Tag Archives: Toronto

January 18, 2022 · 11:06

Overlooked IP

Yes, we all look at ideas that make us rich, we all do. I am no exception. I have my IP, a few in 5G, a few in consoles, in movies, in TV series, in NextGen printable hardware and at least one in books. So until they are all sold I am content. This is the stage where I saw another piece of IP waiting to come to fruition. I see it, yet it is not my forte, in this Google has a massive opportunity and so far no one saw the setting on their retina’s, or on their displays. As I see it Google Maps could be extended and it could extent YouTube creators. Yet I see no start of this, as such I decided to make it public domain and let you all fight over it, or fight over it with Google. You see during lockdown I mentioned that there are all these city walks, yet no one considered to link them to Google maps and to combine them, so that someone looking at the map could click on the YouTube video giving us a real view (more than street view). So when we look at the Map of Toronto (Johny Strides), London (Mostly Walking), Monaco (Tourist Channel), yet also in the other direction. There is for example POPTravel giving us Stockholm, Munich, Heraklion and London. All stages many want to see, but no one made the connection to link these sources to Google maps (or any other map for that matter). I wonder why, if information is selectable, sliceable, dice able and optionally can be set into a funnel, why did no one consider that the funnel can be reversed and that sliced and diced information can be aggregated, so I am a little surprised that this service was not added, making more people look at the information that w could see (via
Youtube). I know that some maps show images, but the city walks are a great source of impression. I wonder if no one else made that leap and it could spur YouTube members into optional additional creativity.

Where is the walking route?

Just a thought I had at 10:34 (after a cup of coffee, who is demanding credit for the thought), A stage we all face, we all have and whilst we all make statements like this, until the thought is set to paper and set to the public it basically does not exist. It is one of the oldest rules. If it is not written down it does not exist. I think it comes from the age of Caesar Augustus (63BC-14AD), so it is not a new rule and many should know this part, or they should have been made aware of this.

Good hunting and good fortune to you all (or is that Google hunting for good fortune?) 

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December 21, 2021 · 20:38

When will people learn?

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

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

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

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December 5, 2021 · 06:48

Before the script

That is a stage we find ourselves in. There is no real reason, it was a stage I moved into as I was contemplating a few ideas. You see with any erotic tainted movie it is about how it starts (and for some do they get married at the end). With spy stories it tends to be jumbled, to maximise the impact of the story the movie Anna is a great example. Yet with assassinations it tends to be about timelines, and it needs to start in the middle, a great example is Colombiana with Zoe Saldana.

You see it adheres to a few items. A good assassination adheres to the golden three. 

Separation
Segregation
Isolation

You separate the target from his support system, we do not need to comedy capers to involve themselves making matters worse, the career person likes to get away from it all before it is too late. You segregate the person from the people that know and trust their insight, their family, it is a separate cog in the machine and not always required, but it should always be considered. Isolation is the kill moment. It is best to have that person apart when you perform the deed. I do not believe in the Jason Statham method (the Mechanic), it is nice, it makes for good movie suspense, but too many things can go wrong and they tend to go wrong at the wrong instance. 

So in all this when we look at the Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri case, I just have to laugh. 12 people? I am still decently convinced that he got out (with the money) by setting up an attack and warning the US of that attack, but that is me. It matters because now we see (source:  Reuters) “A former top Saudi intelligence official who is living in exile accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday of targeting him, and made an unprecedented public plea to the Biden administration to help obtain the release of his children jailed in Saudi Arabia”, a larger stage as he is in Canada, so why is he not pleading with Canadian authorities? Did you consider that?

It matters in this stage as we look at ending the involuntary heartbeat of a person. He has to some degree isolated himself, he is decently segregated, but not completely and there is the mere need of isolating him, that never required 12 people and any intelligent person would see that, lets be clear MBS is not stupid, so the entire song and dance that the media gives us does not make sense.

But back to the story. When the golden three are adhered to the decimation can begin. The important first part is information, in case of the person we discussed earlier, he is in Toronto, a city. This means that there are more options to get to him. The opposite is that he got there with hundreds of millions, so he can afford all kinds of security. The second consideration is given by The Star “It is alleged one of the companies, Sakab Saudi Holding Company, “had no operational business” despite receiving $8 billion US in government funding and was used “almost exclusively” as a vehicle to funnel money to the other companies, which did carry out legitimate business, as well as to Aljabri and his co-conspirators”, so in what universe do you get awarded $8,000,000,000? 

The stage for any target is to understand what is going on and this implies that he is more than an exile, he is optionally a US intelligence taskmaster (Middle East minder of intelligence). Using him as an example is nice, for a few reasons. He has Canadian protection and he gets American protection, in Canada it will be the CIA, optionally the CSIS is involved. The problem for any target of this size is that the Canadians have their own Navy Seals, they are extremely capable and on a person like this, they are somehow involved. There is no way that stakeholders walk away from a $8,000,000,000 jackpot. 

