Tag Archives: the Guardian

March 27, 2016 · 23:00

The excuse from a failed politician

The NHS has been in the news more than once as it is an important issue. It is today’s article in the Guardian that is a much bigger issue than most people will realise. Let’s take a look at the issue. The title ‘NHS would be put under threat by Brexit, says Jeremy Hunt‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/nhs-under-threat-from-brexit) is only the beginning.

To show you part of this we need to look at this part by part. The first part is shown at the very beginning “The National Health Service will face budget cuts, falling standards and an exodus of overseas doctors and nurses if the UK leaves the European Union, health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said“, which gets my initial response ‘Let me play the worlds tiniest violin for you Jeremy! Why don’t you consider an alternative job like in a taxi or perhaps become a barber, it’s just a suggestion!‘

Is my response to harsh? In this light, which should always be considered, we need to state the following:

  1. The NHS will always face budget cuts, Brexit is not a factor in that reality. Remember that the NHS works off the UK national budget, which is under pressure to say the least, the EU donation not being the smallest expense in all this.
  2. Failing standards if Brexit happens. This might be the most ludicrous reasoning. Ludicrous because standards are either being met or not and at present from several sources they are not being met, the EU seems to be setting unrealistic high requirements in some cases, requirements that many nations are failing, it should be about British standards, they should be the highest and they should be met, EU be damned (and all that).
  3. An exodus of overseas doctors and nurses when Brexit happens. This could have been an issue, but it was clearly stated in my blog ‘The News shows its limit of English‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/06/22/the-news-shows-its-limit-of-english/), where I showed how both Sky News and the Guardian were basically fucking up and creating unneeded panic. That article called ‘New immigration rules will cost the NHS millions, warns nursing union‘ showed the lack of investigation by both news sources as the UK government had published clearly in section 79E ‘is expected to demonstrate that he is being paid either at or above the appropriate rate for the job, as stated in the Codes of Practice in Appendix J‘, the nurses are clearly mentioned and the expected income as set out in the charter.

As I see it, I had to explain that to the press in my article on June 22nd 2015, so why would Jeremy Hunt state option C? In his defence, some people might be nervous if the UK leaves the EEC, yet a British passport is one of the most revered ones on the planet. So any non-EU medical employee would do a lot to gain that status and the UK government has done its share of keeping these highly qualified people interested in staying in the UK. So tell me, why is Jeremy giving us part C?

He actually gives us a decent answer through “Hunt argues that, with the NHS budget already under huge pressure, funding levels can only be maintained if the British economy remains strong“, it is only partially an acceptable answer as the NHS has been a mess for almost half a decade now, so these issues had been known, even if Brexit is an additional element, the danger of Brexit had been a fact for at least 6 months, that is, the chance of it becoming a reality, so the consequences of diminished economy has been an element for almost a decade. Even as the UK had been fortunate, the dangers of a receding economy have been a danger for the larger extent and when we realise that other EU nations have not been this fortunate, we should see that part in the light of ‘Jeremy hunt has had an economic advantage until now’. Not being ready for that risk is clearly a failing of health secretary Jeremy Hunt (as I personally see it).

After that he then kicks in his own windows when we read “He cites a series of economic surveys, including from the CBI as evidence of the adverse impact of an exit on the UK economy“, the CBI survey, which was an absolute joke, as shown in ‘Is the truth out there?‘ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/03/21/is-the-truth-out-there/), it makes for a decent read and shows how the CBI survey could be seen as another chapter from one of the most famous books in statistics called ‘How to Lie with Statistics‘ by Darrell Huff, a 1954 publications that shows us never to ignore the classics.

The quote: “Hunt suggests that progress the government is making in employing 11,000 extra doctors and 12,000 more nurses will be threatened and warns of the “damage caused by losing some of the 100,000 skilled EU workers who work in our health and social care system”. Some could leave because of uncertainties over visas and residence permits, he suggests“, which again I consider to be a load of (the word starts with a ‘B’ and ends with ‘locks’). There shouldn’t be any uncertainties on visas or residency permits and offering that even as a suggestion makes (again, in my personal opinion), Jeremy Hunt unqualified for his present position. It is his job to create calm and take stress away, not to introduce additional stresses to an area where he already failed, in addition to these points I am raising, personally, as a conservative. I believe that there are questions on Brexit and to be against Brexit might be the party line, but there are too many questions regarding the European Community, there are conservatives who seem to support Brexit. For one there is Lord Chancellor Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove, who gave his reasons at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-michael-goves-full-statement-on-why-he-is-backing-brexit-a6886221.html, that part is not up for discussion. The only quote in all this is “The EU is an institution rooted in the past and is proving incapable of reforming to meet the big technological, demographic and economic challenges of our time“, which applies to the NHS because it is facing both technological and economic challenges already. The Labour party bungled the option to get part of the technological solution implemented that could have helped the NHS (perhaps you remember the loss of roughly £11.2 billion in NHS IT restructuring).

My issue in all this is that (again, as I personally see it) Jeremy Hunt is not much of a visionary, which means that as expected, he will follow the party line as any governing body needs to adhere to. Yet in all this, scaremongering is the wrong approach. We need to be the enlightened party, the leaders that give rise to inspiration by properly informing the people. The growing problem for the Conservatives is that like Michael Gove, more will see that the EU has stopped being a solution. Many will not be as eloquent as Michael was in his essay, as printed by the Independent. This does not matter if we are united in finding a solution. My big worry is that scaremongering is a dangerous tactic. It is also the wrong one to make for the reason that enlightening the audience creates trust, needlessly scaring them will only drive part of our party towards UKIP (or Labour), a choice that is a lot more dangerous! To govern one must be elected and the view given at present is not that encouraging.

Stephen Dorrell, the former health secretary and ex-chairman of the Commons health select committee gave us this “EU research programmes and single market legislation have greatly strengthened European cooperation in this area with substantial benefits for both healthcare and employment in the UK. It is a simple fact that Brexit would put all this at risk“, which we might see (initially), as a fair enough statement. Yet in my view, the information could be regarded as incomplete (read: speculative view). You see, when we consider Stephen Dorrell, Healthcare and Public Sector Senior Adviser to KPMG in the UK (at https://home.kpmg.com/uk/en/home/contacts/d/stephen-dorrell.html), we need to consider what KPMG could lose, apart from the NHS £1 Billion revenue solution, as one might phrase it. When we re-consider the info the Guardian gave, which is correct in the view that NHS funds will find cutbacks, KPMG has a clear danger that it will reflect on their 10 figure deal, all in pounds and a lot less on medical staff. This gives an additional weight to the view that Stephen Dorrell did not give all the information, because there is a lot more, not on the hands of Stephen Dorrell or in the hands of him mind you, but in the hands of his friends (read: associates), possibly with KPMG who are realising that Brexit will impact their juicy pharmaceutical profits, with a growing chance that India could move more and more into the UK pouch of generic medication and the expenditure cutback solutions they bring. Now, reader be warned, there is a fair bit of speculation here (the part about India), that speculation is partially because I think there are long term solutions here for the Commonwealth at large, partially because it seems to me that I (and the public at large) have had enough of fat cats (especially pharmaceuticals) avoiding taxation to the degree they have whilst selling overpriced solutions, that are being re-patented again and again.

The list of misinformation appears to be growing and I am trying to offer resistance, because my party should be better than that! After all, we aren’t the Labour party!

 

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 26, 2016 · 23:03

How to see ‘facts’

Brexit is one of the shiniest examples on how information is twisted and turned into many ways, especially ways to either scare people or just knowingly and willingly misrepresent the facts (as I see it). In the first degree there is the press. I think that they are on a large scale doing the deeds that those who support them are requesting them to do.

This sounds ‘misleading’, so let me explain. When the press goes on quoting sources and not investigating sources, we need to start questioning the ‘facts’ that they represent and quote. I think that the press is not doing their utmost to inform their readers and the public at large. I am not talking about the Daily Mail, the Mirror or some Murdoch media outlet. No, I am referring to places like the Guardian, the Independent and even the Times, although in the last case, I have never read it (because only subscribers get access to their website articles (the ones that matter at least). We can wonder how far the press needs to go, yet the answer as I see it should be ‘A lot further than they are currently going‘.

It is up to you to decide whether my subjective version is accurate or not (never take anyone’s word for granted!)

1. The Guardian, ‘French minister: Brexit would threaten Calais border arrangement‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/david-cameron-calais-refugee-crisis-francois-holland).

Background: Regional president Xavier Bertrand, member of the Republicans, headed by Nicolas Sarkozy. This is important because Nicolas Sarkozy is against segregation from the EU and also very much against Brexit. When was the last time anyone going against party ruling would have been allowed to continue? Now that Sarkozy is not in power, they are all about getting elected!

The quote: “Xavier Bertrand, the recently re-elected president of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region, has repeatedly said the Le Touquet agreement would be torn up if Britain left the EU. He said: “If Britain leaves Europe, right away the border will leave Calais and go to Dover. We will not continue to guard the border for Britain if it’s no longer in the European Union”“. The part that is so ludicrous is the issue that if this falls away, everyone will get checked before leaving the train, meaning that the train could stop halfway and until every person is checked, there will not be any continuation, in the second, if illegals are boarding the train, it would mean that France already has a problem, which means that this rash statement will make matters worse for France when Frexit becomes a fact because It would need to deal with a non-existing Le Touquet agreement, meaning that Belgium in equal measure will not be performing checks. This means that the flow from the Netherlands and Belgium towards France could possibly triple, especially in Lille. Consider that Lille has well over 20,000 industry/services. Do you have any idea what level of pressure would fall upon Lille? And that is just the registered part.

The Quote: “France’s economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, told the Financial Times that the Le Touquet agreement – a bilateral relationship between the UK and France – would be threatened by a British withdrawal from the EU“, which is partially a repetition from the first quote, but by Emmanuel Macron, the current Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry in France. He states ‘threatened‘ not ‘withdrawn‘. So when in office you need to be ‘diplomatic’. Yet in all this, there is actually no reason to get there. You see, this is an agreement between nations, in all this it can remain an agreement within nations. Let’s not forget that the checks remain the same and the United Kingdom was never a part of Schengen. There is off course an impact for EU citizens, yet in all this, the United Kingdom would soon be forced to create an almost identical situation that Australia currently has. There would be every reason for the UK to adopt the Australian 457 visa situation. As its own infrastructure would soon after Brexit be massively damaged by the lack of skilled persons. This would include most of the western European nations (France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy).

