourful), yet he is not alone, we see in equal measure the dangers within the UK, in this the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40703369) give us “Lord Krebs, the former chair of the Food Standards Agency, told the BBC that no-one was saying that US beef or chicken was unsafe but that the UK could not “have it both ways” when it came to a future trade deal“, which is another issue, because with ‘no-one was saying that US chicken was unsafe‘ we get new questions, as that is exactly what the academic evidence is implying, in addition there are other statistics to give the growing dangers in the US. We can easily agree that this is not merely because of Chicken, yet they are clearly an unhealthy factor here. In this, Lord Krebs (apparently a Baron in nature) is linked to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which is clearly linked to ethics in biopharmaceutical engineering (read: antibiotics as one small part of this field), we all know that there is nothing unethical about antibiotics, so whose team is he on? Now, he is not misstating any question, he is also right that the UK cannot have it both ways, in that many agree. Yet the dangers of these chlorine cleaned chickens go a lot further than those speaking are telling you and that is equally a danger to all those who get confronted by grilled chlorine chicken on their plate. The biggest danger is that the threat is not immediate, yet for the reading parents, the dangers that there is a clear showing that POP’s are linked to an increasingly growing population over 20 years of age, now with Type 2 diabetes, is that the future you wanted for your children?

I am the first to admit that this is a complex situation, it is ‘sharded’ with sharp issues on every side of multiple issues and there is a lot more required to give it a true (read: closer to the needed) proper verdict, which in light of the quote “Fox has dismissed the row as a minor detail of trade negotiations that have not yet even formally begun” is a misstatement. It is not a minor detail, the repercussions will hit the UK population in several ways and both Liam Fox as well as the speakers on this issue in the European Union seems to be in it for other reasons. The mere ‘emotional voiced claims‘ should be seen as evidence as it. In all, I am not presenting ‘other’ facts, I am merely presenting details that have been known for well over a decade, the fact that none of them make mention of these factors are all kinds of wrong, it is not what any person signed up for. In all this, I am merely a conservative stating to the conservative Secretary of State for International Trade that he has made a significant blunder. Time will tell if he comes forward and corrects himself, because that is the reality that any person in the UK is entitled to.

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Tagged as BBC, David R. Jacobs, David R. Jacobs Jr., Duk-Hee Lee, Food Standards Agency, Gianni Pittella, Laura N. Vandenberg, Liam Fox, Lord Krebs, Michael Gove, Miquel Porta, Missouri, Nuffield Council on Bioethics, obesogens, Oxford, Paula Baillie-Hamilton, Secretary of State for International Trade, Supernatural, the Guardian, Type 2 diabetes, US National Toxicology Program, Utah, West Virginia

July 24, 2017 · 13:20

How to pay for it?

Yesterday’s news is not new. We have all heard the options, the opposition and the recrimination. Yet the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/23/uk-arms-sales-to-saudis-continued-after-airstrike-on-yemen-funeral) gives out more to ask of those who are on the moral ethical high ground and as such we need to make considerations, from within ourselves and towards others choosing for us.

You see, I am not stating that they are wrong, or that there isn’t an issue. We need to ask ourselves whether we should take blame of responsibility of the actions of other governments. So consider the £283m. When we consider the 2017 spring budget, that one sale takes care of the Education and health bill for spring 2017 and potentially leaves us with enough to pay the Debt interest for that quarter. So, what will these campaigners do when they are opted for one (the deal) or the other which would be no health or education money? I always love campaigners who in a downed economy make demands and have no clue or no solution on how to pay for it all. It is a really lovely group of non-deciders in most of the events.

What would I do?

I would happily go to Riyadh with my new BAE business card and sell them whatever systems they need to keep their nation safe. You see, it is the right of any nation to defend their nation. The application of the weapons purchased is up to them. Guns do not kill people, people kill people, it is basic and as I see it the correct dimensionality of a situation.

So when I read “the UK trade secretary, Liam Fox, delayed signing a set of export licences and his officials prepared for sales to Saudi Arabia to be suspended. However, documents obtained by the Guardian revealed that the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, advised him that the sales should continue, as he judged there was no clear risk that British weapons would be used for serious breaches of international humanitarian law“, like Boris Johnson, I see no real issue. The fact that he added: ‘serious breaches of international humanitarian law‘ as a condition was politically fair enough and perhaps a definite essential condition. It seems a little cowardly, but at what point would there be a serious consideration there? Even Iran might not fall into that category, leaving us with only North Korea, Al-Qaeda and ISIS as actual risk factors and we do not deal with these three anyway.

When someone states that I am wrong and there is a clear risk with Saudi Arabia transgressing there, my question would be: ‘Show me that evidence‘. After which I get a lot of speculative mumbo jumbo and no evidence at all. In this day and age we need to consider the choices to select which is fair enough, yet to give rise to campaigners on speculative events whilst they are willing to give silence in the case of Javier Martin-Artajo, Julien Grout and Bruno Iksil, willing to shrug the shoulders and walk away without anger or indignation. Such persons are all about feigned morality because there was no blood. So how many people lost their quality of life for a long time whilst JP Morgan Chase & Co lost £4.7 billion? You think that this was merely printed money, people lost all levels of hard worked gains, pensions, savings and other losses were endured. So as we read in that case “the Department of Justice said it “no longer believes that it can rely on the testimony” of Bruno Iksil, the trader dubbed the London Whale, based on recent statements and writings he made that hurt the case” (source: the Guardian), I feel like this was an orchestrated event. First get the accusations out, make a final thrust for your own acquittal and then write a little more making it all unreliable? Consider not what he lost (stated at 80%), but that he got to keep 20% of some $6m a year (paid more than one year), in addition, whatever the DoJ agreed to in 2013, which might be his house and a few other things. So he got to keep an amount that is exceedingly more than whatever I have made or will make for my entire life, a mere 2 years of his. So as we see about extradition issues, we now see that all three walk away.

This relates to the arms deal as the consequences of that part are merely speculative and it pays for a chunk of the government budget, so I will take a job there willingly any day of the week, presenting the technological marvels of the F-35 JSF missile which can be set to the bulk of the Saudi Arabian fighters. I will gladly take the reduced 1% commission and sell 5,000-10,000 missiles, after which I fly to Egypt and sell a few more. If that gets education and health funded in the UK for the entire year, so much the better! I will sleep like a baby knowing that education and health care are safe and set in stone to be funded. My presentations would be the best stellar presentations of them all. So F.U. (sorry for this instance of Post Enhousiastic Sales Drama) to both Raytheon and Northrop Grumman!

As we can imagine at times we need to take heed (read: listen to) campaigners, when the going was good (20 years ago) and we had several options to take a high moral stance, yet at present with a collapsing NHS, with politicians showing less and less backbone against large corporations on taxation issues, the United Kingdom has a responsibility towards its citizens, not just to keep them safe, but to offer some level of any future. Those campaigners seem to think that money grows on trees and have no idea on how to get things funded; in the UK the UK Labour party is perhaps the most striking evidence of all. As Jeremy Corbyn is now in denial on student debt issues, as he was intentionally vague during the election race. Of course apart from not winning (thank god for that), the realisation that he has no options, no methods and no way to get any level of budget done without raising the current debt by at least 50% and initially projected at 80%, the question becomes, how it would have ever been paid for as people like this, and campaigners against certain paths (read: perhaps for the right ideological reasons) have no way to deal with the national issues. Leaving people with much harsher debts, increased taxation and less social security as it can no longer be paid for.

I am not against ideology, I do not believe that dedicated pacifism is a cowardly stance; it is often quite a brave stance. Yet, it is equally often not a realistic one. We can all go to Hacksaw Ridge and be amazed of the events Andrew Garfield’s character went through, showing us some of what the real Desmond Doss went through, and we can admire his stance and his courage. Yet in the end, without the thousands armed forces in the 77^th Infantry division, the battle would have been lost. It does not diminish the actions of this one highly decorated person, I am merely stating that the 77^th held its ground and was victorious in the end, yet we should never forget that it is still regarded as the bloodiest battle in the history of WW2, with 50,000 allied lives lost and well over 100,000 Japanese casualties.

We make choices in war and in peace. I believe that every sovereign nation has its rights for defence, we cannot vouch for the articles of war in offense and that is not our responsibility. It is not for the salesperson of equipment to say and even the campaigner for peace needs to realise that there is a stance to take, even if it is a valid choice to oppose offensive actions, we must realise that any self-governing nation can deal with its enemies in the way they seem fit, when it becomes too unacceptable we need to accept that places like the United Nations will take the appropriate actions.

So how is this different?

It should not be, but it is. Ask yourself how you would act. We can always act holier than thou when we can afford it, yet when we are confronted with being hungry or to some degree making a questionable deal that is not criminal, and it is perfectly legal, but we cannot foresee the consequence. Is it still wrong to do it? Consider that we cannot predict the future and this is not merely a legal ‘more likely than not‘. It is about legally acting correct and morally acting optionally questionable, because that is where the stance is. Should we interfere with the right of Saudi Arabia to defend itself and act, or become judging and act towards denying them that right? This is the view I think that the campaigners are not taking correctly, too hastily and in judgement of ‘some’ moral principle. Now, I am not stating that they cannot do that, it is their right and their expression of free will, but in all this, they must also than accept the setting that they will have to voice: ‘We have decided to stop all NHS healthcare and education for the upcoming Autumn 2017, as we stopped the revenue that would have guaranteed it‘, that must then be in equal measure their acceptance in this. I wonder how the doctors, nurses and teachers feel at that point.

In this we now see another part grow. Even as we agree to some extent with the quote of “The terrible funeral bombing should have been a time for reflection and for the UK to reconsider its uncritical political and military support for Saudi Arabia“, we accept that ideologically Andrew Smith, spokesman for Campaign Against Arms Trade has a right and perhaps even a valid point, yet does he?

When we see “‘Incorrect information’ meant hall in Sana’a was mistaken for military target, leading to 140 deaths, says US-backed mission” (source: the Guardian) we need to know a lot more, the actual Intel, the raw data and the decision tree. When we also see “The air operation centre in Yemen, it added, directed a “close air support mission” to target the site without approval from the coalition’s command“, we can argue and question a few issue, yet in all, who authorised the action? How was the coalition command set up? If there was an approval at any level it takes the pilot out of the equation (read: likely he was never a consideration in the first place), so even as we see questions on the actions, even when we read “Dozens of citizens fell as martyrs or were wounded in this attack by planes of the Saudi-American aggression“, whilst the actions of the Houthi rebels are left in silence by too many, including the indiscriminate shelling of places. Any war is a place where it took two to tango, which does not absolve any side of considerations, yet in all I see often a complete lack of complete information, or better stated more precise and more complete information to the extent that was possible. Even now as Yemen is using ballistic missiles attacking a Saudi Oil refinery, as Mines are killing Saudi Soldiers, we see that Yemen remains active, shooting missiles close to 600 miles into Saudi Arabia, so as such, I think that the time of recriminations are over, they have been over for some time. Even now, merely 5 hours ago, we see that Nayef al-Qaysi, governor of the central province of al-Bayda was removed from office because of his ties with Al-Qaeda. Now, the source here is the Miami Herald, and others are voicing pretty much the same article. I cannot state one or the other, yet when we see these events unfold, giving rise to one or the other without proper visible intelligence is not a given. Yet in all this, when we take the original title and make this: ‘UK approved £283m of arms sales to Saudis to fight Al-Qaeda‘ (read: personal merging of different timed facts), at that point how many campaigners would we hear? Can we agree that if Nayef al-Qaysi has ties to Al-Qaeda, they would have been there for some time?

A piece of intelligence that I and perhaps many others would not have had last October, so should I not have sold these weapons to Saudi Arabia? I do not think that I had any valid opposition to not sell and whenever we campaign (even for the best and most valid of reasons) is always a loaded gun and that loaded gun is always aimed at the victims of these actions. In my presented case it would have been the people in need of NHS treatments and students. Any person proclaiming that they have the whole picture is usually lying to you, apart from the General of the Saudi armed forces there would be almost no other person in possessions of all the facts and even then we can state with a certain level of certainty that this person did not have ALL the facts. This is what makes the opposition to any debatable act a dangerous path. We can at best hope for acting in a non-illegal manner and that is exactly what happened in this case. It was a legal transaction, one that was essential for the coffers of the United Kingdom.

We need to learn how to compartmentalise. It is in our best interest to do what is correct and to do what our bosses want of us. When we try to grow beyond that cubicle we tend to speculate on what is best and even if we agree that thinking things through is never a bad thing, unless it is our responsibility we have to act according to our better angels, which means no in opposition of law. Is it not interesting that when that happens, more often than not these actions were greed based and those transgressors should be prosecuted by law, which in the case of hedge funds traders is almost 0%, so if we want ideology, it should be on the evolution of legislation to stop economic exploitation. Yet at that point, how many campaigners remain? I reckon that list slims down a lot, because economic transgressions are not sexy enough, or it is like a happy lottery ticket that nearly everyone wants and in case of Bruno Iksil when it amounts to 20% of many millions, I would love to get that lottery ticket as well, I saw a nice place in Cognac, where I would happily retire to. A mere €850K, which would leave me well over €100K a year to live off for the rest of my life, whilst the house (read: villa) had been paid for. I admit it is a lifestyle I would embrace if it was limited to one questionable, non-illegal act. It will not make me a criminal, merely a person not hiding behind some hypocrite high moral code of conduct.

