WW3 Watch: Moscow as the Third Rome
Important disclaimer: Things are happening so incredibly quickly it’s hard to do detailed and verified analysis. And it’s worth bearing in mind that this is true for all journalists not just me. I don’t want to add to unverified noise and kneejerk hysterical reaction so I’m flagging here that I will occasionally be using WW3 […]
WW3 Watch: The first casualty of war is the truth
Too much to say, not enough bandwidth. So here’s Russell Brand who pretty much sums it up I think. The comments are worth a gander too. Obviously I’m hugely sympathetic for the Ukrainian people who are just pawns in the whole mess. But I’m equally concerned about what the media messaging is doing to people’s […]
WW3 Watch: Can we trust in benign Western paternalism?
There’s a lot going on today. More than any one brain can process quite frankly. We are all going to be stunned with too much information flow and I don’t want to add to the noise. But I think there are a few important points that need stressing to do with hybrid information war and […]
WW3 Watch: The Mavrodi pyramid connection
As everyone reading this blog hopefully knows, I am not a military tactician or geopolitical expert. Most of my military insight comes from studying ancient historical battles, a brief excursion to Afghanistan during which time I got to hang out with mercenaries and about four years dating a British army officer (during which time I […]
Stuff I’ve been reading (Moderna)
From the “Fake News” zone: Daily Mail reports: “Scientists find virus contains tiny chunk of DNA that matches sequence patented by Moderna THREE YEARS before pandemic began”. The patent referenced is for a Moderna cancer treatment and the genetic match relates to the all important furin cleavage, which is the bit of the SARS-COV-2 virus […]
Stuff I’ve been reading (Novavax, PayPal and Trudeau)
(Some of these links are stale because I’ve been half-terming it, but I’ve included them anyway for commentary and record-keeping purposes.) Finance and markets: Perry Mehrling gathers a bunch of high-level money geeks for his 2022 “Money View” symposium. I was one of them. It’s been a bad week in markets. The disconnect between public […]
Why Canada is cultivating an M-pesa moment for bitcoin
As mentioned the other day, I am on the go this week due to it being half term. Nonetheless, I wanted to quickly draw readers’ attention to the following Globe and Mail piece by Tim Kiladze, mostly because it quotes me. For those who don’t know, the Globe and Mail is one of Canada’s most […]
The FATF recognises its human rights blind spot
For a while now, people like me, Ian Grigg and David Birch (top rank blockchain/payments experts) have been moaning on Twitter about how anti money laundering and Know-Your-Customer rules, despite being developed in good faith, have started to backfire on the system. Rather than curbing criminal financing, in many instances all they have done is add […]
Stuff I’ve been reading
Finance/Markets: The World Socialist Website is a feed available on Bloomberg. Are Pfizer’s lawyers getting a bit twitchy? (Q4 release adds some potentially concerning language: “…or further information regarding the quality of pre-clinical, clinical or safety data, including by audit or inspection…”) Used cars are still doing nicely. Big avocado news. Algos don’t do war […]
An important operational note
But first some housekeeping. I’m going to be honest. While I’m ramping up the website I just don’t have the bandwidth to do a daily aggregation post. I still find them really worthwhile to do, however, so I’m going to set them to occasional mode. They’re worth reading if you’re interested in my general perspective […]