Yet, the issue of the Le Touquet agreement will be an issue, just not the one that Xavier Bertrand states for the mere reason that France would lose a lot more soon thereafter.

2. The Independent, ‘Brexit would only bring ‘low’ cost to British national security, says former head of MI6‘ (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-would-only-bring-low-cost-to-british-national-security-says-former-head-of-mi6-a6948841.html)

Background: Sir Richard Dearlove, former El Jefe of MI6 (from August 1999 until May 2004), he was replaced by John Scarlett, who endorsed the government’s dossier on Iraqi weapons, including the controversial claim that some weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes (Source: CNN). Any rumour about Iraq ending his career seems far-fetched as Sir Richard Dearlove completed a 5 year tour, like several before him and all those who followed him. We can only argue (well, actually I can) that the Directors seat at £169,999 seems rather underpaid when you consider that you have to clean up the mess Labour made in its ignorance. The Chilcot Inquiry being the evidence here. So it was a little bit about Iraq! More important, the inquiry that ran from 24th November 2009 until 2nd February 2011, is currently being completed as parts were not to be published for several reasons. Its publication is expected to happen on April 16th 2016.

The quote: “Brexit would bring two potentially important security gains: the ability to dump the European Convention on Human Rights—remember the difficulty of extraditing the extremist Abu Hamza of the Finsbury Park Mosque—and, more importantly, greater control over immigration from the EU”

The Quote: “Britain is Europe’s leader in intelligence and security matters and gives much more than it gets in return… If a security source in Germany learns that a terrorist attack is being planned in London, Germany’s domestic intelligence service is certainly not going to withhold the intelligence from MI5 simply because the UK is not an EU member“.

There are a few items here that matter. Even though the HRA could fall over, there are additional facts that would hinder extradition of a person like Abu Hamza. For one there was the case of cleric Abu Qatada, which took forever. I mentioned him in an earlier blog. I discussed this in March 2013 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/03/10/humanitarian-law-v-national-security/) ‘Humanitarian Law v National security‘, you see on 16th December 2004 the Law Lords ruled that Section 23 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was an issue, which is now replaced by the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which is currently repealed. So, my issue here is that, as far as I can tell, the issue will remain to some extent. Yes, I agree with Sir Richard that immigration will gain control, yet at present there are a few loopholes that might not result in solving new issues from becoming a political hot potato (also known as ‘an issue not resolved’) that will give rise to new cases. In the second quote, I feel a few levels of doubt regarding the statement ‘Britain is Europe’s leader in intelligence and security matters‘. Yes the UK might give more than it receives, yet overall certain intelligence matters will dwindle as the data hub that matter is not the UK (they are in third position), it is number 2 (Netherlands) and the current leader (Germany) that are the data titans in Europe, with additional growth due to a Google data centre currently in development somewhere north or northwest of Amsterdam (latest info is that its completion is in 2017). Which would grow the Dutch data stream even further, which could grow to a speculated estimation of 6.5Tb/sec. Sir Richard knows that it is not about the amount of data, but it is about the quality of data. Yet in all this, there might be a consequence of Brexit. It is possible that access to certain data streams might not be forthcoming. Meaning that GCHQ would need to develop other algorithms to counter the lack of data (read: incomplete data). Sir Richard is correct that information would not be withheld, but the exchange of data would be less smooth and time would be lost, all parties seem to agree on that. Yet in all this, Dutch paper NRC gave us in 2013 “Achter de schermen werkt Bertholee hard aan de invulling van de bezuiniging uit het regeerakkoord: 70 miljoen tot en met 2016. Daar is kort daarna nog eens 11 miljoen bijgekomen” {paraphrased: behind the screens director Bertholee (AIVD, the Dutch version of MI5), is working hard to work out on how to implement the agreed cutbacks of 70 million through to 2016, which was shortly thereafter raised by 11 million}. So as the Dutch intelligence needs to cut back on 81 million, Dutch internet nodes will soon thereafter give passage to 40% more data. Even if the bulk of it is ‘Softly Pasting Additional Marketing‘, the intelligence ramification will be larger than expected, there is no way of telling the impact of Brexit, yet the response of Sir Richard, which was “Leaving the EU would bring only a “low” cost to Britain in terms of national security“, is not exactly a given, there is, in his defence, too many unknown factors at present.

So how did we look at facts? How about the speculations we read (in the second case). Well, they are not speculations. I added sources (all except one) and I extrapolated information for half a dozen sources. I have the advantage of languages, something plenty of journalists are lacking. My issue is less with the Independent and only slightly more with the Guardian. I believe that they should have dug deeper. They did mention the facts but the fact that Regional president Xavier Bertrand is not an elected official, he was Mayor of Saint-Quentin (was being the operative word), yet as the recently re-elected president of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region, which was in 2010 and he is about to be replaced by Marine Le Pen (extremely likely), whilst as Mayor he was replaced by Frédérique Macarez in January 2016. So he can claim whatever he wants. Free bowls at the wicket and no official fact to be questioned. Clean given facts that were known before the article came to print. So why were these influential facts not given?

There are more articles in pretty much most papers (excluding the Times at present), which gives us the issue, because the papers should have informed us slightly better. I personally see it as cause and effect. Why a person makes that statement is one, but the position he/she is in is equally important. I have stated before again and again, never go from one source; not even me as a source. Use the information you get and form an opinion, because when the vote is due, whatever you select is on yourself, not on others. Being the non-winner is one thing, ‘I should have voted for the others’ when ‘your choice’ makes it would qualify you the voter as an idiot. Make sure you know what you select and why you make the selection.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 16, 2016 · 23:49

Sausage Party

This reference is not from the article we see in the Guardian called ‘Sony announces October release for PlayStation virtual reality headset’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/15/sony-october-playstation-vr-virtual-reality-headset), it refers to the trailer for a new cartoon, one that is as child friendly as Deadpool is (meaning not child friendly at all), It is the twisted view of food through the cartoon eyes of Seth Rogan (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7fP9q_LyDc), it is as screwed up as it gets. You see, when I see the approach of a 28 week release of new hardware, I want to see how it applies and more important to which games. After this Keith starts telling us how 230 developers are working on games for the device and ends with the quote “Over 50 titles are expected to be available by the end of 2016“. It is the quote “It will be the quality of the first VR games and applications that will decide whether the technology succeeds” that rings true, even if that is followed with the quote “the next title in the multimillion-selling Gran Turismo series of driving sims“. For Gran Turismo fans of course an immediate reason to get this updated, yet overall the 50 titles as stated for by the end of the year, there is no decent call for what we would call outstanding games. 1 in 50 is not something PlayStation should be proud of. The verge (at http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/15/11225030/new-playstation-games-list-gdc-2016) gave us this list:

  • Allumette
  • Driveclub
  • Gary the Gull
  • Golem
  • Harmonix Music VR
  • Job Simulator
  • Joshua Bell: Immersive Experience (tech demo)
  • Megaton Rainfall
  • Playroom VR
  • Star Wars: Battlefront VR experience
  • SuperHyperCube
  • Thumper
  • Tumble VR
  • Valkrie
  • Waltz of the Wizard
  • Wayward Sky
  • Xing: The Land Beyond

Which, if we add Gran Turismo too is still not something to get joyous on. Other places give us titles like ‘PlayStation VR’s launch line-up looks impressively diverse’, which is after that followed by no titles at all (Source: engadget). Yet, Keith in the Guardian does offer: “Ubisoft, 2K Games and Electronic Arts – the latter has revealed that it will release a PlayStation VR mode for its massively successful shooter Star Wars: Battlefront“. Ubisoft is still on the waning side of life with not the greatest hits at present. Even though the Division seems to present itself a true hit, like Ubisoft used to make them. For me personal, the fact that Elite Dangerous will support to Oculus Rift on the Xbox One is great news and this is the kind of title people who are into those devices would be interested in seeing. The fact that Sony is keeping their distance on several titles is little unsettling to me, but that could just be me. Eurogamer gives us a little more (at http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-03-15-heres-230-developers-making-playstation-vr-games), in addition they notice that “Bethesda, Bungie, Epic, Rockstar and Telltale are pretty big names holding out on this PlayStation VR wave“, in my view not an immediate issue. Yet, Eurogamer had more in today’s article. “A special version of Star Wars Battlefront produced by EA, LucasArts and DICE exclusively for PlayStation VR“, this implies that it could be a totally separate product, which would make decently sense in this early stage of a new piece of hardware. In addition we see: “PlayStation VR does not include the PlayStation Camera, which is required for head-tracking. So you may want to tack another £40 or so onto the initial £349 price. (It currently goes for £38.08 on Amazon)“, in all this we see that Eurogamer has the goods that the Guardian failed to deliver, although in honesty, some Eurogamer facts were only known today.

This gets us to the title, is this s sausage party? Is Sony dicking around now? It seems a crass way to state this, but if there are 50 supported titles, the ones we have seen so far (bar 3) do not encourage a $700-$800 investment. I would have thought that Sony had learned from their PS Vita mistakes, or is that PS Vista?

The initial which I hoped for was that No Mans Sky was initially delayed due to the VR interface for No Mans Sky, which would have been an absolute killer combination to own. It turned out to not be the case (that rumour was stated to be false), but I have high hopes for PlayStation VR, even if that inclusion comes after the initial release at the price of a DLC extra. Consider the feeling you as a RPG player will have when you walk through Fallout or Skyrim. The idea to see space like you are really there (Elite Dangerous) or explore No Mans Sky whilst having to look around to see it all is overwhelmingly enticing, likely to gamers all over the world.