Until campaigners get in the stage of life on how to pay for their daily meal and proceed on that moral high ground, that is the first step in filtering the actual ideologists from the hypocrites, an essential first step, yet in the end, they too need to accept that some sides of life need to get paid for and they cannot vote to make thousands abstain from essential needs. It is not fair and not pretty but that is the place that deep debts have pushed us all into, the mere acceptance of our to the smallest degree of changed options in upholding any quality of life.

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Tagged as 77th Infantry division, al-Bayda, Al-Qaeda, Andrew Smith, BAE Systems, Boris Johnson, Brian Garfield, Bruno Iksil, Campaign Against Arms Trade, Cognac, Department of Justice, Desmond Doss, DoJ, Egypt, F-35 JSF missile, Hacksaw Ridge, Houthi rebels, Iran, ISIS, Javier Martin-Artajo, Jeremy Corbyn, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Julien Grou, Liam Fox, Mimi Herald, Nayef al-Qaysi, NHS, North-Korea, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, reuters, Saudi Arabia, the Guardian, UK, UK Labour Party, UK trade secretary, Yemen

July 21, 2017 · 12:41

Opinions are like dicks

This is going to be a weird day; I can feel it in my bones. Whenever my hair goes 180 degrees into the other direction, I know the day will be rough. It turned slightly rougher when I saw the piece by Christina Patterson in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/20/porn-warps-culture-credit-card-footprint), there are a few issues with the article as I personally see it. You see, the people have had their say on porn for the longest amount of times. For me it is one of the ‘holiest of places’ as it shows the people just how hypocrite they can get. She starts right of the bat with “Many of us can remember the shock. Naked ladies!” and that is coming from a woman who should accept the natural part of her body as… natural. OK, she added after that “In a magazine!” it merely shows you all how ignorant she actually is as she passed the half century mark (an age thing). So, if you ever go to Amsterdam, one of the musts will be the Sex Museum. You see, it is actually merely a few minutes from Amsterdam Central Station, it is one of the cheapest museums in Amsterdam to visit and it is a real eye opener. There you are confronted with paintings, sculptures and other art. Also objects like an Ivory Dildo, snuffboxes depicting porn, all items with some of them going back to the 16^th century. Art covers on Vinyl’s (a 70’s thing) and even a street showing on how the red light district was and still is to some degree. It is actually informative both the adult boys and girls, and this museum is also highly recommended to visit as a couple. So when she goes on about “But, still, to see those naked ladies, as you giggled with your friend, was a shock“, we can say that this is fair enough. Not everyone feels comfortable seeing nudity. So as we see “porn has moved on a bit since then” we need to correct her a little. There are pornography shots going back to the 1900’s taken with the earliest cameras. Consider that Playboy started in 1953 and Penthouse in 1965 and July 1974 saw the beginning of Hustler. The growth for more explicit pictures was not just uncanny; the entire Sexual revolution in the 70’s gave the start for a porn empire of magazines and classifieds that grew into a multi-billion dollar industry within 20 decades. Now, Christina is certainly allowed her views in all this. Yet, the hypocrisy is actually seen when you know more about the background of certain things and just like the age of hypocrisy grows, the church gets involved (as I see it, it fuelled it). So it is time to get back to Larry Flynn to give it a certain ambiance. To get the sides right we need to add that in August 1933 Jerry Lamon Falwell Sr. was born (not named senior at birth though), a conservative and an American Southern Baptist Pastor, a ‘so called’ pillar of the community. The man was in the eyes of certain people hypocrite, now we can say that most televangelists tend to be hypocrites to a certain degree, yet this man took it beyond normal measures. So when we read some of his idea’s (idea’s that he is allowed to have) and we see “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals” as well as “If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being“, you can imagine how some will react. By the way, I have met both Hindu’s and Muslims who have shown more what some call ‘Christian values’ (like helping thy neighbour, care for the weak and be charitable) than most Christians EVER will. So there!

In all this Larry Flynn saw in this man a valid target to ridicule some of the hypocrite values that were shown, the entire matter had gone to court over and over until it got to the Supreme Court in 1988, here we get Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988), which ended in an 8-0 unanimous decision for Larry Flynn. You see, when you see the quote “According to a report commissioned by the NSPCC last year, about half of 11- to 16-year-olds have seen explicit sexual material online. They were, the report said, more likely to find it accidentally than to seek it out“, I would like to remind certain members of the hypocrite political branch that they merely did this to themselves. To explain that, I have to take you back to the early 90’s. The internet was no longer Arpanet and started to take off. It was around 1993 when certain parties had a first issue with adult entertainment. It was growing like wildfire and anyone with knowledge of HTML could get a nice paid job in that industry instantly. Which was in the days when security was a decent joke and those in the know around it did not need a subscription, merely the IP number and the right path to the art and you could easily save the directory with all the artwork (awesome access in early internet days). Yet the serious vendors in this industry understood certain values and were willing to talk around certain domains, providing that there would be no restrictions beyond that. Of course certain conservative players were all in arms (because the pastor called them) and the so called hypocrite god fearing community ware all in opposition even before the day ended. You see, these people living in pretence of having virtues and moral principles pleaded the immorality of porn and then went to the nearest hooters and after a few beers would seek out the closest hooker to get a blow job (speculative thought). Yet that one moment, the option when the adult industry wanted their own part in responsibility (.XXX had been voiced) we see the church who opposes that and subsequently fucks the choirboys in whatever hole they could, which is less speculative as the Catholic church is confronted with sexual abuse numbers that exceed 100,000 abuse victims in the US alone. That has been one of the driving forces on immorality. The movie Spotlight (with Michael Keaton & Mark Ruffalo) gives only part of the issue, all true, based on clear evidence from the investigative reporting of the Boston Globe. At present, in Australia over 4,000 alleged cases exist. With 90% of them boys with the average age being below 12 (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-06/child-sex-abuse-royal-commission:-data-reveals-catholic-abuse/8243890), so whilst we see that as implied the political branch was all up in arms, they took advice from a collection of paedophiles. Great job!

So in the early 90’s there was an option to give less options to accidently get to these adult entertainment places, yet now we see the other part in all this. If ‘sex sells’ than advertising would be more valuable there. So when the world gets to live with the factor that one domain would be (speculatively estimated) well over 60% of all traffic, how much value would the other places have for advertisement?

The second issue is seen with “Expert witnesses told the women and equalities committee last year that girls are now wearing shorts under their skirts, in an attempt to survive the “normalised culture of sexual harassment in schools”. Children, in other words, are being stripped of their childhoods“, this is indeed pretty awful. Yet when we see the Netherlands we get (at http://www.ad.nl/binnenland/overheid-heeft-pedofilie-jarenlang-gedoogd~a870a359/), the title gives the goods ‘Overheid heeft pedofilie jarenlang gedoogd‘, which translates to “the government has silently accepted paedophilia for years” (there is a fair issue that the translation should be ‘tolerated’ and not ‘silently accepted’ which is my take on the issue as it was given), the entire mess is partially to blame on a political and police system that preferred to remain in denial, perhaps the names Jimmy Saville & Garry Glitter ring a bell in the UK?

So when Christina comes with her (validly allowed) view of “Oh, and users may be asked to give credit card details, and perhaps even be charged a small fee. A fee that might appear on a bank statement that might, for example, be seen by your wife“, I see her as no more than a condescending tart. You see, that is exactly the problem how the issue is not avoided, not solved, but would allow for the issues to be pushed towards ‘somewhere else’. So, as some firms will offer photo forums on Dark web (some extreme players already do), she is basically setting the stage for more wide stream groups to go to Dark web too. The problem there is that there will be no oversight and even less control of who goes there or what they will see and face. That was a really bright idea from Sandra Dee Patterson (not!). The entire issue could have been averted well over 20 years ago, but she is now upping the ante by having even less control, less insight and less oversight, and close to no monitoring options. The dangers that these high school boys and girls will get the pictures of boys and girls through their smartphone to the Dark web would speculatively go up 10 fold as the investigating parties do not have an overview and even less options to monitor and retrieve Dark web events. This adds up to more dangers and less protective options for the people actually in the line of work of trying to protect victims.

So even as Christina does not have a husband, she made matters optionally worse for millions of wives and double the amount of worry for these mothers, a real bright move Christina! Yet it is her view and she is entitled to it.

So now we get to the funny part with “It’s possible, of course, that people watch this stuff and remain loving partners and pillars of society. It’s more likely that they don’t. It’s possible, of course, that people watch this stuff and remain loving partners and pillars of society. It’s more likely that they don’t. I’ve interviewed a number of men whose porn addiction, and sexting habits, have lost them their marriage, their jobs and their homes. These are the extremes, of course, but there’s not much doubt that porn is changing our culture whose porn addiction, and sexting habits, have lost them their marriage, their jobs and their homes. These are the extremes, of course, but there’s not much doubt that porn is changing our culture“, you see, it is funny as the mention of ‘I’ve interviewed a number of men‘, how many? You see, places like Pornhub have around 15 million unique visits a day, so at best she has talked to 0.00006% of that population ever, so as 99.99994% is unknown, how did she get any real feel of what that population is like? there is no doubt in my mind that the largest part reflects near adult (or recently adult) boys with hormonal drives and more likely than not with speedy hands, there is also a growing trend (as speculated by others) that the amount of women taking a peek is a lot larger now than it was 5 and 10 years ago. Yet the largest group will soon outgrow this phase and as these young man end up with a girl happy to spend time in a bedroom or any room naked with them their need will focus on actual sex than watching it (just my speculation on the matter).

The next quote is actually important. As she states “The internet has already changed so much of our culture. We rage. We shriek. We hate. We do this in the name of “free speech”. We buy things with a click. We swipe for sex. We want instant everything, all the time. And we want it all to be free“, she hits the large nail with a slightly too small a hammer, because it is not merely on the free content, it is the question on how the content was acquired. This is a larger issue than you think. Some will give 10 pics free and hope that the person subscribes for $10 to see the 89 other photos and an additional movie with 1080p for any computer or mobile device, as well as a million fold more images and movies for a mere $10 a month. Sex sells so as 99 might not go there, 1 will and 1% of 15 million visitors still adds up to a massive amount of money, it easily sells itself. Yet the part that she ignores is that when the people go to the Dark web, the origin of the photos will be less straightforward. It could be the old BBS ‘peer to peer system’, when you upload one movie (or photo) you get to download ten additional movies. So how long until these people let’s say in year 12 start finding ways to get some unclad pictures of young women? That is the danger that parents are more than likely to face. When it was all on the up and up there was some option of monitoring and control, I fear that certain pushes in the UK will start to push in very wrong directions.

In the end the idea of age proof is not bad, it might even be good, yet the way around it will need some very diplomatic and technological hands, because it is not merely how it is done, the idea that junior gets a hold of dad’s credit card and personal details is not really that far-fetched, so how long until the debating parents on issues of ‘perversion’ realise that it was junior all along? As I see it, the idea is not bad, you merely need to go around it another way on getting an anonymous database system that could function as a non-repudiation system that merely require the need to set the premise of 18+, which is actually a fair system in light of the other opportunities wasted by those who looked at the bible and chose Luke 12, John 9 and Mark 10 to get their jollies off. There is however one upside (apart from the 18+), as we are more and more pushed to the new IPv6, when that happens we could revisit the entire 1993 event and allow a part of IPv6 to be unmonitored and explicitly for adult entertainment. By the way, which is also good to know is that some of the adult entertainment players wanted some sort of segregation to keep it safe away from children, so in that Christina is pretty much on their side with “It’s children they were trying to protect, and the only way to protect those children is to make all users of online porn leap through a few hoops“, in that, that in those days there would have been option to for example to add .XXX to a sort of ‘child lock’ system as US cable TV had (which would have been the next step in the US with AOL), this made sense as AOL grew from 200,000 uses to 34,000,000 in the height of their now no longer existing empire. Yet at that point there was a good option to get a handle on issues, but the uppity religious hypocrites pushed them into the WWW at any address they could, some even merely living through IP addresses.

We can never totally avoid that the wrong people (age wise) go there, yet in all this we can avoid the chance of people going there accidently. We merely need to accept as it has been proven through the centuries that some claim that our heavenly father came up with all that lives and grows and on the 7^th day, either Adam or Eve (not pointing fingers here Adam!), one of the two came up with adult entertainment.

So in the end, opinions are like dicks and perhaps in this I am a dick at present, yet as I see it, when we see that porn has been around for well over 4,000 years, it is time to stop being huffy, puffy and stupid around it. If protecting children was truly the only concern, the bulk of the Catholic Church should be in prison spending double digits in Sing Sing. This reminds me of A Jimmy Carr joke, ‘the innocent members of the College of Cardinals were questioned on the issue of Sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church; they were both sickened by the notion!‘ (The College of Cardinals has 225 members). If the politicians got religion out of all of this (and especially the linked hypocrisy) we could have had protective solutions for the longest of times, so focussing on a solution that works, instead of some half-baked system that allows for conceited stigmatisation, we could actually get somewhere, yet at present, when we see how certain parties play their media game, the dangers are growing to an overwhelming rate that in the end, more and more adult entertainment internet sites are pushed into the Dark web, next to the actual sleazy extreme adult sites that upsets the bulk of the entire planet. It will push too many under aged people there too, the one place where they suddenly have additional optional access to weapons and drugs in their raised hormonal state, a dangerous escalation to say the least.

