Tag Archives: Turkey

Work to live, live to enjoy

It is the proper setting, work to live is now no longer added by live to work but live to enjoy and it is setting a different coil in the US. With 28,000 jobs gone, the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/24/us-unemployment-lowest-level-since-1969) reports ‘US jobless claims fall to lowest level since 1969 as states float rebate checks’, it is a good step for the us, you see as jobless claims fall to such low levels, there is an option to actually reduce debt, one millimetre at a time and there are yards to go, so it will take some time. If only the tax laws were overhauled it might become centimetres at a time, but all administrations had found excuse after excuse why not to do that and it will take decades to get a chunk out of the $30,000,000,000,000 debt. You still think that overhauling US tax laws is not essential? 

But that is the bad news, for now this administration can report that “Jobless claims fell by 28,000 to 187,000 for the week ending 19 March, the lowest since September of 1969,” and with all the bad news, that is one piece of good news that they can really use. On the other hand, as the IT structures change it might be a short lived gain. I am not stating that this good news will follow bad news, but as I see it over the next 18 months Microsoft will be in serious problems on three areas, it will force to lay off staff, on the other hand these people will be able to get a job almost immediately with IBM, Google, and Amazon. And with the laster changing station it will push revenues to new heights in several places (except Microsoft that is). And with the news ‘Amazon to create over 1,000 jobs with first logistics hub in Turkey’ Amazon sets another foundation, the first of three new cluster allowing them to gain even more revenue in 2023/2024. It will also work towards those 50,000,000 additional consoles and that is merely the start for Amazon and the beginning of much larger losses for Microsoft. Too bad they already handed over the $87,000,000,000 they could have used it to invest in innovative products, oh wait. That was what they wanted to do, what a shame they walked into the wrong direction and when you see that and realise the news (three days ago) gives us ‘Amazon further accelerates investment in Egypt, creates 2,000 new jobs’ the second of three clusters is set and the last two (the fourth is optional but decently essential) Amazon has taken steps to push Microsoft out of the gaming world (well, the most powerful console in the world becomes obsolete before it could shine), but the Nintendo Switch shines a little brighter than Microsoft, the least powerful nextgen console in the world defeated the most powerful one and soon a bookstore (read: Amazon) will add to the defeat of Microsoft and push it to fourth position after that the sliding scale will go a lot faster. The only crunch is that I would prefer that Amazon buys my IP before they can work out what was missing. (I am not greedy, merely hungry for a nice retirement) So soon we will see all the steps Microsoft missed and whilst they could have been going back to the n top position, their delusional side would not allow for it, their Azure and lack on several fronts got them here and should Adobe get involved. The fourth loss for Microsoft would be close to disastrous, but I already wrote about that and even as we see all the news, we also see that Amazon is getting ready to push back and they will push harder and more successful and too many will see Microsoft bleeding, after that the game of spin is on and spin only works if the people are willing to believe you and that group is shrinking rapidly. Yet it also reflects back on the 187,000 unemployed. For now there is no issue. As the Microsoft employees see the hard setting they face, they will all move to the other three, optionally places like Oracle and a few other places that will need people and the rush will start. In the end I do not know where the numbers end, but at present there is no negativity to be expected (if you aren’t Microsoft), and that starts a whole new stage. Even if we are alerted to the fact that unemployment is the lowest since 1969, the US will soon face a new challenge, a workers shortage and that is the larger station that follows, it will drive incomes up by a lot and even as the hungry sharks will focus on the Microsoft cadaver, it will not be enough and commerce needs the influx. Where it will come from? Your guess is as good as mine and beyond all this there is still China to consider. It too needs tech people, where they will come from? I honestly do not know, but there is every chance that some will come from the US. So whilst some will Ive to enjoy some will see an option to fill there pockets so that they can retire a few years earlier and enjoy more and longer. Which will drive up worker shortage even more and push the limits further, so when you see another ‘positive Microsoft story’ wonder where it comes from and what else is out there. At present Amazon is in place to push Microsoft down the hill straight into the basement only one tier remains missing (for now) and that will set the larger gains for Amazon. 

Amazon apparently is ready works to live and lives to become a ruler on more than one hill.

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When you see the other fellow

That is the setting isn’t it? We do things, we create things and we create concepts and we all think that we are in control of the right one, we all do that. I am no different, yet when I saw the BBC news, I decided to reconsider my point of view. For me it all started in 2020, I set the setting to an article called ‘The stage moves on’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/23/the-stage-moves-on/) I wrote it on February 23rd 2021. And when the BBC gave us ‘Netflix: First Arabic movie sparks morality row’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-60091590) I saw the article somewhere this afternoon, and my mind went on a trip. The concept was initially for Amazon (as I have other elements they might want) yet the article gave me “well-known TV journalist Mustafa Bakry said he had complained to the speaker of the Egyptian parliament about the filmmakers. Mr Bakry urged the country’s authorities to halt co-operation with Netflix “since this is not its first movie that targets the values and traditions of the Egyptian and Arab societies”” I see the offence it might give and I do not think that my concept does that, and other than the alleged assassination of Dutch PVV politician Geert Wilders no one got killed, and as far as I can tell, that man is not really accepted in the Netherlands either. With the housing shortage in the Netherlands, one person less, who will notice?