There is however opposition, also from within me. Should we switch to VR all the time? No! Of course not. I do not believe that a VR offers an addition to Diablo3. It will give a jump to Minecraft, but I doubt that this feeling will be present when I play something like Need for Speed, Assassins Creed or Tomb Raider for that matter. As we play more games, as we see new innovation in gaming, a VR set will become an essential option for some games. Consider that as the VR evolves, more important as the VR and gaming evolves, we could see the evolution where the controller and our eyes become medium for interaction in a game. Take for example the old arcade Sniper, or the CSI games. There were depending on the mouse to interact, if the mouse pointer changed, we knew there was something. What if we must rely on seeing before we can act? The ultimate Sniper game, if we cannot spot the sniper, we cannot shoot him/her. So as such we get to see an entirely new iteration of Battlefront games. Consider the game Thief. Their brilliant slogan is one thing: ‘What is yours is Mine‘, when it becomes ‘If I see it I’ll take it from you‘, it ups the ante for the player. It would give a new level of player detail. Now in all honesty, I doubt that at present the VR can be the perfect RPG optical device (for now), yet what happens when that changes? What happens when the elder Scrolls gives us the boost that we see what Ogres, Wood Elves or Khajiti see? A new level of gaming, not just for us in general, what if the bedridden child can see abroad, see places they could never visit like they were actually there? This leap is not that far a leap. The simulators like a train or a truck simulator becomes a very different experience when those who cannot go could still experience. You might think of this as a weird side jump, but let’s not forget that for decades gaming was on the edge of technology. Until serious gaming came, hydro cooled graphic cards were not a needed reality, the mouse would not have evolved the way it did and the controller would remain a concept at best.

The VR will open doors and it will open different doors, but for the most it will open doors many did not consider, because there was no need for it. I reckon that the travel idea’s I gave earlier could spawn a new ‘Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego’, a game that has an educational and an analytical side to it. Hugh Jackman did sing it in ‘the  Boy from Oz’, where he sang everything old is new again and that is the truth, because some of the initial ground breakers that gave life to the Commodore 64 could see rejuvenation through the combination of new hardware and new avenues to explore the story that games offered. Elite Dangerous (Elite in those days) will support the headset. Yet what if the VR does not replace, but complement? Consider the legendary X-Com games. What if the screen is for the gameplay and the VR is for tactical base management? There are plenty of other games where that show promise by adding a new dimension. Some will work, some will not, and the more you like a game, the more receptive you are likely to be for the addition if you can afford it (one will hope).

No matter how we twist or turn this event, VR, is becoming a reality and it will impact games, it will impact the future of gaming. So in all that, when we see the start of this new device, it is my personal view that Sony bungled the ball. Even if there are still 28 weeks to go, the absence of a list of given AAA titles means that the ‘real shit’ won’t be getting here until 2017, perhaps even later. Now, all this is still speculation from my side, because there are 25+ titles to be confirmed. However, if you are about to give a show, when you start to give visibility to the new show in town, you advertise No Man’s Sky, Deus Ex Mankind Divided and For Honor, not Gary the Gull, Golem or Driveclub. This could just be me, yet I wonder how many other gamers feel that way?

When the Boy from Oz was done, do you think it would have been the success it was if Rick Astley instead of Hugh Jackman played Peter Allen? This is nothing against Rick Astley, just as I have nothing personal against Driveclub, but we all know that the VR will not make it as a Driveclub option. Yes to Gran Turismo and definitely yes to For Honor, so why is Sony silent on those AAA titles that actually matter?

That is the part that got to me in the Guardian, loads of writing, but lacking the data we all needed to read, like the data Eurogamer gave us. Yet, is this the fault of the Guardian, or is Sony playing the wrong game? That is in the end the question that comes to mind, because 6 months is almost nothing in the gaming industry and the lack of AAA titles is an issue, more important, by keeping the people in the dark, Sony is only cutting its own fingers. You see, the bulk of gamers cannot afford to just shove out $700 that is without a game (or camera for that matter), so plenty of gamers pay it forward and shell over $100 a month so that they are ready to shine with their device on day one of the release. Which is not that appealing at present. On the other hand, it is also likely that Sony would, to keep the books interesting, to show the revenue some bigger bosses need, to lower the price of the device and add the camera for free if they want to look good when Tax year 2016 ends, if not, there will be a larger change in management at Sony, but that again is just speculation on my side. So from my side Sony, I reckon you should not throw a sausage party, leave that to Seth Rogan!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

March 14, 2016 · 20:17

Corporate Cowardice

The Guardian had a very nice article online, in addition to that article there was a video. The article titled ‘The macabre truth of gun control in the US is that toddlers kill more people than terrorists do‘ was the eye catcher, an article by Lindy West (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/13/the-macabre-truth-of-gun-control-in-the-us-is-that-toddlers-kill-more-people-than-terrorists-do). For the most it was a straight forward article. What was the issue was seen in the video by Rupert Neate who went to Las Vegas to take a look at the fair (I am slightly jealous now). An interesting quote here was from Neil Hogue from Hogue Inc. who stated “fear drives sales in the firearms industry“, well-spoken Mr Hogue I say! This is a truth. I ‘love’ firearms because of the engineering. Consider a pellet (read: bullet) that can be delivered to a spot within half an inch over a distance of 800 metres. That ability, the skill needed from focus, the maintenance of your rifle and the balance of all these elements to deliver an outside hit in exactly that place with changing weather conditions is the skill I love. I believe it to be a gift. This does not make me nuts! If NATO needed me to shoot people, I would. If the challenge is to shoot a piece of carton I would and providing it is for food (not for sport) I would shoot Bambi in a heartbeat (for the Bambi burger mind you). I will not end the life of anything for mere sport, which I regard to be actually quite sick. Then at 2:27 in that video we get Smith & Wesson, Mr. Jan Mladek. I think that Mladek dealt wrongly with the issue from square one. I do not know whether he was the one who caused the change, yet there is clarity in the video that the organisers dealt poorly with the issue, although the approach they took, regarding the optional possibility of chaos was not incorrect, the entire matter had been badly dealt with. From the view given, it was Smith & Wesson who could be regarded as the party hiding via corporate cowardice. Within me I wonder how Heckler & Koch would have dealt with it. I saw a much better answer, a decently serious answer from Joe Gaicevic from Troy Industries. He states “blaming a spoon on making somebody fat”. Here is another person hitting the nail on the head. You see, guns do not kill people, people kill people. Do you think that any politician in a declining economy wants gun control? A valid branch bringing in billions in tax dollars every year. Politically speaking, it was ‘the Daily Signal‘ who gives us ‘NRA Head Wayne LaPierre Says Obama’s Knowledge on Guns ‘Wouldn’t Fill a Thimble’‘ (at http://dailysignal.com/2016/03/04/nra-head-wayne-lapierre-says-obamas-knowledge-on-guns-wouldnt-fill-a-thimble/), which is as direct as it gets. Wayne LaPierre stated “We know a liar when we see one. We also know a political coward when we see one”, yet in all this he also misses a more important point. It is corporate cowardice. You see, many in the arms industry want income but have no regard of any kind for critical questions, you see, in my book, if you cannot deal with those you have no business being in that business. Which is the part the interview with Rupert Neate uncovered. When we see that the smaller players (Neil Hogue and Joe Gaicevic) give perfectly rational response, we need to ask additional questions regarding Jan Mladek from Smith & Wesson. The fact that he is mentioned as ‘marketing’ makes me wonder whether Mr Mladek is in the right vocation, perhaps selling Philips Hairstylers is more his tune (and will lead towards much less confronting questions).

So where am I in this?

Yes, we can agree that Smith & Wesson will take a hit when one of their products is used in a shooting. In this case the Smith & Wesson M&P15. It was not the only weapon used, so other weapons were used too, like the DPMS Panther Arms A15. In equal measure we must acknowledge the following facts “they made a modification that defeated the ban on detachable magazines” as well as a failed attempt to make the firearm fully automatic. So we have here a valid firearm that was altered making it no longer a permissible firearm. So the weapon was a no longer standard sporting rifle (not my choice of sporting rifle). Smith & Wesson bungled here as the facts would have given them a positive view on the ways that their weapon was not meant for such use. When considering the words of Joe Gaicevic I would state: “if you want to complain about being fat because it was easier to eat the ice-cream with a serving spoon and not with a table spoon, you only have yourself to thank for transgressing beyond fat!”

In equal measure, we can look at the first instance that linked this article. It was regarding Jamie Gilt and how her 4 year old shot her in the back. The quote that I regarded as funny was “People are trying to make it into something it’s not, we are not criminals, we are the victims here” (source: Daily Mail). In my view, no, she is the criminal. Not only did she leave a loaded weapon within reach of her 4 year old. She neglected basic gun safety. You see, her 4 year old would not have been strong enough to cock the slider, meaning no bullet in the chamber, in the second, it would have been an option for her kid to play with it, look into the hole and accidentally pulling the trigger. She might look sexy as hell holding a 9mm and having a .223 rifle at her side. The text “the more I learn about my government, the more I love my guns!” completes the view. She would have scored more points advocating gun safety rules. Those 10 pesky points that keep other people from getting killed with the additional by-line ‘Oops!’, America is a gun nation, let’s just accept that and instead of rushing to blame every spoon in the land for obesity, how about holding the transgressors accountable for their actions? As a second point of scolding towards Wayne LaPierre I would raise the quote “His knowledge on that issue wouldn’t fill a thimble“, Wayne, please do not insult the thimble, you need a much smaller scale of measurement in this instance.

What does matter is the quote “LaPierre challenged Obama a week later to debate him on firearms with “no pre-screened questions and no gas bag answers”“, this is the issue. It is easy scoring political points shedding tears for dead people, yet the real issue is the one we see with: “another gun law isn’t going to prevent crimes committed with firearms” which is the truth and at the heart of the matter. His correct answer is “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun“, which is why they have police officers. Now, there is no denying that in the US police officers have made mistakes, some whoppers I might add. Yet the people should also realise that legislation has done (pardon my French) ‘fuck all’ to the safety and security of police officers at a pay of roughly $66K a year. This might sound nice, but in the larger cities $66K gets you a far below average apartment, even when moving towards the edge of the city you would be hard pressed to find decent accommodation. So explain to me how these people are regarded to take beyond reasonable risks? The problem here is that for well over two years it has been known that the data collection regarding fatal shootings is massively flawed, so there are levels of uncertainty here too.