So why does it matter? Well the story is about more then suspense, it will be about realism. So how to get to such a target? Well we could ask Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri and that is where we get to the good stuff. You see, the foundation of this was seen in a comic book in 1978.

It was the first Franka, a comic made by Henk Kuijpers. The researchers researched a crime for a movie, which then was soon thereafter done by criminals. The stage to get the experts to solve the problem for them, simple and brilliant. You see there is nothing wrong with a silenced .50 from the top of any building, but when you see what you are up against, the stage changes soon thereafter. I saw the premise of a c4 loaded drone, which allows for a few settings, but that pesky CSIS. These people get awfully cranky when you trespass on their soil and if you think the CIA is trouble, wait for the CSIS to get creative and nasty. So you need two options. The first is that you were never there. The second is that you need to vanish with a clear path (to your fake alibi) that can be tracked on the other side of the world. Like what they did with the RAF, spending some of their money in a place like Buenos Aires, all whilst the missing people were already laid to rest (mom, dad and the three children). When a large enough pile of cash goes missing people will find you, unless the money is burned (apart from the cash spend in BA) and the bodies can not be found, not in decades, not ever. 

That setting when united gives a much larger stage to play and when it is done, I reckon that it is better if the assassin is a she. (Zoe Saldana made good on that in Colombiana). So whilst we wonder what more we can do, I personally believe that simplicity is best. It is the one stage I did not like in the Mechanic. Even it all seemed simple. The air-vent scene showed how things turn sour in an instant. Simplicity is key. What is simpler then flying a DJI drone three buildings away straight into the open window and boom? After that it becomes a mere exercise to vanish, which in Toronto is still a massive undertaking, unless they look for the wrong person, it becomes a little easier then. You could join an Oracle event in Mississauga, or take across lake Ontario and vanish via Rochester, at which point you are in the US. 

That script is easy enough to write, it will be about the details and about how the details play out. There is no use if the event results in a global hunt by the CSIS and their seal equivalent giving you less then a 1% to survive for any decent amount of time, a number no career person wants to consider. And these are the thoughts before the script is made. If you can pull it off you have the making of a new Hollywood (or Netflix) blockbuster. 

Darn, it is only 06:36, what ever will I do the rest of the day? 

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December 4, 2021 · 11:07

Merely a dream

I had a decently weird dream last night. It might be a movie, but I think it is not good enough for that. It might be a popcorn movie, merely for streaming and DVD sales and that would be fine too. The setting is that the dream started a few other things and I wonder where we are in less then a year.

It started in Toronto, I was there for whatever reason. There was a lot of chaos, a lot of shooting and a lot of damage. It was primarily in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It is around February 2022, the US has defaulted on its loans. The people lost almost everything they ever owned and the stage is that ultra right angry people are whipping up the others who are coming to terms that their politicians are as useless as everyone expected them to be. Canada suddenly has to deal with 30-50 thousand invaders all angry and all taking whatever they can, they have nothing left. I saw police officers in Yorkville getting shot, store windows were getting crashed and houses are overrun. The American had turned into rabid dogs. The army was trying to create bottlenecks but an army spread over Canada having to deal with three clearly way to large fire points and a lot more in the rural areas is not an army that can get a whole lot done. And nearly all Americans were wielding firearms. It is then that I see the army starting to shoot to kill and I wake up.

Now, that was merely a dream, but the larger station remains. Everyone is in this ‘lets hope’ phase, but America has been utterly broke for well over three years. And every time the debt ceiling is raised. A political system that cannot take responsibility, that uses the blame game and points at the previous party if it is a different political party. They both failed and they both refused to overhaul tax laws for well over over 25 years. In the 90’s the idea of a trillion dollar firm was ludicrous. Now they have 2, maybe 3. These firms did NOTHING wrong. They adhered to tax laws and they did what the tax laws demanded that they would do. So every time I see another tax the rich, whilst these people look at three parties (ignoring 15 others), I get nervous. The larger station is not that they refuse to overhaul tax laws. It might be that they are too stupid to overhaul them.

And this too is nothing new. What will be new is that the US government will take a look at their patent office and make (forced) deals with any isolated (registered in America only) patent and demand a financial deal with that owner. So lucky my IP is not registered in the US. A setting of grab it whilst you can will start soon enough and whilst the US will be in denial, there will be behind the scene deals with Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft and IBM. All to get a little more use and traction out of the failing US economy. All whilst it has been clear for decades that the tax laws need a complete rewrite, a setting where everyone is taxed fairly. But that will not likely happen. That will upset the large donators and political friends they have and they would lose them, so nothing will happen and the dream that I have will come closer to becoming an optional reality. 