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Tagged as 485 U.S. 46 (1988), ABC, Algemeen Dagblad, American Southern Baptist Pastor, Amsterdam Central Station, AOL, Boston Globe, Catholic Church, Christina Patterson, College of Cardinals, Garry Glitter, Hustler, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, Jerry Lamon Falwell Sr, Jimmy Carr, Jimmy Saville, Larry Flynn, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Netherlands, NSPCC, Penthouse, Playboy, Pornhub, Sex Museum, Sing Sing, Spotlight, the Guardian, USA

July 20, 2017 · 16:14

When the trust is gone

In an age where we see an abundance of political issues, an overgrowing need to sort things out, the news that was given visibility by the Guardian is the one that scared and scarred me the most. With ‘Lack of trust in health department could derail blood contamination inquiry‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/19/lack-of-trust-in-health-department-could-derail-blood-contamination-inquiry), we need to hold in the first stage a very different sitting in the House of Lords. You see, the issues (as I am about to explain them), did not start overnight. In this I am implying that a sitting with in the dock Jeremy Hunt, Andrew Lansley, Andy Burham and Alan Johnson is required. This is an issue that has grown from both sides of the Isle and as such there needs to be a grilling where certain people are likely to get burned for sure. How bad? That needs to be ascertained and it needs to be done as per immediate. When you see “The contamination took place in the 1970s and 80s, and the government started paying those affected more than 25 years ago” the UK is about to get a fallout of a very different nature. We agree that this is the term that was with Richard Crossman, Sir Keith Joseph, Barbara Castle, David Ennals, Patrick Jenkin, Norman Fowler, and John Moore. Yet in that instance we need to realise that this was in an age that was pre computers, pre certain data considerations and a whole league of other measures that are common place at this very instance. I remember how I aided departments with an automated document system, relying on 5.25″ floppy’s, with the capability that was less than Wordstar or PC-Write had ever offered. And none of those systems had any reliable data storage options.

The System/36 was flexible and powerful for its time:

It allowed 80 monitors (see below for IBM’s description of a monitor) and printers to be connected. All users could access the system’s hard drive or any printer.
It provided password security and resource security, allowing control over who was allowed to access any program or file.
Devices could be as far as a mile from the system unit.
Users could dial into a System/36 from anywhere in the world and get a 9600 baud connection (which was very fast in the 1980s) and very responsive for connections which used only screen text and no graphics.
It allowed the creation of databases of very large size. It supported up to about 8 million records, and the largest 5360 with four hard drives in its extended cabinet could hold 1.453 gigabytes.
The S/36 was regarded as “bulletproof” for its ability to run many months between reboots (IPLs).

Now, why am I going to this specific system, as the precise issues were not yet known? You see in those days, any serious level of data competency was pretty much limited to IBM, at that time Hewlett Packard was not yet to the level it became 4 years later and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) who revolutionised systems with VAX/VMS and it became the foundation, or better stated true relational database foundations were added through Oracle Rdb (1984), which would actually revolutionise levels of data collection.

Now, we get two separate quotes (not from the article) “Dr Jeremy Bradshaw Smith at Ottery St Mary health centre, which, in 1975, became the first paperless computerised general practice“, as well as “It is not developed or intended for use in any inherently dangerous applications, including applications that may create a risk of personal injury. If you use this software or hardware in dangerous applications, then you shall be responsible to take all appropriate fail-safe, backup, redundancy, and other measures to ensure its safe use“, the second one comes from the Oracle Rdb SQL Reference manual. The second part seems a bit of a stretch; consider the original setting of this. When we see Oracle’s setting of data integrity, consider the elements given (over time) that are now commonplace.

System and object privileges control access to application tables and system commands, so that only authorized users can change data.

Referential integrity is the ability to maintain valid relationships between values in the database, according to rules that have been defined.
A database must be protected against viruses designed to corrupt the data.

I left one element out for the mere logical reasons.

now, in those days, the hierarchy of supervisors and system owners was nowhere near what it is now (and often nowhere to be seen), referential integrity was a mere concept and data viruses were mostly academic, that is until we get a small presentation by Ralf Burger in 1986. It was in the days of the Chaos Computer Club and my trusty CBM-64.

These elements are to show you that data integrity existed in academic purposes, yet the designers who were in their data infancy often enough had no real concept of rollback data events, some would only be designed too long later, and in all this, the application of databases to the extent that was needed. It would not be until 1982 when dBase II came to the PC market from the founding fathers of what would later be known as Ashton-Tate, George Tate and Hal Lashlee would create a wave that would get us dBase III and with the creation of Clipper by the Nantucket Corporation, which would give a massive rise to database creations as well as the growth of data products that had never been seen before, as well as being the player that in the end propelled data quality towards the state it is nowadays. In this product databases did not just grow with the network abilities within this product nearly any final year IT person could have its portfolio of clients all with custom based products all data based. Within 2-3 years (which gets us to 1989), a whole league of data quality, data cleaning and data integrity base issues would surface for millions of places, all requiring solutions. It is my personal conviction that this was the point where data became adult, where data cleaning, data rollback as well as data integrity checks became actual issues that were seriously dealt with. So, here in 1989 we are finally confronted with the adult data issues that for the longest of times were only correctly understood by more than a few niche people who were often enough disregarded (I know that for certain because I was one of them).

So the essential events that could have prevented only to some degree the events we see in the Guardian with “survivors initially welcomed the announcement, while expressing frustration that the decades-long wait for answers had been too long. The contamination took place in the 1970s and 80s“, certain elements would not come into existence until a decade later.

So when we see “Liz Carroll, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, wrote to May on Wednesday saying the department must not be involved in setting the remit and powers of an inquiry investigating its ministers and officials. She also highlighted the fact that key campaigners and individuals affected by the scandal had not been invited to the meeting“, I am not debating or opposing her in what could be a valid approach, I am merely stating that to comprehend the issues, the House of Lords needs to take the pulse of events and the taken steps forward from the Ministers who have been involved in the last 10 years.

When we see “We and our members universally reject meeting with the Department of Health as they are an implicated party. We do not believe that the DH should be allowed to direct or have any involvement into an investigation into themselves, other than giving evidence. The handling of this inquiry must be immediately transferred elsewhere“, we see a valid argument given, yet when we would receive testimonies from people, like the ministers in those days, how many would be aware and comprehend the data issues that were not even decently comprehended in those days? Because these data issues are clearly part of all of these events, they will become clear towards the end of the article.

Now, be aware, I am not giving some kind of a free pass, or give rise that those who got the bad blood should be trivialised or ignored or even set to a side track, I am merely calling for a good and clear path that allows for complete comprehension and for the subsequent need of actual prevention. You see, what happens today might be better, yet can we prevent this from ever happening again? In this I have to make a side step to a non-journalistic source, we see (at https://www.factor8scandal.uk/about-factor/), “It is often misreported that these treatments were “Blood Transfusions”. Not True. Factor was a processed pharmaceutical product (pictured)“, so when I see the Guardian making the same bloody mistake, as shown in the article, we see and should ask certain parties how they could remain in that same stance of utter criminal negligence (as I personally see it), but giving rise to intentional misrepresentation. When we see the quote (source: the Express) “Now, in the face of overwhelming evidence presented by Andy Burnham last month, Theresa May has still not ordered an inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the Department of Health in dealing with this human tragedy” with the added realisation that we have to face that the actual culprit was not merely data, yet the existence of the cause through Factor VIII is not even mentioned, the Guardian steered clear via the quote “A recent parliamentary report found around 7,500 patients were infected by imported blood products from commercial organisations in the US” and in addition the quote “The UK Public Health Minister, Caroline Flint, has said: “We are aware that during the 1970s and 80s blood products were sourced from US prisoners” and the UK Haemophilia Society has called for a Public Inquiry. The UK Government maintains that the Government of the day had acted in good faith and without the blood products many patients would have died. In a letter to Lord Jenkin of Roding the Chief Executive of the National Health Service (NHS) informed Lord Jenkin that most files on contaminated NHS blood products which infected people with HIV and hepatitis C had unfortunately been destroyed ‘in error’. Fortunately, copies that were taken by legal entities in the UK at the time of previous litigation may mean the documentation can be retrieved and consequently assessed“, the sources the Express and the New York Times, we see for example the quote “Cutter Biological, introduced its safer medicine in late February 1984 as evidence mounted that the earlier version was infecting hemophiliacs with H.I.V. Yet for over a year, the company continued to sell the old medicine overseas, prompting a United States regulator to accuse Cutter of breaking its promise to stop selling the product” with the additional “Cutter officials were trying to avoid being stuck with large stores of a product that was proving increasingly unmarketable in the United States and Europe“, so how often did we see the mention of ‘Cutter Biological‘ (or Bayer pharmaceuticals for that matter)?

In the entire Arkansas Prison part we see that there are connections to cases of criminal negligence in Canada 2006 (where Canadian Red Cross fell on their sword), Japan 2007 as well as the visibility of the entire issue at Slamdance 2005, so as we see the rise of inquiries, how many have truly investigated the links between these people and how the connection to Bayer pharmaceuticals kept them out of harm’s way for the longest of times? How many people at Cutter Biological have not merely been investigated, but also indicted for murder? When we get ‘trying to avoid being stuck with large stores of a non-sellable product‘ we get the proven issue of intent. Because there are no recall and destroy actions, were there?

Even as we see a batch of sources giving us parts in this year, the entire visibility from 2005-2017 shows that the media has given no, or at best dubious visibility in all this, even yesterday’s article at the Guardian shows the continuation of bad visibility with the blood packs. So when we look (at http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/aug/04/bad-blood-cautionary-tale/), and see the August 2011 part with “This “miracle” product was considered so beneficial that it was approved by the FDA despite known risks of viral contamination, including the near-certainty of infection with hepatitis“, we wonder how the wonder drug got to be or remain on the market. Now, there is a fair defence that some issues would be unknown or even untested to some degree, yet the ‘the near-certainty of infection with hepatitis‘ should give rise to all kinds of questions and it is not the first time that the FDA is seen to approve bad medication, which gives rise to the question why they are allowed to be the cartel of approval as big bucks is the gateway through their door. When we consider the additional quote of “By the time the medication was pulled from the market in 1985, 10,000 hemophiliacs had been infected with HIV, and 15,000 with hepatitis C; causing the worst medical disaster in U.S. history“, how come that it took 6 years for this to get decent amounts of traction within the UK government.

What happened to all that data?

You see, this is not merely about the events, I believe that if any old systems (a very unlikely reality) could be retrieved, how long would it take for digital forensics to find in the erased (not overwritten) records to show that certain matters could have been found in these very early records? Especially when we consider the infancy of data integrity and data cleaning, what other evidence could have surfaced? In all this, no matter how we dig in places like the BBC and other places, we see a massive lack of visibility on Bayer Pharmaceuticals. So when we look (at http://pharma.bayer.com/en/innovation-partnering/research-focus/hemophilia/), we might accept that the product has been corrected, yet their own site gives us “the missing clotting factor is replaced by a ‘recombinant factor’, which is manufactured using genetically modified mammalian cells. When administered intravenously, the recombinant factor helps to stop acute bleeding at an early stage or may prevent it altogether by regular prophylaxis. The recombinant factor VIII developed by Bayer for treating hemophilia A was one of the first products of its kind. It was launched in 1993“, so was this solution based on the evolution of getting thousands of people killed? the sideline “Since the mid-1970s Bayer has engaged in research in haematology focusing its efforts on developing new treatment options for the therapy of haemophilia A (factor VIII deficiency)“, so in all this, whether valid or not (depending on the link between Bayer Pharmaceuticals UK and Cutter Biological. the mere visibility on these two missing in all the mentions, is a matter of additional questions, especially as Bayer became the owner of it all between 1974 and 1978, which puts them clearly in the required crosshairs of certain activities like depleting bad medication stockpiles. Again, not too much being shown in the several news articles I was reading. When we see the Independent, we see ‘Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to meet victims’ families before form of inquiry is decided‘, in this case it seems a little far-fetched that the presentation by Andy Burham (as given in the Express) would not have been enough to give an immediate green light to all this. Even as the independent is hiding behind blood bags as well, they do give the caption of Factor VIII with it, yet we see no mention of Bayer or Cutter, yet there is a mention of ‘prisoners‘ and the fact that their blood was paid for, yet no mention of the events in Canada and Japan, two instances that gives rise to an immediate and essential need for an inquiry.

In all this, we need to realise that no matter how deep the inquiry goes, the amount of evidence that could have been wiped or set asunder from the eyes of the people by the administrative gods of Information Technology as it was between 1975 and 1989, there is a dangerous situation. One that came unwillingly through the evolution of data systems, one that seems to be the intent of the reporting media as we see the utter absence of Bayer Pharmaceuticals in all of this, whilst there is a growing pool of evidence through documentaries, ad other sources that seem to lose visibility as the media is growing a view of presentations that are skating on the subject, yet until the inquiry becomes an official part we see a lot less than the people are entitled to, so is that another instance of the ethical chapters of the Leveson inquiry? And when this inquiry becomes an actuality, what questions will we see absent or sidelined?

