Tag Archives: Washington Post

Ruler of law goes metric

Yes, we all have settings that are part of us, for the most the rule of law is accepted by nearly all. But when do we realise that it is not that simple? There is the notion that this rule of law has an Imperial and a metric setting and that is the core of what we face today. I got my view from the Canadian CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-khashoggi-lawsuit-dismissed-1.6676798). There we get ‘U.S. judge dismisses lawsuit against Saudi prince over Khashoggi killing’, s0 at what point does the US set the stage for events that took place in an alleged Saudi environment in Turkey no less? Lets look at the simple facts, Jamal Khashoggi is as far as I can tell a Saudi dissident, not an American citizen and I do not care what was planned. It never got to be. This person has gotten more ‘alleged’ assistance in a month than most American citizens have seen in a decade. Then we are given “U.S. District Judge John Bates suggested he was reluctant to throw out the lawsuit but had no choice given the Biden administration’s decision.” And I will get back to this in a moment. We are also given “Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in October 2018 by Saudi agents in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul” which is the supporting lie. You see, his body was never found, there is absolutely no evidence that he was dismembered, or killed. For all we know he is spending the rest of his days with his new mistress of 19 years old in a luxurious hotel on Bora Bora. It is equally speculative, is it therefor more wrong?

And we do take notice of “Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice said in a November court filing that the Biden administration had determined that Prince Mohammed, “as the sitting head of a foreign government, enjoys head of state immunity from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts as a result of that office.”” It is the stage that was always going to happen, there was no evidence of any kind, mere speculation and Daily Mail categorised forms of speculated innuendo that never goes anywhere. Lets be clear, I cannot prove the innocence of certain people, but I cannot prove their guilt either and a person is innocent until proven guilty. That is the law and there is no metrical version of that, it is imperial, it is black letter law and that is what the law is. The media wants you to forget this so that they can cater to the digital dollar a little longer. And you are the tool they are using for that. In the mean time Jeff Bezos (via Andy Jassy) denied himself an annual 6 billion and change going up to close to $30 billion in full deployment mode. This is the damage Amazon did to themselves and it is fine by my book, although a little less nice as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia decided not to buy it either. My loss and I get that. But below all this is a stage where the US is in a lot more problem. You see, they desperately need the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia assist them with cheap oil and I have stated this before. Why would they do that? The US has proven themselves to be a fleeting and unreliable ally to say the least. Do not take my word for that, look at the victims in Yemen and Syria and ask yourself, what did the US achieve? Close to nothing and now that they are at the abyss, the hangman’s rope has a very uncomfortable feeling. And as I see it, should the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia want it and limit the shipments of Crude Oil by an additional mere 1 million barrels a day, the US will explode in a stage of anarchy, just before Christmas and that realisation is at stake. The US overplayed its hand for at least two years and now we see that anarchy could become the turnstile of events. So do not think this is something that President Biden started. This is the stage 4 previous administrations colluded under (sort of) and yes, former president Trump might be the only one trying to turn it around but it would have been too little and optionally too late too. The previous congresses made sure of that. They were all too ego driven to see that impact grow and grow. And before you consider the immense state of “Khashoggi had criticised the crown prince’s policies in Washington Post columns. He had travelled to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain papers he needed to marry Cengiz, a Turkish citizen.” You see the US had the option to make him a citizen from 2017 onwards but they chose not to do that (optionally it was in the hands of Khashoggi). So for over a year there was a stage where he had the option to make a change, optionally the US intelligence office could have prevented it if there was a voice, but there wasn’t one. This implies (to me) that there was no real warning, no real danger which now sheds a light on a lot of issues and it does not look good for the US. Hiding behind some metric version of the law was never going to work well and I have highlighted close to half a dozen issues from the beginning and the fictional book of Blood and Oil merely worked for my case. When you see all these articles, all these media evidence and it comes with words like ‘alleged’ and ‘could have’, how wrong do you think I am? 

It is sad watching governments trying to cater to ego and to the clear need of a commodity that their non-allies have, it is a pathetic view and it is not getting better any day soon.

I will let you investigate that, just be sure you rely on the sources you can rely on.

 

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The other white paper

Yes, there are always white papers, but which one is true? You see, they are all true, they are all a point of view. Yet the truth from a point of view is relative, that has always been the case. This is why we have peer criticism for academic papers. Yet that is not the case for the media, they are all fighting to remain around with some feigned form of value. This has been the case for over a decade and now the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63869013) ‘Meta threatens to remove US news content if new law passes’, you see the truth of the matter is that the people no longer need the news, the news is no longer if value. It started when the media starting soliciting (aka whoring) for digital dollars. Flamed bring revenue, actual news not so much. The events surrounding Elon Musk, the abstinence around Jack Dorsey and a dozen other cases made it so. The newspapers are irrelevant and they know it, so in a last gesture to remain not completely irrelevant they rely on laws to force funds from social media. Even as the shared instances from places like the Australian link to paywalls, they are all about ‘lost revenue’ And the Australian is not alone, loads of American newspapers and media (like Forbes) do EXACTLY the same thing. They will tell you the scoop AFTER you pay, so how is that lost revenue? Not all papers are like that, but many are and now we get “It would give publishers and broadcasters greater powers to collectively bargain with social media companies for a larger share of ad revenue”, I believe this is to be a false setting and Meta gives it to you in the form of “Meta claims their platform, in fact, provides increased traffic to struggling news outlets.” They are correct. Consider the truth, it I simple, how many times did you go to the news site? How many times was this because THEY shared news on social media? This has been the case for a decade and now that Meta is taking off the gloves, we see how irrelevant the media has become. In the last year alone I highlighted close to a dozen cases of incompetency and a lack of information vetting by the media, so why should they get paid for shortcomings? It is almost like the decapitated chicken.  It’s running around, but it is already dead, the rest of its body did not figure it out yet. Is it fair? Does it matter? No, the media had the option to evolve, it merely decided that is was cheaper and more profitable to hang onto someone else’s coattails. It did not work out well for them and now they cry foul, almost like the yellow pages. Their era died and they just never adjusted in time and I am adding to the pain as my 5G seemingly goes to China. Setting a new stage in several ways and taking advertisement power away from all and leave it where it should have been all along, with the advertising people. With the locations of advertising and that is the lesson that they never picked up on, and it is not their fault. A place like Google missed it too and I mentioned it at least twice this year. 