Is it a wish or a dream? No one wishes for this. Not when you consider all the innocent lives struck by American stupidity, but the larger station is that a lot of Americans are close to desperate and the default will push them over the edge, I feel certain of that. Even as the news (mainly media) is now flaming their need for digital advertisement, hiding behind the announcement that the US of A could default next week, we also get a mere 16 hours ago that ‘U.S. Senate passes bill to avert government shutdown, sends to Biden for signature’, but that is not the same is it? A shutdown is one thing, a default is something else. There are paths that they could walk, set up a massive loan with JP Morgan, Blackrock or Morgan Stanley, the turnaround will need to be massive and that is how the slippery slope becomes a diagonal sheet of ice. A timeline extended and extended, all whilst the premise of stopping this going from bad to worse is ignored.

It was but a dream, I realise that, but perhaps my brain is working out a few financial items covered in nightmares. 

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November 9, 2021 · 04:27

There is doubt

We have doubt, we all do and there is no denying it. I have had my reservations from the press for the longest of time. Today we see another article and this time by Al Jazeera. They give us ‘Palestinian activists hacked by Israeli firm NSO spyware’, I will agree that there are people that we should monitor, this happens. So what makes these Palestinians so special? Consider that in the past we were given that the price of a hack is $100,000. This means that someone lashed out $600,000 on these six Palestinian rights activists. They are not called terrorists (whether they are or not), they are labeled as rights activists. Then Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/8/palestinian-rights-activists-hacked-by-israeli-firm-nso-group) gives us “Spyware from the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group was detected on the mobile phones of six Palestinian human rights activists, in the first known instance of Palestinian activists being targeted by the military-grade Pegasus spyware”, so the paragraph mentions Israel, then the ‘NSO group’, ‘Military-grade’ and ‘Pegasus spyware’. With the added settings that matter. The first is “It is not clear who placed the NSO spyware” which is fair enough, so what gives certainty that it was Pegasus? It is a fair enough question and where is that report? Then we get “Three of the hacked Palestinians work for civil society groups. The others do not, and wish to remain anonymous, Frontline Defenders says” which countermands the earlier statement of ‘six Palestinian human rights activists’, just three and what are the other ones? Terrorists? Yes, I’ll bet they want THEIR anonymity. It is the odd setting we get next “Frontline Defenders is “not absolutely alleging that Israel is behind this,” but that the “timing of all this is very interesting””, yes so is the IRA coming to the rescue of Hezbollah, but I will not judge. Wasn’t it the Times who gave us on September 13th 2020 that gave us ‘New IRA forges links with Hezbollah’, also interesting isn’t it?

So where is the evidence? And whilst we give Andrew Anderson, executive director at Frontline Defenders the benefit of the doubt with “the NSO Group cannot be trusted to ensure its spyware is not used illegally by its customers and says Israel should face international reproach if it does not bring the company to heel”, well, one could argue that no one is bringing Hezbollah to heel, the other part is that the reports have not been given the visibility that they deserve. When did a media outlet like the verge get that full report? Why is that report not out in the open for scrutiny? In my mind the girl stating that that she is the greatest whore in the world whilst we cannot find any man substantiating that, is nothing more than a wannabe women hoping to get rid of her virginity. 

Any equation can be turned on its head and whatever falls out either supports the claim or accelerates the doubt we have. In this case I have doubt, I have way too much doubt. For one it is the lack of a timeline. 

When we see “The non-profit Frontline Defenders disclosed its findings on Monday in a joint technical report together with Amnesty International and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which independently confirmed the results” It is the only date I see, so when were they infected, when were the suspicions voiced? How long did either party investigate? All parts that are missing and no one hands over the report to any of us. I have doubts, I have a lot of doubts and they are growing. The entire setting of the media being the whoring little chihuahua against the NSO group, optionally on American orders. The US does not need to spy on us, they have the media doing it for them. And as far as I can tell, no one is asking real questions, why is that?