All this gets me back to the Guardian article as we see “The threat to the inquiry comes only a week after May ordered a full investigation into how contaminated blood transfusions infected thousands of people with hepatitis C and HIV“, so how about the events from 2005 onwards? Were they mere pharmaceutical chopped liver? In the linked ‘Theresa May orders contaminated blood scandal inquiry‘ article there was no mention of Factor VIII, Bayer (pharmaceuticals) or Cutter (biological). It seems that we need to give rise that ethical issues have been trampled on, so a mention of “a criminal cover-up on an industrial scale” is not a mere indication; it is an almost given certainty. In all that, as the inquiry will get traction, I wonder how both the current and past governments will be adamant to avoid skating into certain realms of the events (like naming the commercial players), and when we realise this, will there be any justice to the victims, especially when the data systems of those days have been out of time for some time and the legislation on legacy data is pretty much non-existent. When the end balance is given, in (as I personally see it) a requirement of considering to replace whatever Bayer Pharmaceuticals is supplying the UK NHS, I will wonder who will be required to fall on the virtual sword of non-accountability. The mere reason being that when we see (at http://www.annualreport2016.bayer.com/) that Bayer is approaching a revenue of 47 billion (€ 46,769M) in 2016, should there not be a consequence of the players ‘depleting unsellable stock‘ at the expense of thousands of lives? This is another matter that is interestingly absent from the entire UK press cycles. And this is not me just speculating, the sources give clear absence whilst the FDA reports show other levels of failing, it seems that some players forget that lots of data is now globally available which seems to fuel the mention of ‘criminal negligence‘.

So you have a nice day and when you see the next news cycle with bad blood, showing blood bags and making no mention of Factor VIII, or the pharmaceutical players clearly connected to all this, you just wonder who is doing the job for these journalists, because the data as it needed to be shown, was easily found in the most open of UK and US governmental places.

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Tagged as Alan Johnson, Andrew Lansley, Andy Burham, Andy Burnham, Barbara Castle, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Blood Transfusions, Caroline Flint, Chaos Computer Club, Cutter Biological, David Ennals, DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation, Dr Jeremy Bradshaw Smith, Factor VIII, FDA, George Tate, Haemophilia Society, Hal Lashlee, hepatitis C, Hewlett Packard, House of lords, IBM, Jeremy Hunt, John Moore, Leveson inquiry, Liz Carroll, Lord Jenkin of Roding, Ministry of Health, Nantucket Corporation, New York Times, NHS, Norman Fowler, Oracle Rdb, Oracle Rdb SQL, Patrick Jenkin, Ralf Burger, Richard Crossman, Sir Keith Joseph, Slamdance 2005, the Express, the Guardian, The Independent, Theresa May, UK NHS, United States, US, USA, VAX/VMS

July 17, 2017 · 11:16

Oh La L’argent

Reuters is giving us the news yesterday that there is trouble brewing in France. The article titled ‘France’s Macron says defense chief has no choice but to agree with him: JDD‘ (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-defence-idUSKBN1A00TE). The best way to trivialise this is by going on the fact that the world’s 6^th most spending nation on defence is cutting the defence of France back by almost a billion. Now, for the number one and two spenders in this field, that is a laughable amount. In the national terms it is a little below 2% of that total budget. In light of the UK NHS and other players needing to trim the fat and handover a pound of beef that amount is equally laughably low, yet for France? The article gives us in addition ““If something opposes the military chief of staff and the president, the military chief of staff goes,” Macron, who as president is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, told Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD)“, we can see this as hard talk and a kind warning to any opposition, or we can accept that this former financial advisor is setting up the board. He is placing certain pieces in reflection of the events coming in 2018. I wonder if it is merely about defence spending. Even as we see the other quote “General Pierre de Villiers reportedly told a parliament committee he would not let the government ‘fuck with’ him on spending cuts“, the questions are rising on two fronts, fronts that are not them by the way. You see, when we see another source (at http://www.iiss.org/en/militarybalanceblog/blogsections/2017-edcc/july-c5e6/franco-german-cooperation-1efd), we see ‘Can Franco-German cooperation deliver a new European defence?‘, yet the question is not merely the side that matters, it is the quote “German Chancellor Angela Merkel has committed her government to meeting the symbolic 2% defence-spending threshold” as well as “Germany remains far off the 2% spending mark – it is projected to spend 1.2% of GDP on defence in 2017 – and the Chancellor’s main opponent in this September’s federal election, Martin Schulz, has poured cold water on Germany’s commitment to that goal“, this is where the cookie starts to crumble. Is there a consideration that France is cutting costs, to remain on par with Germany, mainly because that would simplify a European Army where the ‘pound’ of all power is based on France and Germany? It works for President Macron, because at that point he could spend it somewhere else, in some form of local Quantative Easing (read: funding economy projects) as well as highly needed infrastructure overhauls. Although, 1 billion will not get this too far, but overall one or two larger issues could be resolved to a better degree, depending on whether he goes for roads or waterworks as a first priority. In all this there is a second issue, which is the combined design of a new 5th generation fighter jet, which will impact both German and France’s defence spending a lot more than anything else.

So as General Pierre de Villiers is contemplating the impact of 2% less, whilst a new jet is on the design table and 2018 will become the year of whatever EU army is up for initial presentation, the amounting costs of that infrastructure change, the General is confronted not with a president, but with a former investment banker that relies on Excel and predictive analytics to set the possible options of a virtual reality against a person who deals in real time events, idle time strategy impacts and an need towards an affirmation of hierarchy whilst having a complete operational army. In all this there is no telling when France gets attacked next and for that the DGSE will need 5 high powered computers with access to a cloud system. With a new encryption that surpasses the current 1024-bit RSA encryption that is used. So yes, that is also going to cost a bundle.

This is not just ‘all about the money’, you see, the IISS article seems to give rise to the Nuclear planning part, but that is not the actual issue that will play. As in any war and any intelligence operation, it will be about the data and intelligence that is acted on, and whilst there is data going back to 2007, that the growing issues becomes a shifting one. With: “Arjen Lenstra, a cryptology professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, says the distributed computation project, conducted over 11 months, achieved the equivalent in difficulty of cracking a 700-bit RSA encryption key, so it doesn’t mean transactions are at risk — yet“, the growing deadline was set to roughly 5 years, with the growth of Ransomware and other criminal cyber solutions, we have gone passed the deadline of 2012 and as such, the is now a growing need for matters a lot more secure. when we consider the added quote: “the University of Bonn and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in Japan, researchers factored a 307-digit number into two prime numbers“, this might be a breakthrough in some ways, yet it still took 11 months to get to the solution, with other solutions like distributed calculating (example the famous Seti@Home program) and the cloud, as well as the fact that the bulk of PC users leave their computers on and way too unsecured, we are facing a combination that could spell cyber disaster. Just consider all those kids working their DDOS attack games. What happens when the computer is not aware because it is no longer attacking places (that can actually register these events), but just silently mulling over data? The person is asleep or at work, now we get that shared options gives us for example 50,000 calculators, changing an 11 month gig into a mere 10 minute job. Now, there is no precedence for this, yet the amount of people that have an infuriating lack of common cyber sense is still way too high (well over 75% too high), so getting to 50,000 computers silently is not the greatest task. It had been made easier by the Microsoft security flaws all over the place and the users not being adamant in upgrading their system when needed, as well as the need from Microsoft to keep on pushing some version of blue (read: Azure), my speculation is not that far away, moreover, it could actually already slowly being used in one way or another (read: extremely speculative suggestion).

Yet, the gist must be clear, the governments, pretty much all over Europe are due a large overhaul of data collectors and data storage systems. Even as we see on how Russia and the US are so called collaborating on quantum computing, those who comprehend the technology will know that whomever has that technology would be able to gain access to any data, it like you using a PC XT, whilst others are all about the Pentium 2, the difference will be that severe.

Yet, this was about France (read: actually it is not). The issue is not just the small disagreement that was going on between two important players within a Western European nation; the fact that it was on a subject and amount that is not that drastic, but Reuters is going with it on the front of its pages. In all this France is also getting the forefront of visibility trying to become the facilitator for the Qatar, which comes with the added danger that France will become more of a target for extremists because of it. Not a given, but it is more likely than not that there is a danger that this will happen.

On the coming year, we see that it will be all about the money, that has always been a given, so it is just telling people that there is water coming out of a water tap, yet it will be growing in the coming year as several nations have overly neglected infrastructures and there is a decent prediction that some part will have to give in, which will require additional budgets. France and Belgium are taking the top ratings on the need to improve their roads and as some roads have been neglected for too long, the road repairs bill could become exceedingly large for those two players. As such, the total debt of France will take a rising hit (one part that France cannot really afford at present) and Belgium would be in a similar predicament. These are the additional elements that President Macron will need to deal with.

Does that not make defence cuts more important?

Well, that is one way to look at it, which is a valid one, yet the rising projects and the growing chance of a European Army start would give rise to either more spending needs in the French defence budget or the French Ministry of Defence could end up having to deal with additional pressure points soon thereafter, in this other nations (including the UK have similar complexities to deal with)

Why the reference to France?

Well, that will become a little more obvious in about a moment, yet it was important to show that the cost cutting on Defence in France is a first mistake (read: blunder) by President Macron.

The article ‘Government offers £2m for scientific research into counter-terrorism‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/17/government-offers-2m-for-scientific-research-into-counter-terrorism), is showing us a first step in regards to solve possible extremist behavioural issues. In my personal view it is a competition that Israel could win hands down as they have been employing certain parts of that with success at Ben Gurion Airport and other places for close to a decade. Yet, doing it in some automated way through data gathering is a new side to that and here is where all the hardware and DGSE comes into play, or in the UK terms, this is where GCHQ could be starting to earn the big bucks (read: £). The quote “The threat from terror does not stand still, so neither will we, which is why we are calling on the best and the brightest from the science and technology sector to come forward with their ideas and proposals to support our ongoing work to keep people safe” is the one that matter, yet overall, even beyond the £2M price, the costs will be decently staggering. You see, this is no longer about intelligence dissemination; it will become the field of real time parsing, gathering and analysing. Yes, the sequence is correct! You see, it requires the analyses of gathered information, parsing new data and overlaying the results, all that in real time. So as I stated earlier by relating this to Paris (and the attacks), it is the applied use of General Pierre de Villiers with the added parsed intelligence in real time. For the non-military trained people. It is like watching a Command and Conquer videogame, yet now seeing the entire map and knowing how the opposition is moving next, whilst in reality you are not seeing the map at all. Look at it as a version of blind chess, Hi-Octane style. Now consider that this is happening in real time at this very moment in London, with all the information of CCTV, facial recognition and back tracking the first attack and then back tracking the faces where it happened, seeing where they came from and seeing how the next event would likely happen and how soon. The computational power would be close to unimaginative large. So when you see ““In light of the horrific attacks in London and Manchester, the government has committed to review its counter-terror strategy,” Wallace will say. “Further to this I am announcing today that we are making up to £2m available to fund research into cutting-edge technology and behavioural science projects designed to keep people safe in crowds.”” we need to consider not just doing that, yet as I stated encryption, it will also require the collected data to remain safe, because the first one to have the manpower and the skill to hit not just in extremist ways with weapons, yet to hit their opponent with a cyber-assault to corrupt the initial data, will not merely have the advantage, it could cripple that forecasting system, implying that crowds will suddenly no longer be safe when an actual attack occurred.

So when we consider “Counter-terror agencies are running 500 investigations involving 3,000 individuals at any one time as they confront an unprecedented threat“, we aren’t being told the entire story. You see, it is not just that, in a crowd event, there would be the need to be able to scan 50,000 people and be able to flag as many and as fast as possible those who are not a threat. To teach a system where to look is one way, where not to look and what to overlook is equally a required skill. To do this in real time, requires loads of data and might not be entirely feasible until quantum computing is a realistic option. When someone tells you that 50,000 people can be easily scanned, we could concur, yet when every person needs to be checked against 200 sources? Consider the lone wolf (or wannabe extremist). Having an initial harmless person in the crowd is one thing, having one that came all the way from Grantham, whilst there is no data that this person has ever attended such an event becomes an issue, now correlate that against the event (like a concert, a humanitarian event or a political rally), how often has this person attended? It might be the first time, which does not make that person a worry, merely a flag that it is out of character. So how many people would have a similar flag setting? Now you get to see the need of exiting gathered data, which gives a rise to knowing those who are merely vested interest people, and optional worries. When you consider that it could require 100 additional flags that give rise to danger, you will now see the need for the computing power required. So how has Israel been successful? Well, they have observers, people who see people walk by, their stance, and their actions, how they look around, levels of nervousness, the way they walk, the luggage they have. The human brain is the most powerful computer there is, the eyes are camera’s that can see more detailed in 3D than nearly any given camera on the market and those persons can read the people walking by. I believe that there is a future where devices can do similar things because they can look different (read: infra-red), not better.