Anyway, the idea that my (aka western) values would collide with Middle Eastern morality and optional Middle Eastern laws did concern me. The idea was a movie that fought and opposed islamophobia was the setup and it had a nice twist at the end (as any decent movie does), I needed the setting so that people might realise that the stage in the middle east was a lot bigger than we think it is, it is not merely about morality and the dangers, it is also about some people want certain other people to hold the bag, if anything Yemen made that clear, and this idea to create something that made it clear to all was my goal in this. The idea that I create something that could be in part filmed and created in Saudi Arabia was also appealing. The rest would be filmed in the Netherlands. There was the small consideration that creating anything that appeals to a large group of 100 million Egyptians, 35 million Saudi’s and 85 millions Turks could be a success story. The idea that a decent chunk of 220,000,000 people might like my concept is off course a really nice idea, I would take any group up to 50%, only the delusional person aims for 100% covering. There would be no chance of that and that is me not considering the 275 million Indonesians, with over 85% Muslim, the numbers would become interesting to say the least. 

So there I was with an idea, but it is merely one of several that could appeal to Amazon, and any chunk of half a billion people could optionally translate to a nice pay day and that is merely one of the IP’s I had up for negotiating. Yet still doubt is still a part of me. Like anyone, I relish the chance to go into early retirement and take up skiing 4 months a year, just to keep busy, yet not at the cost of inciting protest that I would be attacking another persons morality, my goal was completely the opposite. So for me the BBC article was a wake up call and a loud one. Still the ideas go through my head designing more and more IP. Should I stop? I personally do not think so, but like any other person I have flaws, I have weaknesses and I do relish the chance for success, wouldn’t you?

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The devil rang

This is too good, I had just finished yesterday’s article and the Guardian gives me ‘Spyware can make your phone your enemy. Journalism is your defence’, in this that I have some troubles accepting that journalism is my defence, they are al about circulation and satisfying their shareholders and stakeholders (optionally advertisers too). But the article came at the right moment, even as this is about Pegasus and the NSO group. Whenever I look back at the title ‘Pegasus’ I think back to Pegasus mail and windows 3.1. It is a reflex, but a nice one. So, the article gives us “The Pegasus project poses urgent questions about the privatisation of the surveillance industry and the lack of safeguards for citizens”, which is nice, but Microsoft, Solarwinds and Cisco made a bigger mess and a much larger mess, so pointing at Pegasus at this point seems a little moot and pointless. (Microsoot’s Exchange anyone?)

Yes, there are questions and it is fair to ask them, so when we see “This surveillance has dramatic, and in some cases even life-threatening, consequences for the ordinary men and women whose numbers appear in the leakbecause of their work exposing the misdeeds of their rulers or defending the rights of their fellow citizens”, yes questions are good, but the fact that millions of records went to the open air via all kinds of methods (including advertiser Microsoft) is just a little too weird. And it is not up to me, it was The Hill who asked the people (5 days ago after the Kaseya hack gone public, the larger question that actually matters ‘Kaseya hack proves we need better cyber metrics’ and they are right, when we see “Once “infected”, your phone becomes your worst enemy. From within your pocket, it instantly betrays your secrets and delivers your private conversations, your personal photos, nearly everything about you” we read this and shrug, but at this point how did a third party operator (NSO group) get the data and the knowhow to make an app that allows for this? Larger question should be handed to both Google and Apple. The fact that the phones are mostly void of protection comes from these two makers. This is a setting of facilitation and a lack of cyber security. The NSO group decided to set a limited commercial application (more likely to facilitate towards the proud girls and boys of Mossad) and they took it one step further to offer it to other governments as well, is that wrong?

So when we see “All of these individuals were selected for possible surveillance by states using the same spyware tool, Pegasus, sold by the NSO Group. Our mission at Forbidden Stories is to pursue – collaboratively – the work of threatened, jailed or assassinated journalists”, if that were true, we would see a lot more articles regarding the 120 Journalists jailed in Turkey, not to mention the 60 journalists that were assassinated (read: targeted killing exercise) there as well. The papers are all about a journalist no one cares about (Jamal Khashoggi) but the other journalists do not really make the front page giving pause and skepticism to “the work of threatened, jailed or assassinated journalists”, my personal view is that the advertisers and stake holders don’t really care about those lives. Then I have issues with “This investigation began with an enormous leak of documents that Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International had access to”, was it really a leak, or did one government take view away from them (by Amnesty International) and handed it towards the NSO group? A list of 50,000 numbers is nothing to sneer at, as such, I doubt it was a leak, it was a tactical move to push the limelight away from them and push it somewhere else. As we consider Kaseya, Solarwinds, Microsoft and Cisco, the weak minded democratic intelligence players from the Unified Spies of America come to mind, but I admit that I have no evidence, it is pure speculation.

And then we see the larger danger “But the scale of this scandal could only be uncovered by journalists around the world working together. By sharing access to this data with the other media organisations in the Forbidden Stories consortium, we were able to develop additional sources, collect hundreds of documents and put together the harrowing evidence of a surveillance apparatus that has been wielded ferociously against swaths of civil society”, who did they share access to? Who reports to another faction that is not journalism or is purely greed driven? In this, the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/jul/19/spyware-can-make-your-phone-your-enemy-journalism-is-your-defence) gives us one other gem, it is “not to mention more than 180 journalists from nearly two dozen countries”, as such we see 0.36% of the data is about journalists, so if I was to look at a slice and dice dashboard, how will these 50,000 people distribute? So when we see “If one reporter is threatened or killed, another can take over and ensure that the story is not silenced”, yes, how did that end up for those journo’s in Turkey? What about outliers in data like Dutch journalist Peter R. De Vries? He is not getting the limelight that much in the last three days, you all moved on? You pushed the limelight towards Jamal Khashoggi for well over a year, who achieved less than 0.01% compared to Peter R. De Vries. I reckon that this article, although extremely nice is there to cater to a specific need, a need that the article does not mention (and I can only speculate), but when we see all this holier than though mentions and we see an inaction on Turkey’s actions, as well as a lack of news regarding Peter R. De Vries, I wonder what this article was about, it wasn’t really about the NSO group and Pegasus, they are mentioned 4 and 7 times, the article was to push people towards thinking it is about one thing and it becomes about the 0.36% of journalists in a list of 50,000, all whilst the number is mentioned once in the article without a breakdown. Someone else is calling, when you answer, just make sure the local number is not 666.

