Sony, Cyberterrorism and the ridiculous

The Sony HQ

Read the CNN article with the transcript from Obama's last news conference for 2014. Mr. Obama threatened to retaliate for the cyberattack against Sony directly addressing North Korea. Sony is a Japanese cooperation and one wonder why the USA starts to tote arms when the matter really is outside of its jurisdiction. Well, the movie itself is an all-American product out of Hollywood even though Sony is the owner of the immaterial and probably planned to become the North Korea Block Buster during the up-coming holiday season in the US, which is North-American business. Obama also criticized Sony for withdrawing the movie but recognized that Sony is a private corporation with liabilities to its stockholders, he said that he hoped Sony had talked to him before making the decision. How would the world look if private corporations started to call the President of the USA when a sudden problem arises? We already have an insane lobby, many times against consumer interest and the environment but matters like this one is of completely different nature and I believe the president of the USA knows that it would be too much for him to handle.

I do not agree to make ridicule of nations and state leaders in the "Rest Of the World", no matter how bad we see them as it is like pouring gasoline over a burning fire, making people in those nations even more hateful and making our own children looking down on others. To ridicule something or somebody only serve to grow divide and hate. The USA has history of doing this starting with Chaplin's movie, the Dictator and it has continued through the years of up to the "Interview" of today. If you just started thinking about it you imagine how much damage Hollywood has done to the relations between nations and people with the US government as the cheerleader. Small "innocent" things like implying how undereducated and stupid people are in Latin America or even the "stupid blonde" of Sweden. Just stop banging your chest and insulting the rest of US, you can do better, could you? With all those intelligent people you have in your "think-tanks".

Mr Obama also implied the hackers have a leg up and we all believe so, we, professionals in the business of informatics not being affiliated to a government agency, agree and welcome that situation even when attacks affect ourselves. If that day comes when a government like the one of the USA succeeded in stymieing hacking, freedom of speech and thought would not exist anymore. Government control over individuals of societies would be absolute with a world similar to what is envisioned in the novel 1984. Imagine one single government being able to follow or "hack" into the privacy of any individual on planet earth.

It is said that the hacker of Sony was voicing a general threat to "strike" any defiant movie theater intending to show the movie. It is said in the press that FBI already traced the hack to North Korea. Is it really plausible that North Korean terrorism would reach individual theaters in the USA by bombs or shoot-outs, don't think so as it is so much easier to follow a North Korean wannabe terrorist on the grounds of the "Homeland" and I believe there are few, that there are no North Korean "sleeper" cells in the US that can do any physical damage.

Now, who is allowed to spy on or hack the world - without being retaliated or having consequences of severed business? Do you remember or heard of the "Stuxnet" virus that destroyed around 1000 uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran's nuclear program to a cost of several billions of dollars and causing a 2 year delay in Iran’s program to produce fuel for their reactors? You may applaud this avant-garde cyber-attack by the US and Israeli government agencies (Siemens, the producer of the equipment as well as a Finnish company was in it too) as Iran is an evil rogue state, but what if it happened to you or your country? Or the wire-tapping of the German chancellor Angela Merkel's cell-phone (and other Germans), the wire-tapping of the Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff cell-phone (and other Brazilians), and you could just imagine who wasn't wire-tapped. Oh, this is just business as usual for the US having the right to punish and retaliate any other nation doing it to the US or US interests.

This is a plea to US politicians and "think-tanks" to start thinking in a less cold-world and world controlling fashion than what you are doing and ever did. Could you consider and intervene to stop using media (press and Hollywood) to ridicule the rest of us on this planet, the "ROW", whatever stupid, undereducated and bad we are? Your conduct has so far been an egoistic idea to provide for the people of the "promised land", yourself.