The police shows that there is an overall stigma on a national level when we look at fatal shootings. The San Bernardino event is an extreme, just like Columbine is. In both events this was due to illegally acquired weapons. So weapon laws would not have made an impact. People kill people, guns do not! The fact that the US has no less than 1.13 weapons for every American citizen, so we can rule out any effective gun control law from the very beginning, any re-purchase  plan will make the US bankrupt overnight. By adjusting gun laws and making the owners of illegal firearms guilty of a capital crime would be a first step, but this democratic government is decently too cowardly to get such a plan in motion and at the end of the reign of Obama, in that view I personally reckon that the republicans will not show themselves to be a whole lot better. So the issue remains up in the sky.

There is however another side, the one that the government is in denial about. The fact that the Washington Post stated on October 5th 2015 that they were at that time looking at 2013 data. This means that the data, depending on when delivered is still 2 years late for any decent adjustment. This implies strongly that the ATF has issues it cannot deal with, which is nothing to say on the need of keeping a check on proper enforcement of gun rules. Weirdly enough, in all this, the bulk of gun owners have a clear established protocol in the proper handling of firearms. Rules that have been handed down from father to son and at times also from grandfather to grandson, a tradition still in play for several generations. I see this as a massive reason why people at large are so opposed to gun control laws to the extent President Obama is trying to push, which by the way, considering the amount of guns currently in circulation would not have any impact at all.

And this is not the only ’empty’ gesture he is making, he is about to make things worse by going to London in April to appeal to British voters to stay in the EU, that whilst he is unable to contain Wall Street greed and hold them accountable for plenty of these messes, as well as keeping a budget (like the bulk of the European nations). So good luck to that idea! The biggest over spender is trying to reason with voters regarding the economy and budgets. I reckon it will be entertaining to say the least, as every ill-conceived statement will drive people towards UKIP, Nigel will be so happy on Labour Day, it is likely to be a comedy of an entirely new level!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 9, 2016 · 21:36

Outrage

I am angry and I need your help!

This is not some weak story about a person who is lost, this is a story about a person who is determined. You see, we have all had enough of the press to some extend and now the time is right to give them a little medicine of their own. This all started as I saw this article ‘Matrix director Lilly Wachowski comes out as a transgender woman’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/09/matrix-director-lilly-wachowski-comes-out-as-a-transgender-woman). This seemed not a biggie at first, people make choices, they make them of their own accord and initially I shrugged and thought nothing of it. It is the subtitle that got my blood boiling, almost in a literal way. It stated “she went public after Britain’s Daily Mail ‘threatened public outing’“, now add to this the quote “she referred to the incident as a “threatened public outing against my will”, drawing comparisons to a similar incident involving the paper“. Now add the following parts: “Lucy Meadows, took her life after the Daily Mail published a column by Richard Littlejohn titled “He’s not only in the wrong body … he’s in the wrong job”. Michael Singleton, coroner for Blackburn, Hyndburn and Rossendale, criticised the “sensational and salacious” coverage which he blamed for her death” and “I just wanted – needed – some time to get my head right, to feel comfortable. But apparently I don’t get to decide this“. Well, let’s see if we can change that. I think that change is inevitable, especially if we all unite. You see, from my point of view when ‘pussies’ like that prey on those in vulnerable positions, whilst at the same time ignore transgressions by places like Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) and a few other players, I feel it has become important to change the game that some Journo’s have been playing.

So, let’s turn the tables, especially for those in the UK. Let’s open our offensive on people like Paul Dacre, the Journo’s at the Daily Mail and DMG Media with Viscount Rothermere (for now). Let’s put them in the spotlight!

First up – Viscount Rothermere

Rothermere believes the Daily Mail has been “built on solid ground” and a unique place in the market (Leveson testimony). In my view, as seen in the Guardian as stated by Lilly Wachowsky: “a journalist from Britain’s Daily Mail attempted to coerce her“, so Harold, that unique place, is that coercing people? Why not show some balls and try that on Ian Powell and Gaenor Bagley and coerce some information regarding PwC’s alleged action with Tesco? Perhaps they will give you the goods or that coercing Journo and you will end up with a real scoop, you know, the kind of real ground-breaking stuff towards possible criminal indictment and so on. Or is that a little bit too much of a stretch? Or perhaps there is the ever so slight chance that they will strike back in different ways? Now consider “Rothermere says: “built on a fundamental belief in a trust in journalism as opposed to technology. That’s what makes me proud“, yes, coercing laptops is a little hard, unless you hack them, which might be not all on the up and up legally seen. Finally we get the quote (from the Leveson part) “he is confident the Daily Mail has acted ethically. ‘And I am willing to stand up for us’“, which can be clearly thrown out of the window regarding Lilly Wachowsky. I wonder if we see shrugs, excuses (by stating: ‘It’s on the desk of Paul Dacre’) and other modes of a trans-neglecting mindset.

Second up – Paul Dacre

In December 2015 he proclaimed that he is all about Freedom of Information. He stated: “In the main, I suspect, dislike of FoI is driven by Whitehall’s belief that civil servants should be exempt from public scrutiny. This is in my view counter-productive, and perceived by the public simply as a compulsion to cover backsides“, so is that FoI under any option? Like coercion, blackmail, hacking? Whilst Paul was nice enough to have the quote: “an elitist political class protecting its own interests“, which is like the Journo calling the Politician selfish. That is not the idea we get when their profit is numbers of circulation and now includes Coercion, we can hope it is ONLY coercion (meaning the least offensive way) you get to feed your papers circulation with.

Now let’s get back to 2013 (at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/03/miliband-daily-mail-inquiry_n_4038824.html), where we see: “The chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust has apologised to Ed Miliband after a reporter turned up uninvited at a family memorial service, but insisted the incident did not reflect the “culture and practices” of his papers“, which we can of course set as fictional when we see the ordeal of Lilly Wachowski just faced.

So until the Daily Mail starts their front-page with ‘alleged trans gender’s Harold Jonathan Harmsworth and Paul Dacre surprised their staff by growing some balls‘, they have now promised to actively dig into the involvement of PwC regarding Tesco. I very much doubt that it will ever happen, so until that moment comes, why don’t we make sure that the public at large gets to see every act from these Daily Mail journalists and their family members? I reckon that the public has a right to know, let’s see how many articles and photographs it takes for these revelations until we get:

  1. Some fake apology
  2. Threats that there is oppression against the freedom of the press
  3. Demands from Whitehall against acts that endangers the independence of journalists.

In all this, it seems utterly unlikely that the Daily Mail will hold itself up to any scrutiny and any level of Ethics and/or Integrity.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 6, 2016 · 20:47

Murder or simply killing it

Europe remains on our minds from several directions. The fact that the start of Brexit is 13 weeks away, so basically we have now entered the final quarter of a union that basically never was. A union that did little good for too many people and a setting that well over tripled the cost of infrastructure. All elements that are shifted around, as they aren’t clearly in budgets on reports and more important, a place of spending that is not being properly monitored or controlled.

We might all think that the EEC was so good for us, but was it really? When you are not in a high position in a large corporation, how did you really benefit? The last 15 years have been a mere exercise in exploitation by big business and short cut seekers. In all this after Brexit, the situation will remain. When goods are needed, people will buy them, which is why I oppose certain articles from the Guardian. One of them (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/28/brexit-would-affect-lives-of-millions-official-uk-report-says) states: ‘Brexit would negatively affect lives of millions, official UK report says‘, yet is this altogether true? let’s take a look at some of the quotes “The 10 years cited in the report includes the time it would take for Britain to exit the EU, to set up a new trade and related agreements as well as negotiate fresh trade deals with the US and other countries“, I regard this to be untrue. You see, everyone wants to sell, if the UK wants to buy, than those nations will oblige. More important, HM Revenue and Customs (at https://www.uktradeinfo.com) shows that UK imports is a lot higher than exports, which means that the UK is spending between 10 and 20 billion a year more than it receives in exports. Do you believe for one second that those nations will not find an immediate solution here? The damage of the UK getting its goods from a secondary source is too scary for THEIR economies, so you can bet the house on a solution being found almost immediately after the changeover comes. The second quote which is important here is “It says the only legal way to withdraw from the EU is through article 50 of the treaty of the European Union. But it argues that there is no precedent for this and that Britain would be unlikely to achieve a successful negotiation in the two-year time period it sets out“, here I also disagree. The paper Withdrawal and expulsion from the EU and EMU (at https://lawlordtobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ecblwp10.pdf) sheds light on this. On page 11 we see “One is that a right of unilateral withdrawal existed even in the absence of any explicit reference to it in the treaties, since sovereign States were, in any case, free to exercise their sovereign right18 to withdraw from their international commitments19”

The references there are:

18. ‘Sovereign power’ has been defined as ‘power not subject to limitation by higher or coordinate power held over some territory’ (MacCormick (1999), p. 127).

19. See Zeh, p. 209. This proposition is in line with the decision in Maastricht Urteil (BVerfGE 89, 155 of 12 October 1993) where the German Constitutional Court stated that the States are still ‘the Masters of the Treaties’ and can always decide to abandon the EU, revoking their acts of accession by a contrary unilateral denunciation; and more recently in its decision in Lisbon Urteil (BVerfG, 2 BvE 2/08 of 30 June 2009) the German Constitutional Court found that the EU, as designed by the Lisbon Treaty, is not a federal state and that constitutional safeguards of national identity clearly exist under EU law.

Which gives us actually two issues. The first is that from the descriptions we see, that the EEC could be seen as a tontine. Here we see the following concept “Each investor pays a sum into the tontine. Each investor then receives annual dividends on the capital invested. As each investor dies, his or her share is reallocated among the surviving investors. This process continues until only one investor survives. Each subscriber receives only dividends; the capital is never paid back“, how is that any different? In addition, the EEC does not give dividend, it costs more and more money, in addition, the nations involved aren’t adding capital, they are adding debt and the last surviving nation ends up with all the debt. From that version Brexit makes perfect sense and getting out first seems to be an imperative need (the second one is further down the article for a reason).

There is one element the Guardian did get right “It also warns that the rights of 2 million British expats to work and access pensions and healthcare in EU countries may no longer be guaranteed“, I am on the fence here. I personally believe that if expats want to live their pensions away in Spain or Greece, than this should remain a possibility. I agree that there might be initial issues, yet those people might be permanent residents as such it should not affect them other than the pensions being a problem and that should not be the case. In addition, if the government does do a 180 on this part, it will be directly responsible to get affordable housing for those 2 million people. There is no way that this would work and it should not be an issue. A pensioner gets their money, it is deposited in whatever account is specified and that is pretty much the end of it in my book. Do you think that Spain, in its current economy would walk away from hundreds of thousands of paying Britons? I think not!