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The big match

Yes, most of us can relate to sports, I am all about the biscuit (NHL puck), most are about the balls, some round, some oval, yet in all this we tend to be able to connect to sports, it is almost a global thing. When it is not Chess or Go that is. As such I am keeping an open mind towards the Iran-Saudi Arabia talks. I do hope that Saudi Arabia gets the peace it is entitled to, but personally. In light of all that has transpired, I am not really optimistic that Iran will keep its word, but that is my view of the matter and at present I would be happy to be wrong. 

The first issue
There are a few issues that intertwine and they are not up to Saudi Arabia, the first player is Hezbollah who has been accused a few times to give support to Houthi forces after an alleged call from General Qasem Soleimani. There are a few speculations attached to it, yet the larger stage remains. Iran directly and allegedly indirectly via Hezbollah decided to attack the citizens of Saudi Arabia and engage in a long term proxy war. This issue will resolve itself over time, yet for the tool in that conversation (Hezbollah), we might take notice of ‘Stockpiling fuel from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah braces for state collapse’ (source: The Arab Weekly), with supporting text “The plan chimes with worries in Lebanon that people will have to rely on political factions for food and security, in the way many did in the militia days of the 1975-1990 civil war. In response to a question about Hezbollah’s plans, Leila Hatoum, an adviser to the caretaker prime minister, said the country was “in no condition to refuse aid” regardless of politics.The sources from the pro-Hezbollah camp, who declined to be named, said the plan for a potential worst-case scenario has gathered pace as an end to subsidies looms in the coming months, raising the spectre of hunger and unrest”, a stage that has one side, yet when Iran has to collapse its assistance, the stage there changes, Hezbollah will no longer be regarded as a local asset, it will be regarded as a larger national liability and that is not a good place for Hezbollah to be in. It is a win-win for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, if this part is not met, Iran will show itself to be a non-peace driven party to the world. If it does, support in Yemen toward the houthi forces becomes a non option quite soon. 

The second issue
The second player in all this is Turkey, it has sided with Iran too often and they are seeing the larger impact, so I was not surprised to see the Middle East Eye give us ‘Turkey’s foreign minister to visit Saudi Arabia, a first in four years’, it is a personal view, but I reckon that they want to get ahead of the curve, kicking the one player that is vocation stability is not a good thing and the larger stage as well as the blatant openly inaccuracies and pushed mis representations regarding a journalist no one cares about (Jamal Khashoggi) will be the larger noose they need to avoid. We might think that there is a focus around “Cavusoglu is expected to make attempts to repair bilateral ties during the visit, but the closure of Turkish schools will be a top issue, sources told MEE. Last week, Turkey’s education ministry said it has been informed by the Saudi authorities that the eight schools, which have a total of 2,256 pupils, will have to close at the end of the current school year. Last month, the education ministry said there were 26 Turkish schools in Saudi Arabia”, yet I believe that this is a ruse. This minister will have some form of apology package with all kinds of considerations. Turkey has no choice, their crypto currency collapse (Thodex and Vebitcoin) with bosses running for the hills (at least one with $2,000,000,000 plus in its USB pockets) and the people angry with losing all they have is the larger setting for civic unrest to a scale they never faced before and that requires all kinds of sides to reduce pressure wherever they can and both Turkey and Iran are happy to let Hezbollah drown on its own. Yes, this is my speculation, but if you followed the news in the last two years, you would end up having similar thoughts.

The third issue
The third issue is Yemen, there is no way around it and these two players are on opposite sides. Even as the media has avoided to a larger extent to show and to report on the unacceptable acts by Houthi forces, the UN who was the target on several occasions has not and that is where Iran find itself at a much larger disadvantage. They might have options if General Qasem Soleimani had been around the last 6 months, but someone solved that problem for many and now the less experienced players have painted themselves in corners and that works to the advantage of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well. It is more against Iran but that might be mere semantics. Here we see France24 giving us (at https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210506-saudi-walks-diplomatic-high-wire-on-iran-yemen) “Saudi Arabia’s secret talks with arch-rival Iran signal a high-wire diplomatic act as it scrambles to rein in Tehran-backed Yemeni rebels”, as I see it, if Iran wants clear resolutions of the outstanding issues in play they would have to back down to a larger extent, optionally an openly extent to denounce the Houthi forces, but that would be an unrealistic expectation. And I do not disagree when we see “The Houthis would prefer to be their own interlocutor with Saudi Arabia and will not want Iran taking their place in that,” Elana DeLozier, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told AFP”, Elana DeLozier, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has a clear point there, but these forces will not get too much of an option when Iran walks out, when that happens before the Houthis get any talks going they might end up being on their own and that pretty much ends the Houthi options in Yemen as I see it. As such the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a lot to gain, and with Iran being on everyone’s display they have a larger chance of getting a lot done.

In all this the stage will soon change and I reckon that there was a reason that Mevlut Cavusoglu (Turkish Foreign minister) used the Schools as a reason, The Arab Weekly gives us ‘May 20 deadline to register for Ithra conference in Saudi Arabia’s Dhahran’, which is seemingly also a beautiful place to be and get some informal settings, especially as it is away from Riyadh and has the nice extra to be a setting where the Turkish schools can be discussed openly and optionally talk about a few more issues less openly. As such, If I am correct a few larger issues will be on someone’s table in August so that they might be discussed in September. I reckon that this is the time that both Hezbollah and Houthi forces have left. In 8-12 weeks Turkey might need to get baubles for Euros to avoid a much larger negative national setting and I reckon they are willing to sell a few issues down the river for their own good. It is a personal speculated vision, but I feel that I might be onto something here, Iran will try to avoid making quick decisions, which makes perfect sense, so Turkey needs to get ahead of ending up being the piggy in the middle chasing after the ball and the goods. If Iran gives in too soon Turkey will end up holding the bag and in either scenario Hezbollah will merely forfeit whatever it thought it had in the first place, and there ‘thought they had’ was the operative part in all this and the Houthi forces merely lose. Optionally they will lose twice, because they made enemies of the local population all over the place as well and without Iranian funding these people will be running for the hills all whilst they know that everyone in Yemen will be out to get them. 