Don't play hardball with us, I think the rest of us would love you more or listen better during a game of soft-ball. If you want my support, don't spy on me, talk to me. #sonyhack #sony #theinterview #kimjongun #northkorea #nsa #cia #obama #iran #mossad #israel #stuxnet

Sweden a nation in upheaval and political turmoil

It was rather shocking to see the leftist party representative Rossana Dinamarca start speaking in the Swedish parliament without addressing the elected house speaker with "herr talman" (Mr chairman) as is required and customary, seeking conflict, defying democracy. Sweden's parliamentary system and democracy is on the path downwards the tubes of the sewer since the last election with the ultimate show-down between the elected government and the opposition when the budget was to be voted on. The day before the vote was to take place the suspected neo-Nazi party "the Sweden Democrats" the third party in size of my country arranged for a press conference declaring that they would put their vote with the right-wing coalition - the Alliance - to defy and destroy the budget proposed by the government of Sweden. They also declared that they would let down any government not having responded to the party's will to limit immigration. This resulted in the prime minister calling for a re-election in March 2015.

Well this is an unusual dark fall in Sween only 2 months since the election and for every day passed it appears that the government we had, a right-wing coalition called the "Alliance", has caused great damage to the image of Sweden, the parliamentary system, it's people and the ones at the bottom of the food chain. That "Alliance" is a composition of the bigger truly rightist party - the "Moderaterna" and three other marginal parties, the "center", "the People's" and the "Christian democratic" party. The major stake of governing is held by the "Moderaterna", keeping important roles as the "Prime minister", "the minister of foreign affairs", the "minister of treasury", the "minister of naturalization" with ministers of more lightweight controversial matters given to the allied minority parties making them feel important. That is how the Swedish party the "Alliance" look like and it is also a reason why the bigger party the "Moderaterna" is very comfortable in its position for egoistic reasons refusing to bargain with the majority which now is it's opposition, letting a neo-Nazi party create havoc in the parliament.

This writing is as much about the disastrous consequences of a government formed by the wealthiest and the industry ( read in US terms, the "Republicans") as of parliamentary turmoil by a new third agent, a party with a neo-Nazi past that has more than 13% percent of the votes, the third largest party in Sweden.

The legacy of the past government are that welfare, that is including “Medicare”, the educational system, unemployment support, for the people of Sweden has been hampered in favor of giving tax-breaks to those that does not need them, increasing segregation in contrary to what Sweden was known and admired for in earlier years, insulting senior retired people not getting the tax-breaks because they are off the work market place. Anybody  not having an employment in Sweden is punished by this utterly stupid idea. At the same time, those tax-breaks affects the security of Sweden when the Russian nation is rising again creating a situation similar to what we had during the cold war, there is no money for increasing military expenditures. A shot in the own foot but also in the foot of everyone that wants an independent Sweden.

The armed forces in Sweden knows that the nation would have about a week of holding up resistance before surrendering to an attacking nation (read Russia) is asking for funding to beef up the defense. There is not sufficient money in any political blocks budget to change that situation in any considerable manner. Those tax-breaks we had will be gone with any future government taking the Russian threat for serious without having improvements in our educational system, our “Medicare” or improving the situation of un-employment. We would have to suffer again to once again become the highest taxed nation on planet earth, as we were once.

Sweden has lost it's position as a nation were equality in education was our hallmark. The latest OECD report (fall 2014) points out that what we were known for, is since long lost, asking, what the hell happened to you. It is truly very sad. What we know of today is that most schools that were sold out to so called "venture capitalist" are showing losses in their earnings reports, showing big losses and when asked how they are going to make it without putting students on the street, they respond smiling, saying despite losses we are doing great, don't worry. So what is that? Parents to students in those private schools are worried, do they have to be? Well, those companies are utilizing EU sanctioned tax-schemes making them appear like they were losing money by running their business. The truth is that they use the possibility to take fake loans to a very high interest rates from an affiliated company residing in Luxembourg creating a loss in the balance sheet not having to pay taxes, not having to benefit or support the country were they operate. None of our media specialists seem to get it though.

I hope the respect for democracy will rise again in our nation. I hope that the hypocrite role model of the Roman empire and that of the God almighty himself, the US nation, will be deprecated, as it only leads to segregation between those that doesn't have and those that have, those that can and those that are unable to. That is not unity, that is not love. That is greed.