I think that the approach by Ben Wallace, the security minister, is brilliant. He is opening the doors towards out of the box thinking and perhaps set a new stage of technology. There will always be people outside the government who are more brilliant that those within, he is merely inviting them to cast the stone of innovation, I reckon that in light of the technology changes we will see in the next 2 years, the timing is great, time will tell us whether the solutions were real ones too. At least the ball has started to roll and in light of the cut backs by France, the United Kingdom could have a technological advantage that might be a long term solution all others want, which is great too for several reasons of economic growth, which keeps the commercial solution providers interested.

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Tagged as Arjen Lenstra, Ben Wallace, Ben-Gurion airport, CCTV, Cloud computing, Cloud storage, DDOS attacks, DGSE, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL, Facial recognition, France, GCHQ, General Pierre de Villiers, Germany, IISS, Israel, Japan, JDD, Le Journal du Dimanche, Paris, Paris attacks, President Macron, Qatar, Quantum Computing, ransomware, reuters, Russia, Security Minister, Seti@Home, Switzerland, the Guardian, UK, United Kingdom, University of Bonn and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in Japan, USA

July 15, 2017 · 15:13

Thomas the Tank wreck

Parents will have seen a program if they have kids, they all love to see that cheeky tank engine. The simple life in the town of Knapfort, or is that Nap Forth? The complication of not getting uncoupled, and even as it was merely an episode one, the not so young population might remember the rap edition of this Thomas (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETfiUYij5UE), so in all this. Is it about the music or the story? Consider that, when we see the Guardian claim ‘Revealed: NHS cuts could target heart attack patients in Surrey and Sussex‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/14/revealed-nhs-cuts-could-target-heart-attack-patients-in-surrey-and-sussex). So when we see “Organisations in the area are considering limiting angiogram and angioplasty despite positive evidence for procedures” should we be surprised? You see, I have had one, I understand that it is at times essential and that it is needed to assess the situation. We might see: “Hospitals routinely use an angiogram to assess the health of a patient’s heart“, so there is not surprise here. Yet when we see “Patients at risk of a heart attack could be denied vital tests and potentially life-saving operations under NHS plans to make £55m of budget cuts in Surrey and Sussex, the Guardian can reveal“. Why is anyone surprised? You remember that vague promise from some politician named, I think it was Jeremy Carbonite? Labour was going to hire a thousand nurses. So with what money were they going to do that? The NHS is out of cash and out of options. Whilst we see the NHS being politicised, everyone forgot that whilst those optional solution bringers remain talking, not much gets done whilst they talk and whilst they contemplate the decisions that need to be made; no resolutions and the money kept on draining for another 5 months. So we might feel sorry to the smallest degree for Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, with the mention of “the secretive cost-cutting regime which the NHS is imposing on 14 areas of England in an attempt to save £500m – because it involves “draconian” cuts to services that will hit patient care“, which is fair, it is Draconian and nobody wants it, but as the politicians were shouting at each other time went on and nothing was done, the changes for long term gain were all not done, pretty much none of them. Perhaps Labour can help? Do they not have a leader named Jeremy Carbonite? Is Carbonite not a backup program? Perhaps he has a backup option? He was so ‘speechy’, so clear on what needed to be done. So, Jeremy, what would you do next? Spend more money? It’s gone, your Labour predecessors took care of that, to have an NHS, you need an actual economy, if your side had not wasted the massive chunk of a £trillion in total, there would be options to move the track. Did you think of that as you paraded your addition of 4 figure amounts of nurses, police officers and others?

Did you think that the governing party was not aware of the issues? Did you think that those who are governing are not aware of the fact that the NHS is ending far below the line of zero before the end of quarter three? When we see the quote “Hospitals routinely use an angiogram to assess the health of a patient’s heart. The number of people in the UK undergoing angioplasty has risen eightfold since the early 1990s to almost 100,000 a year, reflecting its growing popularity as a non-invasive alternative to a heart bypass“, we understand that it is routinely done (I had one), oh wait! I never had an angioplasty, I had an angiogram. So why is the Guardian just shovelling two issues together on a pile making it seem as one? Perhaps it is done to make it all a little more trivial? When we consider that an angioplasty is set at roughly £17,500, we see that this procedure alone would cost £1,750,000,000 annually, that is a lot of fish and chips repair, or am I trivialising here? So how much are the costs of an angiogram? One source gave me £5,529, so how many a year operations are needed of those and why was there one number, but not the other? It should be a larger number of ‘operations’ needed, but with the cost being merely a third, the impact is less severe. None of that part matters when it is needed, yet what does matter was given to us in 2010 by USA today. Here (at http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-03-10-heart-angiograms_N.htm) we see a point that matters. With “A troublingly high number of U.S. patients who are given angiograms to check for heart disease turn out not to have a significant problem, according to the latest study to suggest Americans get an excess of medical tests. The researchers said the findings suggest doctors must do better in determining which patients should be subjected to the cost and risks of an angiogram. The test carries a small but real risk — less than 1% — of causing a stroke or heart attack, and also entails radiation exposure“. Now, we get that it is an American source on US patients, and not on UK patients, yet there have been correlations in health care in many nations, so it is not without merit to state that there is the chance that the same issue to some extent in the UK is taking place. Now, in the NHS age where £500 million in cost cutting, is it such a stretch to cut the one procedure that is seemingly only actually required in 1% of the cases? I am not stating that it is a great idea, yet if we accept that we need to get £500 million down, going after the 1% group might be one of the better ideas. In all this Labour should not object, a truckload of their politicians have made a career out of going after the 1% group their entire life, so there should be a consensus on both sides on the isle on this subject! The quote that is hugely helpful is ““We have to rationalise cardiac investigations and treatments. There’s variation of 60% to 70% between hospitals. We’re looking into why that is. Who in future won’t get an angiogram? That’ll be up to cardiologists,” said one senior doctor“, which makes perfect sense and as we accept that there will be a group of people that goes through one way of treatment, some of this will be done because a doctor had a certain education from a certain medical school, another takes route 2. I am largely convinced that both paths have merit and are in the best interest of the patient. In addition, when we see the 60%-70% variation, what happens when we drill down deeper and set it against the years of practice of the cardiologist. Will there be clustering? I am not stating that any of them are wrong. Yet, is there a chance that a junior cardiologist would see a few more (perfectly valid) reasons to do the cardiogram? I am not stating, not judging, I am merely asking. You see, as stated by: ‘the Guardian can reveal‘, yet that part they did not reveal. Why not? Perhaps the data was missing, yet the article on how “NHS organisations in Surrey and Sussex are considering restricting the number of patients who have an angiogram or an angioplasty” it would have been nice to see more than merely quoting “I don’t think that these extra cuts are reasonable. You can’t justify £500m to the DUP while taking another £500m out of the English NHS“. When we see the numbers I see that £500 million can be cut from one side where the costs are implied to be £1.75 BILLION, meaning that here we see that cost cutting is met whilst that budget remains to get 72% and none of the other parts are affected.

So cutting 28% from a program, whilst one of the other considerations is ‘Shut beds or even whole wards in community hospitals‘. It is merely a good idea to contemplate what could be cancelled, postponed of even considered in other ways. Another part that is true, yet limited to merely a small paragraph is “Saving the £55m this year will prove to be a false economy that costs the NHS more money in the long term, warned Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health think-tank” Now, we might think that Nigel Edward is talking politics to the people that hire his consultancy (which is fair enough), yet he has a point and the point he is trying to make has been proven again and again. Yet, the NHS needs a massive overhaul and for the longest of times, people seemed to have been merely talking about it. Is it mere complacency or is there more? Consider the American source 17 years old gave us a 99% not needed rate. There is no evidence (at present) that this is as high in the UK, yet when we see “rationalise cardiac investigations and treatments. There’s variation of 60% to 70% between hospitals“. In an age of cost cutting that 60-70% is an enormous amount of variation and until properly looked at that data there is no way to tell how valid it is in the end.

The article merely gives us a lot more questions than they answer. That is gotten from the final part with “A Department of Health spokesperson said only that “Given the NHS budget has gone up by £6 billion in the last two years in real terms NHS England and NHS Improvement are ensuring that local areas spend their increasing share equally based on best clinical practice.”“, and in addition we see the mention of Tory MP Sarah Wollaston and “while taking another £500m out of the English NHS“, whilst at the end we see “Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, declined to comment on the £55m cuts“. In addition there is “under NHS plans to make £55m of budget cuts in Surrey and Sussex“, so the article does not give us many things. Like why these two counties have to cut a little over 10%, the final part is given in the weirdest of ways. Now, it could be merely the reporter having a creative thought. If that is not the case, the entire issue in the NHS is a lot weirder and even more problematic than the Guardian could have revealed. The issue “The bodies made clear that they have to contemplate such controversial measures because NHSE and NHSI have told them to save the £55m. Despite already having “ambitious financial plans for 2017-18”“, so here we see part of a larger problem. We have seen for the longest time that the NHS over overspending, that the cash is gone and that cuts were needed, we have all seen that news for about 2-3 years and here we see “ambitious financial plans for 2017-18“. So based on what budget were those ambitious plans conceived, perhaps on a gurney with a few nurses (a somewhat speculative imaginative thought)?

The clarity of the problem has been there for the longest of times, the governing bodies need to take several matters a lot more serious, and in all this the shifting numbers, the mentioning of the blended events and numbers give rise to several other questions too. All this because certain numbers were thrown at the readers, yet the overall numbers called in questions from the very first moment and as such the article (in my humble opinion) merely stats that there is a lot more wrong at the NHS than most people realise, with all that, caught in the middle are the doctors and nurses. None are getting hired in addition and there are issues for the doctors two, so when they rightfully demand that these ‘ambitious financial plans for 2017-18‘ are being made public, what kind of a story will they receive? The tension should be an interesting one as the pay rise for health care workers was capped at 1%.

So as we conclude today’s event, we all need to take a long hard look at the decision makers in the UK NHS, they are seemingly wasting too much time of the preferential prospect of presentation, whilst the reality was never a given element of that presentation at all. The fact that there are actual issues rising to the surface of the NHS, whether already looked at or not, when we see the amount of issues linked to high variations, in an age where costs are cut to the extent they need to be, is it not weird that those numbers had not be properly looked at and reported on at least 2 years ago? The 2010 article is indicative of that to at least some degree. You see, if it had been, that that would have been evidence that could have been added to this article. The fact that it was not gives rise to the questions I added and in all this it took not that much time. Now in all fairness, to add 30% on a £105M cut. Yet in all this, there is still the issue with the £1.75 billion of angioplasty in the UK.

In addition, to add the amounts that are added, how was it decided where they would fall?

Now we get that there are issues in several places and some would state ‘It will be alright‘, and ‘things will get fixed‘. Yet from my point of view and from the issues presented there are merely more and more questions coming up and it seems to me that the growing issues with the NHS is due to inaction, not merely through cut backs. That is one actual clear given, the issue at that point is not how we can solve the NHS issues, it becomes how can we temper towards zero the amount of idle time and inaction, not in the staff, but in the governing and infrastructural sides.

The additional part that was not seen at present is the realisation that the NHS issue will tighten, and get worse for the next foreseeable future (up to 5 years), you see, the turnaround will take longer with every delay and the recovery from any delay will take longer with every delay we see. The second part that we will be shown with the time to come is that there is a growing concern that the UK aging part has been shelved with the NHS for too long, so in about three years we will see that the NHS geriatric division is not up to scrap and there will be additional increasing pressures on the NHS soon thereafter.

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Tagged as Jeremy Corbyn, Jeremy Hunt, labour party, NHS, Nigel Edwards, Nuffield Trust, Sarah Wollaston, Surrey, Sussex, the Guardian, UK, USA today

July 14, 2017 · 11:51

Drop the Mike, Ashley!

Welcome to the issues on a man that I do not know. This is not the most straight-forward of starts, yet the man who has been valued more than once and that verdict is several thousand stacks of £1,000,000. The man who owns Newcastle United, which means he gets the swanky seat in the stadium. Now, we can understand that this man founded Sports Direct. When you get enthusiastic about sports, you can bet that it will be part of your life. There is no denying it and as it became a good success, I would state ‘good for him’. Yet, the focus on him started in an entirely different way. It started with him getting in on the videogame action by getting a near 26% stake in the franchise ‘Game‘. That brand did not go well here in Australia, yet I always found it to be a decent store and the people working there knew their games and consoles. I have seen them in the UK as well and a similar feeling remained on that experience. Here it did not go well as they were up against EB Games (who grew aggressively at that time) and JB Hifi that was an established chain of quality stores, so they had a murder competition, they did not make it (for the most). Yet all this is now in play when I read “Mike Ashley swoops on video games retailer after profit warning forced by shortage of Nintendo Switch consoles“, this is a weird issue. We get ‘profit warning‘ in regards to a situation of shortage. Basically the story becomes, we are short on revenue/profit because we can’t get any more consoles, they are sold out, and everyone wants one! Which at present is pretty much the truth of the desire of people and their need for the Nintendo Switch, it is actually THAT amazing.