A stage that is moving away from them faster and faster and if Meta makes the move it is threatening to a lot of players in the media world will be done for. Such is life, Media Erectus is getting eaten before passing on its whinges. So do not focus on the whinge, consider the place technology had for almost 2 decades and see where the media is not, and they have not been where they needed to be for almost a decade and now that they are about to become irrelevant they cry laws. Bu the way these same people never championed law changes to the environment, law changes to taxation and they simply went for the emotional targets, it had more expected digital dollars, so where are these dollars now? 

And when we see “Media companies argue that Meta generates huge sums of money from news articles shared on the platform.” So where is THAT evidence? Meta generates advertisement towards people through free accounts, and this gets me to (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2H8wx1aBiQ) the congress statement April 2018 where the answer is ‘We run ads’ a setting that was in place for well over a decade. The news was never an element and as such the media better be quick with presenting ACTUAL evidence in that case.

When I see how irrelevant the media and Microsoft have become and I see them cry like little chihuahua’s all whilst they screw up options left right and centre, what the actual F*** (censored word) the world around them is doing protecting something this irrelevant is beyond me, it actually is.

We can debate things but look at the numbers. the Paris based World Association of Newspapers, which represents 18,000 newspapers gives us that there are a lot more. The world has 8,000,000,000 people, which implies that there is an average of 445,000 people per newspaper. When you start doing the math, you will see that the numbers o not add up. The newspapers that are still relevant are so as they have well over 2 million subscriptions. The Washington Post has 3 million, and The Wall Street Journal 2.4 million subscriptions. The Dutch Telegraaf had in 2001 807,000 subscriptions, in 2017 it was only 393,000. The larger national newspapers are losing ground and now we see the larger play. There are 195 countries in the world. So why are there 18,000 newspapers? They nearly all rely on Reuters, making at least 17,000 irrelevant already. But these are the numbers no one looks at, and they are all vying for advertisements. Look at ANY newspaper and look how many advertisements they have and how much they charge and you will see their actual loss. They are no longer a relevant advertisement group, digital media replaced them, they lost relevancy by allowing to become a family of 18,000 brothers and sisters and that is before you see the rest of the media relying on advertisement sales to qualify their existence. But no one looks at that side are they?

The other white paper that no one gets to see is the one no one in media wants to look at, it merely shows how irrelevant they have become.  

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Information through confliction

We all have such moment, we are given some parts when things go wrong, this happens, but to the degree we see at present, does it make sense? I think that it is clear that there is almost no one left on the planet who has not heard the name ‘Sam Bankman-Fried’, the media has been bringing it like Jesus of Nazareth was the second coming of this individual. It was only three weeks ago when we were given ‘FTX TO LAUNCH ITS OWN STABLECOIN SOON, SAYS SAM BANKMAN-FRIED’, there we see “The fresh capital injection, which is still subject to negotiations, would keep the crypto conglomerate at the same valuation it had landed after a $400 million funding round back in January. At the time, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried was valued at $32 billion. According to leaked financial documents, global trading revenue generated by FTX hit $1.02 billion in 2021, having increased more than 10 times from the $89 million recorded in 2020. Additionally, FTX’s operating income swallowed $272 million throughout last year’s bull run from $14 million a year earlier. FTX saw net income of $388 million last year, up from just $17 million in 2020” and there has been too few questions, no one was looking into matters. Just like the issues surrounding Jack Dorsey. The media had forsaken its duties. It’s like all the paparazzi’ were heralding a 42nd crack maiden as she was giving out free blowjobs to anyone coming along. They had no problems slapping Elon Musk, because he was too arrogant, he was evil. The media had forsaken its duties to the largest degree. To properly inform us and it was at that point when someone informed me of a Dilbert comic. I know off Dilbert, but I do not religiously follow him. I have a book with Dilberts, but that book is at least 20 years old. So I had to look him up and I placed him below.

So here we see what I have been telling you for years, but the person was onto something. If we are to accept the wisdom of Scott Adams, the ‘We’ in the second image represents governments, corporations as well as media interests? It is the last one that was a little forgotten. Not by me, but I was equally not s inclusive as I had needed to be. 

