Month: November 2019

I just changed the picture as displayed on the Wired article from Brian Barret called “Trump’s Ukraine Server Delusion Is Spreading”. The beautiful picture just reminds me of a movie poster. The picture, made by Andrew Harrer, is super telling and would fit in a Magnum collection.

This conspiracy theory about a missing Crowdstrike server is not being fabricated by Trump. No, he truly believes in the story of Crowdstrikee hiding a server that contains evidence that Ukraine hacked the DNC and not Russia. The people around him know that all parts of the story are false but learned not to speak up against him.

The Feast of Saint Nicholas (Dutch: Het Sint-Nicolaasfeest c. 1665–1668 now also known as Sinterklaas), is a painting by Dutch master Jan Steen, which can now be found in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It measures 82 x 70.5 cm. The picture, painted in the chaotic Jan Steen “style,” depicts a family at home on December 5, the night celebrated in the Netherlands as the Feast of Saint Nicholas, or Sinterklaas.

You can read about the painting in detail here. The painting is like a story. To give you some examples about the catholic version:

• The sobbing boy has been naughty so no gifts for him in his shoe
• Grandma might have something for him maybe?
• The girl’s doll represents John the Baptist and he is the Saint Patron of epilepsy and therefore it suggests the girl suffers from it as well (Wikipedia says so, i could not verify this and doubt it since he was the patron of many: builders, tailors, printers, baptism, conversion to faith, people dealing with storms and their effects (like hail), and people who need healing from spasms or seizures.)
• They are pointing up the chimney, where the holy man must have entered and left the house.
• The Child near the chimney is holding a symbol of the struggle between Catholics and Protestants, a gingerbread man in the shape of St. Nicholas. The delicacy, still enjoyed around the fifth of December, was seen as an example of Catholic worship of saints and was not approved of by Protestant authorities. In the seventeenth century, the baking of such figures of saints (especially St. Nicholas) was banned. In 1655 in the city of Ultrecht an ordinance was passed which forbade “the baking of likenesses in bread or cake”.^[1]

Sources:
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/1993/11/30/twee-sint-nicolaasfeesten-van-jan-steen-7205027-a1353576

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feast_of_Saint_Nicholas

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/SK-A-385

Just posting something about Bellingcat since I highly respect this organisation for its transparency and objectivity. Even though they cover the most political sensitive topics, they stick to their objectivity and use open source intelligence to fact-check stories, allegations and events.

The above picture is from their document that links to all open source investigation sources.

I also believe that the need for an organisation like Bellingcat is getting bigger because of the following trends:
– fake news
– deep fakes
– government lead operations/info wars to confuse people
– distrust in MSM (Main Stream Media)
– Threat intel companies not providing intel on their own country (basically they choose sides)
– Propaganda from news organisation (Fox News and Russia Today)

They are even training (free of charge and paid) other people in the art of open-source investigations

Notable cases/stories: MH 17, war in eastern Ukraine, civil war in Syria, El Junquito raid, Yemeni civil war, Skrippal poisoning, Christchurch mosque shootings.

This European press wining story from Christiaan Tiebert is very interesting The Turkish Coup through the Eyes of its Plotters, as you can follow the whatsapp messages chronologically.