Game, set and match for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which comes with a dose of highly needed stability as well. And Iran? That leaves us out in the open, the people might accept a few parts, but the Nuclear deals are still there and Iran is delusional to think that Saudi Arabia (or Israel for that matter) will allow them to continue on the nuclear path they are.

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The joy of discovery

We all get it, there are moments, those ‘aha’ moments when we see something that does not add up. You see, Agnes Callamard (aka eggy calamari) has been going out and accusing the Saudi government and specifically the Crown Prince of all kinds of misdeeds and she got the CIA to help her out. I debunked that report in several articles a few times, the fact that I am a mere recent graduate add to just how stupid the UN has been in the last 2 years, then she was all up in arms because a man claimed that the Crown prince hacked his mobile, a report that was debunked and questioned by a whole range of cyber experts, yes it was the man who is really rich and saves money on shampoo (hint: it rhymes with Beff Jezos), two instances when the UN got involved, the second one is debatable whether the UN should have gotten involved in the first place.

Now we get ‘Saudi accused of threat to Khashoggi UN investigator is human rights chief’ (source: the Guardian), to be honest I was about to let it go, tempers run high and an official is slightly over protective of its Crown Prince. This happens, it is a fact of life, I am no different, I am Australian now, but if someone threatens the life of my previous King of the Netherlands and/or his family, I will kill that person myself, on the spot and if I sit a life sentence in jail I will be whistling dixie. I took an oath in 1981 and I believe that an oath is set for life. So the quote “The Saudi official who is alleged to have twice issued threats against the independent UN investigator Agnès Callamard is the head of the kingdom’s human rights commission” is something that comes by and I think, ‘Shit happens!’ As such no big deal, then I saw “We confirm that the details in the Guardian story about the threat aimed at Agnès Callamard are accurate. After the threat was made, OHCHR informed Ms Callamard herself about it, as well as UN security and the president of the Human Rights Council, who in turn informed the relevant authorities” at this point a thought crossed my mind “This Rupert Colville, a spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights is dotting his ‘i’ and crossing his ‘t’”, it happens, but the stage is reported in a fashion that the media often does not go through to this degree and that is when the revelation hit, not the revelation of Saudi Arabia bashing. It is seen when you see the following image (see below)

The name Stephanie Kirchgaessner keeps on popping up, way too often and if she is as the Guardian quotes “the Guardian’s US investigations correspondent”, the focal points do not make sense, this was an article that an intern could have written and as such more and more question marks on ‘Saudi bashing’ surface and the ring of those doing this is is becoming more and more debatable. Yet in all this, no one is asking questions, no one seems to notice. I did initially in a previous video article with Stephanie Kirchgaessner, but it could have been an editing issue, now I am no longer sure. I am not questioning the stage we see here, yet such a space for a threat all whilst dying children in Yemen get less space, whilst Al Jazeera gives us ‘People in Yemen are not just dying, they are being left to die’ (2 days ago), I start to wonder what the focal point of a US investigative reporter has become, aren’t you?

Let me paint you a picture (not the girl with the pearl earring mind you): “As I was sitting in the CIA office in the US Consulate in Sydney, I was talking to a man, let’s call him Hugo. Another man walks in and scans the room with an advanced version of the TM-196 3-Axis RFFSM. I ask him to give it to me and turn around, he does both, I scan his ass and tell him “Please inform NASA that the CIA can say with high probability that there are no bugs on Ur Anus”, so what will be the news after that?” The absolute truth is one thing, the way it gets ‘altered’ by those through what some would call ‘intentional misinformation’, it is one of the tools that too many have been using and the matter is getting worse, it has been  dwindling into politics and the media for decades, but we see more and more stages where technology and business are relying on misinformation and it hurts the bottom line. Forbes stated it as ‘To Gain Money, Lose Money’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisreining/2020/03/11/to-gain-money-lose-money) there we see “volatility is the nature of the market. Whether you’re investing in indexes or stocks like Netflix you’re going to spend time losing money. Most days it’s immaterial. Some days it’s not. But it’s how you react to losing money that ultimately determines your gains”, I am not debating that part, it is well explained in more words then I am giving here, but some are transferring this to the real stage of actual life and that is where it goes ‘tits up’ as some say, a long term stage cannot be set to economic stages of equilibrium. This is why I hate the hypocrisy that is shown too often and for too long regarding the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When we hold these people to account some will hide behind ‘an unnamed source’, others will use the miscommunication line, but they all hide behind the same wall of hypocrisy. It is time to wreck-ball that wall, because it is costing us way too much and when the others realise just what the costs were, the people invoking the actions will claim to be non-accountable and it all started with a missing journalist 99.9% of the global population never cared about, that too I brought to light, and as we saw 41 minutes ago that “European Union leaders are ready to boost cooperation with Turkey if a “current de-escalation is sustained”, they said in a video summit on Thursday following a spike in tensions”, all whilst Turkey moved away from the Istanbul Convention, so when are these so called politicians holding Turkey to account? I reckon never, but that is how the cookie crumbles as some say. Stages of denial, all whilst those are all happy to bash Saudi Arabia a little longer and there we see the article on threats whilst we also get “The Guardian independently corroborated Callamard’s account of the January 2020 episode”, I personally wonder how much of that corroboration was done by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in the first or second degree. Aren’t you curious of that part too? 