The result was “Game shares rose by more than 15% to 28p on the news, and later traded at 26.5p (up 9.3%), giving it a market value of £47m“, apart from the 28p not sounding like that impressive, it is the end result of +9.3% that is staggering. You see, I have issues with the entire part where ‘profit warnings‘ are labelled in the way they were. You see, the entire mess (as reported) gives no clue on the actual situation (well, the one as I personally see it), I do not care how people quantify one way or the other; it is the addressing of profit warnings.

I offer in evidence the following pieces

Part 1, Sony (at http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2017/01/03/uk-2016-sales-chart-2016-game-sales-down-13-infinite-warfare-the-2-best-selling-game-of-the-year/) gives us ‘UK Sales Chart: 2016 Game Sales Down 13%, Infinite Warfare the #2 Best-Selling Game of the Year‘. In this we see: “The major titles of 2016 also disappointed when compared to 2015’s, with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (the second biggest title of 2016) lagging 31.5% behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. In other comparisons, Watch Dogs 2 fell just short of the 500,000 copies Assassin’s Creed Syndicate sold in 2015, Steep performed worse than Rainbow Six Siege, Gears of War 4 couldn’t reach the heights of Halo 5, and Final Fantasy XV was outsold by Just Cause 3.” For those who do not talk games, let me boil it down to the first item is that overall less games were bought. In my personal view, the overall quality of games was not great. Even as Watchdogs 2 was a good step up from the previous game, yet many gamers felt too burned by the first game. I believe that the second game was good, it has online and offline options and people were not forced to go online here. Regarding the other title, I am not a fan of Call of Duty, I know many are. the fact that a game like that became ‘the’ game is not entirely on the fact on how good their Infinite Warfare was, it is more that the other games were way below the line. The fact that the last four larger releases this year alone could be bought for 50% down, including the special editions with figurines is also a changing trend. People are less willing to just shell out the cash for games, reviews are more competitive and even though there are really good reviewers, there are a lot more really bad reviewers and they tend to get plenty of exposure. Yet in the end, the games were for a larger extent not up to snuff. The reviewers ‘deserve’ extra attention as some are more and more about the larger players, whilst some of the true gems have been largely ignored by plenty of people. Nioh is perhaps one of the most visible ones. Like Infinite warfare it is a specific game. I actually like this game, but I loathe the challenge it contains at times (they are really hard games). Some saw that is was some Dark Souls games and plenty of people ran for the hills as this is a game for actual gamers, not for wannabe’s. In my view there are several similarities, yet the only thing that the game Nioh truly has in common with Dark Souls III was its graphical excellence.

So here we see two elements that would push any revenue down.

Part 2, Pushsquare. At http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/01/ps4_physical_game_sales_increase_as_uk_industry_suffers_blow, we see more confirmation: “Overall sales down 13.4 per cent“, the mere subtitle and the direct impact that matters, less sales overall, this is not entirely correct, but I will get to that in a moment. The next quote is, as I personally see it wrong, but still essential. With “Bethesda’s Dishonored 2, for example, couldn’t come close to matching the success of Fallout 4, while Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XV somehow failed to outsell Just Cause 3.” My issue is that no matter how you slice it, Dishonored 2 is a little bit of a niche game, more intent for those who love stealth gaming (me being one), it is graphically superb, the game is a little steampunk in a very good way, but for the most, it is highly original and exquisite in quality. It is not fair to compare it to a game that has millions of followers and has been revered since its original release (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC) on 11/11/11, the date that some will carry with them for all time. An established success that was bought on the console be new players as well as nearly everyone who had the previous version. The game is good for months of gameplay, so a game that sells itself due to 5 years of raving reports. The second is equally unfair. I myself was never a FF fan, but I have always admired the originality and scope of the stories and the near perfection each game brought. Even I am surprised that Just Cause 3 outsold it, perhaps merely because of the over the top explosions and things you can do with the game? I cannot tell what the exact reason is, yet the second part implies that the gamers are diversifying in different directions, changing the gaming requirement. It is almost like there is a new generation taking over the baton of gaming and it has different tastes.

Yet he best is left for last, in part 3 we see Retail Week

The mention (at https://www.retail-week.com/sectors/entertainment/game-issues-profit-warning-as-uk-sales-falter/7022184.article), where we see “The specialist retailer, which posted a slump in its interim profits in March, said anticipated supply in the UK of the latest Nintendo console had failed to meet expectations, negatively impacting overall sales“, is a first issue. In this the mention ‘anticipated supply‘ beckons the question, so did you order enough or not? As the experts, you should have seen the impact it would make. The E3 and other events clearly showed that Nintendo was blowing both others out of the water. In addition we see “alongside ongoing poor sales of Xbox and PlayStation devices“, now we can argue about Xbox for several reasons, so let’s take this out of the equation, the PlayStation part gives the issue. Overall sales of the PS4 and PS4pro are still up by a decent amount, so it now becomes a shifting focus, but I will get to that soon.

For now I will end with the quote “The group continues to actively implement its UK action plan, encompassing improved supplier arrangements, enhancements to the customer experience, further operational progress including cost reduction programmes and disciplined cash management“, yet will not address it yet. Let’s take a look at three more elements.

The first is from the Business Insider which gives us “Sony sold 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles between early May 2016 and December 6, 2016. That puts sales in the neighbourhood of over 1 million sold every month, which keeps it locked in as the fastest-selling PlayStation console of all-time”

The second is again from PlayStation Lifestyle with “Taking a deeper look at software last year in the UK, Games Industry points out that nearly 80% of all boxed games sold last year were either on PS4 or Xbox One (up from 66% in 2015)”

The last is G24/7 where we see (at https://www.vg247.com/2016/11/14/ps4-console-sales-have-tripled-in-the-uk-following-the-launch-of-the-ps4-pro/) “Sony’s PS4 Pro launched at the end of last week and has had quite the impact on PS4 console sales. According to MCVUK, PS4 sales for the week ending Saturday, November 12, were up 204%. 65% of the total PS4 sales last week were for the PS4 Pro, while the final sales figure for all PS4 consoles was 44% higher than those for the Xbox One.”

Now we put the whole together!

We know that sales were massive end of year 2016, especially with a new console and Christmas coming up, all that makes sense. We can also clearly see that overall, the consoles represent the bulk of all game sales. This partially makes sense because that is what we see as flagships in pretty much any gaming store, PC owners have a lot more options to buy in other places and at times a lot cheaper and there is Steam to consider, so that part remains an unknown and as such a much lesser impact to these stores (apart from the selling of steam credit). The fact that the PS4 is surpassing the previous consoles, is debatable (PS2 sold over three times the amount in its life time), yet the overall market trend is that games should be on par and were up by a fair bit last year. So when we go back to the initial start with “Video game retailers have been particularly badly affected by the broader shift away from the high street in recent years, with developers moving to increase their own profit margins selling games as direct downloads“, which we get from the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/172c3ba1-e880-35e8-9273-957e325cd7f4?mhq5j=e3).

In this there is debate, yet he part no one touches on is how the expectations were set, what they were weighed on and on the given image that sales were down, which had been an upcoming known for close to 2 quarters of a year. The part that the Financial Times gives us is that direct downloads are playing more of a role nowadays. It actually impacts the industry in 2 ways. Apart from buying directly, the additional issue is that consoles have a premium service; most gamers take that because of online gaming and the fact that both systems offer at least 2 free games a month. Microsoft was initially really bad with that (lousy games or games everyone had), they are still not great, yet this month it includes Lego pirates of the Caribbean, which is actually a nice and decent game (and not a large download in console terms). Sony beats Microsoft here hands down with titles like Until Dawn and Life is Strange. In all this both offer decent free games, with a bonus for Sony people as their account will also enable them to get free games for their Vita handheld, all that for around £50 per year, the premium service sells itself to both consoles without any difficulty. All elements that shows the impact of a bad year of games, not consoles, the overall quality of games gives rise to people deciding to just download an average game instead. The interesting part that even as Ubisoft lagged in a few ways, the one game what was awesome in many ways, ‘For Honor’ actually did not do that well, which is a mixed signal that multiplayer games are wanted, yet without a strong one player side, it tends to not make the cut in a top 10, which would be unfairly devastating on the makers I think. All elements that the analysts in this case should have known and realised and as such, when we see ‘would not meet expectations‘, my question becomes: “the expectations of whom and on what foundations?” Now we get to the part I skipped.

With “The group continues to actively implement its UK action plan, encompassing improved supplier arrangements, enhancements to the customer experience, further operational progress including cost reduction programmes and disciplined cash management” I wonder what we are being served.

Did they call short because they did not keep an eye on running costs, what arrangements would be needed with suppliers? Were they not up to scrap?
Even more customer experience? Were the current settings and anticipations of the competitor not up to scrap?
Disciplined cash management? Is cash not managed correctly?

The feedback we got from Game, directly below the image of a sort of smiley ‘Game CEO Martyn Gibbs on the merits of in-store gaming arenas‘ is one that leaves us with the thoughts that Game is going down because they are not on the ball of the game, and the game is passing them by? So in all this Mike Ashley merely flying in to pick up a bargain? In this he better realise fast that Game has an issue and more than one potential issue in play, he also needs to realise that the Games market is a shifty one and in the years before the publishers see clear to push a bigger load to online sales in the next 5 years (depending on where you live), we better consider that top games is a market in motion and it is likely to see a shift that Microsoft and Adobe made some time ago on PC’s, it is not a change that gamers are currently happy with, but it is one that the next generations of consoles will likely face, the game shop is seen as the middle man and they are trying to cut it out to maximise it for their own need to please whatever stakeholders they report on. It is early days now, but in 5 years it won’t be.

In the aftermath we actually need to look where I normally do not go. It is the Telegraph, in this case the business section, where (at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/30/game-warns-profits-will-substantially-expectations/) we see the generic parts like “following its third profit warning“, we know that Christmas was weak (to some extent), yet in equality when you consider the previous information, the issue is not entirely just ‘weak Christmas‘, it is merely a much stronger competition to some extent and the fact that the cost of living in metropolitan UK seems to be ignored by analysts and those who speculate on how it would (read: should) be. The issue that is stronger is “The shares nosedived to just 21p on the back of the profit warning, valuing the business at £35.6m only two years after it was floated at 200p a share by US hedge fund Elliott Advisors” as well as “Elliott cashed in £101m at the time of Game’s stock market listing by selling a stake and made a further £59m by dumping a further 10pc of its stake just three months afterwards, despite agreeing to a lock-up period of six months” which now also implies that Game got played and not in such a nice way. Yet the bulk of all the sources do not give any clarity of the part that Elliott Advisors was playing, even the Financial Times steered clear of that part. In this, I am now also questioning the setting as given to Game and its senior management. Even as CNBC is giving the notion that Paul Singer, CEO of Elliott Management is just the best invention since Frozen Yoghurt (if we are to believe places like Forbes, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal), I wonder what price we can see the UK pay for getting played to the extent it is getting by the US Hedge market, in that regard should we allow for any US company coming in under false pretences and flood the market so that they can drain the profit quickly and walk away? It seems to me that they tried that in the Netherlands with Akzo Nobel, which had the great benefit of Elliott Management failing (for now), but it shows the extent that as a shareholder Elliott Management will go to get their profit, it seems to me that Game was not nearly as lucky and the fact that the different levels of publications left that side seemingly in the dark corners of ‘them not printing that part‘ is also upsetting (to me even more upsetting is the part that the Telegraph actually did get that info out). The fact that Game has been seemingly under exploitative attack does not diminish the issues as given by some of the publishers by the quotes, Game got caught out, which under the current size and the possible level of possible losses is a dangerous place to be in.

In all this, I am aware of things, but not as much as a person like Mike Ashley would be, so is this his triumph with Game, should we see this as a mere quick victory to see if he can get more out of this than Paul Singer’s place did, or is it an actual rescue and grow attempt? I am not implying one or the other, but as you see the presented evidence, there are a few issues with Game and I believe as such they were set up as the weak runt in the market, whether this will happen twice in a row is something I have no way of telling and I am not implying anything wrong, immoral or illegal. The entire mess is not completely shown by some players and that is what seems to be the actual issue. I remain in an attempt to be protective of the places that feed my need for gaming and there is a positive in having a diverse and competitive market. It guarantees to some degree I get the best games at the sharpest price, which is what every gamer wants, there is no exceptions to that rule.

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July 13, 2017 · 12:39

Short Sighted Dangers

For those who have an easy time not remembering things, we need to start to take them back to 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives with an infamous silver coloured briefcase, and no one knew what was in it. It was evidence of Iraq and the fact that they had Weapons of Mass destruction. The Guardian, on June 2^nd of that year give us: “The Bush administration, under increased scrutiny for failing to find Saddam Hussein’s arsenals eight weeks after occupying Baghdad, yesterday confronted the damaging new allegations on the misuse of intelligence to bolster the case for war“, in all this, under Prime Minister Tony Blair Operation Telic gave rise to 182 fatalities in the UK armed services (2003-2011). Proof of the existence of WMD’s were never shown, there have been stories on both sides of the camp on WMD and in the end, it all remained speculation and conjecture from unreliable forces. The most fitting (possibly wrong) view became, the UK went to war on intentionally bad intelligence. From my personal view it should have been simple and clear. There would have been the mere need to show one clear functional missile filmed by the associated press stating something like: “Here is a Weapon of Mass Destruction, it was captured at [whichever location] by [whomever was there] under command of [some big bird in charge], now let’s talk to this commander on the find!“, it would have been the simple justification, that message never came and speculation and conjecture on a war that was started under the most weird of circumstances might have been justified, that moment never came.