These are some of the oppositional issues I have with the article of Anushka Asthana, Heather Stewart and Nicholas Watt. It is however not the only article, because there are a few sides to the EEC at present, a pressing issue of refugees is an element and it is partially driving Brexit too. The article of a debatable level here is ‘EU acting like ‘human trafficker’ of refugees, says Austrian minister‘, the core of this is “Sebastian Kurz said that “in Greece refugees are being waved through to the heart of Europe. That is simply unacceptable in the long run. The European Union cannot act like a human trafficker.” Restoring the Dublin and Schengen agreements, he said, had to be a priority at the meeting between the EU leaders and Turkey“, as I stated before, it is like listening to someone who lost touch with reality (to some extent). In the first, the EU are not trafficking in refugees. Greece is completely overwhelmed by those refugees arriving via Turkish smugglers. Greece has no infrastructure to deal with the issue and the bulk of all the refugees do not want to stay in Greece, they want to go to a German or English speaking nation, in a pinch a French speaking nation would suffice. That is a clear fact as we have seen it for a long time, in addition, the part “had to be a priority at the meeting between the EU leaders and Turkey” here he seems completely intent of not calling the kettle black, because Turkey is massively responsible for the mess at his borders, as well as the Greek borders. Allowing free passes to smugglers and looking the other way as thousands of refugees are making for Greece. It seems that this short-sightedness is also fuel for both Brexit and Frexit. Now, I will immediately accept that Austria and Germany are getting swamped too. There is an issue, no one denies that, but taking Greece out of the solution was a really bad idea, especially as Turkey is part of the mess, not part of any solution. As the borders in Germany are back up, as borders close, we see another quote. When we read “Yet there will be little sympathy for Berlin from Hungary, Italy or Greece, which are bearing the brunt of the mass arrivals of people from Syria, Iraq, Eritrea and Afghanistan“, which is fair enough. Yet, as stated earlier: “This proposition is in line with the decision in Maastricht Urteil (BVerfGE 89, 155 of 12 October 1993) where the German Constitutional Court stated that the States are still ‘the Masters of the Treaties’ and can always decide to abandon the EU, revoking their acts of accession by a contrary unilateral denunciation“, the intersections of the two situations is found in the works of Juli Zeh.

This now reflects also on the second issue, the first I described earlier, the second issue I skipped until now. This all comes from an article titled ‘Union Membership: Accession, Suspension of membership rights and unilateral withdrawal. Some reflections‘ by Jean-Victor Louis, an honorary Professor from the Free University of Brussels. In his reflections on Page 11, we see: “The future will say if the prevision of unilateral withdrawal will be a “source of pressures and blackmailing against the general interest” or prove to be a useful way out of undesirable changes in the working and orientation of the European Union. Juli Zeh concludes her in-depth analyses of the right of withdrawal by quoting an Estonian member who expressed “hope that this clause will never be used” and indeed she is right. We would like to suggest that the Union should conceive and put in practice an accession policy for the future in order to avoid unilateral withdrawals“.

The interesting part is that at no time any consideration is given to the accountability of national needs and national acts. Consider the overspending of the budget by 12 trillion euro’s (total EEC debt including UK), or the fact that the bulk of the European nations remain incapable of keeping a budget. One could argue that not unlike a contract, the presence of unfair terms are not binding on consumers and the trader may not rely on them. Is the European Union any difference?

The last one is not really that sellable, but the premise is, in addition, should certain parties be investigated for neglecting ‘their’ national need? That question arises from the initial PDF mentioned. Here we see: “As one author has written, there are three main reasons why the treaties were silent on withdrawal: first, it was in order to avoid putting question marks to the Member States’ commitment to the achievement of their shared objectives; second, it was because providing for the possibility of withdrawal might have increased its likelihood; and third, because to provide for this possibility would entail the daunting task of spelling out the procedure and consequences of withdrawal“, this now implies that the creating parties set up an unbalanced situation and in addition the elected politicians at the time did not do their homework and created a dangerous situation to their national need. Am I the only one asking the right question here?

So will Brexit turn out to be murder, or will the British be killing it? Where will the economy go? These are questions that many sources are answering in their view, emphasising their need to be in-EEC, or out-EEC. I have my own view, but I do not have any useful answers. You see, there are issues on both sides, yet as I see it, the scales that are in favour of the UK seem to lean towards out-EEC at present. This view will be interfered with, especially by the USA, as it will topple a massive economic minefield which will blow up in all our faces, especially the value of the Dollar. Yet, the status for the UK would remain strongest if they leave first, especially if the Commonwealth unites with the UK in a strong economic bond. If we find a way to keep import low by utilising the Commonwealth bonds that Commonwealth nations have, the UK coffers would grow better, faster and higher. In the end, Brexit or not, a solution for the refugees must still be found, closing the borders to them completely is as unacceptable as it was for Austria to keep Greece out of the debate. How these parties will be resolved is a question that remains without answer as the involved parties have a hard time agreeing on the resolution, which is fair enough, there are no easy answers, as there is an equal concern that a solution is not forthcoming any day soon. For that Greece would have been needed to create locations, an option Austria decided to take it out of consideration, something that will haunt us for a little longer than we are all comfortable with.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 1, 2016 · 07:49

Where we fail again

There is an issue, the issue is in Greece. This issue is not because of the Greeks, it is not because of anything they did. They are just unfortunate to be the second nation on the route of refugees. Here we see failings on multiple levels, none of them are Greek! You see, this is all due to a youngling named Sebastian Kurz (the Austrian Foreign minister). Extremely bluntly stated, as I see it, this man looks like a teenage boy hoping to get his first gob job! From the Deutche Welle (at http://www.dw.com/en/austria-not-waiting-for-a-european-solution/a-19071556), we get “if Greece refused to protect the EU’s external borders and continued to let refugees travel to Europe, and the EU still had no common solution for the problem, Austria had no choice but to deal with the situation on a national level“. In this regard, my still fuming mind goes: “Well Sebastian, once you stop thinking like a teenager and actually start focussing on the elements, you would see that is Turkey and not Greece that has been the problem. That nation, that had no issue shooting down a Jet after an alleged transgression over Turkish airspace for a mere 10 seconds, that nation seems to give clear passage to refugees any way they can, they even get their hands on boats so that they can make it across to Greece, at which point Greece can either let these people drown or let them ashore.” Did you consider that even once?

Where was Austria and a group of other nations to support Greece in dealing with these refugees? Did you consider that Bassie boy? No, as I can see it, you did not. You just held a one day conference with all the trimmings, so that you could show Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia how important you pretend to be, so is that important or impohtent? Greece has a lot to deal with. One article (all from the Guardian) states ‘Up to 70,000 migrants ‘may soon be stranded in Greece’‘, which will trigger the Greek Army, but they are equally impaired to the task. The second one gives us ‘Double crisis deepens despair in Greece’s ‘warehouse of souls’‘ and the third one gives ‘We can’t allow refugee crisis to plunge Greece into chaos, says Merkel‘. All true, all factual and all incomplete!

Only now do we see in the SF Gate (at http://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Turkey-pledges-to-slow-enormous-tide-of-refugees-6859342.php) ‘Turkey pledges to slow enormous tide of refugees‘, where we see “Turkey all but turned a blind eye last year as more than 850,000 people, most of them Syrians, slipped into Greece from Turkey on smugglers’ boats. Now it’s promised the European Union that will change“, can anyone explain why we tolerate the political joke Turkey has become? The nation that had no issues with a Russian Jet is unable to stop Turkish smugglers. Perhaps the Turkish navy is still relying on equipment from WW1? I am just asking!

Yet, Sebastian Kurz has made no allowance for this at all. He is perhaps hoping on an anti-Greek sympathy vote? From all we see, is the fact that not Greek, but Turkey seems to be a massive problem in all this and now the smugglers got their gains, everyone points at Greece. It is unfair, incorrect and lacking justice on many levels. And in this age of humanitarian need, why do we read “In return for trying to stem the flux, Turkey is to receive a $3.3 billion fund to help it deal with the refugee crisis, a much-awaited easing of EU visa restrictions for Turkish citizens and sped-up EU membership talks“, so apart from not doing their jobs, we see that too many events fall on someone else’s job list at the premise that Turkey is getting something out of this for themselves. How is that anything else then a continuation of selfish needs against the backdrop of the EEC? First we could not deal with Greece (the part that was their responsibility), in all this we have the unacceptable acts by Turkey and now we add to that the immature acts by the Austrian Foreign Affairs Minister hiding it away as a mere conference. Now on the other side, there is no doubt that the pressure is on Austria, but blaming Greece for something that has been out of their control is, as I see it is a total sham.

Greece needs to do more, yet that is not possible and equally unacceptable with massive funds from the EEC and IMF. Turkey might have been strategically a better solution, but it has shown from 2001 onwards that it could not be trusted, and an ally that will only stand by others for a price is not an ally, it is a courtesan at best and a mere mercenary at the worst. There is another benefit, with this change, with these registration systems, it could lead to economic options for Greece. These registrations need to happen, which means jobs for the Greek people and data for the other EEC nations. An idea that came to me months ago, it seems such a simple solution that solves a few issues, yet politicians seem to be immune to solutions, they much rather have one day conferences and leave an ally out of it all, whilst ignoring the acts that could have helped the EEC as a whole. Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos would have a central role in this. Together with Germany they could instigate a new identity card that holds biometric data, a card that could start the changing path of refugees into a slow path to a future, wherever it could be in Europe. The more confirmed identities there are, the better the options become and the pressure over other nations would start to diminish as solutions are created, one step at a time. A mere solution I saw last year, all we now see in the papers is how close to nothing has been achieved. This all escalated a mere moment ago when we got ‘Teargas fired as refugees try to breach Greek-Macedonian border‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/29/teargas-fired-as-refugees-try-to-breach-greece-macedonia-border), the danger is that a mass of people pushed into a corner will do what it needs to survive, and this is close to getting out of hand. In all this Greece now needs to step up to the plate, which they might be willing to do, but if the EEC does not do anything in massive support, the actions will not be realistic. A situation that now develops was clear that it would become unmanageable almost a year ago. How interesting that those relying on ego and presentation will remain in denial until the first casualty comes, right Mr Kurz?