This part becomes clear when we see the Australian Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/technology/ftx-came-dangerously-close-to-upending-futures-markets-20221117-p5bz5m), there we see ‘FTX came dangerously close to upending futures markets’ with the added “FTX’s ambitions were grandiose: It wanted to carry out every aspect of customers’ crypto derivatives needs on its own, using algorithms rather than brokers to help clear trades”, you think this is it, but it isn’t even close. Yet it lifted the veil and gives us the question “Why was the media asleep?” Things of these nature get noticed and the media was not asking questions. It goes from bad to worse when we see the Guardian giving us ‘Why were so many smart people so dumb about FTX? Did they seriously just like Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘vibe’?’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/commentisfree/2022/nov/15/why-were-so-many-smart-people-so-dumb-about-ftx-did-they-seriously-just-like-sam-bankman-frieds-vibe-), it is actually a much better question than you think it is. The ‘vibe’ part is indicative and subjective, but the setting of smart people being dumb is central. The media is allegedly supposed to be smart and they never saw it, they never investigated. Was it them or their shareholders, their stake holders and their advertisers that could not stand the sight of critical questions? The fact that I found 6 billion that Google and Amazon overlooked implies they are merely reckless, shortsighted and only optionally stupid. But tell me what company goes around ignoring 6 billion in revenue whilst they are getting ready for recession dropping employees left, right and centre? Then we see the subjective part “The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange will cost investors billions. But why would anyone give money to a man who plays video games in important meetings?” There is a dangerous stage here. They are not wrong, but it also implies that the important meetings are egocentric. I found 6 billion through video games, in addition, I knew WHERE to look. It implies that these so called important meetings are important to some and not others. Are they therefor important? And we get more information when we see “It seems, however, that FTX was doing some very dubious things: namely, furtively shifting customer funds to Alameda Research, a firm also operated by Bankman-Fried, which then gambled them away on risky trades. Instead of becoming the world’s first trillionaire, SBF saw his net worth plummet from $16.2bn to about $3 overnight. Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers has likened FTX’s collapse to the Enron scandal, saying that from the reports, there were “whiffs of fraud” about it.” And the information we get is not about SBF or FTX, it is that the media fucked up, it massively fucked up. Who in the media started to look into Alameda Research? How much of the $6.2 billion was lost by the time someone woke up? All questions that the media will not look into or shed light on. Too many got burned by Leveson and when we illuminate that the media has more priority towards digital dollars than to inform the people on events, it is at that point that the people will demand investigation of the media and that scares them. Like fucked up Chihuahua’s they will cry the freedom of the press and the fact that they can police themselves, yet there are enough indications that there is no freedom of the press, there has not been for quite some time and the final push is seen through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63662396) where we see ‘New FTX boss condemns crypto exchange’s failure’, a stage that happened 13 hours ago where we are given “The firm filed for bankruptcy in the US last week and, in court filings, Mr Ray said he had never “seen such a complete failure of corporate controls”. Mr Ray, who replaced Sam Bankman-Fried, also criticised a “complete absence of trustworthy financial information”.” In a stage that is a mere three weeks old we see someone from second coming to financial terrorist getting nailed to a cross. And when we realise that this is a stage that was 3 years in the making and the media ignored too many signals and it is time to demand answers. So called idiots making environment claims a mere two days go with “30 newspapers and media organisations in more than 20 countries have taken a common view”, how about you do your fucking jobs and report the news, the actual news, not filtered information!

That setting has been clearly out in the open, but the media does not investigate itself and we are now at a point where the people ned to hold the media to account. When we are given by the BBC “Mr Ray also criticised what he said were “erratic and misleading” public statements by his predecessor. Mr Ray said that FTX had concentrated control in the hands of a “very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals”, and that it did not maintain centralised control of its cash. Instead, he said, there was an “absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories”. So far he said it had been possible to locate “only a fraction of the digital assets” held by the firm.” All this whilst the media was praising some crypto brat like he was evangelising the new economy, and there were no checks, no balances and the media was nowhere to be found. A place like FTX made over a million victims, lost over $16,000,000,000 and the media was nowhere to be found, oh yes, when the carcass was out in the open for everyone to take a bite from, but such numbers aren’t created in a day, there was a long stage of planning and the media was nowhere to be found. Why not?

In light of all the stupidity I see there is now a decent stage where people should consider handing their IP over to China and hope for the best, because our system made a righteous mess of it all and that kind of damage does not happen overnight, it requires the media to forsake its duty to a massive amount. And this is not one media, it is the bulk of them. And my view? When the BBC reports “Meanwhile, Mr Bankman-Fried has told the Vox news website that he regretted filing for bankruptcy.” Vox? And the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Times, the Guardian and others aren’t wondering why the Vox got that little part and none of the others are all over the Crypto Brat? Makes you wonder what else they aren’t looking at, not?

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That screwed up media

Here I was, relaxing, looking at tweets when suddenly a tweet Elon Musk passes by (see below). 

Now I had a hard time here. You see I do not trust the media, but the top shelf media (LA Times, SF Chronicle, Boston Globe, and Washington Post) were always above board. Actually there was one more, but it seems that the NY Times now joins the third tier newspapers right next to the Daily Mail (UK). How could any newspaper be so stupid to give us the article (see below). 