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That was easy!

Yup, the report (all three pages) took seconds and the setting of the non-guilt setting of MBS is seen on page 2. Even if we want to give weight to “We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decision making in the Kingdom”, it was never going to be hard, but the setting of ‘We base this’, ‘we’ being the people who claimed that there were WMD’s in Iraq was never going to be realistic, but you know, we all get surprises at time. The three pages (optionally a much larger report that is still classified) is not enough and even as we can giggle over “We have high confidence that the following individuals participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi”, it has no legal value. It is what you can prove that matters. And in that we need to return to the UN essay that Agnes Callamard wrote. There we see (and it matters). 

This start at [29] where we see “Mr. Khashoggi’s execution is emblematic of a global pattern of targeted killing of, and threats against, journalists and media workers that is regularly denounced by States, UN agencies, Special Procedures, and by numerous international and national human rights organisations.” You see, my issue is with the word ‘execution’ which means “the carrying out of a sentence of death on a condemned person”, meaning that there is a body (at least one would think), then there is ‘a global pattern of targeted killing’ which is a different can of worms at present. Yet it is at [39] when we are given “Intelligence gathering is an open-ended process, and there is rarely a definitive point at which “enough” intelligence has been harvested. Think of a conveyer belt moving information from often disparate sources constantly in front of intelligence officers.  At some point, there comes a time when an intelligence service or operative simply has to make a stab at assimilating what all this means.” It is a fair assessment, and like the WMD’s in Iraq, we need to consider ‘an intelligence service or operative simply has to make a stab at assimilating what all this means’, this can be surmised into one single word ‘Speculation!’, it is fair for Intelligence operatives to do, but in law it is set to evidence and there is none, something I saw in 10 minutes into the initial report. This is about petulant children complaining that the next regent of Saudi Arabia is one that they do not like. Oh, boo hoo hoo hoo hoo! Go cry me a river somewhere else please.

The one lollipop I was keeping back was seen at [41], it is “Recordings of only seven different conversations over a two-day period were made available to the inquiry. Combined these amounted to 45 minutes of tape, when, according to Turkish Intelligence, they had access to at least seven hours of recordings. The remaining six hours and 15 minutes may or may not be relevant to the inquiry, but without doubt there remains much more recorded information than that made available to the Special Rapporteur”, as well as “The Special Rapporteur was not allowed to obtain clones of the recordings so she could not authenticate any of the recordings. Among other aspects, such authentication would have involved examination of the recordings’ metadata such as when, how the data were created, the time and date of creation and the source and the process used to create it.” As such we are given that they merely got a partial recording, the stage where recordings were not copied, implying that there is a bigger mess and one that surpasses ‘when, how the data were created’, and the bigger issue is that there is no digital forensic evidence that the person on the tape is actually Jamal Khashoggi, lets not forget that in the proxy war against Iran, Turkey supports Iran, as such they have all kinds of reasons to make the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia look bad. And that is merely assuming that the hardware is of a nature that it allows the creation of metadata in the first place. 

And the noise is completed at [44] where we are given “To evaluate the recordings, in the absence of copies or clones, she asked for the expert opinion of others who had access to the recordings, including representatives of foreign governments. Their opinions were given to her informally. She also, to the extent possible, triangulated Intelligence (information and analysis) with other facts, such as CCTV footage, interviews, contextual information, historical patterns”, as such, the word ‘experts’ is seen 13 times, but where is that list of experts exactly? And in light of ‘others who had access to the recordings’, it comes with ‘Their opinions were given to her informally’, in what court of law would that hold up? All this analyses, informal, and the setting os speculation and assumption is all over the place, all whilst in law we have a setting that is ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’, a threshold that is never ever met in anything here. There is a lot more, but I will not bore you with that, I will merely add both documents at the bottom

Even that work of fiction ‘Blood and Oil’ uses rhetoric to make a case that never was. I honestly had expected a much larger task in determining guilty or not-guilty in the entire Khashoggi mess that the media was trying to hold over our heads, and I can clearly state that in all this Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is not guilty.

All the time we were given ‘it could be’, or ‘what we were able to gather’ was a stage for all the click bitches in the world to click on article after article, the media has become this pathetic to get some revenue (and visibility). All whilst the report that gives us “the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad”, a stage that is not met with actual facts and factual evidence. When we call for that the only thing we will get is a lot of silence. 

Is anyone catching up on that yet? What are you still missing in this? I got some of the answers, but watching you find them is so much more fun, because it also proves just how unreliable some of the media has become.

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The pun remains

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

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

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

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On the fence

Yup we are at times all on the fence, some call me massively pro Saudi Arabia, yet for the most I am more anti hypocrisy. There is way to much of that going on. Saudi Arabia at present has the fastest 5G on the planet, pretty much all over their nation, why is that? Saudi Arabia is attempting to create a large high tech futuristic city well over 20 times the size of New York, who knows this? Be honest to yourself, what do you know? 