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November 6, 2021 · 22:22

The riddle

Yes, there is a riddle here. It is not a riddle that is on you, or for you. It is a riddle that is within me. Even as I am about to dig into a matter I have dug in before. There is another play in motion. I set the stage, I left the clues and it is all linked to Toronto (a village in Canada). I cannot tell whether the people will catch on, but the gains are massive. The problems is that if I give away the game, the profit dwindle too much. It is a stage where one side gets the group $25M-$45M, yet the unspoken one, if left under the radar gives the group $400M-$600M. It is quite the conundrum, and it is not about greed. It is about some wannabe’s should not ever be allowed to get to this goal. I am willing to give it all away to merely achieve it so that some people get egg on their faces, in public and in the limelight. That is more rewarding to me then the millions I could get. It would give voice to the ‘I told you so’ choir, but not merely 5 voices. A choir like a symphony orchestra giving a few players the ‘You are an idiot’ dialogue with soprano’s and tenors. The view will be magnificent and the window is not that big. I have time, but every month that window shrinks a little more and I am willing to wait, I am willing to lose it all just as long as the wannabe’s openly lose it. It matters that much to me, my feeling of rage and anger is just that big. It comes back to the riddle, the riddle of the two sided sphere. Oh and for the clever people, this is not a clever way to describe a digon (a polygon with two sides and two vertices), no the riddle of the two sided sphere is different and until you get it yourself, you will never truly understand it, giving away the clue defeats the purpose. The riddle was given to me in 1983, it took some time to work out, but when I did doors opened, ways of thinking unlocked and the feeling of that key unlocking is both mesmerising and overwhelming. It gives the larger stage and that stage is kept clean and away from as many eyes as possible at present, winning that, seeing how the other failed means more than millions, it optionally shows I won several wars that others are in denial of.  Yet the limelight also takes away their ability to remain in denial, others will ask these wannabe’s why they never saw it and whilst they come up with excuse and excuse and rely on levels of miscommunication they will enter the blame game and I will stand in the back watching chaos unfold. The idea that I am almost at that stage is exciting, more exciting than holding a KFC bucket filled with diamonds. And I am so close, I can almost taste it.

So that is enough about the riddle, related to the riddle there is also another riddle, and that can be explained. It started two days ago, all whilst some give the setting that the COP26 is a failure. I do not disagree, I merely wonder if some realise the dangerous game the media is playing. To see that, I will have to give you a few stages.

Stage one
Stage one is not new. It started on December 10th 2020 when I wrote ‘Hatred of wealth’ where the BBC article was the centre piece ‘Climate change: Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55229725). There we see Matt McGrath yielding the floor to Oxfam. They give us “The global top 10% of income earners use around 45% of all the energy consumed for land transport and around 75% of all the energy for aviation, compared with just 10% and 5% respectively for the poorest 50% of households, the report says” I debunked that BS in less than 5 minutes. You see Statista also gives us numbers (you can see them in that article, but the setting is that in the last 15 years plane travel went up by well over 15,000,0000 planes, this implies almost a million planes per year more. The article does not give this, does it? The article was lacking a lot more, especially when you consider the reports by the EEA (European Environmental Agency) and the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programs) so whilst I made chop suey of both  Matt McGrath and Tim Gore my work was done. 

Stage two
So what happens? The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/05/carbon-top-1-percent-could-jeopardise-1point5c-global-heating-limit) gives us on November 5th almost the same BS the BBC gave you all a year earlier. Here too we see “The paper shows that the fight to keep 1.5C within reach is not being hampered by the consumption of most people on the planet, but by the excessive emissions of the world’s richest citizens, said Tim Gore, author of the briefing and head of the low-CO2 and circular economy programme at the IEEP.” As I see it, the same bloody tosser gives us the same shit we got a year ago and the overextension of blaming the rich, whilst we now see TWO media outlets ignoring the report that 50% all ALL damage is created by 147 facilities. Now, if they would be in opposition of the report I gave you all in the earlier stories, if they were in opposition of the EEA numbers, it would be one thing. I have nothing against opposition, it forces us to double check. No these two players openly ignore presented numbers and if you seek those who did, you are not likely to find one. Why is that? Why do we give credibility to some person relying on “the fight to keep 1.5C within reach is not being hampered by the consumption of most people on the planet” whilst not presenting clear documentation of how they got there, all whilst (via statista) I showed that over the last 15 years more flights were created by almost a million flights a year, every year. The media is playing a dangerous game by misrepresenting the facts and this is exactly what COP26 is doing, helping each other being utterly useless in protecting the environment. By aiding some delusional setting to aid politicians and industrials via stakeholders. The question becomes has Oxfam become just such a player, aiding industrials so that their little niche might have some expected virtual protection for a few more months. If we turn back the clock today and scrap the 15,000,000 flights how much more will we save? I will bet decent money that it will be a hell of a lot more than what the top 1% uses with their jets, especially when you realise just how often he flies that thing and the 41,095 daily flights that the extra planes bring to the equation. But that is not how it is presented, yet I remember being on a flight (Amsterdam-Budapest) where there were less than a dozen people on a 767, so how much carbon did these 12 people (including yours truly) bring to the CO2 equation. 