The idea that a newspaper does not properly vet the information they have is not new, but in the past the NY Times was always above board. Whether they hate Elon Musk, whether they have other needs (like towards former Twitter owners) or whatever the reason, not vetting information is a problem, it is one I have been talking about for years. When the media cannot differentiate between real news and fake news the media has a problem, they merely hand over the news to TikTokkers like the one claiming that there are a large number of UFO’s over Australia (a TikTok ad), so now you know.

Now what was one the huge and mighty NY Times is now a bringer of debatable fake news, which will deteriorate any other news they bring. Although, I do realise that if Elon Musk was not honest my goose is cooked. Yet Elon Musk has a lot more credibility than most media ever could hope to have, so I am presently siding with the E Musk group. I could not read the whole article because the subscription nag overlapped my article again and again, so there might be an ulterior reason for the NY Times.

In this day and age when we trust the media less and less, they need to bend over backwards to vet the information again and again and hiding behind a mention of Reuters no longer does the trick.

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The anger mob

The article that came today left me with questions, the questions are out in the open, but then they nearly always are. The BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63237156) gives us ‘Parkland school shooting: Why the gunman was spared the death penalty’, yet for me the question evolves, or better stated formats in another direction. To give the initial lowdown, The parkland school shooting that happened in February 2018 gives us a few sides. There is “Nikolas Cruz, a 19 year old former student at the school, fled the scene on foot by blending in with other students, and was arrested without incident approximately one hour later in nearby Coral Springs. Police and prosecutors investigated “a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behaviour”” and “At one point Cruz said “I think I am going to kill people” in the group chat, although he later claimed that he was joking”, we were also given in several sources “according to The Washington Post he was “entrenched in the process for getting students help rather than referring them to law enforcement.” He was transferred between schools six times in three years in an effort to deal with these problems. In 2014, he was transferred to a school for children with emotional or learning disabilities. There were reports that he made threats against other students.” Yet this person was given the permits to buy guns, he was given the stage to buy an AR-15 and several other guns. America blundered on several fronts already. Then there is the stage of ‘fled the scene on foot by blending in with other students’, which could be seen as premeditation, in do infer the stage of ‘could be’, it is entirely possible that the police faltered at least once here too. If there is one winner than it is defence lawyer Melisa McNeill, who got a mass murderer a free pass from the death sentence, she ends up being the only winner in this ‘game’. Yet the BBC also gives us “There was one [juror] with a hard no – she couldn’t do it,” he said. “And there was another two that ended up voting the same way.” One juror, a woman believed that a mentally ill person should not get the death penalty” I get it, it is hard to see this, but that is a fair conviction. Off course most will think that he could not do her job as a juror, but the article does not clearly bring out whether, or how well Melisa McNeill played the mentally ill card. We are given “the gunman’s mother’s heavy alcohol consumption and smoking during pregnancy had left him with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which they said drove his violent behaviour” yet I wonder if it was a child of Melisa McNeill, if she would have been able to do her job as well as she did. And I saw the footage of parents of 17 families demanding his head on a platter. A lot more questions come to mind, but they might all have answers in one form or another. The fact that he came to school as a former student implies premeditation. He had to buy ammo, he had to buy other matters, all leading to premeditation. And the stage of him being able to buy guns is a much larger failing than anyone realises. Even the NRA needs to acknowledge that this person should not have been allowed a gun permit. And soon the excuses will come from every direction, even those jurors that did not vote for the death penalty and are not happy with the outcome. But in this, what outcome did they expect? As a juror they had a duty and they decided to let the chips fall where they may and this time it fell on life without parole in prison, and for some the idea that he will become the resident prison bitch is perhaps slightly rewarding. But to 17 families it is not enough and these family members have more family and friends and any prosecutor who failed here might have some reelection issues for their cause. As I said, this event will show one winner, and that winner is Melisa McNeill.

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The new student

There is a class, this class is out there and it has many students. Yet its teacher had never expected that the BBC would be joining his class and this teacher is beside himself. The teacher is Mediocrates and his Syllabus called ‘Thats good enough’ has been handed from student to student for generations. Yet until today this teacher had never considered that the BBC would be joining him, and he is happy, he is very very happy.

This all started some time ago, yet for me to see another MBS bashing exercise is just too much, especially when it comes from the BBC. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-62940906) gives us ‘Mohammed Bin Salman: Saudi prince’s controversial invitation to the Queen’s funeral’. In the first Why controversial? He is the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So far not a biggie, but then we get “A declassified CIA report concluded that the crown prince had authorised the murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018

So lets make a little list

  1. The CIA report did not do that, it stated that it was highly likely, which is not the same. By the way this is the same organisation that send former secretary of state Colin Powell with a shining silver suitcase to places like a rockstar with the evidence that Iraq had WMD’s. So how many were found in the end? Not any did they? At that presentation they had graphics, now they have less than nothing. The rule of law states that a person is innocent until PROVEN guilty and the prove is missing on many levels. Even the hack job that the UN report represents never properly analysed the recordings, it gets worse that there is no one had ACTUALLY heard the entire recording and that is on Turkey. Then we get the ‘dismemberment’ part, there was no evidence of any kind that this had happened, merely the figment of some limelight seeking individual, and no evidence is showing that this ever happened.
    We now have all kinds of rumours. One is of him and a 20 year old mistress going to Tahiti. I doubt that there is anyone believing that story, but you can find creative yo-yo’s on any street-corner. 