Turkey has the most incarcerated journalists on the planet, sources also give us “64 names of journalists killed between 1909 and 2009”, this happened in Turkey, can you even name one person? (At http://www.cgd.org.tr/index.php?Did=22), that is not even the beginning, we are also given “A published a list in April 2012 that contained 112 names of incarcerated journalists” (at https://www.gazeteciler.com/gundem/103-yilda-112-gazeteci-ve-yazar-olduruldu-50058h.html), I had problems getting the actual page and it is 8 years ago, so it might be that it was removed. Reuters gave us last year “More than 120 journalists are still being held in Turkey’s jails, a global record, and the situation of the media in the country has not improved since the lifting of a two-year state of emergency last year, a global press watchdog said on Tuesday”, so how much screaming do we get on that front? How many care, in sight of the one Saudi journalist no one cares about, I think that these 120 people will just vanish. As such when I see ABC giving us ‘Calls for countries like Australia to boycott Saudi Arabia’s G20 summit over the jailing of female political prisoners’, and I see the name of QC Baroness Helena Kennedy connected to all this, I am at a loss to consider what the fuck she thinks she is connected to. How much actions did she take on the 120 journalists? And when we get to ‘calls for countries like Australia’, I wonder what the hell is going on, how can we be blind in one direction and give rise to the other, for me that touches on discrimination. 

As such the Irish Law Gazette, gives us ‘Bubble has burst’ on Saudi crimes – Khashoggi fiancée’, yes, please tell us WHAT CRIMES? The stage is clear, apparently and allegedly a journalist is missing, we expect foul play, but at present we cannot prove it, the investigators screwed up the setting, some UN essay writer made it all worse and we are given “The fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has said that G20 leaders have a moral duty to solve his case”, a nice touch from the Law Gazette, but murder must show intent, or it is at the most ‘alleged murder’, the G20 leaders have no criminal expertise, so why should they solve it and all the tainted evidence comes from the nation with the most incarcerated journalists, are we catching on yet? As such we see a fiancee (Hatice Cengiz) shouting out to any media that will print and that is fair enough, but we need to see the larger picture of a missing person, not unlike the alleged murder of Suzanne Pilley (UK), in this even the BBC printed in 2012 that they hope to find the body, and this is the issue, I am not stating that Suzanne Pilley was not murdered, I am not stating that Jamal Khashoggi went clubbing, I am stating that the evidence is not there, that UN essay writer spend 105 pages on it and was able to set a political agenda as well, which she hid on page 98 (Support to freedom of expression in the gulf region), yup her mission was done and it took only one journalist to get the game rolling. So in all this will Baroness Helena Kennedy have anything to add?

No one is debating that Saudi Arabia is a nation adjusting to modern times, or did you forget the small detail that Women were not allowed to vote in Australia until 1911, and in the US when the 19th Amendment was passed, it was done because of the Republicans? Over 200 Republicans voted in favour of the 19th Amendment, while only 102 Democrats voted alongside them, as such only 102 Democrats thought the women worthy of the right of voting. It was introduced in 1878, but it would take up to 1920 to ratify it, small details we tend to overlook, so when we see the 102 democrats, which democrats were against it? Can we see names please?

We think we are all so uppity uppity clever, but we dropped the ball again and again, this is not a shame, it is merely life and those denying its lessons will repeat it again and again, so as we claim to be a nation of laws, let’s then adhere to the law. I never claimed that certain Saudi Arabians were innocent, I am merely stating that there is no evidence at all towards their guilt, and is there not a saying that people are innocent until found guilty in a court of law? In the case of the journalist nobody cares of and we consider the massive amount of tainted evidence, no conviction will ever happen, not in a true setting of the application of law, but most people knew that, did they not?

I remain on the fence, I personally think that something happened to him, what? I cannot tell, the evidence is lacking in too many places and the essay that the UN released merely adds questions, not solutions, merely the beginning of political plays. Neom City was the start point of some of my IP design, that is why I take notice, I expect to get at least 3-5 more pieces of IP out of that setting and a city that big, how can that not happen? I feel certain that others will get their IP, construction firms are starting to figure things out and when (not if) the EU collapses under mounting debts, Neom City might hold the ticket for optional new wealth, yet this time it will be by adjusting to Islamic law and islamic rules, a stage that might dread plenty of people, yet if new growth is gained by change, what new borders will we all surpass? The US is heading to darker waters, the Covid issues, the Paris accords, all choices that the US is allowed to make, but these changes have alienated the EU in the process, and even as some are awaiting President elect Biden to take up the baton, the larger stage is not set and when we see that (Newsweek) gives us ‘Pompeo Says U.S.-Saudi Ties Are ‘Strong,’ but Biden Looks to Pressure ‘Pariah’ State’, we optionally see a much larger problem, but that I OK, I am ready and willing to find an alternative solution to a $8,500,000,000 arms invoice that the US is squandering, I have two parties willing (read: chomping at the bit) to satisfy the needs of Saudi Arabia, one mans loss is another mans new castle and I do have a nice castle in mind with the 3.75% bonus I would gain from that, so here, at least that is what Guan De of the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group thinks, they are willing to take it of the American hands, when they fumble the ball someone has to pick it up, it might as well be me.

So when you get all huffy and puffy, consider that at least Baroness Helena Kennedy is working of at least some level of evidence, you see that the acts of Hillary Kennedy were not wrong, there are flaws in Saudi Arabia, but when we consider the progress they have made, the progress they are making and the silence we see all sides give Turkey, I merely wonder how stupid the actions of some are. It is admirable that the US is willing to face hunger for morality it for the most cannot prove, yet what about these 80 million hungry Americans, will they like the decisions that come? I reckon so, they voted, did they not?

So that is why I am on the fence, evidence that is failing, accusations that come without evidence, all whilst the players with evidence are taking the long road around those problems, I have always had an issue with that, all whilst Saudi Arabia is the top player in 5G speed and they are setting a construction endeavour the sight we have NEVER seen before and why isn’t every paper in the world looking at that part, is that not weird too? 

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Intentionally creating imbalance

This happens, it happens more often than you think, but that is a separate issue. Yet too often have you seen that the media all over the world have thrown evidence to the side of the road, just to aid in imbalance? Consider that stage for a second. We all have our own windmills to fight, it is not simplifying to Don Quixote, even though it is tempting. I would be drawn to “The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water”, even as some might rely on “Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness”, a stage we all all face, all sides of it. In this Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra might have been a larger philosopher than anyone realises, even if it made little sense in those days, it does in these days, in the age of digital awareness, sides of insanity and madness finally make sense.