Consider these elements and consider how you are getting played by large media on what they want you to think, and not what is optionally really the case. Playing the introduction towards ‘blaming the rich’ so that a seemingly useless president can play his tax the rich plan as he is now only 6 weeks away from another shutdown as he will hit another debt ceiling. The media has as I personally see it become willing to such a level of catering. And no one asks who are they actually catering to? As I consider it, it cannot be the truth and if that is the case they cannot be newspapers and they should pay their 6% added sales tax, not hide behind a zero tax option, is that not too what they accuse others of?

Enjoy the weekend, it will end in less than 50 hours.

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September 14, 2021 · 17:38

The accusations begin

The BBC (and a few others) give visibility to a danger that has been around for some time. Yes, they alert us to what is happening and the BBC is not to blame. Yet when we see ‘Fake Walmart news release claimed it would accept cryptocurrency’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58545944) we need to wonder about a few things. It might be “The release, published through a legitimate press channel, claimed that Walmart would accept the currency through all its digital stores. Walmart later told US media outlets the announcement was “inauthentic”. By that time, several major news websites and press agencies had spread the supposed news. It is not clear how the announcement made it on to Global Newswire, a service widely used to distribute press material from companies.” And it is an important side. I merely wonder how soon we will get some carefully phrased denial spiced with “there was a miscommunication”, I  will have questions on how thorough the investigation will be, which stakeholders were involved and how Global Newswire got the news in the first place. 

As I expected for some time, there is a larger flaw on vetting information and who is allowed to vet it all. At some point a situation was created where a group of people made $50 per coin where no profit existed and even as we get loud claims on a few sides I expect that nothing will come from it, the exploitation stage is set and it is high time that the media gets a massive overhaul. Even now we can find the Google search on global News, but the link no longer works. Not a clear retraction, the article was merely removed, as I personally see it a stage of manipulation. Over the 17 hours, we see no news on WHO delivered that news to Global News, we see no news (from anyone) on HOW it was delivered. 

I get additional questions when I see ‘Litecoin back to the drawing board as LTC rally culminates’ (at https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/litecoin-back-to-the-drawing-board-as-ltc-rally-culminates-202108261526) we also get “On August 16 and again on August 23, Litecoin (LTC) tried to reach the 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA). Both tests failed and what followed each time was a quick reversal”, as well as “A return to the bandwidth between $135 and $156 looks like the sanest move to attract buyers again” a simple search gave me this info and in this we see a setting where SOMEONE spiced it with fake news. In all this there was no vetting of any decent kind. As I was able to find what I found within 5 minutes, yet Global News spread the news. So whilst the BBC gives us “It is not clear who was behind the fake release, or how they managed to publish it.” It seems clear that Global News needs to get ready for some serious FBI investigations, it might be a Canadian news station and it will go via the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and optionally the CSIS will get involved, but the FBI will take the US side and neither of the three will be played for as fool. The FBI has no real choice in the matter. This is merely part of the larger stage that real media lacks the same credibility that fake news has and that is important, as it will change the stage of News agencies everywhere. When the news becomes nothing more than an exploitation tool the entire Litecoin issue will not be the only one and it will not be the last one. And in all this, there will be a seperate stage for the connected stakeholders. 

And it will not end there, we can accept that Global News acted in good faith, and we can accept that. But it also means that Global News will have to dig deep into its bowels and find out how this was possible in the first place. There are also more questions that Walmart has to answer, yet I wonder if it will get us anywhere. From all parties Global News is the first station of investigation, and I wonder how much interference some parties will throw up and that might be seen in the media over the next few days and that will lead to several questions, none of them good.

 

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October 27, 2020 · 16:19

Deadline or death line?

I said it before, and I stick to my view, Ubisoft is in a large stage of near death, they might be denying that part, but their setting is not good, or is that was not? Let’s be clear, today I went through Watchdogs: Legion and I am decently impressed, it is an absolute jump forward from Watchdogs 2, To be fair, this looks really good and after an hour, it still looks good and plays well. As I stated, the next two games define the future of Ubisoft and at present it seems like they got this one right. I saw issues in earlier editions, but as this was before beta, it does not count and I have every intention to take another look. No matter how we try to slice it, a few things show up, first of all, those angry (read: anti) game reviews are not as present as before, some people had plenty to bitch about Watch Dogs 2, yet I enjoyed most of the game (a few weird parts), the story was decent and the intro to WD3 is a lot better than the second one, the game has a few issues as I spotted them in WD3 that is, but it is not a disabling one, some of the conversations are really too unreal, but that could be a US view on British accents, I do not know, but it flaws there, yet two elements, the first is that this is a video game, second any voice can be regarded as flawed, it is how you look at it and does it hinder the game? I think not. One review I liked can be seen (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9kEuTyKufo). It gives a few things away, but not too much. In light of my earlier statement (regarding Ubisoft), it is important to note that this game shows a first sign that Ubisoft is addressing the stupidity we saw in earlier releases. I believe (at present) that AC Origins is still the best game that Ubisoft has released in the near past and this game is making a serious approach to breaking that achievement, something we had not seen for much too long. I might add more on the weekend as I progress through the game, yet so far I have to admit: “Well done Ubisoft”, which in light of my earlier views of other games is important to notice. 