REALITY CHECK

  1. Did something happen to JK? I speculate that this is the case and there is nothing to support that he had any other plans then to go back to his fiancee.
  2. Can we prove that something happened? No, there are strong indications, but no evidence. And in this Turkey, the tool of Iran played a very dangerous game. It is my belief they never had anything, but Turkey wanted to please Iran and the lack of forensic evidence on the tapes as well as the fact that those tapes were never fully revealed plays towards my view on the matter. Is it not interesting that the Washington Post never demanded their release? It made all kinds of other claims, claims that lack evidence, but the release of those tapes were demanded, the same could be said for the United Nations who had their tools attack the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but presented no evidence that actually holds water.

Then we get “The pressure group Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) has accused Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies of using the Queen’s funeral as a way to – in their words – “whitewash” their human rights records.” Here we have a different situation. The CAAT (or the group of tea grannies holding a banner) as I would see it have been clear about accusing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but they never made clear loud mentions of Houthi terrorists and Iran arms supplies, did they? Here the western media has gone out of its way to keep silent regarding the actions of Iran (like drone attacks on civilian targets in southern Saudi Arabia). They gave no visibility to the presentations of Colonel Turki bin Saleh Al-Maliki who on more than one occasion gave the media the clear evidence of Iranian drones. Yet the WSJ had no problems showing the application of “Iranian Kamikaze Drones Creates New Dangers for Ukrainian Troops”, why is that? Do the stake holders and share holders like the Ukrainian side of the matter? The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been forced to fight with one hand on its back against Houthi terrorists for too long. Yet the people and the media had no issue sending Boris Johnson to Riyadh talking about cheap oil. So why would they do that? It is my personal belief that the media has done everything it could to prolong this war. An event that started 8 years ago almost to the day and could have been resolved 5 years ago, but that did not fit with the needs of stakeholders hoping to get some cash out of Iran (a speculative view) and that is not all, the captured smuggling shipments from Iran did not make the news either, so what gives?

Finally there is a stage that most ignore. These acts ‘supporting’ Iran will have a much higher cost soon enough, when that happens will the media make a true call to action and a call to answer from media stakeholders or will they silent and mute like with Martin Bashir? 

The largest folly is the Aramco attacks on 14 September 2019. It is impossible for Houthi forces to have done that, yet everyone was so eager to accept that it was a Houthi attack. To give an example. I am a goalie (ice-hockey) and I would love to be the Goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I lack the skills to be THAT good a goalie, as such Kyle Dubas (aka the Elvis Costello of the NHL), the general manager of the Maple Leafs will never put me on that spot, I am not god enough. It hurts, but that is fair. That lack of skill is essential. There is NOT ONE Houthi operative that has that skill level. The news gave us that 25 drones and missiles were used. So we either have an amateur rifleman how shoots near perfect bulls-eyes 25 times in a row, or Houthi forced found 25 operatives all getting near perfect hits in place. Such statistics are a fable, yet the media just swallowed the story and there is the problem, the media can no longer be trusted and now we see the BBC signing up for classes by Mediocrates.

There is a lot more but why bother, I reckon that certain people will not care. 

So when we see “All of which partly explain why international criticism of the crown prince is muted at most”, I merely respond

Frank Gardner, you idiot. How much visibility have YOU given to the Iranian part of that equation? How much evidence did you test and read? Or was this just a hatchet paint-job so that the CAAT gets one more mention?

Is Saudi Arabia a perfect nation? I doubt it and it would be for Muslims to give voice to that, I am not Muslim and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a Muslim monarchy. I reckon from my side, the most perfect nation in the world is likely to be New Zealand and Canada is in that top 5 as well. Two Commonwealth nations and they got their with the guidance of Queen Elisabeth 2. It will not have been directly, but she was a guiding force. The rest have a lot to answer for and this BBC article shows us that the UK has its own media skeletons all over its bloody field. 

This might be a decently valid article and their might be some concerns regarding the presence of some people according to others, but her Majesty kept global peace (for the most) for over 70 years. I think we can all shut the hell up and let the international dignitaries pay their last respect.

Did I oversimplify the matter?

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Two issues on an increasing scale