In all this, I do acknowledge that Austria has a problem, it has had one for a while, but the simple story is that those refugees never saw Greece as a Destination, they are aiming for Germany, France and the United Kingdom. That too has been known for a very long time. Which gets me to one part that does fall onto Greece, that is seen in the quote: “Volunteers described scenes of mayhem at passenger terminals in Piraeus and the arrival hall of the former Ellinikon airport in Athens, where up to 4,000 have been housed. “We should have resorted to using the armed forces long ago,” said one. “[But] being [a] left wing [administration], there was hesitation. There were humanitarian values we wanted to uphold.”“. You see, I agree, the army should have been deployed, yet everyone forgets that an army can be deployed for humanitarian purposes. You (in an oversimplified way) replace his rifle for a clipboard and you give him a pink or light green armband (or a white one with a red cross and a red crescent), so that the refugees can see the difference. So that they see that help is no longer a dream but an option.

I apologise for oversimplifying the matter for Austria and its small one day conference, where it remains debatable if anything useful evolved from that expensive event.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 26, 2016 · 21:52

Within the Entitlement of Relevance

Very early this morning an article made it into the Guardian. The title ‘David Cameron boasts of ‘brilliant’ UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia‘, (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/25/david-cameron-brilliant-uk-arms-exports-saudi-arabia-bae), which is fair enough. The UK is one of those nations that actually has an arms export option. It is nowhere near the size of the US, but that is not the point here.

When we read: “on the day the European parliament voted for an arms embargo on the country over its bombardment of Yemen“, we should be asking: ‘and why do we care about that?‘, yet this is not the case. We see both “At almost the same time, the European parliament voted in favour of an EU-wide ban on arms being sold to Saudi Arabia in protest at its heavy aerial bombing of Yemen, which has been condemned by the UN” as well as “The vote does not force EU member states to comply but it increases pressure on national governments to re-examine their relationships with Riyadh“. Which is a joke of sizeable proportions (reasoning will follow). Finally we see: “The Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been extremely critical of Cameron’s relationship with Saudi Arabia because of its human rights record, prompting an angry response from Riyadh“, which could be seen as a humorous climax in labour less form.

We need to deal with the quotes so that it all makes sense to you, but there is one more element in that story. That we see from: “Oliver Sprague, Amnesty International UK’s arms controls director, said: “The ‘brilliant things’ that David Cameron says BAE sells include massive amounts of weaponry for the Saudi Arabia military, despite Saudi Arabia’s dreadful record in Yemen“. I needed to add this to all this, because there is the start.

You see, I am on the fence here. I will happily support Amnesty International, because for the most it is a force of good. When I see the title ‘UK’s arms controls director‘ I wonder if AI lost the plot a little. Let’s be clear here. It makes sense that AI has people on the payroll who understand weapons, understands mines, chemical ordnance. That makes perfect sense. AI is in need of knowledge on many levels and plenty of their work is in places where people tend to passionately not like each other (as in: with clubs, machetes and automatic weapons). Yet, when AI is wasting time on a valid business deal, we should ask a few additional questions. Now, we should quickly mention another side. At https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/amnesty-expert-barred-london-arms-fair, we see ‘Amnesty expert barred from London arms fair‘ as well as his quote “They’ve kept me out, but the question is: what has DSEi got to hide?” Let me answer that instead of the DSEi. You see, I could with my own expertise attend that event, and like him, I will equally hear “alas sir, you didn’t meet the criteria for registration“, even though there should be a few around in that field who know my skill levels in that regard. It is not skill or expertise, you see, it is about CLEARANCE LEVELS. These events are frequented by a massive who’s who of unregistered events, with a decent amount of government employees who need to talk shop, having non-cleared people on that fair tends to be a little unsettling for several reasons. In part because this world has its own rules, you obey those rules or you stop functioning in that world. There is every chance that I could accidently make the mistake whilst Oliver Sprague would intentionally do these things. Most of these people shy away from cameras (apart from those special social functions), they are there to talk shop!

You see, I have every respect for Amnesty International, they have done many good things in the past and will continue this in the future. For example stop torture makes perfect sense. There is also a questionable part from AI, it is nice to talk about the Human Rights Act, yet in the decades they have never succeeded in championing the need to add Spousal Abuse to article 3 of that HRA. Is spousal abuse not torture in its own rights? In that regard AI likes to be very visible, but in some way the big fights are never really fought (or better stated have not been fought for a long time). They have shown success stories every year, but landmark achievements have been absent for some time. Let’s get back to the initial story, but do not forget this part as it has bearing.

You see, the next part is slightly more entertaining. That tends to be the case whenever the honourable Jeremy Corbyn gets involved. Apart from the fashion comments we have seen in the last two days. The actual issue is his choice to get to the CND-rally, which is not a bad thing, but in light of timing, he decides to walk away from the national Labour campaign day, where he would be persuading voters to back Britain’s membership of the EU. This leaves to mind, is this a first inkling that even labour expects Brexit to become a reality? Whether that is true or not, this event has a direct bearing on the British population within this year, the CND rally has been going on for decades, so there would be another one next year. There is no other story beyond that. When you lead the labour party, it must be about the party, not about temporary ideology, because the CND is temporary at best and all ideological. I state that because there is no doubt that the UK would never instigate it, it would however respond if need be. Jeremy knows this (or he should not run the labour party). In all this I accept and understand that this is an option to rub elbows with people like SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party. Yes, those meetings make perfect sense, yet that means that none of them are really there for a CND rally. That is not an accusation, it is not wrong, but it leads to questions; questions that can slow down any election for a massive amount.

Two events all with issues of relevance, relevance from within those people from their point of view.

Now we take another gander, a gander towards the path of Saudi Arabia. Most people refuse to understand (read: accept) two elements. The first is that Saudi Arabia is a sovereign nation, a nation founded in 1932 by the House of Saud. The most important part here is that this is a Muslim nation, it is a nation of laws, in their case it was the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia in 1924 when King Abdul-Aziz made Shura a foundation of his government in order to fulfil the divine order by applying Shariah (Islamic Jurisprudence) and Shura as parts of it. So, we have a clear given, a monarchy that lives by Muslim rule of law, Shariah law. We might not comprehend, understand it or even accept it. But in the Nation of Saudi Arabia it has forever been law. I still do not understand how people go about trying to enforce their rules upon others. You see, when I hear these ‘moralists’ speak on how Sharia Law is so ‘barbaric’, they in equal measure forget that their own governments abandoned them as markets collapsed twice since 2004, no decent part of the involved parties went to prison and absolutely no laws were properly instigated and enforced against greed and in that regard, the least said about flawed corporate tax laws the better. In light of all this consider another fact that applies to the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia, the previous assembly had 70% of its members with a PhD, 49% got their degree in the US and 20% from a University in Europe. So this is a group highly educated. Initially, going back to the beginning, the council was entrusted with drafting the basic laws for the administration of the country. Which is interesting as the US started in a similar way, a nation of laws under god (their Christian version). When we see the Shura council, we see in Article one “and following His Messenger Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH) in consulting his Companions, and urging the (Muslim) Nation to engage in consultation. The Shura council shall be established to exercise the tasks entrusted to it, according to this Law and the Basic Law of Governance while adhering to Quran and the Path (Sunnah) of his Messenger (PBUH), maintaining brotherly ties and cooperating unto righteousness and piety“, so as others judge the actions of Saudi Arabia, ask yourself, in the last 5 years alone, how many instances from large corporations and government have we seen, where ‘maintaining brotherly ties and cooperating unto righteousness and piety‘ were never part of any consideration? You only have to look at your pension plan, healthcare or deficits to see that ‘brotherly‘ is nowhere to be found.

This too is relevant to the entirety of the situation when we return to the honourable Jeremy Corbyn. Several sources stated “Jeremy Corbyn has called on David Cameron to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia after a United Nations report found the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen had “conducted airstrikes targeting civilians”“, based on what evidence would be my first question (not stating the validity of the UN), apart from that, Corbyn has a direct responsibility, you see, the UK had coffers that need to be filled, the UK has product that can be sold. We have seen how UK Labour was willing to spend money they never had, leaving the UK in massive debt. The last thing he should do is call for a suspension. Let me explain that part.

  1. This arms deal is not with some organisation like Hezbollah, it is a legitimate sovereign government of an established nation. The UK has every right to sell products to this nation.
  2. Whenever the west gets directly involved in any Middle Eastern event, it becomes a massive mess, in all this after half a decade, the west has done next to nothing regarding Syria, Europe has to deal with massive waves of refugees and there is no end in sight. Amnesty International knows this. They also know that Sharia Law is another matter, it is not for them to judge; it is for them to accept that the sovereign nation of Saudi Arabia has every right to keep their own set of laws.
  3. Hezbollah and other players in Yemen are not part of an established government, they overthrew governments and the mess that followed has been ongoing ever since. In that light, there are too many question marks in too many places.

I believe that any Middle Eastern issue should be resolved by the Middle Eastern nations themselves. With escalation on the south border and firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia, they have every rights to protect themselves in any way they need to. That is also part of the equation. In that regard Islam 101 gives us two parts “Fight against those who fight against you in the way of Allah, but do not transgress, for Allah does not love transgressors” as well as “Kill them whenever you confront them and drive them out from where they drove you out. (For though killing is sinful) wrongful persecution is even worse than killing. Do not fight against them near the Holy Mosque unless they fight against you; but if they fight against you kill them, for that is the reward of such unbelievers“. The next part is also from the Quran, but I am not sure whether this is Sharia: “The Quran sanctions violence to counter violence. If one studies history of Arab tribes before Islam and fierce fighting they indulged in one would be convinced that the philosophy of passive resistance would not have worked in that environment“. This is the kicker, we see that passive resistance was not a solution, because of the mess that Arab spring left the Middle East. In that Saudi Arabia has a right to counter its attacks, which means that we do not get to say too much on how a sovereign state defends itself. In addition, with the amount of ‘additional’ groups in Yemen, can we be certain who is who there?