I have nothing on AC Valhalla, What I saw earlier turned me off, yet I will admit that it was an early beta version, so lots to fix and even as some parts seem nice, there is a more apparent stage of addressing, which I believe is flawed, but it is based on incomplete views, as such I am refraining of actual criticism against the game at present.

Even as I still believe that Ubisoft is optionally on its last legs, the fact that the systems that WatchDogs: Legion is released on the big two consoles, with additions to PC and Google Stadia should not be underestimated. At present it indicates that Ubisoft could get its footing back and if the game turns out as good as it seemingly is (I honestly cannot say at present), the fact that a title like this is making it to Google Stadia as well is important. It could end up being a desired taste for EVERY Google Stadia player and that is important to Ubisoft as well. For Google it matters as it is not out on the Apple Arcade (as far as I can tell), and that will matter to Google in this upcoming race. It actually got me to one (small and insignificant) flaw at present, if I am wrong, I will be the first to apologise. When you consider that this game is in London and it was made by Ubisoft Toronto (that village in Canada), it suddenly dawned on me that the game is lacking NPC backpackers. London is filled with them, you know people with backpacks speaking in a Canadian, American and Australian accent (and plenty more dialects), they could have made that into a game achievement ‘Getting around: possessed a backpacker from every commonwealth nation’, just something to consider down the DLC road. Still, the fact that I am thinking of things to add, is important, as I am not thinking of things that required essential fixing. I might be too early in the game, but I have not felt this invigorated since AC Origins and that is a good feeling to have, Ubisoft is seemingly getting it right, if I attack them, I must also acknowledge that they are doing the right thing, it feels important to do that too.

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June 25, 2015 · 22:15

Hunting facts

We can go on about Greece (which is again in crises), we can look at video games (like how the QA of Arkham Knight got effed up), but for now all interesting news has been said and there are a few British political events starting, but what some of you all forgot about was FIFA. When I look into the Guardian and seek the sports page (online) I see three times the mention of FIFA, only one has a video regarding the money-laundering inquiry. The interesting part is that the term ‘bribes’ is now replaced with ‘money laundering’. In that view the following document is rather interesting https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Fraud_bribery_and_money_laundering_offences_-_Definitive_guideline.pdf.

You see, Money Laundering is a rather harsher part in all this. For that we need to take a look at a few crimes acts, specifically the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (not today though).

And as I go through it with a few giggles, it seems to me that all this is not good for Jack Warner, even though he ‘threatened’ to reveal an ‘avalanche’ of secrets, he could end up looking at his luxurious stay in Hotel Sing Sing for a lot longer, than he would if convicted for bribery, in addition the accusation of him redirecting financial aid for the Haiti victims (from several newspapers) could make matters even worse for him.

This came from the Guardian with the title ‘Jack Warner fears for his life and will reveal ‘avalanche’ of secrets‘, yet so far, no revelations of any kind, or none that ended up in the hands of the press at present. This is the interesting part, if we go by the Jamaica observer who reported only 2 days ago: “but up to Thursday, the Office of the Attorney General had not received any request for Warner to be extradited to the United States, where he is wanted on wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering charges“, is that not peculiar? Technically it is not, extradition, means the start of a trial, and as such, Jack Warner is too visible, there is no place he can run to (as I see it). In addition, setting up a trial of this magnitude will take some time. However, the initial indictment that I published in ‘Condoning corruption!‘, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/05/29/condoning-corruption/) almost a month ago, should clearly put him at the top, as the star player in all this. In addition there is (at http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/10/john-oliver-trinidad-television-mock-jack-warner-fifa), where you can see the comedian telling the same things I told , but his comical approach is one that is not to be missed!

So why the long silence?