That is what I see, a scale that increases in size, all whilst the credibility of the media decreases. This is best seen with the issues regarding Musk v Twitter. It was early as July 25th when I wrote ‘Let’s dance’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/07/25/lets-dance/) where I gave the reader “That is important information, especially if well over 60,000,000 accounts were deleted in 2022. I believe that this shift is large enough for Elon Musk to start the case, when he gets the data from places like Trollrensics he might have enough to bust the Twitter deal. The setting is and always was that Twitter claims that at most 5% of the accounts are fake, I believe it too be a lot higher. I never speculated the numbers that Trollrensics have, but it is my speculation versus THEIR data, as such they win.” Later I gave the readers more and the media was all up in arms on poor poor Twitter against the fiend Musk. Now that we start seeing articles like ‘Twitter whistleblower raises security concerns’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62633191) we start seeing certain people parade in place, all whilst we are still given quotes like “Peiter Zatko also claimed that Twitter underestimated how many fake and spam accounts are on its platform. The accusations could affect a legal battle between Twitter and billionaire Elon Musk, who is trying to cancel his $44bn (£37bn) deal to buy the company. Twitter says Mr Zatko’s allegations are inaccurate and inconsistent.” And this is not merely him, I myself as well as players like Trollrensics have made similar conclusions. Yes, mine were more speculative in nature, but the media had a clear path FOR MONTHS to contest it with their own research and guess what, no one wants to touch it. Why not? Now that we are given “In Mr Zatko’s damning revelations, first revealed by CNN and The Washington Post, he accused Twitter of failing to maintain stringent security practices and “lying about bots to Elon Musk”.” As well as “He filed his complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission in July. The BBC has seen a redacted copy of the complaint shared via CBS news. In it, Mr Zatko also criticised the way in which Twitter handled sensitive information and claimed that it has failed to accurately report some of these matters to US regulators.” That was in July, no wonder we are given “It says he was sacked in January for ineffective leadership and poor performance.” And consider that if he was sacked in January and his numbers hold up, his claims hold up. We end up with a situation where Twitter has been aware of its mismanagement of fake accounts for a very long time. As I see it, it nullifies the buy claim that Twitter has towards Elon Musk, should they proceed, they need to lower their price by well over 60%-78%. Not a stage Twitter wants to push for, no matter how that plays out, I reckon the value of Twitter will be found in Basement 5 soon enough and with that the fortune of people like Jack Dorsey. So as the Washington Post rears its head with “However in the view of The Washington Post, he “provides little hard evidence” to back up these assertions. Nevertheless, Elon Musk’s lawyers have jumped on the comments. His legal team are currently trying to get the Tesla boss out of the deal, by arguing that Twitter has no way of verifying how many of its 229 million daily active users were actually human.” It is funny, because with that columnist no one gives a fuck about they went all in with speculations. More important, the fact that I had come up with a number around 20% of fake accounts (which could be calculated with an abacus) and Trollrensics stating that the number of fake accounts is much closer to 50% (they have data), which gives a rather large rise to the Washington Post not doing its job and that is saying something. 

The BBC does give a more complete picture with Peiter Zatko who also held senior positions with Google and the US government’s research and development agency, DARPA. As such we need to see the failing of media all over the place as a larger failing and in this the BBC gives us a first stage where Elon Musk needs to be given s little more leeway when it comes to his point of view, something the media to the largest extent has been willing to avoid to every degree.

And in the next article we get issue two (about to publish that one)

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The media gets it this wrong?

That is more than a question, it is a statement and the ABC is joining the tool section of media. This all started today when I saw a piece by Stan Grant. The article (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-17/joe-biden-upholding-rules-based-order-shaking-hands-with-killers/101242386) gives us ‘For Joe Biden, the price of upholding a global rules-based order seems to be shaking hands with killers and tyrants’ and the article is lousy from the start. We get “So this is what the global rules-based order looks like: US President Joe Biden sitting down with a Saudi leader with blood on his hands. US intelligence says Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. His body is believed to have been cut into pieces and incinerated.” A little recap. The UN report (at [381]) gives speculation what had to be done, but there is no evidence of any kind that the CIA or other intelligence agencies had ANY realistic level of evidence that Khashoggi’s life was in danger, more important none of the evidence shows that there was a definite evidence. I saw one report that gives us that it was highly likely that a member of the royal family was involved. Lets repeat that ‘Highly likely’ and that is not evidence, as such the statement ‘sitting down with a Saudi leader with blood on his hands’ is a farce and pure speculation. In addition the statement “His body is believed to have been cut into pieces and incinerated” is equally speculative. Then we get to the statement “Osama bin Laden, who plotted the attacks, was a Saudi. Of the 19 terrorists who carried out the attacks, 15 were Saudi citizens. An FBI report has linked a Saudi diplomat to the attackers.” Lets look at that. The more correct version is “Osama bin Laden, who plotted the attacks, was a Saudi, trained by the CIA” as such the attack on America was done by a rogue CIA agent, but that is bad PR, is it not? Then we get “When it comes human rights, China ranks higher than Saudi, according to Freedom House.” Based on what data? How many nations were tested? These seem like harsh questions to ask, yet the writer added the line in the middle, so these questions are valid. Especially as Freedom House is added once in the entire text, the context is gone. In all this the Uyghurs might not agree with that statement, but behind every silver lining a new dark cloud is hiding. 

Is Saudi Arabia a perfect state? Not according to many in the west, not according to non-islamic people. I do not know, I have never been to Saudi Arabia, what I saw was from YouTube. I saw the Hajj today, I saw Mecca, a place that a christian will never visit because it is off limits to non islamic people. Am I upset? No, I am not. I reckon that there are places in Saudi Arabia I would want to see before Mecca ever graces my list. It is nothing negative, it is that Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam have a lot to offer. I saw the video’s and they look awesome. I saw the Hajj, thousands of people united in one faith and these people are a mix of Sunni and Shias, praying next to one another in peace, more important they all have the same Quran. Try that in the western world. The Protestants and Catholics have been at each others throats for centuries and they still are. There are over a dozen version of the bible and they all claim theirs is the real one. There is ONE Quran! In the Mecca walk that someone posted I saw Mecca. I saw the streets, I saw a surprising amount of high rises. I saw Haagen-Dazs and I saw two KFC’s. I saw a shopping mall that is every bit as luxurious as the ones I saw in Sydney, Bangkok, Chicago or New York. I saw a vegetable store handing out bananas to passing people. Try that in London. I saw people happy and walking in joy. I think that we are more alike than unlike and it made me happy. The streets were clean, the people were walking all over and as they were closer to the Mosque, the pilgrims stood out in their white cloaks, all unified in faith. I can honestly say that I never saw such a sight in Lourdes. I saw no discord, It was an awesome sight. 