The promised land has become the land of greed, the land of the "feel good flicks" instead of doing good. It affects all of us on the planet earth as we "enjoy" the propaganda machinery of Hollywood and the USA, I do not recognize the descendants of the pilgrims anymore.

I would like to see myself as a libertarian (my ego) but my instinct tells me I am wrong.

Letter to Edward Snowden - from Sweden with love

For a democracy to stay sane the secrecy has to be broken over and over and there must exist people like you willing to risk it all. Now there are talks here in Sweden about offering you asylum and the voices heard are mainly from representatives of the green party a minority political movement currently being part of the Swedish government together with the considerable bigger Social-democrat party, where also the key ministers are from and hence the real power. Voices promoting your asylum in Sweden comes from the small green party and the equal small "the left party" - vänsterpartiet but non of the bigger parties have expressed concerns.

Irrespective of the outcome if you decides to come to Sweden to apply for asylum, there are matters to consider. The Swedish industry is in many cases dependent on US military technology as in the case with the high stakes development of the multi-purpose military aircraft JAS. Several Swedish industries involved in development and manufacturing of military equipment were purchased by US military enterprises (contractors) years ago and are today own by those. Considering your status in the USA, that is being seen or suspected as someone that committed a serious crime, Swedish law will not be able to protect you as Sweden does have a treaty with the US about extradition. The two most important conditions in Swedish law talking against your possibility to get asylum are, guarantees that the person will be excluded from capital punishment (the US would warrant that) and if Swedish law would come to the conclusion that the act committed is a crime if it was committed in Sweden. No minister of the Swedish government will be able to protect you if you come here and the same holds true for Julian Assange of Wikileaks, but if a minister tried to intervene the whole Swedish nation would be held hostage until the entire situation was resolved, that is, you being extradited.

It is of course interesting to see what would happen if you came over here. Would the US request your extradition and would Sweden stand up against such a request. When the foreign minister Margot Wallström was interviewed in Swedish state owned television she first made an overture concerning your bravery and how you had initiated an international debate about how far a government would be allowed to go spying on it's citizens but also mentioned that you were sought for a serious crime and then when asked if it was possible to grant you asylum she just replied: of course, Sweden is a nation where justice is held high and yes, we have courts and procedures that will take care of that. Her answer was pretty flawless, no promises, well knowing that even a Swedish foreign minister would not have a saying in this matter. Your asylum matter would be handled by a court, by given laws and treaties with other nations.

If you decide to come over here, with the idea to live and stay in Sweden, asking for asylum you would of course show the world a lot of courage, you would show the world what happens if you object your "Homeland" that is, the USA. You would show how sold-out a country like Sweden is when it comes down to the relation with USA. You would avoid capital punishment as Sweden cannot and will not hand over a person to another state without guarantees that this person would not get executed. You will be treated very bad in the USA, that we know and you would get life in prison after a lengthy period of suffering from being abused by the CIA. After a couple of years you would likely get pardoned, that is when the people in the USA eventually returned to their core values and their constitution.

Whatever you decides, you will remain my hero, Edward. I know that what you did was for me and the world I live in. You seem to be person so easy to love.

On the US senate torture report and Homeland vs rest of the world

Guantanamo

I decided to continue watching Homeland and saw the disastrous episode 9 of season 4 while the real world news of the release of the US Senate report on torture is breaking. The commentaries on the report pass like a fizzle, 520 pages disclosed, nothing new, nothing that I did not know, the rest, 5480 pages are still classified. It is difficult not to reflect, not to feel frustration and anger every time I am remembered of what followed 9/11 (without justifying the terrorist acts), that is watching crap like Homeland or that some earlier classified report partly is released smoothing over horrendous atrocities. What do you say about torture by hanging, beating prisoners to death (while hanging in the roof), raping women, and sodomizing detainees with batons and phosphorescent tubes, water-boarding and depriving prisoners of sleep as heard from the report is mere children stories (PG rated). What about the de-humanizing part, sedation, straight-jackets, hoods, force-feeding through the anus? About the ones that committed atrocities during torture, George W Bush said: "These are good people, really good people" talking about the CIA, but the truth is to be found elsewhere, those "fine people" earning this credit were government contractors as CIA had worries about that a leak could have serious consequences primarily for the agency, secondly for the government and the nation itself because of breaking international law and treaties, a contractor in torture would be a good enough scapegoat, therefore buying torture services from private contractors for hundreds of millions of dollars.