Well, that is the interesting part. There was no silence, when we look at the Guardian in Trinidad (at http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2015-06-23/warner-integrity-commission-has-tapes), we see the headline ‘Warner: Integrity Commission has tapes‘, yet, I have at times doubted the duty of many newspapers all over the place, especially when it is owned by a member of the Murdoch family. Still is it not extremely interesting how many large newspapers have not picked up this news? I would think that the news of audio tapes, FIFA members and bribery would be the stuff of legends for papers like the LA Times, the NY Times, or even the Washington Post, yet none of them had picked up the Breaking news, or should it be broken news? The Washington Post did however pick up the response to John Oliver from Jack Warner (at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2015/06/12/composer-says-jack-warner-stole-his-music-for-video-directed-at-john-oliver/), especially as Jack Warner is also under fire from the composer, whose music he used to drown out his own voice from 1:13 to 2:20. Anyway, his response to the comedian was given on the 12th of June, the Washington Post possible regarded this as light entertainment (with Greg Dombrowski who is at present the only one who is not amused). After that the Washington Post has nothing. So was it breaking or broken news? I do not know. I have not heard the tapes, yet neither had any of the other news outlets as far as I can tell, so if Jack Warner is bringing evidence out, why ignore it? A half-baked news moment on the ‘MH370 suicide mission’ gets picked up with what was called a ‘reliable source’ by those working for the Barclay Brothers, yet no one is touching the Warner Tapes.

I am quite happy to see Jack Warner Fry for all of this, but the man is entitled to a defence, when the press steers clear to this amount, who are they actually listening to? What is the audience not getting informed on and where are the FIFA puppeteers? Let’s not forget that the full report from Michael Garcia is still being kept locked away. The entire FIFA debacle has people running for the hills and there is a decent indication that the press is aiding some of them by not illuminating the issues at play.

Yet, we must also look beyond Jack Warner, which gets us to CONMEBOL. It is forced to pay 10 million out of its own funds. When we look at http://www.espnfc.com/fifa-world-cup/story/2502646/conmebol-facing-cash-flow-crisis-due-to-fifa-bribery-scandal, we get the following facts:

  • Sponsors have been asked to pay Conmebol directly
  • Datisa had only paid Conmebol 35 out of the 80 million, which means it is all short by 4,500,000,000 centavos.

It becomes a little weirder (possibly due to missing facts), when we consider the quote by Bloomberg: “head of international business for Brazil-based sports marketing firm Traffic Group (Jochen Loesch), one of the companies that make up Datisa. Traffic founder Jose Hawilla, 71, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and obstruction of justice. He agreed to forfeit $151 million“, so if he forfeits THAT MUCH, what else did he stuff into ‘a’ matrass? By the way, I had a decent income for a few decades, yet summed up, over my whole working life, pre taxation, I will have made less than 1% of what Hawilla is forfeiting in this event; crime has become THAT rewarding!

Of course, we seem to focus on FIFA alone, yet, when we look at the Boston Globe, we see the indirect fallout, which makes the lashing the FIFA executives a lot more essential. When we read the article ‘FIFA scandal may affect Boston’s 2024 bid‘ (at https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/06/24/fifa-scandal-grows-could-affect-boston-bid/AasXsCJZobZTayvfb06obP/story.html). My issue is not with the article in the Boston Globe, it was with a quote in the Chicago Tribune “Because next Tuesday, if the U.S. Olympic Committee has come to its senses, its board of directors will wisely choose at a regularly scheduled meeting to pull a doomed Boston bid that has been a disaster from the start“. Two parts, one is the question, why it was doomed? That is an actual question, there is no direct answer in my view. The second is that the Olympic committee could, ‘wake up’ is the incorrect term, I do not think that the Olympic Committee is asleep, I mean that they need to refocus their current vision. What could be the problem is the location of the games. You see, no matter how all this goes, the 2024 Olympics will be 2 years AFTER Qatar, actually, due to rescheduling, less than 18 months, which means that there will be all kinds of issues all over Europe (a reeling UEFA after a drenched timeline as part of the 2022 soccer competition will be all over the place is one), the second one is French politics. At this point it is still extremely likely that National Front end up in a new location, when Marine Le Pen moves to 55, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, with the French in a massive wave moving towards European segregation, keeping the Olympics on the US side of the Atlantic river might not be the worst idea. Although, if the American administration does not clean up its tax act, it will be bankrupt making the entire exercise slightly exotic to say the least. If there is one essential part we need to consider in all this, then I would state that the Stability of the Olympics need to be assured, apart from that having them in the US after 28 years is not a bad way to go. With all the troubles Europe is still to face, especially with Greece messing up the European economy (the makers of the Olympics of all things), both Paris and Rome could end up in such a bad state that only Hamburg and Budapest remain a realistic location, considering Boston for the games of 2024 is definitely in my books at present.

So how did I get from FIFA to the Olympics?