In this I start with ‘Jamal Khashoggi: Journalist’s fiancee sues Saudi crown prince’. It is not the first page but it is another page that in isolation makes the most sense to use. Yes, there are all kinds of people telling me how insane I am, the madness that I show in this when soo many sources telling me otherwise.  A stage that I would accept if the soup wasn’t getting cooked on a high flame. In the BBC article I start with the fiancee is the one party I would give a pass on. I believe that she was hurt and she is filing, but there is the real matter, is it not? 

Even as we are given “Hatice Cengiz and the rights group Khashoggi formed before his death are pursuing Mohammed bin Salman and more than 20 others for unspecified damages”, so a group formed before his death? It is the ‘unspecified damages’ that takes the cake, the biscuits and the pot of tea. In the matter we need to look and address ‘a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, accusing him of ordering the killing’. This part we need to see with a clinical view. What evidence exists? The term ‘ordering the killing’ requires proof beyond all reasonable doubt. The infamous UN essay by Agnes Callamard showed that there is no evidence, there is no body and the work of fiction called ‘Blood and Ice’, shows even more lack of truths. As I personal see it ‘Blood and Oil’ is a fictional work by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck, a fictional work with a collection of facts based on people who actually exist. It reads easy and is seemingly created for a longer term, a stage I have not seen in Journalistic work, but this is not that, is it? It is an important take to realise, as the case created by the ‘Hatice Cengiz and the rights group Khashoggi’ calls for it. Consider the stage of a court, the costs involved. I will concede that there are leagues of people willing to set the stage through pro-bono work because of the limelight the case will get, but in the end, there was no evidence, the bast we can hope for is that Jamal Khashoggi is missing. This is not about personal feelings or personal knowledge, it is what can be proven in court and even if any evidence EVER comes to the surface, the setting that it can be linked to the Crown prince is close to impossible to prove. A stage where a person no one cared about (except his mum and the person he shares a bed with) has received close to 80 million hits online and that is merely a conservative guess. At some point I saw the counter go well over 60 million and that was a year ago. So has something bad happened to him? Personally I believe tht to be the case, but I cannot prove it. I was not there and NO ONE presented any evidence to the fact that this has happened. It happened in  nation that is the puppet of Iran and tht nation has the most incarcerated journalists in the world and that nation has been the discussion of a whole range of murdered journalists, murders that cannot be proven, but they state that they have the evidence on this, yet they never properly presented it. As I personally see it, the acts of a puppet nation without evidence. 

As such, when we see “After listening to purported audio recordings of conversations inside the consulate made by Turkish intelligence, UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard concluded that Khashoggi was “brutally slain” that day”, the UN report does not show any evidence to positively confirm that the person allegedly being interrogated was Jamal Khashoggi, in the UN report at [398] we see “In an international forum at least, a review of the rules of evidence and jurisprudence conducted by the Special Rapporteur shows that the admissibility of the tapes and potentially other intercepts relating to Mr. Khashoggi’s death will depend on the form in which they are ultimately produced, their reliability, the fairness to the defendants of using such evidence, and the interest of the international community in providing justice to Mr. Khashoggi and his family”, here we see no mention that the tapes PROVE that the tapes are beyond the shadow of a doubt the recordings of Jamal Khashoggi. Yet at [41] of that report we are given “Recordings of only seven different conversations over a two-day period were made available to the inquiry. Combined these amounted to 45 minutes of tape, when, according to Turkish Intelligence, they had access to at least seven hours of recordings. The remaining six hours and 15 minutes may or may not be relevant to the inquiry, but without doubt there remains much more recorded information than that made available to the Special Rapporteur”, consider that allegedly only 10.7% of the available recordings were made available, so in what universe does that not constitute reasonable doubt or even an alleged form of tempered evidence? This is merely a setting of 2 elements in a much larger report. None of it proves murder, to a much larger extent it is a document that due to manipulation could set many optionally involved people free. 

My setting is seen in the report at [244] where we see “Much attention has been focused on whether the Crown Prince himself ordered the murder. However, this focus on “ordering” the crime and on finding the “smoking gun” creates expectations which legal systems, both domestic and international, may not be able to meet.  The search for justice and accountability for human rights violations should also and as importantly require identifying those that have abused their influence and power or failed to act with the diligence required of their positions” and the stage of ‘which  legal systems, both domestic and international, may not be able to meet’. It was the stage I had from the very beginning, whatever happened, it cannot be proven and now we get to the good stuff. A report that is well over a year old gives us this, so why continue, this is not about ‘justice’ this is about creating middle east imbalance, optionally this is about people catering towards Turkey and Iran for a third reason and they have no issues burning Saudi needs. The larger stage is however a much more dangerous side. As some seemingly clever people are setting their needs of ‘we need no Saudi Arabia’, we see a stage where Russia and China are willing to set a much larger stage, as such it could cost the EU and the US well over $15 billion in trade deals and goods over the foreseeable future. I will be happy (not knowing whether if I am able) to take over that business. Yet walking way for crumbs from a $15,000,000,000 piece of pastry is even larger madness; of all the windmills I face, an income well below $135,000 a year (pre taxation) is perhaps the easiest to overcome if the opportunity is offered. The moment the two larger players are set in a stage where they lose out, we will see all kinds of demands and contemplated compromises, I merely wonder if it will be too late for them at that point.