We get the confessions and then comes the denials and excuses, trying to white-wash years of lying, rogue clandestine acts of terror and torture. A few examples of non logical, pompous statements:
George Clapper, director of national intelligence: - did not believe that "any other nation would go to the lengths the United States does to bare its soul, admit mistakes when they are made and learn from those mistakes."
Barack Obama president: "Our nation did many things right in those difficult years.  At the same time, some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values."
Dianne Feinstein senator:  said it showed the "spirit of a just society [that] functions under law, and that when we make mistakes we admit them, we correct them, and we move on.''
Mike Rogers,  republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee: said that "publication was "a terrible idea" and said "foreign leaders have approached the government and said, 'You do this, this will cause violence and deaths."
We can't keep quiet when we embarrassed ourselves do we, we have to say something. George Clapper caught with the pants down has to insult the rest of the world when it is obvious that the whole world knows that the disclosed information from the report is so far away from the truth of what happened to detained "enemy combatants" and others. President Obama is talking about acts contrary to "our values". If we have values, we act according to them and if don't we will be seen as unreliable and not trustworthy. Dianne Feinstein is suggesting to apologize, moving on to do it again. Mike Rogers when talking about foreign leaders certainly talks about allied foreign dictators. "Semper Fidelis" to the commander in chief and the nation, values are just in the way... Summing it up, these are nothing but rhetoric's - verbal smoke-screens.

Ridiculous in this story is that all US stations abroad is on alert because of the report. This information is broadcast-ed just to underline how truthful and complete this piece of report is. The "terrorist community" has not responded with the usual "chatter" because they already know what really happened to their dead or tortured comrades, nothing new for them to risk their life's for.

This world will never get any better holding on to governing benchmarks of hiding, lying and acting over the heads of it's citizens and the rest of the world of course. Most nations obey international law and enforce prosecution when there are wrong-doings by individuals and officials, the US continues to refuse, rejecting international law. Is the US senate report to be seen an excuse, don't think so.

Then we have this Homeland soap appearing as if it was happening in real time, with scenes controlled from the very situation room of the White house. To make it more realistic there are some setbacks for Carrie and Saul but they always come out of the fire giving it back to those bag-clad jihadist's and their supporters. I believe the series is made to strengthen the North-american soul while breaking others, making the rest of the world tremble in fear over that we always are supervised, seen and tracked from above and that there are some murderous CIA agents plus a SWAT team around the corner coming for us, any time, to kill or render us for torture at a black prison site in an undisclosed third world country. This story is not about love, understanding and consolation, it is about inflicting fear during an already dark age, what Hollywood is so good at.

How power corrupts and when even the infallible fall for the power

Fredrik Skavlan

Saw this Norwegian-Swedish talk show, Skavlan in Swedish television November 7, 2014. Fredrik Skavlan is a Norwegian  journalist copy-catting the old but successful North-American talk show concept of Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jay Leno and others more contemporary ones like Conan O'Brian etc.. The first one to come in was the enigmatic Uma Thurman, talking about her breaks for nursing children in between shooting for the big screen, positive, smiling, very beautiful as usual and very sympathetic. At some point in the interview she implied that she considered becoming a Scandinavian citizen as those northern societies appealed to her. The next one to come in to be interviewed, with Uma Thurman still sitting in, as per Skavlans concept was the newly elected Swedish Foreign minister (FM) Margot Wallström. As soon as she opened her mouth, she addressed Uma with, "do you have the telephone number to George Clooney"?

Wonderful Uma

Uma looked down and replied with a smiling face signalling, "what sort of question was that": do you know that he is married. The female Swedish FM did not reply but put up a stance like: "I don't care, see, in this world women compete for the men". She wasn't really given the chance to reply verbally as Skavlan understood how infected the situation could become, braking in starting the interview with the Swedish FM.