That we do get from the Boston Globe, where we see “While longtime FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who has said he’ll resign possibly by year’s end, has not yet been indicted, he is said to be a target of the investigation. Blatter also happens to be an IOC member, which comes with the job of heading one of the planet’s biggest sports, such as track and field, swimming, basketball, and skating“, which is generic information. The second quote has the gem: “If Blatter is indicted, he’d obviously have to resign from the IOC. The question is, will the Justice Department stop with soccer or will it broaden its inquiry to other federations where payoffs likely have been made over the years? And since at least 17 present or honorary IOC members are current or former federation heads, will they have a strong incentive not to vote for Boston for the 2024 Summer Games, lest they be taken into custody upon arrival at Logan“, you see, the quote “at least 17 present or honorary IOC members are current or former federation heads” in that same article is linked to all this. Now, there is absolutely ZERO indication that these members have done anything wrong, but a massive amount of them are Europeans and this FIFA spectacle will grow and touch (read: smear) many European nations, at which point the media, will go on a rampage like hungry rats, ripping whatever they can for the prospect of ‘circulation’, getting the 2024 Olympics out of Europe that time around might be something to seriously consider. As viewers watch matches of all Olympic events, whilst games are overshadowed by all kinds of ‘speculative revelations’ by unnamed sources in newspapers, it would be good to have the Olympic games in a time zone several hours away, so that the games can remain centre in all of this. Is that such a stretch? In addition, all those close friends of Sepp Blatter in the IOC would also benefit from a time zone isolation of what will still be reeling at that point in Europe.

So, I will happily oppose Philip Hersh of the Chicago Tribune regarding “a doomed Boston bid that has been a disaster from the start“, I am not convinced, moreover, defaulting the Olympics to Boston could be the best thing. I’ll be fair, Canada might have been better, but they pulled beforehand, which gives us “Toronto’s Economic development Committee voted against bidding for the 2024 games on 20 January, citing a bid would cost the city $50 to 60 million” (Source Wiki), why does a bid cost them that much? I never really looked into that part of Olympic biddings, so the costs in that are equally disturbing, but that is for another day.

Anyway, if Toronto has an issue with 50 million (which is a truckload of cash) having them in the ground of a few billion might not be a good idea. Sydney had its Olympics in 2000, which is way too recent, from that logic I state, let Boston be the default!

Back to FIFA!

We learn today, via SBS (at http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/06/25/two-argentines-sought-us-fifa-scandal-put-under-house-arrest), that the extradition proceedings are happening and they seem to be accelerating. With guilty pleas in the bag from other members, the options for Hugo and Mariano Jinkis are dwindling down fast. Federal judge Claudio Bonadio rejected their release saying they presented a flight risk given their personal wealth, adding that until last week they had both been fugitives. Their bail which was set at $1.2 million for the both of them might be regarded as a laughing matter when we consider the 151 million Jose Hawilla forfeited, so how much funds do the Jinkis have? Perhaps an electronic tag is for them a mere inconvenience should they decide to move to a nation that will not extradite to either Argentina or the US; I am just phrasing a question here!

So as we hunt facts regarding the FIFA members involved, how come the news on the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian was not picked up anywhere internationally? That is the issue we started with, a question not answered and unlikely to get answered any day soon. There is one more part to consider, it is a part every FIFA executive fears, because with Football (read soccer) is such disarray from the FIFA point, why are the nations involved not inviting UEFA to ascertain in what depth of trouble their local sport is in? Any political move to ignore this can be countered in this as unofficial knowledge of bribes and corruption went unanswered for over a decade, we only need to look at the work of investigative journalist Andrew Jennings to see that the problem is truly Titanic in size. The added fact that one person walked away with $151 million is proof further still.  It should feel pretty comfortable for Michel Platini to see UEFA in a consideration to clean up Football. In all this, there needs to be transparency and visibility. Although I was never much of a soccer fan, to me it feels important that in all this both members of the IOC and soccer members like Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin, Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Alan Shearer, David Beckham and Jürgen Klinsmann to seriously sit down and see how FIFA can truly be cleaned up. I personally have zero trust in Sepp Blatter doing anything else than cover his hide at present, because when anyone sitting at the helm remaining THIS unaware of bribery and corruption for such a long time is on all fronts the wrong person to sanitise that system. I would like to add that such an investigation should be headed by three members of Royalty. Soccer is such too strong influence in Europe, to be handed to people loving the limelight for personal reasons. In this I would nominate Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, King Willem-Alexander of Orange from The Netherlands and Princess Anne from the United Kingdom. It will requires officials and renowned players with managerial knowledge to take a harsh look at all this, having this headed by three members who have lived a life beyond reproach is equally important.

So in the end, consider that in all this, when we look from a distance, you should be appalled on how an organisation so influential in national events on a global scale is given a level of leeway that even the most powerful organised crime organisation could never ever hope for is just too unsettling. And in all this, it is all preparation, the support acts have not started yet and the main event is some time away. It is time to make a massive change and the sooner such actions begin, the better for all those passionate about sports involved.

 

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