So when the Guardian gives us ‘Rudd’s refusal to publish full report into extremist funding ‘unacceptable’‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/12/uk-terror-funding-report-will-not-be-published-for-national-security-reasons), you could see the issue that history is about to repeat itself. Now, for the most we see all kinds of valid arguments, yet in all this, the one element missing is still the element in the Pork Pie in the making.

The quote “But the home secretary, Amber Rudd, said the move was based on national security and claimed that the full report contained sensitive and detailed personal information” is actually the one that matters the least, the colourful honourable Rudd would be quite correct in setting certain premises on visibility and for that she is not getting into trouble. It is the top line setting, when we see “The statement gives absolutely no clue as to which countries foreign funding for extremism originates from – leaving the government open to further allegations of refusing to expose the role of Saudi Arabian money in terrorism in the UK.” is the most important one and it came from Caroline Lucas, which makes sense on several levels. As co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, she was hitting the nail on the head. Interesting how Tim Farron just did not have seemingly has a clue in this instance (regarding the news info I could find). You see, the entire Qatar situation is linked to all this. The UK will be partially depending on what Germany finds and more important, all the information they might be unable to find, or in the end will not report on. In this the entire Turkey escalations as it enters a place and theatre of War they basically have no place to be in, this all links and the clarity of the report as to the original of the funds has bearing on this. In light of “Some extremist Islamist organisations “portray themselves as charities to increase their credibility and to take advantage of Islam’s emphasis on charity”, and are vague about both their activities and their charitable status, it said“, there should be an increased need to give rise and visibility to the sources. When we see “Instead, there is a strong suspicion this report is being suppressed to protect this government’s trade and diplomatic priorities, including in relation to Saudi Arabia. The only way to allay those suspicions is to publish the report in full” there is a rising stress point on how to find a way to work with legitimate governments, so as such there is a clear need to see if there are false pears in the apple bag. The issue becomes larger with “For a small number of organisations with which there are extremism concerns, overseas funding is a significant source of income. However, for the vast majority of extremist groups in the UK, overseas funding is not a significant source.” This makes the statement an optional interpretation in more than one way (read: the intelligence community loves their ambiguity). In the end, it seems to imply that as extremist groups rely massively on ‘donations‘, there is either not enough data or there is clear evidence that the UK charities are merely a minimal contributor at best. Which is pretty much as good as it gets, to be a zero donator is pretty much a non-option and the fact that donations might not even get to a 4 figure number implies that one spare part of a rifle is the best any extremist group could hope for, in addition the UK groups don’t seem to be getting any interesting level of cash. Yet that does not give rise to the value that is set towards the creation of Lone Wolves in the UK, yet in that there is absolutely no clue whether the intelligence community has even close to a comprehension how those streams go, how the funding and recruitment goes and where to look for decent quality intelligence (or how to obtain it). As I have seen it (to the smallest degree), it seems to me that short term radical pamphlets to see who reacts is as good as it gets at one University in Sydney. This creates the situation that their luck would likely run out long before they become an actual threat. The nice thing about the island of Australia is that those wannabe’s really have no place to run to and it gives rise that an Island like the United Kingdom (significantly smaller in size) they could have less options. As the Straits Times is just now reporting that the Qatar crisis not resolved, we see that the centre stage is now for US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will now try to find new solutions in the events that are still escalating. Do you not think that the mention of sources could have been a little help in keeping the conversation going? The mention of clear Qatar involvement or absence of it would have made a large impact. In equal measure any evidence of the use of banks in Riyadh might have had another impact altogether, the need for Saudi Arabia to consider the overhaul of certain banking policies (something the US has been desperate for, for some time now), all elements that could diffuse certain pressures. So as we see “UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan told reporters during a visit to Slovakia that Tillerson’s visit was unlikely to resolve the row. “I think it will ease tensions, but it’s just postponing the problem, which will grow in the future.” In a joint statement issued after Tillerson and his Qatari counterpart signed their counter-terrorism pact on Tuesday, the four states called the accord inadequate.” We see no reason that there was anything wrong on the decision that the Honourable Amber Rudd has taken, yet the added information of sources could really impact on a few levels the issues to address or reinforce the term of ‘inadequate accord‘. With additional Turkish troops arriving in Doha, the pressure will go up, because a room full of powder kegs it merely takes one spark and the chance of that spark increases with every additional element in that equation. a threat that does not grow linear, but exponentially. So how does that support the need to keep certain facts hidden? Consider that one element in the summary gives rise to a relief of pressures, the question from Caroline Lucas could soon be the topic of debate in several places in London, and should the powder keg go boom, that debate could become toxic for several key government players soon thereafter.

Yet in all this Qatar is also sending different waves, as owners of Al-Jazeera, we now see (at http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/uae-slams-al-jazeera-for-anti-semitism-inciting-hate-1724062) that there are issues escalating that give rise to several issues to those opposing Qatar. The subtitle gives the one side with ‘The United Nations has warned that demands that Qatar close Al-Jazeera by a rival Saudi Arabian-led alliance, which includes the UAE, violate basic freedoms‘, yet in the article we see the statement by United Arab Emirates’ state minister for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, when we see presented facts regarding spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi : “he added, had “praised Hitler, described the Holocaust as ‘divine punishment’, and called on Allah to ‘take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people… and kill them, down to the very last one’“, so when we see that, we see that this all is fuelling even more pressures and as the Muslim Brotherhood is seen as the extremist group it has shown to be in Egypt as well as an openly voicing enemy of the State of Israel, the evidence counter is moving against Qatar. It seems to me personally, that in this present state of affairs, to give rise to the voice of the Muslim Brotherhood, whilst there are plenty of other options (read: less radical ones), Al-Jazeera is either biting the hand that fed them from birth, or that the Qatari government should have had better reigns on those who are in charge of Al-Jazeera. It seems to be a mess that is currently not in favour of Qatar, no matter how you slice it (read: as shown by the western media). It also gives visibility to another part that another Guardian article gave us with “Noura al Kaabi, the UAE minister responsible for media regulation, told the Guardian the station had given a platform to “some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world” and needed to be subject to new and externally-monitored editorial controls“, a view pretty much all parties but one will agree with at present. The final part from the UAE minister is shown with: “Al-Kaabi questioned the value of the memorandum. “We have lost trust with the government of Qatar,” he said. “The difficulty is that it is one thing to sign an agreement, but the true test is whether it is ever enforced. An agreement is not an agreement if it is not honoured.”“, this shows that the work that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has cut out for himself is becoming increasingly more difficult soon enough; this reflects back to the overseas funding report, the inclusion of the foreign sources in the summary could give Rex Tillerson the indication that there is either a more intense problem within Qatar, or that there might merely be the issue with some aspects of Al-Jazeera. That difference is the difference between a possible short term resolution or the beginning of a long term consequence, that evidence (if regarded as such) could give rise the second part as Turkey would be forced to take a clear step in one way or another, which would limit the actions of Iran, all optional changes to the absence of one element in a partially classified report. In this I do hope that the Honourable Amber Rudd takes heed from the 2003-2011 partial fiasco that brought the loss of 182 fatalities, because if this powder keg does go, the list of casualties might become a lot higher and not just for the UK, which in turn will give rise to additional escalations in directions no one has any clue on how far that would go.

And remember, in this instance a point of view is merely a vantage point for those seeking an advantage, there is growing overwhelming bias on nearly all fronts, the question that many cannot answer is ‘Which one is based on ambiguity and which can be met with academic scrutiny?’ This is a question that I myself find unable to answer, merely because the original source has been edited out in more than two occasions.

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July 12, 2017 · 12:48

Upstairs, Basement

We have all seen the TV shows, and felt with both sides of the Victorian houses that had an upstairs and downstairs in London, places like Downton Abbey or were merely in Brideshead and we decided to revisit them. Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Brendan Coyle, Jim Carter, Maggie Smith, Jeremy Irons, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Ian Ogilvy and Anthony Andrews. Some of the biggest stars have been identified and idolised with this Victorian era view, some even in more than one of these series. We have felt for the high side and the low side, yet in all these times, there was always a feel of justice and acceptance for both sides. So why on earth the utter idiocy and non-acceptable acts of Lord Philipps, 4^th Viscunt St Davids (pun with the additional missing ‘right’ and ‘honourable’ intended) Rhodri Colwyn Philipps decided to state “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant.” on social media is completely beyond me. I myself have been mostly outspoken in favour of Brexit, yet that does not take away the right of any Bremainer to voice their issues. Now I admit that plenty of those do not really voice it that clear, complete or correct. Yet it is still their right and of course those who fail to make the decent point will work in my Brexit favour and I was on the fence for the longest of time. It was the voice of Mark Carney in the House of Lords who got me from Brexit and moved me towards neutral on the fence. In the end the lack of insightfulness by Mario Draghi as he decided to print a trillion euro’s and wantonly spend it on no one knows what pushed me clearly back into the Brexit field. These issues all matter, because anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller had every right to campaign for her Bremain conviction. In all this, we might also ask a few questions regarding senior district judge Emma Arbuthnot at this point. That is based on the following in the article we see the quote “Mine includes, torturing Tony Blair, Hilary Clinton, Isis, Dave (PM) the forgettable, Murdoch … Oh and that hideous jumped up immigrant Gina Miller.“, which was the one that was found racially aggravating. Yet when we see the other responses, like “Please will someone smoke this ghastly insult to our country? Why should I pay tax to feed these monkeys? A return to Planet of the Apes is not acceptable” another vocal attack on Gina Miller. Now, the judge found that this was not menacing and acquitted Lord Phillips of the charge related to that post. So in this case let’s take a step back to the 14^th of march when we see (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/14/face-off-mps-and-social-media-giants-online-hate-speech-facebook-twitter), where we see “Social Media companies including Twitter, Facebook and Google have come under pressure from MPs for failing to take tougher action to tackle hate speech online” so as we see people like Yvette Cooper taking cheap shots at technological complicated issues to get a few easy points before the election, it seems that in regards to Gina Miller, UK’s little Yvette seems to be either really really quiet, or the media decided just to not take notice of her. Is that not weird too? It is all a little too sanctimonious to me.

Another post from this Lord Thingamajig was “I will open the bidding. £2,000 in cash for the first person to carve Arnold Sube into pieces, piece of shit” which was seen by her honour to be ‘menacing’ but not ‘racially aggravated’. Let’s take you through the legality. In the assault side we see ‘the actus reus of assault is committed when one person causes another to apprehend or fear that force is about to be used to cause some degree of personal contact and possible injury. There must be some quality of reasonableness to the apprehension on the part of the victim‘. So this is supposedly a lord, a wealthy man and for all intent and purpose an intolerable buffoon (read: legally speaking a man who is not very nice). In support I offer R v Ireland [1997] 3 WLR 534, “The defendant made a series of silent telephone calls over three months to three different women. He was convicted under s.47 Offences against the Person Act 1861. He appealed contending that silence cannot amount to an assault and that psychiatric injury is not bodily harm“, yet in social media, empty screens have no value and the specific part “Holroyd J. to a jury that “no words or singing are equivalent to an assault”: Meade’s and Belt’s case 1 (1823) 1 Lew. C.C. 184” could also give rise that poetry and prose within social media texts could carry the same weight, allowing for less defence by the defending abuser on social media, especially if that person would try to rely on some obscure dark comedy aspect. In addition to the earlier given, as the quote included ‘£2,000 in cash for the first person‘ making it a contest (read: race to the target) and here we see again in the case R v Ireland [1997] 3 WLR 534 the issue given as ‘to fear an immediate application of force‘ now comes into play with £2,000 and with 20,000 dimes it would become anyone’s dime to relieve economic hardship, which is overwhelming to many people in the UK.

Although he has been found guilty, it seems to me that as he was acquitted from some parts. Yet these parts are part of a whole, this whole is not just his mere right of communication, it is the abusive approach he makes in all this and as such in the Mens Rea part we need to find that ‘in contact to the other and that contact was caused either intentionally or recklessly‘, well it seems to me that the published texts clearly shows the reckless part, which is evidently seen by thousands if not millions of others. Although the precise places were not given to me, a case could be made that it could have been intentional. You see, some were responses to categories. I am guessing that the ‘naughty ideas on orgasm‘ were in some ‘girly’ page or a given section on sex in for example the Guardian, as such it will be hard to prove that there was ‘intent’, yet reckless had already been established and that was enough.