Margot Wallström

Margot Wallström started talking about her life and career and soon touched the subject of how power corrupts people in official positions, not necessarily being the head of state but any position implying some sort of power over others. She even went as far as saying that what she had experienced was that she had seen people at the UN, the European commission and at other governmental bodies ending up with dictatorial behaviors. Somewhere down this interview Skavlan addressed the Swedish FM saying, perhaps you can help Uma becoming a Swedish citizen as she seem interested to live in your country. The Swedish FM replies with a pretty lengthy litany that Uma would have to apply as any other common foreigner and subject herself to lengthy and difficult process to become a citizen of Sweden even adding the she could not guarantee the Uma would be accepted. Why did she do this to Uma?

The Swedish FM did this because of 3 different reasons: Uma is a successful globally renowned and loved actress, a woman and women compete with another woman more fiercely than she would with a man, secondly Uma had embarrassed her when she replied: "you know, George Clooney is married" and for the third and most shameful reason: she was doing this telling Uma, I am a politician and the second minister in command in my country and I am in power to decide over you. Here the Swedish FM is showing that she herself had fallen for how power corrupts.

I felt ashamed for a being a Swedish citizen watching this. A social democrat and people elected official stepping on this wonderful human being as she was trash.

Slash

The whole show was saved for me when Slash of former "Gun's and Roses" came in, Slash one my hard rock guitar heroes. He came in with all his brand attributes: The high hat, that long black curly hair, those dark glasses, the leather pants and his cool, down to earth and laid back attitude. And he sang a nice song for me together with his buddy: Myles Kennedy. They performed an acoustic version of "Bent to fly".

Getting to terms with the business of drugs and its consequences

American banker psycho

What does "bankers on Cocaine" and an "American psycho" (banker) in Hong Kong  have to do with the murder of 46 innocent students September 26, 2014 in and around the city of Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico? I guess many of us in the prominent countries of the west wouldn't make the connection or even give it a thought. I hope I will be able to explain, so while the stories about the bankers written about in my previous blog post are sort of over, the story in Iguala is still unfolding as the charred remains of 43 students are scraped up by forensics at a garbage dump, some other pieces searched for on a river bank and by divers.

It all started when 46 students were arriving at the town of Iguala to make a protest over the situation at their school. The mayor known to be affiliated with one of the drug cartels is alerted that there is ruckus outside of the town hall where the mayors wife was going to hold a speech so he alerts the local police to "remove" the students from the streets. The police arrives resulting in 3 students shot dead, 3 others unrelated, musicians from a band gets shot too by mistake and the remaining 43 students are aprehended. The 43 is later in the night transported to the local police force in a nearby municipality, Cocula, a city known to harbor the criminal gang -  "Guerreros Unidos" involved in the bigger cartels drug business but also in cahoots with the mayor from Iguala. With the 43 students aprehended the Cocula police contacts the leader of the criminal gang, telling him that they were holding a group of people belonging to a competing criminal band. In the middle of the night the students are picked up by the criminals, driven to a secluded garbage dump and executed. The corpses of the 43 young men are piled up over car tires and firewood and the whole thing is set on fire burning from about midnight to 4 o'clock pm the next day. The remains from the fire are scooped up and put into eight large plastic garbage bags and later disposed of into a river from a bridge.

It took about 6 weeks to get this far in the investigation about a mass murder but anyhow, this is what we know as of yesterday November 7, told by the federal attorney of Mexico, after about 100 arrests and 3 narratives from criminals directly involved in the killings. So what is the relation to the Hong Kong Cocaine bankers? Telling any story regarding atrocities made in relation to narcotics in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru (there are other countries in the list outside of Latin America) would make most of us from the US, Central Europe or European Scandinavia just shoot from the reptile brain saying, those are failed states. We live in market economies and the rule for business (making money) in a market economy is - demand and supply, meaning no demand, no supply. It is that simple. I have a life-time behind myself working with development in a large global corporation and the constant question from the sales people deciding about and holding the money for investments was to us market and development people - were is the demand? If we could not answer that question, that is not being able to prove that there was demand, a customer, we would not get any money and hence no supply and there would be no development.