But do not fear, Smith is here!

You see, I am very willing to join BAE and become ‘the’ sales person there (I know a person who would join me, so a team of 2 could be achieved), I will take a decent sales income and of course the 3.75% bonus on surplus sales and 3.25% bonus on sales targets reached. I reckon that I can sell the Eurofighter Typhoon military planes, with consultancy, training and guidance. In addition, I will be happy to provide for ammunition and ordnance. As stated, we Commonwealth nations need to stick together and I am happy to aid in the support and consultancy of those jets.

This now gets us to the final part ‘an arms embargo on the country over its bombardment of Yemen‘. What data is there? What evidence is there? We know for a fact that Hezbollah is there, that the Iranians are all over this, which is interesting as they are supporting the party overthrowing the legitimate government. So is there more? Is this perhaps an organised annexing of Yemen for Iran? The elements that gives value to that are indeed in play, whether this is a factual interpretation is not clear, too much data is not available to me, as well as too much time has passed from the start of all this.

And the final part in all this is “The vote does not force EU member states to comply“, which makes the EU a lame duck organisation. All that time and all these events for something that holds no real value. Now let’s take the headcount for a second. Oliver Sprague, a civilian with no political power, a person who leads by instigating those who have power and only in events where it is beneficial to those people could something possibly happen (not in this case though). Jeremy Corbyn, a political headpiece, but not one that is currently in office, he is merely in opposition and as such he is about visibility and branding himself (politically plugging is also a term that applies in this case). These two non-deciders are opposing a nation that needs commerce that needs to export as many of their products as possible.

In the defence of the two non-deciders I must add, from our values, we might have issues and it is nice that the UN is also about values, yet in all this, apart from condemnation there has been very little against terrorist elements. Of all the condemnations we have seen since Syria has a little issue in 2011, how much actions have been taken and for how many millions of Syrians has it been too late? Too many speakers for inactions, too little actions on economy and actual actions on the HRA (like the little addendum to article three I mentioned earlier).

So within the title of relevance seems to apply to too many people, it includes me as well, for the mere reason that my blog has no effect on the actions of the UK Foreign Office. It is just my view on the matter, like it was the view of Oliver Sprague, Jeremy Corbyn and the EU parliament. We are all simply non-deciders. The deciders are the currently elected UK government headed by David Cameron as well as the Monarchy of Saudi Arabia, under King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. They both get to look at the ‘toothless’ response from the EU parliament, who might be entering their final sitting soon enough.

Our voices might sound nice, our words might read nice, but neither bring food to the table, which is the concern of the Conservative Party, one that they are actually addressing.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 22, 2016 · 19:44

Within the realm of privacy

We all have an inherent need for privacy, we want things to be at our leisure of contemplated sharing. Yet, what is privacy? On one side we want privacy, but the next moment ladies will share whether their carpet is a landing strip or a martini glass, I for one do not care. If they want to share certain parts that’s fine with me. I am not too much about sharing. On the other side, apart from a few MP3 files, there is nothing interesting on my mobile. I reckon that my mobile is one of the dullest ones around.

So when I initially heard about the FBI wanting to access the iPhone of Syed Farook, I shrugged my shoulders and went ‘whatever!’ meaning that I was not opposed and I did not care. It was the techdirt site that has an interesting fact from the court case.

“Footnote 7, on page 18 details four possible ways that Apple and the FBI had previously discussed accessing the content on the device without having to undermine the basic security system of the iPhone, and one of them only failed because Farook’s employers reset the password after the attacks, in an attempt to get into the device“, so the boss went into ‘auto-moronic’ mode and did not check? He acted without knowing? So when we see “The ‘owner’ of course, being the San Bernardino Health Department, who employed Farook and gave him the phone. Basically, what this is saying is that if the password hadn’t been reset, it would have been possible to try to connect the phone to a ‘trusted’ network, and force an automatic backup to iCloud — which (as has been previously noted) was available to the FBI. But by ‘changing’ the password, apparently that option went away“, should we consider that his boss was stupid, or that his boss was scared he had done something wrong and this was his/her way of covering the mess up? (at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160219/17463033656/footnote-reveals-that-san-bernardino-health-dept-reset-syed-farooks-password-which-is-why-were-now-this-mess.shtml).

For the record, that was clear speculation on my side!

What happened was that Apple, the firm that initially ‘screwed over’ its customer base with error 53. A few days ago, the Guardian reported ‘Apple ordered to decrypt iPhone of San Bernardino shooter for FBI‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/apple-ordered-to-hack-iphone-of-san-bernardino-shooter-for-fbi). In there we see the important quote: “In 2014, Apple began making iPhones with additional encryption software that they said they could not unlock, even if faced with a court order. Apple said this was done in the name of consumer privacy and cybersecurity, but the company has been locked in a public feud with the FBI since“. I understand that there is a need for privacy. My issue is why THIS level of privacy is needed. One could speculate that this is to keep the financial adviser’s customer base happy. I reckon that those people look for other means the moment their actions could be monitored, or investigated afterwards. Again, speculation from my side.

You see, I do not comprehend why law abiding citizens are so in fear, of what the government finds out. Most people can’t stop selfie themselves, their fashion and body parts to social media on a global scale. They tend to Facebook all details, especially when they are far away from home to ‘all’ their friends, so that the department of discreet entry and removal operations can empty their homestead in the meantime. With so much sharing, what privacy do you think you still have?

So back to the Granny Smith of automation, the next article (again the Guardian) gives us ‘FBI escalates war with Apple: ‘marketing’ bigger concern than terror‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/fbi-apple-san-bernardino-shooter-court-order-iphone), here we see the subtitle ‘Court filing from Department of Justice says Apple is more concerned with ‘its marketing strategy’ than helping FBI unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone‘, which is fair enough when we consider that a failed marketing equals an alleged death in those houses. The quote “Cook called for public debate and has been backed in his fight by some of tech’s biggest names, including Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai, WhatsApp and whistle-blower Edward Snowden“. I think that this is less about Americans and more about the 7 billion non-Americans that have this false fear of the CIA and the NSA. Yet in all this, the only true group to fear this is the 0.0001% of the population, I do not even register and in that regard most do not even register. Like the previous mass surveillance marketing ploy, simple fear mongering.

Now, let it be said that I have nothing against a person’s privacy and there is nothing wrong with wanting privacy, yet when we consider the 1.5 billion on Facebook, the 100 million on Instagram, the 307 million on Twitter and over 100 million users on Pinterest, we have well over 80% of the iPhone users on social media all sharing from mere events attended up to the grooming of the most private of parts, Which makes the shout for privacy a little too hilarious.

So how does this fit legally?

Well first there is the part that the DoJ is now relying on. It is the All Writs Act of 1789, which states “The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law“, which sounds rather nice,

Yet the fact that the DoJ needs to rely on an act that has, according to several press sources, only been used thrice is a little too novel.

When we consider that the ‘self-destruct’ was enable by Farook’s boss (making the device useless to thieves), only leaves the DoJ without options. What is interesting is when the last cloud backup has happened, had it happened at all? Too many question that are all in the realm of speculation and none of it gives way to legislation. The question becomes should it be? I am not opposing the FBI, CIA or NSA. Yet these alphabet groups do know that they are fishing in murky waters. You cannot expect a corporation to set a product meant for 1,000 million to have options for the internally build exemption of 5,000-7,000 users. The math just does not add up!

I was talking about the legality, so let’s continue there.

In McCabe v British American Tobacco Australia Services Ltd,’ and the appeal, British American Tobacco Australia Services Ltd v Cowell (Representing the Estate of McCabe (deceased)), exposed some of the difficulties that plaintiffs who sue large corporations may face in litigation involving access to documentation. The Victorian Court of Appeal reversed the first instance decision which had struck out the defence of a tobacco company (‘BAT’). The basis for the first instance decision was that BAT had systematically destroyed documents that might have been relevant to the plaintiff’s case. It important to state WHO destroyed documents. You see, in case of Farook it was the boss who ‘destroyed’ the options for information retrieval. The important issue is that INTENT becomes near impossible to prove. In addition that case gives us: “The High Court declined the opportunity to clarify the law in this important area by refusing leave to appeal. The effect of this case, absent statutory reform, is that corporations may destroy potential evidence provided that their actions do not constitute an attempt to pervert the course of justice or a contempt of court. These are notoriously difficult to establish” (source: Playing for keeps? Tobacco litigation, document retention, corporate culture and legal ethics by Matthew Harvey and Suzanne Lemire. The reason for going towards this case is that the entire approach to mobile architecture and auto-backup could instigate updates where the mirror is encrypted extern from Apple. Which means that any phone would have an XML set-up and data object, but the object would be irretrievable. The ‘responsibility’ for proper password maintenance would be kept with the ‘client’ or end user. Taking Apple out of the equation leaving the DoJ with the apple pie made from the famous Granny Smith (AKA Janet Abigail Doe).

This takes the entire cyber conversation towards Spoliated Evidence, where we see “a party is faced with the fact that certain key evidence has been destroyed, altered, or simply lost“, destroyed implies intent, but proving that is next to impossible (which got us the tobacco case. Altered is basically what the DoJ faces as the boss decided to reset the password, again malicious intent becomes next to impossible to prove, whilst lost is not in play in this case but could clearly complicate the issue if that was the case, as the DoJ would have no implied evidence at all.

This entire endeavour goes even further south when we consider Federal Insurance Co. v. Allister, 622 So. 2d 1348, 1351 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993), where the Fourth District decided to set forth five factors to consider before imposing sanctions for spoliation of evidence. They were:

  • whether there is prejudice;
  • whether the prejudice can be cured;
  • the practical importance of the evidence;
  • the good faith or bad faith surrounding the loss of evidence;
  • Possible abuse if the evidence is not excluded.

As bad faith is now linked to the degree of wilfulness, we get back to intent. If mere ‘negligent loss’ does not cut the cake and the cake cannot be devoured without the essential evidence, the entire issue goes nowhere really fast. Basically, it boils down to the boss of Farook having one set of glasses on with the limiting mindset of cost if his mobile was ‘abused in usage’, leaving Apple in the clear shrugging their shoulders going ‘not my problem now’, whilst in all this we are left with no evidence linking to intent or malice. That small scope that was available will in all expectations to be diminished further. It basically solves all of Apple’s problems.