This all reflects back to the article. Is MBS guilty? No! He is not, is he innocent? I cannot tell because there is no evidence, and that what is there is warped. I stated that several times and there is something to say for the rogue agents. We have our own Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) to thank for that. Wasn’t it he who said “Oh, who will relieve us of these blasphemers?” No order was ever given, but the blasphemer was gone. Was this the same? I cannot tell, there is no evidence, but it seems clear that rogue agents were hoping for some reward. I like the response of one of the spokespeople best “Khashoggi doesn’t make the top 1000 of worries of the Crown Prince”, it is paraphrased. I tried to find the article again, but I was unable. Consider the facts, when Khashoggi was alive he was a mere columnist for the Washington Post. I reckon that less than a thousand non WP readers had a clue who he was. And now his name is stated in nearly every article that mentions Saudi Arabia or the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, have you not noticed that? So in this age, the US needs cheap oil and Saudi Arabia is the only source left for America. And in that race no one is asking why the US needs Saudi oil. You see America is the largest oil producer, followed by Saudi Arabia, Russia and China. In this day and age of everyone screaming to reduce oil, why does the US need Saudi oil? Perhaps the US needs to reconsider the stupidity they preach and come out clean why they need more oil. They are by several sources the largest producer of oil, so why would they need more? Perhaps I was right all along, to reduce oil usage one must redefine what is essential, it seems that the US is not doing that. But that side of the equation does not make it into the media, does it?

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The size and shape of a stage

Yes that is at times what we face and it was weirdly enough Yahoo News that got me there. Their article ‘Biden’s Saudi Arabia trip denounced as ‘frightening and enraging’ by dissidents’ (at https://au.news.yahoo.com/bidens-saudi-arabia-trip-denounced-as-frightening-and-enraging-by-dissidents-140526416.html), and yet the small part ignored is that a dissident is a person who opposes official policy. So as the US is trying to make nice with the people they need, they are hindered by the people they do not need. So when we see “the street was in front of the Saudi Embassy, and its new name was Jamal Khashoggi Way.” So in all this, how much hay is being made by a nation (Brazil) where 100% more journalists were murdered in the last week? There is a lack of the 78 million articles, a lack of some CIA report (via the UN) that it is highly likely, there is a need to paint one person white, the other person black and hoping that no one will notice that Al Jolson was not African American. That is a stage we see, that is a stage people play for and we are caught in the middle. You see, the report was dubious in a few ways. It does not make the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia innocent, but it clearly shows that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud is not guilty. And this all takes a harder sharp turn because the person no one (well almost no one) gives a hoot about was a columnist for the Washington Post. And the setting merely escalates from there.  

So as we see the pressing need for the US to postpone its dollar default for as much as possible, it needs business with the KSA (it is close to the only one who can afford this), they need the oil from them to be cheaper, because the US does not have enough and they all need it yesterday and the people who opposed official policy are trying to make that impossible. 

I have nothing against dissidents, some are validly so, some are to make a quick buck and get out of the mess they were in. That first group needs consideration, yet beyond them getting out they need to realise that if the dollar defaults they could end up back in Riyadh and how will they fare then? So now we get Bethany al-Haidari of the Human Rights Foundation, who gives us “Now she is worried that Biden will be sending to authoritarians around the world the message that political expediency trumps core conviction. And while that may always be the case in the world of realpolitik, the images sure to emanate from Riyadh will starkly contrast the divide between American values and practices.” It is a valid point, yet the validity is under fire from the setting of values and practices where social commitments have lost to the profits of big business. And the US government is not innocent here either. I spoke out about the essential overhaul of tax laws 24 years ago, they all called me crazy, it would sort itself out. And now? The US national debt has surpassed the $30,500,000,000,000 They are now well over $5,000,000,000,000 past the point of no return. At this point they need to reduce debt by $500,000,000,000 per year and it would still take 3 generations for the debt to become manageable. What do you think will go out the window first? Values or practices? A setting where the larger gain for the US will be Elon Musk, they know it and that is why they hate him. Mobile and energy power in the hands of one man, one man who is seemingly a lot more clever than Bill Gates and Larry Ellison combined and one generation later.  The politicians are scared, they opened a door they refused to close and now they are setting down with a mess all over the place, because they could not adhere to values and they are left with the practices that re out there at tax laws that are still unadjusted. 

The USA is about to become a mess for well over two generations and the media is silent, because they want their digital dollars, it is all they have left and it does not adhere to values, merely to the painting of flames and flaming targets. Elon Musk can wait until desperation takes over, Google, Amazon and IBM can wait and over that time Microsoft will merely become more desperate to spin their failures. Big tech in a world that merely adheres to the practices that they can adhere to for their board members and share holders. That is the world that needs to appease  to either Bethany al-Haidari or Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. I reckon that the Bethany al-Haidari in this world are figuring out that they will be getting the short end of the stick, one that was handed to big business, not merely big tech. And Biden might be the last president before the Dollar buckles completely and the US becomes a third world nation. 

Are you depressed yet? 