Do you start to read me now? I am saying that we all are responsible for this horrible and inhumane situation, for atrocities, mass murders in what we call failed states. We are the consumers, we are the demand and without us, no narcotics business.

We have to take responsibility for what is happening globally and stop consuming narcotics. As long as we continue  to consume narcotics and pointing fingers at those "failed states" even intervening in those countries, our own police force will also fail, continue to fail. The police will never eradicate drug abuse by their own, we have to kill the demand.

One way of doing this is continuous drug screening in schools, in businesses, government, in sport clubs where no one is excluded from screening, not even the president, this together with teaching so to increase knowledge about where drug abuse leads, that is to suffering and hell. Thoughtful consequences have to be implemented when one individual fails a test (so to not create a outcast or another criminal problem).

This is what I see as a solution to problem that is growing upon us. You have to consider that demand and consumers of drugs like Cocaine are the most prominent ones of our society as they are the ones having life styles and money to sustain demand. We are not demanding a responsible management of our resources, funds and money, our planet when we let this go on and guess what I think about now? The bankers of Hong Kong, New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm and other financial centers.

We can stop this madness, we can remedy failed states, we can save lives, save our own children from perishing but only if we stop demand, stop using those drugs ourselves and in our own countries.

Implement screening of drugs all-over. I would be satisfied if we would implement it here in Sweden serving as an example for the entire world. As I have one foot here in Sweden and another one in Mexico I suffer daily from hearing my loved ones over there being in constant fear of kidnappings and deaths. They suffer a lot being afraid that the next one to die will be one of their children.

Is the horrendous drug abuse among Hong Kong bankers really an isolated issue?

Rouge banking

The aversion for bankers is nothing new but for me starting yesterday with continuation today my aversion turned into raging anger learning of a real life horror story, a British banker in Hong Kong turning into the "American psycho" by killing as it appears 2 escort women or possibly prostitutes in his luxuary apartment situated in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong island. Reading about it, it felt bizarre, but those things happen all the time and all over the world so I could leave it with just an uneasy and sad feeling for the victims and their families. It was not until today Nov, 4 when I saw another article written by an anonymous alleged former Hong Kong banker, that "came out" writing about his own HK (Hong Kong) experience after hearing about the Bank of America Merrill Lynch former employee killing the girls that I totally lost hope for banks and bankers, finance and investor "pups" and their likes, with a strong feeling of complete disgust. This man told the story of widespread Cocaine abuse, drinking and use of prostitutes or any combination thereof. He said that 30 out of the 100 westerner friends he had, mostly bankers used Cocaine on a regular basis. He mentioned that he had worked as a banker in other parts of the world like Sidney Australia and London England but that those didn't measure up at all to the situation in HK. His last words in the article were "leaving HK saved my life".

I do not believe that the situation regarding drug abuse in the other big financial cities of the world is very much different as this banker was implying, the culture of New York, London, Sidney, Singapore, Stockholm is just different in a way were there is much more to loose which mean the abuse has gone covert (hidden). This is not an isolated HK problem, it is a global one and suspecting that drug use (especially Cocaine) is widespread among personnel within the banking and financial sector is probably just as the salary levels and benefits are extremely high enabling a living and a mindset towards vice,

Now, what makes me angry is that bankers on drugs are managing the world economy, my economy, despite so many scandals, so much fraud, insider trading, manipulation and overt greed. And like pouring gasoline over an already raging fire my anger grows when I realize that the chief executive officers, the chairmen's and the owners of those banks/institutions are reluctant to the whole situation regarding drug use within their corporations.

I do not want, the people of this World do not want banker drug junkies putting life's, our economies and savings at risk. I therefore petition you the chief executive officers, chairman's and owners of banks, insurance companies, credit institutes and other financial institutions to drug test your employees, from the bottom all the way up to yourself.

Your corporations are in the forefront driving drug- production, -smuggling, -wholesale, -retail, fueling gangwars, keeping drug cartels in the business and murdering innocent people.

If you haven't already implemented the suggested drug screening of your employees, please start the process already tomorrow, this for better world and as an example for others.