In the need for privacy we have gone from exceptionally rare to just hilariously ridiculous. The Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/20/apple-fbi-iphone-explainer-san-bernardino) shows in equal measure another side. Which comes from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon. Here we read “Some are calling for the United States to weaken Americans’ cybersecurity by undermining strong encryption with backdoors for the government,” he wrote on Medium on Friday afternoon. “But security experts have shown again and again that weakening encryption will make it easier for foreign hackers, criminals and spies to break into Americans’ bank accounts, health records and phones, without preventing terrorists from ‘going dark’“, as such correctly implying that the medication will end up being a lot worse than the disease they face. In addition to that, should Farook have relied on another path, for example receive orders and message a ‘guild’ within a Facebook RPG game, the wasted time on the iPhone becomes nothing more than an iconic episode of the Comedy Capers. With these games receiving billions of messages a day, parsing though 1 of a dozen games would take years. The fact that none of this required any encrypted android or IOS system, just a mere desktop like millions of students use makes for the case against the Alphabet teams. When looking at Extremetech, we see a quote that is important in all this, the quote: “how terrorist organization uses social media to spread its message and radicalize curious readers. GWU’s research found that while ISIS uses a wide range of services, including Facebook, Google Plus, Kik, WhatsApp, and Tumblr, Twitter is the social media site of choice. Twitter already patrols and bans the accounts of ISIS supporters“, it casually forgets the 3-4 dozen accounts that do not raise any flags, the accounts that ACTUALLY bring details of the attacks to the transgressors.

 

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 20, 2016 · 12:25

Omphalos and its syndrome

This syndrome comes from the references of Delphi and the ‘navel of the world’, which is what Delphi was regarded as. Nowadays, we see Omphalos syndrome as the misguided belief that a place of geopolitical power and currency is the most important place in the world.

I believe that to be no longer correct, I believe that it has been ‘converted’ into something slightly more generic. I believe that it should be seen as ‘the misguided believe that its choice of management and achievement of profit are the most important in the world’. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

 

A is for Apple

‘Apple apologises over Error 53 and issues fix for bricked iPhones’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/error-53-apple-issues-fix-bricked-iphones) shows the first example. The entire error53 mess is a direct example. It goes on to the core that we now see “Apple has released a fix for users affected by “Error 53”, a software issue that rendered useless iPhones that had had their home buttons replaced by third parties“, The initial response “At the time Apple said that Error 53 was a security feature to protect customers” reads like a joke. The mere alternative that was open was that any non-Apple certified method meant the wiping of data would have been enough. It took me 5 minutes to come up with that solution. A mere auto wipe of all data. No we have to read quotes like “Apple has apologised for Error 53 and said customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement for their phone should contact AppleCare about reimbursement” as well as “Solving Error 53 does not re-enable Touch ID, as a third-party replacement of the home button could potentially allow unauthorised access to a locked phone by modifying the fingerprint sensor“. It would have been the simplest of solutions to go through the re-enabling system again. All these simple solutions, all because apple wanted to enforce the repairs of their phones to what they consider to be THEIR allowed service repair shops. An application of greed, to maximise profits, not the openness of what was once the Apple OS X through a Unix open source system, but the mere stranglehold of a greed driven corporation. It was brought to light by several articles in the Guardian and an initial customer service based solution comes “after widespread publicity and the Californian tech giant being served with a class action lawsuit over in the US and attention from a competition watchdog in Australia“, I wonder how many IOS people will start considering Android now.

 

E is for Eisai

This event is taking us back a fair bit, around 2000 Eisai came with its Alzheimer’s drug Aricept (donepezil). The fact that profits grow by 100% might not be the biggest thing on the planet. Yes when the LA Times (at http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/22/health/la-he-aricept-fda-20120323) reported “FDA officials should not have allowed it, the authors said, because the clinical studies Eisai offered in support of its application did not meet standards the agency itself had laid out“, in addition we see “it failed to yield the improvements that the FDA had set as a condition of approval“, in all this a clear investigation did not take place. It is still allowed, mainly because it is FDA approved. We see in other sources the claims like “Further, the higher dose was not superior on either of the pre-specified secondary outcome measures, which, as the FDA medical reviewer pointed out, argues that the cognitive difference was not meaningful“, which we get from the FDA Center for Drug Evauation and Research. Application number 022568: medical review. Aricept 23 mg tablets. (at www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/nda/2010/022568Orig1s000MedR.pdf), when we consider the source http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/10October/Pages/Cheap-Alzheimers-drug-may-help-keep-people-out-of-care-homes.aspx, where we get the quote “a year’s worth of donepezil costs around £21 a year, compared with a year’s worth of care home costs – estimated to be between £30,732 and £34,424 a year. If the results of the study were replicated at a population level, this could save the NHS a considerable sum of money“.

This is where we see another version of Omphalos syndrome, “the misguided believe that my version of cost cutting is the best in the world“, at this point, we should investigate the players and consider whether a case for criminal endangerment exists. The fact that sources have shown ‘evidence’ as per 2007 gives rise to a failed system, not just the NHS, but the leeway for pharmaceuticals as, from the given reports failed to yield the improvements that the FDA had set as a condition of approval, making the question why on earth was it approved at all and why are certain diseases used for marketing a cash cow, more important why is the NHS not loudly and outspoken dealing with this? Especially as www.NHS.UK is involved in promoting articles in favour of Aricept (donepezil).

 

I is for Insight Enterprises

This is a side that rests with Omphalos, yet in all this it is in equal measure a situation we must accept. Insight Enterprises did nothing wrong, it made a choice, it’s governing body stated ‘this is the best path, this is the golden solution’, we must accept that any governing body, being it corporate or governmental will be ‘smitten’ with Omphalos Syndrome. So as Microsoft changed the partner program in 2014, Insight Enterprises saw the filling of its corporate coffers trickle down to zero. (at http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300079674/insight-enterprises-absorbs-another-hit-after-microsoft-partner-program-changes.htm). We can debate the mess Insight Enterprises received, the near simple answer is that Microsoft had to change programs, any large corporations will do that. Any program they offer and device tends to be ‘fluidic’ over time. Yet when we see the quote “The changes also affected Microsoft’s Licensing Solution Providers, like Tempe, Ariz.-based Insight, which are the only partners Microsoft allows to sell licensing agreements to large corporations“, which is now showing another side. Does this make Microsoft narcissistically selfish or just plain sociopathic? You see all narcissists are selfish, but not all selfish corporations are narcissistically in nature (which is proven as greed we put the greedy in front of a mirrors), yet in all this, is this a sociopathic side in Microsoft? Well, that is a debate for another day as the entire Omphalos topic would soon get too murky.

 

O is for Omphalos

As shown in the last example, we tend to see Omphalos in a bad light. Which is not all correct either. On the other side we can take Bill Gates and his Omphalosian approach to IT. This got us DOS and later Windows. On the far side of the scale of limiting, there is the view of the truly visionary, but that view needs a start. Here the Omphalos syndrome works in another way. As I see it, we can accuse Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison on that list. Yet, we only did that AFTER they became successful, the not so successful are usually never heard of again.

In this world today, the foundation of ‘the most important place in the world’ is less and less applicable, it becomes a world of solutions, an amalgamation of aggregated values (the European Economic Community being a nice example). Yet the foundation of how to go about it was done in a very Omphalosian way. Especially when we consider the past blogs on how only self-proclaimed departures were the option. Which is exactly where Brexit is now. As Brexit gains momentum we see that the Omphalosian solution was the most dangerous here, it took one of the smallest nations (Greece) to push their non-accountability for the entire EEC to be in turmoil, with now a decent chance of collapsing the EEC as well as the Euro as a coin. Even as the United Kingdom is not on the Euro, France is and a Brexit will soon push for an additional Frexit. In that regard, the Financial Times quoted Florian Philippot who stated “the idea of challenging greater EU integration had become “taboo” in Europe. “The more we talk about it, the more people will vote against it,” he said” (at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/58f9cc98-ce51-11e5-92a1-c5e23ef99c77.html#axzz40fDAW3BL). This is yet another side of Omphalos, actually two sides. The foundation of Omphalos is based on one view, if that view does not evolve or alters as time goes by, that view becomes less and less actual. The view becomes an act of obstruction at best and debilitating at worst.

In the second part, we have forever seen the Omphalos syndrome in its power core on the scope of government (read: Communistic), in that view we forgot that it is corporations with their view on the ‘only’ solution that is now impacting the lives of people in several (read: many) nations. In that same view we see that the old approach to currency is no longer the same. Most values are too dependent on independent views of static organisations and their push for changed industrialisations. How come that the value of a coin is now directly impacted by places like Dow Jones index, Nasdaq, Standards and Poor, the IMF, the ECB and so on? Governments allowed themselves to be directly be valued from what is perceived to be an ‘independent’ side. This is the other part that drives Brexit and other plans to no longer be part of anything. There is a near global consensus that these sources can no longer be trusted. That their view is to some extent ‘Greed Incarnate’.

As I see it, there is no true independence anymore. When we read that Eagle Capital Management Invests $293000 and that J. W. Burns & Company Has $533000 invested in in SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA). When the index itself is invested on, the expectations of improved value must be met, where does that leave us?

 

U is for You!

Even when we see the old and the new versions of the Omphalos syndrome, we need to realise that what once seen as short-sighted and limited is now not so limiting. It remains (as I personally see it) as short-sighted as it ever was (only in the rarest of occasions is it visionary), but now, the impact is no longer limited to one government, now its short-sighted impact is nearly global. It hits parties in many nations and it does not stop there. You see in a governmental approach it is ‘set’ to be what is best for its citizens and in case of the EEC it is what a group of nations see. Now consider the application from corporations that impacts governments on a global scale, offices of standards that impact the dangers to lives on a global scale as it does not enforce its own given values. How can we be aligned to a limiting view that could cost us our lives and our choice of living?

So as you consider ‘the misguided believe that its choice of management and achievement of profit are the most important in the world’ also strongly consider what it will cost you, not now, but down the track.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,