Good, you need to see what is coming and for the longest of times, even as the media is trying to spin that all is well, all is not well and all is getting worse. As I stated, I do not give one hoot. It was clear to me when I saw the UN report that this was a hack job, that this was a well articulated magician’s trick and in the end how much visibility did we see on the 42 murdered journalists in Brazil? Journalists, not some columnist. And that is before we realise that Turkey has it own skeletons in their closet and when that gets out in the open we see the media is not indifferent, it is and has been actively hostile towards the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as such the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can take its time and wait and watch the US go under one step at a time and at present quicker than several months ago. That is the reality, that is the impact of what some call realpolitik. It sounds nice on paper, but realpolitik is all about the practices, especially those who bring profit, values be damned. But the people who are lulled to sleep will see and face that part soon enough. 

So consider what you read and do your own research, do not take my word as gospel. I try to be as honest as possible, but I too adhere to practice more than value. I accept values and I admire those fighting for values, but in a place with 30 trillion in debt values will not last long, because every politician will see revenue as for the good of all and in that world people like Elon Musk are the options of tomorrow and no one has a better plan, because when that was an option the flaccid politicians saw it was easier to call me (and others) crazy and not in touch with reality, and that was not that long ago, these same people will now hide behind “It is difficult, it is a complex situation”, you tell me how I could see what was coming and I do not have an economy degree. I have three degrees, none in economy.

Enjoy your Friday and try to have a little fun.

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Vindaloo on the side

It started two days ago. I honestly do not remember who the source was, but it stuck in the back of my mind. It also stuck how the large media trivialised (BBC excepted) the matters at hand. So I decided to take a gander. I first stopped at Arab News who gave us (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2097311/saudi-arabia) ‘Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and Muslim institutions denounce Indian official’s insults against Prophet Muhammad’, so not the western news, not the Italian daily prophet (Vatican News), no merely the Gulf States and Islamic Institutions. So as we are given “Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and Muslim institutions on Sunday condemned the remarks against Prophet Muhammad by a top official in India’s ruling party, with some demanding concrete action to end such acts of Islamophobia.” So whilst the Washington Post gives us “Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science at Indiana University gives us “At home, a lynching takes place and Modi remains deafeningly silent. Now, he feels compelled to act because he realises the damage abroad could be extensive. When it comes to foreign policy, the stakes are high.”” Yes and there is the problem, an act merely because the international stakes are too high. It is time to get to part 2, that is the part given to us by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-61701908) where we see ‘Nupur Sharma: Prophet Muhammad row deepens India’s diplomatic woes’, and the power is given to us by “Ms Sharma’s – angered the country’s minority Muslim community, leading to sporadic protests in some states. The BBC is not repeating Ms Sharma’s remarks as they are offensive in nature”, the statement was SO offensive, to the degree that the BBC will not comment by quoting the statement. What we do see is “Analysts say that the top leadership of the party and the government may have to make public statements on the issue. Not doing so, they say, runs the risk of damaging India’s ties with the Arab world and Iran.” As I personally see it India has pissed off Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia all at the same time, a decent achievement if I do say so myself. And the setting of this is not whether thee are acts, the acts are too slow in a nation that has had its long term issues with Muslim communities. The lack of direct action against discrimination. I am a little on the fence. If others (christians) have to adhere to Muslim rules in Saudi Arabia, there would be the setting that Muslims have to adhere to India’s (Hindu) rules. But to allow blatant insults against ones religion is a dangerous step, not merely national, yet in this there is the international stage too and as I personally see it the (far too) slow reactions by its Indian government and Narendra Modi will have (or is that should have) repercussions and not merely in India. It is NDTV (New Delhi Television) gives an interesting view. They give us ‘PM Modi, The Djinn Is Out Of The Bottle And Out Of Control’ it shows that there is way too much support for the discriminatory views of Nupur Sharma, lets not forget here that she was until recently the spokesperson of the BJP, as such, how did she get there?

The Islamic community might be forced to dump all Indian goods and services and this now gives a massive handle to the US and the EU. If they get the $15,000,000,000 of crude oil that usually goes to India its nation will face a massive recession. India lives on cars, petrol and a mobile industry. If even over 25% falls away the Indian government will face a situation they never faced before, not to this degree. A setting where India faces more hardship as it deals in oil with Iran and Russia or see the average quality of life in India fall for well over 20%, how much it falls? I honestly cannot tell and my 20% might be overly optimistic. 

So even as the BBC gives us “Experts said the controversy could overshadow some of India’s recent diplomatic successes with the UAE and other nations.” I reckon it is nothing compared to the internal mess that could happen when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia decides to move the oil tap from India to the US and Europe. Their worries will be over to a much larger degree, but at that point it will suck to be in India. When 300 million cars can no longer run because fuel prices went from 96.35 ₹/L to 396.50 ₹/L that is when panic and utter chaos will rule India and I reckon Pakistan will not be overly upset about that setting either. As such the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Narendra Modi will need another option, another direction and it seems to me that they re stuck in the mud with no one around to help them. Some will state that it was her right to speak, but is open discrimination a right? Nupur Sharma might have started something that she was unable to contain or adjust for and we will see what happens next because something has to give in this equation and your guess is just as good as mine. There is too much I do not know on the interactions in India, but I do know that tapping a tiger on the balls was not the way to go, especially if there is no fence separating the tiger from the tapper, but that might just be me.

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