And consider the larger issue, how much effort had been made towards all the murdered journalists in Turkey, or even those currently in a Turkish prison? How much articles have you seen on that part of the equation? Some sources give 47 (one less than China) some sources say a lot more, theft that in 2016 well over 100 were in prison gives us question on some data that Forbes presents (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/12/12/the-countries-imprisoning-the-most-journalists-in-2019-infographic), even as we see one source giving us ‘85 journalists and media workers in jail in Turkey’ (complete with a name list) we see a stage of catering and hiding behind ‘media workers’, yet the stage of 47 and 85 is a little too big, so I am willing to go on a madness quest and state that the media themselves are catering to the wrong parties and they need to consider this a lot quicker then they currently are.

Could I be wrong?
Yes, absolutely! Yet consider the evidence and sources. I reflect on the produced US report (which I will happily label a mere essay), and when we see the other stage (like Jeff Bezos and FTI Consulting) and accusation after accusation, all whilst evidence open to the media is ignored, you tell me, Am I wrong?

When a book refers to “dismembering Khashoggi’s body like butchers”, all whilst the body is never found, all whilst evidence of dismembering cannot be produced and whilst there is no digital evidence of any kind, we see “a gripping work of investigative journalism” and in all this, no one is asking questions. I for one do not stand for the hypocritical stage that is exploited by the media on several fronts. Fell free to disagree, yet I feel that there is enough evidence on my side, whilst the lack of evidence on the other side is massively questionable.

I will let you decide on this, like I pretty much always do.

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Speculations, tomato juice and oil

Yup, when we see tomato juice and we call it blood, it is called a speculation. Until the liquid is tested, it could be blood, but that setting is quickly diminished when we test the liquid, and in this the setting of speculation is also important, when we say ‘it looks like blood’ it is one thing, yet when we say ‘I can clearly see that this is blood’ it becomes something else, yet the person could still hide behind a second statement by saying ‘I really thought it was blood’ and all is OK (from that point of view), but for others it is less clear. So that is the setting I had when I saw the article in Al Jazeera yesterday and I wrote about it in ‘To decide in anger’, I wrote about it yesterday at (https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/03/to-decide-in-anger/). So this morning I walked past my favourite bookshop and learned the they had the book Blood and Oil and the sales lady took me straight to it (bless her happy youthful heart), so roughly 73 seconds later, I was the owner of the book. A book I honestly would not have bought if I had not read the Al Jazeera article, so they can add the statistics to that part too. 

In this I learned early on that was in a style that I liked. It is also a dangerous style to use when it is anything else but fiction, and that is how we need to see it, it is for the larger extent a work of fiction. In this chapter 18 (In cold blood) which is about Jamal Khashoggi is as I personally see it as massively fictive.

To explain this I need to take you on a small journey. In the UN report (by UN Essay writer Agnes Calamard) we see at [208] “It also seems improbable that this plan to murder was hatched by the team on its own, or as has been apparently argued at trial, by the team leader alone, once on site”, the application of ‘seems improbable’ is clearly speculative, it makes ‘plan to murder’ fail as speculative as well. Consider that in Common law there is Murder, which requires the evidence of intent and there is manslaughter, which has a lower stage of evidence. In addition any of these actions are void of any evidence towards the Crown prince, no matter what is stated, the evidence has never ever been produced.

So when we see in the book on page 303 “the bloodcurdling detail of the brutality of the killers, dismembering Khashoggi’s body like butchers”, it is merely one of 4 issues I found in the chapter. There was never any evidence of any action, because there was never any evidence and this is what these fictional writers are setting their optional success to, it helps the they are well known writers of the Wall Street Journal. 

This is merely one of the parts of the journey. The other part is one the is a little more scientific. Consider that you add 50 quotes that have a high probability of truth, it is unproven, but those who know will of course highlight any the they know to be true. So as 20-30 out of the 50 are proven to be true, it will taint the other 20 with the ring of truthfulness.  It you give 50 quotes the are highly likely, every hit will optionally be given the ring ‘that might be true too’, this is beside the point that the chance to get one right becomes increasingly likely. It is there the the book (which is nicely written) goes from partial fiction to non-fiction. It is not new and it actually comes from Robert Ludlum (that is where I got the tactic from). He wrote about it in his book ‘The Chancellor Manuscript’ there the writer Peter Chancellor gets his fingers on details, facts he cannot prove and as an academic work it would be laughed at, but he sets it out as fiction and as people look at the book ‘Reichstag!’, people would look at it and wonder if it could be true. It is the the stage where a group called Inver Brass pushed Peter Chancellor and it was merely the beginning. This is exactly the stage the Blood and Oil find itself in and with the stage of what could be true, we can now see a larger stage. In this I looked at it differently because of all the materials I had looked at in the last few months. I do not regret buying the book, because as a fictional work, it reads nicely and plenty of us are curious about the Saudi Royal family, the pictures are a nice addition to the book. And if I can find 4 debatable offered facts in one chapter, I can find a lot more in the book, that is if we treat it as non-fiction. The setting goes on, when we see certain quotes we would consider that the leak would be the personal assistant to Mohammed Bin Salman, consider just how unlikely that is. Would ANY personal assistant be that open about the optional next regent of Saudi Arabia? It would be the highest position that any non-Royal could ever hold (I am assuming the any person assistant of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is not a member of the royal family). 

It is perhaps too funny, but I am just now realising the I am listening to the Mikado whilst writing this. A topsy turvy play on the gentleman of Japan. I feel that the setting is correct, and the stage where we cannot distinguish between fact and fiction is overwhelmingly appealing, but for me Blood and Oil is because of what I do know a work of fiction, the rest hat I cannot proof to be either is happily accepted in the fictive state, it makes the book easier to read. 

Even as the back of the book makes reference to ‘investigative journalism’, it is nice to see that the work from people of the Wall Street Journal can be easily seen as fictive, I wonder what other fictive works the paper optionally offers (a ha ha ha moment from my side).

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