In all of this there is no given defence. The options offered by the accused on the matter like “It’s not for first generation immigrants to behave the way Gina Miller did” is one I can immediately counter. She is a resident of the UK, a legal one (which has no influence), as such she has a freedom of speech, a freedom of opinion and a right to be politically aligned in any direction. As I stated, I am in opposition of her Bremain view, but it remains a valid view, whether right or wrong is in the eyes of the beholder. In her eyes I am the one with the wrong view on ‘Brexit v Bremain’. In the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/11/man-jail-offering-money-run-over-gina-miller-rhodri-philipps-viscount-brexit) that started all this is also the quote “The judge added: “To some who don’t know you they would perceive the offers of bounty as menacing.”“, her honour seems to step over the issue that there were two money offering events as such there is a pattern, in the second there is the issue that in this economic day and age there is the risk that too many people would take a member of the aristocracy at their word, as such these were two oral contracts towards establishing a criminal act. The fact that I see no mention of this is actually a larger issue. In this we see a lot more at revolvy.com (not sure about the source at present regarding correctness of data). Here we see that he holds half a dozen titles, all inherited. In addition we see “Following a complaint made in November 2016, Philipps was arrested in January 2017 by Metropolitan Police officers investigating online abuse against a 51-year-old woman. In March 2017 he was charged with malicious communications with racially aggravated factors, over alleged threats against Gina Miller, the woman behind a successful legal challenge against the UK government’s intention to give notice to leave the European Union without an act of parliament“, this implies that Rhodri Philipps is an optional repeat offender, a fact that the Guardian did not make mention of.

So as I seem to have wrapped that up neat and decently tight, it seems that any upcoming article on Twitter social media and online hate speech should be thrown in the faces of any MP (literally throw that paper into their faces I mean), with the mention that unless they are a lot more consistent in their actions and silence regarding Gina Miller, they should shut the ‘eff’ up and start doing something useful for a living.

The other part that irritates me a little is the sterility of the event as the article shows. Now, from the Guardian points of view that makes sense, the reality is that this is an emotional situation and as such emotions will run high soon as such it makes sense. In addition, there is nothing wrong with the article that Julia Gregory wrote, yet the fact that I got a lot more issues, events and facts in front of me in about 5 minutes gives rise that the lack of illumination of acts that several papers show in the last 6 months regarding Rhodri Philipps, the 4^th Viscount St Davids give rise to a loosely translated ‘structural problem’ with this person and the way how he communicates. Now as stated before we all have the freedom of speech and expression, which is not in question, yet this person bankrupt three times, another implied pending case as well as.

We will hear tomorrow what the man has coming, I wonder if it will be another suspended sentence like in Germany, if that is so that the House of Lords would need to take a sitting on the situation and discuss whether a Viscount should be allowed to hold his title when there is the larger consideration that it allows the person to evade jail sentences. We can all agree that any person, living upstairs or downstairs in the mansion has rights to speak and sometimes is might be grammatically correct, yet it is a lot less refined that that of a London Dockworker; these moments do occur (we all have these issues, especially during a sports match), yet as it is seen in repetition, should a person in such an elevated position of privilege not be held to higher standards? If so, should he be allowed to keep all those titles? In the end the House of Lords would rule against my request, yet it is important to hold that conversation. Merely because this is not some revamping of words and an edited view of some interview, these are the words that he submitted to social media, ready to be seen by thousands and more. In his case we get an actual first that in the consideration of upstairs, downstairs that he is the one who should reside in the basement and the staff members on the first flow, sleeping in a lovely bedroom with a nice view.

To be regarded in high esteem is one thing, to actually live up to it, quite another. In all that it seems to me that Rhodri Colwyn Philipps, 4^th Viscount St Davids failed on every level possible, that might be seen as an accomplishment, yet is it the one we should allow for?

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July 10, 2017 · 13:35

As the party ended

Consider a firm, it has 1.4 million employees and 4672 stores in the US. So basically this employer is employing 0.43% of the entire population that makes it an extremely large player. Now, I have been critical of this player in the past on several occasions. A player this big tends to maximise profit at the expense of whatever gets in the way. It is for all extent and purpose, the American way. So what happens when places do not make the cut? What happens when the plug is pulled? Don’t get me wrong, I will not oppose the right of this player to do that, pulling the plug is a business decision, and for the most a valid one. So when I read: ‘What happened when Walmart left‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happened-when-walmart-left), we need to ask several questions. The quote “But for the people of McDowell County – proud country folk labouring under the burdens of high unemployment, low income and endemic ill health – even such a fleeting visit to this rural backwater by the world’s largest retailer had a profound impact. Both in the arrival, and in the hasty leaving“, as well as ““All Walmart was interested in was how many millions of dollars they made, they weren’t interested in helping the community,” says McDowell County commissioner Gordon Lambert. “When they didn’t make the profit they wanted, they left.”” Here we see corporate America in action, yet in all this, should we blame Walmart? Personally I say ‘No!’, you see, this is not about what is right, it is what is correct and legal and the US government allowed and pushed for this path for the longest of times. It legally does not matter how rich the owners are, even as I have objected to the level of exploitation, my objection were based on social correctness, legally nothing wrong was done. You see, the first step to blame, if blaming is the proper word would be Terry McAuliffe, Governor of Virginia, Terence Richard McAuliffe is an American Democrat, politician and former businessman. As for the other areas, we have Joe Manchin (D) and Shelley Moore Capito (R) in the Senate, as well as Evan Jenkins (R), David McKinley (R) and Alex Mooney (R) in the House of Representatives. The question is what did they do? What options did they have for those suddenly out of work? You might think that they have nothing to do with this, yet when ONE employer has given 0.43% of the entire population a job, closing 154 stores in 2016-2017, that implies that thousands of jobs are lost, not all of them with the option to be retrenched, so at that point the House of Representatives would have needed to take a long hard look at the alternatives in stopping the creation of ghost towns and derelict business properties. We might not consider the impact or the legality, yet what would have been possible to limit the damage to some extent? There might have been a few options, yet in that certain legalities should be changing in that regard and as such the political side in all this, seems to have been largely too quiet.

The article by Ed Pilkington in McDowell County, West Virginia shows the devastating impact. Some might find it a little too emotional, yet what other side is there? If the political side remains absent, what stories of opportunity are possible? Another quote is ““The Walton family are billionaires,” she said (also no exaggeration – their collective worth is put at about $150bn). “They developed a system that just made us worse off, and then they took even that away from us.”” is not invalid, yet that shows that there is a clear political failure. We can argue the legislative side, yet as the laws are not broken, the US political branch has a clear requirement so alter certain views. It is an essential change towards any employer that has such a powerful grasp on any geographical infrastructure as the one that a player like Walmart has. We see the news on a nearly daily basis that there is a pressing need for Gag orders on search warrants, yet there is no protection on the risk of thousands of people becoming homeless. As given, there is a growing concern that the US is moving towards a phase where the ‘rights to life‘ is being removed from people. I discussed part of this in ‘Confirmation on Arrival‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/07/04/confirmation-on-arrival/), in this “We went from governments, to organisations, we left fair opportunity behind and moved to ‘those who have and those who have not‘, and they are soon to be replaced for the ‘enablers and obstructers‘ and those who are the latter would fall into the shadows and face away.“, when we look at West Virginia, the bulk of these people went from enablers (or those who had), into those who don’t have any longer and are seen as ‘obstructers’ of profit requirements, and now? It seems that the political branch is failing these people as are the better part of the administrative side where those without a job and options fall. The issue is that under the minimalized options that Walmart was allowed to ‘hide’ behind, we see thousands of people who had no option to build any reserves, so as such their plight is even more drastic and diminishing increasingly so.

Yet, is that at present a political issue?

I think it should be, as the administrations catered to the need of maximised profit and took away levels of rational accountability, the large players could walk away. So should Walmart not be allowed to walk away? No, that would be equally wrong, yet for any company to have such a large stake in any location to this extent, means that the political players should have played for a different scenario, where the leaving party would be required to give extended severance packages for a much longer time. In addition, an alternative would be that the county would in fact confiscate all equipment from those local Walmart stores, allowing for the start-up of butchers, grocers and other shops. Small community shops that would give to some extent a longer lasting time and perhaps keep some economy going in McDowell County. Let’s face it, Walmart would have written off this stuff for the longest times. In addition, not allowing for some cheap lease option means that the shops have an actual local commitment. It might not have saved too much, but some saving could have been an option. Even as Walmart walked away because of profitability from their spreadsheet, small local businesses might still have thrived, which meant that McDowell County could see a larger prevention into becoming a ghost town. There is no guarantee here, yet in all this, how would the pressure be on places like Asheville, Hickory and Morganton and as certain start-up phases are instigated, would that also benefit those places? More important, could the negative drag be minimised in this way? Consider the quotes we see in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, where earlier this year we see ‘Education, technology focus of Gov. McAuliffe’s visit to SWCC‘ (at http://www.bdtonline.com/news/education-technology-focus-of-gov-mcauliffe-s-visit-to-swcc/article_9a6356be-3f60-11e7-9b53-5bcd6e225a58.html), now consider the impact merely an hour away where thousands of jobs are lost. What would be the education impact, both in retaining students as well as gaining new ones? These are the real life local challenges and a strong political support system is essential in preventing such infrastructure disasters. If the impact of Walmart was so big, why allow this place to be lost, even if that means getting independent providers to retaining business? If one Walmart is a grocer, baker, butcher, electronic store, a gun shop, a furniture store, a liquor store, a sports store, a clothing store and with their large infrastructure making some profit, there is no way that small 1-2 family stores could not take over the bulk of business needed and not make a profit. What level of non-Walmart retrenching was in place? Was there any in place?

So as I go back to the article with “It was a big thing for people round here when Walmart pulled out. People didn’t know what to do. Young people started leaving because there’s nothing for them here. It’s like we exist, but we’re not existing.”“, in addition there is “She remembers the excitement when the supercentre opened. “People welcomed it with open arms, we needed the jobs,” she said“, the question is not merely the jobs, it is about the consumption and the people buying. So what if that one large box becomes a large box with 20 small stores? The building is there, the power connections are there. Could it be retrenched as a small mall? The statistics shows the decline from 100,000 to 20,000 a coal fell away, yet 20,000 people still need goods, they need clothes and food, in the end it might be cheaper for the government to consider side steps instead of letting it fall away, and in all this Walmart loses a vote of rights to property. They walked away did they not? It is a written off place and even as their accountants cannot resell or write off, they would have to accept the losses, and they walked out. There might not be a legislative option, yet there should be one, this is why the governor was my numero uno person to point at. He is el-Jefe (Just Everyone’s Friendly Executive) of Virginia and solution driver (or should be). If we can turn this around (extremely speculative), there would finally be a starting point to turn the US economy around. When the presented vulture economy is reduced to a community economy there would be a starting wave of growth. Now, do not expect this to be the actual solution, yet any waves that limits reduction can also be seen as initial growth. It is from those moves that visionaries are grown that will change that wave into actual forms of visionary retail. This has been proven again and again as places like JC Penney started in 1902. That is well over a century ago. I cannot predict what will come next, because the world will be changing in large ways over the coming 10 years, yet as I see it, the larger vultures like Walmart and Target are either transforming or on their way out, mostly they are on their way out as they are trying to consolidate maximised profit, when that happens we see truly see new places grow that are all about personalised customer interactions, and this will start with small stores. This is not about data, this is about interactions and that has forever started with a family business. You see, from the early days we saw that, for every one Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates there were 10 George Dayton’s. This is where the new economy will come from, not from the large iterative players, but from the small innovators. They will not merely build new business; they will keep places like McDowell, VA on the map. It is a first clear requirement for infrastructures not to lose the plot, of where they are on the map (You are here —> X), yes ‘X’ will mark the spot for the new player, and as new options are rising from the ashes, there will be economic movement, small art first, but that is how any train starts, it starts slow! This is in opposition to all those large US players who seem to live of the virtual possibility that they are all AAR Standard S-4200 trains that hold the acceleration of a formula one car. When you realise how short term, stupid, that train of thought is (pun intended), you get to see the first realisation that is drowning the US economy. For the reality is that those who not truly create are merely in the process of instigating decline.

Donald, now President Trump, stated: ‘let’s make America great again‘. In that I agree that it would be possible, yet only if certain ‘truths’ are not just adhered to, but actively supported through government. It might not save places like McDowell, VA, yet it is possible to reduce its decline and give time for the local community to see where growth could be created. It could be the starting template for other communities to follow. You see one Walmart is merely a store, a community is an optional force of nature and when fighting nature you always lose! In history the Dutch are the only ones ever to win a fight against nature and the fight they won was not getting drowned. Those dikes are merely holding back water, yet as the lowest point in the Netherlands is 23 feet BELOW sea-level and when you also consider that 21% of that nation is below sea-level and 50% is merely 3 feet above sea-level, it is one hell of a fight they did win. In the end it was one person, Cornelis Lely (1854-1929) who created the concept in 1891 that would change the war against the sea forever, merely one visionary creator!

So as the party for some of these places have ended, it will be up to the governors of their states to see what changes can be set to alter the future of these areas by first diminishing the recline and allow for time to give birth to the next visionary. They might not just save the state; they could captain a new direction for a nation that is in dire need of a few actual visionaries.

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Tagged as AAR Standard S-4200, Alex Mooney, Asheville, Bill Gates, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Cornelis Lely, County commissioner Gordon Lambert, David McKinley, Dikes, Ed Pilkington, Evan Jenkins, George Dayton, Gordon Lambert, Governor of Virginia, Hickory, House of Representatives, JC Penney, Joe Manchin, Joe Manchin (D), Mark Zuckerberg, McDowell County, Morganton, Netherlands, President Trump, Shelley Moore Capito, Shelley Moore Capito (R), Terry McAuliffe, the Guardian, US Senate, Walmart, Walton Family

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